Obnoxious Bitch

Thursday, August 24, 2006

History Repeats Itself?

My best friend and I have debated the issue of whether, historically, the distinction of having a larger body count belongs to the religious or the godless.  Today I found this quote amongst a rather large list, most of which contained more direct references to religion.  It seems to me that although the times may change, the struggle of the über-religious to gain power over, and control of, the citizenry has changed little, if at all, with the passage of time.

“Parallel to the training of the body a struggle against the poisoning of the soul must begin. Our whole public life today is like a hothouse for sexual ideas and simulations. Just look at the bill of fare served up in our movies, vaudeville and theaters, and you will hardly be able to deny that this is not the right kind of food, particularly for the youth...Theater, art, literature, cinema, press, posters, and window displays must be cleansed of all manifestations of our rotting world and placed in the service of a moral, political, and cultural idea.”

Substituting “the internet and television” for “vaudeville and theaters,” this quote could have come from any one of the religious nuts from the Family Research Council, Concerned Women of America, or another of the groups of True Believers^™ whose mission is to sanitize art, the airwaves and the whole of entertainment in the hopes of bringing more souls to Jesus, and proclaiming America a Christian Nation.

However, the quote comes from another person whose aim was to change a country by winning the “Culture Wars” of the time.

- [Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, Vol. 1, Chapter 10, echoing the Cultural Warfare rhetoric of the Religious Right]

via Pharyngula