Last edited Thu Dec 15, 2022, 11:51 AM - Edit history (1)

Also look to see if Putin is involved.

Putin's long time policy in Europe is to create conflicts in various parts of the world to force
refugees into Europe.

This then causes a backlash and Putin can install his puppets into office across Europe.

...

or bash Sinema when we need her vote for 2 years.

This is why a topic like this doesn't get covered, it would hurt the fascist talking points.

This needs to go to the front page, not Trump BS.

Thanks for posting this, the MSM must be hiding it.

Yay, it did make the front page.

I must not have asked the Google machine the right question.

OK then...NOT

I am extremely interested in this topic. I just wanted to learn more. Sorry if I didn't explain myself better.

I absolutely believe this, and once again, thanks for posting this.

My parents started off evangelical and fairly radically right wing, they eventually joined the Eastern Orthodox Church along with a wave of other evangelicals in the 80s and 90s+ looking for a ‘purer’ religion. To this day mine still report to the local priest about family life and the status of my sisters and I, even knowing the guy has made multiple trips to Russia in the past and was an unapologetic proponent of theirs (and having benefitted financially as well). He started off as southern Methodist I think before joining. We were raised on a combo of Focus on the Family, James Dobson, other evangelical literature, and new age Russian Orthodox stuff via St. Vladimir’s Press up in NY etc etc.

So yeah. Don’t ever assume they’re innocent and not willing to recondition family members, raise funds from poor partitioners for lavish overseas trips etc, or even punch anyone asking around that isn’t a ‘believer’ or willing to be a vocal ally for show/in-group ‘cred’, and they attract professionals and well placed members of society who know how to cover their tracks financially and socially and linguistically. The evangelicals in general also frequently make/made in-roads with Russia via the Orthodox Church as an indirect passthrough. They’re both apocalypse fetishist groups, and have no issue with sending Jewish people back to Israel or other racist junk, so using immigration as a wedge tool/disruption device is definitely in their playbook. Approach all of these groups with caution.

I know lots of church linked folks who get jobs in the USA whether on farms, in hotels, restaurants, etc.
Money is made on all sides. Some of it is legal, but there are others involved in this for a variety of reasons.

It needs to be studied.

I wish I knew more but I was too vocally opposed to general corruption I saw growing up so I was marked as too deviant and unrepentant to really get any ‘in’

Though it must be heartbreaking to see family members still involved.

I’ve stayed ‘cordial’ but recently I found out about that active backchannel to the church about my status via email/text while I’ve been attempting to get a case of mine looked into after a toxic encounter in my past and living situation with a conservative guy (I didn’t realize) I met on a dating app. Disturbing as hell. They keep gaslighting me whenever I bring it up and say I need therapy instead of pursuing it.

but sometimes our very survival literally depends on severing some relationships. In many cases they will not change, so you may have to leave them behind. We can still care about family and also want to be free of them.

Sounds like you've been through an awful lot. I hope things start to get better for you.

If they stick to that kind of stuff, I simply can’t go along with it. And I need my independence anyway, it was hard won in childhood/adolescence and I’m not about to lose it by staying stuck here. Now I just have to figure out a job situation now that I’ve recovered from my Crohn’s related disability enough to get out in the world (yay!)

Thank you for your words of support. I do still care about them and hope they come around on some of those things, but I know it’s harder for some people to overcome indoctrination. I’m ready to move on though, whether or not it involves leaving them behind. I still have a (hopefully long and enjoyable) life ahead of me.

from a distance. And you can always hope that some day they may break free of the indoctrination, while accepting that you cannot save them. If they are toxic to your health, you are no help to anyone.

I really don't completely understand why some people are more easily indoctrinated than others or why some people can pull away while others don't. I suppose a lot of it must be fear, but each person is an unique individual so you can't paint them all with a broad brush.

Yes at least you have possibilities in your future, more than they do I'm sure.

Some people are clinging to ideas that comfort them and psychologically attach so deeply that it overrides logical reasoning, others do it out of fear due to outside pressure, some are architecturally tuned for it.

