COUP WATCH: Theocracy -- From Red Rock Eater News Service\r\n\r\n\r\nCOUP\r\nWATCH: Theocracy -- From Red Rock Eater News Service<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Published By Phil Agre,\r\nArticle On Theocracy By Sean Wilentz<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Thu, 18 Jan 2001 10:47:21\r\n-0800<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
[Why haven't the Republicans\r\naccused John Ashcroft of perjury? Those same Senators issued such\r\naccusations against Clinton Cabinet members who made less much clear-cut\r\nmisstatements to Congressional committees and investigators than those\r\nthat Senator Ashcroft has made. Have they decided that the politics\r\nof personal destruction is a thing of the past? We'll have to see\r\nwhat happens.<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Here are some related\r\nURL's:<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
witness list for Ashcroft\r\nnomination<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.senate.gov\/~judiciary\/wl011601.htm<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Ashcroft Undermines Integrity\r\nby Misrepresenting Facts on Desegregation Case<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/opposeashcroft.com\/press\/ash_010117.phtml<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
A Possible Filibuster\r\non Ashcroft Nomination<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.villagevoice.com\/issues\/0103\/ridgeway1.shtml<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
License to Kill?<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.salon.com\/politics\/feature\/2001\/01\/18\/abortion\/print.html<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
In the Shadow of the Confederate\r\nFlag<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.guardianunlimited.co.uk\/elsewhere\/journalist\/story\/0,7792,422993,00.html<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Some Politicians Still\r\nSeek to \"Explain\" the Confederacy<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/articles\/A63161-2001Jan15.html<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Ashcroft Fallout May Cost\r\nBush in 2004<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.newsday.com\/coverage\/current\/editorial\/tuesday\/nd9718.htm<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
A Surreal Sleepwalker\r\nwith Little Right to Wield Power<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.guardianunlimited.co.uk\/comment\/story\/0,3604,423902,00.html<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
inauguration protests<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.villagevoice.com\/issues\/0103\/ladd.shtml<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.countercoup.org\/<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.democracymarch.org\/<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.votermarch.org\/<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.j20.org\/<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.InaugurAuction.org\/training.asp<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.dc.indymedia.org\/display.php3?article_id=4567<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.dc.indymedia.org\/display.php3?article_id=4695<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.dc.indymedia.org\/display.php3?article_id=4720<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Map of Inaugural Parade\r\nRoute<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/dailynews.yahoo.com\/h\/p\/nm\/20010116\/ts\/bush_inauguration_route_graphic.html<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Inauguration 2001 Schedule\r\nof Official Events<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/washingtonpost.com\/wp-srv\/onpolitics\/inauguration2001\/schedule010501.htm<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Bush, GOP Stole Election:\r\nBut They Did It Fair and Square<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.arkdemgaz.com\/week\/Wed\/edi\/wopLyons17.html<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Passing the Buck in Florida<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=lantigua0115<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
article on the Voting\r\nIntegrity Project<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/chicagotribune.com\/news\/opinion\/perspective\/article\/0,2669,SAV-0101140030,FF.html<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Get Yer Vote Machines\r\nHere<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.wired.com\/news\/politics\/0,1283,41228,00.html?tw=wn20010117<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Slander Suit Turns Spotlight\r\non Liddy<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.sunspot.net\/content\/cover\/story?section=cover&pagename=story&storyid=1150540205511<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
New York Post, \"Wacky\"\r\nfor W., Takes New Rightward Plunge<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.villagevoice.com\/issues\/0103\/barrett.shtml<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Thanks to everyone who\r\ncontributed.]<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
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Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001\r\n10:26:28 -0500<\/b>\r\n
From: Sean Wilentz <swilentz@Princeton.EDU><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
