Is All This about C Street?
I’m curious. Is all the language Mark Sanford uses about God wanting him to remain Governor about C Street?
He’s using the language of the Chosen and–in a state that can match him for fundie cred (or, for those who haven’t admitted adultery, exceed him)–he’s saying his God knows better than others’ God.
Embattled South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford acknowledged Tuesday that he has been shaken by the failure of a single fellow Republican to back him in his fight to save his job, but vowed to fight on for conservative causes and for "what God wanted me to do with my life."
[snip]
He said he intends to complete his term, not to hold on to power but to fight for conservative principles of governance.
"I feel absolutely committed to the cause, to what God wanted me to do with my life," he said in an interview. "I have got this blessing of being engaged in a fight for liberty, which is constantly being threatened."
Plus, the conflation of "liberty" with "God" seems like solid C Street propaganda.
I’m wondering whether Sanford is refusing to step down because the powers he must answer to–as distinct from SC’s Republican party–have told him to stand his ground.
From my TPM post:
Sanford typifies the modern politician, but especially the christian right as exemplified by those putzes of The Family. Their theology puts the main character as almost perfect and unable to do wrong, except if God tells them they have done so.
What really gets my knickers in a knot is the reaction of conservative Christians. There was a day, not so long ago, when someone claiming divine intervention would have been called devil possessed. Today it’s Come on in, the water’s fine.
This post makes me smile like a sunny day; were I not in kind of a hurry I’d try one of those upright emoticons.
Time to re-gloss those theology texts.
There’s a lot to this, including the implications of Sanford’s Stand for such important concepts as the pillars of democracy & the Establishment Clause, & how it provides further evidence of the messianic principles in the Family’s Filosophy; but my main objection would be this:
I was chatting about Sanford this morning with my Ismaili dental hygenist, and while I am unable to confirm or refute the accuracy of any of this [It might not help that my own beliefs have been stuck in the “A”s since JFK was shot.], she confided that “as a matter of fact” God doesn’t particularly care for Governor Sanford, and actually prefers to spend his time with her, & other devout members of her local temple, & others among the devout in all the other temples of her sect around the world; and just doesn’t have the time to listen to anyone who’s chosen to expend precious consciousness in public spooging* of such spontaneous egocentricities.
[*not her word, but does capture her meaning]
This is also the language of a wide swath of conservative evangelicals in general, not unique to C Street.
What boggles my mind with this logic is that what “God wanted me to do with my life” almost always seems to match what the speaker wants to do with his/her life anyway. Rarely do you see someone powerful or someone seeking power use this language and say “I want to do this, but God pushed me in a different direction, so I let go of what I wanted to do.” (St. Paul said it, but Sanford must have skipped over the book of Acts.)
Sounds reasonable to me. Governor Sanford, a/k/a “Firebreak”.
Given my typoclad credentials I shouldn’t mention this, but the quote above has a big one.
“I have got this blessing of being engaged in a fight for libert
yines, which is constantly being threatened.”In other words, Sanford is not resigning because it is “what Doug Coe wanted me to do with my life.”
A lot of people who talk to gawd are institutionalized.
“Absolutely committed…what God wants me to do”. Perhaps Sanford isn’t understanding those voices.
Then again, wasn’t this the guy who claimed that his Argentinian sweetie was the true of of his life…I guess God told him to have that affair, too? Because God tells him what he “wanted me to do with my life.”
Perhaps referring to his problematic marriage with Jenny and his desire to have external lovers Sanford said… “I have got this blessing of being engaged in a fight for liberty, which is constantly being threatened.”
…vowed to fight on for conservative causes and for “what God wanted me to do with my life.”
Thou shalt not let a little adultery get in the way of pimping My conservative causes.
I’m not very far into Scarlet’s book “The Family”, but I have precisely the same take on this as EW. (Which is making me feel rather smart.) That, plus the sense that Sanford’s ego is so involved – wife and kids moving out was not quite in the ‘Family Values’ mode – that Sanford’s cornered and defiant.
But despite his defiance, it sure has the scent of someone insisting that he stay where he is.
Here’s the problem.
Jesus was an absolutist. He said there were many ways to do X wrong and only one way to do it right. He demanded the right way.
I can go with Jesus. Both the Right and the Left claim him.
I’m confused. Maybe I should go find Jesus. Finding Jack Daniels is a lot easier.
Who side are the torturers on and which side is on the torturee on?
Jesus doesn’t demand anything but rather suggests a better way.
