While I was celebrating Easter in a safe place with my basket and chocolate eggs, Angelina Jolie (though probably not giving much thought to the true meaning) was actually living out Easter. She and husband Brad Pitt went to Bosnia to help refugees. [I just hate it when I feel shamed by the Hollywood elite].
Jolie, the most notable Hollywood “do-gooder,” who seems to collect children from far off lands, has been a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Ambassador since 2001. She has made prior humanitarian trips to Haiti, Syria and Kenya, and helped with some of the projects of the agency that deals with the 117,000 refugees in Bosnia whose homes were destroyed or lack adequate infrastructure in their villages due to the war 15 years ago.
The war, which lasted from 1991 until America stepped in, as President Clinton said, “make the United States the catalyst for a collective stand against aggression,” calling an end to the mass rapes and genocide.
Jolie says,”[I am] so inspired by these families. Despite the grim realities of their unsettled existence, they have an incredible determination to make a better future for their children. I hope we can find solutions for the remaining tens of thousands of displaced people… only then can we really close one of the most tragic chapters in modern history.”
“[I hope] to return to this beautiful country soon and meet with political representatives to further discuss the solutions that are so badly required.”
I have to applaud Jolie for using her stardom for good. So many don’t. I don’t know if I would. I think she is a great example. There are those who protest, this is merely a publicity stunt. So what? It doesn’t matter what the reasons behind her actions are, it just matters that she is doing something.
c. 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
SAY IT AIN’T SO! LUKE WILSON, A DIVA?
Rumor has it that nice-guy, Luke Wilson is a [gasp] diva. The rumors are with regard to the AT&T commercials. Luke wants to make movies. Apparently, according to the entertainment blog on FoxNews.com, Wilson is annoyed that he is stuck with the commercials as his source of income, and he’s ended up making others unhappy as well.
This is a classic stress response, straight from the reptilian brain. Who hasn’t behaved this way on some level? I would imagine that anyone who has ever been unhappy with their job, has behaved in a “diva-like” manner to some extent. I know I have.
He’s talking back to the director, insisting that his lines be rewritten and refusing to shoot scenes with other actors, according to FoxNews.com.
“There were some lines meant to direct the commercial in a certain way, but Luke downright refused to say the lines at all. Luke kept saying, ‘I would never say that and I will not say that!’” the source tells FoxNews.com. “It’s unprofessional and unpleasant.”
AT&T and Verizon who have spent a combined $4 billion on the ads, vehemently deny this rumor.
“We’re very pleased with our relationship,” a spokeswoman for Atlanta-based AT&T Mobility told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
While Luke’s behavior is perhaps understandable, it will get old after a while. People will tire of catering to him and eventually stop hiring him for roles.
So Luke, if you’re listening, please heed my warning. You are too good an actor to become a has-been, but if you are miserable to work with on the small stuff, people will think twice about hiring you for the big stuff.
c. 2010
This is a classic stress response, straight from the reptilian brain. Who hasn’t behaved this way on some level? I would imagine that anyone who has ever been unhappy with their job, has behaved in a “diva-like” manner to some extent. I know I have.
He’s talking back to the director, insisting that his lines be rewritten and refusing to shoot scenes with other actors, according to FoxNews.com.
“There were some lines meant to direct the commercial in a certain way, but Luke downright refused to say the lines at all. Luke kept saying, ‘I would never say that and I will not say that!’” the source tells FoxNews.com. “It’s unprofessional and unpleasant.”
AT&T and Verizon who have spent a combined $4 billion on the ads, vehemently deny this rumor.
“We’re very pleased with our relationship,” a spokeswoman for Atlanta-based AT&T Mobility told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
While Luke’s behavior is perhaps understandable, it will get old after a while. People will tire of catering to him and eventually stop hiring him for roles.
So Luke, if you’re listening, please heed my warning. You are too good an actor to become a has-been, but if you are miserable to work with on the small stuff, people will think twice about hiring you for the big stuff.
c. 2010
ALL WE HEAR IS RADIO GAGA
So Lady Gaga has apparently “outed’ herself. Is anyone surprised? Is this really news? Does anyone really care?
I don’t know of anyone who really gave it a second thought when she said she was bisexual. I don’t understand why she feels the need to air her sex life on the tabloids.
It would make more sense, perhaps, if she were making up for a lack of talent by constantly doing over the top things to keep newsworthy. But she’s not a bad musician, [I must admit I do like Paparazzi].
The most recent picture of the gay activist floating about the internet is disgusting and a total PR stunt. Why she feels she must stoop to these levels is beyond me, but it says more about our culture. She does it because it works. I should say, it works with gay men. Gay women, seem not as impressed.
She is a total publicity whore. She’s made sure that even if we are not smitten with her, we are smitten with what she’ll do next. Either way, she’s guaranteed to be in the news.
Ironically her name, “Lady GaGa” is an inadvertent reference to the Queen song Radio Gaga. I find that to be very telling. Do we really have nothing better to talk about than whether or not she is gay or a hermaphrodite?
She actually attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. How is anyone supposed to recognize her talent when it is her shameless PR stunts that are making headlines? And even if they do recognize that she is talented, how can they not be alienated by the antics?
As annoying as she is, the more confounding thing is that people are eating it up. I suppose these are the same audiences as reality shows have. Kind of like a bad wreck; you can’t NOT look.
“Stephanie Germotta, We see you!” quoth fellow Parcbench writer, Don Smith, with empathetic pity.
Despite my disgust for her antics, throughout the course of writing this article, I really got in to her music. Because it’s good, catchy, fun music. Well done, Lady Gaga!
c. 2010
I don’t know of anyone who really gave it a second thought when she said she was bisexual. I don’t understand why she feels the need to air her sex life on the tabloids.
It would make more sense, perhaps, if she were making up for a lack of talent by constantly doing over the top things to keep newsworthy. But she’s not a bad musician, [I must admit I do like Paparazzi].
The most recent picture of the gay activist floating about the internet is disgusting and a total PR stunt. Why she feels she must stoop to these levels is beyond me, but it says more about our culture. She does it because it works. I should say, it works with gay men. Gay women, seem not as impressed.
