Translated from the Norwegian...Doug Coe, the ""Shadow Billy Graham."

[madfloridian]

I have been very concerned about this situation with Jeremiah Wright. It was so obviously planned at a time to hurt Obama's campaign, and it was obviously a joyous time for the media. I like the guy, and I think he got a raw deal.

I don't blame Obama, he did what he had to do. I blame the Clinton campaign for openly declaring they would use it as an issue. It was despicable. How much it hurt two good men has yet to be seen.

But now let's look at Doug Coe. He was stated by Hillary to be a "genuinely loving spiritual guide and mentor for many”. She is part of his group, the Family, The Fellowship, through her prayer cell.

This is an interesting blog I found....

Clinton, Coe, and the King

What do the king of Norway and Hillary and Clinton have in common? They're both pals with Doug Coe, the "First Brother" of the fundamentalist network known to those in the know as The Fellowship and to those on the inside as The Family. Talk 2 Action's Bruce Wilson does a better job than I did yesterday in translating Norwegian to bring us the latest news on the man known to his friends in Washington as the "Shadow Billy Graham." Yes, this is all sounding pretty kooky. But it's no conspiracy, it's just the wonderful weirdness of religion in America (and Norway).

Here is the article at Talk 2 Action, a blog I have quoted before.

It is translated from the newspaper Dagbladet, I believe. I remember that name because it brought us the first picture in 2003 of the US soldiers in Iraq making Iraqi men run naked through the streets.

Clinton: Coe's a "Spiritual Mentor". Dagbladet: He's a "Hitler Admirer"



Picture courtesy of Talk2Action blog

On April 23, 2008 the UK Daily Mail reported on a new doll being marketed in the Ukraine, a Hitler doll with suitably Hitlerian attire and "a spare head" which, should demand for the doll be high enough said a spokesperson for the manufacturer, could lead to "a series of themed Third Reich toys, including interiors of Hitler's chancellery, toy concentration camps with barbed wire, barracks and operating models of gas chambers and crematoriums." Meanwhile, according to Norwegian journalist Tore Gjerstad, "Fellowship" head Doug Coe, described by Hillary Clinton as "loving" and a "spiritual mentor" but whom Gjerstad pegged as a "Hitler-admirer", was on the move. Coe's first stop: a meeting with the King of Norway...

..." Earlier this week, the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, which has a circulation of roughly 140,000, ran a story, entitled (translated from the original Norwegian) "Hitler-admirer Received by King.", about "Family" head Doug Coe's visit to Norway, where Coe met with the Norwegian King. In the Dagbladet story, journalist Tore Gjerstad quoted Coe, from recordings of Coe's sermons, lauding the commitment of young Chinese Red Guard men, who decapitated their parents, and enthusing over the organizational methods and organizing prowess of Hitler, Lenin and Mao. Hillary Clinton, who denies having any links to Coe and his group, nonetheless has written of the "Fellowship" head as "a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."

By far the biggest break for this slowly emerging story on The Family/The Fellowship, almost certainly one of the most influential secret political networks on Earth, was in ABC's April 3, 2008 exclusive, Political ties to a secretive religious group.

(They said ABC, but the link is to the article and video by NBC, so I gather it was an error. )

Here is more.

The NBC story featured a video in which "Fellowship" (or "Family") head Doug Coe celebrated the political conviction of Chinese communists willing to lop off their own parent's heads (with with axes, guillotines were probably not readily available) for the good of the state, but the ensuing minor hubbub didn't quite convince the rest of mainstream media that the story trumped the hullabullulaballoo over sermons given by Barack Obama's ex-pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Although, as detailed by NBC, there exist numerous ties between leading US politicians and Doug Coe, leader of the secretive, global fundamentalist religious group "The Fellowship", who celebrates parental decapitation and waxes enthusiastic over the power inherent in the bond and covenant shared among Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler.

The blogger says "the Family/Fellowship story has simmered down since NBC's April 3rd story but perhaps Dagbladet's coverage, migrating back over the Atlantic, will rekindle interest in a group lying, as Sharlet puts it, "at the heart of American power."

Yes, maybe it will. Let's continue the conversation about Doug and David Coe now that Jeremiah Wright has been firmly put in his place, and Obama has been forced to genuflect in public.

Kudos, Barack Obama, you did it in a classy way.

[madfloridian]

1. I need to add this link which shows more about the Clinton involvement.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1474

[mrreowwr_kittty]

2. Can we PLEASE talk about the creepy cult that Hillary belongs to?

Because it is at least a thousand times more relevant than Jeremiah Wright.

She's in a cabal that believes that a) Christianity should be the official religion of the U.S. and b) that a small group of elites should control the world.

THAT'S FUCKING SCARY!!!!

