Readers may recall U.S. prez hopeful Michele Bachmann, who is sympathetic to intelligent design: In “The National Organization of Women defends Bachmann against Newsweek” (Daily Caller, August 8, 2011) Caroline May reports,
“It’s sexist,” NOW president Terry O’Neill told TheDC. “Casting her in that expression and then adding ‘The Queen of Rage’ I think [it is]. Gloria Steinem has a very simple test: If this were done to a man or would it ever be done to a man – has it ever been done to a man? Surely this has never been done to a man.”
While some have pointed out that Newsweek has used unflattering photos of men such as Rush Limbaugh and John McCain on its cover, O’Neill says that is not the issue.
“Who has ever called a man ‘The King of Rage?’ Basically what Newsweek magazine – and this is important, what Newsweek magazine, not a blog, Newsweek magazine – what they are saying of a woman who is a serious contender for President of the United States of America…They are basically casting her as a nut job,” O’Neill said. “The ‘Queen of Rage’ is something you apply to wrestlers or somebody who is crazy. They didn’t even do this to Howard Dean when he had his famous scream.” More.
Of course, that may be because Newsweek thinks she is a serious contender.
See, for example, “Michele Bachmann, ID-friendly US prez contender now defined as ‘feminist’” – it might not be in NOW’s interests to trash her. Consider that way back when, they said that Conservative British politician Margaret Thatcher wasn’t even a woman. Okay, so when she won hands down, what did that imply? A man won? Oops. Maybe feminists are backing away from the tactic?
Meanwhile, Bill Dembski warns that it doesn’t matter what Bachmann thinks if she wins and then appoints an old-school tenured bore leading an army of Darwinbots as science adviser.
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IMO, Bachman is a true conservative reformer (read: classic, founding-father liberal, not modern-day socialist liberalism), and this is why there is a serious effort – on both sides of the establishment – to marginalize both Bachmann and Palin.
They – and the tea party – expose the false framing of the economic/government debate that has dominated political discourse since WWII, which has provided only choices between “left” and “more left” (except for Reagan, who was also vilified and marginalized by both political party establishments).
Note how the passage of baseline budgeting frames all spending debates only in terms of government growth. In this lefist, Orwellian, nanny-state fascism (yes, fascism springs from the left; you think that fascism, which requires a totalitarian, militarized economy, is a product of the less-state, more-individual liberty political right?), anyone that wants to reduce actual spending – real cuts, not baseline growth reductions – is marginalized and vilified as terrorists, nut jobs, extremists.
Stalin produced a legacy of calling anything to the right of global communism “fascist” in order to emotionally manipulate the masses. Since Woodrow Wilson militarized the economy and the press, and FDR, Hitler and Mussolini introduced corporatism, syndicalism, and fascism as various forms of statism, and the intelligensia from the Frankfurt school began their academic jihad to vilify the right (attempting at one point to formally classify it as a mental disease), there has been a long, slow, manipulated change from laissez-faire capitalistic and individual liberty to government takeovers of property, business, and individual rights via taxes, regulation, and government “investment”. This is mostly accomplished via crisis scare tactics and appeals to emotion, the usual method of post-modernist, anti-enlightenment “universe from nothing, design from chance” nihilistic materialists.
And all of that has been accomplished with a complicit media apparatchik that demonizes the right and lauds the left in every show, movie, newscast and story, via both overt and subtextual messaging.
Okay, that’s my rant for the day.
