First, I want to say something out in the open: I'm openly anti-religionist (i.e. critical/against formally organized spirituality in the context of states or state-religions and their pattern of habits); ...but i'm not anti-spirituality (i.e. a private activity of the self, sometimes shared with other autonomous persons). Okay, now that that's cleared up:

So, anyway, I've been avoiding reading religionist-oriented materials for a long time, having had my share of interactions with such easily fooled in this category. Last time i dealt with a group of 'em i said something like:

'If 10,000 others who believe just as staunchly as you were to stand up and challenge you, you'd all be fighting and not remembering a word of your so-called "love" interests.'

So you can see i'm not big on reading the ideas of the religiously dogmatic (not that other faiths, i.e. the faith of social science, isn't full of it either; but that's another article). Tho i *can* see how they're fooled. i was (and most certainly am still in varying degrees) also, in a big way, by the compellers that be.

But when i found Bill Moyers, that dude who used (?) to be a mainline TV interviewer (he interviewed Chomsky once, even) writing as an observer about religionists, i *had* to stop and see what he was saying.

And it's pretty damn heavy; but fits. Especially if you have done your homework and see the larger picture about how human beings called "elites" have a habit (or "disorder"? oh no, not THAT can of worms!) of organizing the masses to carry out their own severely alienated aspirations.

Like this "New World Order" that Bush #1 was talking about. Didn't you see that in "_Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media_"? Maybe you should watch it again.

If we are to challenge the religiously tooled, then in my view we are going to *have to* demystify the meta game that their handlers all play. Even though that means that what will come with it is also a general demystifying of the way authority works in general. And that means, ahem, that a lof of what passes for "alternative" will be demystified in the process...

It's the only way i see of nipping this whole game in the bud, so to speak.

Or, shall the Left's vanguards opt for an un-winnable "civil war" which could very well develop (which will also serve the interests of Bush II and his owners)?

Or perhaps people called "elites" on the Left and Right are happy with just keeping their "constituencies" distracted with the same old games (i.e. single issues, mobilization on command--against domestic variations of the parade of enemies, etc.), while this cuntry turns into another Mexico (etc.).

Whatever they choose, a lot of us stand to lose in a big way.

Perhaps it's time to toss away your college and highschool and hated-work homework and opt for some background insights:

"Propaganda is perhaps the most serious threat to the modern world."--Jacques Ellul in _Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes_

www.buildinfreedom.com/ft/propaganda.htm

The National Security Archive:

www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv

Noam Chomsky on 'crisis of democracy', the trilateralists, menace of liberal scholarship, Watergate as 'small potatoes' : chomsky.info

or www.zmag.org/chomsky/ni

Sabotaging idealists:

www.radio4all.org/anarchy/sabot.html

www.cointel.org

ex-CIA high achiever, now dissident, John Stockwell (dangerously charismatic, no b.s.):

www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Stockwell/John_Stockwell.html

Post-Left Anarchy: Leaving the Left Behind, includes:

"Neither God, nor Master, nor Moral Order:

Anarchy as Critique of Morality and Moralism":

http://www.anarchist-studies.org/article/articleview/43/2/1/

pssst, pass this around please! (and do re-write if you think it can be done better!)