Jeremiah Wright is but a flea on the ass of our country. Doug Coe is the giant hypodermic needle putting us to sleep.

[madfloridian]

3. Much more relevant.

But not a word from the talking heads.

[redqueen]

25. Pretty please?

I suspect that if any of the M$M shills had to mention this, it'd be to frame it as all a bunch of nothing.

Nothing like the "this is verrrrrry serious!" schtick they delivered the Wright pablem with.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

26. Well yeah, cuz it's white people and some of them are Republicans

Plus, it's apparently a giant non-profit front for the military industrial complex.

[redqueen]

28. The Military Industrial Complex? You don't say! This is a religious group!

:dunce:

[mrreowwr_kittty]

29. Jesus Hearts War. Didn't you know that?

:sarcasm:

[redqueen]

30. Yes.. the New Jesus of the American Empire.

I hear he has many, many followers here.

[JeffR]

4. 2nd time this week I've had the privelege of giving you a 5th rec

I think I should buy a lottery ticket tomorrow.

[madfloridian]

5. Could be your lucky charm...

:hi:

[Stephanie]

6. Thank you. Here is some background on Coe >

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5071798

[madfloridian]

8. Thanks! From your TIME link.....the residence

"Several members of Congress live in rooms rented in a town house owned by a foundation affiliated with the group. Coe and his associates sometimes travel (on their own dime) with congressional members abroad and—according to investigations by the Los Angeles Times and Harper's—have played backstage roles in such diplomatic coups as the 1976 Camp David accords. Yet Coe also befriends dictators. "He would still hold out hope that these people could be redeemed and try to work through them to help the people over whom they have authority," says Richard Carver, president of the Fellowship's board of directors. Some skeptical Evangelicals criticize Coe's indiscriminate alliances and his downplaying of Jesus' divinity in favor of his earthly teachings—which allows Coe to pray with Muslim and Buddhist leaders. But few turn down an opportunity to confer with him."

Bill Nelson did/does live there also. He is/was one of only two Democrats.

[Stephanie]

9. It's SO creepy. It's like a Protestant Opus Dei slash Heaven's Gate

[madfloridian]

11. Here's a link to Sharlet's book due out on May 20

http://www.amazon.com/Family-Secret-Fundamentalism-Heart-American/dp/0060559799

[Stephanie]

7. I had audio of this some time back but the links have since gone dead.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=385&topic_id=110237

[madfloridian]

10. Here are the archives from the Billy Graham Center....link

http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/GUIDES/459.htm

Interesting to see the items. A visit there would be enlightening but very time consuming.

This is an interesting section from 1972:

"1972 Name change to Fellowship Foundation. After consultations among leaders of the movement, including Coe, Halverson, Senator Mark Hatfield, and others, the organization was redesigned to be even more low key and to provide a central office where many dozen (one hundred fifty in 1985) of ministries could be administered. Each ministry had a contact person who was the liaison person with the Foundation. The Foundation mainly dealt with seeing that the goals of the ministry were in line with the overall goals of the Foundation and that monies were spent for the purposes for which they were budgeted, without getting involved in personnel and administrative matters of each ministry. In effect, the group adopted an even lower profile, serving as a channel of communication and a catalyst. Its three major interests came to be developing personal relationships between leaders and encouraging them in prayer, Bible study and personal Christian growth, youth work, and service to the poor. The group continued to help set up each year's National Prayer Breakfast, but most of its activities were done with no or very little publicity. This, along with the continual effort to avoid creating any kind of large, hierarchical ministry, grew out of a desire to avoid the rigidity that came with organization, to avoid public controversy, and to be as open as humanly possible to the leading of the Holy Spirit. The behind-the-scenes consultations, prayer fellowships, and support for programs in line with the objectives of the group were the real ministry of Fellowship Foundation.

1974 Judges from each court within Washington, DC began meeting under the chairmanship of a member of the Supreme Court."

[reddconsole]

12. You

are desperate!

There are two types of pro-Obama posters on DU: republican shills who know he can't defeat McCain trying to hype Obama to the naive among us who think Obama's "cool" or because he carries a "message" of "hope," and the naive themselves.

[The Doctor.]

13. LOL! Apparently the point of this is entirely over your head.

The question you should be asking yourself is; "Why is the M$M so adamant at making and keeping Wright an issue, but ignoring all of Clinton's more consequential associations?"

Try that one out a few times until it sinks in.

[truedelphi]

34. Are you in some way suggesting that the media is for Hillary??

How ever could that be??

[The Doctor.]

38. What Mr. "reddconsole" seemed to completely miss is how

it's the 'right' that is pushing Hillary far more than the 'left'.

Whattanidiot.

[Stephanie]

14. You

are in way over your head - pls report back to wherever you came from for more training. you're not going to make it here.