She is a total publicity whore. She’s made sure that even if we are not smitten with her, we are smitten with what she’ll do next. Either way, she’s guaranteed to be in the news.
Ironically her name, “Lady GaGa” is an inadvertent reference to the Queen song Radio Gaga. I find that to be very telling. Do we really have nothing better to talk about than whether or not she is gay or a hermaphrodite?
She actually attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. How is anyone supposed to recognize her talent when it is her shameless PR stunts that are making headlines? And even if they do recognize that she is talented, how can they not be alienated by the antics?
As annoying as she is, the more confounding thing is that people are eating it up. I suppose these are the same audiences as reality shows have. Kind of like a bad wreck; you can’t NOT look.
“Stephanie Germotta, We see you!” quoth fellow Parcbench writer, Don Smith, with empathetic pity.
Despite my disgust for her antics, throughout the course of writing this article, I really got in to her music. Because it’s good, catchy, fun music. Well done, Lady Gaga!
c. 2010
HOME EC FOR THE MODERN TIMES
Japan’s Home Ec classes are a tad more modern than ours. Instead of egg babies, they have robot babies.
These are especially popular now, as Japan is trying to encourage it’s females to have babies. You see, the once booming Japan is suffering dire economic consequences because their population is at an all time low, with a birthrate at 1.37%. Compare that to 2.12% in the U.S. Put simply, people are not having babies. This is causing severe economic problems for the country, which doesn’t allow immigrants.
They are especially feeling the pinch in the 15-65 age group. These are the producers, the earners. They are losing the money-makers, while the more dependent elders seem to be on the rise.
According to a ministry of labor and welfare report, Japan expects over a quarter of its citizens to be aged over 65 by 2015.
In an effort to encourage procreation, and ultimately, industry, the students of the Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences at The University of Tsukuba, created a robo-baby last year, called Yotara.
Yotara is very lifelike. He actually has facial features which are projected onto his little warm silicon balloon face.
He has very lifelike baby reactions. He actually giggles and “wakes up” when a rattle is shaken. He sulks and dozes off like a real baby and smiles when his stomach is rubbed. He can also sneeze and have a runny nose, thanks to a heated water pump system.
Project leader Hiroki Kunimura, says,
“Through this experience, it would be great if some people started feeling that they wanted to have their own baby, if they started feeling that working is not everything.”
Japan’s population is expected to shrink by a third within 50 years if the birth rate does not increase. I guess if worse came to worse, they could always repopulate with the baby robots.
c. 2010
These are especially popular now, as Japan is trying to encourage it’s females to have babies. You see, the once booming Japan is suffering dire economic consequences because their population is at an all time low, with a birthrate at 1.37%. Compare that to 2.12% in the U.S. Put simply, people are not having babies. This is causing severe economic problems for the country, which doesn’t allow immigrants.
They are especially feeling the pinch in the 15-65 age group. These are the producers, the earners. They are losing the money-makers, while the more dependent elders seem to be on the rise.
According to a ministry of labor and welfare report, Japan expects over a quarter of its citizens to be aged over 65 by 2015.
In an effort to encourage procreation, and ultimately, industry, the students of the Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences at The University of Tsukuba, created a robo-baby last year, called Yotara.
Yotara is very lifelike. He actually has facial features which are projected onto his little warm silicon balloon face.
He has very lifelike baby reactions. He actually giggles and “wakes up” when a rattle is shaken. He sulks and dozes off like a real baby and smiles when his stomach is rubbed. He can also sneeze and have a runny nose, thanks to a heated water pump system.
Project leader Hiroki Kunimura, says,
“Through this experience, it would be great if some people started feeling that they wanted to have their own baby, if they started feeling that working is not everything.”
Japan’s population is expected to shrink by a third within 50 years if the birth rate does not increase. I guess if worse came to worse, they could always repopulate with the baby robots.
c. 2010
PALIN TV
The girl everyone loves to hate is getting her own TV show. The former Vice Presidential candidate, best-selling author, and Fox News Commentator now has another opportunity to annoy her enemies.
TLC has picked up her eight-episode TV series with the working title, Sarah Palin’s Alaska, after the other networks turned it down. She will reportedly earn over a million dollars per episode. It will be a documentary-style travel show which explores the picturesque state of Alaska. The show will fit both Discovery Communications and Palin like Alaskan beaver mittens.
I can guarantee that despite it’s non-antagonizing nature theme, it will be the most polarizing show on the tube. Fans will eat it up, and haters will scornfully despise it. The “environmental extremists” that oppose her because she’s not a proponent of “man-made climate change” will scorn her further. You can bet it will generate a lot of buzz.
The Huffington Post is already baring its claws. In their coverage of the show, they said:
“It is a strange move for Discovery — the purveyor of such classics as “Planet Earth” and “Life” and the parent of Planet Green and Treehugger — to sign with Palin, whose anti-nature stances include denying climate change, supporting aerial wolf-hunting, and, most famously, “Drill baby, drill!”
Then, on a red hyper-link, you can be sure to…
READ ABOUT PALIN’S MOST EGREGIOUS ANTI-NATURE STANCES
But lest you think there will be any agendas, the show will be free of politics. Just an insider’s look into the state she loves so dearly.
“Discovery Communications is so excited to help Sarah Palin tell the story of Alaska,” said Discovery Communications Chief Operating Officer Peter Ligouri. It is interesting to note that Ligouri used to be the head of Fox Entertainment in the “Family Guy” dispute. He was just the guy that she was crusading against, besides McFarlane, of course.
“Family Guy,” is the Seth MacFarlane series which had Chris date a girl with Down Syndrome. She told him that she is the daughter of a former governor of Alaska. This, of course caused Palin to go on the war path against “Fox Hollywood,” saying the show had slammed her little son Trig, who also has Down Syndrome, and that it was just the latest “kick in the gut” against her, adding on her Facebook page that it “begs the question, ‘When is enough enough?’”
Apparently she’s decided to bury the hatchet. (I have to say, she’s a better woman than I).
