Sarah Palin: Anti-Democratic, Social Ultra-Conservative, Religious Extremist

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Framing Guru George Lakoff hits the nail on the head.

"The Palin Choice." The Reality of the Political Mind. Commondreams.org, 9-02-08.

"Democrats…need to call an extremist an extremist: to shine a light on the shared anti- democratic ideology of McCain and Palin, the same ideology shared by Bush and Cheney. They share values antithetical to our democracy. That needs to be said loud and clear, if not by the Obama campaign itself, then by the rest of us who share democratic American values.

Our job is to bring external realities together with the reality of the political mind. Don't ignore the cognitive dimension. It is through cultural narratives, metaphors, and frames that we understand and express our ideals."

Apparently reason, reality, and logic no longer matter. Too bad.

There's more...

JCPenny Speed Dressing

This Cannes Film award winning commercial is (not surprisingly)raising eyebrows. I love it. Great use of story. Not much in the way of commercial substance-- which are the best kinds of commercials. And the opposing internet and fundie buzz-wars are going to put JC Penny on the cool list for a bit. Hard to do when you are a company who started around 1902!!! (h/t dropkick monkey)

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It's All About Listening

The Victorian Web

Through the Looking Glass

The Victorian Web

A-dressing the White Queen

Sir John Tenniel

Wood-engraving by Dalziel

Illustration for the fifth chapter of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass (1865)

(Alice): "Am I addressing the White Queen?"

(Queen): "Well, yes, if you call that a-dressing"..." It isn't my notion of the thing, at all."

[The verbal humour here results from the confusion of the pun "a-dressing" and "addressing".]

At Orcinus our beloved Sara Robinson has up a post you must go read now.

Go. Shoo.

She's right.

Take them at their word. They absolutely are who they say they are.

Sara was a fundy. I spent many years working with LGATs. Large Group Awareness Training.

LGATs have a justly deserved reputation for mixing pop psychology with new age nonsense, for taking people who aren't as strong as they might be and finding their weak points (while claiming publicly to only want strong healthy people), and especially for pressuring people to take their courses.

"The pressure, the pressure, oh God, they made me take the course" is the constant refrain.

I'll let you in a secret... it's absolutely true.

People are pressured into taking LGAT courses. In most of these organizations, volunteers are trained relentlessly (and really well) at finding people's weak points and converting them into sales. Yes, duh, it really is all about the money. Disguised of course, in enlightened jargon about becoming more effective, building confidence, and increasing self-esteem in an interconnected world in which one makes better choices through taking advantage of opportunities of which they were previously unaware. And so on, and so on, and so on.

That isn't to say some courses from some LGATs don't have positive effects, at least for a while. Others are a fast ride into danger. You pays your money and you takes your chances.

What all of them have in common however in my view, is a carefully hidden intent to get you hooked, deeply, on needing their jargon-filled language and their courses to stay on the high you get there and (so you are intended to think) only there. None of them teach you to think for yourself, give you library citations, or show you where they learned how to do what they do with you. You always have to run home to Daddy -- ca-ching! The cash register rings -- when you want a fix of that sweet, sweet feeling so good.

Eventually you learn you can get that special feeling by selling others. So you learn to sell the program.

You learn to listen carefully to precisely what people say. Whatever it is they say when they say "NO -- I don't want to sign up because..." is precisely the thing you then turn around and use to put them in the program.

It goes like this...

"NO -- I don't have enough money." "People get better jobs out of our programs all the time."

"NO -- I don't have enough time." "People become more organized, more able to get more done. Just by signing this paper you're committing yourself to become more organized."

"NO -- I don't trust you guys." "And I don't blame you. To sign this registration form you'd have to trust someone for the first time in a long time, wouldn't you? Signing up for this course requires you to trust. The course actually starts with your registration..."

Whatever someones says, you listen. Accept it as the truth about them. And then use that to be THE issue which they must work with in order to register into the program.

Never argue with their premise. Accept that premise, and let them know this program will fix it... and they're in. It's that simple.

Sara is saying the same thing. She says (in her brilliant article) the Fundies are telling us who they are with every word they say.