Entering into it or being born into it and breaking free are also complex.

You never know what exact action sequence will lead to any of the above for sure, even if we can find methods with high probabilistic success rates.

I know the rationales I had for making each choice up to this exact moment swiping on my keyboard, but each one was based on trillions of synapse firing sequences. The universe is infinitely complex and I don’t know if we’ll ever know all the secrets it has hiding deep down in the dimensions that led to planet earth and this forum I’ve been reading since ~2000

Everyone is vulnerable to some degree at certain times in their life. The part that is always hard for me is understanding those that take advantage of other's vulnerabilities. Sometimes it feels like they are different species. The lack of remorse or any empathy is so disturbing and incomprehensible.

So you've been around here from the beginning then. I started reading shortly after the site was created. I've met a lot of great people here and have seen a lot come and go.

And yes. I’ve never met someone so far that I wouldn’t at least try to give another chance (given honest contrition and stable circumstances if they’ve gone off the deep end… there has to be an attempt at real empathy or the approximation of it if they don’t feel empathy in ‘standard’ ways). I won’t claim that I haven’t had the normal spread of emotions and desires but truly taking advantage of someone is a physically painful concept to think about or act out intentionally. Even after a few knocks to the head and who knows how many medications from the Crohn’s and surgical recoveries at least my prefrontal cortex is still basically age-appropriate, so that’s good.

And yeah, the Bush v Gore showdown was when I started reading. I guess I would have been 7 years old ha. Interesting to think about. Speaking of undoing aforementioned indoctrination I’m pretty sure I must have read some freer opinions on here at some point. I didn’t make any accounts until much later, and then only for a handful of posts once in a while. Lost some because of forgotten names/passwords. This is the first time I’ve stuck around, and I think I will for good this time. Not that primaries can’t get ugly ha, but that’s always been the case when there are plenty of good candidates to choose and people start arbitrarily whittling the list down and observing performance etc. It remains to be seen if I can start recognizing names on here though.

I learned the hard way to avoid the primaries forum. It wasn't worth it and so much wasted energy. People get really contentious. For the most part I tried to stay in "General Discussion" and let others fight it out. When it looked like Joe was going to be the front-runner, I started dropping in now and then, but was careful not to take the bait.

I don't know why people get so emotional during primary season, though I think some of that has to do with trolls.

But yeah I had figured he was going to be the one anyway in that particular lineup for that particular moment in history. I had a very very hard time choosing, and ultimately just used mine to indicate a platform preference direction whenever feasible. I was very displeased with the handling of the debates, but we made it and survived so I’m not too sore even though (some of) the moderators deserved a good evil eye glare.

I’m hoping they introduce ranked choice voting if possible with the next (some people may disagree but I’d argue that democrats like options). The Republican primary was… just a spectacular failure, even with all of the options, I was really hoping they’d have chosen better but much like the family discussion… sometimes you just have to let them fall on their face and get up again, and avoid flailing limbs/fists etc.

It's logically plausible that it could dovetail with GOP manufactured-mega-churches which may or may not actually even have a congregation but still have functional collection plates.

In my experience the involvement of church groups in the lives of immigrants hasn't always been a problem solver. I had employees who suddenly found themselves deported while holding "unpassable papers" they'd received from a group who had taken over from the church that initially supported their emigration. High and dry, even after years of interaction, still without legitimate documentation. These Church folks have been allowed to fill in the blanks where our immigration statutes fail but they've never successfully pushed legislation to fill in the missing parts. Any legislation has always been opposed by the GOP contingent of congress. It's possible that's because there's too much money to be grifted from the status quo. The people I knew who were in this situation had already paid thousands of dollars for documentation to an outfit in Kansas City. Then, after coughing up the cash, they find themselves on a blue bus back to the Mexican Border. They were very concerned about getting back to Oaxaca from the border without being robbed and murdered.

Obama had at that time, just made the news regarding enforcement of the existing laws regarding false documentation. He certainly received no thanks for that promise kept. Yet instead of changing the law, the GOP just made it worse by condemning Democrats for "cruel inaction". Inaction caused by the "conservative's" intentional intransigence.

