Mean Republicans love mean Gingrich

Newt Gingrich’s Meanness Is The Secret Of His 2012 Success

By RmuseThere is a reason Gingrich ramped up the mean factor in South Carolina by attacking the poor, gays, the media, and African Americans; he knew there was an abundance of mean-spirited, racist, religious right voters searching for a mean candidate to implement their brand of theocracy. Gingrich promised to pack the courts exclusively with graduates of Liberty and Regent University if elected to “assault the judicial dictatorship” and return America to its previous glory after courts replaced Christian America “by legalizing abortion, driving God out of public life, and making same-sex marriages become legitimized.” Liberty University School of Law, for example, pressured students to disobey U.S. law if it conflicts with what they believe is god’s law and evangelicals hardly recognize any law except for the bible. The last thing Americans need are Dominionist, religious right judges enforcing biblical law. Unfortunately, evangelicals are not content following god’s law in their lives and seek to force every American to conform to the religious right’s interpretation of “god’s law” and, apparently, they believe Newt is mean enough to make it happen.

Gingrich is hardly a good Christian; or any kind of Christian but he is mean and South Carolina voters rewarded him for his meanness. America doesn’t need a mean president, they need a compassionate president, and it is highly probable the religious right detests President Obama because he has compassion for all Americans; not just religious right fanatics. Not all Christians are mean. It is heartening that many Christians assailed the religious right for opposing health care for all Americans, supported cutting programs for the poor, seniors and children, and attempting to eliminate organizations like Planned Parenthood.

Newt Gingrich is a perfect fit for the religious right and it is not surprising they found their mean candidate after his contemptuous display during the South Carolina debates. Gingrich epitomizes hate and it is obvious why hateful religious right voters rewarded him with a primary victory.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Gingrich Cheers Killing of Indians, Open Letter to Obama Haters, and Racism in the Republican Primaries.

Gingrich cheers killing of Indians

Newt Gingrich Loves Indian Killer Andrew Jackson

By Gale Courey ToensingThere’s a saying that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, a historian, hasn’t forgotten the past; in fact, he’d like to repeat it. Particularly Andrew Jackson’s “kill thine enemy” approach.

At the umpteenth Republican debate in front of a packed audience at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on January 16, Gingrich conjured up the spirit of Andrew Jackson, America’s seventh president, as a model for the way the U.S. should approach its “enemies” today.

“We’re in South Carolina,” Gingrich told the crowd, as if they needed to be reminded of where they were. “South Carolina and the Revolutionary War had a young 13-year-old named Andrew Jackson. He was sabred by a British officer and wore a scar his whole life. Andrew Jackson had a pretty clear cut idea about America’s enemies: Kill them!” The crowd roared its approval.

Although Gingrich’s spiritual journey has taken him through a cafeteria of Christian variations from Lutheranism to being a Southern Baptist to his current status as a Catholic, there is no sign of Christian forgiveness or mercy in his appropriation of Jackson’s attitude toward “enemies.”

Jackson, historians and just about every American Indian in the universe will recall, was the architect of the Indian Removal Act, America’s legalization of ethnic cleansing. He signed the legislation on May 28, 1830. The Indian Removal Act resulted seven years later in the removal of 46,000 Indigenous Peoples from the lands east of the Mississippi, and opened up 25 million acres of land “to white settlement and to slavery,” according to PBS. The area was home to the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole nations.Newt Gingrich, Andrew Jackson & the Metaphysics of (Neo)Indian-Hating

By AmargiNewt Gingrich, a former History Professor, apparently understands U.S. history and politics better than I had given him credit for. In the Republican debate on January 17th, when asked by the moderator if Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar was in Pakistan, would he support a similar attack to what Obama did to Bin Laden? He replied, “Andrew Jackson had a pretty clear cut idea about America’s enemies . . . KILL THEM.” The crowed went wild with applause. Andrew Jackson truly is a historical figure whose influences on U.S. Empire and colonial escapades persists even today.

Andrew Jackson was a wealthy slave owner and infamous Indian killer, gaining the nickname “Sharp Knife” from the Cherokee. He was also the founder of the Democratic Party, demonstrating that genocide against Indigenous People is a nonpartisan issue. His first effort at Indian fighting was waging a war against the Creeks. President Jefferson had appointed him to appropriate Creek and Cherokee lands. In his brutal military campaigns against Indians, “Andrew Jackson recommended that troops systematically kill Indian women and children after massacres in order to complete the extermination.” The Creeks lost 23 million acres of land in southern Georgia and central Alabama, paving the way for cotton plantation slavery. His frontier warfare and subsequent “negotiations” opened up much of the Southeast U.S. to settler colonialism.And:How does this relate to the current US wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan? What links Andrew Jackson’s Indian Wars to the war mongering wet dreams of Newt Gingrich? In his book Facing West, Drinnon shows how U.S. Indian Wars lead the way for U.S. Empire building globally, “All along, the obverse of Indian-hating had been the metaphysics of empire-building—the backwoods “captain in the vanguard of conquering civilization” merely became the overseas outrider of the same empire.” Once conquest of the West had reached the Pacific, it kept spreading from Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan… onward. Speaking of U.S. atrocities in Vietnam Drinnon writes:

