Ladies and gentlemen, if you ever really had any doubts about the growth of fanatacism in the US military, wonder no longer. Just pop over and check out Jeff Sharlet’s latest piece on the Revealer, where he revisits the article he did on the “infamous Christian Embassy video“–basically, a video that shows a bunch of Pentagon types, in uniform, enthusing about proselytizing at work.

Yes, at work. In the Pentagon. Spreading their particular brand of evangelical hellfire. As if the separation of church and state was just a convenient fict–oh, wait.

Growing up as an Air Force brat, Yours Truly witnessed firsthand the hand-holding between the military and evangelical Christianity. The psychological mechanism seems the same in both camps–willful denial of reality and unbending hatred of any dissenting viewpoint. It’s hard to be trained to slaughter in the name of God or Country unless one can believe in a Higher Cause, a Just Reason to bomb the shite out of someone else. The Christian Embassy might be another “invisible” infiltration of the armed forces, but that doesn’t mean its particular brand of zealotry isn’t falling into richly-prepared and congenial soil. And the iron fist of control necessary for military discipline lends itself to unthinking fanaticism very easily, does it not? It’s only following orders, after all.

Yeah. How many times have we heard that one?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying every man or woman in uniform is an unthinking neocon fundie. I’m just saying that the atmosphere of the armed forces lends itself very, very easily to such black-and-white, Good-vs.-Evil, with-us-or-against-us fascism. No wonder recruitment is falling off (despite Rush Limbaugh and his ilk.) I mean, only an idiot would want to get brainwashed and sent over to a death-trap without even any proper armor or a Commander in Chief with a hold on reality.

Right?

Right?

As if it wasn’t enough to have David Irving on Mel Gibson’s side (see yesterday’s post), the Merlin of Berkeley Springs has interviewed Chac, god of the ancient Mayans, about his feelings on the subject of Ol’ Meller’s newest movie, Apocalypto. (Or as you might want to call it, “Nothing but an excuse to film The Patriot on a whole different continent.”)

Anne: And your verdict on Apocalypto?

Chac: Inaccurate in all but the smallest details. Insulting. Especially coming from a person whose praise and worship team has done its share of torturing, maiming, mass executions, and psychological damage.

Anne: Yes. Well. One would like to see Mr. Gibson tackle a bloody topic like the suppression of the Cathars or the Knights Templar by the Catholic Church. If he wants to wade knee-deep through blood he need look no further than Jacques de Molay.

Chac: Thank you for making that point. My sentiments exactly.

Anne: How did you like the part where the good Catholic missionaries came riding in to save the day … like, 400 years early or something?

Chac: I tossed my ayahuasca.

Anne: I daresay. (The Gods Are Bored)

Friends and neighbors, let me tell you, The Gods Are Bored is always a good way to get a chuckle into your day. Whoever the Merlin is, she is now my personal goddess. I’ll be getting together a P & W team for her very shortly.

Poor, poor David Irving. The Holocaust denier is finished crying into his coffee because Austria jailed him and is slipping into his new role: that of a crusader for free speech as well as martyr.

Earlier this week, he was released on probation from a three-year sentence imposed in Austria for a speech in 1989 in which he denied the Holocaust.

He served 13 months of the sentence and has now been banned from Austria.

The 68-year-old said he would urge an academic boycott of historians from Germany and Austria until the nations stopped jailing historians.

Mr Irving’s case sparked international debate about the limits of freedom of speech.

In his speech in Austria 17 years ago, he denied the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz, though he later said he was “mistaken”. (BBC News)

Irving has declared that a “secret society” of judges in Britain is seeking to destroy him, claiming they have tried to hound him and his “partner” from the country. (I just wonder how this guy got anyone to date him.) As if a persecution complex and complete divorce from reality isn’t enough, he’s also comparing himself to another martyr for anti-Semitism.

The British historian David Irving, who spent 13 months in an Austrian jail for denying the Holocaust in 1989, arrived in London on an Austrian Airlines flight and said he would hold a news conference today on what he called “these absurd laws.” In a telephone interview before he left prison on early release, he made clear his disgust with Austria, which has now banned him from ever returning. “I have no interest in coming back,” he said. He termed his imprisonment an affront to free speech and said that it was dangerous for him to discuss his views before he left Austria but that “I think Mel Gibson was right.”

If only Irving would change his delusions to something gentler–like being the Emperor of San Francisco–he might have a better time of it.