It's Not Over By A Long Shot

In a de-centralized manner, the Explorers, affiliated for 60 years with the Boy Scouts of America, are being given training to fight 'terrorists, illegal immigrants and border violence. Just what I need -- a 13 year old armed kid screaming at me to 'spread em!"

[ "The law enforcement programs are highly decentralized, and each post is run in a way that reflects the culture of its sponsoring agency and region. Most have weekly meetings in which the children work on their law-enforcement techniques in preparing for competitions. Weekends are often spent on service projects.

Just as there are soccer moms, there are Explorers dads, who attend the competitions, man the hamburger grill and donate their land for the simulated marijuana field raids. In their training, the would-be law-enforcement officers do not mess around, as revealed at a recent competition on the state fairgrounds here, where a Ferris wheel sat next to the police cars set up for a felony investigation.

Their hearts pounding, Explorers moved down alleys where there were hidden paper targets of people pointing guns, and made split-second decisions about when to shoot. In rescuing hostages from a bus taken over by terrorists, a baby-faced young girl screamed, “Separate your feet!” as she moved to handcuff her suspect.

In a competition in Arizona that he did not oversee, Deputy Lowenthal said, one role-player wore traditional Arab dress. “If we’re looking at 9/11 and what a Middle Eastern terrorist would be like,” he said, “then maybe your role-player would look like that. I don’t know, would you call that politically incorrect?”

Authenticity seems to be the goal. Imperial County, in Southern California, is the poorest in the state, and the local economy revolves largely around the criminal justice system. In addition to the sheriff and local police departments, there are two state prisons and a large Border Patrol and immigration enforcement presence." ]

Put this together with Jesus Camp, the 2006 documentary of born again kids, their parents, their communities, those who run them, and a camp they attend, outside Devil's Lake, North Dakota.

The Born Agains are not going away quietly. They are building this national movement, targeting children, to create their own suicidal lock-step warriors in order to fight satan here and everywhere else, just as they've built an entirely alternate system to everything, including hiphop, cheerleading and heavy metal.

This is as much child abuse and beating and sexual exploitation. (The Times article includes the information that there's a fair amount of sexual abuse of the kids by their Explorer leaders. Watching Jesus Camp I thought those creepy adults are very likely to do the same.)

The central male figure -- he's 10, or maybe 12 -- he could well have been a child actor cast in a fiction movie to play the fascist world dictator, er savior hero warrior pince as a child -- he's that self-possessed, dressed in camo gear, prowling the stage with his microphone light sabre, working the other kids into a frenzy for the lord, while the adults follow him with their starry-eyed, yet slyly calculating gazes, while barely controlling the drool provoked by their leader-in-training.

Jesus Camp is our time's version of Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here, except that this isn't a novel, fiction, but a documentary of what is going on. The adults don't have a clue how contradictory and lying they are either. "We're not political," the central adult figure, the Reverend Becky insists, as she hauls around a full-size cardboard cutout of bush2 and orders the children to tell him they love him. She lambastes the kids for not being able to fast all day like muslim children do during Ramadan, while she's at least 400 lbs. Surely the kids notice these things?

28% is definitely a large enough springboard to bring it on this revolution that they pray for, speak in tongues for. Especially with a charismatic, young, good looking, talented, smart, very well trained spokesman-leader.

It's not over, not by any means. Particularly while the traitorous Senate won't even cap credit card rates at 15%.