“”I feel absolutely committed to the cause, to what God wanted me to do with my life,” he said in an interview. “I have got this blessing of being engaged in a fight for liberty, which is constantly being threatened.”
When logic, facts, and actions fail to convince people that what you say or do is in good standing or legal call on god, the bible, or call yourselves the chosen people. That often shuts people up really fast
ot
http://joesestak.com/townhall
not sure if this will work but Sestak and Toomey will be at at Town Hall meeting on Health Care at 6:30. Had to sign up but let’s see if this link works.
Billionaires for Wealthcare!
Love these folks
health care town hall starting
http://joesestak.com/townhall
“He’s on a Mission from God, you say? Well, then, we ought to give him a pass on the Ten Commandments! It just wouldn’t be right to have anything messing up his Mission to serve the Lord!”
If they are the least bit vulnerable to the Christian mind control culture, C Street can have the upper hand.
When I read about the big houses in Virginia dedicated to prayer breakfasts and places for errant youthful family members to hide, C Street embodies a radiating subculture controlled by the God who tells them they are chosen.
And “they are blessed to be chosen.”
Jesus vs. dollars.
Dollars always win.
The winners say Jesus always wins.
OT
That fucking arshole… okay, I’ve had a few white zins..
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/…..id=4440905
O/T:
Yo everyone, if you read EW’s blog,
“The WaPo Declares Itself Unable to Find the Truth”
Firedoglake – by Marcy Wheeler
published here on Aug. 31, “NewsTrust” currently has this post highly rated in its Top Rated Opinion stories in the Independent Media.
You can add your own review, like I did, and keep this blog in the news for a few more days.
Bob now in AZ
O/T:
Just caught this at The Guardian:
CIA doctors face human experimentation claims
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…..02/cia-usa
Charges being made by Physicians for Human Rights.
Amy Goodman touched on this yesterday
CIA Report Details Role Medical Professionals Played in Torture Program
A new report by Physicians for Human Rights has found that physicians and psychologists played a greater role than previously understood in designing, implementing and legitimizing the Bush administration’s torture program. The recently declassified CIA Inspector General’s Report detailed how medical professionals collected data on the reaction of prisoners to interrogation methods in order to help the CIA assess and refine the use of waterboarding and other techniques. Dr. Scott Allen of Physicians for Human Rights said, “Medical doctors and psychologists colluded with the CIA to keep observational records about waterboarding, which approaches unethical and unlawful human experimentation.” Physicians for Human Rights is calling for health professionals who have violated ethical standards or the law to be held accountable through criminal prosecution, loss of license and loss of professional society membership, where appropriate.
Excellent. Yours on the assistant dean at Regents too, fats.
I now have 100 pages of such sordid news items. And they only date back to, oh about, 2005.
How many are Regent grads?
I didn’t research that. Just collected excerpts from news articles on Repug creeps, crypts and closets (hope you don’t mind my borrowing a few words from you there, TarheelDem, as I couldn’t resist the sibilance).
Language of the chosen usually shuts down the debate
O/T, but it fits in the broader genre of Repugs’ strange views on God and sexual behavior. Interesting faces. This is Pat Robertson’s school, I believe.
Former Regent assistant dean, wife guilty of child sex abuse
By Shawn Day
The Virginian-Pilot
© September 2, 2009
VIRGINIA BEACH
“A former assistant dean at Regent University’s law school and his wife pleaded guilty today in Virginia Beach Circuit Court to child sex abuse charges.
. . .
“The charges stemmed from incidents between 1996 and 2000, when the McPhersons served as house parents for three sisters at Hope Haven Children’s Home on North Landing Road. Hope Haven is a Christian-based shelter run by Union Mission Ministries . . .
“Court records show Stephen McPherson repeatedly molested two of the sisters under his supervision and manipulated them by citing Bible verses that he said justified the abuse. Melina McPherson engaged in sexual acts with the third sister, cited Bible verses to justify her actions and told the victim that “they had a special relationship,” according to court records.”
More.
I do believe that you are correct about Sanford’s determination, which no doubt aligns with his own wishes as well.
We will see what the South Carolina legislature does or does not do.
All of a sudden, the Lt. Gov. coninkydinkly has the Charlie Crist cloud over his head, and that no doubt has slowed somewhat the legislature’s walk (not rush) to impeachment.
As a native South Carolinian, this is the most fun watching South Carolina politics I’ve had in a decade or two. Get the popcorn popping; send out for the beer. This one’s gonna be fun to watch. I wonder how many other crypts and closets will be knocked open.
