THE RISE OF AMERICAN FUNDAMENTALISM 1990-1993 to CURRENT TIMES

In 2014 it has become evident that the Christian Fundamentalist have in fact taken complete control of the Republican Party and the Tea Party faction within. As we can witness in so many Republican controlled states, the level of laws being passed that are meant to establish an American Theocracy. Consider the number anti-abortion, anti-gay laws that have passed in these states.  Also the lessening of the punishment for rape, accusing the rape victim for the crime, diminishing the role of women in society, and so on. These groups will never give up now that they have gained the power they has sought after for nearly 40 years. 

America is in a culture war today. We have several culture wars going on, the battle to make this a theocracy and the battle between the plutocrats (the 1% owners of all the wealth) and the 99% of the rest of America. The plutocrats have been able to manipulate the fundamentalists to become their conspirator by making capitalism and corporatism into a Christian fundamental value. 

The Rise of American Fundamentalism 1990-1993

Aug 22 2011 Published by Hrafnkell Haraldsson 

Having Reagan out of the White House did not slow the rise of fundamentalism, nor did the dissolution of the Moral Majority. In fact, the year 1991 marks the year the Religious Right finally completed its seizure of power of the Republican Party. John C. Green argues that “While the movement did back some extreme candidates with little success, it more commonly – and successfully – operated as part of a broader Republican condition, a pattern that reached full flower in the 1994 elections.”[1]

But, says TheocracyWatch.org:

“Journalists attended Christian Coalition and Republican Party events in the early nineties documenting the tactics of the newly formed organization. Reports appeared in newspapers around the country detailing the takeover of the local Republican Party committees and efforts by moderate Republicans to form competing entities.”

“Politically evangelicals (including fundamentalists) have displaced mainline Protestants as mainstays of the Republican Party.” Studies show that “This politicization of religious beliefs has been attributed to the greater legitimacy evangelicals accord to political cues from preachers.”[2] This was an ominous sign of a trend that would only continue as the decade wore on.

Studies argue that “some antipathy toward Christian fundamentalists might be a backlash in response to perceived religious intolerance”[3] but Dolce and Maio argue that “At present, there appears not to be much truth to these observations.”[4]

But, if antipathy was missing, a reaction was not. John C. Green points out that “the movement’s core agenda and political activity have produced intense counter-mobilization by opponents, particularly among religious liberals and the non-religious.”

There was good reason for this: the growing influence of religious extremists in the Republican Party was demonstrated in 1992 when the Republican Party of Washington State had banning witchcraft and yoga classes on their platform. Criminalizing witchcraft is so…medieval, but yes, they did it. And yes, yogaclasses, because they’re so “of the devil”.

Also in 1992, Pat Robertson said to the Denver Post, “We want…as soon as possible to see a majority of the Republican Party in the hands of pro-family Christians…” Randall Terry agreed, saying in April: “What it is coming down to is who runs the country. It’s us against them. It’s the good guys versus the bad guys. It’s the God-fearing people against the pagans, and some of the pagans are going to church.”[5]

By 1992 the contemporary fundamentalist is “less the ignorant hillbilly or cracker, and more a conservative suburban housewife who votes Republican”[6]But see experience of Jo Martin below for at least one exception. Says Jo Martin, who calls herself “an Episcopalian and fifth-generation Texan”, and a life-long Republican who hadn’t been active in politics “for many years until they happened to attend a local GOP meeting last spring”:

“The party apparatus had been taken over by religious activists intent on bringing ‘biblical principles’ to government: outlawing abortion, ostracizing homosexuals and teaching creationism in public schools, among other things. We honest to goodness felt like we had fallen through a time warp into a Nazi brown-shirt meeting,” Martin said.[7]

And not only in Texas: the San Jose Mercury News reported that year that,

“A group dedicated to making the Bible the law of the land has quietly positioned itself to take over the Republican Party’s power structure in Santa Clara County… A fund-raising letter for that slate, sent by the Santa Clara County chapter of the California Republican League, warned that the Coalition on Revival’s agenda includes ‘a call for the death penalty for abortion, adultery and unrepentant homosexuality.’”

The growing polarization of the American political landscape was evident at the party conventions in 1992: “Christian fundamentalists were viewed (and acted) as ideological partisans (i.e. conservative Republicans) doing battle with liberals, feminists, gays, Democrats, and environmentalists.”[8] This attitude was epitomized by Pat Buchanan’s delivery of a speech at the Republican National Convention in Houston that year enthusiastically endorsing the culture war.

One study showed “The principle effect of 1992 was to bind evangelicals to the Republican Party”[9] and unsurprisingly Dolce and Maio saw these elections “as a critical demarcation point.”[10]

“[P]artisanship and newer concerns associated with ideological and cultural issues began dividing the public” and “This restructuring had the result of giving antifundamentalist sentiment a distinction liberal, culturally progressivist, and partisan Democratic cast throughout the 1990s.”[11]

This move was often successful. According to William Martin Chavanne, in “1992, 1994 and, it appears, in 1996, they [the Religious Right] won about forty percent of the elections they were involved in.”

The 1992 presidential elections saw Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton face off against incumbent George H.W. Bush. Democratic centrist Bill Clinton won by a wide margin with 43 percent of the popular vote against Bush’s 37 percent. The Christian Right was blamed for the defeat in 1992[12] and in truth, many of them did turn away from Bush over his views on abortion according to exit polls. Even so, Bush did get 47 percent of the White protestant vote and 61 percent of the born-again or religious right, a group that at the time amounted to 17 percent of the vote.

The defeat did not deter fundamentalists from their ultimate goal of achieving complete control of the Republican Party per Pat Robertson and Randall  Terry: “What the Christian right spends a lot of time doing,” says Marc Wolin, a moderate Republican who ran unsuccessfully for Congress from San Francisco last year, “is going after obscure party posts. They try to control the party apparatus in each county. We have a lot to fear from these people. They want to set up a theocracy in America.”[13]

If antipathy was iffy in 1992, by 1993 this was no longer true. A1993 Gallup poll showed that 25 percent of respondents had an unfavorable opinion of born-again Christians and a Zogby Group poll showed nearly the same thing, with 24 percent of respondents having negative feelings towards fundamentalist Christians.[14]

Antipathy was certainly present on the Christian side. Randall Terry was not talking about loving his enemies or turning the other cheek in 1993 when the Operation Rescue founder told a congregation in August, “I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good. … Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want pluralism.”[15]

America was forewarned, and we still not at the high-water mark.

