Five Before Chaos

I have to give a huge thanks to Mike Huckabee, for so many reasons. First off, for drawing more attention to how nutty the fundies really are. It’s not like it shouldn’t have been obvious to those paying attention, but of course, when you’re competing with American Idol, peoples’ attention is usually elsewhere.

Secondly, I’d like to thank him in accelerating the fracturing of the unholy cabal that makes up the Republican party - the warmongers, the millionaire/corporatists, and the religious nuts. The nuts really never had much in common with the other two (although they do share the aura of perpetual pants-pooping fear that typifies the warmongers).

See, everything was fine and dandy till Huck started up with the populist crap, something that really has no place in the Republican party. Then he was persona non grata. Hopefully, the fundie contingent is slowly waking up to the fact that they’ve been used, nothing more. Vote against gay marriage, get a capital gains tax cut. Vote to end abortion, get a huge corporate subsidy. Then again, looking at what these people believe, they do tend to be some of the most gullible and least inclined to critical thinking people in the country, so there’s really nothing surprising here. What they believe and what they want to make this country into will never happen, nor ever will it be a majority position. Sometimes I wish the Rapture would actually come so it would take these people away and I can ransack their belongings.There’s gotta be some cash in there somewhere with those Left Behind books, brilliantly Caucasian Jesus pictures and hairspray.

Lastly, I’d like to thank him for giving me so much content for the blog. “Mike Huckabee + dumb” and its many permutations have been my biggest Google referral so far.

Go below the jump for more Huckery as well as some commentary about William Jennings Bryan. It’s a long one.

Anyways, with the whole Mitt/McCain scenario being the dominant, emerging one, it seems like Huck’s going to be put out to pasture fairly soon. He might stick around for some of the other Bible-belt primaries, but the writing’s on the wall. So, that means that I’m not going to have too many Huckalicious posts anymore. So, gotta strike while the iron’ shot, so to speak.

There’s a new independent media project out there focussed on DC politics that’s been making the rounds. It just got off the ground in the last few days, and it’s actually quite good, not reeking of the hack punditry as much as some of the others, and light years better than The Politico. It’s called The Washington Independent, and it’s a project of the Center for Independent Media. Bookmark it.

The WI has two great pieces up on the Huckster right now that are both worth reading. The first, Arkansas Teachers Avoided Evolution Under Huckabee, talks about a problem that is all too familiar to readers of FBC - the right-wing pressure to get a creationist viewpoint into public school classes, at the expense of evolutionary theory. Apparently, under Hucakabee, an unabashed young-earth creationist, there was a climate that made it quite difficult for evolution to be taught in the classroom:

Yet Huckabee didn’t intervene publicly in the Department of Education, and even critics cannot uncover a paper trail of active resistance to teaching evolution. In fact, toward the end of Huckabee’s 10-year reign, the state science curriculum was updated to include use of the word “evolution” for the first time. “He’s slippery,” says Jason R. Wiles, an Arkansas-raised science educator who teaches biology at Syracuse University and manages McGill University’s Evolution Education Research Center.

But Huckabee’s obvious sympathies, and the intransigence of Fundamentalist school board officials, led Arkansas science educators to self-censor. Administrators cautioned science educators against using the “e-word” in their encounters with schools and students. At the Arkansas Museum of Discovery, the traditional state science museum, for example, museum officials removed an evolution exhibit amid a whispering campaign about the ire of conservative powers.

Yes, I know, Huckabee cannot be accused of anything directly. But there’s no denying that the man at the top sets the tone, and seriously, would any governor truly concerned about having the best science program allow something like this?:

About a fifth of Arkansas teachers teach straight evolution, while another 30 percent teach “something along those lines,” according to a survey by state education officials. The other 50 percent don’t teach it, either because of their own weaknesses or community opposition. About 10 percent teach straight creationism.

That’s really outrageous, yet another reason I’m glad to live in Vermont, a stark contrast. If one takes the time to look at our scientific standards by grade, they’d see that as early as grades 1-2, children are expected to “demonstrate their understanding of Evolution/Natural Selection by…Identifying physical similarities and differences between living extinct things. (e.g., wooly mammoth/elephant; reptiles/dinosaurs).” Now, I don’t know how well that it’s implemented, but the intention is quite clear: a good understanding of science is vital to an educated citizenry. Vermont gets that.

And I know of a certain conservative out there who will probably chime in that it’s “not that important that kids learn about the intricacies of evolution, it has nothing to do with their day-to-day life”. Well, in terms of preparing one for college, it certainly matters (of course, moreso depending on the field of study), but more importantly is the larger issue of the importance of knowledge. Many fundies, since what they believe is so far removed from any kind of reality other than the one they’ve deluded themselves into believing, fail to grasp the inherent importance of knowledge for its own sake as a worthwhile human endeavor. They really fail to see the merits of an educated populace, in part because they realize that their worldview would be much less accepted and tolerated in a more educated nation, pushed into the fringes where it rightfully belongs.

Oh, yeah, I was talking about Huckabee, wasn’t I? Not hard to get me riled up when talking about the fundies. Sorry ’bout that.