Great attitude ;-))
I must say that when South Carolinians put on a political show, it’s quite an Appalachian doozie.
An Appalachian doozie? Sanford was born in Florida, the son of a rich land developer who moved to an island off the SC coast. Jenny Sanford is the heiress to the Skil Corporation fortune and is from Winnetka, IL. Hardly the Clampetts.
“hardly the Clampetts”
spewed water on the screen…thanks for the chuckle
Here’s another:
Sanford’s State Board of Education chair resigns. She was all for abstinence and home schooling.
And, apparently, into a bit of moonlighting, too.
Yep. I saw that one too. Like I said, a lot of crypts and closets.
OK. Followed your link. Urk. I beg to differ with the lady’s erotic essay; there is no way that that letter from the wife could have fit on “two folded sheets of paper”. Doncha hate it when they get those little details so wrong? (Six or eight sheets, maybe.)
You said it: Urk!
Having read one of the few remaining available examples of Ms. Maguire’s oeuvre (word I’ve seen on the web is there was a lot more and a lot of feverish web-wiping last week), i.e., the Euro adventure (passenger train, two guys, oral), the first question in my mind was one which would have been posed by Mr. Maguire, viz.:
Though, as web porn goes, it’s kinda plain vanilla-tame. Go read some hooker blogs if you want better entertainment. Those are usually much better written, too.
Thnx, scribe, but I think Ms.Maguire’s “work” is sufficiently nausea-producing to preclude my seeking more for a long, long time.
ot At National Review
Now this is an interesting theory…like it
Eric Holder’s Hidden Agenda
The investigation isn’t about torture, but about transnationalism.
By Andrew C. McCarthy
The way out of this dilemma is clear. Though it won’t file indictments against the CIA agents and Bush officials it is probing, the Justice Department will continue conducting investigations and releasing reports containing new disclosures of information. The churn of new disclosures will be used by lawyers for the detainees to continue pressing the U.N. and the Europeans to file charges. The European nations and/or international tribunals will make formal requests to the Obama administration to have the Justice Department assist them in securing evidence. Holder will piously announce that the “rule of law” requires him to cooperate with these “lawful requests” from “appropriately created courts.” Finally, the international and/or foreign courts will file criminal charges against American officials.
Foreign charges would result in the issuance of international arrest warrants. They won’t be executed in the United States — even this administration is probably not brazen enough to try that. But the warrants will go out to police agencies all over the world. If the indicted American officials want to travel outside the U.S., they will need to worry about the possibility of arrest, detention, and transfer to third countries for prosecution. Have a look at this 2007 interview of CCR president Michael Ratner. See how he brags that his European gambit is “making the world smaller” for Rumsfeld — creating a hostile legal climate in which a former U.S. defense secretary may have to avoid, for instance, attending conferences in NATO countries.
The Left will get its reckoning. Obama and Holder will be able to take credit with their supporters for making it happen. But because the administration’s allies in the antiwar bar and the international Left will do the dirty work of getting charges filed, the American media will help Obama avoid domestic political accountability. Meanwhile, Americans who sought to protect our nation from barbarians will be harassed and framed as war criminals. And protecting the United States will have become an actionable violation of international law.
http://article.nationalreview……FjYzIyM2Y=
Andy McCarthy ain’t stupid, but he does have a bit of teh crazy about him.
“Foreign charges would result in the issuance of international arrest warrants. They won’t be executed in the United States — even this administration is probably not brazen enough to try that.”
There is no such thing as a general “international arrest warrant.” There seems to be such a thing valid within the European Union. But elsewhere, not in my experience.
What McCarthy may be referring to is an INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) Red Notice. Some INTERPOL member countries can arrest on the basis of these, but only provisionally, that is, for purposes of extradition to the country that asked INTERPOL to issue a given Red Notice.
The United States and most if not all Anglo-American law countries cannot arrest on the basis of a Red Notice.
We/they do, however, tend to sit up and take notice if the subject of a Red Notice blows into town, and ask the country requesting it to please send, fast, a request for the fugitive’s provisional arrest with a view toward extradition pursuant to an applicable extradition treaty — if there is such a treaty.
Usually, nowadays, there is. And some countries can extradite based on their domestic statutes, even in the absence of a treaty.
This is a gross simplification of a complicated subject. Bottom line, McCarthy’s implication that the United States COULD arrest if it chose on a supposed “international arrest warrant” is hogwash.