\r\nJohn Ashcroft's critics are divided over whether his address to Bob Jones\r\nUniversity in May 1999 might jeopardize his confirmation as attorney general.<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
\r\nHistorians, however, will find much to criticize in the transcript of Mr.\r\nAshcroft's brief remarks, recently released by the Bush-Cheney transition\r\nteam. Mr. Ashcroft has already drawn fire from Civil War historians\r\nfor an interview he gave in 199tk to Southern Partisan magazine, in which\r\nhe defended Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy. The Bob Jones transcript\r\nshows that Mr. Ashcroft holds erroneous and equally dubious views about\r\nthe American Revolution, with troubling implications about his understanding\r\nof the separation of church and state.<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
\r\nMr. Ashcroft began his Bob Jones speech by citing what he claimed was \"a\r\nslogan of the American Revolution\", supposedly directed by the patriots\r\nat George III's emissaries -- that \"we have no King but Jesus\". He\r\nrepeated that view under questioning by Arlen Specter before the Senate\r\nJudiciary Committee on January 17.<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
\r\nWhich is all very interesting but highly misleading. The line Mr.\r\nAshcroft quoted is best known as the slogan of a radical religious sect\r\nof the 17th century English Revolution, the Fifth Monarchy Men. The Fifth\r\nMonarchists took their name from the biblical prophecy in the Book of Daniel\r\nthat four successive monarchies would precede the coming of an eternal\r\nkingdom. Like other millenarians of the time, they believed that,\r\nfollowing the execution of Charles I in 1649, the Fifth Monarchy was nigh,\r\nand that its King would be Jesus.<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
\r\n\"The Fifth Monarchists\", writes B. S. Capp, the leading scholarly authority\r\non the group, \"were a political and religious sect expecting the immanent\r\nKingdom of Christ on Earth, a theocratic regime in which the saints would\r\nestablish a godly discipline over the unregenerate masses and prepare for\r\nthe Second Coming\".<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Crushed\r\nby the royalist restoration in 1660, the Fifth Monarchy Men faded into\r\noblivion. Their beliefs survived in the radical plebeian English\r\nunderground, and popped up here and there in the colonies. But their\r\nbattlecry -- \"No King but King Jesus\" -- was hardly \"a slogan of the American\r\nRevolution\", along the lines of \"no taxation without representation\", or\r\n\"give me liberty or give me death\". No major patriot leader took\r\nthe Fifth Monarchist line. In his Bob Jones address, Mr. Ashcroft\r\nconfused his centuries, his slogans -- and his revolutions.<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
\r\nHe also mistakenly implied that the Declaration of Independence was a Christian\r\ntext. The \"no king but Jesus\" motto, he said at Bob Jones, eventually\r\nturned up in what he called our nation's \"fundamental documents\". \r\nAfter all, he noted, the Declaration spoke of rights \"endowed by [the]\r\nCreator\".<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
\r\nThe uncomfortable historical fact is that the author of the Declaration,\r\nThomas Jefferson, was a deist, who doubted the divinity (let along the\r\nkingship) of Jesus. But no matter: to Mr. Ashcroft, the Creator could\r\nonly mean Christ. \"America has been different\", he explained. \r\n\"We have no king but Jesus.\"<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
\r\nNo one, anymore, expects our public officials to be well-versed in history\r\n(although maybe we should). But for a prospective attorney general\r\nto endorse the motto of an old English theocratic sect -- to proclaim it,\r\nmistakenly, as a motto of our Revolution and, indeed, of our nation --\r\nis troubling. And it is no less troubling for that same man to suggest\r\nthat Jefferson's Declaration conveyed some deep Christian message.<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
\r\nIn America, we have no king. Period. That is what the Revolution\r\nachieved -- not the vaunting of Jesus Christ. In his speech at Bob\r\nJones University, Mr. Ashcroft asserted the opposite view. Senators\r\nconsidering Mr. Ashcroft's nomination as attorney-general should ask him\r\nto explain himself.<\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Sean Wilentz is the Dayton-Stockton\r\nProfessor of History at Princeton University.<\/b>\r\n
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\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"John Ashcroft's critics are divided over whether his address to Bob Jones University in May 1999 might jeopardize his confirmation as attorney general. Historians, however, will find much to criticize in the transcript of Mr. Ashcroft's brief remarks\u2026. The Bob Jones transcript shows that Mr. Ashcroft holds erroneous and equally dubious views about the American Revolution, with troubling implications about his understanding of the separation of church and state.","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2001\/01\/rre_3.htm","filesize":"14.4 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2001\/01\/5236.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}