The Family

[pyrohornIII 4817]

It seems we had a thread on why fundamentalist Christians put up with Trump, but I went back as far as February, but couldn't find it.  

Anyway, I am sure some of you have watched this documentary on Netflix by now and I feel this thing is so powerful and has spanned so many decades and presidencies that it needs its own thread.  

I honestly don't know were to start, from the international stuff with Romania, Russia or Khadaffi, or more in the idea of Trump being the Wolf King this group has been waiting for. 

If you haven't read the books you at least owe it to yourself to watch the doc. 

 

 

[F250 28799]

Seems to walk on the conspiracy theory side of the fence.

 

 

[pyrohornIII 4817]

Curious.  Have you watched it? 

[tantric superman 4667]

10 hours ago, pyrohornIII said:

or more in the idea of Trump being the Wolf King this group has been waiting for. 

Too bad they haven't been waiting for the Wolf.

[Biff Tannen 45694]

I couldn't make it past the 2nd episode.  Even if true, there seems to be fuck all we can do about it.

[kevwun 15811]

Other than trying to pass anti gay marriage laws in other countries, I'm not sure what they have accomplished.  I still have to finish the last episode though. 

[F250 28799]

4 hours ago, pyrohornIII said:

Curious.  Have you watched it? 

Just the trailer and some reviews. I probably won't watch it.

[zork 629]

Better watch yourself around the Meresti Metro station.

[hpslugga 4062]

Those people are lunatics.

[Bama Chick 28596]

Watched it last weekend.

I wasn’t shocked by anything but I was enraged that what basically amounts to a grown up fraternity gets to somehow classify itself as a church so it gets to be exempt from taxation.

Just a bunch of creepos to help each other cover up any scandals that pop up.

I hope some enterprising journalist finds out who’s living in the Jesus Dorm currently.

[RDCanecutter 26458]

7 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

I couldn't make it past the 2nd episode.  Even if true, there seems to be fuck all we can do about it.

I can't even start another series. We are only 72 episodes into Rebelde with more than 300 left to go. The only conspiracy I can handle is whether Nico will stick with good girl Lupita, go off with la mona esa flacucha horrible de Karen for her dad's money, or (my choice) be a pimp and date them both.

 

[hpslugga 4062]

44 minutes ago, Axiom of Choice said:

That trailer should come with a seizure warning.  It averages about one cut per second.  Looks like the typical conspiracy tripe with the cuts and the ominous background music and single sentence quotes peppered every two seconds.

What conspiracy theories is the series peddling?

[hpslugga 4062]

41 minutes ago, Axiom of Choice said:

Based on the few seconds of trailer I saw, maybe something about the secret alliance between the knights Templar and the Illuminati, or maybe that Q guy and the archbishop of Canterbury, or more generally how the presidents all have some vague properties in common and know some of the same people, and these people are the ones who really have all the power. 

Literally none of those things are in that piece.

41 minutes ago, Axiom of Choice said:

But not to worry, because this guy has unraveled this riddle and will tell you all about it. 

What riddle?

41 minutes ago, Axiom of Choice said:

He probably went underground and saw the true chambers of power of the whole country, with ancient rituals involving seals & symbols and the same methods used by Charlemagne, Hitler, and Pope Innocent III to gain power. 

Again, literally none of that is presented.

41 minutes ago, Axiom of Choice said:

It's all happening both underground and in plain sight for those who have the brilliance to see what is really going on.  I'm sure it is some eye opening, far out shit.   

Actually none of it is terribly surprising.

[hpslugga 4062]

2 minutes ago, Axiom of Choice said:

Well, not to the enlightened ones.  But to the unenlightened ones, I'm sure it is unbelievable.  

As an enlightened one, how would you rank the following in terms of overall power?

The family, the juggalo family, George Soros, Q, the bilderbergs, Nikola Tesla, a tyrannosaurus rex.  

It's not about being enlightened. It's about observing instead of making baseless assumptions. There's nothing humble about the latter.

[zork 629]

15 minutes ago, Axiom of Choice said:

Well, not to the enlightened ones.  But to the unenlightened ones, I'm sure it is unbelievable.  

As an enlightened one, how would you rank the following in terms of overall power?