The second Hucknugget, also from the Washington Independent, is as valuable as a history lesson as it is a criticism of Huckabee. It’s called What Evangelical Populism Lost, and its focus is primarily on another, more famous and undoubtedly more influential and important evangelical populist, William Jennings Bryan. Democrat Bryan ran and lost against William McKinley in 1896, in part on a huge emphasis of what’s known as the “Social Gospel” (an interpretation that emphasizes good works and concern for the poor instead of an obsession of what (or rather who) people are putting into their orifices). The media narrative, history-blind as ever, has made comparisons of Huck’s campaign to Bryan’s. The WI’ is a bit more accurate:

Bryan helped initiate the progressive income tax; Huckabee wants to abolish it in favor of a national sales tax that would fall most heavily on the working and middle class. Bryan tried to expand federal power to aid working people; Huckabee opposes universal health care “mandated by federal edict.” Bryan was the first major-party nominee to receive the official backing of organized labor; most unions shun Huckabee, who governed a right-to-work state where Wal-Mart has its headquarters. Bryan hated war and resigned as secretary of state in 1915, when he thought President Woodrow Wilson was leading the U.S. into the hell of World War I; Huckabee strenuously supports the war in Iraq.

How to apply one’s faith to public life has always been a controversial matter. In 1896, Bryan’s Republican opponents lambasted him for using the Crucifixion as a metaphor for his monetary policy. But neither in that campaign, nor during his two other races for president (1900 and 1908), did he ever, like Huckabee, advertise himself as “a Christian leader,” give sermons in churches or call for amending the Constitution to fit “God’s standards.”

For Bryan, who idolized Thomas Jefferson, the separation between church and state was absolute. As an exponent of the Social Gospel, he used the Bible to justify aid to the poor and scorn for the rich – not to install his faith into law. What’s more, he needed the votes of Catholics and Jews, and so avoided taking positions that would alienate them.

Yes, Bryan was also the antagonist in the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial, long after his political aspirations had ceased. A big black mark, undoubtedly, but there’s no denying his political legacy. Can you honestly imaging Huck saying something like this (from Bryan’s speech delivered in Indianapolis in 1900) about imperialism?(emphasis mine):

The Democratic party is not making war upon the honest acquisition of wealth; it has no desire to discourage industry, economy and thrift. On the contrary, it gives to every citizen the greatest possible stimulus to honest toil when it promises him protection in the enjoyment of the proceeds of his labor. Property rights are most secure when human rights are most respected. Democracy strives for civilization in which every member of society will share according to his merits.No one has a right to expect from a society more than a fair compensation for the services which he renders to society. If he secures more it is at the expense of some one else. It is no injustice to him to prevent his doing injustice to another. To him who would, either through class legislation or in the absence of necessary legislation, trespass upon the rights of another the Democratic party says “Thou shalt not.”

Against us are arrayed a comparatively small but politically and financially powerful number who really profit by Republican policies; but with them are associated a large number who, because of their attachment to their party name, are giving their support to doctrines antagonistic to the former teachings of their own party.

And this next segment describes to a tee what has happened with the Iraq mess (emphasis mine):

For a time Republican leaders were inclined to deny to opponents the right to criticize the Philippine policy of the administration, but upon investigation they found that both Lincoln and Clay asserted and exercised the right to criticize a President during the progress of the Mexican war.

Instead of meeting the issue boldly and submitting a clear and positive plan for dealing with the Philippine question, the Republican convention adopted a platform the larger part of which was devoted to boasting and self-congratulation…

But they shall not be permitted to evade the stupendous and far-reaching issue which they have deliberately brought into the arena of politics. When the president, supported by a practically unanimous vote of the House and Senate, entered upon a war with Spain for the purpose of aiding the struggling patriots of Cuba, the country, without regard to party, applauded.

Although the Democrats realized that the administration would necessarily gain a political advantage from the conduct of a war which in the very nature of the case must soon end in a complete victory, they vied with the Republicans in the support which they gave to the president. When the war was over and the Republican leaders began to suggest the propriety of a colonial policy opposition at once manifested itself.

When the President finally laid before the Senate a treaty which recognized the independence of Cuba, but provided for the cession of the Philippine Islands to the United States, the menace of imperialism became so apparent that many preferred to reject the treaty and risk the ills that might follow rather than take the chance of correcting the errors of the treaty by the independent action of this country.

Jeezus, Bryan was reading the tea leaves, wasn’t he? More realistically, what we see here is just that the times, faces, and places may be different, but war hysteria(and the shameless capitulation by the “opposition”) is indeed timeless. And no, I’m not letting Bryan off of the hook for his batshit insane religious beliefs. I’m just not denying that the man was a gifted speaker who had a profound impact on American politics. And to quote the article once more, he had a profound effect on the Democratic Party, as well:

Before the 1896 campaign, the Democrats were a bastion of merchants and bankers who cringed at corporate regulation and viewed labor unions as a threat to their profits. Bryan paved the way for Wilson’s New Freedom and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. He may have been the most successful loser in American political history.

Huckabee is no Bryan, that’s for sure. What’s more, the modern day DC Dems could undoubtedly learn much from Bryan (like what it means to have principles and to not compromise them, for example).

Anyways, so long, Huck. It’s been fun, and I’m really going to miss the asinine, uninformed fundie Christian worldview that you put out for us, day after day.

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Tags: evangelicals, Mike Huckabee