Eric Rudolph Dislikes Feminism

[debrand]

This struck me as interesting. Do any of you remember Eric Rudolph, the Atlanta Bomber? He hid in the mountains for a few years before he was captured. His writings, along with his prison address, are posted on this site.

armyofgod.com/EricRudolphHomepage.html

I found it interesting that his writing doesn't sound different than some of the fundamentalists that we cover on this site. The fact that he doesn't sound more crazy than those that we snark on is a sign proving how crazy those fundamentalists are.

armyofgod.com/EricRudolphFeminism.html

In all cultures there is a division of labor in the family. Males and females are prepared for their respective roles from an early age. Women are prepared for motherhood, and men are prepared to become protectors and providers. Women and children are natural dependents. As dependents, they return obedience to the men who protect them. The child comes to society as a gift, a loan bestowed on him. Over his lifetime, he is expected to repay the loan through duty to his family, his society, his God. He is trained into society and is expected to conform to the rules first laid down by mother and father, his nurturer and protector. He must earn rank and privileges. Naturally, there is a definite hierarchy based upon one’s contributions to the group. As the only class capable of waging war, men have always monopolized positions of leadership in the social group, beginning with the family, then band, tribe, chiefdom, and state. Every culture that has ever existed adopts this basic division of labor and hierarchy, which is based on the natural strengths and weaknesses of the sexes. Hierarchy is the system of life. This is the way it has always been. This is organic culture.

Because it is the basis of hierarchy in the larger society, the family is the ultimate enemy of egalitarians.

[debrand]

Drawn together by passion, the sexes complete each other in the intricate dance of life. Courtship and marriage give form to that beautiful minuet. A man is driven to a woman’s mysterious beauty, so he pursues her. The woman coyly deflects his advances while enticing him onward. The man is active; the woman is passive. Finally the parley is met and the terms are agreed upon. The woman gets what she wants and the man gets what he wants. The treaty is consummated and new life is born. The woman nurtures the new being and the man provides for and protects his family. The roles of sex give life much of its beauty. What a dead, lifeless world it would be without them.

I have only read his writings on feminism. He is long winded so I haven't started looking through his views on racism. It is interesting that his views on women could have been written by Doug Philips.

[BlackHawk]

Cliff note racism quotes:

From my writings, you will notice that I am a constant critic of racism. I am, for example, against organizations like the NAACP and its racist policies of Affirmative Action and race-based quotas. I am opposed to racist groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center and its "hate crimes" agenda. I am a critic of Barack Obama and his longtime association with the racist Reverend Wright. And lately I question the racial motives of black "Christians" who voted overwhelmingly for Obama, the most anti-Christian politician in American history.

But institutional white racism went out of fashion fifty years ago. Today, the specter of white racism is a bogeyman, a political tool our Marxist masters use to frighten away opposition.

In my lifetime, I have rarely witnessed white racism. I have, however, been stabbed, beaten, and robbed for being white. My schoolteachers taught me to hate myself for being white. They issued me a block of white guilt to carry around for things I did not do. They told me to prostrate myself whenever anyone levels the charge of racism. But these days I only prostrate myself before God. I dropped that block of white guilt years ago, and instead, I picked up the truth.

Here is wisdom: all history teaches that pursuing a policy of cultural diversity leads to division, oppression, violence, and eventually, to civil war. Thus, I reject all notions of "multiculturalism".

Basically how he feels. He does have a blurb in there about "America being a Western European Christian nation", which is a new statement to me but he truly seems to think this. But yeah, his racism one isn't much better than the feminist one.

(all quotes are direct statements made by Eric Rudolph, obtained from armyofgod.com/EricRudolphRacism.html)

[lilwriter85]

I remember him and back when I was in college, a sociology professor of mine had us analyze a writing he did on abortion. I can't remember much about it, but there were a few facts that Rudolph got wrong.

[debrand]

I remember him and back when I was in college, a sociology professor of mine had us analyze a writing he did on abortion. I can't remember much about it, but there were a few facts that Rudolph got wrong.

How did you judge his writing? Did any of your class agree with him on any issues?

[Austin]

It is disconcerting that guy who bombed women's health clinics and gay bars and parks and killed/injured numerous people doesn't sound any different from a lot of run-of-the-mill fundies.

