Has anyone found it rather odd as to why Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent during the flap over remarks by Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright?
When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, she's a lot more vulnerable than Obama.
Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the "Fellowship," aka the Family.
Sean Hannity has called Obama's church a "cult," but that term applies far more aptly to Clinton's "Family," which is organized into "cells" -- their term -- and operates sex-segregated group homes for young people in northern Virginia. In 2002, writer Jeff Sharlet joined the Family's home for young men, foreswearing sex, drugs and alcohol, and participating in endless discussions of Jesus and power. He wasn't undercover; he used his own name and admitted to being a writer. But he wasn't completely out of danger either. When he went outdoors one night to make a cell phone call, he was followed. He still gets calls from Family associates asking him to meet them in diners -- alone.
The Family's most visible activity is its blandly innocuous National Prayer Breakfast, held every February in Washington. But almost all its real work goes on behind the scenes -- knitting together international networks of right-wing leaders, most of them ostensibly Christian.
In the 1940s, the Family reached out to former and not-so-former Nazis, and its fascination with that exemplary leader, Adolph Hitler, has continued, along with ties to a whole bestiary of murderous thugs. As Sharlet reported in Harper's in 2003:
During the 1960s the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most anti-Communist (and dictatorial) elements within Africa's postcolonial leadership. The Brazilian dictator General Costa e Silva, with Family support, was overseeing regular fellowship groups for Latin American leaders, while, in Indonesia, General Suharto (whose tally of several hundred thousand "Communists" killed marks him as one of the century's most murderous dictators) was presiding over a group of fifty Indonesian legislators. During the Reagan Administration, the Family helped build friendships between the U.S. government and men such as Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, convicted by a Florida jury of the torture of thousands, and Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, himself an evangelical minister, who was linked to both the CIA and death squads before his own demise.At the heart of the Family's American branch is a collection of powerful right-wing politicos, who include, or have included, Sam Brownback, Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, James Inhofe, and Rick Santorum. They get to use the Family's spacious estate on the Potomac, the Cedars, which is maintained by young men in Family group homes and where meals are served by the Family's young women's group. And, at the Family's frequent prayer gatherings, they get powerful jolts of spiritual refreshment, tailored to the already-powerful.
Clinton fell in with the Family in 1993, when she joined a Bible study group composed of wives of conservative leaders like Jack Kemp and James Baker. When she ascended to the Senate, she was promoted to what Sharlet calls the Family's "most elite cell," the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, which included, until his downfall, Virginia's notoriously racist Sen. George Allen. This has not been a casual connection for Clinton. She has written of Doug Coe, the Family's publicity-averse leader, that he is "a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."
Furthermore, the Family takes credit for some of Clinton's rightward legislative tendencies, including her support for a law guaranteeing "religious freedom" in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics.
What drew Clinton into the sinister heart of the international right? Maybe it was just a phase in her tormented search for identity, marked by ever-changing hairstyles and names: Hillary Rodham, Mrs. Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and now Hillary Clinton. She reached out to many potential spiritual mentors during her White House days, including new age guru Marianne Williamson and the liberal Rabbi Michael Lerner. But it was the Family association that stuck.
Sharlet generously attributes Clinton's involvement to the underappreciated depth of her religiosity, but he himself struggles to define the Family's theological underpinnings. The Family avoids the word Christian but worships Jesus, though not the Jesus who promised the earth to the "meek." They believe that, in mass societies, it's only the elites who matter, the political leaders who can build God's "dominion" on earth. Insofar as the Family has a consistent philosophy, it's all about power -- cultivating it, building it and networking it together into ever-stronger units, or "cells." "We work with power where we can," Doug Coe has said, and "build new power where we can't."
Obama has given a beautiful speech on race and his affiliation with the Trinity Unity Church of Christ. Now it's up to Clinton to explain -- or, better yet, renounce -- her longstanding connection with the fascist-leaning Family.
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Blacks4Barack UPDATE:
Hillary's Religion (cult ?) 'THE FAMILY'
Very Scary !
Prays To Jesus For The Elite To Rule The World
The media has repeatedly aired the short clips of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's rhetoric in attempt to discredit and smear Barack Obama. But what's even more interesting is the fact that the media never discusses Hillary Clinton's religion, which is extremely telling and even frightening. A closer look into her 'religion' gives one a clearer picture of why she is the way she is.In a recent article by Steven Brandt many truths about Hillary's religion, called ' The Family' will make you shutter. The question is....where's the media on this one ?