READ ALL THE ARTICLES IN THIS SERIES:

The Antecedents of American Fundamentalism 1606-1925
The Rising Tide of American Fundamentalism in the 1940s and 50s
The Cresting Tide of American Fundamentalism in the 1960s
American Fundamentalism in the 70s – The Rise of the Moral Majority
The Rise of American Fundamentalism – The Year 1980
The Rise of American Fundamentalism – the Reagan Decade

---

[1] John C. Green, Religion and the Culture Wars: Dispatches From the Front, 1996:3-4

[2] Dolce and Maio 1999:32

[3] Ted G. Jelen, The Political Mobilization of Religious Beliefs New York: 1991; Robert Wuthnow The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II Princeton NJ: 1988

[4] Dolce and Maio, 1999:53

[5] Speech in Jackson, Mississippi, April 1992

[6] Dolce and Maio 1999:33

[7] “The GOP’s Religious War” by Joan Lowey of Scripps-Howard News Service

[8] Dolce and Maio 1999:48

[9] Lyman A. Kellstedt, JohnC. Green, James L. Gruth, and Corwin E. Smidt, “Religious Voting Blocs in the 1992 Election: The Year of the Evangelicals?” inReligion and the Culture Wars: Dispatches from the Front, 1996:284

[10] Dolce and Maio 1999:50

[11] Dolce and Maio 1999:52

[12] John C. Green, “The Christian Right and the 1994 Elections: A View from the States,” PS: Political Science and Politics Vol. 28, No. 1 (Mar., 1995), pp. 5-8

[13] (“The Fifteen Percent Solution: How the Christian Right is Building From Below to Take Over From Above.” By Greg Goldin, published in The Nation (1993

[14] Dolce and Maio 1999:40

[15] At an anti-abortion rally in Fort Wayne, Indiana; quoted by the Fort Wayne News Sentinel 1993-08-16

CORPORATISM Coup d’état - When Corporations married Theocrats.

From the very beginning of our independence there has been a faction that has wanted our nation to be a republic of independent state nations and only joined for the mutual military defense of the member states, much the same as the EU Confederacy was in their beginning and attempting to remain that way. This faction always wanted to remain a loose Confederacy form of government, that which America started out as,  not the Constitutional form of government that we now have grants more power to the central Federal government (Article VI Clause 2) that made the smaller member state nations subservient to the central authority of Congress and the Supreme Court.

In the 1970s, this faction began in earnest to change our nation to their ideal of a Confederacy. The Conservatives organized to use what might be described as a siege approach for a political coup d’état. Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Arz) and author William F. Buckley Jr. put together an organization called the Conservative Union. Their goal was to create a permanent conservative power structure and governance of the country.

At about the same time, American corporations had just experienced incredible growth, but the American economy was leveling off.  Europe and Japan had recovered from the war and now competing with goods in the world marketplace. They knew they had to gain more power in government to protect profits and influence trade deals. They hated the demands on them from labor unions that took more of the profit away from the capitalists and management. They hated the regulations and oversight that the Great Society created as a result of the Great Depression these wealthy corporations caused. To them democracy was an enemy to their need of control and obtaining as much wealth as can be obtained.

And like a perfect storm, the theocrats who have always wanted a theocratic country were shaken by the sexual and feminists revolutions of the 1960s and early 1970s. The  Supreme Court's ruling in Roe Vs Wade (1973) acknowledging a woman's right to privacy under the 14th Amendment regarding her health, thus legalizing abortions was the major catellus these theocrats needed to inflame the emotions of their members to become single issue focused in the voting booth. They too saw that they had to obtain political power to curb this liberalization of society.  To them as well, the advancement of science, especially cosmology and space exploration gave them huge fear that people would learn that their faith does not match the science and knowledge coming forth.

Each group started out independently working toward their disparate goals. But then came along political strategist Lee Atwater during Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign. He knew that if he can get these various conservative groups to work together within the Republican Party and shift the southern Democratic racists (Dixiecrats), who are also Bible thumpers, he could obtain control of the south and all their electoral college votes.

Combine these Bible thumpers with those of the Bible belt Midwest and they could win and hold the Presidency for several generations by securing most of the needed Electoral College votes without much campaign effort. Then they could focus money and resources on just a few swing states. The southern strategy worked, the Dixiecrats flipped to the Republican Party and became a stronghold for them. Lee Atwater worked with Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority to start to build a coalition of evangelical organizations into a political power base. Pat Robertson formed the Christian Coalition and knew the power of television. He formed the Christian Broadcasting Corp and founded the 700 Club to rack in huge money from faithful donations of viewers. Many other religious organizations followed with titles that always included the word “Family.” The use of Family was key to capturing the hearts and minds of the faithful in a battle against the heathen Secularists.

Since the moment they coalesced into an orchestrated effort to gain power, the coup d’état began in earnest. One of the major outcomes of this coordinated overthrow of America is the use of Stealth Politicians. This was a program to take Christian Activists and train them in the art of politics. They were to run for and gain office starting at whatever entry level they could win. Ralph Reed, the executive director of the Christian Coalition, set out to give seminars and workshops to handpicked soldiers on how to not show their true colors, appear mainstream to earn respect, learn the political process, learn how to gather donors for elections, who to message to win, all without revealing their true intent in due course to overthrow our Constitution.

Corporatists realized they needed this religious voting block to achieve their goal, so they intertwined “Free Market Capitalism” into the faith tenets of this religious coalition. This was the shift in the core American Christian based religions from focusing on the poor and sick through their charities, to supporting the gaining of wealth, which afforded them political power. They no longer support social programs that provide for the poor, children, or the sick to the extent they originally performed. It is all about political power now. That is what we are witnessing now.

In the early part of the 20th Century, bankers and industrialists in Europe were forming what we now call FASCISM. Around 1920 American bankers and industrialists saw how fascism was the form of governance that would secure their power and authority over the political process. When Nazis took over political power in Germany, they quickly converted it from a liberal democracy into a fascist state. There were many in America who supported the Nazi party movement. Even though the name Nazi means "National Socialist German Workers' Party" it was never a socialist or workers ideology.

Fascism: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control. Severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

This is a compendium of articles I have found on the Internet that talks about this subject. When the author is known, I have listed them. This is but a small sample of the volumes of articles and documents that clearly demonstrate this takeover is occurring. Please add your comments and any additional articles or information you might have.

America is Under Siege as the Koch Brothers Look to Replace the Constitution
By: Rmuse --  Jun. 30th, 2013, published online at PoliticusUSA.com

In military parlance, a siege is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict with the intent of conquering, by attrition and sustained assaults, an enemy holding a static defensive position with no means of escape or chance of marshaling assistance from outside forces. Siege warfare can last months, and even years, but if the attackers are patient and keep up constant pressure, the final defeat of the besieged is swift and extremely violent as the attackers take out their rage on the vanquished for not surrendering at the start of the war. For thirty years, Republicans have besieged 98% of the population with constant, and sometimes, low-intensity conflict that is reaching fruition and threatens to usher in a swift and violent end for most Americans at the behest of corporate and theocratic factions.

It is no longer a question of how or why Republicans are imposing corporatism and theocratic laws on the American people, but when they will finally transform this once democratic nation into a fascist state under authority of plutocrats and theocrats. The bad news is that America is one election away from total dominance by the Koch brothers billionaire club and religious extremists on the verge of replacing the Constitution with the bible and Milton Freidman’s manifesto “Capitalism and Freedom.” In fact, in preparation for oligarchs and theocrats ascendance to unchallenged authority to reign over the people, Republicans are eliminating the last vestiges of democracy, economic independence, and freedom from religion as they openly oppose the Constitution in their final push toward fascism.

