Beware the War Propheteers

Playing the Christian "Bass" with the skill of Cream-era Jack Bruce: Like his notorious predecessor in Arkansas, Mike Huckabee is a high-viscosity politician advised by Dick Morris. Like too many other Republicans, he's a Christian "pro-lifer" not unduly burdened by the death of thousands of children in needless foreign wars.

One is a former Southern Baptist Pastor, the other a one-time Mormon Bishop. One established a niche as a hard-line social conservative who is surprisingly “progressive” on welfare state issues; the other began his political career trying to out-flank Ted Kennedy to the left on abortion and gay rights, only to re-tool himself into the very model of a modern moral majoritarian.

There's a polygamy joke in here somewhere: A low-res photo of Mitt Romney with Reich-wing succubus Ann Coulter.

They are separated by a vast political gulf and have followed very different political vectors, but GOP presidential aspirants Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney are now the chief contenders for the support of the Christian Right. The only authentic conservative in the race, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, disqualified himself in the Christian Right's eyes by taking the teachings of the Prince of Peace too literally, and applying the Golden Rule to foreign policy. The Mullahs of the Mega-Churches, and many of their followers, are mortally offended by the notion that decades of bellicose interventionism by Washington might have something to do with the antagonisms that breed and feed anti-American terrorism.

Romney has already received an unction from some prominent Evangelicals, largely on the strength of his unqualified commitment to continue (and most likely to escalate) Bush the Lesser's war against the Islamic world. But as Romney faces the prospect of being eclipsed by the more orthodox Huckabee, he has made a pilgrimage to holy ground – the George H.W. Bush presidential library – to offer a speech on “Faith in America.” Romney's purpose is to assuage concerns that a follower of Joseph Smith would be an unsuitable vessel for the political purposes of the Christian Right.This isn't quite like Henry IV standing bare-headed in the snow outside Canossa, but Romney's gesture displays an element of plaintive desperation nonetheless.

On this day (December 5) when Romney's theological convictions and religious affiliation take center stage, we would do well to consider some of Huckabee's baggage – specifically, his attachment to the Rev. John Hagee, Pastor of San Antonio's Cornerstone Church, Founder and Director of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), and the most impassioned advocate of open-ended war with the Israeli government's enemies, beginning with Iran.

Hagee almost seems to be a genetically engineered caricature of the televangelist culture. As orotund as he is rotund, Hagee looks like a late middle-aged version of JB's Big Boy and behaves a bit like Elmer Gantry. Both his physique and lifestyle testify that Hagee is a stranger in the house of self-restraint. And this is quite odd, given the fact that he ardently believes in the Rapture, during which believers would be taken away to heaven, leaving behind all material encumberances, including the clothes they would be wearing at the time.

As C.S. Lewis noted, wealth knits a man to this world. Despite repeatedly admonishing his flock to prepare for the fast-approaching Rapture, Hagee remains thoroughly enmeshed with the world. He may well be the wealthiest of the war-obsessed clergymen we could call War Propheteers.

Stephen Strang is the human vinculum between Huckabee and Hagee. Strang, a long-time friend and business associate of Hagee, presides over a Pentecostal publishing empire; among Strang's imprints is Front Line books, which has published several of Hagee's books, including his latest, In Defense of Israel.

Late last Summer, a cover story in Strang's New Man magazine anointed Huckabee as the heir apparent to George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. In recent weeks, Huckabee has tapped Strang to serve on his “Faith and Values Coalition,” which is intended to attract money from, and consolidate support within, the Christian Right. Strang served a similar role in the early days of Bush the Lesser's first presidential campaign.

Strang is also a regional director of Hagee's Christians United for Israel, a pressure group that describes itself – without a detectable hint of irony – as a “Christian AIPAC,” as if one such organization weren't a sufficient burden and blight upon our land. Each year CUFI holds a "Night to Honor Israel" in dozens of cities nation-wide, events often organized in cooperation with the Israeli government. And each summer since its founding CUFI has dispatched thousands of its members to Washington to lobby Congress on behalf of a foreign power that is hardly without its own influence in the Imperial Capital.