The family, the juggalo family, George Soros, Q, the bilderbergs, Nikola Tesla, a tyrannosaurus rex.  

 

imgur

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" />

 

https://www.thedisorderly.com/home/2017/10/30/the-spotlight-jimmy-kimmel-says-man-show-mcu-marvel-thor-hulk-movie-news

Edited August 21, 2019 by zork

[JimmyJames 12271]

2 hours ago, Axiom of Choice said:

Based on the few seconds of trailer I saw, maybe something about the secret alliance between the knights Templar and the Illuminati, or maybe that Q guy and the archbishop of Canterbury, or more generally how the presidents all have some vague properties in common and know some of the same people, and these people are the ones who really have all the power.  But not to worry, because this guy has unraveled this riddle and will tell you all about it.  He probably went underground and saw the true chambers of power of the whole country, with ancient rituals involving seals & symbols and the same methods used by Charlemagne, Hitler, and Pope Innocent III to gain power.  It's all happening both underground and in plain sight for those who have the brilliance to see what is really going on.  I'm sure it is some eye opening, far out shit.   

What’s your agenda here?

[hpslugga 4062]

6 minutes ago, Axiom of Choice said:

Blatant mockery.  

What/who are you mocking?

Edited August 21, 2019 by hpslugga

[TornACL 7722]

I don't know man, it's not full blown tin foil bullshit unless Parliament comes here to tell us all about it. 

[TornACL 7722]

Sometimes it's comforting to believe that the world is carefully and secretly controlled by evil forces, rather than to accept that the world is a series of dumb moments accidentally kicked off by reckless idiots. 

[hpslugga 4062]

11 hours ago, Axiom of Choice said:

It's not Q and 9/11 truther level.  Definitely has better production quality.  But the trailer above contains the following tidbits: "I stumbled my way in to a secret organization hiding in plain sight," "group with tentacles around the world," "most powerful man in Washington you've never heard of," "the more invisible you can make your organization, the more influence it will have."  Episode titles according to Wikipedia are Submersion, Chosen, New World Order, Dictators, Murderers & Thieves, and Wolf King.  Secret organization all about power, the most powerful people we've never heard of, tentacles all over the world, New World Order, Wolf King.  But definitely not like the other conspiracy theories on secret powerful organizations according to some on this thread.  

Ok, so the trailer, sound bytes and the episode titles are all we need to know.

Well that's a relief, because for a moment there, I thought you were being all superficial.

[formermav43 4606]

15 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

Ok, so the trailer, sound bytes and the episode titles are all we need to know.

Well that's a relief, because for a moment there, I thought you were being all superficial.

His first comment, that led you to initially question him, was about the trailer. His response to that literally began “Based on the few seconds of trailer I saw...”

If you’re just now figuring out that the trailer is the sole basis of his commentary, that’s on you.

[hpslugga 4062]

1 minute ago, formermav43 said:

His first comment, that led you to initially question him, was about the trailer. His response to that literally began “Based on the few seconds of trailer I saw...”

If you’re just now figuring out that the trailer is the sole basis of his commentary, that’s on you.

And I'm accusing him of judging a book by its cover. Figured that was obvious.

[formermav43 4606]

3 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

And I'm accusing him of judging a book by its cover. Figured that was obvious.

I get that, but you’re trying to question him about the book when he admits that he’s only see the cover. He’s explicitly judging the cover, not the book. You’re challenging an argument he isn’t making.

For what it’s worth, I haven’t seen it. It might be completely factual, meticulously researched. But that “cover” in the op makes it look completely insane. He’s right about that.

[hpslugga 4062]

18 minutes ago, formermav43 said:

I get that, but you’re trying to question him about the book when he admits that he’s only see the cover. He’s explicitly judging the cover, not the book. You’re challenging an argument he isn’t making.

That's just not true, and you knew better than to say something like that. As far as what arguments he was making, I quoted them and addressed them in the fullest context of how he was making them. He began with:

"Looks like the typical conspiracy tripe with the cuts and the ominous background music and single sentence quotes peppered every two seconds."

