#bradley onishi

[thepoliticalvulcan]

Humor is a coping mechanism for horror and pain, I would not shame anyone indulging in it. However, inspired by Brad Onishi of Straight White American Jesus, I would ask that people chuckling at Trump ranting about Haitians eating pets be mindful of the deep history of dehumanizing people who some would like to rationalize behavior towards that would be immoral and savage if it was directed against a “real” person. It’s not just a stupid thing the right has fallen for because of bad media literacy, it’s a belief they are actively choosing against all evidence to the contrary because they want an ex post facto reason to justify treating “dog eaters” like they are lower and less deserving of dignity and safety than a stray dog.

[barbaragenova]

New Book in the house, and I've been waiting for this one ever since Brad Onishi mentioned he was writing it.

[teanderthalrex]

Preparing for War by Bradley Onishi

This is definitely a five star read for me. If you're looking for a good overview of the rise of white christian nationalism, and a look into the ideology and beliefs of the people on January 6th, this is a great book. Preparing for War manages to strike a good balance between presenting relevant details and providing a comprehensive overview of the subject.

If you're a leftist (or a liberal) and can't understand the concept of January 6th and MAGA, please read this book. The insights here help get into the minds of white christian nationalists and those with white christian nationalist ideologies to explain what is going on in the US right now and put aspects of the trump campaign and project 2025 into perspective.

I'll talk more about the book in some detail below:

The comparison of January 6th to Beer Hall Putsch has never been more timely. We can see the similarities playing out in real-time. Just like Hitler's failed overtake of the German government skyrocketed his popularity in Germany, January 6th's failed seizure of the capitol has had a similar affect on white christian nationalists.

We can also see this reflected in the slogan, "Make America Great Again." Because this was also the primary motivation for the rise of the Nazis in Germany, to make Germany great again.

Listening to the history and ideology of the leaders who gave rise to current white christian nationalism and maga nation truly helped make the point that we are at a precipice this election, with ramifications larger than we think.

If Harris wins the election, will these people think it's time to start a civil war? If Trump wins, will we see discrimination similar to that in the early days of the Nazi party?

All I know for sure is that, like always, no matter what the outcome, the most vulnerable among us are the most at risk. And it seems that there's no winning option to help Palestinians when it comes to the presidency.

We desperately need to take advantage of whatever beneficial candidates we have this term, from local to federal. There are a limited number of seats of power in the US and we need to make the odds in our favor as much as we can. Focus on that and vote with your conscious when it comes to the presidency.

And read this book. All the information here can be found elsewhere, but Onishi collects a lot of it together here and it's a good read.

[thelifeelsewhere]

Bradley Onishi, A Convincing Writer With A Warning. An Early Conversation With Arlo Parks. 

Stop by Bradley Onishi’s website and you’ll notice he’s not shy about proclaiming his abilities, “Scholar, Speaker, Thought Leader” shouts the headline. Then, in the first sentence of the first paragraph, Bradley adds he is “a social commentator, scholar, writer, teacher, coach, and podcast co-host”. All perfectly valid descriptors, of course, yet he doesn’t get across how perfectly charming and…

[bllbabaggins]

Yesssss love it when my hometown is called out as a hotbed of radical conservatism and dangerously authoritarian religion shout out Spokane

[idlepollingofcybertron]

Humanity: Poll

Well-Known: Poll

Obscure: Poll

[gelu-the-babosa-multiversal]

OK I just remembered this show but, all the Transformers shows where they have kids but is Kids Next Door crossover AU!

So I guess that it would be something like this-

Character like Spike, Carly, and Chip don't count but others above 13 like Charlie, Memo, and Jack can become Undercover Teenagers (TND) but still not be part of the team sorry.

