Erin Brockavich, whom I admire, will be appearing on George Noori's show tonight. This should be fun: She's a famed environmental activist, while Noori's audience includes...oh, let's just say a sprinkling of right-wing fundamentalist nitwits. But you're not going to get your message out if you speak only to the like-minded, are you?
Did I ever tell you about the time I met her? I had spent two days away from home, painting unicorns and other cute stuff on the walls of a "kid's room" of a gym. Frankly, I was unshowered and gloriously messy. Early in the morning, a very attractive lady (who looked not at all like Julia Roberts) came into the gym to pump iron. She started telling the gym's owner about a toxic waste problem near a high school. Being a buttinsky, I butted in:
"You know who you ought to tell about this? Erin Brockavich."
A long, embarrassing pause. Finally, she said: "Uh...I'm Erin."
Even though I had previously seen her on television, I had not recognized (until that moment) the woman doing butterfly curls before me. Fittingly enough, I was painting a picture of a horse's ass.
5 comments:
Great story! Good scene for your novel.
Ms Brokovich was in our neck of the woods recently to assist protests against Halliburton's contamination of a rural water supply. Here's someone to whom we could sincerely say "Thank you for your service to our country".
http://www.news9.com/global/story.asp?S=15153740
I hope Joe realizes one can only be a "right wing fundamentalist" if one is a "Christian Zionist"-fancy theological name, dispensational premillenialist, or, simply, dispensationalist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispensationalism
These are indeed beyond the pale, politically and spiritually.
There is no such thing as a Catholic right-wing fundamentalist for example, nor is there even a "right-wing extremist" but mainline Protestant non-dispensational fundamentalist. IOW, one must love Israel and believe it must be protected until it ushers in Christ's return to be a "fundamentalist."
But there are also, using poetic license of course, "left wing fundamentalists." Some of these would be Trotskyites and any other foolish rubes who believe there is such a thing as a nation- superseding "international working class."
Ken, there are indeed a whole bunch of Catholic right-wing fundamentalists. You may want to Google this phrase: "Tradition, Family, Property."
Those clowns actually want to return to days of monarchy. That's only a stone's throw away from Dominionism.
You'll quickly run into RC fundies if you try to do any research into Marian apparition lore. The fundies are total suckers for the more dubious miracle claims. I'm happy to report that they tend to steer clear of my beloved Bernadette (whose own political views veered left). She didn't propound a lot of apocalyptic hogwash, and the far-right freakazoids just LOVE to hear about the end of the world.
The hierarchy in Rome is well to the left of the TFP contingent. Many of my readers will be surprised to hear this, but it's true.
The TFP-ers, the Opus Dei-ites and the Mary-spotters like to mutter darkly about how the Vatican has been secretly taken over by freemasons/diabolists/liberals. Those guys are always on the verge of forming schismatic churches, such as the one Mel Gibson used to head up. Catholics call those breakaway fundamentalist congregations "sedevacantist."
(You know how the RCs love those obscure latin phrases. It's, like, a thing.)
The fundamentalist/sedevacantist movement exerts an enormous rightward pull on the rest of the church. Rome puts up with a lot of crap because they don't want any more breakaways.
Semantics.
But check the history of the religious usage of the term "fundamentalism" in the U.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalism
This delves into the chronology, hints, but doesn't necessarily overtly specify that only recently,has the term been transposed from the original usage-sometimes in an obvious attempt to disparage, rightly or wrongly, Traditionalists of other faiths, by linking them to actual coloring book eschatology of hayseed Protestant deviated heresy.
Orthodox Muslims will also tell you there are no such things as "Muslim fundamentalists" but of course any Muslim who resists American-Israeli imperialism is now subject to being called that (and worse.)
I am quite familiar with sedevacantists and schismatics but it's only recently liberals have been calling them "Catholic fundamentalists." Even Catholic mainliners call Eastern Orthodox "schismatics"--and vice versa--but never fundamentalists.
There are also those you would describe as Catholic "fundamentalists" who reject all apparations since Fatima.
Monarchism was once widespread as a form of government in the Christian world, and it was never called fundamentalism at the time.
Fundamentalists proper,aka Christian Zionists are the Likud's useful tool. After the Lobby, they drive interventionist Mideast policy. Monarchists and sedevacantists are insignificant politically.
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