1. Listen.
2. Believe what they say; it is true for them, even if they don't know it. They reveal themselves to us every time they speak or write.
3. Act based on their premise. Close the sale (whatever the sale may be.)

Got it? Welcome to The Looking Glass.

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The Family Deal

Dr. Joseph Wheat of Des Moines, IA with his family, 1901. The young woman with intense eyes and a black collar on the right end, middle row is my great-grandmother Bessie.


Jesse engages in a dialog with Digby below about how little we progressives understand about what motivates fundamentalists, and how poorly we've sold our own values to the American people generally.

I could write a book on this very subject (and maybe someday I will) -- but for today, I'd like to point y'all to one of the more perceptive articles addressing this that I've ever read. Unitarian minister Doug Muder wrote Red Family, Blue Family in the aftermath of the 2004 election -- and his explanation for the huge disconnect between right and left in America is simply the most sensible and useful one I've ever seen.

The core of Muder's argument starts with George Lakoff's well-known split between the strict father and nurturant parent family metaphors. Muder picks up this idea and fleshes out far more completely than Lakoff dared to, looking at the far-reaching implications and underlying worldview that support this metaphor. The core of his argument is that that the "strict father" conservative model might more accurately be described as the "inherited obligation family." Fully realized, this is the traditional agrarian family structure that underlies almost every other conservative value and policy:

Life is defined by roles and relationships that are given, not chosen. One has parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, and eventually a spouse, children, and grandchildren of one's own. Each of those relationships defines a set of mutual obligations. Your well-being depends on the faithfulness of others in meeting their obligations to you, and your character is judged on how well you meet your obligations to them. Choice and freedom are fine in the economic sphere, but in family life they undermine obligation and put everyone at risk. Fulfilling your obligations is not always pleasant and may even at times be thankless, but in the long run such faithfulness leads to deep satisfaction.

In difficult times, you depend on those who are obliged to help you: First, on your extended family, and on the larger community if necessary.

Continuing and extending the family by having children is a duty, not an option. This entails men taking on the roles of husband and father, and women taking on the roles of wife and mother. These roles are timeless and not up for negotiation. Although the obligations of these roles become primary, obligations to other family members do not go away, nor do theirs to you. Parents and children remain linked for life in a special relationship. Grandparents, if they are able, have a major role in the child-rearing project. And when they become feeble, the grown child is obliged to care for them.

It's in this network of obligations, Muder argues, that we find the true unifying thread between all the apparently unrelated conservative political positions. IOFs are found in most non-industrialized areas of the world. Before the Enlightenment, a family that didn't operate within this tight network of commitment was vulnerable to economic, social, and physical disaster. In much of the world -- including the rural parts of the US -- they still are.

But that's not how modern, enlightened, progressive people run their families. The liberal alternative is the Negotiated Commitment Family, which evolved as a response to the economic necessities of industrial and urban life, and has gradually been coming to dominate as America becomes more urban with every generation. In NCFs:

Your responsibilities come from the commitments you have chosen to make, and not from congenital obligations. Voluntary commitments form the substance of life; a life without them is superficial and empty.

Adult relationships are negotiated to be mutually acceptable. Although traditional forms of relationship have stood the test of time and contain much folk wisdom, people are not free to amend them as needed.

Because young children are incapable of meaningful consent, you can't attach strings to your nurturance of them -- is it a gift, which they may or may not reciprocate when they are grown. Only those who feel that they have the psychological and material resources to fulfill that basic commitment should take it on. As long as children's basic needs are being met, the members of a household are free to distribute child-raising responsibilities in whatever way seems best to them.

You depend on a social safety net to catch you if you are unable to support yourself: Social Security when you are old, disability and unemployment insurance if you are unable to work. While you may maintain relationships with your parents and other family members, you are not obliged to do so if they do not treat you well. If they are unable to support themselves, they rely on the social safety net just as you do.

Looking at these two models, a lot of other things start to make sense. An IOF member is going to be against abortion and birth control, because these things interfere with the family's imperative to produce new members to strengthen the network. S/he will oppose equal rights for women -- and gay rights entirely -- because these changes allow people to shirk their fundamental responsibility as fathers and mothers. The social net is seen as weakening the absolute obligations that family members have to take care of each other. Taxes take money away from the family network, which makes it harder for it to fulfill its primary obligations.