After giving more thought to this I come to realize just how cornered these guys were, it explains their haunted look. It makes me ashamed that I couldn't do anything to help them. All of us who survive without living in fear of the knock on the door are complicit. If these guys made it home, from their testimony to me, it was not to praise American politicians. From their POV they saw little difference between the parties. They saw the Republicans as crooked and ruthlessly stupid, forcing them into illegal schemes just to work and the Democrats as inadvertently cruel in their naive honesty about following the rules and changing greedy people's minds.

You have definitely hit upon something, Malaise.

Should be an OP

With the exception of Costa Rica, Central America is economically stratified, politically unstable, and wracked with violence. Why wouldn't people want to move to a safer nation?

And have no oversight to worry about

If I had the direct evidence I’d hand it to the gov yesterday but I always stayed away from church admin discussions because the corruption was just oozing out of the place and I don’t have the skills (or technically permission) to look into the password protected financial databases they use

The mission groups are huge scams in particular

You’ll also notice I make almost no distinction between the OCA and evangelical groups. It’s all sheltered cartel behavior with a veneer of faith

They also don’t get along well with the Greek Orthodox Church because of their Russian ties and Russian Supremacy beliefs, so association between those two is minimal I think

It’s like applying degreaser to the crazy conservative tar that clings to you when you get too close to some of the right wing nuts

Welcome to DU, the sane place - most of the time anyway

campaigns have encouraged migrants to come here. This article is from last year, but it makes sense as Putin does whatever he can to roil politics in the US.

“The disinformation by Russia seeks to discredit every act of goodness, and we do many, that the United States provides in the hemisphere, and to the extent that drives migration there's no doubt," Adm. Craig Faller, who oversees US military operations in the region as head of Southern Command, told Congress in March.

Although none of the migrants interviewed in Ciudad Juarez pointed directly at Russian media outlets, many of them cited local news sites that actively repost articles from Russian state outlet RT en Español.”

https://news.yahoo.com/us-officials-migrants-being-told-133615640.html

It's obvious that someone was giving them false information. I had no idea they were RW evangelical groups that were a part of this.

Damn. That just goes to show you they're not the victims they make themselves out to be. What an irony that their missionary work conflicts with hard right political positions. You know, they could try the Democratic way. It's more in line with Christian values when it comes to treating people with respect and dignity.

Mexico is predominantly Catholic, but the Christian right is pushing hard to convert Latino Catholics.

There are 5 Spanish Christian radio stations that can be heard in San Diego. One specifically
540 AM XESURF is broadcasting out of Tijuana, using what we call a Border Blaster. They don't have
to follow FCC regulations, so they blast their message at 25,000 Watts during the day. We were
able to hear that station in the Westwood area of LA, near UCLA. That's over 120 miles away.
That signal can be heard throughout San Diego & Orange Counties and parts of LA & Riverside Counties.
That is a lot of Latinos.

There are 439 radio stations across the country that have Spanish Christian programming as their format.
I'm no expert, so I'd like to see a survey into Latinos that have or switched to a conservative ideology since 2016, and determine if they affiliate to Christian non-Catholic faith.

Personally, I believe that this is the primary reason that we are seeing Latinos becoming more conservative.

The Stats:
Total 482 radio stations with Spanish Christian format programming.
39 states have at least 1 Spanish Christian format radio station
Total number of stations with Spanish Christian format in the U.S. is 439 (I did not include Puerto Rico and Mexican Stations).
Texas has the most at 182 Stations (41.5%)
Texas has more Spanish Christian stations than 36 other states.
Religion is big business in Texas.

So it would not surprise me if these US based Christian organization are setting up a pipeline from Central America to the US for 2 reason, one is obviously religion and two political purposes.

Religion has always been an integral part of hegemony.