Bachman is being targeted not only by the print media, but on the web as well. Take a look at what Wikipedia says about her:
“Bachmann has cited theologian Francis Schaeffer as a ‘profound influence’ on her life and her husband’s, specifically referring to his film series How Should We Then Live?.[12][13] She has also described Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity by Nancy Pearcey as a ‘wonderful’ book.[12] Schaeffer is regarded as a key intellectual source for the theological-political movement known as dominionism, which holds that “Christians, and Christians alone, are Biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns”; Pearcey is one of the most prominent advocates of dominionism.[12][32] Journalists Ryan Lizza and Sarah Posner have argued that Bachmann’s worldview is deeply influenced by dominionism.[12][33][34]
[edit]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Bachman
I’m sorry, but I’ve read all of Francis Schaeffer’s books and he was certainly not a Dominionist as depicted in the above paragraph. Neither is Nancy Pearcey. That people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson picked up on Schaeffer’s call for Christians to be socially and politically active, in no way shows that he endorsed their ways. Schaeffer viewed Christians as ambassadors for Christ in a culture that is becoming more and more secular and less mindful of the dignity and value of human life. His work was less a political treatise and more a “call to arms” for Christians to be Christians standing up against cultural trends that lead to the demise of our Judaeo-Christian moral climate.
If Bachman is fond of Schaeffer and Pearcey, that shows that she has considered some issues that are at the heart of what has happened to this country and where it needs to go. I’m beginning to like her even more.
Sadly though, the left wants to present her as a raging lunatic who’s aim is to create a theocracy.
BTW, Pearcey is a strong supporter of ID; which shows where Bachman may be going.
CY:
Your reading of Schaeffer — and I both read his books individually starting in the 70’s and have the five volume set — is right.
Seems like Wiki is up to the usual.
Maybe you can also link to something online, say like this?
Since this one is not locked, see what happens if you try to correct.
Document it.
GEM of TKI
PS: That hatchet job was like the dismissal of Lewis by an imbecile reporter who wanted to dismiss Palin, but did not know that Narnia was almost a hobby side, nor did the reporter care to do due diligence to learn form this seriously underestimated C20 Christian thinker. CSL wrote successfully in Literature [OHEL], phil tinged Christian thought issues — I have about 20 books worth, mostly essays, sci fic that makes a serious moral point [two or three series, one that blended over into fantasy], the brilliant satire piece on Screwtape and Wormwood, and the famous Narnia fantasy stories. And there were his letters too. I especially loved Miracles and Surprised by Joy.
What’s supposed to be wrong with the photo?
It seems quite a good photo to me.
Lizzie,
Maybe the wild staring eyes and the strong urge to fly?
Dr Liddle:
This is yet another case of a maliciously picked moment to put into a photo.
Another could easily have been chosen.
Multiply by the headline, which was just as malicious.
That is why even NOW is realising that this is a step too far. (And you had better believe they are calculating on the issue: what do they do with a President or Cabinet Member Bachmann if they let this pass?)
GEM of TKI
If that is “dominionism”, how is that any different than any other idea? Let’s alter that phrase slightly. Here’s the original:
“Christians, and Christians alone, are Biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns”
Would it be unfair to make the following statement?
“X is part of the democratic party. The democratic party believes that democrats and democrats along are mandated by the party to occupy all political institutions until the end of time.”
Is either statement really out of line, or unusual? Of course everyone thinks that the people they agree with should hold power to make the world better. Why is this even worth commenting on?
Johnnyb,
The problem with your comparison is that democrats aren’t mandated by anything to occupy any area of government, nevermind all areas. Nor does the democratic (or any other party) believe such. Therein lies the difference.
Here’s the real crux of issue with your comparison:
While this may be true, this isn’t what Dominionism describes. As noted above, it’s about believing there’s a mandate to occupy government and install a particular form of Christianity as law.
And there are many folk who find Dominionism just plain old scary.
Doveton:
The truth is that there are people out there who will take any means that hey can to try to smear Christians and the Christian faith.
What they just tried with Mr Breivik is proof enough.
What they will never tell you in an American context is something like this, from the US Congress’ call to prayer just before the US DOI was issued:
In that light, re-read the following from that DOI, July 4:
That is a very telling echo of this from the Dutch under William the Silent of Orange in 1581:
Not to mention, this excerpting that shows the Grand Statement structure of the US Constitution:
Years ago I read IIRC somewhere in Schaeffer that the US revo was in significant aspects preached as a call to repentance and revival. But I never expected that the US Congress would have been chief among the preachers, but it plainly was.
