Praying for Obama to die?: Turning Bible Verse Into Manifesto for Maniacs

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From Brad Blog: The wingnuttery continues to devolve. Last night, Rachel Maddow covered, among other recently related points, the new Rightwing "Pray for Obama" movement supporting, and selling merchandise in support of, Psalms 109:8 which begins this way: "Let his days be few; and let another take his office," and continues with "Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow."

Frank Schaeffer, repentant former rightwing fundamentalist evangelical, and now a contributor here at The BRAD BLOG, was on her show last night to discuss that point, and where it seems to signal that things may be frighteningly headed.(More on Frank Schaeffer...)

Rachel Maddow discusses with Frank Schaeffer the possible threat to the president by a member of the "American Taliban" inspired by the bible verse Psalm 109:8.

SCHAEFFER: Look, this is the American version of the Taliban. The Taliban quotes the Koran, and al-Qaeda quotes certain verses in the Koran, in or out of context, calling for jihad and bloody war and the curse of Allah on infidels. This is the Old Testament biblical equivalent of calling for Holy War.

Now, most Americans will see the bumper sticker and smile and think that it's facetious. Unfortunately, there are 22 million Americans, or so, who call themselves "super conservative evangelicals". Of this, a small minority might be violent, but the general atmosphere here is really getting heated.

And what surprises me is that responsible --- if you can put it that way --- Republican leadership and the editors of some of these Christian magazines, etc. etc., do not stand up in holy horror and denounce this.

Rachel Maddow, Frank Schaeffer, Barack Obama and The Antichrist Rachel Maddow interviewed Frank Schaeffer on September 18, 2009. The starting point was a poll in New Jersey that showed 18% of NJ voters think Barack Obama is the anitchrist. Schaeffer does a brilliant -- and forthrightly provactive -- job of showing why and how religious beliefs matter. Conspiracies, demonizing, scapegoating, and endtime madness.

You know, they're always asking "Where is the Islamic leadership denouncing terrorism? Why are the moderates speaking out?"

Well, I challenge the folks that I used to work with, that I talk about in my book Patience With God, and I would just say to them, "Where they hell are you? This is not funny anymore, and be it on your head if something happens to our President, if you are going to go around supporting, and not speaking out against this stuff"

It's not a question of whose doing it. The bigger question is, where are the people speaking out against these things? I don't hear those voices raised in the evangelical fundamentalist community. And, until I do, my opinion is, they're culpable.

 

 

Psalm 109:8. "May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership."

• 109:9. "May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow."


• 109:10. "May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes."


• 109:11. "May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor."


• 109:12. "May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children."


• 109:13. "May his descendants be cut off, their names blotted out from the next generation."


• 109:14. "May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD; may the sin of his mother never be blotted out."


• 109:15. "May their sins always remain before the LORD, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth."


• 109:16. "For he never thought of doing a kindness, but hounded to death the poor and the needy and the brokenhearted."


• 109:17. "He loved to pronounce a curse may it come on him; he found no pleasure in blessing— may it be far from him."


• 109:18. "He wore cursing as his garment; it entered into his body like water,into his bones like oil."


• 109:19. "May it be like a cloak wrapped about him, like a belt tied forever around him."

On the home stretch (2)

By Patience Akpan-Obong

Published: Saturday, 1 Nov 2008

We are almost there and the excitement is palpable. Unfortunately, there is something else in the air, and it is equally strong. It is called fear. At least that is what many of us are feeling since the news broke about the arrest of two neo-Nazi skin heads on Monday for an alleged plot to assassinate Senator Barack Obama and at least 100 other African-Americans.

They reportedly also planned to supplement their mayhem with a shooting spree at a high school located in a predominantly black neighbourhood.

A colleague, an eternal pessimist, told me that as a black person, I need to be vigilant in the days leading up to the election. In his opinion, as the possibility of an Obama victory grows, so does the angst of white supremacists who never imagined that they would see a black man come this far in American politics.

I thought of my family members who go about different activities during the day and some of them do not get home until quite late. Suddenly, a heavy cloak of fear wrapped itself around me.

Incidentally, during the week, I was “chatting” with someone on Yahoo Messenger about the insecurity in Nigeria. This person lives in Lagos and I asked, “How do you folks survive?” Well, my own bubble of safety and comfort has burst as the countdown to Tuesday begins. Senator Obama himself was asked during the week if he was scared. He said he wasn’t because he has the “best guys in the world – the Secret Service.”