-Secto - Name (Numbuh)

-Sector_A_Witwicky - Robby Malto (8) and Mo Malto (9). Both transferred to conduct an investigation into GHOST and help their mom adapt to her new job. But the Terrans bring some complications for the mission

-Japanese Sector - Japan - Koji Onishi (7), Bradley "Rad" White (TND 12), Carlos Lopez (TND 13), Alexis Thi Dang (TND 14), Chad "Kicker" Jones (TND 18 and about to leave the team soon), Coby Hansen (20), Bud Hansen (TND 19) and Lori Himenez (TND 17). The biggest team conformed with kids from other regions. Their operation consists of helping the Atobots find new resources they can use for their survival like Energon, living metal for replacement parts, and any alien technology, and maybe locate other Autobots lost on Earth.

-Detroit Sector - Sari Sumdac (number unknown). A time traveler from the year 2050 who came to the 2000s for an unknown reason to be discovered. She helps the Japanese and Witwicky kids a lot.

-Las Vegas Sector_USA Jasper Nevada - Jack Darby (TND number 32 and about to leave the team soon), Miko Nakadai (TND number 11), and Rafael "Raf" Esquivel (37 and soon to become a TND). A small team assigned to help Team Prime as their guides and partners to help them disguise themselves with the humans of Earth. Fowler, a former ex Kid Next Door member helps them with the task.

-America_Crown City Secot - Russel Clay ( 21 once in Sector HHH but moved to a new team), Buth (25), and Hank (24). A new team formed by rockies that was made to test the new Sector until Bumblebee crashed on Earth with a tone of Predacons so the mission has changed...

-Griffin Rock Sector - Cody Burns (28), Francine ¨Frankie¨ Elma Greene (29), Celine ¨CeCe¨ Greene (83), Priscilla Pynch (30), Kyle Frazier (TND 39), Billy Frazier (70), Nancy Morrison (TND number 42), George Tracker (40), Jimmy Tracker (68), Timmy Smith (41), Rosita Neederlander (38), Elsie Rubio (71), Corey Perkins (35), Charlene Pruitt (82) etc etc... All the kids on Griffin Rock are Kids Next Door and is probably one of the most chaotic teams in all the world. Their mission, guide and make the Rescue Bots feel at home so other Cybertronians can also be comfortable on Earth.

That is mostly what I have so if anyone else is a KND fan feel free to add more stuff to this post 👍

[nodynasty4us]

Conspiracy is a revenge fantasy — it’s an expression of resentment that says, “We are the ones who decide what is fact, we’re the ones who decide what is real, and we are going to push that vision on the public square even if you continue to tell us that there is no actual evidentiary basis for it.”

Bradley Onishi, interviewed in POLITICO

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Mike Hixenbaugh at NBC News:

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — The audience of about 1,500 people waved small American flags and chanted “USA! USA! USA!” as television cameras began filming last Friday inside a Regent University ballroom. Many in the crowd wore red “Make America Great Again” hats. Some carried Bibles. They had paid $60 each to attend a live taping of “FlashPoint,” a national TV program that’s won loyal viewers with a unique blend of pro-Trump political commentary and prophetic messages about God’s divine plans for America.

Over the next three hours, the audience heard the same overarching message that “FlashPoint” broadcasts three times a week on the Victory Channel television network and various streaming platforms: The world has entered its final years. Jesus will soon return. But Christians are not meant to wait idly while evil runs rampant; they are called to occupy positions of power and influence in society. And in the short term, that means putting Donald Trump back in the White House. “I watch to get the truth,” said one “FlashPoint” attendee, who described a “supernatural” rush of clarity the first time she found the show while flipping channels two years ago. “This is the only news show where you hear what Jesus thinks,” said another attendee, a mother of three school-aged children who’d driven four hours from central North Carolina for the taping.

