A trove of names and paraphernalia were found, hidden a former Newaygo minister's attic. It was a revealing 1920's collection of who and how well-placed in the community local KKK's men were. This event is a clear and timely reminder of the cyclical outbreak of Michassippi religious and political fanaticism.
Diehard TeaPartisans in the state legislature are steely well-defended against all reason or compromise by very the rise and the backing of this current (but historically familiar) outbreak of another militant Know Nothing frenzy (TeaPartisanship) and it's accompanying Koch Bros.-backed CORPORATIST RUSH TO USE GOVERNMENT TO DESTROY GOVERNMENT. The "muscular" movement is well underway here in Snyder's re-invented state: Michassippi.
Trouble Is Emerging
Swept along and cleverly manipulated, the TeaPublican's militant, arrogant and ignorant, movement has become the "tool" of the State Chamber of Commerce and affiliates; men who would risk endemic damage to our new Michassippian infrastructure and gamble with the potential for serious social unrest in the centers where more and more of the underclass are ghettoized while using this their "opportunity" to make selfish gains. This risk is intensified by this greedy and parsimonious group of individuals willing to "risk it all" for-a few more dollars on their bottom lines.
TeaPublicans Are Takers, Not Givers
Key to this fanatical effort (co-opted by power driven business and corporate interests) are the deadly determined "muscular" Christian types. These are the hardhearted who have succeeded in seizing control of the state's traditional Republican Party for their sectarian and private causes and agendas.
Never far below the surface is the ugly reality of an intense Cultural War targeting enemies and politics outside the acceptance of these "muscular" theoloticians strict world of "liberty." These battles are feeding and augmenting their aggression toward targeted "others."
These Zealots' worldview is set against what they characterize and condemn as the present state of affairs, as they view it: "feminized" politics and religion. "Nanny State" is but one of their favorite and oft repeated terms of derision highlighting their angst.
Michassippi's TeaPartiasns are the "Strict Father" types, "muscular" men who must "put their foot down," take total control, and sternly discipline the "Nurturing Mother" elements in our state- those who would seek to care for and attend the needs of others-especially in this our hour of great need.
According to Dome Magazine's Eric Freedman, Michigan: Hate Magnet?: "the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit national civil rights organization, says 35 hate groups (are active in Michigan)- more than in any other Midwest state..."
A newly published account of this "forgotten" evil smudge on our state's radical past is found in the following according to Freedman:
"A new book by historian Craig Fox describes Michigan's KKK movement after World War I, focusing on rural Newaygo County and its strong anti-Catholicism. Given the clandestine nature of the organization, its diversified organizational structure and the destruction of most of its records, there's no precise figure on the number of "Invisible Empire" members across the state during that period. Estimates ranged from 80,000 to as high as 875,000."
"As it had done elsewhere, the Klan swept across Michigan like wildfire, an extended recruitment drive seeing the hooded order arrive in villages, towns and cities through the state during the summer months of 1923."The influence of the KKK in Michigan was so strong that Frank Boles, at Central Michigan's Clarke Library, reported, "...that for a few short years in the 1920s, the Klan exerted a strong political influence on Michigan and was close to electing Klan members to the highest political offices. A referendum on banning private education was even proposed by the Klan. Boles writes:
" The ban on private education was directed primarily toward Roman Catholics, the KKK target of choice at that time."The Role of the "Muscular Christian" in Harsh Right Politics
"It (Michigan's 1920's KKK) was a broadly based organization which was mostly anti-immigrant and anti Catholic. A lot of people felt that way, and they were not perceived as fringe or kooks."
Observer Austin Cline helps us see how this "muscular Christian" archetype works into our present states' politics and helps to explain the bitterness and the vengeance wreaked upon public servants and advocates for the Public Good-the high ground of a Commons "in the service of everyone."
Under Michassippi's "Muscular TeaPartisan" rampage and the hour of power facilitated by the "Leave us Alone" Libertarians-touting "liberty" to be and do as they please-all others outside their circle of concern, "be damned," has come to signal terrible the beginnings of the most radical and extreme regime ever seen in Lansing.
Outlawed are the very themes of social justice and democracy-in their most American form. Enter now the realm of "power and might," money and control espousing: business is basic. They are "lording it over" care and service "the nurturing element" which is essential to lives of working families and to the existence of those less fortunate in this troubled economy.