What is happening is that there are all too many out there who are addicted to well poisoning tactics, targetting those who believe in God in the Judaeo-Christian tradition.
And when it comes to grounding law and state on that tradition, I find this clip from how Locke grounded principles of liberty in Ch II of his 2nd essay on civil govt, by citing “the judicious [Canon Richard] Hooker” in his Ecclesiastical Polity, 1594+ highly interesting:
There is a lot of poisonous caricaturing going on there by secularists and fellow travellers, that needs to be corrected by being set in a fairer, more balanced, more accurate context.
Such as in Wikipedia and a lot of other places.
Forthwith.
And when we see the sort of juvenile spite that so blatantly went into that cover page for a leading newsmagazine, that is ever, ever so revealing.
GEM of TKI
PS: Contrast the pics here.
Or here?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/c.....hotos.html
Honestly, not going out of your way to find a carefully-posed soft-focus photograph taken for promotional purposes doesn’t strike me as a major media crime!
It’s a perfectly good likeness, and doesn’t show an untypical expression.
It’s no different from many photos I’ve seen of Hillary Clinton – a bit hard edged maybe, but then I guess that’s an occupational hazard. It’s the way they look.
As for:
How about:
Now that is a smear.
There is a difference between saying God is on our side and we are on God’s side. A big difference.
Yep. That’s what Newsweek editors do. Not go out of their way. Guy was walking into work one morning and this photo was laying there on the sidewalk. Who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth.
My biggest concern about Bachmann has nothing to do with her politics, but simply, is she smart and experienced enough to be President? There have been some alarming incidents which she is quite cavalier with facts – for example, in criticizing Obama’s recent trip to India, she claimed it cost tax payers $200M a DAY! Apparently she picked this up from an Indian media outlet, and never bothered to do proper fact-checking. She didn’t even have the decency to retract her story. Is this a one-off? Sadly no, it doesn’t take much research to see there’s a trend her. However you may like her politics, she is simply not the sharpest pencil in the box. Not somebody I want near the nuclear button, thanks.
Even Bill O’Reilly has his concerns:
/www.businessinsider.com/bill-oreilly-michele-bachmann-president-video-2011-3
So I’m not so sure the ID community want to hitch their wagon to this particular horse.
Actually, if you click on the photo, you will find that media insiders consider the Newsweek editor quite prejudiced in the matter – a fact doubtless known to NOW. They hate Bachmann, but she can be defeated. Much more easily than the tendency to tag women as airheads or hysterics, with no real cause.
They don’t exactly – or anyway – they get identified with whoever says they support ID. It pays to keep tabs on that person’s fortunes.
Maybe you didn’t see anything wrong, but people on opposite sides of a dozen controversies one could name DID see something wrong. Coincidence again?
Woodford @ #14:
From Bachmann’s site:
“Prior to serving in the U.S. Congress, Michele was elected to the Minnesota State Senate in 2000 where she championed the Taxpayers Bill of Rights. Before that, she spent five years as a federal tax litigation attorney, working on hundreds of civil and criminal cases.
Michele sits on the Financial Services Committee (FSC) and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Michele is a graduate of Anoka High School and Winona State University. She received her J.D. at the O.W. Coburn School of Law at Oral Roberts University and an L.L.M. in Tax Law at the College of William and Mary. ”
Do we consider Obama, Biden, Hillary, Bush, Quayle, Gore, etc. and Reagan equally unfit and “dull pencils” because they often make gaffes and incorrect statements?
Even if Bachmann was a “dull pencil”, so also was Reagan deemed a “dull pencil” – and worse – by the mainstream media and many of those in his own party.
I’ll take a principled “dull pencil” any time over socialist, left-wing tax-and-spend big statists from either party any day of the week.
Dr Liddle:
The comments on that page alone — did you read them — tell me that the photo on the Newsweek cover was indeed a sophomoric set up.
Multiply by the headline.
This is what is going on in the media now, and it is not pretty.
And that is my concern.
A poisonous media and public atmosphere does no one any good in the long run.
And that is just what we are seeing.
