Enter, Stage Right

Putsch making enemies in unexpected quarters

by Bryan Zepp Jamieson

01/23/03

http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/VRWC/enter.htm

Seems we have new friends.

Well, maybe not friends. Allies. That’s a lot more accurate. Allies. Figure that after this is over, we’ll go back to tearing each others’ throats out. But for now, we have a common cause. George has managed to keep one campaign slogan: he is a uniter, not a divider. EVERYBODY’S getting pissed at him.

So we have new allies.

I got my first inkling of this during the MLK day rally last week when I spotted a cop giving the demonstrators a genial wave. I was in peace protests in the 60s, and back then, if a cop was moving a hand in your direction, it was usually to toss a tear gas grenade at you. The best you could hope for was that they would settle for just glaring at you from behind their riot shields. Smiles and friendly nods were definitely not the order of the day. It was about then that cops took up wearing flag patches on their shoulders, as a way of saying THEY were the "real Americans." They didn’t like long haired hippie freaks, and we didn’t like pigs. It made for a difficult relationship. Maybe I’m getting old, but I think I like the new relationship better. For one thing, it greatly reduces my chances of getting a concussion.

Monday, I ran into a Christian fundamentalist friend. She spotted my "no blood for oil" sign, and asked if I had been in the march. When I told her I had, she mentioned that her oldest son was in the reserves and had just been called up, which meant leaving the police academy. San Diego for a month, and then after that, who knows? She clearly wasn’t happy with the idea, and I certainly don’t blame her.

A bit later in the conversation, she mentioned, rather casually, that in her opinion, Bush was the anti-Christ. I handled this with considerable aplomb, needing less than twenty seconds to pull my jaw up off of the floor. During the campaign, we had spent considerable amounts of time hammering away at each other’s candidate, and her husband and I even had an election day bet: loser had to wear one of the winner’s campaign buttons for an entire workday. (By the time the election was "decided" the bet had been quietly shelved; my friend clearly didn’t think he had won it honorably.) But they were Republicans and remained so, even if Bush vs. Gore struck them as a bad way to win the White House.

But my friend illustrated something that has become fairly apparent this week. There are some interesting schisms developing in the Christian right.

Understand, there’s a fairly large chunk of American Christianity that is really tied up in all the Apocalyptic stuff in Revelation, the stuff about mark of the beast and the seventh sign and the rapture and so on. There’s a whole series of massively popular "future history" books that are part of the "left behind" series that deal with the post-apocalyptic world. Among other things, they believe there must be a great battle, Israel and her allies against the forces of evil, before the final rapture can occur.

I like Firesign Theatre and Monty Python, so obviously I have a high tolerance for surreal nonsense. But my threshold for utterly humorless surreal nonsense is low. As a result, I haven’t been able to make much sense of the apocalyptic crap. I have more important things to do. Trim my hair. Shampoo my toes. That kind of stuff. But I do know that a lot of these people think that for Americans to go to heaven, they have to be on Israel’s side in the penultimate battle, and this has had a rather dramatic effect on our foreign policy in the middle east.

While it’s open for question if Putsch believes all that stuff, it’s certain that highly-placed members of his administration, both official and advisory, DO subscribe to it. And the right-wing propaganda machine has worked long and hard to establish that any questioning of the vicious abuses carried out by the Sharon regime is nothing but pure and ugly anti-Semitism, and the fact that you disapprove of heavily armed soldiers shooting young kids armed with rocks makes you nothing more than a Nazi.

But now the United Press International has run a story by Richard Sales claiming that Putsch had given Sharon carte blanche to send anti-terrorism people into America, and even do a little wet work against foes of Israel if the situation seemed to call for it. There’s a general impression that they’re talking about al Qaida and Hezbollah members, but it’s all very vague. Maybe Putsch did tell Sharon it was ok to send his boys in to grease Americans who had a bad attitude toward Israel. The story is being repeated by various Murdoch outlets.

Now, you have to be thinking outside the box to consider Moon a Christian. He claims he is the messiah. But he’s an expert at pandering to the Christian right, and has funded their leadership so lavishly that they are largely willing to overlook what in a less generous person they might consider heresy. Since his position as invisible leader of the American Christian empire seems secure, it’s hard to fathom the sudden attacks on Israel. Similarly, Murdoch’s organs following along doesn’t make much sense.

Something has clearly changed. Why are these two suddenly back-pedaling against an irrational religious tide that they were instrumental in creating? Is there a major schism appearing in the religious right?

Another unexpected attack on Putsch came from some of the people who made Putsch possible in the first place.

A Republican realtor and oil guy, a heavy hitter who has donated over a half a million dollars to various GOP causes (including $1,000 to Putsch), took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal attacking Putsch for his eagerness to go to war with Iraq. Edward Hamm, the guy behind the ad, got two dozen other people representing several million dollars to the GOP to sign the ad.

The ad itself made no bones about what his beef was. Entitled "A Republican Dissent on Iraq", the ad read, in part, "We supported the Gulf War. We accept the logic of a just war. [Y]our

war on Iraq does not pass the test. It is not a just war. The candidate we supported in 2000 promised a more humble nation in our dealings with the world. We gave him our votes and our campaign contributions. That candidate was you. We feel betrayed. We want our money back. We want our country back."

With uncommon bluntness, the ad continues, "how many young American lives will be lost in this dubious war. . ." "[H]ow many innocent Iraqis will be killed and maimed and made homeless? [...] out of war may rise an Iraqi regime every bit as brutish as the present one. What will you do then?"

Good question. If we can’t manage Afghanistan, how are we going to manage Iraq?

So, in the space of 24 hours, Putsch suddenly got attacked by two sets of allies: the loony Moonie contingent, and the fat cats.

Today, of course, was the anniversary of Roe V. Wade, and demonstrators from both sides were out in force in front of the Supreme Court building. Putsch called organizers of the anti-choice crowd to tell them he was with them, and jeezus willing, no woman would ever be free in America again. Now, apparently galvanized by his encouragement, the protesters have some sort of melee going with pro-choice people on the steps of the Supreme Court. Just the sort of thing Putsch wanted to lend his presidential cachet to.

Looks like he hit the trifecta this week.

Lucky ducky.