Whatever one thinks of AIPAC and its works (which include espionage), the attachment of American Jews to the nation-state of Israel is organic and understandable. Hagee's devotion is largely abstract and theological, and colored with more than a hint of opportunism.

The Reverend is more or less a standard-issue radical dispensationalist of a familiar variety, but distinguishes himself by the near-monomania he displays in promoting the interests of Israel – at least as he and some Israeli factions perceive them. And there is a certain duplicity at work here, since the eschatology embraced by Hagee dictates that Jews have an obligation to gather into Israel as a prelude to an apocalyptic war in which most of them will be slaughtered.

By this time, as Hagee foresees it, he and his brethren will have been evacuated from the earth via the Rapture, and thus be able to observe the bloodbath from the safety of a celestial skybox.

Although he stoutly denies it, Hagee's convictions dictate that he do what he can to foment war, rather than promote peace. For several years he has been urging that the US wage a war of aggression against Iran for the purpose of preempting its nuclear program.

Rev. Hagee makes the case for endless bloodshed to Texas Senators John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, whose voting records suggest they were a receptive audience.

Hagee would doubtless insist that the recently published National Intelligence Estimate, which concludes that Iran froze its nuclear program in 2003 (the year Tehran offered to re-open diplomatic relations with Washington), was ghost-written by Satan. Other key voices of the War Lobby, such as Norman Podhoretz and Rush Limbaugh, are content to posit a wide-ranging conspiracy of “wreckers” in the CIA who produced the NIE, thereby undermining the drive for war. Only Hagee has the courage and insight to stalk the truth to its demonic lair: This is nothing less than a vast conspiracy led by the Devil himself.

For indeed, is it not written that the heathen will rage, the people imagine a vain thing, and the kings rulers of the world will take counsel together against the Lord and His anointed? Most Christians understand that passage from the second Psalm to be a prophecy of the advent of Jesus of Nazareth, whom we worship as the Christ, or messiah. Rev. Hagee, however, has repeatedly and passionately insisted that Jesus is not, and never claimed to be, the messiah.

Hagee visits General Ariel Sharon during one of his many trips to Israel.

There is “not one verse of Scripture in the New Testament that says Jesus came to be the Messiah,” writes Hagee in his new book In Defense of Israel (page 136), reporting a discovery unique in Christian history. Even “after his resurrection,” Hagee continues, Jesus made “repeated denials” that he was or would be the Messiah (page141).

All of this would be quite startling to the countless thousands of Christian believers -- including those who embraced the Gospel in the early first century -- who could have spared themselves the pains of martyrdom if they had been willing to disavow the Messianic status of Jesus of Nazareth.

After elaborating on this notion at length, Hagee makes passing reference to the fact that he and a long-time friend, Orthodox Rabbi Aryeh Schienberg, “agree to disagree” regarding “the nature and identity of the Messiah” (page 171), and that “when we stand in the streets of Jerusalem and see the Messiah walking toward us, one of us will have a major theological adjustment to make!”

Similar disingenuous comments are sprinkled through Hagee's book, intended to inspire a knowing chuckle from Christians and reassure Jews. But I think Hagee himself would also have to make a radical theological adjustment under the circumstances he describes, since he is careful only to insinuate that Jesus is the Messiah, and refuses to announce that conclusion clearly and unambiguously.


Arab Christians celebrate the birth of their Messiah at the Church of the Nativity in Gaza: From Hagee's perspective, these folks must not be considered "true" Christians.


It's also significant that a large section of In Defense of Israel consists of lambasting the Christian Church -- beginning with the New Testament itself -- for what he describes as history of relentless anti-Jewish persecution. Hagee describes the purported beliefs of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a collection of classic anti-Jewish notions, including the view that Jews "are essentially scheming to take over the world.... [and] are responsible for every negative situation in the world and that they are behind every international event or crisis, including the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany."