But the massacres at My Lai and all the forgotten My Khes in Vietnam had a basic continuity with those of Moros on Jolo and of Filipinos on Samar at the turn of the century, and of Native Americans on the main land earlier—all the Wounded Knees, Sand Creeks, and Bad Axes. That linkage of atrocities over time and space reveals underlying themes and fundamental patterns of the national history that lawmakers, generals, and so many other compatriots were eager to forget.

The recent video of Marines urinating on the dead bodies of supposed Taliban fighters follows the long tradition of defecation upon and mutilation of Native People by U.S. Soldiers. Rick Perry, another Republican Presidential candidate, shared his insight into the matter, revealing the predator nature of colonialism and U.S. Empire. Arguing in defense of the Marines he maintained that when you are in war, things like this happen. Apparently, “history kind of backs up” peeing on corpses and, “to call it a criminal act, I think, is over the top.”

I think Andrew Jackson would be proud that his example would still inspire Marines today.Comment:  This kind of "thinking" is exactly how Osama bin Laden got codenamed "Geronimo." Any other explanation is rubbish.

That Gingrich thinks Indians were (and are?) savages who deserve killing is stereotypical if not racist thinking. For that he gets a Stereotype of the Month nomination.

For more on the subject, see Indians, Terrorists = US Enemies and Seminoles Compared to Al Qaeda.

Religious freedom for everyone, except Indians

Another essay on the proposed mosque near Ground Zero makes a startling claim:

Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich Need a History Lesson

By Joe ConasonUntil now, nobody in a position of responsibility has sought to deny basic religious liberty to any group whose practices did not somehow trespass the law. Despite disagreements around the borders of religious freedom, the nation shared a consensus in favor of the concept—for everyone, with no exceptions.

It is a consensus that dates back to the first days following the Revolution, when George Washington wrote to the Jewish congregation in Newport, R.I., guaranteeing the new republic’s commitment to universal tolerance."Everyone, with no exceptions"...really? Setting aside Muslims for the moment, I don't think it would be hard to find historical examples of religious bias against Jews, Mormons, Buddhists, Quakers, and others who didn't practice mainstream Christianity. More recent examples include those who believe in Wicca or Santeria.

Of course, the most obvious case is the American Indian. I'd say Indians had almost no religious freedom for most of their history under US rule. Christian Americans routinely shut down Native religions that were every bit as valid as theirs. They persecuted and sometimes prosecuted Indians who were sincerely following the Creator's wishes. (An example of prosecution would be jailing a Native American Church member for using peyote.)

It wasn't until the mid-20th century that Indians could practice their beliefs without fear of massive reprisal. And a bias that's only slightly less blatant continues. Sacred Native sites don't get the same protections as churches and synagogues. Prisons don't let Native inmates have medicine bags or hold sweats. We've seen how a school district tried to prevent a Native boy from wearing his hair long. Etc.

Hence the title of this posting: religious freedom for everyone, except Indians.

Except for Conason's foolishness about the lack of religious persecution, his column is good. Here's what he has to say about Gingrich's and Palin's prejudice:Although the building is to be constructed on private property, both Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin seem to believe that the state should forbid construction of a mosque there.

According to Palin, this project represents a threatened “stab” in the “heart” for every American—and that’s all she said. The former Alaska governor’s remarks frequently lack any semblance of reason or logic. This time, her fumbling diction, instructing “peace-loving” Muslims to “refudiate” the mosque, provided such amusement that the ominous subtext of the message was almost ignored—but it couldn’t have been clearer.

Beneath her references to healing and understanding, Palin let every Muslim in America know that their religion, its edifices and symbols, offends their fellow Americans. She was saying that Islam doesn’t share equal status with other faiths. She was warning the Muslim community against any assertion of those rights.

Characteristically, Gingrich went further, using aggressive language and false insinuation. Without any shred of evidence, he denounced the moderate Muslims developing the community center as “hostile to our civilization.” Instead of building where they live, in New York City, he urged them to try to build a church or a synagogue “in Saudi Arabia.”

By uttering those words, the old bully proved what liberals and moderates have often noticed about the religious right—namely, the troubling resemblance between our homegrown ultras and the foreign extremists who have attacked us. Only when the Saudis permit full religious freedom to Christians and Jews, Gingrich suggested, should we do likewise to Muslims. So he recommends that we trash the Bill of Rights and mimic the practices of foreign despots.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Opposing Churches Near Massacre Sites and Angry White Christians Want Country Back.

Below:  The face of religious intolerance in America.