Friday, July 23, 2004
Now Rove wants Catholic parish directories
These guys just don't learn, do they?
So let me get this straight. I give my name to my parish for the purpose of getting to know my neighbors, helping my church, serving God, etc.
And then, without getting permission from me, or telling me, another Republican parishioner forwards that information to the RNC (and then, doubtless, to whatever "homeland" "security" and hiring denial databases the RNC is developing).
There's a word for that Republican parishioner: informer.
Really, combined with the existing Republican program (back here) to have informers collect information on their neighbors, this program to collect religious affiliations is reminiscent of nothing so much as post-Weimar Germany in the 1930s, where the National Socialist Party "coordinated" all the institutions, and eliminated all the independent ones.
TROLL PROPHYLACTIC: I'm not, of course, saying anything like "Bush is Hitler." Hitler was, after all, a vegetarian. And I'm not, of course, saying anything like "The Republicans are Nazis." What I am saying is that this is one more indication of the totalitarian impulses of the modern Republican party, that we can learn about the operation of those impulses through the study of history, and that the combination of those totalitarian impulses with modern information technology should be deeply troubling to anyone who cares about the Constitution or democracy.
The Republican National Committee has asked Bush-backing Roman Catholics to provide copies of their parish directories to help register Catholics to vote in the November election, a use of personal information not necessarily condoned by dioceses around the country.
In a story posted Thursday on its Web site, the National Catholic Reporter said a GOP official had urged people who attended a Catholic outreach event in January to provide parish directories and membership lists to the political party.
"Access to these directories is critical as it allows us to identify and contact those Catholics who are likely to be supportive of President Bush's compassionate conservative agenda,'' wrote Martin J. Gillespie, director of Catholic Outreach at the RNC. ``Please forward any directories you are able to collect to my attention.''
(via Salon (Go on, get the Day Pass)
So let me get this straight. I give my name to my parish for the purpose of getting to know my neighbors, helping my church, serving God, etc.
And then, without getting permission from me, or telling me, another Republican parishioner forwards that information to the RNC (and then, doubtless, to whatever "homeland" "security" and hiring denial databases the RNC is developing).
There's a word for that Republican parishioner: informer.
Really, combined with the existing Republican program (back here) to have informers collect information on their neighbors, this program to collect religious affiliations is reminiscent of nothing so much as post-Weimar Germany in the 1930s, where the National Socialist Party "coordinated" all the institutions, and eliminated all the independent ones.
TROLL PROPHYLACTIC: I'm not, of course, saying anything like "Bush is Hitler." Hitler was, after all, a vegetarian. And I'm not, of course, saying anything like "The Republicans are Nazis." What I am saying is that this is one more indication of the totalitarian impulses of the modern Republican party, that we can learn about the operation of those impulses through the study of history, and that the combination of those totalitarian impulses with modern information technology should be deeply troubling to anyone who cares about the Constitution or democracy.