Brandt writes, "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend." said Hillary Clinton, to reporters and editors of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on Tuesday the 25th. This is an interesting choice of words, since -- while we mostly hear about her Methodist upbringing -- Hillary Clinton has chosen to associate herself with The Family (also known as the Fellowship), a very conservative, fundamentalist organization started by Abraham Vereide...
"...an immigrant preacher who in 1935 organized a small group of businessmen sympathetic to European fascism, fusing the Far Right with his own polite but authoritarian faith. From that core, Vereide built an international network of fundamentalists who spoke the language of establishment power, a "family" that thrives to this day. In public, they host prayer breakfasts; in private they preach a gospel of "biblical capitalism," military might, and American empire. Citing Hitler, Lenin, and Mao, Doug Coe, the Family's current leader, declares, "We work with power where we can, build new power where we can't."
This quote is taken from the book on The Family by the same name which will be published in May... a book which claims to
"...dramatically challenge conventional wisdom about American fundamentalism, revealing its crucial role in the unraveling of the New Deal, the waging of the Cold War, and the no-holds-barred economics of globalization. The question Sharlet believes we must ask is not "What do fundamentalists want?" but "What have they already done?"
A long article was written about Hillary Clinton's participation in this organization last September in Mother Jones, and The Family, itself, was the subject of an extensive article in Harper's in March of 2003. And on March 21st, The Nation published an article on Hillary and The Family by Barbara Ehrenreich that was published on The Huffington Post and CBS News' web site.
The Family avoids the word Christian but worships Jesus, though not the Jesus who promised the earth to the "meek." They believe that, in mass societies, it's only the elites who matter, the political leaders who can build God's "dominion" on earth. Insofar as The Family has a consistent philosophy, it's all about power - cultivating it, building it and networking it together into ever-stronger units, or "cells."
...wrote Ms.Ehrenreich.
Is it possible that Hillary's participation in this fundamentalist group -- which apparently preaches the "gospel of military might" -- would help explain her vote in favor of authorizing President Bush to attack Iraq? Is it possible her pro-NAFTA stance during her husband's administration comes from its embrace of "the no-holds-barred economics of globalization"? Is it possible that the sense some get that Hillary feels entitled to be president comes in part from this group's belief that "it's only the elites who matter"?
I encourage any reporter covering Hillary's campaign to ask her about all this.
At a time when so many people are wondering what sort of effect the Rev. Wright's sermons may have had on Barack Obama, I think it's only fair to ask what sort of effect The Family's fundamentalist mission has had - and continues to have - on Hillary Clinton. We know that George Bush engages in truly fundamentalist thinking. There is no person or new information capable of challenging his belief that what he already knows is right. Is Hillary Clinton like this in some way? I am not sure.
But the opinion I have formed from this is that - while Hillary Clinton may be considered a Liberal by many - on the inside she is a deeply Conservative person... possibly as close to being a Republican today as she was when she was a young woman supporting Senator Goldwater. This helps explain, to me, why she and John McCain are such good friends. They are both drawn to the use of military power and free market capitalism... and to taking money from lobbyists. The other opinion I have formed is that those who say there are no policy differences between Hillary and Barack haven't taken into account how their religious differences might impact the policies they would actually seek to implement as president.
(end of article)
So now a few things make more sense about Hillary. In review, she's in a kinda power-hungry cult which is actually run by her fellow Republicans which she is secretly one of ! It also makes sense why she could care less about detroying the Democratic Party. Also, beware of her claim to work toward ending the Iraq war. That is another great lie that she is telling. If you listen to her claims she commonly repeats ' I will start getting troops out within my first 60 days '.....How many ? 3....1000...10,000 ? Don't be fooled. Hillary has no desire to end the war. She'll bring 5 troops home then say that she kept her word.
The media should be called out for not exposing this cult. Problem is, they would also be revealing the truths about their fellow Republican's plan and prayers to 'rule the world' by any means. So it's up to us, regular Americans like you and I, to help spread the truth in spite of the media.....For The Re-Birth of America !
Greg Jones
Visit: www.Blacks4Barack.org (A Multi-Racial Organization)
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