Mean and meaningless campaigns

Presidential campaigns mean and meaningless (668 words)

The German magazine Der Spiegel writes that the GOP candidates are ruining the reputation of the United States.

There is even an extremist movement, the New Apostolic Reformation involved now. NAR has built their program from the Old Testament book of Joel. To them Joel describes how God is coming back to set up a “kingdom on Earth” with a church that will be “organized more as a military force with an army, navy and air force,” to hand out justice on all nonbelievers just in time for the second coming of Jesus.

H does this relate to the GOP nominees for office. The leaders of NAR, Doris and C. Peter Wagner, are considered apostles and prophets. They have this role because God Himself gave it to them. Several NAR apostles (Alice Patterson for one) helped organize or spoke at Governor Rick Perry’s August, 2011, Prayer Rally in Houston.

Thomas Muthee, the Kenyan pastor who anointed Sarah Palin at the Wasilla Assembly of God in 2005, is also a part of this movement according to independent researcher Rachel Tabachnick on National Public Radio.

Tabachnick writes on her blog: NARwatch: "The major topics at these [NAR] events [are] anti-abortion, anti-gay rights and the conversion of Jews in order to advance the end times. And this was very visible at Perry's events as these apostles led all of these different prayers and repentance ceremonies at [his rally]."

The religious community Gov. Perry associates with are not the folks who attend mainline Christian denominational churches. These people are not representative of conservative evangelicalism. They truthfully should be labeled a cult.

I do have a tad of pity for the television networks and any newspaper or magazine writers who have to cover these election “debates” or follow these candidates around like something important might be said or done.

How, I humbly ask, are these reporters expected to keep their sanity as day after day they hear the same old jingles? As one acquaintance of mine (and I do have a few who are of sound mind) said the other day: how can reporters and TV anchors write and talk about this rogue’s gallery with a straight face?

What was once thought to be marginal and bizarre has become mainstream. There was a time when truth was self-evident and easy to spot and accept. Now, just about anything goes.

Almost any avant-garde word from the airwaves goes unquestioned as gospel truth, no matter how unconventional. A politician can say all sorts of half-truths and outright lies and no one questions them. Evidently not many people are really listening to what is being flung to us from the political world.

Possibly I am being bias on this point of not fully appreciating all the good things that politicians do. Bias maybe but without prejudice or partiality and certainly with no preconceived notions or foregone conclusions. I am impartially predisposed to thinking independently, especially when it comes to things religious or political.

The family values of the ultra conservatives gets a pass when a public servant happens to have, one at a time, three wives. I must admit that our Texas governor was right when he said that anyone who cheats on his wife will cheat on his business or affairs of life.

We have had presidents who owned slaves (Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Polk and Zachary Taylor). We’ve had presidents with alcohol problems (Pierce, Grant and G.W. Bush).

As far as is known seven had extramarital affairs (Jefferson, Garfield, Hardin, FDR, JFK, LBJ and B. Clinton). We do know that before the GOP hero Ronald Reagan became president he made B pictures for Warner Bros. I think Jane Wyman left him because he was such a bad actor. He was our only divorced president.

But back to the present GOP race for the White House that the Germans think is ruining our image, I quote Bob Scheffer, of CBS News. He said it best:, the presidential campaigns are “as meaningless as they are mean.”

✍Jody & Britt Towery
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