I asked him what conspiracy theories the series advanced. That's a legitimate question regardless of how you personally feel about it. Now, to his credit, he did answer my question instead of dodging it. He said:

"maybe something about the secret alliance between the knights Templar and the Illuminati, or maybe that Q guy and the archbishop of Canterbury, or more generally how the presidents all have some vague properties in common and know some of the same people, and these people are the ones who really have all the power."

As I correctly informed him, none of those themes are even remotely mentioned, much less are they asserted, neither in the series nor even in the trailer. From that point, he should have stopped. You seem to believe that he just stopped there, but he didn't. He doubled down with a baseless assumption about both the book AND the cover, and further went on to state that his agenda was "Blatant mockery."

When I asked him who he fancied that he was mocking, he said:

"blatant mockery of the documentary mentioned in the OP,"

So he wasn't just mocking the cover, he was mocking the book as well, so your contention that "He’s explicitly judging the cover, not the book" is just wrong. He may have started out that way, but he doubled down and you can't just ignore that part of it.

Quote

For what it’s worth, I haven’t seen it. It might be completely factual, meticulously researched. But that “cover” in the op makes it look completely insane. He’s right about that.

See, that's a much more honest take and I'd accept that. What I reject is that from only viewing a trailer can someone actually say "It's not Q and 9/11 truther level." Again, you knew that.

Edited August 21, 2019 by hpslugga

[kevwun 15811]

Dude, you are arguing with a tree. 

[formermav43 4606]

5 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

That's just not true, and you knew better than to say something like that. As far as what arguments he was making, I quoted them and addressed them in the fullest context of how he was making them. He began with:

"Looks like the typical conspiracy tripe with the cuts and the ominous background music and single sentence quotes peppered every two seconds."

I asked him what conspiracy theories the series advanced. That's a legitimate question regardless of how you personally feel about it. Now, to his credit, he did answer my question instead of dodging it. He said:

"maybe something about the secret alliance between the knights Templar and the Illuminati, or maybe that Q guy and the archbishop of Canterbury, or more generally how the presidents all have some vague properties in common and know some of the same people, and these people are the ones who really have all the power."

As I correctly informed him, none of those themes are even remotely mentioned, much less are they asserted, neither in the series nor even in the trailer. From that point, he should have stopped. You seem to believe that he just stopped there, but he didn't. He doubled down with a baseless assumption about both the book AND the cover, and further went on to state that his agenda was "Blatant mockery."

When I asked him who he fancied that he was mocking, he said:

"blatant mockery of the documentary mentioned in the OP,"

So he wasn't just mocking the cover, he was mocking the book as well, so your contention that "He’s explicitly judging the cover, not the book" is just wrong. He may have started out that way, but he doubled down and you can't just ignore that part of it.

See, that's a much more honest take and I'd accept that. What I reject is that from only viewing a trailer can someone actually say "It's not Q and 9/11 truther level." Again, you knew that.

You’re not quoting him in the fullest context now, for the record. You omitted “Based on the few seconds of trailer I saw...” prefacing the conspiracy theories the series might advance, which I’d say is fairly important.. But, at any rate, it seems we are essentially in agreement thus far, since you’d admit I’d be correct if he’d stopped there.

So this hinges on him stating he’s mocking “the documentary” rather than “the trailer.” That is about as pedantic a distinction as you can make. I say that partly in irritation, partly as a compliment. Because it’s stupid, but you’re correct.

[RDCanecutter 26458]

15 hours ago, Axiom of Choice said:

 As an enlightened one, how would you rank the following in terms of overall power?

The family, the juggalo family, George Soros, Q, the bilderbergs, Nikola Tesla, a tyrannosaurus rex.  

T-Rex is first, Juggalo second, all others distant third.

This is based on potential. A Juggalo cannot become a T-Rex, but a T-Rex could become a Juggalo.

[Incredulity 11679]

What about the Kentucky Colonel and his wee beady eyes?

 

[Bama Chick 28596]

I mean I have no issue if someone is critical of the documentary but they should at least watch the damn thing if anyone is to take their opinions seriously.

And the whole “Wolf King ” thing is a metaphor the group uses. It’s not some weird ceremony or actual person.

Going back way back to my days at Ivanwald, they were always sort of talking about the sheep and wolves. I remember hearing them asking, what if Christ came not for the sheep but for the wolves? This becomes more articulated in this parable of the wolf king. The idea is that the leader of the pack is the most powerful figure. And you can go to the most powerful figure and you can pry open that door and say, let’s come alongside you.

