Lake of Fire is coming to the Brattle Theater in Cambridge for an exclusive engagement October 26th - November 2nd.

I have blogged about this 2 1/2 hour Hollywood documentary on the politics of abortion a number of times since it first appeared at the Toronto Film festival last year. More recently, I have summarized the strong and interesting reviews the film is gaining, mainly in mainstream newspapers.

What I have found most interesting is the film’s treatment of antiabortion militance and violence in the U.S. — which has been such an intergral element rather than an exception to, the antiabortion movement and the wider religious right. Awhile back I wrote:

The film spends a lot of time on an underdiscussed subject: violence against abortion providers. Interviewees include Emily Lyons, an Alabama nurse who was severely injured by a pipe bomb exploded at a clinic by Eric Rudolph, who was on the FBIs Most Wanted List for years in connection with the bombing of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, as well as two clinics and a gay bar. Also interviewed is Paul Hill, who publicly advocated the notion that the murder of abortion providers is “justifiable homicide.”  Hill went on to murder a doctor and an escort himself, and was executed in Florida for his crimes. The loose-but-nevertheless-criminal-and-theocratic revolutionary-underground-network is rarely discussed anywhere, let alone in such a remarkable and prominent vehicle as this.

Operation Rescue had a slogan — “If abortion is murder, then act like it’s murder.” That many people don’t “act like is murder” underscores the moral complexity of the matter. That there are those who do, and who are tacitly supported by many others, underscores the revolutionary quality of such thinking.

But many mainstream newspaper accounts reduce discussion of the film to matter of the morality of abortion over the wider political and indeed, criminal and terrorist dimensions of the story. The latest such discussion is in The Guardian newspaper of London.

Tony Kaye, who made his name as a award-winning director of commercial and music videos, has spent 16 years and devoted $7m (£3.4m) of his own money to produce what he hopes will be the definitive documentary on the American abortion debate. The film, which has opened in New York and is set for release across 23 US cities, has divided critics, with some hailing it as the documentary of the year, others denouncing it as sensationalist. Detractors have also pointed out that most of the talking heads who appear on camera are male, including Noam Chomsky and the lawyer Alan Dershowitz.

(And me.) The Guardian continues:

Kaye began shooting Lake of Fire in 1992 as a way, he says, of exploring his own deep moral uncertainties about abortion. His personal opinions, he told the Guardian, are as polarised as those of the American public. “If I had to tick a box I would say I was pro-choice. I would vote for a woman’s right to chose without hesitation, because without legal abortions poor women die.” But emotionally, he says, he is “completely opposed to abortion. I see it as murder - the taking of another’s life.”

The result of his own internal conflict is a documentary that is, in the conclusion of Cineaste magazine, “a maddeningly elusive film”. Shot in arty black and white, it has sequences that will dismay pro-choice feminists and pro-life fundamentalists in equal measure.

The most shocking section of the 152-minute film is footage shot by Kaye himself of the abortion of a 20-week foetus. It shows the foetus’s head and eye staring straight at the camera, its hand in a metal collecting tray and its foot placed on a ruler and measuring just over 3cm.

The foetal parts are checked by a doctor to ensure the operation has been completed while he explains why he has conducted the operation: “The really important thing is that we have been able to help this young lady to get on with her life by facilitating her decision not to be a mother at this time.”

Kaye told the Guardian that he wholly agreed with those sentiments. “But the irony of that moment is that you are seeing a snuff movie - they have chopped up a human being, a baby.”

The footage, which Kaye describes as “probably the most controversial shot ever shown in cinemas”, has raised accusations that the documentary is slanted against abortion. But other graphic images, including a picture of a woman slumped in the corner of a hotel room where she had died trying to abort her own foetus with a coat hanger, will prove no less shocking to pro-life supporters.

Indeed.