The truth is that Republicans have panted to destroy New Deal protections for 80 years, but it was during the Reagan administration they began their siege in earnest and started transferring the nation’s wealth to plutocrats in the banking and financial industry. It was also the era the religious right gained unfettered access to the halls of Congress that is culminating in a blatant push toward rule by religious edict. Over the past four years, Republicans have tapped into racial animus rampant in a large segment of the population to garner support to give inordinate power to corporations with assistance from the Koch-influenced Supreme Court that gave corporations power over free and fair elections. Events of the past few weeks revealed that Republicans have now abandoned any pretense of governing for the people, and they are blatantly advocating for theocracy and corporatocracy.

It can no longer be argued that Republicans are not deliberately creating poverty to make room for tax benefits for the rich. In North Carolina, Republicans increased poverty by becoming the first of many Republican states to eliminate unemployment benefits despite the state has the fifth highest unemployment rate in the nation. North Carolina Republicans also are amending the state constitution to permanently make it a “right to work” (for less) state to keep corporate profits high and worker wages at poverty level that is a trend in Republican-controlled states. The Republicans’ goal is not to encourage hiring, but to increase corporate profits and produce a population barely surviving on less-than subsistence wages.

In the U.S. Senate, Lamar Alexander (R-TN) called for abolishing the federal minimum wage as part of the New Deal abolitionist crusade, and is a complement to Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) legislation abolishing overtime pay to send more Americans into poverty. All of the Republican attempts at creating poverty are in conjunction with calls to cut social  safety nets to fund greater tax advantages for corporations and the rich. Republicans have stopped touting their poverty-creating agenda as necessary to spur  hiring because they sense victory in their siege against Americans and it is in no small part due to their voter-suppression tactics the conservative Supreme Court just ensured will advance unimpeded by federal law. All that remains for the High Court to do to finish the Republican siege against Americans, and the Constitution, is strike down the 1st Amendment’s Separation Clause

There was a time that even the hard-core evangelical wing of the Republican Party couched their theocracy ambitions in phony concern for family values, but they abandoned those tactics and have gone full-tilt for embracing religion as the law of the land to enforce harsh measures on gays and women. After the High Court struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s ban on same-sex marriage, a phalanx of Republican legislators stood boldly before the media and, one by one, condemned the rulings as outright opposition to the Christian bible. In Ohio and Texas, Republicans are attempting to ban abortion services on “sanctity of life” grounds, and protestors outside family planning clinics are not waving medical journals, but bibles as they see their Republican representatives advancing the idea that America is a theocracy, and not a democracy. One Texas legislator was so deluded that there is never a condition or reason for an abortion, even in case of rape, that he claimed rape kits are a form of abortion and it justified excluding rape as a legitimate reason for an abortion.

It was reported here on Friday that in Pennsylvania,  a gay elected representative was barred from speaking on the floor of the Pennsylvania House because according to a conservative Christian Republican; he was a violation of god’s law. Republican Daryl Metcalfe (Butler) said without hesitation that “I did not believe that as a member of that body that I should allow someone to make comments such as he was preparing to make that ultimately were just open rebellion against what the word of God has said, what God has said, and just open rebellion against God’s law.” The fanatical evangelical’s comments notwithstanding, it was the ease and audacity at which he silenced a fellow government representative on religious grounds that informs America is on the verge of a theocracy if it has not already been established in the shadows with valuable assistance from the corporatist wing of the Republican Party.

Some  pundits claim there is no relationship between theocracy advocates and corporatist attempts to subvert democracy, but it is a marriage of convenience Republicans have made good use of over the past four years in particular. It is likely there is little the extremely wealthy and their corporations have in common with hard-core religious extremists, but Republicans take advantage of evangelicals’ passionate opposition to gay rights and women’s reproductive choice to garner support for candidates devoted to slashing social programs to fund tax cuts for corporations and the rich, and that is where the real danger lies. There is little doubt the most vocal evangelicals in Congress and the states are sincere in their attempt to rule by religion, and with funding from wealthy conservative groups whose only regard is grabbing wealth from all the people, the likelihood that a well-funded theocratic agenda giving free reign to oligarchs to plunder what is left of the people’s assets is the outcome Americans should fear most.

These assaults on Americans from religious extremists and corporatists in Republican ranks are in stark contrast to the will of the majority of Americans, and yet instead of backing off out of fear of electoral demise, they are increasing their efforts with brazen disregard as if there is no recompense from an angry electorate. That can only mean one of two things; they are convinced their voter suppression tactics will reap benefits in the next election, or they are intent on causing as much damage to the people and the nation as possible before they are voted into oblivion. Regardless their motivation, it is the people who will suffer and with little hope of outside assistance to defend their interests, the thirty year siege against the American people will reach fruition and they will indeed live in a nation ruled by a corporate theocracy.

The Players in the takeover of our nation and the Elimination of our Constitution:

• The fellowship aka The Family and C Street Center.
• Moral Majority
• American Conservative Union
• Christian Coalition – now the Faith and Freedom Council
• American Legislative Exchange Council - ALEC
• Koch Brothers of Koch Industries
• The Tea Party caucus of the Republican Party
• The NRA

You will notice common names linked to more than one organization. There is huge cross pollination of strategies and coordination of tactics.

> THE FELLOWSHIP aka The Family and C Street Center.
The Fellowship, also known as The Family, is a U.S.-based religious and political organization founded in 1935 by Abraham Vereide. The stated purpose of the Fellowship is to provide a fellowship forum for decision makers to share in Bible studies, prayer meetings, worship experiences and to experience spiritual affirmation and support.

The organization has been described as one of the most politically well-connected ministries in the United States. The Fellowship shuns publicity and its members share a vow of secrecy. The Fellowship's leader Doug Coe and others have explained the organization's desire for secrecy by citing biblical admonitions against public displays of good works, insisting they would not be able to tackle diplomatically sensitive missions if they drew public attention.

Although the organization is secretive, it holds one regular public event each year, the National Prayer Breakfast held in Washington, D.C. Every sitting United States president since President Dwight D. Eisenhower, including President Barack Obama, has participated in at least one National Prayer Breakfast during his term.

The Fellowship's known participants include ranking United States government officials, corporate executives, heads of religious and humanitarian aid organizations, and ambassadors and high-ranking politicians from across the world. Many United States Senators and Congressmen who have publicly acknowledged working with the Fellowship or are documented as having done so work together to pass or influence legislation.

In Newsweek, Lisa Miller wrote that, rather than calling themselves "Christians," as they describe themselves they are brought together by common love for the teachings of Jesus and that all approaches to "loving Jesus" are acceptable. In contrast, Jeff Sharlet, who was interviewed on NBC News and wrote a book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, and an article in Harper's about his experience serving as an intern in the Fellowship, has stated that the organization fetishizes power by comparing Jesus to "Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Bin Laden" as examples of leaders who change the world through the strength of the covenants they had forged with their "brothers".