GEM of TKI
PS: Dr Liddle, have a read here [one of the targets for those playing hate games with me, look at the fig from Pink Cross, and reflect on the statistics, note the impact on divorce] and here [an eye-opener, just reflect on the Sambia and the two other patterns].
This is not the venue to go in depth on these, but a balancing read will help see what is happening to our civilisation.
I couldn’t care less about Michelle Bachmann or anyone from either party. But that picture made me angry.
If you randomly pause your DVR you can make the most serious news anchor look drunk, spaced, or half-crazed (not that I’ve ever spent any time doing that.) To get a trusting person to sit before your camera just you can deliberately make them look ridiculous is despicable.
Newsweek hasn’t been on my radar, but after this I wouldn’t take anything in that magazine seriously.
Meleager: “Do we consider Obama, Biden, Hillary, Bush, Quayle, Gore, etc. and Reagan equally unfit and “dull pencils” because they often make gaffes and incorrect statements?”
Well, yes, some of them we do. And some have proven beyond doubt they did not have the intellectual capacity to serve, not matter their education or qualifications.
Personally I want a candidate who can do more than just utter “let’s take back our country” (whatever the means) but has a real substantial vision and plan for moving this country forward – and do it in a way that doesn’t polarize the country but unite it in a common vision. And hopefully it’s an inclusive plan that does not let the poor and the disenfranchised fall through the cracks. Of course the irony is the more “Christian” the candidate, the more likely it seems that something like that could actually happen.
No credit to feminists.
They are the bad guys for many reasons.
By the way its very common tactic of liberals to say conservatives are full of rage.
What they hope to persuade their readers by the word is that the ideas of this woman are not coming from ordinary presumptions of elements in the country but are from a special species of presumptions.
They are trying to tap into accusations that hate or rage etc are behind republican motivations.
Rage discredits a contender. It hints at dark motives behind the rage.
I seen it for years.
The remedy is to demand why they make suc a important accusation and not let them give cheap answers.
Hold a liberal press to the issue of credibility.
Theirs!
RB:
Very well said and quite sobering points.
My own thoughts on media spin games are here, including a grid for grading the media’s credibility.
Maybe, that will give meat to the bones of your suggestion.
G
Woodford:
Please support your contention via reference to the past presidents of the USA that, as you claimed, “the more “Christian” the candidate, the more likely it seems that something like that could actually happen.”
You may not realize this, but Woodrow Wilson and FDR were two of the most devout Christians to serve (FDR often addressing the nation about praying, quoting scripture, referring to God, etc.), and they are the ones that brought socialistic and “social justice” programs to America. Jimmy Carter, who initiated the community social justice lending regulations (that eventually led to the financial meltdown), was certainly about as devoutly a Christian as any that served.
It seems to me that even a brief examination of history shows that it was those Presidents who were the most devout Christians, operating under the misguided notion that they could achieve a heaven and justice on earth, that have done the most as far as not letting “the poor and the disenfranchised fall through the cracks” – and, unfortunately, laying the groundwork for the onerous government and financial burden we now face.
It seems to me that it is clear that your smear of the character and intentions of christian candidates is not only unsupportable, but easily disproved via easy-to-access historical facts.
Except, I might amend, for our founding forefathers, who were virtually to a many so devout in their Christianity that we would consider them extreme fundamentalists, but enlightened enough to realize that the state could never, and should never, serve as a proxy for the necessary moral character of the populace.
When we require the state to be our moral guide and proxy (via forced tax-and-spend, redistributive social justice programs), the nation is already lost.
I meant, “… who were virtualy to a man so devout …”
Robert Byers:
No credit to feminists.
They are the bad guys for many reasons.
Very fair minded.
By the way its very common tactic of liberals to say conservatives are full of rage.
In his new book The Roots of Obama’s Rage, Dinesh D’Souza theorizes that President Obama is motivated by an “anti-colonial” ideology inherited from his father, and boasts that this theory explains Obama’s actions in a way “that no rival theory can even begin to do
RB:
Rage discredits a contender. It hints at dark motives behind the rage.