"If this sounds familiar, it is," he concludes. "It is no different than the teachings of the Christian church prior to the Holocaust." (Page 74.)


One of the reasons why Mitt Romney is unappetizing to many conservative Christians is the Mormon teaching that historic Christianity, prior to the advent of Joseph Smith, was hopelessly mired in apostasy. John Hagee teaches exactly the same thing, while placing the UN-created nation-state of Israel in a central position akin to that occupied by Joseph Smith in the Mormon view of history. This might help explain, among other things, why the Rev. Hagee has little if any sympathy for Arab Christians residing in the West Bank and Gaza.


How closely would Hagee be tied to Huckabee, were the latter to win the White House? During the reign of Bush the Lesser, Hagee has been on the presidential speed-dial. He has been among the most passionate defenders of the doctrine of the all-powerful president who can make war according to his sovereign whims. In an interview with the estimable Charles Goyette, Hagee declared: "We do not have a war declaration for Iraq, and neither does the president need one to expand it [the war] into Iran."


I suspect that if Mitt Romney is elected president, Hagee would have no difficulty reaching across the theological divide -- as long as Romney remains true to the gospel of militarist bloodshed. If Huckabee makes it to the Oval Office, it's likely that Hagee would be part of the Inner Court. Either prospect would be troubling to the Christian Right, were it more interested in defending Christian principles than in accumulating and preserving political power.


Dum spiro, pugno!

A Programming Note...

My good and dear friends:

With my wife in the hospital again and a full house of sick kids (or should that be called a "royal flush"?), I've been inundated with domestic chores. This explains my scandalously long hiatus, which will end tomorrow -- I promise.

Mientras tanto, and apropos of nothing, I've decided to share a few performance clips that have offered me some solace today, while cleaning and folding clothes and linens onto which my afflicted offspring have been casting their gorge. In such circumstances, I had to find something (of a non-psychotropic nature, I hasten to specify) to elevate my mood.

The first offering is from the Trey Anastasio Band, captured in the middle of a pointless but delicious ten-minute jam:





The next helping is from the immortal Jeff Beck at this year's Crossroads Festival in Chicago. Here he is turning The Beatles' "A Day in the Life" inside-out. Of particular note is Mr. Beck's astonishingly gifted 21-year-old bass player, Tal Wakenfield. Her skills aren't displayed to best advantage on this track; the track that allows her some room to shine, "'Cause We've Ended as Lovers," can be seen here.





A seasonal note is struck by Brian Setzer's Orchestra in this Hep-Cat version of "Jingle Bells." Honestly, playing in the Setzer Orchestra must be the coolest gig imaginable.





Hitting cleanup is the heroic Jimmy Vaughan, an authentic American Blues virtuoso and genuine patriot, singing "Down With Big Brother." Too often introduced as the brother of the late Stevie Ray, Jimmy V. is a titan in his own right who should be referred to as "Stevie Ray's guitar teacher."




Remember: De gustabis, non disputandum est...

... and I'll be back to regular blogging tomorrow.

Dum spiro, pugno!

Wasn't The Suspense Terrific? (Updated, 12/3)

Brown-shirted Utah Highway Patrol Officers stand in solidarity with Officer Jon Gardner during a November 30 press conference announcing that an internal inquiry found that his use of a Taser on motorist Jared Massey was "lawful."

The suspense was hardly unbearable when the Utah Highway Patrol (UHP) announced that it would “review” the criminal assault committed by Trooper Jon Gardner last September 14, when he attacked Jared Massey – an agitated motorist whose behavior was non-threatening – with a Taser.

A “review” of this kind is almost always an exercise in ratifying the illegal use of force by a police officer. The UHP performed as expected, announcing at a press conference yesterday (November 30) that Gardner's attack was “lawful and justified under the circumstances” -- despite the fact that the department's policy does not authorize the use of a Taser against someone who does not pose a threat.

