“The American Christian fundamentalists are nothing like the Taliban.”

The Taliban used football fields to execute people. They enforced stoning and other cruel laws of the Sharia. They suppressed women, they disliked music, drugs and movies - all that fun stuff. A terrible regime of orthodox believers. Agreed the Taliban were terrible.

American Christian fundamentalists so far haven’t killed anyone - their actions are within the law of the land. Physical violence isn’t anywhere near the Talibans bloody actions. So the American fundamentalists are ‘better’ then their afghan counterparts?

Measuring a society or group just by their usage of physical violence is a bad and not very precise tool.

The basic concept of fundamentalism is that their version of ‘reality’ is the only truth that is acceptable. Anything else can (maybe) tolerated, but never accepted.

Visit www.americanfundamentalists.com to view the image in a larger size - and learn some other stuff as well.

But acceptance of plurality is the most important cornerstone of our modern democracies. This very acceptance is shown in the rule of law that everyone is the ’same’: we all have the same rights, the same obligations - although we are different individuals and by no means the same.

Religions fundamentalists and modern states both have laws and rules, which more or less make sense. But the very difference is who made the law: either they are eternal, because they were made by some God or they are in constant development, because they are made by man and still adapted, expanded and changed.

This also shows a very basic psychological element of the fundamentalist: with a rule set given by your eternal Overlord you have a ‘perfect’ and static system to live by. Not much surprise there. Very different to a pluralists society that continuously changes itself. Although your life might be difficult at times you at least know with a fundamentalist mindset what is right or wrong.

We are right! We are right! We are right!

Here we encounter another problem with fundamentalists: anything that is ‘wrong’ according to his/her believe basic system has to be changed. These people are on a holy mission. Now this is very contrary to ‘in the name of the people’ when you want to change society ‘in the name of the Lord’.

In a Democracy you need the consent of the majority, you need to agree. In a fundamentalist system there is nothing to agree on, no need for debate or even change. Anything that comes from the Lord is not open for discussion. This is especially explosive when a Priest or any other Leader ‘claims’ to speak the Lord’s words. How do you ask God if that person is really his Prophet? You can challenge any law, policeman and politician in court, but again there is no discussion with the word of God.

Lets come back to our American Christian fundamentalists. They are much smarter then the Taliban. They won’t use physical violence to change society - they simply change the laws so society has to adapt. Instead of accepting plurality they use lobbyism, votes and money to enforce only their fundamentalist views.

This is one of the greatest weaknesses of Democracy, that it’s very openness to change and populism allows it’s own destruction. Once again it is important to mention the Hitler lesson (Newsflash: Orangeguru says Christians are Nazis). He was voted into power and slowly abolished democratic laws one by one with popular consent until there was only ‘ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer’ (one people, one country, one Führer).

How the erosion of American pluralist consent is progressing can best be documented by the fierce fight about ‘intelligent design’ and abortion. Slowly the fundamentalists ideas are introduced and cemented into popular opinion as the only truth in small steps. I especially admire the propaganda and rhetoric’s to actually use pluralism to enforce fundamentalism: hey, why don’t you teach ‘intelligent design’ - it’s just another form of science?!

Abortion is wrong / terrible for other reasons - not because your God said so.

But the war on abortion speaks even louder: here pressure groups have been working for decades to enforce their mostly religious point of view onto American society. On PBS.org is an excellent documentation ‘The last abortion Clinic’ that show you how fundamentalist lobbyism can work wonders against pluralism.

So, is there such a thing as an American Taliban? Yes, there is! The methods might be different, but their attitude is very much the same. Most of all over the recent years we can see the ‘just anger’ and aggression against anything liberal and pluralistic getting fiercer and fiercer.

And it’s that religious righteousness I am most afraid of.

The 9/11 anniversary past almost unnoticed last weekend. Some articles here and there … it is already yesterday’s news.

This conflict has been ranging since 2003 longer then WWII - and it won’t go away any day soon. Hardly anyone supports this war in the US of A. Finally all american magazines, TV stations and almost all political pundits have turned from being pro-war to anti-war … or at least do some more serious reporting.

Europe has been much more critical from the beginning - since we cheese eating surrender monkeys had our fair share of it.

This is the first blogged war: soldiers, voters, journalists and civilians tell their stories in a gazillion postings. YouTube has tons of war pr0n and charming calls for peace …

I dare to ask: made it ANY difference?

The Bloggers have lost this war. No matter how well these arm chair activists have debunked every talking point of President Shrub and his cronies - the war is still raging. The political fallout was minimal, because the US Democrats are spineless and the american public mostly ignorant for what is done in their name.

Overall it is almost amusing how the political american left and right blogosphere has used the war to establish itself - celebrating it’s self proclaimed importance. This is satire at best when I read the continuing phoney rage against the war and the political opponents.

Muuuu … there is cash for you!

Discussing the war is now a business and therefore contributes to the economy of the industrial military complex. Daily Kos profited as much from it as Michelle Malkin.

Although politicians read blogs and have their own it is still money that makes the political system go round. Grass roots poltical funding has made the Howard Dean a phenomenon in the 2004 US elections, but it has turned just into another cash cow. And the biggest and baddest money fountains are still in the hands of companies and lobby groups.

So blogs are just political opinions and unless you can translate that into serious money and votes it won’t change ANYTHING.