Relationships with other organizations
The Fellowship Foundation is linked to numerous other organizations:
• Wilberforce Foundation IRS Form 990 filings confirm that Wilberforce is related to and shares common management with the Fellowship Foundation.
• Traditional Values Coalition. Uses the C Street Center for "faith-based diplomacy" in the fight against what Louis P. Sheldon calls the "Marxist/Leftist/Homosexual/Islamic coalition."
• Three Swallows Foundation
• International Center for Religion & Diplomacy
• Young Life International
• Trees for the Future
• National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise
• Cornerstone Development
• World Concern
• Project Mercy
• Timothy Trust
• Associación Desarrollo en Democracia
• World Vision

Current and former members
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

>C Street Center

The Fellowship runs a $1.8 million three-story brick mansion in Washington D.C. known as "C Street. It is the former convent for nearby St. Peter's Church. It is located a short distance from the United States Capitol. The structure has 12 bedrooms, nine bathrooms, five living rooms, four dining rooms, three offices, a kitchen, and a small "chapel".

The facility houses mostly Republican members of Congress. The house is also the locale for:
• Wednesday prayer breakfasts for United States Senators, which have been attended by Senators Sam Brownback, Tom Coburn, James Inhofe, John Ensign,Susan Collins and Hillary Clinton.
• Tuesday night dinners for members of Congress and other Fellowship associates.
• An annual Ambassador Luncheon. The 2006 event was attended by ambassadors from Turkey, Macedonia, Pakistan, Jordan, Algeria, Armenia, Egypt,Belarus, Mongolia, Latvia, and Moldova.
• Receptions for foreign dignitaries, including the Prime Minister of Australia.[who?]

C Street has been the subject of controversy over its claimed tax status as a church, the ownership of the property and its connection to the Fellowship, and the reportedly subsidized benefits the facility provides to members of Congress.

Finances

The Fellowship Foundation, which since 1935 has conducted no public fundraising programs, relies totally on private donation. In 2007, the group received nearly $16.8 million to support the 400 ministries. Among the Fellowship's key supporters are billionaire investor Paul N. Temple, a former executive of Esso (Exxon) and the founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences and the Three Swallows Foundation. Between 1998 and 2007, Three Swallows made grants totaling $1,777,650 to the International Foundation, including $171,500 in 2004, $203,500 in 2005, and $145,500 in 2006.

Another supporter, Jerome (Jerry) A. Lewis, established Denver-based Downing Street Foundation to provide support to three organizations: the Fellowship Foundation, Denver Leadership Foundation, and Young Life. Between 1999 and 2007, Downing Street donated at least $756,000 to the Family, in addition to allowing the group to use its "retreat center."

Madelynn Winstead, a Downing Street director, was paid $21,600 by the Fellowship Foundation as managing director of the retreat center.

The Kingdom Fund (Kingdom Oil Christian Foundation t/a Twin Cities Christian Foundation) also provides support to the Family and World Vision.

The Fellowship Foundation earns more than $1,000,000 annually through its sponsorship of the National Prayer Breakfast.

>Moral Majority:  
The Moral Majority was a prominent American political organization associated with the Christian right. It was founded in 1979 and dissolved in the late 1980s.

The origins of the Moral Majority can be traced to 1976, when Jerry Falwell embarked on a series of “I Love America” rallies across the country to raise awareness of social issues important to Falwell.

Falwell and Weyrich founded the Moral Majority in June 1979. The Moral Majority was a southern-oriented organization of the Christian Right, although the Moral Majority’s state chapters and political activity extended beyond the South. After the Moral Majority’s establishment, the state chapters grew quickly, with organizations in eighteen states by 1980. The variety of resources available to the Moral Majority at its founding facilitated this rapid expansion, which included Falwell’s “Old Time Gospel Hour” mailing list. In addition, the Moral Majority took control of the “Old Time Gospel Hour’s” publication, Journal Champion, which had been distributed to the show’s donors. Falwell was the organization's best known spokesperson throughout the 1980s. By 1982, Moral Majority surpassed Christian Voice in size and influence.
American Conservative Union

Founded in December 1964 by author and commentator William F Buckley Jr, the ACU was established after the defeat of Barry Goldwater. By 1974, ACU had roughly 70,000 members.

David A. Keene was Chairman from 1984 until 2011, succeeded by Al Cardenas.

David Michael Keene, Keene's son, was sentenced in 2003 to ten years for attempted murder in a 2002 road-rage incident. He was ACU's director of online communications at the time. Diana Hubbard Carr, the ACU's former administrative director and ex-wife of David Keene, pleaded guilty in June 2011 to embezzling between $120,000 and $400,000 from 2006 to 2009, during her time as bookkeeper for the group.

FEDEX Controversy:
In June 2009, FedEx began a campaign against United Parcel Service (UPS) and the Teamsters union, accusing its competitor of receiving a bailout in an advertising campaign called "brown bailout". FedEx claims that signing the Federal Aviation Administration re-authorization bill, which would let some of its workers unionize more easily (and, according to the Memphis-based company, "could expose [its] customers at any time to local work stoppages that interrupt the flow of their time-sensitive, high-value shipments”), is equivalent to giving UPS a 'bailout'. Independent observers have heavily criticized FedEx's wording, claiming that it was "an abuse of the term". FedEx Express employees are regulated under the Railway Labor Act.
In a letter dated June 30, 2009, ACU offered FedEx the option of paying as much as $3.4 million for e-mail and other services for "an aggressive grass-roots campaign" to stop a legislative provision being considered by the U.S. Senate. The letter said the ACU's campaign could include "Producing op-eds and articles written by ACU’s Chairman David Keene and/or other members of the ACU’s Board of Directors."

On July 15, Keene and leaders of five other conservative organizations issued a letter saying that FedEx was mischaracterizing the legislative situation and was unfairly trying to tap into public resentment against federal bailouts to attack its competition. The letter included, at its top, logos from ACU and the other organizations. Whitfield said on July 16 that Keene had endorsed the second letter as an individual, even though the letter bore the logo of ACU. On July 17, ACU issued a press release saying that permission to use the logo had not been given by ACU, and that the ACU continued to stand with the policy supported by FedEx.

>Christian Coalition:  

The Coalition is a political organization, made up of pro-family Americans who care deeply about ensuring that government serves to strengthen and preserve, rather than threaten, our families and our values. To that end, we work continuously to identify, educate and mobilize Christians for effective political action.



Their Mission:
• Represent the pro-family point of view before local councils, school boards, state legislatures and Congress
• Speak out in the public arena and in the media
• Train leaders for effective social and political action
• Inform pro-family voters about timely issues and legislation
• Protest anti-Christian bigotry and defend the rights of people of faith

Effective citizenship begins with knowledge. Since its inception, the Christian Coalition has worked to provide critical education and political training to the pro-family community in order to challenge and equip individuals and churches to make a difference at all levels of government.

Founder and former President: Rev. Pat Robertson President: Dr. Joel C. Hunter was announced as President in October 2006 to replace Roberta Combs. Founded in 1989.