The movement sought out wolf kings around the world — in Indonesia and Somalia, Guatemala and El Salvador — and lent American support to those regimes.

But within the United States, they still had to work within this shape of democracy. Now at last Trump, the wolf king, has arrived at home. And it doesn’t matter that he’s a believer. The wolf king likes strength and you’re going to put your strength alongside his. That’s the transitional moment we see in the film that we’re in. The Family’s practices that were once mainly just overseas are now coming home.

And Jeff Shartlet, the guy who wrote the book the documentary is based on and is interviewed extensively in the documentary, actually lived at the Ivanwald compound and worked with The Family.

To write it off as clownery because the marketing monkeys at Netflix put together a hokey trailer is pretty shallow and dumb.

[Bama Chick 28596]

Wait.

You’re equating an organization that acknowledges it exists and it’s members who appear in this documentary and discuss the group’s existence and practices with literal made up bullshittery?

The documentary does not allege anything about The Family that is illegal or nefarious. It includes footage of current and historical members admitting their goals and objectives.

There is nothing about this group that is anything like Q or 9/11 truther garbage.

Why are you so invested in this fabricated nonsense? Why do you refuse to watch it? Are you that afraid to discover that religious folks are working together to drive policy?

And it’s not just in America. The doc has interviews with members bragging about their efforts in Russia and other countries to influence anti-gay legislation.

My congressman’s many trips to Romania to lobby for making homosexuality illegal are featured.

This is an article that talks about the same stuff highlighted in the doc -

The Christian group that runs the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. sponsored a trip to Romania for a member of Congress to meet with a local political leader accused of anti-Semitism, the left-wing news outlet TYT Network reported Wednesday.

Republican Rep. Robert Aderholt of Alabama met with Marian Munteanu on two separate occasions during his trip in May 2017 organized by the Fellowship Foundation, TYT reported, citing federal travel disclosure records. Other records show that Aderholt and Munteanu also met in May 2015 on another trip organized by the foundation.

The purpose of the trips was to “build new and maintain old relationships with business leaders and officials from throughout the region,” according to the travel records.

According to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency report citing the Romanian newspaper Evenimentul Zilei, Munteanu signed a letter in 1994 accusing Jewish groups of exaggerating the number of Romanian Jews killed in the Holocaust in order to “obtain illicit moneys from Romanian people through disinformation and manipulation of public opinion, with the complicity of treacherous elements who infiltrated the Romanian institutional structures.”

In 2016, Munteanu criticized a law against anti-Semitic speech and Holocaust denial, claiming there is hardly any anti-Semitism in Romania. “We are all philo-Semites because we are all Christians,” Munteanu explained.

Munteanu attended last year’s National Prayer Breakfast, according to a Romanian report citing Munteanu’s Facebook page. The report does not identify who invited him.

Munteanu said in a Facebook post last year that the founder of the Fellowship Foundation, Doug Coe, was a “close friend.” Munteanu’s personal website also includes a photo of the two together.

The National Prayer Breakfast has come under increased scrutiny in recent days after the FBI accused alleged Russian operative Maria Butina of using the event to create a backchannel between conservative operatives and Russian officials.

Find me a documentary on 9/11 truthers or QAnon that is corroborated by other legitimate media and includes interviews with subjects admitting to their participation and I’ll take it seriously.

You usually seem pretty smart but this ridiculous comparison you’re pushing is quite the opposite of smart.

[High Plains Drifter 11050]

On 8/20/2019 at 10:32 PM, TornACL said:

Sometimes it's comforting to believe that the world is carefully and secretly controlled by evil forces, rather than to accept that the world is a series of dumb moments accidentally kicked off by reckless idiots. 

 

Idiocracy vs Pure Evil.

 

Whose side you on?

[pyrohornIII 4817]

21 hours ago, Axiom of Choice said:

Higher grade conspiracy than Q is not exactly a high bar to clear.  One can string together clips and footage of most any organization and make them seem much more powerful and nefarious than they are in reality.   I'm not going to waste time watching a 5 part documentary that was clearly marketed to appeal to those who are allured by a conspiracy of the type.  