While I am very excited about her new show, I hope it doesn’t interfere with her running in the 2012 election. But if anyone can juggle it, Sarah can.
c. 2010
TLC has picked up her eight-episode TV series with the working title, Sarah Palin’s Alaska, after the other networks turned it down. She will reportedly earn over a million dollars per episode. It will be a documentary-style travel show which explores the picturesque state of Alaska. The show will fit both Discovery Communications and Palin like Alaskan beaver mittens.
I can guarantee that despite it’s non-antagonizing nature theme, it will be the most polarizing show on the tube. Fans will eat it up, and haters will scornfully despise it. The “environmental extremists” that oppose her because she’s not a proponent of “man-made climate change” will scorn her further. You can bet it will generate a lot of buzz.
The Huffington Post is already baring its claws. In their coverage of the show, they said:
“It is a strange move for Discovery — the purveyor of such classics as “Planet Earth” and “Life” and the parent of Planet Green and Treehugger — to sign with Palin, whose anti-nature stances include denying climate change, supporting aerial wolf-hunting, and, most famously, “Drill baby, drill!”
Then, on a red hyper-link, you can be sure to…
READ ABOUT PALIN’S MOST EGREGIOUS ANTI-NATURE STANCES
But lest you think there will be any agendas, the show will be free of politics. Just an insider’s look into the state she loves so dearly.
“Discovery Communications is so excited to help Sarah Palin tell the story of Alaska,” said Discovery Communications Chief Operating Officer Peter Ligouri. It is interesting to note that Ligouri used to be the head of Fox Entertainment in the “Family Guy” dispute. He was just the guy that she was crusading against, besides McFarlane, of course.
“Family Guy,” is the Seth MacFarlane series which had Chris date a girl with Down Syndrome. She told him that she is the daughter of a former governor of Alaska. This, of course caused Palin to go on the war path against “Fox Hollywood,” saying the show had slammed her little son Trig, who also has Down Syndrome, and that it was just the latest “kick in the gut” against her, adding on her Facebook page that it “begs the question, ‘When is enough enough?’”
Apparently she’s decided to bury the hatchet. (I have to say, she’s a better woman than I).
While I am very excited about her new show, I hope it doesn’t interfere with her running in the 2012 election. But if anyone can juggle it, Sarah can.
c. 2010
JENNIFER’S REVENGE
Does Jennifer Aniston want to be a cougar?
If she does, she’ll be in good company. Cougars are exceedingly popular in Hollywood, it seems. A cougar is defined as an older woman who dates or marries a younger man. Historically, Tinsel Town has been an environment particularly amenable to cougars, and indeed even today they are stalking and ambushing their prey. (Hey, who isn’t?)
Courtney Cox Arquette, 46 is a cougar of note, both on TV and in real life. However, she married her prey, David Arquette, 39.
Her post-Friends project is Cougar Town, which she not only stars in, but executive produces. The show tells the story about a 40-ish divorcee [Cox], navigating the dating scene. It’s no Friends, but definitely holds its’ own.
She says, “I don’t take offense to the word. David’s much younger than me and he loves older women. I mean, why not date someone younger if you can?” The show definitely adds appeal to the cougars; men want to date them, and women want to be them.
Lisa Kudrow guest-starred on the show, now Cox-Arquette wants her former Friends co-star, Jennifer Aniston to join her ranks.
“She’s younger than me so she can’t play my contemporary even though she did on Friends,” Cox tells ncdailynews, “but I think we can find something great for her to play.”
Aniston has been flirting with cougar-hood at least since Friends, where she once played a cougar. Her most recent beau, John Mayer is several years her junior. While John Mayer’s maturity resembles someone far younger than he, I’m not sure he qualifies. Cougars are generally further apart in age.
She is slated to star in another cougar role, the upcoming Speilberg movie, Pumas.
“It’s sort of a female Wedding Crashers. It’s about these girls who aspire to become cougars. They just paaarty! Young party girls who just find hot young guys to play with and then dump them. Why can’t women do it?”
Indeed.
Sounds like she is well on her way to cougarhood.
c. 2010
If she does, she’ll be in good company. Cougars are exceedingly popular in Hollywood, it seems. A cougar is defined as an older woman who dates or marries a younger man. Historically, Tinsel Town has been an environment particularly amenable to cougars, and indeed even today they are stalking and ambushing their prey. (Hey, who isn’t?)
Courtney Cox Arquette, 46 is a cougar of note, both on TV and in real life. However, she married her prey, David Arquette, 39.
Her post-Friends project is Cougar Town, which she not only stars in, but executive produces. The show tells the story about a 40-ish divorcee [Cox], navigating the dating scene. It’s no Friends, but definitely holds its’ own.
She says, “I don’t take offense to the word. David’s much younger than me and he loves older women. I mean, why not date someone younger if you can?” The show definitely adds appeal to the cougars; men want to date them, and women want to be them.
Lisa Kudrow guest-starred on the show, now Cox-Arquette wants her former Friends co-star, Jennifer Aniston to join her ranks.
“She’s younger than me so she can’t play my contemporary even though she did on Friends,” Cox tells ncdailynews, “but I think we can find something great for her to play.”
Aniston has been flirting with cougar-hood at least since Friends, where she once played a cougar. Her most recent beau, John Mayer is several years her junior. While John Mayer’s maturity resembles someone far younger than he, I’m not sure he qualifies. Cougars are generally further apart in age.
She is slated to star in another cougar role, the upcoming Speilberg movie, Pumas.
“It’s sort of a female Wedding Crashers. It’s about these girls who aspire to become cougars. They just paaarty! Young party girls who just find hot young guys to play with and then dump them. Why can’t women do it?”
Indeed.
Sounds like she is well on her way to cougarhood.
c. 2010
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Family Matters
First rule about the Family is that you don’t talk about the Family….
They prefer to keep things underground. But Jeff Sharlet, Vanity Fair columnist, actually lived among the group for several months, and he’s talking. His book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power is an expose on the group that has perked the ears of Christians in both political parties.
The Family is a group of Jesus ‘Followers.” They dislike the name “Christian,” as it’s a loaded word that alienates themselves from Muslims and Jews who, they say, can also follow Jesus. After all, Jesus wasn’t a Christian.
