Tfgray’s Weblog

I have Rachel Maddow to thank for introducing me to The Family. For the past three broadcasts, she’s been covering this shadowy fundamentalist organization. The first two nights, she interviewed Jeff Sharlet, author of a book on the subject. I read it over the weekend, and my hands are still shaking.

The Family, formerly referred to as The Fellowship, is highly organized in cells modeled on the Communist Party, but chooses to think of itself as not an organization at all, very convenient when your money passes “man to man,” i.e., without benefit of tax reporting, a technique they picked up from one of the organizations they profess to admire: the Mafia.

In its original formulation, it’s The Idea. The Reverend Abram Vereide, in the depths of the Depression, had a vision: The world would be saved by its ‘Big Men.’ If all power could be granted to the wealthiest and most powerful, the superior men would rule, and the world would be perfected. The problem, as he saw it, was that the little men were not satisfied with their lot, and through unions were attempting to displace the big men from their God-given authority.

And that authority, he knew, was God-given. After all, was it possible that such men could occupy their positions if it were against God’s will?

How did he know this? God appeared to him in a blinding white light and told him. He would preach a manly Christ, a forceful Christ, a Christ who embraced the moneychangers and whipped the poor from the temple, a Christ on the side of the Pharisees.

Now, I know a little about white light experiences. At the age of 25, in the throes of a deep personal crisis, I found myself waking into white light, an awesome, blissful experience, with all my synapses firing at once. Like others having that experience, I heard a voice. “You can do anything you want, have anything you want, be anything you want,” it told me. At a certain level, that’s true. On the other hand, your head can get pretty puffed up if you take that sort of message without a big wonking grain of salt. My reaction was, “I bet Adolph Hitler had a voice just like that in his head,” and chose to downplay it.

The voice told Vereide something a little different. He was to recruit the Big Men to Jesus, and they would conquer the world in His name. What’s not to like? His version of the reign of Jesus, however, has some interesting features. All power was to be aggregated to the few. The poor and powerless? Let them eat prayers. The wealthy and powerful would, if left to their own devices, rule in perfect justice. If any of this sounds familiar, up to  and including the notion that the economy, if freed from regulation, will function with perfect balance and perfect fairness, there’s a reason for that. For the past 75 years, Veriede and his followers have assiduously brown-nosed the powerful, afflicted the afflicted, and comforted the comfortable. In the name of Jesus, of course, recruiting them into prayer groups, aka “cells.”

But back to that white light. I remembered something while reading Sharlet’s book, two things, actually: the story of Jesus’s encounter with Satan, after his 40 days in the desert. Satan made him an offer—limitless wealth and power. Jesus told him to get lost. The other thing I remembered is that Satan’s original name was Lucifer, “Lightbearer.”

Could there be a connection? Could it be that the White Light is not God, but Lucifer, the Lightbearer, who was ejected from heaven for presuming to be God’s equal? To me, it’s all metaphor, but I can see where the expression of unlimited power without the need for anything resembling human decency would qualify as satanic. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether you call them sociopaths, demonically possessed, or authoritarian social dominants. They call it Jesus, and in their minds the name of the Lord has become a code word for oligarchy, the rule of the wealthy, enforced by brutality, where needed.

One of Sharlet’s examples, mentioned in his first interview with Rachel, was a Family workshop at which the leader asked a Congressman, “What would I think of you if I knew you had raped three little girls?” The congressman was shocked, “You’d think I was a monster.”

“No,” the leader replied. “You are one of the Chosen.” One of the chosen, one of the Big Men, who would rule in perfect justice, when not violating everything in sight, or perhaps by violating everything in sight. What balm to the souls of sociopaths! Not only can they sin with impunity, God smiles upon them! Is it any surprise that both Governor Sanford and Senator Ensign are Family members, and that neither of them is resigning?

Sharlet, in his book, outlines the major projects of the Idea/Family/Fellowship. The Cold War: The Vietnam War-50,000 American dead, 8 million Vietnamese dead, a devastated, poisoned environment, thousands of babies born deformed due to exposure to Agent Orange. Latin American death squads. Somalia, destroyed by its dictator Siad Barr, armed first by the Soviet Union when he fought against Ethiopia, then by the United States, through the influence of Family members Senator Chuck Grassley and Joint Chief of Staff Chairman General David Jones, which weapons he turned upon his own people. Indonesia’s genocidal invasion of East Timor. Uganda, making progress in its battle against AIDS until the Family-infested Bush Administration replaced its programs with lectures on morality. The Ugandan AIDS rate doubled. All projects favored by the Family. They seek out the powerful and will arm and fund anyone who will bend a knee with them and mouth the word “Jesus.” Oh yes, and murder ans oppress the “little men,” their wives, and their children.

By their fruits ye shall know them.

Go here to read essays by AIG employees:

“We Were Betrayed!”

There are 3 links to other stories at the bottom of this one. Their perspective can be summed up in the lyrics of a Bone Poets Song (Great pacific NW band, BTW.)

Deep in the dark, in the boiler room of plenty, we stoke the banker’s fire.

These are the people who work in the boiler room, talking about how those fat bonuses were a substitute for 15 years of not getting raises, of how those who relocated to London saw their rents multiply five times over while their pre-bonus paychecks remained the same. How they had their jobs put on the line by bosses who demanded they make trades they felt were unwise–and with that loss of bonus, which would put them into an economic hole if they quit hanging over their heads, they went along–and how the boss who pushed them into those unwise business practices is walking around with his more than quarter billion dollar net worth intact.

Okay, we”re talking about very well-paid wage slaves, but still, it’s interesting to see that the pattern that exists at the bottom of the socioeconomic heap permeates the entire system. As individuals, they are as subject to the “You can be replaced” threat as any busboy, and there are thousands of well-trained mathematicians and traders standing in line to take their places.

Employee Free Choice Act, anyone? What would our economic system look like if, say, the AIG Financial Products (AIGFP) employees had gone to their union rep complaining of their boss’s abusive behavior? According to them, his giant profits (built on sand) earned him carte blanche with his superiors, and life or death power over his subordinates. Were they just chicken, or was this a situation in which having the sort of countervailing force that comes from being a member of a large organization, devoted to employee interests, could have created both better working conditions, more equitable pay, and more honesty and transparency in the business itself?

When will we learn that the power of the elite Few can–and must, in a Democracy–be balanced by concerted action on the part of the Many? That it’s okay, wise, and perfectly normal to join with others in the pursuit of common dreams. That the Cult of the Individual is a sham, foisted upon us by those who would use the oldest techinique in the imperial arsenal to their advantage: Divide and Conquer.

Here’s a quote from Sam Harris:

Ask yourself: how has “elitism” become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn’t seem too intelligent or well educated.

Makes sense to me.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/160080/page/1