Launched in 2020 and hosted by pastor Gene Bailey, “FlashPoint” at times looks and sounds like other right-wing cable programs. But unlike Fox News hosts, the rotating panel of conservative pastors and commentators on “FlashPoint” pepper their political analysis with messages that they say come directly from God. Viewers hear regularly from Lance Wallnau, a self-described prophet known for popularizing the Seven Mountains Mandate, a philosophy increasingly embraced on the right that says Christians are called to claim positions of power atop seven key “mountains” of society, including government, education, business and media. “FlashPoint,” which presents itself as an alternative to mainstream news, embodies that strategy. In a January broadcast, pastor Hank Kunneman, another “FlashPoint” mainstay, said the Lord told him that 2024 would be a year of “divine reckoning” and “vengeance against the wicked.” In the months since, the show has portrayed the presidential election as a spiritual clash while depicting Trump as a flawed leader — like a modern King David — who’s been anointed by God to save the nation.

The show draws a monthly cable TV audience of roughly 11,000 households, according to Comscore data, while clips of the program reach hundreds of thousands more viewers online. With a rabid following, it has “become incredibly popular and even gravitational” on the Christian right, said Matthew Taylor, a senior scholar at the nonprofit Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies in Maryland. Trump is one of several prominent Republicans who have appeared as guests on “FlashPoint,” including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA. The program fits into a growing evangelical movement that calls on followers to “think of themselves as soldiers in a cosmic conflict,” said Bradley Onishi, a former megachurch pastor and author of “Preparing for War,” which documents the history and rise of Christian nationalism in America. To “FlashPoint” loyalists, political debates are no longer just about who wins the next election, Onishi said; they are about the fate of eternity.

“When you explain it that way to folks,” he said, “you’re able to prime them, not only for action, but I think for extreme measures.” Trump has embraced elements of this framing, warning in speeches that the left wants “to tear down crosses” and promising that his return to office would restore Christian power. He also has promised to eliminate the Johnson Amendment, a rarely enforced federal law that prohibits nonprofit foundations and religious organizations — including the one that operates the Victory Channel — from endorsing political candidates. White evangelical Protestants remain among Trump’s most loyal voting blocs, with more than 80% planning or leaning toward voting for him in November, a recent Pew Research survey found. Hoping to push that number even higher, “FlashPoint” has called on pastors to start preaching a pro-Trump message on Sunday mornings. 

Bailey, the “FlashPoint” host, did not respond to messages requesting an interview.  Rick Green, a regular “FlashPoint” panelist, is the founder of Patriot Academy, a Texas nonprofit that teaches courses about what it calls the nation’s explicit Christian origins — an idea disputed by historians. He told NBC News that he believes many critics of the show’s mixing of religion and politics are ignorant “about the founding principles of America.” Others, Green said, harbor “hatred and intolerance of differing views.” “You get more truth from ‘FlashPoint’ than any news program in the nation,” Green said. 

To rally the show’s most loyal fans, known as the FlashPoint Army, the Fort Worth, Texas-based Victory Channel, a Christian network run by the nonprofit Kenneth Copeland Ministries, has hosted tapings across the nation as part of its Rescue America Tour. The live programs, even more than the regular broadcasts, take on the feel of a Christian revival service.

NBC News reports on the Christian Nationalist propaganda program FlashPoint that airs on The Victory Channel, which is run by Kenneth Copeland Ministries and hosted by Gene Bailey.

A typical episode of FlashPoint features prophecy and news from a Christian Nationalist pro-Trump perspective.

See Also:

Raw Story: Trump presented as God's anointed leader by popular right-wing Christian TV program FlashPoint

[ms-cellanies]

Everyone needs to read or listen to Terry Gross on NPR earlier today. The rise of Christian nationalism should terrify all of us.

PLEASE READ & REBLOG.

[keltaithecrafty]

This is a great podcast on the way these things overlap and feed each other, particularly in the political sphere:

It's the gigantic elephant in the room.

[teanderthalrex]

Solidarity is the Political Form of Love by Rebecca Vilkomerson and Alissa Wise

This book is a collection of reflections by Rebecca Vilkomerson and Alissa Wise from Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) as they integrated anti-zionism into their core tenets and what that meant as members of a larger, predominantly zionist, Jewish community, and as members of a growing coalition supporting Palestinian freedom.

What I found important here, and my main takeaway, is that it is so important to provide space for people within your community with opposing views to the mainstream ideology. As the authors point out, Jewish community is not a monolith. And on the whole, Jews tend to be incredibly progressive. So there are a lot of Jewish people who find the idea of being "progressive except for Palestine" hypocritical and more and more acknowledging that support of zionism is support for things which, under any other circumstance, would be abhorrent to their values.

However, without JVP, many of those in such community-centered environments, fearing alienation, might never speak up or if they do might simply be ignored or "corrected" by those around them into silence. JVP provides a place where Jewish people can go and find an ideology that does not conflict with their morals (anti-zionism), without the fear of it slipping into a hatred of all things jewish (antisemitism), and in fact where aspects of Jewish faith are celebrated.

We need more spaces for people like this to come together. I keep thinking back to Bradley Onishi's Preparing for War and wondering if white christians don't also need a space where they can practice their Christianity separate from white christian nationalism. An anti-nationalist christian space. And what kind of difference that could make in the United States.

There are differences. Obviously, white christians are, in a large part, more conservative than white Jews. But the engrained patriotism of white christian nationalism reminds me of the engrained support for Israel in a lot of Jewish spaces.

You often encounter support for the settler colonial project of zionism within sacred Jewish spaces in much the same way we see the American flag next to Jesus in christian sacred spaces. So I feel that we have to give the chance that a similar phenomenon is happening in those spaces, where the vocal majority is eliminating any space for dissent and that maybe with an anti-nationalist space, white christians could come together and oppose white christian nationalism.

This is important, as often times JVP is the organization that helps discredit the myth that anti-zionism is antisemitism. In a similar way, white christians that oppose the integration of United States patriotism into their faith need to take a stand and show that not all american christians think that the state has any place in a church and that being anti-nationalist doesn't mean giving up your faith or that you hate christianity. I imagine that coming out as anti-trump in a evangelical community could have a similar effect to coming out as anti-zionist in a Jewish community.

Therefore it is important to have spaces where those christians can go to continue to exist in community with other christians and continue to practice their faith while upholding that patriotism is not a christian value and acknowledging the hurt is has on other communities (the inherent racism and religious discrimination of white christian nationalism cannot be ignored).

I recently picked up the book How to End Christian Nationalism by Amanda Tyler, who is the lead organizer of Christians Against Christian Nationalism and hope to learn more about how these spaces are forming in the larger American Christian community.

I definitely recommend giving this a read if you're interested in movement structures and in an introspective on the growth of JVP as an organization.

[cabbagequeen323]

Currently reading 'Preparing for War' by Bradley Onishi and oh crivens it's racism and sexism all the way down

[garudabluffs]

Melania’s SECRETS Get Revealed in New Records DUMP

Mar 27, 2024 MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas continues his reporting on Melania Trump’s suspicious background and web of lies drawing on a new investigative story by The Washington Post.

5,220 Comments

Mar 27, 2024 #Trump#Christians#BibleFormer President Trump says he wants to "Make America Pray Again" and is now selling a $59.99 bible amid his legal woes. NBC News' Dasha Burns, "Preparing for War" author Bradley Onishi and MSNBC columnist Charlie Sykes discuss what he may do with the proceeds.

[shinmothra13returns]

Trump selling bibles 'sends a message' to non-Christians: Bradley Onishi

Christians beware! Do not get this garbage. this deeply delusional Donald Trump thinks he's going to get money from this. He really needs a severe reality check along with jail for life.

(From Family Guy) "God! Is! Pissed!"

[nodynasty4us]

Many people imagine the white Christian still to be Ned Flanders from The Simpsons — the kind of pesky, moralist neighbor up the street who doesn’t want people to use bad language or drink too much beer at the barbecue. But we really should envision him as Mr. Burns, the person who wants absolute control over the public square and who will use any means necessary to get it.

Bradley Onishi, interviewed in POLITICO