The now-notorious video of the incident demonstrates beyond dispute that Massey posed no actual or potential threat to Gardner. The video record also shows that it was Gardner who needlessly escalated the encounter by ordering the driver from the vehicle, rather than handing him the unsigned ticket and scurrying off to wherever it is that malodorous revenue farmers like himself go after committing their acts of highway robbery.

Massey, who had admitted to driving 68 miles per hour in what he thought was a 65 mph zone, believed that Gardner was inviting him out of the car to show him a sign announcing the beginning of a 40 mph construction zone. Gardner apparently ordered Massey from the car for the purpose of arresting him for refusing to sign the citation, which isn't a crime since in Utah a signature is unnecessary.

(Here's something else to consider. Go back and look at the opening seconds of that video; notice how Officer Gardner pulled to the side of the road directly in front of the 40 MPH sign just before Massey passed him. It's clear to me that by doing so Gardner most likely obstructed Massey's view of the sign. At the very least, he would have distracted the driver, whose logical reaction would have been to pay attention to the UHP patrol car rather than the speed limit sign. I'm cynical enough to suspect that this is one of the oh-so-clever tricks patrolmen sometimes pull in order to pull in revenue.)

No citizen has the legal, let alone moral, obligation to submit to an unwarranted arrest. And no police officer has the legal, let alone moral, authority to use a Taser to punish a citizen for displaying a bad attitude. The Taser is supposedly a non-lethal weapon; it can – and has – served that role by immobilizing violent suspects without killing them or putting bystanders at risk. However, a better description of that device as typically used would be: “Frequently lethal instrument of torture” -- at least as it's being employed by police departments that routinely ignore guidelines supposedly intended to prevent it from being used as a means of “pain compliance.”

The only reason Gardner's attack came under review (however perfunctory) by the UHP was the global furor that erupted when Massey posted the video on YouTube. Now Gardner is in hiding, cringing and terrified by random acts of blogosphere bluster and the occasional threatening telephone call. To his considerable credit, Massey has condemned the threats and urged people to leave Gardner alone.

In this we see a useful contrast between Massey, who displays the character of a principled adult man, and the swaggering tax-supported adolescent bully who attacked him and now cowers behind the Big Brown Wall thrown up by his fellow brown-shirts of the UHP.

Does Gardner fear for his life? I certainly hope so, even as I pray that those fears prove to be unwarranted. The least we can hope for is that bullies occasionally know the visceral fear of the hunted.

In urging the public to lay off Gardner, Jared Massey points out that the State Trooper has a family. So does Massey, of course – a small child and a pregnant wife, both of whom saw him brutally attacked and needlessly humiliated. The pregnant wife was also threatened with arrest for the supposed crime of coming to Massey's aid.

At this point in our nation's descent into unalloyed tyranny, those responsible for inflicting needless violence on the citizenry need to be intimidated. They need to suffer the sting of disrepute, the cold loneliness of ostracism, the gut-churning and sleep-dispelling unease that comes from wondering if there will be retaliation for their acts of officially sanctioned violence. This is particularly true in cases of this kind in which the government isn't willing to punish such conduct.

In a qualified defense of Officer Gardner, the Provo Daily Herald – which has taken a seriously statist turn since I wrote for it a decade and a half ago – made an ironically useful point when it criticized Massey for being “argumentative ... and rather dense about some obvious social mores.”

“Here's a tip: when a uniformed man with a badge and a gun tells you to do something, shut up and do exactly what he says,” opined the Herald, a newspaper that serves the reddest community in Red-State America, and expressing the defining sentiment of what Lew Rockwell calls “Red-State Fascism.”

The Herald editorial collective elaborated:

“On the video, we don't see him [Massey] threatening the officer or getting out of control. But still, the officer has a badge and a gun -- and also a rule book. You can cooperate with the cops and save yourself a lot of trouble, or you can make them go by the book, as Massey apparently did without introspection. We have sympathy for law officers making traffic stops. They can turn deadly fast. Cops should not be hampered by excessive rules or second-guessing. They need the freedom to respond to each unique situation, within reason.”