Membership: Claimed nearly 2 million members at the height of its influence, but other data suggested 300,000-400,000 members. Directors or Trustees as of 2004: Dr. Billy McCormack; Drew McKissick; Roberta Combs, Chair Finances: In 1999, the Christian Coalition was stripped of its 501(c)(3) non-profit status for violating various IRS rules that govern non-profits. Contributions to the group have dropped from a record of $26.5 million in 1996 to their 2004 revenue, which was $1,321,774. The CC is now a non-profit 501(c)(4) organization supported through member dues. State chapters: As many as 30 chapters were listed on their website, though those lists have since been removed. Several state chapters have dropped their affiliation in 2006.

Publications: The coalition creates and distributes voter guides during primaries and elections in every state. They also have action alerts and newsletters via e-mail on state and federal legislation.

Affiliated Groups: Pat Robertson also created the 700 Club, Christian Broadcasting Network, American Center for Law and Justice, and Regent University, which awards graduate and law degrees and offers a bachelor degree completion program. Two CC projects that are no longer associated with the group are the Samaritan Project and the Catholic Alliance. The Christian Coalition launched the Catholic Alliance in an attempt to boost its membership among pro-family, anti-choice Catholics. The Samaritan Project was the Christian Coalition's vehicle for outreach to African Americans. -

Using Stealth Infiltration to Take Control of the Conservative Political Party, the Republicans.
Stealth conservative individuals or organizations are those that present themselves as progressive, liberal, or moderate while using that status to forward a conservative agenda. According to journalist Laura Flanders:

"This is the new face of the radical right. The attractive right-wingers who talk about 'choice' and 'civil rights' pose a threat to progressives who support the federal government’s role as a protector of individual citizens."

"Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed has openly advocated a policy of stealth politics by the right." In a March 1992 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Reed stated "It's like guerrilla warfare. If you reveal your location, all it does is allow your opponent to improve his artillery bearings. It's better to move quietly, with stealth, under the cover of night."

Stealth conservatives often frame their arguments in terms of ostensibly objective liberal legal principles such as "freedom of speech" and "freedom of expression" in order to cloak and promote explicitly right-wing policies. This is a popular tactic in obtaining popular support from political liberals who respond well to the language of liberalism but have not fully researched the power relations and practical policy outcomes involved in the particular issue at hand.

>American Legislative Exchange Council - ALEC
ALEC first came into being in Chicago as the "Conservative Caucus of State Legislators", a project initiated by Mark Rhoads, an assistant to an Illinois state senator. Conservative legislators felt the word "conservative" was unpopular with the public at the time, however, and the organization was renamed as the American Legislative Exchange Council. In 1975, under the auspices of the American Conservative Union, ALEC registered as a federal non-profit agency.

Conservative activist Paul Weyrich (Founder of the Moral Majority with Jerry Farwell) helped the new group find a meeting room. Henry Hyde, who later became a U.S. Congressman, and Lou Barnett, who later became National Political Director of Ronald Reagan's Political Action Committee, also helped to found ALEC. Early members included a number of state and local politicians who went on to statewide or national office, including Bob Kasten and Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin; John Engler of Michigan; Terry Branstad of Iowa, and John Kasich of Ohio. Several members of Congress were also involved in the organization during its early years, including Sen. John Buckley and Rep. Jack Kemp of New York, Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, and Rep. Phil Crane of Illinois. Duane Parde served as the executive director from December 1996 to January 2006.

ALEC currently has more than 2,000 legislative members representing all 50 states, amounting to nearly one-third of all sitting legislators, as well as more than 85 members of Congress and 14 sitting or former governors who are considered "alumni". The vast majority of ALEC's legislative members belong to the Republican Party. ALEC also claims approximately 300 corporate, foundation, and other private-sector members. The chairmanship of ALEC is a rotating position, with a new legislator appointed to the position each year. The current chair of ALEC is David Frizzell, a member of the Indiana House of Representatives.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a 501(c)(3) American organization composed of legislators, businesses and foundations which produces model legislation for state legislatures and says it promotes free and conservative ideas. According to the organization's website, members share a common belief that "government closest to the people" is "fundamentally more effective, more just, and a better guarantor of freedom than the distant, bloated federal government in Washington, D.C." In a Dec. 2011 opinion piece critical of ALEC which appeared in The Nation magazine, John Nichols described ALEC as a "collaboration between multinational corporations and conservative state legislators."

ALEC provides a forum for state legislator and corporate members to collaborate on "model bills"—draft legislation which the members would like to become law. Some of the model bills are then brought back to their respective home states and introduced by ALEC's legislative members. Approximately 200 per year become law. ALEC has produced model legislation on issues such as reducing corporate regulation and taxation, tightening voter identification rules, streamlining or minimizing environmental protections (depending on how one looks at it), and promoting gun rights. ALEC also serves as a networking tool among state legislators, allowing them to research the handling and "best practices" of policy in other states.

ALEC's membership list and the origin of its model bills are kept secret and they have been criticized for this. BusinessWeek wrote that "part of ALEC's mission is to present industry-backed legislation as grass-roots work."

In 2012, Walter Mondale, former Democratic Vice President of the United States, and Arne Carlson, former Republican governor of Minnesota, referred in an op-ed piece to the political activities of the Koch family and ALEC, saying:

"[ALEC] is the creation of the Koch brothers who amassed their fortunes in oil and who live in Florida. The goal of ALEC is to influence legislators across the nation."

According to Bloomberg News, ALEC receives at least $3,500 from Koch Industries Inc. and Exxon Mobil.

>Koch Brothers of Koch Industries.
Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch are the sons of Fred C. Koch. Their father founded the second-largest privately held company in the United States, Koch Industries. After having bought out two other brothers' interests, these two brothers remain in control of the family business and fortune left to them by their father. They also control the Koch Family Foundations.

The Koch brothers contribute a large amount of money to conservative, libertarian, and free-market individuals and organizations. They have given more than $196 million to dozens of free-market and advocacy organizations. Tax records indicate that, in 2008, the three main Koch family foundations contributed to 34 political and policy organizations, three of which they founded, and several of which they direct

Political organizations: 
Citizens for a Sound Economy was co-founded by David Koch in the 1980s. According to the Center for Public Integrity, the Koch Brothers donated a total amount of $7.9 million between 1986 and 1993. In 1990, the brothers created the spinoff group Citizens for the Environment.

In 2004, Citizens for a Sound Economy was renamed FreedomWorks, while its affiliated Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation became Americans for Prosperity(AFP). Since then the Koch brothers have given more than one million dollars to AFP. At an AFP rally in 2009, David Koch said "Five years ago, my brother Charles and I provided the funds to start the Americans for Prosperity, and it's beyond my wildest dreams how AFP has grown into this enormous organization."AFP is the political arm of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, for which David Koch serves as chairman of the Board of Trustees. Americans for Prosperity created Patients United Now, which advocated against a single-payer healthcare system during the 2009-2010 healthcare reform debate. Both FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity have provided support for the Tea Party movement.

Charles and David Koch also have been involved in, and have provided funding to, a number of other think tanks and advocacy organizations: They provided the initial funding for the Cato Institute, they are key donors to the Federalist Society, and they also support, or are members of, the Mercatus Center, the Institute for Humane Studies, the Institute for Justice, the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, the Institute for Energy Research, the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the George C. Marshall Institute, the Reason Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the Fraser Institute.