Then why are you wasting your time trying to discredit something you haven't even watched?  We are all aware you think this is some slanted conspiracy fluff.   I am not big on conspiracies, either.  Since the beginning of this whole Trump fiasco, I (and others) have asked why the religious right have not only tied their wagon to Trump, but are willing to go over the cliff for him.  This documentary seemed like it could have some answers to that question.  I started this thread to get some input from others. 

As Kevwun said up thread, what have they really accomplished, outside the Romanian gay marriage thing, (which failed, btw)? 

Well, they started off in the beginning by busting unions and collective bargaining, in order to help the poor, ostensibly.  They target the leaders of the world in order to convince them that changing their policies to fall in line with the ideals of The Family is saintly, so to speak.  Leading by doing God's will, which is learned by devout prayer.  The part where they have infiltrated Russia and are proclaiming Putin as the probable savior of Christianity is telling, it fits in with Butina and the NRA.  The national prayer breakfast was the original back channel that Butina got charged with.  Putin and others saw this as a way to infiltrate our government on a different level, and all the while these fellowship guys were thinking they were/are bringing Putin and the Russian mob to the altar of rebirth and repentance.

This group's main goal is to spread Jesus throughout the world, and to use political leaders to do so.  So when one of our congressmen travels to another country, those politicos receiving them first see the power of the US they represent, would they be willing to play the Jesus game to get whatever they want from the US? 

This Jesus they are spreading is their own version.  They actually abridged the Bible to excerpt everything except what they want to share.  They seem to care more about policy than the poor. 

It is the ultimate wolf in sheep's clothing play.   And while many may see this as a good thing, that it could definitely be totally benevolent, it also teeters constantly on the line of abuse of power/abusing the rules (see the comment about the fake church on C street).

So, yes it could come across as a target piece on these humble servants of Jesus, but it could be an expose on an organization that's been playing the long game for decades. 

I think Christianity is losing strength and its base is shrinking.  The world is changing and religious leaders are probably the most resistant to change.   I think they see Trump as their champion, even though he doesn't represent the Christian ideals many people hold.  But the return to Jesus is a large part of making America great again.  I think he sees the power they can give him and some of their agendas go hand in hand.  They are both using each other.  And ultimately, this group will sink, right along with Trump, because they are tied so tightly to him. 

He really has been chosen, just ask them, or him. 

This is the type of discussion I was hoping for with this thread. 

 

 

[pyrohornIII 4817]

1 hour ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

Idiocracy vs Pure Evil.

 

Whose side you on?

I think the current administration embodies both rather well.

[bolverk 29695]

49 minutes ago, pyrohornIII said:

Then why are you wasting your time trying to discredit something you haven't even watched?  We are all aware you think this is some slanted conspiracy fluff.   I am not big on conspiracies, either.  Since the beginning of this whole Trump fiasco, I (and others) have asked why the religious right have not only tied their wagon to Trump, but are willing to go over the cliff for him.  This documentary seemed like it could have some answers to that question.  I started this thread to get some input from others. 

As Kevwun said up thread, what have they really accomplished, outside the Romanian gay marriage thing, (which failed, btw)? 

Well, they started off in the beginning by busting unions and collective bargaining, in order to help the poor, ostensibly.  They target the leaders of the world in order to convince them that changing their policies to fall in line with the ideals of The Family is saintly, so to speak.  Leading by doing God's will, which is learned by devout prayer.  The part where they have infiltrated Russia and are proclaiming Putin as the probable savior of Christianity is telling, it fits in with Butina and the NRA.  The national prayer breakfast was the original back channel that Butina got charged with.  Putin and others saw this as a way to infiltrate our government on a different level, and all the while these fellowship guys were thinking they were/are bringing Putin and the Russian mob to the altar of rebirth and repentance.

This group's main goal is to spread Jesus throughout the world, and to use political leaders to do so.  So when one of our congressmen travels to another country, those politicos receiving them first see the power of the US they represent, would they be willing to play the Jesus game to get whatever they want from the US? 

This Jesus they are spreading is their own version.  They actually abridged the Bible to excerpt everything except what they want to share.  They seem to care more about policy than the poor. 