The problem here, as noted above, is that Massey didn't force Gardner to “go by the book”; the “book” in this case dictated that Gardner simply hand Massey the ticket and walk away, and it certainly didn't authorize the use of a Taser in this situation. What is really interesting here is that in correctly describing a traffic stop as a situation that can “turn deadly fast,” the Herald reserved its sympathy and concern for the heavily-armed State agent – not the unarmed citizen. This is a question of “social mores,” the paper instructs us.

It is those “mores” that must change, and soon. It is the citizen who is owed reflexive deference, not the agent of the State. Even today, many police officers remember that principle and comport themselves accordingly. But when the not-so-exceptional exception occurs, the institutional bias of nearly every police agency is to defend those officers whose behavior is clearly illegal -- while quietly dismissing criminal charges, such as “resisting arrest” or “obstruction,” that result when a citizen makes a futile effort to defend himself.

In an ironic and instructive juxtaposition, Gardner's attack on Massey came at about the same time the Austin Police Department (APD) began to make amends for a remarkably similar assault by one of their own on a motorist on Thanksgiving 2006.

Officer Thomas O'Connor stopped 32-year-old Eugene Snelling (who was driving with his mother to a family Thanksgiving celebration) for driving five miles per hour faster than the posted speed limit and not having a rear license plate. Forty-five seconds later, O'Connor – who had dragged Snelling from the vehicle – shot the motorist with his Taser, despite the fact that Snelling did nothing that could be reasonably construed as a threat.

As the dashcam video of the incident documents, O'Connor was brusque and threatening when he approached Snelling's vehicle. Although he would later tell an internal affairs panel (.pdf) that Snelling refused to hand over his license and insurance information, the time index on the video proves that less than a second transpired between O'Connor's initial request and a second demand, which was delivered in a barking “command voice.”

Understandably put off by O'Connor's truculence, Snelling said, “Whoah, whoah, whoah” as he reached for his documents to comply with the demand. (As Snelling would later recount, O'Connor was "yelling from the get-go."

Salting his bellicosity with mockery, O'Connor shouted, “Not `whoa, whoa, whoa,'” reiterating the demand again. Fishing around for his documents, Snelling was simultaneously dealing with his agitated mother. Oh-- forgive me; did I mention that they're black, and that the APD has a reputation for needless brutality directed against minority citizens, and was under federal scrutiny at the time for the same?

Roughly twenty seconds after stopping Snelling, O'Connor ordered him out of the car, opening the door himself (something he was not legally authorized to do) and physically pulling the driver from his seat. At the same time, his hand went directly to his Taser before Snelling was clear of the vehicle.

Although he would later claim that he pulled the Taser because Snelling seemed to “reach his hand toward me” and “I felt threatened” -- oh, the poor dear! -- the video makes it clear that it was O'Connor's behavior that was needlessly aggressive and unmistakably threatening.

Forty-five seconds after stopping Eugene Snelling, Thomas O'Connor gives him a "ride on the Taser," while Snelling's mother watches in horror.

Predictably enough, O'Connor's immediate supervisor and the internal affairs panel initially exonerated him of wrongful use of the Taser because he “perceived a threat.” He was subsequently suspended for three days by Cathy Ellison, the interim chief of the embattled APD. O'Connor, a former Army MP (scroll down) who has reportedly used a Taser unnecessarily on at least one previous occasion, complained that his suspension was brutally unfair. (He sought to justify his aggressive attitude toward Snelling by saying, inter alia, that he has a "medical condition" -- I'm betting it's hypoglycemia -- that makes him "edgy" when he doesn't eat, as he hadn't on that day.)

Art Acevedo – who, unlike Ellison, appears to be a competent, professional officer – subsequently took over as Chief of the APD, and he recognized in O'Connor's behavior a clearly illicit and unnecessary use of potentially lethal force.