As of 2011, David Koch sits on the board of directors of the Cato institute, the Reason Foundation and the Aspen Institute.

Cato Institute
Following the 2011 death of William Niskanen, the co-founder and chairman of the Cato Institute, Charles and David Koch reportedly made an effort to procure the shares of that institute held by Niskansen’s widow, "arguing that they were not hers to hold.". Their efforts were criticized by some at the institute, including the institute's president Ed Crane, who in an email to staff told them the Kochs were "in the process of trying to take over the Cato Institute and, in my opinion, reduce it to a partisan adjunct to Americans for Prosperity, the activist GOP group they control.” Charles and David denied any wrongdoing. In June 2012, Cato and the brothers reached an agreement. Ed Crane would step down and be replaced by John A. Allison IV, and the Kochs withdrew two lawsuits.

Political activity
Koch Industries describes itself as being committed to free societies and free market principles and as supporting those who champion these things.

As of 2011, Koch Industries' political action committee has donated more than $2.6 million to candidates. The Koch brothers support primarily Republican candidates, who received over 80% of their political donations from 2005-2009, and in 2010 they supported California Proposition 23 (2010). The Koch brothers pledged to donate sixty million dollars last[when?] election season to defeat Obama.

U.S. education
The Charles Koch Foundation (and in the case of Kansas schools, the Fred and Mary Koch Foundation) provides grants to nearly 230 U.S. colleges and universities for "projects that explore how the principles of free enterprise and classical liberalism promote a more peaceful and prosperous society".

Wisconsin
According to Mother Jones Magazine, Koch Industries' Political Action Committee contributed the second largest donation to Scott Walker's 2010 campaign for governor of Wisconsin, though that contribution was less than one half of one percent of Walker's campaign total.  After Walker took office, he and the Republican representatives in the Wisconsin House enacted legislation that placed limitations on collective bargaining by public employees. Widespread protests ensued. In February 2011, the New York Times reported that Americans for Prosperity had actively supported Walker's proposed bill. Because of the Koch contribution to Walker's campaign, David Koch became a symbolic target for the protests.

According to the Palm Beach Post, David Koch has been very active in Wisconsin politics with the group Americans for Prosperity. Americans for Prosperity reportedly spending $700,000 on ads supporting Governor Scott Walker's changes to collective bargaining.

Mitt Romney
In July 2012, David H. Koch hosted a $50,000-a-person ($75,000 a couple) fundraising dinner for 2012 Republican Party Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, which was the subject of protests.

William Koch, the younger brother of Charles and David, gave $1 million to Restore Our Future, a super-PAC backing Romney. During the 2008 presidential race, David Koch donated $2,300 to Romney.

Competitive Enterprise Institute
The Kochs donated more than $17 million between 1997 and 2008 to various groups including the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The group has been accused of opposing unions. It describes itself as offering information on issues including, among others, energy, environment, biotechnology, pharmaceutical regulation, chemical risk, telecommunications, etc.

Lobbying for oil, gas, and chemical industries
Koch Industries and its subsidiaries spent more than $20 million on lobbying in 2008 and $12.3 million in 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group. In an article about the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study (Chair Richard A. Muller), Los Angeles Times reporter Margot Roosevelt called the Koch Brothers "the nation's most prominent funders of efforts to prevent curbs on fossil-fuel burning".

The Claude R. Lambe Foundation, has donated to the American Energy Alliance, an offshoot of the Institute for Energy Research.

Free enterprise seminars
In recent years, Charles and David Koch have organized semi annual seminars to promote their political views. In June 2010, one such event was held in Aspen, Colorado, and titled "Understanding and Addressing Threats to American Free Enterprise and Prosperity". The invitation stated that "[our] prosperity is under attack by the current Administration and many of our elected officials" and "we cannot rely on politicians to [defend our free society], so it is up to us to combat what is now the greatest assault on American freedom and prosperity in our lifetimes". The seminar program indicated that "past meetings have featured such notable leaders as Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas; Governors Bobby Jindal and Haley Barbour; commentators John Stossel, Charles Krauthammer,Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh; Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn; and Representatives Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, and Tom Price."

This is but just a few articles and information I have gathered regarding the takeover of our country. I will be updating this information as I obtain it. If you have an article or commentary, please join in and add it through the comments section, or email it to me and I'll post it in this post on my blog.

It is frightening what is happening to our nation. But like so many great nations in history, those who seek authoritarian power over the people and the economy will do whatever it takes to obtain that goal. It is history repeating itself again.

Now if you look at these players and the dots that are out there to connect, you will see how rapidly this country is shifting to a FASCIST form of government starting at the state level. If you follow what is happening in most RED, Republican controlled states, they have reduced social services, passed lower taxes on the wealthy and corporations, raised taxes on the middle-class, passed right-to-work laws to weaken the labor unions or eliminate them entirely, passed voter suppression laws of all types to reduce the votes of minorities and non-white voters, who tend to vote for Democrats, gerrymander state and congressional districts to give the Republicans non-contested voting districts, passed numerous laws to ban abortions and close women's health clinics that provide not only abortions, but even birth control and cancer screenings for women, block fair pay laws for women, passing laws to eliminate the minimum wage, eliminate regulations of businesses and industries, centralize the power with the Governor (Michigan's "Emergency Manager Law that grants the governor to appoint a private company to be the manager of a city or school district. The elected officials power to govern are eliminated), passing laws that forces teacher to teach creationism and not actual science, forcing doctors to tell their patients lies about their healthcare options or go to jail. These are just a few of the actions that are forming the bases of a new fascists regime in America.

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I watched a documentary last night about the current KKK and how they have become much more sophisticated in manipulating political will. They have teamed up with the gun manufacturers and the NRA so they can get even more military weapons. Today the organization has also joined with the Libertarians in the push to over throw the government.

They have gone far beyond the racial, ethnic and religious bigotry. They want to eliminate the current government and install one that deports everyone that is not white-European decent protestant, regardless of citizenship status.

They learned that marches in the street didn't push their cause, but alliances with these other factions did.  Their evangelical Protestant position fit very nicely with those religious extremists in also over throwing the government to install a theocracy.

There have been members of the KKK in our congress since post civil war. But they were very few and spread between the two political parties and didn't have enough support to push much in the way of legislation, except the anti-immigration. But then they learned that the GOP was an easy vehicle to manipulate with their coalition to drive legislation they want.

When we elected the first black president, they and so many quiet racists went insane with fear and hate.  The Klan's and other similar organization's membership has shot up to levels they've never seen before and they have taken full advantage of that growth. They now know how to lobby fearful senators and congressmembers both with political power through their coalition, money and fear of assassination.

When you add the Koch brothers money and organization, ALEC, the Libertarian Party and the Libertarian caucus of the GOP now called the Tea Party with the money of the Christian Coalition and add to this mix the anti-regulation, anti-tax Wall Street backers, we end up with a very dangerous political party whose only goal is to bring down the government.

