I just read in Salon an article by Jeff Shalter, The Democrats' New "Family" Values .  When I posted on Sunday,   American Theocrats Use Healthcare to Control Women  I knew this was a big deal. 

This is a planned and concerted effort to take away women's rights by the Christian Right.  It's beyond the Catholic Bishops.  It's a true insurgency into the Democratic Party by the Christian Right, the Fundementalists.  We are on the march towards a theocracy.    Many say, don't get worked up, take one for the team, it's for the greater good.  

I am enough of a pragmatist to see that and because I do want the greater good, I could consider it.  But frankly, the more I think about it, at this point, I will not support the Healthcare Bill with the Stupak amendment.

Why do you say would I risk the whole thing for a single interest group, women?  Well, I would do that because it's part of the culture wars that we cannot lose.  We cannot keep losing rights.  We started with the GLBT community  and now we move to women.  Once they strip you of a right, it's practically impossible to get it back. Who will be sacrificed next for this tyranical minority of the Fundementalists? 

Stupak is a member of the Family.   Stupak , a Congressman from Michigan who pushed the theocratic anti woman amendment to the Health Reform Bill.  Why should this little nerdy putz matter?  When you learn about the Family, you will see why Stupak must not be allowed to win this fight.  

The Family is a worldwide organization that has redefined religion in the language of empire.  They describe themselves as the "avant garde", a small core group,  the leaders of a revolution, modeling themselves after the revolutionary cadres, ready to change the world.  They are represented  in all industries and at all levels of the government.  They declare themselves to be a nation within a nation. They are ecumenical and bipartisan.  And they have a web that is world wide. 

Stupak is a brother resident in the house on C Street in DC.  The house on C street, is a house were the brothers live.  Among them live a number of our elected representatives.  Stupak, has lived at C street since 2002, he made a speech last year titled:  "God-led government."

_{(C Street House, sorry Salon, I borrowed the image)}

Jeff Sharlet wrote an excellent book called The Family and expose of the inner workings of this secretive organization that sponsors something that seems benign, the Annual Prayer Breakfast.  Sharlet lived under cover in the house on C Street.  The Family functions under a great deal of secrecy. 

Here is an  excerpt from a Shalter article in Salon about the Family: 

But Family men are more than hypocritical. They're followers of a political religion that embraces elitism, disdains democracy, and pursues power for its members the better to "advance the Kingdom." They say they're working for Jesus, but their Christ is a power-hungry, inside-the-Beltway savior not many churchgoers would recognize. Sexual peccadilloes aside, the Family acts today like the most powerful lobby in America that isn't registered as a lobby -- and is thus immune from the scrutiny attending the other powerful organizations like Big Pharma and Big Insurance that exert pressure on public policy.

I advise you to read Sharlet's article in Salon and get his book.  If you were worried about socialists taking over our government, get a load of these guys. 

When you read this book, you will honestly be scared out of your wits.   These are not the moronic bible thumping ministers you can dismiss, we are talking about a worlwide organization that has a mission of placing it's members in positions of power.  

The Family likes to call itself a "Christian Mafia," but it began 74 years ago as an anti-New Deal coalition of businessmen convinced that organized labor was under the sway of Satan. The Great Depression, they believed, was a punishment from God for what they viewed as FDR's socialism. The Family's goal was the "consecration" of America to God, first through the repeal of New Deal reforms, then through the aggressive expansion of American power during the Cold War. They called this a "Worldwide Spiritual Offensive," but in Washington, it amounted to the nation's first fundamentalist lobby. Early participants included Southern Sens. Strom Thurmond, Herman Talmadge and Absalom Willis Robertson -- Pat Robertson's father. Membership lists stored in the Family's archive at the Billy Graham Center at evangelical Wheaton College in Illinois show active participation at any given time over the years by dozens of congressmen.

Again, we see that anti new deal fanaticism that is somehow intertwined with Fundementalist Christianity and complete belief in the Corporate power.  

Who are some of the other members?  Some of the main anti healtchare voices to some of the iconic conservative figures in Congress:  Ensign, Coburn and Pickering, Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham, both R-S.C.; James Inhofe, R-Okla., John Thune, R-S.D., and recent senators and high officials such as John Ashcroft, Ed Meese, Pete Domenici and Don Nickles. Over in the House there's Joe Pitts, R-Penn., Frank Wolf, R-Va., Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla., Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., and John R. Carter, R-Texas. Historically, the Family has been strongly Republican, but it includes Democrats, too. There's Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, for instance, a vocal defender of putting the Ten Commandments in public places, and Sen. Mark Pryor, the pro-war Arkansas Democrat responsible for scuttling Obama's labor agenda.

The Republicans used  the fundementalists and were not able to control them.  In the end the GOP is in shambles.  I did not like Obama's ambiguous position on choice during the election and his tendencies towards religiosity.

You see, when you make deals with the devil, he comes calling for his winnings.  I am not sure that Obama and the Demoratic Party will be able to manage these guys, women are being sold out. Team Obama is being out maneuvered every step of the way.  It always ends with the base giving up for the benefit of "compromise" and being inclusive.  

I will leave you with the following chilling quote:  

Sen. Pryor explained to me the meaning of bipartisanship he'd learned through the Family: "Jesus didn't come to take sides. He came to take over." And by Jesus, the Family means the Family.