In a video message to APD officers, Acevedo put the matter quite plainly, urging them to ask themselves the following question:

“If a member of my family was stopped by a member of this police department, or any other police department, would I want them [sic] treated in the manner this suspect was treated?”

“Take a really hard look inside [yourself] and ask, `Am I really that officer?'” Acevedo continued, referring to O'Connor's conduct. “Am I treating people that way for a minor traffic violation? If you are, change your behavior.”

At least some Austin police officers – most likely, those who take seriously the idea that they are supposed to be peace officers, rather than an occupying army – responded to Chief Acevedo's challenge by apologizing to Snelling and his family.

I grant that this was a highly qualified gesture (the penitent officers emphasized that they spoke as individuals, not as representatives of the department), and one largely dictated by PR concerns. And one measure of the APD's internal sickness is found in the fact that this is the same department that fired the exemplary police officer Ramon Perez because Officer Perez, a devout Christian and stalwart Constitutionalist, refused to carry out an illegal order to use his Taser against a non-violent elderly suspect.



A complimentary caricature: Officer Ramon Perez, as depicted by an Austin cartoonist.

There is, nonetheless, some faint and fleeting cause for hope in the reform efforts undertaken by APD Chief Acevedo – particularly when contrasted with the sullen arrogance displayed by the UHP in defending the indefensible actions of Trooper Jon Gardner.

UPDATE, 12/3: They're Never Wrong

So, let's say -- and why not -- that you're with the Blytheville, Arkansas Police Department, largely because you can't find honest work.

You and your buddies are sent out to serve an arrest warrant on a guy named Travis Henderson, who failed to appear in court on a reckless driving charge.

You happen at random to come across a harmless-looking black fellow in his early 20s who just happens to be identified as Travis Henderson, albeit not the one you're looking for. This Travis Henderson -- who looks nothing like the mugshot you've been given -- is a mentally handicapped athlete who has received a lot of local publicity for his exploits in the Special Olympics.

So in spite of the fact that this is obviously not the suspect you're looking for, you brace the guy, and when he reacts as any rational person would -- that is, he takes offense at having his workout interrupted for no reason by a bunch of armed thugs -- you hit him with the Taser and arrest him for "resisting arrest" and "disorderly conduct."

Perhaps because you really didn't have reason to do any of this, you just give the guy a low-level "drive" stun, rather than the full treatment.

(Actually, Taser Incorporated has warned that using the "drive-stun" setting while placing the instrument directly against the victim's body is actually more dangerous than firing the darts and delivering the full-force shock.)

The official use-of-force report claims that this utterly gratuitous act of torture (it's called "pain compliance," which is a sanitized way of saying the same thing) is justified because, heck, the poor confused guy pulled away from a pack of three police officers who had no damn right to put their hands on him.

And according to their supervisors, the cops in this situation did the right thing. But then, they always do, no matter how many innocent people get hurt or killed.

"I just feel like ... like I've been treated like an animal or something," Mr. Henderson observed.

Not at all, Travis. There are laws against committing acts of pointless cruelty against animals, or even -- under the right circumstances -- so much as growling at a dog.

Unless, of course, the acts of animal cruelty in question are committed by those sanctified and omnicompetent Heroes in Blue. Then it's a crime to impede those acts.

Blytheville Police Chief Ross Thompson, who really should be placed in stocks and pelted with dead cats and rotten fruit, told the local television news that he stands by the Taser assault on Travis because, you know, he was resisting.

An innocent, mentally handicapped man was resisting the bullying overtures of police officers who knew that he wasn't the suspect they were seeking -- so, of course, it's Taser Time.

The officers involved in this atrocity are Michael Tovar, Brandon Bennett, and Jeremy Joseph Ward. The Chief's name, once again, is Ross Thompson. The Department's phone number is
(870)763-4411.


Dum spiro, pugno!