But because the film defies existing, contradictory narratives about abortion — it may very well be ignored by the political community. So far, there have been few commentaries on the film from the opposing camps. Most of the writing about the film has come from professional film reviewers.
Still, the film may yet filter into the broader public discussion of the politics of abortion and affect it in surprising and unexpected ways. But I believe it will take a lot more people to actually see and start discussing the film for that to happen.

A local political drama in Springfield, Massachusetts is the beginning of what may signal the launch of a national religious right campaign against promarriage equality legislators in Blue states.

Yesterday, a billboard went up on I-91 near the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield — comparing Democratic state Rep. Angelo Puppolo to Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold.

At issue is Rep. Puppolo’s vote last June not to allow a state constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage to appear on the ballot in 2008. Titled “BETRAYED” the billboard has a vibrant yellow background and features illustrations - one depecting Jesus being betrayed by Judas, one of Benedict Arnold — and a photo of Angelo Puppolo.

“Tactics like this reinforce my belief that I did the right thing,” Puppolo told The Springfield Republican. “I voted to keep discrimination off the ballot and out of the Massachusetts constitution.”

Much more.

Over at Talk to Action, Ann Rose reports on the two sessions on the religious right I organized with Chip Berlet and Susan Thistlethwaite:

There are several reasons why these sessions were significant. One is that serious discussions about the religious right are rare at big political conferences. Another is that when they do take place, they are usually marked by some good information and analysis and scary stories, but what to do is often crammed into off the cuff remarks in the Q&A or appeals to support the organization of the speaker. What was done at YearlyKos was to have a first panel discussing the dynamics of the religious right, and then a second one focused solely on what to do about the religious right. To my knowledge, that has never been done before.

Much more (with pics!).

When Our Distinguished Panel of Judges convened to consider several weeks’ worth of worthy candidates for Theocrat of the Week — they were most impressed by a recent covert theocratic act by Sen. David Vitter (R-LA).

Readers may recall that Vitter has been previously recognized by Our Distinguished Panel of Judges for having overcome tremendous obstacles to theocratic action when he returned to the Senate to conduct theocratic business as usual — even after having been exposed as a consumer of the services of Bourbon Street prostitutes.

The personal moral code of a theocratic polititian need not be consistent with his public policy goals. His theocratic backers can forgive him his sins — as long as he continues to work, as he has, to form a more theocratic union.

Our Distinguished Panel of Judges believes that Senator Vitter merits his co-Theocrat of the Week award for having overcome (so far) the extraordinary humiliation of exposure of his double life — to return to the Senate and continue with theocratic business as usual.

Our Distinguished Panel of Judges takes great satisfaction in seeing that their confidence in Sen. Vitter was not misplaced. Indeed, even though he lacks a theocratic majority in the Senate, he remains undeterred.

The theocratic act that caught the attention of Our Distinguished Panel of Judges appeared right on the front page of the New Orleans Times-Picayune.  

WASHINGTON — Sen. David Vitter, R-La., earmarked $100,000 in a spending bill for a Louisiana Christian group that has challenged the teaching of Darwinian evolution in the public school system and to which he has political ties.

The money is included in the labor, health and education financing bill for fiscal 2008 and specifies payment to the Louisiana Family Forum “to develop a plan to promote better science education.”

The earmark appears to be the latest salvo in a decades-long battle over science education in Louisiana, in which some Christian groups have opposed the teaching of evolution and, more recently, have pushed to have it prominently labeled as a theory with other alternatives presented. Educators and others have decried the movement as a backdoor effort to inject religious teachings into the classroom.

The nonprofit Louisiana Family Forum, launched in Baton Rouge in 1999 by former state Rep. Tony Perkins, has in recent years taken the lead in promoting “origins science,” which includes the possibility of divine intervention in the creation of the universe.

The group’s stated mission is to “persuasively present biblical principles in the centers of influence on issues affecting the family through research, communication and networking.” Until recently, its Web site contained a “battle plan to combat evolution,” which called the theory a “dangerous” concept that “has no place in the classroom.” The document was removed after a reporter’s inquiry.