So here is another dot to add to the many connecting dots of the underlying movements that are plaguing our culture and nation today.

Debunking Pres. Obama $16 trillion debt

‎"Republican pundits love to say that the national debt has increased by $5 trillion because of President Obama. Factually, that statement is simply untrue. Let's examine the evidence.

Of the alleged $5 trillion, $1.6 trillion is related to costs of the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars. These were costs George W. Bush intentionally hid from the budget, and that President Obama allowed to be calculated when he assumed office.

Note that Obama could have continued to hide the bill as Bush did, passing it along to his predecessor.

President Bush was able to manipulate funding for the Iraq/Afghanistan wars using special emergency authorization bills. He did this because, as you recall, the Democrats were attempting to defund the war legislatively.

The overall point is simple: Obama, as president, authorized not one cent of that $1.6 trillion to be spent.

It has been previously reported by marketwatch.com that President Obama increased overall government spending by a smaller margin than any modern president, all the way to President Eisenhower.

Rex Nutting at marketwatch clarifies:

What people forget (or never knew) is that the first year of every presidential term starts with a budget approved by the previous administration and Congress. The president only begins to shape the budget in his second year. It takes time to develop a budget and steer it through Congress — especially in these days of congressional gridlock.

Over $1.4 trillion was spent on interest payments caused by the already standing debt.

Knowing that, let's examine the GOP's argument.

They say President Obama has spent too much, but 32% of the total amount they claim has been spent is a direct result of Republican presidential policies, and previous spending.

President Obama is stuck paying the bill for the previous GOP administrations of Reagan, H.W. Bush, and W. Bush. President Clinton left with a surplus if you recall, and added nothing to our debt. This point has been discussed constantly, and was even visited by President Obama's former Press Secretary Jay Carney during a press gaggle.

It is not disputed that the national debt was $10 trillion before President Obama took office.

The interest that is paid on the debt today was created by the very same people who now are attempting to blame the cost of that interest on the president. Do not allow yourself to be fooled, the GOP is attempting to blame the president for something they caused.

Now our journey of $5 trillion has been twiddled down to $2 trillion.

Another piece of the puzzle is that the CBO projected because of the Bush Era Tax Cuts, our government lost over $1.6 trillion in projected revenue. Of course, these unpaid taxes were supposed to create jobs for the middle class. The tax cuts have been in place for over 10 years, one would think our nation would be swimming in jobs. Yet, friends, that is not the case.

If reasonable tax rates were in place that were similar to those used while President Clinton was in office -- America's fiscal outlook would be more optimistic.

This leaves only $400 billion to be unaccounted for, and surely the fervor about reckless spending can not be over that amount because in that regard there are many instances where the GOP is equally guilty, if not more culpable. For example, our nation is still paying for the wasteful Medicare part D plan. Passed in 2003 and enacted in 2006, it has been estimated to cost a staggering $17 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Others put a more conservative price of $8 trillion including former head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, David Walker.

$8 - $17 trillion in spending, and yet they say President Obama is the reckless spender? No matter how you look at the numbers, the GOP is guilty of at least one-and-a-half more spending, or three times as much spending. How can they claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility?

The overall premise of the argument has now been debunked, and the truth is quite clear; 88% of the debt which the GOP blames on President Obama was not created as a consequence of his policies.

Swift Boating Pres. Obama. Fact or fiction?

The Karl Rove creation of what is now referred to as "Swift Boating" is now being used against Pres. Obama. For those who don't understand this term, swift boating refers to an attack ads by a group of right-wing ex-military individuals and some who were not in the military, but said they were part of Sen. John Kerry's Vietnam Navy swift boat team. They claimed that the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and 3 purple hearts were not deserving. It made it out like John Kerry was faking his action in combat in Vietnam. Once the Pentagon released John Kerry's military records which proved he did deserve them, the damage was done and Bush won the election, with some skepticism of a fair election.

Now this same approach is being used to try to undermined Pres. Obama's foreign policies and the killing of Osama Bin Laden. They have produced what appears to be a documentary about how Pres. Obama leaked classified information leading up to the raid and all the details of the raid after the fact. It makes some very serious charges.

But the truth is much different. Peter Bergen, a CNN a National Security Analyst debunks the charges in this film.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/17/opinion/bergen-obama-swift-boat/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Editor's note: Peter Bergen, CNN's national security analyst, is a director at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that seeks innovative solutions across the ideological spectrum, and the author of the new book "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden -- From 9/11 to Abbottabad."

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A group of former U.S. military and intelligence officers, including retired Navy SEALs, appear in a 22-minute documentary that was released on Wednesday asserting that the Obama administration has leaked considerable classified intelligence about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden for political gain.

They also claim that the administration has given itself too much credit for this feat of American arms and intelligence gathering. The film even makes the dramatic charge that the Obama administration is "purposefully putting lives in jeopardy" because of its purported leaks about national security.

The charges bear some resemblance to the "Swift Boat" tactics used against Sen. John Kerry in the tight 2004 presidential election against President George W. Bush in which Kerry's service in Vietnam, seemingly a strength of the candidate, was turned into a weakness.

GOP strategists: Bain attack ads are this year's Swift Boat campaign

The particulars of the indictment against Obama as laid out in thenew film, which is titled "Dishonorable Disclosures," are:

Peter Bergen

Ex-SEALs slam Obama over leaks

Ex-military officers take aim at Obama

Adm. McRaven on the bin Laden raid

-- The president announced the bin Laden raid before intelligence picked up from bin Laden's compound could be fully exploited.

-- The use of hitherto covert "stealth" helicopters on the raid was publicized.

-- The name of the secret unit that executed the raid --SEAL Team Six -- was made public putting them and their families at risk.

-- The name of the Pakistani doctor recruited by the CIA to help find bin Laden was leaked, jeopardizing him and the CIA's ability to recruit spies in the future. The doctor is now serving 33 years in a Pakistani prison.

Pakistani doctor who helped US appeals verdict

-- Obama has taken way too much credit for killing al Qaeda's leader. "Mr. President, you did not kill Osama bin Laden, America did. The work that the American military has done killed Osama bin Laden. You did not," says a former Navy SEAL interviewed in the film.

Criticism of the way that the bin Laden raid has been discussed publicly by the Obama administration makes up the bulk of "Dishonorable Disclosures," but the administration is also taken to task for supposedly leaking details of covert U.S. actions against the Iranian nuclear program to New York Times reporter David Sanger (who has said he was not the recipient of "deliberate leaks out of the White House") and outlining to other journalists the personal involvement of Obama in selecting targets for the CIA drone program in Pakistan.

One former Navy SEAL featured in the film demands dramatically, "Tell the president to stop leaking information to the enemy."

Is there any merit to these serious accusations?

In fact, Obama and his national security team made every effort -- successfully -- to keep the intelligence about bin Laden a closely held secret for almost a year, from the time they first identified what they believed might be the al Qaeda leader's hideout in the city of Abbottabad, Pakistan, in August 2010 until May 1, 2011, when the raid was launched to kill him.

The raid itself was conducted as a covert operation under the overall direction of then-CIA Director Leon Panetta.