Not that it would be politically correct for a candidate to the most powerful office in the world to confess to fear of assassination by some rednecks, who would rather face the consequences of killing than see a black man in the big White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, DC. The fact is that the police have admitted to investigating at least 500 death threats against the man who might possibly be the first African-American president in a country where the scars of slavery and racism are still visible.

While Senator Obama may not be afraid – and indeed he should not be – quite a number of people are afraid for him. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has been on the minds of many people in recent days. It is symbolic that Senator Obama accepted his party’s nomination on the 45th anniversary of the famous “I have a dream” speech given by Dr. King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial monument in the country’s capital.

John F. Kennedy was the president when Dr. King gave the historic speech. JFK’s daughter, Caroline, has compared Senator Obama to her father because of the way he inspires hope in Americans. She describes him as a “president like my father.” Both King and Kennedy were assassinated.

Tomorrow is the last Sunday before the elections. As a Christian, I would feel content that sufficient prayers will be offered for peace and security during these final hours. The problem is that Sunday is the most segregated day in this country, as someone else observed. Black folks go to black churches and white folks go to white churches.

Given this segregation, the prayers offered in churches tomorrow will be to different Gods and for different agendas. Ninety-eight percent of black folks will pray for an Obama/Biden victory. Many do not know if they will be better off in an Obama Administration. However, they will be able to say, “Free, we are free at last!”

White folks will pray for Senator McCain because he is the acknowledged Christian. It won’t matter that he is not a practising Christian, that he cheated on his disabled first wife, and then left her to marry a younger, richer woman.

The issues on the agenda of the ultra-conservative Christian right are: abortion, the war in Iraq, Israel, guns, a wall around the US border with Mexico, and immigration.

Senator McCain and Governor Sarah Palin check all the right boxes. Plus, Senator McCain is a genuine war hero. To love God is to love America and to love America is to fight in a war, own a gun, hate illegal immigrants and homosexuals, and defend the rights of the unborn.

Senator Obama, on the other hand, is pro-choice (supports abortion); pro-diplomacy and war only as a last resort; pro-civil union between gay couples; was once photographed in an “Islamic paraphernalia;” had an African Moslem for a grandfather; “pals around with terrorists;” has never gone to war; has questionable patriotism; not pro-America enough and may not really be American (being born in Hawaii doesn’t count); is a socialist, communist, Marxist and will “spread the wealth.” He even admitted that he shared toys with his friends when he was in kindergarten, a clear sign of communism! Did I mention that he is black?

Senator McCain told CNN’s Larry King on Wednesday that race won’t be a factor on Tuesday. I fervently pray that he is right. From where I am sitting though, neo-racism and xenophobia have become clothed in many other labels. Those labels and the effect they have on fringe white supremacist elements of the society are paralysing me with fear, a strange emotion for me. I am tempted to keep my family indoors until well after the election.

But I choose not to, because I am hoping that this Tuesday is the day that Dr. King spoke of 45 years ago, the day when “all of God‘s children, black men (and women) and white men (women), Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” And those God’s children (both in white churches and black churches tomorrow) will join their voices to say, “Amen” to freedom from race-induced violence in the coming days!

Savage linked San Francisco event to the "artistes" and "leather fetishists" of Weimar-era Germany, whom he blamed for Hitler's rise

MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA
Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Summary: Discussing the Folsom Street Fair, a leather-themed adult-entertainment event in San Francisco, Michael Savage declared: "This country today is far beyond the excesses of the Weimar Republic that led to Adolf Hitler. God forbid that should ever happen here. But the German people, who were not all Nazis prior to Hitler's arrival on the scene, were shocked by the degenerates of Berlin. They were sickened by the perverts, sickened by the artistes, they were sickened by the leather fetishists, they were sickened by the degeneracy, and they couldn't handle it."

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During the September 29 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, while discussing the Folsom Street Fair, a leather-themed adult-entertainment event in San Francisco, Michael Savage declared: "This country today is far beyond the excesses of the Weimar Republic that led to Adolf Hitler. God forbid that should ever happen here. But the German people, who were not all Nazis prior to Hitler's arrival on the scene, were shocked by the degenerates of Berlin. They were sickened by the perverts, sickened by the artistes, they were sickened by the leather fetishists, they were sickened by the degeneracy, and they couldn't handle it." Savage also said that the people who participated in the Folsom Street Fair are "doing what they do because they're sick, they're mentally ill. Every last person there is a mentally ill person, in my opinion."