I seen it for years
WOW! Glenn Beck did almost an hour long interview with Dinesh D’Souza, author of a fascinating new book called The Roots of Obama’s Rage
But that ok because he is “the bad guy for many reasons”.
Doveton –
Then it is an abuse of the term to apply it to people such as Bachmann or Schaeffer. Schaeffer followed Kuyper’s views, not Rushdooney. It is a grave injustice to equate them.
F/N: I found another site that helps those caught up in sexual bondages here.
This gives some significant additional perspective on Mrs Bachmann’s remarks on having and needing to help family caught up in such problems. This whole area has potential to wreck our civilisation, by breaking down family life and social stability leading to chaos and the cry for someone to restore order.
For a fascist messianic political messiah, in short. (And yes, fascism — properly understood — is an ideology of the LEFT, just, not quite as left as Marx and co.)
If you want my view on political messiahs of any stripe, here it is. Demonic, destructive idolatry, in three words.
That’s what wrecked my homeland, and I would not wish that on any other land.
(And for those UD-obsessed anti evo folks ever eager to find my imagined theocratic angle etc, here is where I have laid out my thoughts on the matter, as a Christian thinker and dyed- in- the- wool, anti- messianic- pol, small-d democrat [spell that MNM vs EPGS if you can figure out the initials . . . ] Also, by now you should be tired of being scornful, potty mouthed, supercilious and locked into the pretence that when you say “we know you, we know where you are, we know those you care for” it will not properly be taken as a threat by a reasonable person. Sorry, you tripped a nuke trip-wire there, and you cannot take it back now or pretend that “a nuh nutten.” It’s bydand time. Onlookers, cf here on what is really going on.)
PS: Abraham Kuyper is a serious name indeed and his Stone lectures at Princeton in 1898 are still well worth reading. I found in them much food for thought.
VS: Please cf here on, especially here. G
Kf,
Was that for me?
Are you asking if I think Newsweek is fairly treating MB?
No I actually agree with Now that equal treatment supersedes politics, I thought the Palin cover was worse. Newsweek is desperate to survive and has gone over to sensationalism .
However, applying standards only to your opponents behavior while exempting your sides similar behavior (fox,etc) makes the indignant protestations open to ridicule.I was happy to oblige. RB provided a perfect setup.
So I my view it wasn’t a story just about MB but ends justify the means attitude in politics, first you have to elevate your opponent to evil incarnate so any manner of opposition becomes acceptable. No strawman argument .
Not a big fan of hypocrisy , you?
VS:
Yes, there is need for consistency. I do note however that there really are excessively and unjustifiably angry people out there, with serious enough implications.
So, the issue as usual comes back to warrant.
Those who have become unhinged through anger etc generally reflect it by a want of balance and a lack of concern to be fair or accurate. Which indeed comes from all sides.
In the case in the OP, there is a clear projection of rage unto Mrs Bachmann, coupled to a clear distortion of where she stands, multiplied by abuse of photography.
(ASIDE: I find that people who have a sort of bright-ish, light blue eyes can more easily be captured at a moment when their eyes reflect light oddly or when they are glancing aside in ways that make them seem foolish, etc. The example that stands out in my memory was the remark about Dan Quale as being a deer caught in the headlights; used to erect an unfair caricature. In the live person, such instants will be obviously in passing and will not usually be noticed, but the power of photos to capture an instant forever is telling here. And someone above aptly pointed out that if we looked frame by frame a video will almost always have some very odd looking instants, with half-closed eyes and whatnot. But, I have also seen a case where Ms Condi Rice’s very dark eyes were made to appear menacingly even demonically glaring by artificially enhancing the whites, and IIRC by the very same Newsweek. There is a definite problem of willful caricature by manipulative, malicious photography. [Cameras can and do lie, especially when they are in the hands of malicious-minded liars.])