The group lives in a house on C. Street, in Washington DC. It is a bipartisan group that has been described by prominent evangelical Christians as the most politically well-connected fundamentalist organization in the US. Many high profile names have had some connection to the group. Mark Sanford and John Ensign are a few members of note lately.
This group, which is so covert that it sometimes denies whether it is even a group, is just now receiving media attention, after having been in existence since the 30s. Their underground power is a tad disconcerting, to say the least. Their secrecy has caused all sorts of allegations to be laid upon them; Communists, crusaders for a new world order, elitists, to name a few.
It would be an extreme generalization to dismiss the whole organization as “evil,” for the actions of a few of their members. They do a lot of good. For instance, in 1978 it secretly helped the Carter Administration organize a worldwide call to prayer with unlikely pair, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat. A peace treaty soon followed.
In 2001, it brought together the warring leaders of Congo and Rwanda for a similar meeting, leading to the two sides' eventual peace accord.
This interdenominational [and interfaith] group is responsible for organizing the Presidential Prayer Breakfast, which every sitting president since 1953 has been a part of, as has many dignitaries from other nations.
Founded in 1935, The Family is a group of mostly Republicans, but a few Democrats, which is currently led by Doug Coe. It’s a forum for public officials to hold Bible studies, prayer meetings, worship services, and just a general support system.
Hillary Clinton, though not a member, has said, the group "is a unique presence in Washington,” and Coe is “a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."
The group refers to themselves ‘the new chosen,” believing that all leadership is chosen by God. Most Christians believe this. However, The Family seems to have a strange twist on a works-based salvation that they, the “chosen,” are exempt from.
I quickly found out that The Family incorporates a lot of good things that would seem agreeable with most churches, takes them a little too far.
For instance, they are so focused on the “person of Christ.” Saying they worship a person, not an ideology. But how do they define this Christ? They meet in groups, or “cells,” believing that “Christ speaks directly to his anointed,” all but eliminating the need for scripture or church. Focusing on “the person of Christ” is appropriate. The thing is, different people have different notions of Christ. So it is curious where they are gaining their knowledge of their respective “persons of Christ.” There must be a standard by which to measure.
Sharlet writes extensively about the “secrecy” of the group. Indeed, confidentiality is appropriate in support systems. But as, Rev. Rob Schenck who leads a Bible study on the Hill inspired by C Street, wrote on his blog, “all ministries in Washington need to protect the confidence of those we minister to, and I'm sure that’s a primary motive for C Street's low profile.” But he added, “I think The Fellowship has been just a tad bit too clandestine.” Schenck has himself sent a letter to Sanford calling for his resignation.
•Origins
They are affiliated with the Oxford Group, an organization that strives to reach out to the elites, the rich, the powerful; the “Up and Out,” if you will.
He calls attention to Coe’s references to Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. Coe claims he was merely using their model of influence to further the Christ’s message.
The Oxford Group seems to have a strange fetish with Communism. They eschew Communism, while deifying dictators, because getting their message out is all about subversion.
Sharlet tells us, “There was bad subversion, like that of the Vietcong, and good subversion, also like that of the Vietcong, only in the name of Jesus. A subtle practice of persuasion.” They were obsessed with obtaining strength, and gaining a stronghold.
They seem to have a somewhat fascist mentality; strength through numbers. Though when I asked Sharlet how they were different, he was quick to point out three distinctions, “The Family doesn't admire violence, it's internationalist, and it doesn't revolve around a hated either.”
They believe the best way to preserve this strength is to be as “underground” as possible.
Frank Buchman founded the Oxford Group. His ideas to transform the government into "a new social order under the dictatorship of the spirit of God,” Vereide took absolutely literally.
After a little more digging on The Oxford Group, and their shadowy past, I realized that though they invoke Christian morality, and may even have the audacity to call themselves “Christian,’ a source tells me they are more about right and wrong, than embracing the entire Christian ideology. He noted that while The Oxford group was bad, that some of the offshoots of the group were positive and good. One of which is Up With People.
He tells us of founder, Abraham Vereide’s vision for The Family. He wanted to be missionaries that focused on the powerful, figuring that if the more powerful lives in leadership were changed, it would ultimately change many others. Sharlet calls this “trickle-down evangelism”
This is not a bad idea in itself. There are groups and Bible studies for all sorts of groups. It would seem a fantastic idea to narrow in on the most powerful. The Bible tells Christians to pray for their leaders because of their huge position of responsibility.
But it was so much more than this. The group takes shady dealings to a whole new level, with the twisting of economics and theology to promote their agenda. Sharlet calls it “the theology of the dollar,” In which, “First comes capitalism then comes Christ.”
Doug Coe and The Family played an integral part in Watergate felon, Chuck Colson‘s conversion. He has since reformed and been a prominent and respected Christian leader. But Colson told WORLD magazine that he now has concerns about politicians using the C Street group, for example, as a replacement for church. "It's a mistake," he said. "A leading figure ought to belong to a church." He is referring to the accountability that a church would provide, instead of an elite group, which might be inclined to interpret scripture very loosely.
Interview with Jeff Sharlet
• How is their idea of government different from Fascism?
There are three important reasons why I argue that the Family isn't and never has been a fascist organization, even as it has involved a number of traditional fascists (American fascist sympathizer Merwin K. Hart, "Hitler's banker" Hermann Abs) and de facto fascists (Siad Barre, the Somali dictator; Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova): The Family doesn't admire violence, it's internationalist, and it doesn't revolve around a hated either.
There are some qualifiers to those points, though: Although the Family doesn't admire violence, it has historically tended to support violent regimes, such as Barre's, Suharto's genocidal regime, the junta of generals that ran Brazil for years, Park in South Korea, etc., etc. These have been for the most part regimes that one faction or the other of the American foreign policy establishment thought worth supporting, which points to a flaw in the Family's internationalist logic: They want to be friends with everybody, so long as "everybody" is defined as those who are useful to an aggressively expansionist view of American power. During the Cold War, that meant they often functioned as sort of para-state religious front for what former Family leader Senator Frank Carlson termed "worldwide spiritual offensive."
