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| The Dutch Revolt - Decades of Battling for Religious Freedom (1568-1648): Dutch Protestants resisted the domination and perceived tyranny of the Spanish occupying Catholic Church (Engraving by Frederik Muller 1569) |
The Dutch of Europe are:
"Long known as the bastion of liberalism and tolerance, the Netherlands has now been declared home to the least prejudiced people in Europe."
Unsavory Rogues: Well-Dressed Male Legislative Bullies & Bellicose Blockheads
A huge portion of the impulse and projection of overly zealous power of Michigan's TeaPublicans (Tea Party Republicans) arises from this unsavory group of male bullies and blockheads, men who find themselves in a super majority and cannot and/or will not limit themselves from over-boarding their perception of God's gift of power and influence is bestowed upon themselves: power and moral fitness make them "righteous." This group of men has dominated West Michigan politics and business for a long period.
These radical Republicans are sponsored in large part, and paid into politics: sustained, bought, and buoyed, by the nouveau riche Amway Clan -- the Richard M. (Rich) DeVos Sr. and Jay Van Andel families-at-large. These Amway scions, have been enriched by billions plucked from the "dead-end dreams" of suckers - (recruits churned into seeking a fortune from soap selling in a MLM/product-based pyramid scheme-where over 98% fail miserably and pay a heavy personal cost).
The Amwayites (founders of Amway/Alticor) believe themselves on a mission from God. They are the self-appointed members of the "hounds of Heaven" out to purge the state and its laws of all things offensive to their narrow and short-sighted tastes. (while enhancing in every way their grip on mega-wealth and the final say in all things business related.) As spokesperson Betsy DeVos put it, "We expect a return on our investment." Over the years the "returns" from shrewdly placed political investments has paid off for Amway, big time, they milk the game fully!
Now, amid this orgy of "rightness," the Tea Party faction in the Michigan GOP has placed US Representative Dave Agema in the top political post of the party, GOP National Committeeman. Agema will go on to "infect" the larger body politic with his special brand of self-importance and superiority. Nasty political snobbery will be his trademark and calling card.
Agema, a Frisian, is a member of a specific sub-culture originating in a ill-famous lowland province of the Netherlands. It's a Dutch sub-culture of which former Congressman Pete Hoekstra is also a prominent member-and more importantly-a direct child immigrant from that special area of Holland.
Frisians are known to members of the Michigan Dutch Community for their special characteristics which distinguish them as a sub-group (tribe): super-stubborn and opinionated, extremely hardheaded, specifically limited socially, hardly tolerant, and certainly not liberal in a religious or cultural sense.
The recent flareup against two members of the legislature who are ladies reflects a deeper and more pernicious affliction amongst this group of men, highly influenced by West Michigan's "black stocking" faction -- angst and mistrust. Theirs is an outright fear of women and female power to move agendas and influence decisions many of these "old world" / paternalistic-minded males (governing people in a fatherly manner, especially by providing for their needs without giving them rights or responsibilities.) They believe God gives them preemption over women, government is a realm left only to men.
The George Lakoff image of "strict father" - master disciplinary of his house - lay out the most appropriate and descriptive model for the TeaPublican talking-points approach to politics. "Harsh discipline" and "complete male-control morals" fits the present atmospherics in the Lansing Capitol to a "T," what with the on-going "V" revolt!
Michigan’s self-righteous tsunami of testosterone projects just the right set of overweening evil drives and vengeance on to destroy the quality of life in our state
Much of the ongoing theatrics and rudeness of behaviors in the torrent of conservative savage attacks on women and their status, their jobs, their retirement, and their health care (in larger terms) in the Michigan state legislature comes from the pre-New Testament concepts rooted in the Genesis account given in the Old Testament. This permission to override female judgment and opinion, the choices and goals of women, comes directly from the continuing belief (however quaint and mythical) that the "fall of man" comes directly from the fault of a woman (think St. Augustine).
Elaine Pagel in her book "Adam, Eve, and the Serpent" (New York: Random House, 1988) explained it for John R. Mabry, who writes:
"A recent study I did on St. Augustine of Hippo convinced me that the starting point for guilt as a staple of Christian life began with him. As Elaine Pagels points out in her marvelous book Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, what the Jews and early Christians had read for centuries as 'a story of human freedom became, in [Augustine's] hands, a story of human bondage.' Instead of being a story about the gift of moral freedom, as St. John Chrysostom proclaimed, Augustine taught that 'Adam's sin not only caused our mortality but cost us our moral freedom, irreversibly corrupted our experience of sexuality... and made us incapable of genuine political freedom.'"
(Emphasis Added)
Does this sound silly or unbelievable to you? And what place does this theological contrivance have in modern, legitimate civic affairs?
Mayhap you are not attuned with the deeper theolotics behind and invasive in the present fanaticism and outrage going on in many churches (Christian Dominionists, Michigan's Citizens for Traditional Values - a well-known member: State Representative Tom McMillin (R - Rochester, MI) and in the hidden corners of the Opus Dei Vatican and Michigan's Tom Monahan (Read “Tom Monaghan becomes national power broker for GOP Catholic candidates” that appeared in the Naples News in September 2008.
Testosterone Fear Runs Wild in Evangelical Circles
Things have grown so out of hand , so irreverent and absurd, that Christianity Today has a cover story entitled “Forever Young: The Juvenilization of the American Church, the inside story: When Are We Going to Grow Up? The Juvenilization of American Christianity” by Thomas Bergler.
Amazon Book Notes expands:
“(Thomas) Bergler shows too how this "juvenilization" of churches has led to widespread spiritual immaturity, consumerism, and self-centeredness, popularizing a feel-good faith with neither intergenerational community nor theological literacy.”Meanwhile in the real world of pain and gain: Pernicious and Pugnacious Philistines are in complete control of the political direction of Michigan-Michissippi is on a tsunamic crest.
Those the conservative Southwest Michigan Dutch Hollanders diss as the "De onversneden Filistijnen" they themselves have become "concubines," as it were, to another set of rogue Dutchmen: the Koch Brothers and their powerful lobby the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) - the Koch's effective and secret way to legislative directly into corporate advantage.
Those the conservative Southwest Michigan Dutch Hollanders may diss the "De onversneden Filistijnen" yet it is they themselves who have become the neo-Philistines playing Animal House - a consequence of their own overblown evil ambitions and greed.
On the Reader:
Read the book "Adam, Eve, and the Serpent: Sex and Politics in Early Christianity" by Elaine Pagels (Vintage 1989) or an interview with George Lakoff on language and 'reframing' in "Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics" (Berkley News 2003).
Related Slates:
The Blind-eyed Marriage of the Conservative Churches to the Excessive & Corrupt Business Practices (April 2012) - Mitt Romney: America’s Nascent Holy “god” & Possible President?
More on theolitics or the role of religion in politics under "Christian Values" on the Gazette.
The Original Post was CENSORED and DELETED by the editorial staff at the Detroit News and Michigan View.
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