Or, Welcome to the Autumn of Hate

Once there was a summer of love. People were protesting not to take rights away, not to hate, but to grant rights - and to love. Welcome almost half a century later to the winter of hate.

The Family Research Council, which likes to claim it advances "faith, family and freedom" as "core values" doesn't actually care much for freedom. The FRC wants God to do away with the evil rabble occupying Wall Street. But what are the protestors doing after all but protesting on behalf of their - and our - freedom? Significantly, FRC wants to pray the whole thing away, rather like similar prayer movements have prayed gasoline back down to a dollar a gallon. As Rick Perry would say, "Ooops." Never mind....

Okay, so since the gas thing didn't work out, how about "labor unions, liberal mayors, governors, the White House, the American Nazi and Communist parties, ACORN, Hollywood entertainers [sic] and a long list of supra-liberal and liberal groups" including a nonexistent "liberal media"? Maybe sky gods have different priorities than those who profess to be his earthly agents. Maybe gas wasn't important to Him but liberal rabble will successfully catch his attention. Maybe?

Seriously, this is what the FRC prayer team wants the faithful to focus on for a fun-filled autumn of hate:
Days of Rage Turn Violent - The expanded Wall Street Occupation is endorsed by labor unions, liberal mayors, governors, the White House, the American Nazi and Communist parties, ACORN, Hollywood enertainers [sic] and a long list of supra-liberal and liberal groups, not the least of which is the liberal media. Encampments in major cities, including Washington, DC, are not only a nuisance, a health hazard and an embarassment [sic] to thinking Americans, they are increasingly becoming violent. Ideological anarchists intimidate and abuse bystanders, damage automobiles, jump on and in front of moving vehicles, urinate and defacate [sic] on private and public property, go naked and perform sex acts in public, produce tons of garbage that taxpayers have to collect and haul away, etc. Yet the mainstream press, which villainized the Tea Party movement, after long ignoring it, flagrantly idealizes the Occupiers and ignores the damage and ugly crimes happening in most places where an occupation is in progress. Fortunately the movement is "losing its bloom," and beginning to die out. The honeymoon among these diverse activists may be coming to an end (see Violence, Media Ignores Violence, Bloom Fading, Time to End, Original Plan, Broken Windows).

May the movement simply fizzle. May God protect those who live nearby and must encounter these raucus [sic] groups. May God harvest souls for Christ from among them just as He did discontented youth in the Jesus Movment [sic] of the 60′s and 70′s (1 Sam 22:1-2; 2 Chr 15:4-7; Ps 18:40-50; Is 42:14-18; Lk 19:39-40; Rom 8:15-16; 10:20).
Seriously...see all those "[sic]" notations in that paragraph? I'm thinking their biggest need is prayers for a spell-checker or perhaps for literate writers. There is no excuse in this day and age for having spelling errors in any word processor-generated article. Sure, an occasional typo may escape attention but this is a bit excessive, isn't it? Maybe (and Heathen readers will at least -and maybe fans of Thor - recognize the allusion) Loki got his hands on their word processors. We can only hope.

Either way, you've gotta wonder, assuming God is finicky about spelling (as a perfect being ought to be), how their prayers will turn out. Are prayers like magic spells where everything has to be precise? Or is the gist of what is wanted enough?

But let's get down to the "meat" of the matter before we enjoy dessert (or as FRC would say, "desert"). Their claims regarding the #Occupy movement are baseless. No mention here of police brutality; not a word uttered in defense of First Amendment rights; no admission that the "mainstream press" has - far from idealizing the protestors and their cause - largely ignored the movement or that when they have bothered to mention it have instead of reporting accurately deliberately misinterpreted the movement, its causes and goals. Like other conservative propagandists, FRC likes to bring in Nazis and Communists as though they are identical, and of course the mythical and ever evil Hollywood which combines Sodom and Gomorrah under one convenient and fun-filled roof.

One gets the idea that they grabbed hold of as many constructed "Others" as they could come up with and like the authors of the Old Testament threw them all together in a sort of satanic jungle juice as something to inspire in equal parts prurient awe and vilification. Nobody obsesses over this stuff more than those who want to be doing it themselves. If you ask where conservative Christianity would be without a constructed other or others, you're on the right track. They need Occupy Wall Street and if they somehow managed to pray it away, they would as quickly find new bogeymen to throw prayers at while they engage in salacious salivation over the unattainable.

It doesn't have to make sense; it doesn't have to have any basis in fact; it only has to generate fear and loathing among the base. In conservative eyes the #Occupy movement has become almost a Woodstock on Steroids with genital-throbbing mention of naked young liberals having public sex. Nobody gobbles that stuff up more than sexually repressed conservatives. You can almost hear them whacking off; houses are shaking in conservative Christian homes all across America: "Oh, they shouldn't be doing that...oooh, oooh they shouldn't be doing that...oooooohhhhhhhh...Praise Jesus!"

Where are Grace Slick and her breast-baring antics when we need her? That would give them something to blind themselves with. She asked, "Don't you want somebody to love?" but the conservative Christian lyrics ask a very Old Testament "don't you want somebody to hate?"

Yep. Straight to hell in a hand basket.

Good times. Welcome to the winter of hate...and, to borrow Shakespeare, to "the winter of our discontent."

Note: The actual text of this article (excluding this note) is 999 words, qualifying it for the official Michele Bachmann "of the Devil" condemnation category. Pats on the back will be accepted.