When I lived down that way, a little further north and east of Chula Vista, the only times that we had a stronger influx of immigration was when the Mexican economy crashed which it has done several times. But that was back in the last century.

every strip mall in Texas has an extreme reich-wing evangelical "church" with services in Spanish. There is also a web of good old boy support for small businesses for people who attend those "churches" and run small businesses.

Or just pure conjecture?

governments and liberation theology in our hemisphere.
There are clear patterns here as well as suspicious activity and it is time for serious investigations.

It's historic. It's what many missionary programs are all about, maintaining instability among the people so they are always willing to do what they are told in order to live. Religion, in these cases, is a tool of fear mongering.

These evangelical churches. 😀

as I have said before, I live ten miles from the border and don't see any increase in crossers.
It was much worse 25 years ago or so when I saw groups of people in plastic cuffs sitting by
the roadside waiting to be hauled away.

Of that I am certain

I think that only the involved border patrol agents would know. But as many of the border patrol are reich-wing, from the top on down, it wouldn't surprise me to find that trucks of pre-approved evangelical migrants are passed through surreptitiously. Certainly when an immigrant's case goes before a reich-wing immigration judge if the immigrant is a member of an evangelical "church" the immigrant is more likely to be approved.

Garland left behind Elohim City when he prosecuted McVey. And since then its quadrupled in size and been joined by dozens more!!
The OK KS/MO AR are FULL of militias with crosses on their fences and guard towers. I spent 6 months recently TRYING to report churches in OK holding political rallies and Trump fundraisers. I begged local Democratic groups for help. Guess how many replied? TWO Both with links to the IRS and NOT ANOTHER WORD.

Damn.

not the investigation but the notion.

The growth and influence of hard-right pentecostal/charismatic churches that primarily target Central American immigrants (but are also increasingly drawing in Mexican and other Latin Americans as well) is growing at a worrisome rate.

The churches range from storefront operations, to those converted from fairly large sized retail and commercial uses, to established mega-churches that share space (or take over) from traditionally "Anglo" congregations.

And they are backed by a huge radio network, and television channels.

The indoctrination of migrants into hard-right religious groups--that are cult-like--is happening under the noses of of the larger society, which tends not to pay attention to what "marginalized" people are doing.

But it is a ticking time bomb. These are the sorts of "churches" that were embraced by the genocidal Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt back in the 1980s.

Does it pertain to fundamentalist evangelical Protestants or radicalized (capital C) Catholics denominations or sects infiltrations to cause chaos politically and funnel dollars religiously?

Recently there were 8,000 immigrants from Nicaragua seeking entry at our borders for one reason or another. That is basically and culturally a Roman Catholic nation. Their constitution contains "freedom of religion." Politically, they've created many active political parties under a "democratic" government, yet their current leader acts more and more like a dictator making at the very least economic friends with Putin and his oligarchs. The nation's population is generally poor, wealth stratified, and expressive of their politics, all trying to keep what they had yesterday...and losing.

In trying to understand your question, I understand Wiki may not be the best place for other than general info; how does DU now view Al-Jezeera articles about Daniel Ortega's and his VP wife who seem to be playing both sides against the middle in their efforts to maintain political power and control?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nicaragua

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/10/nicaragua-authorises-deployment-of-russian-military-forces

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/19/nicaragua-bishop-rolando-alvarez-arrest-ortega/

Does the "fair trade" movement also have anything to do with the economic spinning/self-determinism, surrounding RW religious evangelical fundamentalism and the GQP?

Are there any signs that this administration's State Department can adequately vet or process immigrant access...while "red states" continue to worship TFG while we cross T's and dot I's. How can we continue to say that with our streets full of guns, our economy full of the celebration of debt and celebrity, our politics leaning on corrupt "corporate personhood", constitutional freedom dependent only on "gentleperson" civility of our Congressmembers, high Courts, and Executive agencies' oversight/protections are any better than that from whence they came, if we can't quell our very own domestic coup and conspirators who continue to incite the crazies in our local, national, global world without consequence?

SMH...

I didn’t know about a link between RW churches and people moving across the border. Seems odd to me. They seem to be very anti-immigrant.