[madfloridian]

17. She used Obama's religion to hurt him...her own religious ties are fair game now. .

I believe that since her campaign tried to bring down Jeremiah Wright...her own religious ties are fair game.

[truedelphi]

36. But the RW fundies that are the base for Fox news etc

Won't get upset to find out Hillary likes these creeps - they will be impressed!!

[madfloridian]

19. And you....I am anti-Hillary now as well as pro-Obama...her true colors showed.

And they showed in a shameful way.

But I can see my post touched a nerve, right? That's good. That is what I do.

[Moochy]

35. FAIL

well not entirely...

plonk

[SteppingRazor]

15. Best story I've ever read on Coe was the inside-scoop piece published in Harper's back in March 2003

Very long, but also very much worth reading:


http://www.harpers.org/archive/2003/03/0079525

[stillcool]

16. Opus Dei...on steroids?

[annabanana]

18. I am most curious to see the apologists' take on this outfit. . . . . n/t

[madfloridian]

33. crickets chirping

we are being ignored.

[Moochy]

37. It's almost like everyone on my list is skipping this topic

How do they know they are on my list? :shrug:

[Dyllyn]

20. K & R no comment !!!

If it acts like a nazi , smells likes a nazi and looks like a nazi . it might just be a nazi.

The main sign that someone is a nazi is

"A belief in racial superiority, as expressed in the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryan race."

Did anyone here say America is not ready to elect a Black Man?

[madfloridian]

21. From The Atlantic for those who need more sources

Hillary's Choice:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200611/green-hillary

Of the many realms of power on Capitol Hill, the least understood may be the lawmakers’ prayer group. The tradition of private worship in small, informal gatherings is one that stretches back for generations, as does a genuine tendency within them to transcend partisanship, though as with so much that is religiously oriented in Washington, the chief adherents are the more conservative Republicans.

..."Most of the prayer groups are informally affiliated with a secretive Christian organization called the Fellowship, established in the 1930s by a Methodist evangelist named Abraham Vereide, whose great hope was to preach the word of Jesus to political and business leaders throughout the world. Vereide believed that the best way to change the powerful was through discreet personal ministry, and over his lifetime he succeeded to a remarkable degree. The first Senate prayer group met over breakfast in 1943; a decade later one of its members, Senator Frank Carlson, persuaded Dwight Eisenhower to host a Presidential Prayer Breakfast, which has become a tradition."

..." Hillary Clinton’s proficiency in this innermost sanctum has unnerved some of the capital’s most exalted religious conservatives. “You’re not talking about some tree-hugging, Jesus-is-my-Buddha sort of stuff,” says David Kuo, a former Bush official in the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, who worked with Clinton to promote joint legislation and who, like Brownback, has apologized to her for past misdeeds. “These are powerful evangelicals she’s meeting with.” Like many conservatives, they are caught between warring dictates of their faith: the religious one, which requires them to embrace a fellow Christian, and the political one, more powerful in some, which causes them to instinctively distrust the motives of a Clinton. Everyone in Washington experiences their dilemma at one time or another—the lack of an Archimedean point from which to judge Hillary Clinton."

Long read, mostly complimentary to Hillary.

There is a quote by Doug Coe about the secrecy:

"Though it still sponsors what is now called the National Prayer Breakfast, the Fellowship scrupulously avoids publicity, as Vereide insisted it must. “If you want to help people, Jesus said, you don’t do your alms in public,” Douglas Coe, the group’s leader since the late 1960s, said in a rare interview several years ago."

[annabanana]

22. I was SERIOUS upthread... What say you, Hillary supporters?. . . n/t

[madfloridian]

24. the sound of crickets...

[madfloridian]

23. Off Topic, but from Dagbladet in 2003....those pictures I mentioned.

http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2003/04/25/367175.html

Our political leaders feigned ignorance of our mistreating the Iraqi people, but this much was known in 2003. Many of us here phoned our congress and shared these pictures with them.

They later pretended shock at Abu Graib and such.

In fact Hillary Clinton proclaimed just a few weeks ago that we had given the Iraqis the gift of freedom.

In the last five years, our soldiers have done everything we asked of them and more. They were asked to remove Saddam Hussein from power and bring him to justice and they did. They were asked to give the Iraqi people the opportunity for free and fair elections and they did. They were asked to give the Iraqi government the space and time for political reconciliation, and they did. So for every American soldier who has made the ultimate sacrifice for this mission, we should imagine carved in stone: 'They gave their life for the greatest gift one can give to a fellow human being, the gift of freedom.'

Take time to look at the pictures, and then tell me our leaders did not know.

[madfloridian]

32. Anyone else remember when those pictures came out?

It was shocking.

[TragedyandHope]

27. You can't have it both ways

:kick:

[redqueen]

31. You can if the M$M says so!

So just shut up and do as they say! :P

:kick: