| | Ed, I am a bit surprised that as deeply as you investigate some problems, in other areas, you accept on faith the symbolic claims of others.
ET: "4) whether the military is warned that evangelicals and tea party supporters are sort of like little 'mini-terrorists' (even if they happen to be an 80-year old woman in a wheelchair)."
First of all, I know of no actual 80-year old woman in a wheelchair who happens to be a Tea Party activist attempting to recruit soldiers. That is pure invention.
Second, Omar Abdel-Rahman "the blind sheik" is serving a life sentence for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Physical abilities have nothing to do with pursuasion.
Third, I attempted to have a thread on "Conservative, Christian, and Right Wing Terrorism" here, but the conservatives all objected. Timothy McVeigh served honorably in the Army and was discharged with awards and commendations. This is from Atlanta bomber Eric Robert Rudolph:
"In the summer of 1996, the world converged upon Atlanta for the Olympic Games. Under the protection and auspices of the regime in Washington millions of people came to celebrate the ideals of global socialism. Multinational corporations spent billions of dollars, and Washington organized an army of security to protect these best of all games. Even though the conception and purpose of the so-called Olympic movement is to promote the values of global socialism, as perfectly expressed in the song Imagine by John Lennon, which was the theme of the 1996 Games even though the purpose of the Olympics is to promote these ideals, the purpose of the attack on July 27 was to confound, anger and embarrass the Washington government in the eyes of the world for its abominable sanctioning of abortion on demand.
The plan was to force the cancellation of the Games, or at least create a state of insecurity to empty the streets around the venues and thereby eat into the vast amounts of money invested."
From Wikipedia. The full text of his statement is on NPR.org here. It includes this:
"At various times in history men and women of good conscience have had to decide when the lawfully constituted authorities have overstepped their moral bounds and forfeited their right to rule. This took place in July of 1776 when our Forefathers decided that the British Crown had violated the essential rights of Englishmen, and therefore lost its authority to govern."
Rudolph went through basic training at Ft. Benning and was with the101st Airborne before being discharged for drug use.
Fourth, in Masters of Deceit about the communist conspiracy here, J. Edgar Hoover opened by warning that communists fly the American flag in their parades. Allow me to add that communist training schools were named after Thomas Jefferson. In fact, one of the best stories about the American Revolution is Citizen Tom Paine by Howard Fast, who is proud to be a Marxist. (Like any good Marxist, Fast knows his objective history and has written several other novels about frontiers and pioneers.)
Fourth (continuing), Here is a scene from a German American Bund rally in Madison Square Garden (February 20, 1939). At the front was a huge portrait of George Washington in military uniform.
The picture of from their website. They are still alive and kicking. Read here: http://www.germanamericanbund.org/
Just to say, democratic govenment and the open society are threatened by many enemies, left, right, Greens (two species: hippies and muslims), Reds, and some who dress up like colonial patriots.
The Army is doing the right thing to warn soldiers about radicals who seek to recruit them to overthrow the government. I grant fully that a more conceptual presentation would be better, but you have to ask yourself what the average recruit would do with an abstraction.
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