And, says Muder, this explains why the Republicans have done such a thorough job of making liberals scary. The policies we promote are seen as not only an existential threat to "their way of life" (which the Fundamentalist Project found was usually reason enough for people to fight and die); it's also a directly concrete threat to their own personal well-being. If my daughter goes to college, and my gay son moves to the city, who's going to look after me when my job finally wrecks my back and I can't work any more? I raised those kids, and they owe me -- but those liberals are telling them they're "free" to "choose." Likewise, if my sister leaves her abusive husband, the family's going to have to look after her and their kids. It's a burden we'll bear, but it's better for everyone in the long run if they can stick to their vows, do right by the kids, and work it out. If the county opens a shelter and gives her an out, she won't have the incentive to suck up and do right.

Given that the rural areas of the country see far more of almost every social ill you can name, the perception that the liberals want to knock out what few supports remain to them packs a visceral and deeply personal punch. And, says Muder, the GOP fed this fear, fashioning it into the main wedge that cleaved apart the yawning gap now separating red and blue America:

Republican propagandists take advantage of that misunderstanding by projecting a shadow frame onto us. Their demonic liberal is a person with no moral depth or seriousness. Convenience is his only true value. Words that we revere, such as freedom and choice, rebound against us: We like these words because we want to be free of our obligations and choose the easy way out.

Just as married people sometimes imagine the single life as far more licentious and libidinous than it ever actually is, so people born into life-defining obligations imagine a life free from such obligations. The truth about liberals – that we more often than not choose to commit ourselves to marriage, children, church, and most of the other things conservatives feel obligated to, and that we stick by those commitments every bit as faithfully, if not more so – easily gets lost.

The virtue of the Negotiated Commitment model is that it is flexible and efficient. The negative framing of those qualities is slippery and slick. Democrats cooperate with their own demonization when they talk about “moving to the center.” Such tactical moves emphasize our slipperiness: We feel free to re-choose our positions whenever they become inconvenient to our quest for power.

This explains why Democrats never seem to get to the center, no matter how far they move. Swing voters aren’t waiting for us to say something different, they just doubt that we mean what we say. The more we change our message to court them, the more our slickness turns them off.

The most important fact that conservatives don’t know about liberals is this: We believe that a life without commitments is superficial and empty. Unlike the demonic liberals you hear about on Fox News, real liberals are morally serious people who are not looking to take the easy way out when there are greater issues at stake.

Unfortunately, the feckless performance of Democratic politicians does nothing to convince morally serious people of either group that they're capable of taking a stand and sticking to it on principle. The GOP understood from the get that even when they lost (and they lost a lot of legislative and political battles in the late 60s through the 70s), they assured themselves a moral victory every time they refused to compromise. Even in defeat, they affirmed their dedication to principle and reinforced, one more time, a potent message about who they were and what they stood for. In time, voters came to respect that -- particularly voters from IOF families that place a high value on sticking to your commitments at all costs.

Until Democrats find their core values and start sticking to them in exactly this way, win or loss be damned, our efforts at taking back the country will be dead in the water.

Muder makes the point that IOFs are not naturally fundamentalist -- though many of them have become so because fundamentalism speaks directly to their ideas about family, obligation, and commitment. He also notes that the right has no monopoly on that kind of language. We can use it very credibly when we start framing our arguments in terms of supporting the family with living wages; passing laws that enable people to spend time at home where they belong with their families; and passing budgets that respect the limits of our national family's resources. We used to be able to speak the language of commitment and principle -- FDR was a master at it, and IOF families lined up behind him for four elections as a result.

The reason we don't is that we have a bunch of people in Washington, both Republican and Democrat, who don't care about either kind of family. They're proudly serving their corporate masters, and will never ever pass a bill that doesn't sell us all out if it profits their financial backers. And there are a great many families of both types who are ready to hear a real family-first message, strong on values and principle. The day the progressive movement can clearly articulate that message is the day we begin to win.

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Teen Girl Killed By Fundamentalist Father

Aqsa Parvez, age 16 photo from The Globe and Mail

Father Allegedly Strangles Daughter for Being Independent

Aqsa Parvez, sixteen, of Mississauga, Canada, (just to the west of Toronto) died Tuesday after her father, Muhammad Parvez, a 57 year-old taxi driver, allegedly strangled her on Monday when she returned to her parent's home to pick up some of her belongings. He has been charged with murder. Her 26-year-old brother, Waqas Parvez, has been charged with obstructing police.

The Globe and Mail

Ms. Parvez's friends described the Grade 11 student at Applewood Heights Secondary School as someone who was drawn to Western culture even as her family adhered to a devout form of Islam. Friends paint a picture of a hardworking and cheerful girl who loved dancing, fashion and photography – interests that often clashed with her strict home environment.

Last week, Ms. Parvez temporarily moved in with a friend from school.

“She said she wasn't getting along well with her family and that things weren't right,” said Trudy Looby, the mother of one of Ms. Parvez's friends, Alisha. “When she was here, she was very happy.”

During her stay, Ms. Looby said, Ms. Parvez didn't wear the hijab, a head scarf that friends said was a hot topic within her family.

Krista Garbutt remembers walking down the street with Ms. Parvez earlier this year, when the two of them spotted Ms. Parvez's brother walking toward them. Panicking, the teenager quickly fumbled for her head scarf, trying to put it on. “There were times when we'd be walking down the street and she'd see her brother and she wouldn't be wearing her hijab and she'd have to put it on,” Ms. Garbutt said. “She said, ‘He'll kill me, he'll kill me.' I said, ‘He's not going to kill you,' but she said, ‘Yeah, he will.' And nobody believed it.”

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What a waste of a life.

First, obviously, when you leave, leave. You don't ever go back for your stuff. From airplane crashes to the Johnstown Flood, to refugees to fleeing abusers, when it's time to go, go.

Second and separate from the tragedy of this child and her family, is the issue of fundamentalism.

From 1988 - 1993 there was a study done called The Fundamentalism Project. I will be returning to it over and over again.

The Fundamentalism Project was a big deal, the largest study of its type ever attempted. Scholars of every type world-wide examined fundamentalism -- the religions, the people, their sacred and traditional books and fables and stories, their cultures and beliefs, rituals and practices for men, women, men and women, and for children, their historical backgrounds, and the contexts in which the fundamentalists currently lived and in which they had come from over many many years. This was done for every major group of fundamentalists which the scholars were able to distinguish, throughout the world.

After which, the scholars asked, what do all of these groups have in common?

Hullabaloo

Evolutionary Theology

Those of you who follow the religious beat more closely than I do have probably seen this article called The Fundamentalist Agenda, by Davidson Loehr. I may not have religious experiences, but I do have epiphanies and reading this was one.

The five characteristics are

1) Men rule the roost and make the rules. Women are support staff and for reasons easy to imagine, homosexuality is intolerable.

2) all rules must apply to all people, no pluralism.

3) the rules must be precisely communicated to the next generation

4) "they spurn the modern, and want to return to a nostalgic vision of a golden age that never really existed. (Several of the scholars observed a strong and deep resemblance between fundamentalism and fascism. Both have almost identical agendas. Men are on top, women are subservient, there is one rigid set of rules, with police and military might to enforce them, and education is tightly controlled by the state. One scholar suggested that it's helpful to understand fundamentalism as religious fascism, and fascism as political fundamentalism. The phrase 'overcoming the modern' is a fascist slogan dating back to at least 1941.)"

5) Fundamentalists deny history in a "radical and idiosyncratic way."

All of this is interesting and it's interesting because it crosses all religions, cultural and regional boundaries. When the scientists were presenting their abstracts, "several noted that all their papers were sounding alike, reporting on 'species' when studying the 'genus' was called for, that there were strong family resemblances between all fundamentalisms, even when the religions had had no contact, no way to influence each other."

Now, evolutionary psychology theories of the moment can be awfully facile because mostly they reinforce certain social norms that can easily be explained in other ways. (No Virginia, women do not necessarily practice fidelity and men do not "need" to spread their seed far and wide because of their alleged biological programming. It's a lot more complicated than that.)

We'll return to Digby in a bit.

Let's look in more detail at the five characteristics of all fundamentalists:

UUWorld

The Fundamentalist Agenda
by Davidson Loehr

“Our” Christian fundamentalists have the same hate list as “their” Muslim fundamentalists. ... the agenda of all fundamentalist movements in the world is virtually identical, regardless of religion or culture.

They identified five characteristics shared by virtually all fundamentalisms. The fundamentalists' agenda starts with insistence that their rules must be made to apply to all people, and to all areas of life. There can be no separation of church and state, or of public and private areas of life. The rigid rules of God—and they never doubt that they and only they have got these right—must become the law of the land. Pat Robertson, again, has said that just as Supreme Court justices place a hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution, so they should also place a hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible. In Khomeini's Iran, and in the recent Taliban rule of Afghanistan, we saw how brutal and bloody this looks in real time.

The second agenda item is really at the top of the list, and it's vulgarly simple: Men are on top. Men are bigger and stronger, and they rule not only through physical strength but also and more importantly through their influence on the laws and rules of the land. Men set the boundaries. Men define the norms, and men enforce them. They also define women, and they define them through narrowly conceived biological functions. Women are to be supportive wives, mothers, and homemakers.

A third item follows from the others. (Indeed each part of the fundamentalist agenda is necessarily interlocked, and needs every other part to survive.) Since there is only one right picture of the world, one right set of beliefs, and one right set of roles for men, women, and children, it is imperative that this picture and these rules be communicated precisely to the next generation. Therefore, fundamentalists must control education by controlling textbooks and teaching styles, deciding what may and may not be taught.

Fourth, fundamentalists spurn the modern, and want to return to a nostalgic vision of a golden age that never really existed. Several of the scholars observed a strong and deep resemblance between fundamentalism and fascism. Both have almost identical agendas. Men are on top, women are subservient, there is one rigid set of rules, with police and military might to enforce them, and education is tightly controlled by the state. One scholar suggested that it's helpful to understand fundamentalism as religious fascism, and fascism as political fundamentalism. The phrase “overcoming the modern” is a fascist slogan dating back to at least 1941.

The fifth point is the most abstract, though it's foundational. Fundamentalists deny history in a radical and idiosyncratic way. Fundamentalists know as well or better than anybody that culture shapes everything it touches: The times we live in color how we think, what we value, and the kind of people we become. Fundamentalists agree on the perverseness of modern American society: the air of permissiveness and narcissism, individual rights unbalanced by responsibilities, sex divorced from commitment, and so on. What they don't want to see is the way culture colored the era when their scriptures were created.

Except for the illustrations I've added in laying out the agenda that the Fundamentalism Project discovered, you can't tell what religion, culture, or century I'm describing. The scholars discovered this a dozen years ago while they were presenting abstracts of their papers. Several noted that all their papers were sounding alike, reporting on “species” when studying the “genus” was called for, that there were strong family resemblances between all fundamentalisms, even when the religions had had no contact, no way to influence each other.

The only way all fundamentalisms can have the same agenda is if the agenda preceded all the religions. And it did. Fundamentalist behaviors are familiar because we've all seen them so many times. These men are acting the role of “alpha males” who define the boundaries of their group's territory and the norms and behaviors that define members of their in-group. These are the behaviors of territorial species in which males are stronger than females. In biological terms, these are the characteristic behaviors of sexually dimorphous territorial animals. Males set and enforce the rules, females obey the males and raise the children; there is a clear separation between the in-group and the out-group. The in-group is protected; outsiders are expelled or fought.

It is easier to account for this set of behavioral biases as part of the common evolutionary heritage of our species than to argue that it is simply a monumental coincidence that the social and behavioral agendas of all fundamentalisms and fascisms are essentially identical.