[debrand]

It is disconcerting that guy who bombed women's health clinics and gay bars and parks and killed/injured numerous people doesn't sound any different from a lot of run-of-the-mill fundies.

It troubles me also. If I remember correctly, the authorities thought that Rudolph had some help in remaining hidden.

I can't help but wonder where the line is in some of these fundies' minds. How many secretly support or sympathize Rudolph's actions?

[pomology]

Didn't he bomb abortion clinics, too? Of course he doesn't like feminism.

[debrand]

Didn't he bomb abortion clinics, too? Of course he doesn't like feminism.

Yep. What interests me is how similar his views are to some of the fundies that we cover.

[pomology]

Yep. What interests me is how similar his views are to some of the fundies that we cover.

Ah. Yep. That's what I get for not reading the thread carefully and just seeing the title and thing "Yeah, and the Pope is Catholic."

But you definitely bring up an interesting (if disturbing) point.

[emmiedahl]

I don't know. I share some beliefs with certain ecological groups, but I would never resort to eco-terrorism. Ditto with a lot of other stuff.

[Kitten]

As the only class capable of waging war, men have always monopolized positions of leadership in the social group...

Boudicca needs to go all woman warrior on his ass...

:D

[Boltingmadonna]

As the only class capable of waging war, men have always monopolized positions of leadership in the social group...

I think he got that one backwards. Since men wanted to monopolize positions of leadership, they made sure to lock up the guns. Because if women were armed and empowered, we might not roll over so easily for all the crap men wanted to foist on us.

in other news, mass-murderer wannabe has cooked up an elaborate, pompous, long-winded self-justification to make his sick, violent, woman-hating self sound better, at least to other assholes. Gee, I never woulda seen that coming!

[Guest Anonymous]

Boudicca needs to go all woman warrior on his ass...

:D

And so does Joan of Arc

[luckylibrarian]

I only vaguely know who Eric Rudolph was, so to read his rants and see how similar they are to fundies like Doug Phillips is kind of shocking. I just thought Rudolph was just a militia, Timothy McVeigh wannabe. Very scary. It wouldn't surprise me if he had help when he was on the run. I bet he still has a lot of sympathizers in NC.

[Boltingmadonna]

Ha! Grace O'Malley and Anne Bonney can join in, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_O'Malley

And here's a cool website about numerous African queens and warrior women.

http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/africanqueens.html

Not to mention Queen Elizabeth the First, who may not have wielded the sword, but waged war rather successfully. This is from her speech to the troops at Tilbury in 1588, when she rode out among them wearing a cuirass:

We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit our selves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood even, in the dust.

I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.

Eric Rudolph can kiss my pale barbarian ass.

[Patsy]

I guess it's interesting, but I don't make any far-reaching conclusions from it. People can take any belief to extremes, including the extremes of terrorism and murder.

[JesusFightClub]

This is a topic of interest for me. I'm intrigued by the AR (animal rights) lot because I used to work somewhere where we had a lot of run-ins with them. I do not agree with them at all, but I do see the internal consistency of their beliefs as I understand them. If you really believed a person and a rat were the same importance, you would have to do what the AR do. How could you not?

So I am sometimes surprised there aren't more abortion clinic bombers. After all, if they really believe a clinic is killing hundreds of people, they would have to do something about it, right?

I am so pro choice I offend other prochoice people. So I'm not actually wanting more bombings in the slightest. The difference is very confusing though.

[margiebargie]

I wrote a comment yesterday but it looks like the interwebz poofed it away.

Anyhow, I read a book called "The Authoritarians" awhile back. After WW2 there was a lot of interest in why ordinary Germans went along with the Nazis willingly. Now there's a whole body of research about authoritarian personalities-particularly the followers. The followers tend to have high levels of anger and hostility toward those designated by their leaders as "enemies". Authoritarian followers tend toward unquestioning obedience. They tend to be sheltered from opposing points of view. The leaders can get away with almost anything and the followers will still remain loyal.

I don't think it would take much to send any given fundie over the edge. They're primed for violence by hatred and fear.

Edited to correct SOTDRT-like grammatical error.

[Kaylee]

One thing to keep in mind about Eric is he is very intelligent, and he knows the group that maintains that webpage and sends him money and support, so he is going to filter some of what he says accordingly.

I have some friend/family connections with the Rudolphs, and spent some time around Eric as a teenager, and some around his mom, