Attorney General Barr, the Top Law Enforcement Agent in the U.S.: An Outright Theocrat

October 14, 2019 | revcom.us

 

At a speech delivered at the University of Notre Dame’s law school (!) on Friday, October 11,  Attorney General William Barr denounced “ so-called progressives” and “secularists” as the cause of major problems of today’s society. “Along with the wreckage of the family, we are seeing record levels of depression and mental illness, dispirited young people, soaring suicide rates, increasing numbers of angry and alienated young males, an increase in senseless violence and a deadly drug epidemic.” Really?! The fact is that it is the workings of the system of capitalism-imperialism, its values and mandates of dog-eat-dog rank individualism that are at the root of these problems. But in a vision that comes straight out of the founders of the fascist state of Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale, Barr makes the claim that “This is organized destruction.  Secularists and their allies have marshalled all the forces of mass communication, popular culture, the entertainment industry, and academia in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.” 

To cut to the quick, these are the rantings of a Christian Fascist who occupies the position of chief law enforcer making the case for reasserting the Christian religion as the guiding ideology and establishing it as the dominant, official religion in society.  The First Amendment is supposed to guarantee that the government will not establish any religion.  While this has often been violated, over the past several decades this has gone to a whole other level and it is now this freedom that is in fact subject to an “unremitting assault.”  This speech by Barr—coming from the nation’s highest law officer—represents a serious escalation of that “unremitting assault.”  This goes along with the administration’s repeated legal suits, filings and administrative regulations that actually impose religious views on women, LGBTQ people, Muslims, atheists, and others—and in these cases particularly oppressive views. Barr is claiming to be making a case for religious liberty, decrying the ways that Christians have been blocked from imposing their religious creed and values on everyone in all spheres of public and private life.  But he is actually making a brazen and dangerous assault on freedom from a state-established religion.  And doing so at a law school no less, where legal standards and training of future lawyers, prosecutors, and judges are being propagated! 

Bob Avakian makes clear the danger of this in his film The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! In discussing the dangers of fascism in all its dimensions, he speaks to this question.  “While the Constitution does establish the separation of church and state—and the Christian Fascists are wrong, or simply lying, when they insist that the founding documents of this country established it as a ‘Christian nation’—the reality is that Christianity has all along been the unofficial state religion of this country, and the country’s identity, throughout its history, has been as a ‘white Christian nation,’ grounded in male supremacy as well as white supremacy and driven by a ‘manifest destiny’ to dominate not only the continent of North America but ultimately the world as a whole.” The fascists at the helm of the Trump/Pence regime are seeking to establish a Christian theocracy which they will impose with violence and horrors for humanity if they are not stopped. 

What Barr is arguing for is being upheld in courts across the land.  While Congressman Ted Lieu tweeted in response to Barr’s speech: “I’m just a simple Catholic. But even I know your job is to enforce the law, not the Bible. We are a Constitutional Republic, not a theocracy. Do your job instead of being a full on conspiracy theorist,” why didn’t anyone else in the Democratic Party make the point that this is totally unacceptable in an Attorney General, that such a speech (which was clearly a very well-considered and major speech) is grounds for disqualification for his position, and that this whole thing shows the danger represented not just by Trump but by Mike Pence and the rest of the Christian fascist movement that permeates this regime? 

While there is a broad swath of people in society who sense what is going on here, most are recoiling from calling it out for what it is.  All those who are horrified by what is happening in this country and want to see it stopped, need to get clear on this, and not stand by hoping that the normal workings of this system will correct this.   If you do not want Gilead, get with the movement calling for #OUT NOW! The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!