But what about the evidence needed for foreign criminal prosecution of our very own (alleged) torturers? Per McCarthy,
“The European nations and/or international tribunals will make formal requests to the Obama administration to have the Justice Department assist them in securing evidence. Holder will piously announce that the “rule of law” requires him to cooperate with these “lawful requests” from “appropriately created courts.” Finally, the international and/or foreign courts will file criminal charges against American officials.”
McCarthy is right, though with skewed reasoning, about evidence.
The United States may be obligated by treaty (supreme law of the land, we all recall) to provide U.S. evidence to other countries for use in the criminal investigation and prosecution of suspect and indicted U.S. citizen torturers (as well, of course, as other alleged torturers).
There will, if so, be nothing “pious” about U.S. compliance. We must. That is, we must unless we’re willing to violate a treaty. This of course carries the risk of prodding the treaty partner into abrogating the treaty. That would end the treaty partner’s obligation to provide evidence to US.
McCarthy may be right about A.G. Holder’s supposed strategy. But it seems a bit far-fetched: how much Holder knows about the nuts and bolts of international criminal law beats me.
And, of course, such a strategy would violate our own obligations under the Convention Against Torture to investigate and prosecute alleged torturers found within the United States.
look,
the rhetoric is the cover, not the command.
sanford isn’t resigning for the same reason that senator craig didn’t resign.
craig showed the republican world a new way out of scandal
you wait out the emotionality of the initial public storm of outrage.
and then keep holding on to your office without ever explicitly refusing to resign saying, perhaps, that god intended you to hold office.
the emotional mechanics are very clear –
who is going to work to generate a SECOND emotional tsunami of outrage against sanfords’ conduct?
no one!!
and if someone did?
they could be picked off one-by-one.
c-street’s hocus-pocus god language, in this analysis, is not a controlling variable, it is just the rationalization for not yielding power.
the lesson here is that pols have learned from sen craig to take cover whenever their personal moral indiscretions are revealed
and then come out of hibernation when there is no chance of resurgent outrage.
let’s see what new jersey’s christie does along these lines.
Time out for comparative mythology. Got eternity?
Word to you, orionATL, that’s what I’m saying. A myth is not a lie, it’s a metaphor, and a metaphor is vessel not just for going from ignorance to enlightenment–but also the other way around.
We use myths both as life-boats for saving passengers; and as burlap sacks for drowning kittens. Perverted, a myth becomes propaganda.
I’m very heartened to see discussion here of the power of myth as opposed to dismissing out of hand anything that even vaguely hints at religiosity. (BTW, religion is a subordinate function of mythology. Ever notice how churches function just like country clubs? Some are bastions of white male supremacy; others, far more charitable.)
Priests of the dominant myth (and attendant religion) of the US use our government as its own church. Witness the Sotomayor hearings, in which privileged white men questioned the ability of an Other to be a priest in their church.
Myths function the same way all vessels do: garbage in, garbage out. Obviously, conjuring up false visions, false vessels, and suckering people into seeing them as being good as gold (ie: Madoff, Rove, Emmanuel and others) and then getting the marks to go all in, is the oldest trick of false leaders; it’s older even than books.
We find ourselves in this present Waste Land as the direct result of the myth-jackings of Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and their Democratic Party partners in crime.
Pepe Escobar discusses the real method to our military madness: full-spectrum dominance. I wonder where we get the idea: that the cosmos is a Newtonian mechanism, governed by a cosmic tyrant, and that if you want to dominate it, just apply sufficient “kinetic activity”?
It’s the mythology!
As you say, orionATL, all the rationalizations are bullshit cover stories. Who believes we’re in Afghanistan for the people, and not the pipelines?
Who is it in our government who is actively pursuing the insanity of full-spectrum dominance?
Doesn’t FSD have far more explanatory power, doesn’t it cover all the bizarro world actions of supposedly liberal Obama?
Here’s our problem: Some in gov’t intend to machine the world into submission, and that includes us.
The early Egyptian Secret of the Two Partners is the strategy; the Shock Doctrine is the method; full-spectrum dominance is the goal.
The Secret of the Two Partners: Rove’s MO and inspiration for firing Iglesias?
Someone–besides George Lucas and the Grateful Dead!–has taken Campbell’s powerful lessons to heart. What about the notorious Neocon “crazies?” Why are they called that? Who among them was around for Campbell’s decades of lectures at State’s Foreign Service Institute and/or has shown a special talent for myth-making?
Harper’s Scott Horton informs us that Karl Rove calls himself by the name of not one or even two, but three different mythical monsters:
There are monsters, posing as priests of the temple of kinetic power, walking among us.
See also Greenwald’s morning post:
Deleting the Bush personality cult from history.
We now return to the temporal world of things and time already in progress.
Word to you, orionATL, that’s what I’m saying. A myth is not a lie, it’s a metaphor, and a metaphor is vessel not just for going from ignorance to enlightenment–but also the other way around.
Here’s our problem: Some in gov’t intend to machine the world into submission, and that includes us. So what’s the MO? If you were tasked with jacking an entire nation of 300 million into war against their will, how would you do it?
By the power of myth, naturally.
We humans typically have used myths as life-boats for saving passengers; ferry boats across the River Styx to the Yonder Shore, to mix my myths.
The truth is, myths are also being used more like burlap sacks are used: for drowning kittens. Perverted, a myth becomes propaganda, and its attendant religion becomes a cult.
As the C Street cult vividly shows, myths are being used for jacking whole nations to war, or thieving whole Commonweals from national treasuries in broad daylight, or the more mundane, such as keeping adulterous elected officials in office.
In my poetic opinion, we find ourselves in this present Waste Land as the direct result of the myth-jackings of Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and their Democratic Party partners in crime. We’ve got to renounce full-spectrum dominance, drop that Ring back into the fire that forged it, already.
Spencer’s coming up on Rachel.
bsolutely stunning
The teenage girls obviously are suffering from both Stockholm syndrome and religious brainwashing. Melina McPherson was found guilty of forcible penetration with an object on one of the girls and gets 40 days??? nd they were using Bible passages to justify their acts…to suggest to the girls that what was happening was legal and moral.
So one wonders whether he was justifying similar behaviour as legal precepts to his students at Regent? Maybe this is why they can justify sadistic torture, lying, and the whole host of acts that former “Regent Scholars” have justified ? What courses did he teach at Regent…and what the hell were these Bible passages?
Are his colleagues down on him because of his policies? Are people picking on him because he “took his eye off of the ball?” Is it likely that God actually called him to become Governor? Has he been indoctrinated by “the Family” to believe he is one of the “Chosen People?”
First, in case you’re not from the South, South Carolina is one of the most conservative places on this planet. The notion that Sanford is being opposed because of his conservative values is ludicrous. Nor are people thinking he took his eye off the ball. His marital duplicity was done under the nose of his very credible wife who was trying to help him stay in the ball park. And his notion that God called him to be Governor is fanciful. The people of South Carolina called him to be Governor by voting for him – and they’re not calling anymore. So as for his being one of the “Chosen People,” everyone around him is questioning that – they want to “unchoose” him.
One thing is clear. Mark Sanford thinks he’s “special.” He thinks he ought to be able to do whatever he wants to do. If he messes up, he feels entitled to be forgiven. He reminds me of Ted Haggard, who also feels like he’s an injured party. They both complain that they “slipped” and ought to be forgiven. They both evoke job pressures as causative factors. They both want to avoid acknowledging their lies. In my humble opinion, the operative principle is simple – don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. People want Mark Sanford to go away because he’s an embarrassing, self righteous, lightweight who looks sillier and sillier every time he opens his mouth. The operative scripture for Mark Sanford is Job 1:21.
The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away…
I know why folks in South Carolina are opposing Sanford now. He lied to them. He ripped off their tax money to go traveling. And he’s become an embarrassment to the state Republican Party.
Has nothing to do with ideology or religion, even religious hypocrisy.
It’s plain old ripping off the taxpayers corruption and trying to weasel past an investigation.
Of course, it didn’t help that Jenny left him. Sorta put to rest the notion that it was only political persecution. And gave the allegations and facts more credibility in the eyes of ordinary South Carolinians.
Q. When did any of these things have anything to do with Rethugs canning a Rethug?
A. Never. IOKIYAR, remember?
This is a pure power struggle, nothing more, with their fundie base getting punked by TPTB like they always do.
I guess the neighbors got tired of all the riff-raff at The Family’s House.
131 C Street is up for sale as of last weekend.
Not the best time to be putting a piece of realty on the market. One has to wonder what all those flinty-tough-with-a-buck Rethugs are thinking, selling when they really don’t have to.
Like, maybe, moving the Family to new digs, seeing as their little mancave has been outed?
well, 131 C has more parking & surrounded by a wall, too.