There are other distinctions: Fascism generally begins in the working class, while the Family has never been anything but upper crust. Fascism has a vaguely socialist element; the Family has never been anything but laissez-faire. "Free market" isn't a really accurate description, though, since members tend to favor strong state support for big business, a corporatist stand that has some overlap with fascism.
There's one last, very important distinction: There have always been a number of people who work with the Family because they genuinely want to help the poor. Their methods leave much to be desired -- helping a dictator win military aid is not helping the poor -- but their intentions are in keeping with Christian tradition.
• How far do you think they will succeed at achieving their goal? Will exposure stop them, or are they too far gone? What is the next step for the Family?
Depends on how you define the goal, which is tricky with an organization that likes to insist it doesn't exist, tax records be damned. But the clearest statement of their goals is the idea of 200 world leaders bound together through the Family, a "new world order," as founder Abraham Vereide liked to call it, that will lead to peace because we'll all be on the same team -- their team. Call me a cynic, but I don't see this happening any time soon. I think Christian Right leader Rev. Rob Schenck is closer to the mark when he calls their theology a "religion of the status quo." The Family, he says, is into things as they are. They're not some kind of theocratic conspiracy -- they're the religion of power as it is. Which is to say, in the hands of an elite. In that sense, they've been remarkably successful.
Will exposure stop them? Sometimes. A story I didn't get to tell in the book is that of Norway, where a reporter for the national daily Dagbladet noticed that the prime minister was jetting off to private prayer breakfasts on the public dime and decided to investigate. Here in the U.S., he discovered Norway's ambassador taking his policy cues from then Attorney General John Ashcroft at the Family's Arlington mansion, The Cedars. Digging deeper, he discovered a deep linkage between the Family and the faction that briefly ran Norway in the middle of the past decade. He and his colleagues put it on the front page for weeks, a sort of Norwegian Watergate. That government was voted out of power, by conservatives and liberals alike.
Here in the U.S. the Family is currently facing the fiercest scrutiny it's had to endure in 70 years, as local reporters all over the country -- in Michigan, Pennslylvania, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Tennessee, and elsewhere -- have begun to ask tough questions of their representatives. The point being that if, say, Rep. Joe Pitts wants to work with this group, as documents show he has since the last 1970s, he should be open with the public about it. Pitts has chosen to deny any links. So now it's not a left/right issue, but a simple transparency issue. (Important to emphasize this isn't just a Republican thing; Democratic Senator Mark Pryor's staff denied that I'd ever spoken to their boss until I offered to make transcripts public.)
•Do you think that this exposure will stop them?
I think it'll change them. For instance, World, a Christian conservative magazine, has been investigating the hell out of them for all the same reasons I do. The difference is that World, as a Christian conservative magazine, will be persuasive to people who won't listen to me. There are a lot of traditionalist Christian conservatives who are as deeply committed to open democracy as anybody else. What I like about them is that they tend to act on their convictions. They're starting to hold the Family accountable.
I've also been impressed with the work of Christian Post writer Dr. Warren Throckmorton, a conservative evangelical in the Roger Williams tradition -- a real man of conscience. Dr. Throckmorton has been very involved with exposing the involvement of some American Christian conservatives with a vicious movement in Uganda -- a major beneficiary of American foreign aid and an increasingly important country on the continent -- to not just criminalize homosexuality but to make it punishable by death. Many of the Ugandans behind this movement are linked to the Family, which has really put the heat on the group. As a result of all this, one Family member, from the "liberal" side of the movement, has decided to be open with me about debates going on within the Family right now. There's a faction that thinks the time has come to go public, to be open about their work.
That faction isn't winning yet, but they might, in the future. Longtime leader Doug Coe is in his early 80s, and his health isn't great. Most Family insiders I've spoken to assume leadership will pass to two of his sons, David and Tim. The problem is that they lack Coe's powerful charisma and his unusual blend of mysticism and golfer's bonhomie. David, in particular, seems like a potential weak link; one person associated with the Family compares David to the emperor's son in "Gladiator." If you haven't seen the movie, trust me: it's scary. So if the Coe family -- there are 11 Coes on the payroll -- loses control, the Family could change pretty dramatically.
• What is the main danger with a group like this? Are they too secretive?
Secrecy. I happen to disagree with a lot of what they try to do -- I think Suharto, for instance, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his fellow Indonesians, was a monster we should have opposed -- but, then, I disagree with most Christian Right groups. The difference is that it's easy to disagree with, say, the Family Research Council, because they're open about their positions. They're playing the rules of democracy, making their case in the public square. The Family doesn't believe in the public square. Not only do they not want to be accountable to it; they want politics to work outside of it.
• Do you think the people in the Family are evil?
There have been evil men associated with the Family, that's for sure, but no, in general people in the Family aren't evil. In fact, that's the tragedy of this movement: most people get involved with the best of intentions. Too often, they're blinded by their good intentions, unable or unwilling to recognize the consequences to which their actions contribute. Those consequences -- I'm thinking not just of their subversion of open democracy but of their crucial support for lunatic regimes such as those of Siad Barre or Papa Doc Duvalier -- often are evil, by anyone's standards. The lesson we learn from the Family isn't so much about the banality of evil, as Hannah Arendt put it, as about the evil of banality.
• What do you think their level of influence on the Obama administration is? How do you think the Obama administration will affect The Family?
That's a tough question. The only cabinet member with serious ties that I'm aware of is Ray LaHood, and transportation isn't exactly a make or break position. As I write in the book, Hillary Clinton has long been considered a "friend" of the Family; she calls leader Doug Coe a "genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide," strange words for a man who routinely invokes the leadership lessons to be learned from Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. (When I teamed up with NBC Nightly News to do a segment on her connection, her people told NBC that she'd never given money to the group.) But for her those ties are more about building bridges to conservatives than about the "Jesus plus nothing" agenda of the Family, and I don't think that influence is deep. I'm curious about General James Jones -- he seems to have popped up on the Family's Prayer Breakfast circuit a lot -- but I haven't investigated. That's for some other reporter. My instinct was to say that the level of influence was: Not much. But Family associates have since told me that they have "a lot of friends" in the administration. Bluff? I don't know.