The article does not, however, give credit where credit is due, in that the Louisiana Family Forum is the state affiliate of Focus on the Family.

There is also some interesting history there, on which Our Distinguished Panel of Judges wishes not to dwell.

Much more.

The October issue of Portfolio Magazine has a detailed story about the Worcester, MA-based gun manufacturing empire of Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

Kahr Arms is more than just the manufacturer of some of the smallest and most lethal weapons on earth (including the tommy gun, made famous by Al Capone). It is run and mostly owned by a son of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the billionaire and self-proclaimed messiah who founded the Unification Church and controls a sprawl of businesses presumably intended to sustain and defend his followers when the world as we know it ends. The gun business, along with food companies, real estate, and other holdings, will serve to protect the fortress and keep sinners at bay, according to former members, as well as supply necessary provisions after the arrival of the new world order.

Not much is known about Moon’s 37-year-old son, Justin, or how Kahr Arms fits into the church’s teachings and the reverend’s plans for world domination. People who know Justin say he travels a lot, has a penchant for fast cars and big-caliber pistols, and spends stretches of time at various family and church mansions around the globe. He is also vigorously business-minded and has personally designed most of his company’s guns. He has grown Kahr Arms into one of America’s top privately owned handgun manufacturers, with sales of around $20 million a year and climbing at an annual rate of 30 percent.

Kahr’s success could influence the future of the church itself. With the True Father, as followers call Reverend Moon, slowing down, speculation about his heir has begun to emerge. Church watchers say the fact that Justin has built a company from the ground up makes him a front-runner in any possible succession race to lead the Moonies and run a church business empire valued in the billions of dollars.

This item is about the viability of this site and others in the progressive blogosphere. The progressive, reform oriented blogosphere has emerged as a signficant new force in American public life. Naturally, a variety of established interests don’t like it, or are having had a hard time adjusting to the new reality. Some lash out. Some do it all the time. While my group blog site Talk to Action has been the target of some sliming, we are also affected by the wider culture of snarling political bomb throwers and debased journalism.

Media Matters for America has detailed coverage of the Bill O’Reilly’s despicable comparisons of The Daily Kos to Nazis, David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan, and more. (See too, my Bill O’Reilly Hate Tour.)

Jeffrey Feldman of Frameshop today urges us to contact the Wall Street Journal about yet another, more sophisticated smear job against the progressive blogosphere.

In the wake of the newest Bin Laden video, right-wing journalists have spread the disgusting lie that murdering terrorists–who killed thousand of Americans on 9/1–talk, write and think “like” progressive bloggers. The smear tactic is never to come right out and say that bloggers are terrorists, but to smile and say that Osama Bin Laden “sounds just like” an “angry blogger.”

The result? The words terrorist, Bin Laden and blogger become mixed up in the media chatter. This smear tactic is not just slanderous–it is outright barbarous. But now–even as right-wing journalists continue to push this word association tactic–the WSJ has taken it one step further: adding the words “Hitler” and “Nazism” to the mix to sully bloggers by associated as well. It is a disgusting tactic–shameful enough to merit the Wall Street Journal being stripped of whatever professional credentials it has. And what makes it even worse: this tactic of saying “Hitler” and “blogger” in the same breath was launched on the eve of the Jewish New Year.

The culprits who launched this utterly offensive effort: James Taranto and Kelsey Hubbard of the Wall Street Journal. The smear happened in a video on the Wall Street Journal opinion website. This transcript captures the attempt by Taranto to smear bloggers by associating them with the words “Hitler” and “Nazism”:

Back in the 1930’s a young liberal journalist named Allan Cranston published a translation in English of Mein Kampf, Hitler’s manifesto, because he wanted to alert people to the dangers of Nazism. These days when America’s enemies speak, young liberal journalists cover their ears and go “la la la la la,” they don’t want to hear it. Why don’t they want to hear it? Well, you look at this bin Laden tape which was transcribed and put up on the web, and he sounds like a blogger for the DailyKos. He sounds like a typical angry left American.

