The Wrongs of the "Christian" Right

So I already knew that multi-millionaire televangelist Pat Robertson used his Operation Blessing outreach as a front for diamond mining with late African dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. Allegedly, of course. But it wasn't until this week that I learned about Jerry "Blow Them Away in the Name of the Lord" Falwell being in bed with Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon. Allegedly, of course. Rigorous Intuition explains: Many of America's conservative Christians may be surprised to learn their Christian Right isn't so Christian anymore. Over the past 15 years, it's been largely bought, borrowed, compromised and blackmailed by Reverend Sun Myung Moon. And what Moon represents is yet another hub in the fascist/intelligence/criminal nexus of money laundering, drug trafficking and arms dealing we frequently see behind the thinning veil of America. In my last post I speculated that Moon may have dangled unsavoury details of the White House call boy scandal over the head of George HW Bush in order to gain influence. It's certainly true that, just a few years before, Moon was either an embarrassment or a pariah to Republicans and evangelicals alike. (That was when they were merely alike, and not, effectively, one and the same.) In 1978, Jerry Falwell told Esquire that "Reverend Sun Myung Moon is like the plague: he exploits boys and girls, and he should be exported [sic]." Then, in 1994, one of Moon's many front organizations gifted Falwell's Liberty Baptist University $3.5 million, and otherwise forgave tens of millions of dollars in debt. Falwell's college was saved, by Moon, and surprise: Falwell changed his tune. Moon is the same fellow behind American Clergy Leadership Conference, a George W. Bush-supported organization dedicated to removing the cross from, no, not courtrooms and high school classes. Nope. From churches. Particularly African American ones. Sigh.