I have written a book about the hunt for bin Laden during the course of which I was the only journalist granted access by the Pakistanis inside the compound in Abbottabad where bin Laden was killed. I also spoke on the record about the hunt for bin Laden with a variety of current White House, Pentagon and intelligence officials, as well as former Defense Department and CIA officials familiar with aspects of the story.

None of them divulged classified information about the bin Laden operation. Indeed, they went to great pains to avoid doing so.

What precipitated the operation going public was not Obama's announcement of the raid but the crash of one of the Black Hawk choppers used in the raid, which turned what had hitherto been a covert operation into a very public event.

Pakistani journalists started arriving at bin Laden's Abbottabad compound soon after the helicopter crashed and started filing stories about the mysterious helicopter and its oddly shaped tail rotor. An Abbottabad resident even tweeted about the unusual sound of helicopters flying over the city in the middle of the night.

It wasn't much of a leap for reporters to ascertain that these helicopters had particular features that had prevented them from being detected by Pakistani radar.

Soon after the SEALs had raided the Abbottabad command, Pakistani officials on the ground were interrogating bin Laden's wives and children at the compound who told them that bin Laden had just been killed. None of this was going to stay secret for long.

Indeed, it was Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Pakistan's top military officer, who sped up the Obama administration's announcement of the raid. A few hours after the raid, Kayani told his American counterpart, Adm. Mike Mullen, "Our people need to understand what happened here. We're not going to be able to manage the Pakistani media without you confirming this. You can explain it to them. They need to understand that this was bin Laden and not just some ordinary U.S. operation."

Mullen then told Obama and his national security team, "Kayani has asked for us to go public," which swayed Obama to announce the raid sooner than was planned. (Obama wanted to wait for 100% DNA confirmation that it was bin Laden. At the time of the president's announcement about the raid the confirmation was at 95%.)

During his speech to the nation and world, Obama did not divulge the name of SEAL Team Six, saying only that a "small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability."

A visit to Osama bin Laden's lair

It quickly leaked that SEAL Team Six had executed the raid, but this was hardly surprising as the SEALs are the principal Special Operations Forces in the Afghanistan/Pakistan theater, something that has been discussed in multiple news stories over the past several years and in bestselling books such as "Lone Survivor" by former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell.

And the SEALs have hardly kept a low profile of late, cooperating in a movie "Act of Valor" that was released in theaters this year, which actually featured real SEALs playing the parts of the heroes of the movie.

Perhaps if you had absolutely no knowledge of the U.S. military, or indeed access to Wikipedia where SEAL Team Six has had an entry since 2004, it would be news to you that SEAL Team Six, along with the Army's Delta Force, are America's premier counterterrorism units. Obviously, a mission to take out bin Laden would not be entrusted to any other than these elite units.

So the notion that the public naming of the unit that killed bin Laden endangers the lives of its members and their families is overwrought. Members of SEAL Team Six are well able to take care of themselves and their families. And who first leaked the involvement of SEAL Team Six in the bin Laden operation remains unclear.

It is just plain wrong that anyone in the U.S. government leaked the name of the CIA asset in Pakistan, Dr Shakil Afridi, who was recruited by the agency in its quest to find bin Laden. This information first surfaced in a story in the Guardian newspaper in July 2011 after Afridi was arrested by the Pakistani intelligence service, ISI. It is obvious that this information was leaked not by the Americans but the Pakistanis who have done their own investigation of the bin Laden raid, which embarrassed them considerably.

As to the notion that Obama has taken too much credit for the bin Laden raid, well he is commander-in-chief, and it was entirely his decision to launch the risky raid on Abbottabad based on the only fragmentary intelligence that bin Laden might be there.

As Adm. William McRaven, who was the military commander of the bin Laden raid, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer last month, "at the end of the day, make no mistake about it, it was the president of the United States that shouldered the burden for this operation, that made the hard decisions, that was instrumental in the planning process, because I pitched every plan to him."

The raid decision was opposed by Vice President Joe Biden, who had run for the Democratic nomination for the presidency against Obama. If Biden had won the White House in 2008, Osama bin Laden might still be alive.

And the decision to do the raid was also opposed by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who had served every president going back to Richard Nixon. Gates was concerned about some kind of replay of the 1980 Iran hostage rescue debacle, which helped to turn President Jimmy Carter into a one-term president.

The notion that the decision to greenlight the risky raid was made by anyone other than Obama is just plain silly, and it was a decision he made against the advice of both his vice president and his secretary of defense.

The film "Dishonorable Disclosures" gets even sillier. At one point one of the former officers interviewed for the film charges that the Obama administration "divulged to the world we are using drone technology." The fact that the United States uses drones in Pakistan is one of the world's worst kept secrets. In fact, the New America Foundation where I work has maintained a public database of these attacks since early 2010.'

First look at the Osama bin Laden movie

Similarly, the claim that the Obama administration has recently leaked information about the Stuxnet virus attacks on the Iranian nuclear program to the New York Times is overblown, as this information has been reported since 2010, and the Iranians themselves publicly acknowledged that their nuclear program was under cyberattack two years ago. It is true that the U.S. role in the cyberattacks was disclosed in the New York Times.

And in June, Attorney General Eric Holder appointed two federal prosecutors to investigate leaks including the New York Times story about Obama ordering the cyberattacks against Iran with the Stuxnet virus.

There remains much that is unknown about the still-classified intelligence surrounding the bin Laden raid, including:

-- How did the CIA find the real name of bin Laden's courier who was the key to finding him?

-- How was the courier's cell phone first tracked down?

-- How was he tracked to bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad?

-- How did the CIA establish a safe house in Abbottabad? And who staffed it?

None of this information has been leaked, and it remains classified for good reason as it gets into the CIA's "sources and methods."

Don't expect to hear any of those details any time soon.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

As I have read responses by conservatives about this article, they are lining up to dispute the information Peter presented. They are adding more inflammatory claims that on the very surface make no sense. They are claiming that Pres. Obama should be tried for treason.

It is so interesting that when faces with the truth and what is more logical than what is claimed in the film, these wackos still believe the lies and will not search independently the facts. They are lazy and just accept what they are told by the right-wing propaganda machine at Fox News, and all the hate talk radio people.

We are loosing our values as a nation to the ignorant and lazy right-wing nuts. It is so similar to Europe in the 1930s. There was so much anger and fear as a result of the Great Depression that hit them. A little man by the name of Adolph Hitler took advantage of that fear, suffering and anger. He directed it to the Jews, Homosexuals, and Gypsies. Once he got the fear and hate to a fever pitch, he was able to seize power and turn the anger and hatred into political force that led to the murder of 6 million Jews and 10 million homosexuals and Gypsies. Not to mention the millions that were killed during the war, both military and civilians.

It is obvious that many in America have forgotten or never learned this history. Or that they know how it happened and using it to also seize power to take control of this nation. That is more likely.

So many American think that everyone in America are benevolent. But whenever there is power and money, there is a total lack of benevolence by certain people who wish to secure absolute and permanent power. Think Karl Rove here as well as the Koch Brothers.