Later in the program, Savage said of the San Francisco event:

What do you think God was saying through Isaiah: "What part shall they be stricken, as you stray away more and more?" Well, God was talking about the Folsom Street sadomasochistic fair in San Francisco. He's saying to those people, "What part will you be stricken of your body, seeing as you stray away more and more?" And they keep whipping each other, saying, "I condemn God. I don't believe in God. That's for the fools. That's for the right-wing Christians. We don't believe in that." And yet, they get sick and they die, and they don't even understand they're getting sick and die -- dying from their own behavior.

As Media Matters for America has documented, Savage formerly hosted a television program on MSNBC but was fired after he described a caller as a "sodomite" and told him to "get AIDS and die." Savage has also repeatedly referred to "the homosexual mafia," claimed that "the homosexual dance of death" is the "seminal issue of our time," compared gays to "drug addicts," and repeatedly called gay parenting "child abuse."

Talk Radio Network, which syndicates Savage's show, claims that Savage is heard on more than 350 radio stations. The Savage Nation reaches at least 8.25 million listeners each week, according to Talkers Magazine, making it one of the most listened-to talk radio shows in the nation.

From the September 29 broadcast of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:

REP. JOHN CULBERSON (R-TX) [audio clip]: We're not gonna load our kids up with an unaffordable debt burden that'll bankrupt this nation and turn us into the Weimar Republic. We've got to be careful and --

SAVAGE: Well, here in San Francisco, we're way past the Weimar Republic. They had in the midst of all of this a so-called Folsom Street Fair, where naked men cavorted with whips and chains and leather yesterday. I noticed that our Italian grandmother, Nancy Pelosi, had nothing to say about values. This went on in the sickest city in the world. We're way past the Weimar Republic. I only pray that there's no Hitler in the wings.

[...]

SAVAGE: Now, I want you to go to MichealSavage.com, go to the middle of the page on the right, and you'll see a man in a leather mask -- a man, a grown white man, standing at a leather parade yesterday. A leather festival, so to speak, in San Francisco, where people were walking around with their private parts exposed beating each other up with whips, while others stood around in a drunken stupor, or a drunken orgy, witnessing men being whipped in public. And my headline is, "The Devil Runs San Fransicko," and that's what I said to Representative Culberson.

It's interesting to me that you mention the Weimar Republic, because this country today is far beyond -- has gone far beyond the excesses of the Weimar Republic, which led to Adolf Hitler. God forbid that should ever happen here. But the German people, who were not all Nazis prior to Hitler's arrival on the scene, were shocked by the degenerates of Berlin. They were sickened -- the average person in Germany was sickened by the perverts; they were sickened by the artistes; they were just sickened by the leather fetishists; they were sickened by the degeneracy; and they couldn't handle it.

Now, you know, leather and this and that is, you say, someone's business. I may agree with you. If someone does so willingly, I could look the other way. But it shouldn't be permitted on a public street. When this occurred last September, I voiced opposition to it. Nancy Pelosi had the nerve to say that, as a Catholic grandmother, she's not offended by it. I said, "If she's not offended by this, what would offend her?" Well, apparently, nothing offends Nancy Pelosi except Republicans who don't go along with her iron gavel.

No, this shouldn't be permitted in public. They should be arrested by the vice squad. But we have a sick mayor -- a useless, sick piece of spaghetti. He's not even al dente, you know, he's al softy. We have a mayor that's al softy in this city, not even al dente. The vice squad is now only looking for people who do not burn American flags rather than people who burn American flags. Everything's upside-down. It's "Alice in Wonderland." I guess what I'm getting at is this: At the same time we have the largest financial meltdown in our time, these sickos go to a leather parade and whip each other in the streets -- still doing what they do because they're sick, they're mentally ill. Every last person there is a mentally ill person, in my opinion. And what they were doing in the streets was an example not of wholesomeness but of sickness.

[...]

SAVAGE: What do you think God was saying through Isaiah: "What part shall they be stricken, as you stray away more and more?" Well, God was talking about the Folsom Street sadomasochistic fair in San Francisco. He's saying to those people, "What part will you be stricken of your body, seeing as you stray away more and more?" And they keep whipping each other, saying, "I condemn God. I don't believe in God. That's for the fools. That's for the right-wing Christians. We don't believe in that." And yet, they get sick and they die, and they don't even understand they're getting sick and die -- dying from their own behavior.

—H.D.