Regardless, I don't think the Obama administration is much of a threat to any powers that be in America. It's a business-as-usual administration. That's the Family's style.
• How do you think the present economy will affect the Family’s efforts ?
Not much. They began in the Depression, as a response to the Depression, and have weathered all the ups and downs -- and political swings -- since. They've endured because they prize power over purity, access over accountability, flexibility over orthodoxy.
That said, if the economy were to get much worse -- or a real populist movement were to develop -- I think a lot of Family politicians would be out of work.
• Why are the foreign policy efforts limited to nations like Uganda, which are under the radar, so to speak? Why not the president of Iraq?
Who says they're not talking to Iraq? The bulk of my book is based on archival records, so it's hard for me to know what's going on right now. Uganda was easy to verify. Maybe Iraq would be too, if someone cared to investigate. But based on their history, they're involved pretty much everywhere. For instance, they're strong in Australia, hardly a country dependent on US aid, like Uganda. But they do tend to look for weaker countries, where it's easier to have an outsized influence. If Senator Jim Inhofe goes to France, he's no big deal. In Uganda, he's a big man. A lot of Family politicians seem to enjoy that. One Family associate spoke of visiting small Pacific nations as being like a "white god," parachuting out of the sky.
• What is the usual response you get from Christians? I would imagine that it kind of transitions between a dubious reluctance to judge them at first, and then a horror of the realization. Have many been reluctant to hear and/or accept your account?
It's been interesting. I've always said that if I'd had my druthers, I would have published my first report on the Family in Christianity Today, the flagship evangelical magazine. But there really has been a "see-no-evil" attitude in some corners. Not all, though. Populist and traditionalist Christian conservatives, including a lot of self-described fundamentalists, were the first to get it. The first organization to buy my book in bulk was a hard right Christian group that is serious about democratic and theological transparency. They sent out copies to their supporters with a note saying that the author is a heathen, but the book is valuable. Leftist Christians and a lot of African American Christians had no problem grasping the facts, either. The biggest resistance has come from the mushy middle, the center-right and center-left folks who are quick to condemn fundamentalism so long as it's poor, tacky, and Southern. They don't like having their cliches overturned. These are folks who like things are they are, people who are constitutionally uncomfortable with democracy, with the idea that neither education nor wealth entitle anyone to "more" citizenship than another.
That changed a bit this summer and fall. First, there were the C Street sex scandals. A lot of folks who tune out when you talk about real abuses of democracy perk right up when you speak of sexual hypocrisy. As my friend JoAnn Wypijewski, a radical journalist put it, "Christians thunder, liberals sneer, but it amounts to the same counting of sins." Be that as it may, that counting of sins led to an accounting for the Family. So now we're starting to see a great Christian response, from the left, right, and middle. Christianity Today still hasn't come around, though.
c. 2009
They prefer to keep things underground. But Jeff Sharlet, Vanity Fair columnist, actually lived among the group for several months, and he’s talking. His book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power is an expose on the group that has perked the ears of Christians in both political parties.
The Family is a group of Jesus ‘Followers.” They dislike the name “Christian,” as it’s a loaded word that alienates themselves from Muslims and Jews who, they say, can also follow Jesus. After all, Jesus wasn’t a Christian.
The group lives in a house on C. Street, in Washington DC. It is a bipartisan group that has been described by prominent evangelical Christians as the most politically well-connected fundamentalist organization in the US. Many high profile names have had some connection to the group. Mark Sanford and John Ensign are a few members of note lately.
This group, which is so covert that it sometimes denies whether it is even a group, is just now receiving media attention, after having been in existence since the 30s. Their underground power is a tad disconcerting, to say the least. Their secrecy has caused all sorts of allegations to be laid upon them; Communists, crusaders for a new world order, elitists, to name a few.
It would be an extreme generalization to dismiss the whole organization as “evil,” for the actions of a few of their members. They do a lot of good. For instance, in 1978 it secretly helped the Carter Administration organize a worldwide call to prayer with unlikely pair, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat. A peace treaty soon followed.
In 2001, it brought together the warring leaders of Congo and Rwanda for a similar meeting, leading to the two sides' eventual peace accord.
This interdenominational [and interfaith] group is responsible for organizing the Presidential Prayer Breakfast, which every sitting president since 1953 has been a part of, as has many dignitaries from other nations.
Founded in 1935, The Family is a group of mostly Republicans, but a few Democrats, which is currently led by Doug Coe. It’s a forum for public officials to hold Bible studies, prayer meetings, worship services, and just a general support system.
Hillary Clinton, though not a member, has said, the group "is a unique presence in Washington,” and Coe is “a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."
The group refers to themselves ‘the new chosen,” believing that all leadership is chosen by God. Most Christians believe this. However, The Family seems to have a strange twist on a works-based salvation that they, the “chosen,” are exempt from.
I quickly found out that The Family incorporates a lot of good things that would seem agreeable with most churches, takes them a little too far.
For instance, they are so focused on the “person of Christ.” Saying they worship a person, not an ideology. But how do they define this Christ? They meet in groups, or “cells,” believing that “Christ speaks directly to his anointed,” all but eliminating the need for scripture or church. Focusing on “the person of Christ” is appropriate. The thing is, different people have different notions of Christ. So it is curious where they are gaining their knowledge of their respective “persons of Christ.” There must be a standard by which to measure.
Sharlet writes extensively about the “secrecy” of the group. Indeed, confidentiality is appropriate in support systems. But as, Rev. Rob Schenck who leads a Bible study on the Hill inspired by C Street, wrote on his blog, “all ministries in Washington need to protect the confidence of those we minister to, and I'm sure that’s a primary motive for C Street's low profile.” But he added, “I think The Fellowship has been just a tad bit too clandestine.” Schenck has himself sent a letter to Sanford calling for his resignation.
•Origins
They are affiliated with the Oxford Group, an organization that strives to reach out to the elites, the rich, the powerful; the “Up and Out,” if you will.
He calls attention to Coe’s references to Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. Coe claims he was merely using their model of influence to further the Christ’s message.