These comments by Taranto to Hubbard are offensive to every American, but particularly to those Americans preparing to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah. What does Hitler and Nazism have to do with bloggers? Absolutely nothing. The only reason Taranto mentioned them was to follow the tactic of smear by word association.

Read Feldman’s full post and get the contact info the the WSJ.

Some months ago Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts joined a growing chorus of state governments in refusing federal funds for abstinence education; a program which had been proved ineffective by the Bush administration’s own data. Now the National Abstinence Education Association, a coalition of religious right abstinence education advocates is, according to the Associated Press, “targeting” Governor Patrick with a $75,000 negative ad campaign to try to get him to change his mind.

This has come as a disappointment to the group that then-Governor Mitt Romney gave most of the federal grant money to.

A major — perhaps the major — beneficiary of the $700,000 federal abstinence grant was Healthy Futures, a project of A Woman’s Concern, a chain of Boston-area antiabortion crisis pregancy centers whose medical director Eric Keroak was appointed by President Bush to administer federal domestic family planning programs.

Turned out Keroack was a crackpot.

Much more.

It seemed like it was only a matter of time before actor Stephen Baldwin emerged as as a person of interest on the religious right. That’s why when I read a very strange profile of him last year, I made note of it in a short diary last year.  In light of Max Blumenthal’s report for The Nation about Baldwin’s role in Operation Strait Up, which seems destined to be much discussed around here, I thought I would reprise that diary on the flip.  First a word from Max:

Baldwin became a right-wing, born-again Christian after the 9/11 attacks, and now is the star of Operation Straight Up (OSU), an evangelical entertainment troupe that actively proselytizes among active-duty members of the US military. As an official arm  of the Defense Department’s America Supports You program, OSU plans to mail copies of the controversial apocalyptic video game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces to soldiers serving in Iraq. OSU is also scheduled to embark on a “Military Crusade in Iraq”  in the near future.

Much more.

Today marks a turning point in the history of the blogosphere.

The New York Times has a fair and (mostly) flattering profile of our friend and pastor-to-the-blogopshere pastordan. (Pastordan responds here.) And The Washington Post op-ed page features a piece by Susan Garder and Markos Moulistas-Zuniga tiled, How We Won the Mainstream that explains how the “centrist” Democratic Leadership Council epitomizes the new marginality — and how central the progressive blogosphere has become in American politics and public life.

The effort to cast bloggers as pajama-clad losers and crazies has failed — and a new era has begun.

PDM Endorses Jamie Eldridge for Congress. Here is the PDM announcement:

After careful consideration, the Statewide Coordinating Committee (SCC) voted, at its last meeting on July 15th, to recommend that PDM endorse Jamie Eldridge [www.jamieforcongress.com] in the Special Democratic Primary on September 4th in the Fifth Congressional District of Massachusetts. The SCC asked that the Executive Committee finalize the endorsement decision after allowing for comment from the broader membership. After reading member comments, the Executive Committee ratified the endorsement decision at its August 2nd meeting.

PDM members will canvass in Chelmsford on August 18th. Chapter representatives have pledged the support of chapter members for additional phone banks, canvassing, and fundraising. If you would like to participate in PDM activities to support Jamie, please contact us at letters@progressivedems.org.

Jamie is an excellent match for PDM. He is solidly progressive on all the important issues in this race, and he has also demonstrated a grassroots philosophy in the way he has organized and run his campaign. Jamie has demonstrated his progressive values through his work as a Legal Aid attorney, and in the legislature through his active and vocal support for equal marriage, closing corporate tax loopholes, and making health care a constitutional right.

As part of our evaluation process, PDM contacted supporters of the other candidates in the race. We encourage our members to learn more about the
race. Blue Mass Group [www.bluemassgroup.org] is providing extensive coverage. We also encourage you to support the Democratic nominee in the October 16th general election.