It is the ultimate wolf in sheep's clothing play.   And while many may see this as a good thing, that it could definitely be totally benevolent, it also teeters constantly on the line of abuse of power/abusing the rules (see the comment about the fake church on C street).

So, yes it could come across as a target piece on these humble servants of Jesus, but it could be an expose on an organization that's been playing the long game for decades. 

I think Christianity is losing strength and its base is shrinking.  The world is changing and religious leaders are probably the most resistant to change.   I think they see Trump as their champion, even though he doesn't represent the Christian ideals many people hold.  But the return to Jesus is a large part of making America great again.  I think he sees the power they can give him and some of their agendas go hand in hand.  They are both using each other.  And ultimately, this group will sink, right along with Trump, because they are tied so tightly to him. 

He really has been chosen, just ask them, or him. 

This is the type of discussion I was hoping for with this thread. 

 

 

I've not watched the show nor even the trailer and had never heard of The Family until this thread. But your description seems to go hand-in-hand with the clash of civilizations speech Bannon gave at the Vatican a few years ago about uniting the Judeo-Christian world that (I think) also gave support to Putin's effort to be seen as a Christian leader opposing Western liberalism and decadence.

[triplehorn 2664]

I watched the series last week and think it was well done.  It leaves room to read between the lines as opposed to drawing conspiratorial conclusions, which is an important distinction that lends credibility to the overall production and limited access one person had despite his unique personal involvement.

I break the series down into a few categories that are observable and substantiated in our government by simple attention to what's been going on in more or less plain sight:

1) The Family is a patriarchal alliance.  It's male dominated with women playing a detached non-determinative nurturing role.  Turns out that perfectly exemplifies GOP representation present and past.

2) Christianity was usurped as a wedge tool by GOP House politicians for polarization as a scheme to regain power, not to further a broader embrace of underlying positive tenets of how to treat and take of oneself and others as Jesus taught.

3) The Family with its WH/Congressional liaisons acting on the international stage is an off the books network for two-way political negotiation and influence, likely in gross violation of Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), for starters.  That is not to mention its apparent dishonest priority of preserving tax exempt status while masking political initiatives to influence legislation at home and abroad in a manner that further polarizes populations as a lever to further promote (male) authoritarian political power.

4) The series provides some detailed examples where The Family embraces concepts like "the Wolf King" and application of the King David/Bathsheba biblical story to justify enmeshing with and defending corrupt "sinful" political actors.  For me, this is probably the biggest danger.  When the ends justify the means, a system of government based on honesty, integrity, and upholding the rule of law disintegrates.  The "ends" that result from that rationalization are anything but what is intended.  It perfectly explains where we are today with a criminal sexual predator as president, and a GOP brigade of old white men too compromised to accomplish anything remotely resembling the teachings of Jesus or anything beneficial to the vitality and health of our diverse nation.  In fact, it's the opposite.

 

Edited August 24, 2019 by triplehorn

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13585]

5 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

4) The series provides some detailed examples where The Family embraces concepts like "the Wolf King" and application of the King David/Bathsheba biblical story to justify enmeshing with and defending corrupt "sinful" political actors.  

Look-At-Me Christians using the Old Testament as their default position when it contradicts the more direct, explicit teachings of Christ? Par for the course.

[triplehorn 2664]

I'd add that number 4) above is why I am fundamentally an independent.  It's a function of process and not being beholden to ideals.  Ideals don't mean shit when the process is corrupt and ideals only serve as a dangle never meant to be realized.  It applies to all political stripes. 

Furthermore, when an individual or group of individuals execute any process with honesty, integrity, and adherence to existing laws, a flexible adaptive balance is maintained where common sense shifts can occur to the left or right without political fracture or rigid destabilizing extremes.  It's a natural regression to a mean of functionality.  I look at the quality and character of individual(s) as determinative of my support, not any of their promised outcomes.  

 

Edited August 24, 2019 by triplehorn

[Bama Chick 28596]

I watched the series last week and think it was well done.  It leaves room to read between the lines as opposed to drawing conspiratorial conclusions, which is an important distinction that lends credibility to the overall production and limited access one person had despite his unique personal involvement.