The Oxford Group seems to have a strange fetish with Communism. They eschew Communism, while deifying dictators, because getting their message out is all about subversion.
Sharlet tells us, “There was bad subversion, like that of the Vietcong, and good subversion, also like that of the Vietcong, only in the name of Jesus. A subtle practice of persuasion.” They were obsessed with obtaining strength, and gaining a stronghold.
They seem to have a somewhat fascist mentality; strength through numbers. Though when I asked Sharlet how they were different, he was quick to point out three distinctions, “The Family doesn't admire violence, it's internationalist, and it doesn't revolve around a hated either.”
They believe the best way to preserve this strength is to be as “underground” as possible.
Frank Buchman founded the Oxford Group. His ideas to transform the government into "a new social order under the dictatorship of the spirit of God,” Vereide took absolutely literally.
After a little more digging on The Oxford Group, and their shadowy past, I realized that though they invoke Christian morality, and may even have the audacity to call themselves “Christian,’ a source tells me they are more about right and wrong, than embracing the entire Christian ideology. He noted that while The Oxford group was bad, that some of the offshoots of the group were positive and good. One of which is Up With People.
He tells us of founder, Abraham Vereide’s vision for The Family. He wanted to be missionaries that focused on the powerful, figuring that if the more powerful lives in leadership were changed, it would ultimately change many others. Sharlet calls this “trickle-down evangelism”
This is not a bad idea in itself. There are groups and Bible studies for all sorts of groups. It would seem a fantastic idea to narrow in on the most powerful. The Bible tells Christians to pray for their leaders because of their huge position of responsibility.
But it was so much more than this. The group takes shady dealings to a whole new level, with the twisting of economics and theology to promote their agenda. Sharlet calls it “the theology of the dollar,” In which, “First comes capitalism then comes Christ.”
Doug Coe and The Family played an integral part in Watergate felon, Chuck Colson‘s conversion. He has since reformed and been a prominent and respected Christian leader. But Colson told WORLD magazine that he now has concerns about politicians using the C Street group, for example, as a replacement for church. "It's a mistake," he said. "A leading figure ought to belong to a church." He is referring to the accountability that a church would provide, instead of an elite group, which might be inclined to interpret scripture very loosely.
Interview with Jeff Sharlet
• How is their idea of government different from Fascism?
There are three important reasons why I argue that the Family isn't and never has been a fascist organization, even as it has involved a number of traditional fascists (American fascist sympathizer Merwin K. Hart, "Hitler's banker" Hermann Abs) and de facto fascists (Siad Barre, the Somali dictator; Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova): The Family doesn't admire violence, it's internationalist, and it doesn't revolve around a hated either.
There are some qualifiers to those points, though: Although the Family doesn't admire violence, it has historically tended to support violent regimes, such as Barre's, Suharto's genocidal regime, the junta of generals that ran Brazil for years, Park in South Korea, etc., etc. These have been for the most part regimes that one faction or the other of the American foreign policy establishment thought worth supporting, which points to a flaw in the Family's internationalist logic: They want to be friends with everybody, so long as "everybody" is defined as those who are useful to an aggressively expansionist view of American power. During the Cold War, that meant they often functioned as sort of para-state religious front for what former Family leader Senator Frank Carlson termed "worldwide spiritual offensive."
There are other distinctions: Fascism generally begins in the working class, while the Family has never been anything but upper crust. Fascism has a vaguely socialist element; the Family has never been anything but laissez-faire. "Free market" isn't a really accurate description, though, since members tend to favor strong state support for big business, a corporatist stand that has some overlap with fascism.
There's one last, very important distinction: There have always been a number of people who work with the Family because they genuinely want to help the poor. Their methods leave much to be desired -- helping a dictator win military aid is not helping the poor -- but their intentions are in keeping with Christian tradition.
• How far do you think they will succeed at achieving their goal? Will exposure stop them, or are they too far gone? What is the next step for the Family?
Depends on how you define the goal, which is tricky with an organization that likes to insist it doesn't exist, tax records be damned. But the clearest statement of their goals is the idea of 200 world leaders bound together through the Family, a "new world order," as founder Abraham Vereide liked to call it, that will lead to peace because we'll all be on the same team -- their team. Call me a cynic, but I don't see this happening any time soon. I think Christian Right leader Rev. Rob Schenck is closer to the mark when he calls their theology a "religion of the status quo." The Family, he says, is into things as they are. They're not some kind of theocratic conspiracy -- they're the religion of power as it is. Which is to say, in the hands of an elite. In that sense, they've been remarkably successful.
Will exposure stop them? Sometimes. A story I didn't get to tell in the book is that of Norway, where a reporter for the national daily Dagbladet noticed that the prime minister was jetting off to private prayer breakfasts on the public dime and decided to investigate. Here in the U.S., he discovered Norway's ambassador taking his policy cues from then Attorney General John Ashcroft at the Family's Arlington mansion, The Cedars. Digging deeper, he discovered a deep linkage between the Family and the faction that briefly ran Norway in the middle of the past decade. He and his colleagues put it on the front page for weeks, a sort of Norwegian Watergate. That government was voted out of power, by conservatives and liberals alike.
Here in the U.S. the Family is currently facing the fiercest scrutiny it's had to endure in 70 years, as local reporters all over the country -- in Michigan, Pennslylvania, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Tennessee, and elsewhere -- have begun to ask tough questions of their representatives. The point being that if, say, Rep. Joe Pitts wants to work with this group, as documents show he has since the last 1970s, he should be open with the public about it. Pitts has chosen to deny any links. So now it's not a left/right issue, but a simple transparency issue. (Important to emphasize this isn't just a Republican thing; Democratic Senator Mark Pryor's staff denied that I'd ever spoken to their boss until I offered to make transcripts public.)
•Do you think that this exposure will stop them?
I think it'll change them. For instance, World, a Christian conservative magazine, has been investigating the hell out of them for all the same reasons I do. The difference is that World, as a Christian conservative magazine, will be persuasive to people who won't listen to me. There are a lot of traditionalist Christian conservatives who are as deeply committed to open democracy as anybody else. What I like about them is that they tend to act on their convictions. They're starting to hold the Family accountable.
I've also been impressed with the work of Christian Post writer Dr. Warren Throckmorton, a conservative evangelical in the Roger Williams tradition -- a real man of conscience. Dr. Throckmorton has been very involved with exposing the involvement of some American Christian conservatives with a vicious movement in Uganda -- a major beneficiary of American foreign aid and an increasingly important country on the continent -- to not just criminalize homosexuality but to make it punishable by death. Many of the Ugandans behind this movement are linked to the Family, which has really put the heat on the group. As a result of all this, one Family member, from the "liberal" side of the movement, has decided to be open with me about debates going on within the Family right now. There's a faction that thinks the time has come to go public, to be open about their work.
That faction isn't winning yet, but they might, in the future. Longtime leader Doug Coe is in his early 80s, and his health isn't great. Most Family insiders I've spoken to assume leadership will pass to two of his sons, David and Tim. The problem is that they lack Coe's powerful charisma and his unusual blend of mysticism and golfer's bonhomie. David, in particular, seems like a potential weak link; one person associated with the Family compares David to the emperor's son in "Gladiator." If you haven't seen the movie, trust me: it's scary. So if the Coe family -- there are 11 Coes on the payroll -- loses control, the Family could change pretty dramatically.
• What is the main danger with a group like this? Are they too secretive?
Secrecy. I happen to disagree with a lot of what they try to do -- I think Suharto, for instance, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his fellow Indonesians, was a monster we should have opposed -- but, then, I disagree with most Christian Right groups. The difference is that it's easy to disagree with, say, the Family Research Council, because they're open about their positions. They're playing the rules of democracy, making their case in the public square. The Family doesn't believe in the public square. Not only do they not want to be accountable to it; they want politics to work outside of it.
• Do you think the people in the Family are evil?
There have been evil men associated with the Family, that's for sure, but no, in general people in the Family aren't evil. In fact, that's the tragedy of this movement: most people get involved with the best of intentions. Too often, they're blinded by their good intentions, unable or unwilling to recognize the consequences to which their actions contribute. Those consequences -- I'm thinking not just of their subversion of open democracy but of their crucial support for lunatic regimes such as those of Siad Barre or Papa Doc Duvalier -- often are evil, by anyone's standards. The lesson we learn from the Family isn't so much about the banality of evil, as Hannah Arendt put it, as about the evil of banality.
• What do you think their level of influence on the Obama administration is? How do you think the Obama administration will affect The Family?
That's a tough question. The only cabinet member with serious ties that I'm aware of is Ray LaHood, and transportation isn't exactly a make or break position. As I write in the book, Hillary Clinton has long been considered a "friend" of the Family; she calls leader Doug Coe a "genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide," strange words for a man who routinely invokes the leadership lessons to be learned from Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. (When I teamed up with NBC Nightly News to do a segment on her connection, her people told NBC that she'd never given money to the group.) But for her those ties are more about building bridges to conservatives than about the "Jesus plus nothing" agenda of the Family, and I don't think that influence is deep. I'm curious about General James Jones -- he seems to have popped up on the Family's Prayer Breakfast circuit a lot -- but I haven't investigated. That's for some other reporter. My instinct was to say that the level of influence was: Not much. But Family associates have since told me that they have "a lot of friends" in the administration. Bluff? I don't know.
Regardless, I don't think the Obama administration is much of a threat to any powers that be in America. It's a business-as-usual administration. That's the Family's style.
• How do you think the present economy will affect the Family’s efforts ?
Not much. They began in the Depression, as a response to the Depression, and have weathered all the ups and downs -- and political swings -- since. They've endured because they prize power over purity, access over accountability, flexibility over orthodoxy.
That said, if the economy were to get much worse -- or a real populist movement were to develop -- I think a lot of Family politicians would be out of work.
• Why are the foreign policy efforts limited to nations like Uganda, which are under the radar, so to speak? Why not the president of Iraq?
Who says they're not talking to Iraq? The bulk of my book is based on archival records, so it's hard for me to know what's going on right now. Uganda was easy to verify. Maybe Iraq would be too, if someone cared to investigate. But based on their history, they're involved pretty much everywhere. For instance, they're strong in Australia, hardly a country dependent on US aid, like Uganda. But they do tend to look for weaker countries, where it's easier to have an outsized influence. If Senator Jim Inhofe goes to France, he's no big deal. In Uganda, he's a big man. A lot of Family politicians seem to enjoy that. One Family associate spoke of visiting small Pacific nations as being like a "white god," parachuting out of the sky.
• What is the usual response you get from Christians? I would imagine that it kind of transitions between a dubious reluctance to judge them at first, and then a horror of the realization. Have many been reluctant to hear and/or accept your account?
It's been interesting. I've always said that if I'd had my druthers, I would have published my first report on the Family in Christianity Today, the flagship evangelical magazine. But there really has been a "see-no-evil" attitude in some corners. Not all, though. Populist and traditionalist Christian conservatives, including a lot of self-described fundamentalists, were the first to get it. The first organization to buy my book in bulk was a hard right Christian group that is serious about democratic and theological transparency. They sent out copies to their supporters with a note saying that the author is a heathen, but the book is valuable. Leftist Christians and a lot of African American Christians had no problem grasping the facts, either. The biggest resistance has come from the mushy middle, the center-right and center-left folks who are quick to condemn fundamentalism so long as it's poor, tacky, and Southern. They don't like having their cliches overturned. These are folks who like things are they are, people who are constitutionally uncomfortable with democracy, with the idea that neither education nor wealth entitle anyone to "more" citizenship than another.
That changed a bit this summer and fall. First, there were the C Street sex scandals. A lot of folks who tune out when you talk about real abuses of democracy perk right up when you speak of sexual hypocrisy. As my friend JoAnn Wypijewski, a radical journalist put it, "Christians thunder, liberals sneer, but it amounts to the same counting of sins." Be that as it may, that counting of sins led to an accounting for the Family. So now we're starting to see a great Christian response, from the left, right, and middle. Christianity Today still hasn't come around, though.
c. 2009
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