There is much to learn from Cline about this devolution into radical conflict:
"Because Muscular Christianity focuses on replacing feminine qualities with masculine virtues, it necessarily involves attacks on women in the church. The attacks may be subtle, but there is an inevitable denigration of everything associated with women. By insisting that Jesus, God, and the Christian church are masculine and specifically not feminine, the message is sent that feminine qualities are inferior to everything masculine. Women are also blamed for problems in the church."It is logical and easy to see that "muscular Christian" far right christo-polticians and others - so deeply infiltrating Michassippi's theololitics; with the help of the "muscular" theoloticians - expands this rabble's condemnation of the "feminine." Their condemnation includes public school teachers. Mentors and education instructors are derided as "soft" and lack the stern discipline of a "muscular." All this harks back to authority such as is found in the 19th Century industrial model of leadership and rigid order: "I'm the boss, you are the peon." When educators and teacher complain of the lack of support and the "muscular radicals'" cuts in revenues and public support - such as they are currently facing; they are called "Wimps" and "Whiners"
So we turn again to Austin Cline for a summation to enlighten the place we find ourselves. We are midstream in our present and accelerating race to the bottom of the nation on the basis of Rick Snyder's re-invention of our former Arsenal of Democracy into a stripped down Snyder led Michassippi:
"Muscular Christianity was founded upon a radical, as well as theological, distinction between supposedly masculine and feminine values. Because of this, it was possible for fundamentalists opposed to modernity to transfer what they disliked about modernity to the "feminine" category. THUS WOMEN BECAME BEARERS OF ALL THAT WAS HATED ABOUT THE MODERN WORLD WHILE MEN WERE INVESTED WITH EVERYTHING GOOD AND POSITIVE.The all out attacks on workers rights, public education, and public service now under "full steam ahead" in Michassippi are clear signals of a deeper flaw and a more fundamental evil. If we could recall DIETRICH BONHOFFER he would doubtless agree with Cline:
"A significant impetus behind the assault on women and modernity was the feeling that women had encroached upon traditional male spheres like the workplace and colleges. Furthermore, women's leadership in the churches had harmed Christianity by creating an effeminate clergy and a weak sense of self. All of this was associated with liberalism, feminism, women, and modernity.
"Although examples of something like muscular Christianity can be found in ancient Christianity and in Europe, it is primarily an American phenomenon and an American fundamentalist reaction against the modern era of equality and liberty. Muscular Christianity pushes masculinity in part by pushing traditional hierarchies and traditional structures of authority - structures which, naturally, are run and controlled by men. FIGHTING AGAINST THE "FEMINIZATION" OF CHURCH OR SOCIETY IS, THUS, A FIGHT AGAINST THE LOSS OF TRADITIONAL PRIVILEGES AND POWER. (emphasis added)
"Indeed, the development of fundamentalism and later the Christian Right can be described, at least in part, as a reaction against equality and an attempt to defend or restore traditional privileges. Because so many privileges are bound up with traditions which themselves are tied closely with religion, it's natural that assaults on traditional privileges will be seen as assaults on religion.
"IN A WAY, THEY ARE AN ASSAULT ON RELIGION - RELIGION IS PARTIALLY TO BLAME FOR THE PERSISTENCE OF UNJUST PRIVILEGES IN SOCIETY. JUST BECAUSE INEQUALITY AND PRIVILEGE HAVE RELIGIOUS BACKING DOESN'T MAKE THEM EXEMPT FROM RATIONAL EVALUATION AND CRITICISM." (emphasis added)
"Traditional masculine qualities played a very important role in Nazi rhetoric, so of course Nazi Christians preferred a masculine Christianity over a feminine one. True Christianity, they claimed, was manly and hard, not feminine and weak. Adolf Hitler described Jesus, "my Lord and Savior," as "a fighter." His Jesus, and the Jesus of German Christians generally, was a militant warrior fighting for God, not a suffering servant accepting punishment for the sins of the world."Specifically, TeaPublican's specious attacks on public education target and punish women more than men. Over 65 % ,and higher percentages, of public school teachers are women and women have become the "easy/soft" targets of choice for the greedy and the evilly ideological anti-public sector business and religious types.
Teaching women are high value targets in the Michassippi take down of public education and teacher rights and privileges by the states elected TeaPublicans and fellow travelers.
Original Post.
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