I break the series down into a few categories that are observable and substantiated in our government by simple attention to what's been going on in more or less plain sight:

1) The Family is a patriarchal alliance.  It's male dominated with women playing a detached non-determinative nurturing role.  Turns out that perfectly exemplifies GOP representation present and past.

2) Christianity was usurped as a wedge tool by GOP House politicians for polarization as a scheme to regain power, not to further a broader embrace of underlying positive tenets of how to treat and take of oneself and others as Jesus taught.

3) The Family with its WH/Congressional liaisons acting on the international stage is an off the books network for two-way political negotiation and influence, likely in gross violation of Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), for starters.  That is not to mention its apparent dishonest priority of preserving tax exempt status while masking political initiatives to influence legislation at home and abroad in a manner that further polarizes populations as a lever to further promote (male) authoritarian political power.

4) The series provides some detailed examples where The Family embraces concepts like "the Wolf King" and application of the King David/Bathsheba biblical story to justify enmeshing with and defending corrupt "sinful" political actors.  For me, this is probably the biggest danger.  When the ends justify the means, a system of government based on honesty, integrity, and upholding the rule of law disintegrates.  The "ends" that result from that rationalization are anything but what is intended.  It perfectly explains where we are today with a criminal sexual predator as president, and a GOP brigade of old white men too compromised to accomplish anything remotely resembling the teachings of Jesus or anything beneficial to the vitality and health of our diverse nation.  In fact, it's the opposite.

 

 

Yeah but the trailer uses spooky music and stuff so it’s totally just like QAnon and 9/11 Truther conspiracy stuff!

 

So get out of here with your logic and facts based on actually watching the series!!!!

[JimmyJames 12271]

The larger story here is not that the family controls the government, they don’t. 

Its that there are many groups just like them and of a similar mindset, that do control the government and have caused serious harm to this country for many decades in order to establish their vision, which at the bottom line is simply to enrich themselves at the expense of all of us, despite their high minded bullshit ideals, which are simply a front for the overarching enrichment goal. 

[RDCanecutter 26458]

11 hours ago, JimmyJames said:

The larger story here is not that the family controls the government, they don’t. 

Its that there are many groups just like them and of a similar mindset, that do control the government and have caused serious harm to this country for many decades in order to establish their vision, which at the bottom line is simply to enrich themselves at the expense of all of us, despite their high minded bullshit ideals, which are simply a front for the overarching enrichment goal. 

[BrickHorn 18255]

On 8/21/2019 at 10:50 AM, Axiom of Choice said:

There are lots of crackpot conspiracies and various other forms of crankery out there that most will dismiss after a cursory review because that is all they deserve.  

If you think that shit is easily-dismissed crankery, just wait until you read “The Bible.”

Edited August 25, 2019 by BrickHorn

[pyrohornIII 4817]

 

On 8/24/2019 at 10:52 PM, JimmyJames said:

The larger story here is not that the family controls the government, they don’t. 

Its that there are many groups just like them and of a similar mindset, that do control the government and have caused serious harm to this country for many decades in order to establish their vision, which at the bottom line is simply to enrich themselves at the expense of all of us, despite their high minded bullshit ideals, which are simply a front for the overarching enrichment goal. 

They may not control the government, but they certainly have influenced policy.  Gay rights and abortion come to mind.  This move to try to change the 501(c)(3) tax code to allow preaching politics from the pulpit is another.   

Yeah, we've gone from Tammy Faye to selling gruel by the bucket.   But I do think there are some naive ones in there who feel they are doing some divine calling, but really are just pawns of the charlatans. 

 

[JimmyJames 12271]

4 hours ago, pyrohornIII said:

 

They may not control the government, but they certainly have influenced policy.  Gay rights and abortion come to mind.  This move to try to change the 501(c)(3) tax code to allow preaching politics from the pulpit is another.   

Yeah, we've gone from Tammy Faye to selling gruel by the bucket.   But I do think there are some naive ones in there who feel they are doing some divine calling, but really are just pawns of the charlatans. 

 

Just like the boxing business, all of these groups are filled to the brim with unrealistic mother fuckers and pawns who thought they would age like wine, and who naively thought they were doing God’s work, when in point of fact they were and are doing the opposite of God’s work, as they are actually doing the nihilistic bidding of the/their owners.

It’s why these groups can be so influential. It’s a severe problem.