Faith-Based Flimflam - Part of the Christ Weary Series:
So let's say, and why not, that you're giving a "major speech" on how faith-based organizations should be given federal funds to do their "good work." Would you deliberately, on a factual matter, mislead, not tell the whole story, and/or lie? 'Cause, see, that's what President Bush did yesterday in his great big ol' talk yesterday in D.C. on his "faith-based initiatives."

Oh, so passionately Bush was imploring the audience at the Omni Hotel. He said, "Unfortunately, there are some roadblocks -- such as the culture inside government at the federal, state and local level that is unfriendly to faith-based organizations. One of the keys to solving a problem and achieving a goal is to recognize roadblocks and then have the will to remove those roadblocks." And George Bush has the fuckin' will of the Incredible Hulk when it comes to removin' roadblocks, right? Right?

Then he offered an example of the unfriendly culture: "You know, it's manifested itself, for example, when the federal government denied a Jewish school in Seattle emergency disaster relief because the school was religious. That's an indication that there's a roadblock. We have a cultural problem when FEMA money -- we're going out to help lessen the effects of a disaster that hurt -- hit, and all of a sudden, the school was denied federal money because of the nature of the school." Boo-hoo, the poor grunge Jewish kids, with their flannel yarmulkas, out in the cold after an earthquake in 2001, right? Tugs the heartstrings, you know.

Except that it ain't the whole story: see, the Academy appealed, and it was later given the funds, over $1 million, to repair its building. And, indeed, the appeal led Bush to change the rules at FEMA so that religious institutions could more readily get emergency loans. (Indeed, the heartrending story of the pitiful Jewish children of Seattle made it into one of Jeff Gannon's Talon "News" articles, without mentioning the happy ending, because, you know, it ruins a good anecdote of misery.)

You know, if the satanic government could close its heart and pocketbook to the Chosen People, what the fuck chance did the born-of-sin Christians have? Until, of course, God saw fit to re-elect George Bush. Alleluia.

'Cause, see, while Bush wants to cruelly and massively cut programs that give some relief to the poor, he's upping the funding for the Faith-Based and Community Initiative by $150 million. Much of the $1.5 billion is distributed in grants to the states, which are supposed to help spread the wealth to the collection plates - sorry, social programs - of the churches, synagogues, and mosques of their localities.

That bureaucracy is fine, as is the creation of FBCI offices in seven cabinet departments so as to make sure that the faithy lucre gets spread around. But federal bureaucracies actually administering programs so that charities and churches don't have to? Fuck that shit.

Of course, everything in the Bush administration, even funding of church groups, is framed in terms of good capitalistic enterprising. Bush calls the FBCI "social entrepeneurship." Said the President, "That's one of my favorite words, think about it: social entrepreneurship. Oftentimes, you think about entrepreneurship, you think about starting a business or balance sheets or income statements. There's a different kind of income statement in life, and that's the income statement of the heart, the balance sheet of the heart. And so I like to talk about social entrepreneurship, those courageous souls who are willing to take a stand in some of the toughest neighborhoods in America to save lives." So, like, the income statement of the heart, does it need to be balanced every month? Is it like the checkbook of karma, which the Rude Pundit can never get to match his dharma statement that he receives via Visnhu mail every month?

But look at the Peacemakers, a Miami-based group in what Bush called "a dark neighborhood." Jim Towey, the head of the FBCI, told Bush about the group's Family Center in a "desperate" area of Miami - while riding to the event "in the limousine." Peacemakers "helps low-income and unemployed families," said Bush, so they were given sixty thousand tax dollars as "seed money" to do more good.

Whether or not they "do good" is not really the issue here, is it? Check out their website: its first "vision statement" says the center is, "A Christ-centered model of ministry that assist in the transformation of individuals and families in our community." It does "Ministry Outreach" with its mystical, magical "Ministry Materials." Like the books sold through Spreadtheword.com, books like the non-fiction The Nephilim, "the first book to show that the dark forces which roamed the Earth in those primeval times will once again be at large during the coming Apocalypse with the purpose of visiting mass destruction on an unsuspecting world." Apparently, the Pyramids are involved. Fuckin' Egyptians.

And lookie here: a speaker there last year was Bush secret taper Doug Wead. In addition to talking to his friends about their past drug use, he's apparently a "minister."

There's not a fucking thing on this site that indicates that Christ worship is not involved in every fucking thing Peacemakers does. Your tax dollars at work, man, your busy, busy workin' dollars.
More on this tomorrow, including fun with Jim Towey, former attorney to Mother Theresa.