That said, the angry Marxism-tinged, Alinskyite radical is a far more pervasive problem in our day than almost anything else in our civilisation. (And, DK and Anti-Evo crowd, YES, Marxism-tinged. VS, Anti Evo is now monitoring and sneeringly sniping at anything I say online, in an extremely supercilious fashion, indeed giving exactly the sort of example I am talking about.)
Having said all that, I think Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount should give us all serious and sobering pause:
(And of course this text — which builds on Lev 19:15 – 18 — a key actual root source in the hebraic tradition of Love thy neighbour as thyself (love includes both fairness in judgement and frankness in correction, multiplied by a refusal to entertain hostility in heart), is a classic illustration of how the bronze age god and moral monster stereotype now being pushed by new atheist talking points endlessly repeated in Big Lie tactic fashion, is exactly a case in point; albeit the caricature is verbal rather than visual.)
Our civilisation has some serious re-learning and reformation to do, if it is to be saved from suicide by running, lemming-like, over the cliff.
GEM of TKI
F/N: The caricaturing is not just in Newsweek through willfully caricaturing photos and captions.
So, pardon a further note.
Following up on the Clip used above to accuse Mrs Bachmann of bigotry, as this captures what is going on so tellingly (based on an update to a blog post):
__________
>> current US Presidential candidate Mrs Michele Bachmann, speaking [in 2004] with particular reference to homosexual behaviours and lifestyles (which are deeply porn-related in the current era):
Of course, this clip is now being cited far and wide by homosexualist activists and fellow travellers, to denigrate Mrs Bachmann by distorting the highlighted part as if she had said that homosexuals as such are a part of Satan. (Instead, plainly, she is saying that the hijacking of the word “gay” from the 1960’s or 70’s on is deception, in the teeth of the reality of the bondage, harm and struggles being faced ion the ground. And, scripturally, Satan is the father of lies.)
However, Mrs Bachmann’s point applies much more broadly, across sexually related and other addictive and destructive, deceptive behaviours. Paul’s counsel to the church in Ephesus is apt:
Sobering counsel indeed. And a terrible implicit warning on what happens to a culture or a community or a church or a family if such counsel is not heeded. >>
__________
The tactic we are seeing is that there is now yet another drumbeat talking point that the only reason for objection to homosexual conduct or porn etc behaviour is bigotry, a stand-in for “hate.”
Straight out of the Alinsky rules for radicals playbook.
So, it is no surprise to see hate crimes law being turned to a new use, to shut down principled objection and stifle consciences and freedom of religion. After all, it is pretended, the ONLY way such could object is “hate.”
Sorry, that projection is exactly what reveals the sad spiritual secrets of the hearts of those who resort to such tactics.
Whomever this may concern, kindly note: morally principled objection to questionable conduct is not hate . . .
. . . and there is the additional concern that some patterns of behaviour — if they spread far and wide, will have cumulatively destructive effects on the community and on people in the community.
When concern and principled, conscience based objections are relabelled by powerful or influential interests and agendas as “hate” or euphemisms for “hate,” we had better take serious notice and act before it is too late.
Yes, it is possible to hate people for whatever reasons, and that is wrong.
It is also possible — and just as wrongful [for it is in fact as sign of hate for such principled people] — to use turnabout rhetoric and false accusation demonisation tactics to slander and smear principled people for daring to stand up to fashionable wrong (as notoriously happened to the early Abolitionists).
We have been warned.
GEM of TKI
Kariosfocus
Read your webpage and your right on about all mediums that strive and do reach large audiences are hostile with malice aforethought against Christianity and creationism.
velikosky
I don’t know about Oboma’s “rage”. or these books.
I know there’s problems with him to say the least.
The accusation and attempts to define someone by rage has been a liberal tactic for decades .
Seldon do conservatives think that way or have power to express.
Those who accuse must demonstrate the weight of serious accusations.
Powerful mediums simply are not policed by like power.
So they can say almost anything.
In fact everyone who opposes things raises their voice.
The left however tries to slywise point this out and then define why their is raised voices.
This to discredit motives without a actual case made on evidence about motives.
I’ve seen all the time.
One must have an answer ready.