What conservatives are conserving is the biological default setting of our species, which has strong family resemblances to the default setting of thousands of other species. This means that when fundamentalists say they are obeying the word of God, they have severely understated the authority for their position. The real authority behind this behavioral scheme is millions of years older than all the religions and all the gods there have ever been. It is the picture of life that gave birth to most of the gods as its projected champions.

Fundamentalism is absolutely natural, ancient, powerful—and inadequate. It's a means of structuring relationships that evolved when we lived in troops of 150 or less. But in the modern world, it's completely incapable of the nuance or flexibility needed to structure humane societies.

There's more...

I believe the Rev. Dr. Davidson Loehr essay on fundamentalism is one of the most important single essays I've read in the last ten years. I strongly encourage each of you to read the entire paper, and think deeply on its implications.

Here's what Digby had to say:

Hullabaloo

The author goes on, however, to suggest that the reason for fundamentalism's rise is that liberalism has failed to properly incorporate progress into society which leaves many people uncomfortable thus "defaulting" to the basic human response.

But for the liberal impulse to lead, liberals must remain in contact with the center of our territorial instinct and our need for a structure of responsibilities. Fundamentalist uprisings are a sign that the liberals have failed to provide an adequate and balanced vision, that they have not found a vision that attracts enough people to become stable.

Just as it's no coincidence that all fundamentalisms have similar agendas, it's also no coincidence that the most successful liberal advances tend to wrap their expanded definitions in what sound like conservative categories.

John F. Kennedy's most famous line sounds like the terrifying dictate of the world's most arrogant fascist: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Imagine that line coming from Hitler, Khomeini, Mullah Omar, or Jerry Falwell. It is a conservative, even a fascist, slogan. Yet Kennedy used it to effect significant liberal transformations in our society. Under that umbrella he created the Peace Corps and vista programs and through them enlisted many young people to extend our hand to those we had not before seen as belonging to our in-group.

Likewise, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used the rhetoric of a conservative vision to promote his liberal redefinition of the members of our in-group. When he defined all Americans as the children of God, those words could sound like the battle-cry of an American Taliban on the verge of putting a Bible in every school, a catechism in every legislature. Instead, King used that cry to include Americans of all colors in the sacred and protected group of “all God's children”—which was just what many white Southerners were arguing against forty years ago.

When liberal visions work, it's because they have kept one foot solidly in our deep territorial impulses with the other foot free to push the margin, to expand the definition of those who belong in “our” territory.

He's basically saying that in order to pave the way for change, liberals have to first be aware of the sacred symbols and rhetoric of traditionalism and then attempt to harness those symbols to advance our cause. I think there is some truth in that.

The Bible is one, of course, but so are the "sacred" texts of our nation, those that outline the rules and beliefs of our territory and tribe. Those symbols and totems are powerful mojo for the other side if we don't lay claim to them. They mean more than just surface martial nationalistic nonsense --- indeed, if this thesis is true, they may be more powerful than Christian fundamentalism. At the very least, liberals should embrace the symbols like the flag and the constitution and all the apple pie traditions with the knowledge that if we don't, a more pernicious force will. It's about the power of deeply held territorial impulses. Christianity and Islam are only a couple of thousand years old. As the author says, the [fundamentalists] have "severely understated the authority for their position." Perhaps we should stake that authority for our side in service of our ideals.

I can think of a few ways we might do this. The first that comes to mind is to pit fundamentalism against territory. If this retreat to fundamentalism is really a default to primitive biology, then we can frame this as America vs the fundamentalists. And lucky for us, it's easy to do and will confuse the shit out of the right. We have a built in boogie man fundamentalist named Osama on whom we can pin all this ANTI-AMERICAN fundamentalist dogma while subtly drawing the obvious parallels between him and the homegrown variety.

We start by having the womens' groups decrying the Islamic FUNDAMENTALIST view of womens rights. These FUNDAMENTALISTS want to roll back the clock and make women answer to men. In AMERICA we don't believe in that. Then we have the Human Rights Campaign loudly criticizing the Islamic FUNDAMENTALISTS for it's treatment of gays. In AMERICA we believe that all people have inalienable rights. The ACLU puts out a statement about the lack of civil liberties in Islamic FUNDAMENTALIST theocracies. In AMERICA we believe in the Bill of Rights, not the word of unelected mullahs.

You got a problem with that Jerry? Pat? Karl????

Pit American liberalism against Islamic Fundamentalism. Since it's pretty much exactly like Christian fundamentalism, perhaps at least a few people will draw the obvious conclusions. But more importantly, it places us with, as the author says, "one foot solidly in our deep territorial impulses with the other foot free to push the margin, to expand the definition of those who belong in “our” territory." This way we define the territory as being ours while at the same time placing the fundamentalists firmly outside of it by using the symbols of territory instead of religion.

I am concluding more and more that we are dealing with a pre-modern political situation in a post modern world. It's not about issues, it's about tribal identity. We have to start thinking in terms of how to communicate our ideals and our vision in symbolic terms. Go for the gut, not the head. My view is that we can do this by using our sacred political symbols to illustrate what we believe in. People use the Bible and that's just fine. But it isn't the only game in town. "This Land Is Your Land" can bring a tear to the eye as well. And if this fellow is correct in that religion is being used in service of something far more primal than we realize then there is definitely more than one way to skin a cat.

Digby's right.

I'm a writer. I think in story and emotion.

I always try and tell a story, often a personal story. Ideally, I tie the topic point to something emotional and personal, the more vivid and primal, the better.

Why do people tune in to television shows week after week? It isn't to see if the interns in Grey's Anatomy can save a patient. It is because people grow emotionally attached to the lives and stories of those six or seven main characters. We want to know: Will Meridith sleep with McDreamy? Will George and Cally get back together? Will Cheer's Sam and Rebbecca end up together? What about from Friends, Ross and Rachel? Or Chandler and Monica? No one gives a DAMN about seeing the Friends on the couch one more time or the joke of the week. We tune in because the shows make us feel emotion. We're attached to the stories of the lives of these people.

Why do people go to movies? To feel. A movie which doesn't move you, is dead.

Writing which gets to people emotionally, which ties you in to long-term story lines, where you want to stick around and know the outcome. Even better, where you can participate or at least feel you're participating in the outcome... this is writing which works, which keeps people coming back over and over again.

People don't decide logically. Reach them emotionally, and they'll come up with logical reasons to justify the decision they've already made emotionally. But if your stories don't grab them in the heart, you're hosed.

Fundamentalists keep people engaged with the story, "We're going to heaven and everyone else will burn in hell. Save yourself, save your family. Better to kill your children then let them become sinners. Pass it on."

It's a profoundly emotional message tapping deep survival instincts of our primitive biology. But it can be countered as Digby points out, with other primal symbols.

Painting all Fundamentalisms as One Fundamentalism is brilliant. We should take every opportunity to do so. It isn't an attack on religion. It's an attack on people who hate American values, no matter what country or background they're from.

It may well be how you and I save 16 year-old girls from being strangled by fundamentalist fathers.

Updated 3:45 PM PT:

This ain't about Islam:

GNB Comments (Jesse)

I don't think it's a normal Islamic event at all.

I went out of my way to deemphasize as much as possible, that aspect of the story.

The point of the story from where I'm looking, is Fundamentalism is the same, no matter which religion one uses to justify one's beliefs with.

One of my very best friends is a Muslim. It is inconceivable this kind of behavior could happen in his household. Another of my good friends goes to a Christian church every week, sometimes even giving the sermon. It is inconceivable this could happen in her household. My two best friends from childhood (brother and sister) were raised Mormon. It is inconceivable this could happen in their households.

You know who was beaten badly as a child? Me. You know who else was beaten badly as a child? My dad. You know who else was beaten badly as a child I'm willing to bet cash money? My father's father.

This shit follows generational lines.

So does fundamentalism. It isn't essentially a religious thing at all. It's a women-hating women-dominating we have to be in control thing.

The key to breaking it is to educate the children. If you let the parents train them from childhood through the teens, it's already too late -- another generation is lost.

In its essence, this crap -- fundamentalism -- has absolutely nothing to do with any particular religion at all and has everything to do with controlling women.

Fundamentalism is as anti-American as it gets, totally against the heart of our shared American ideals.

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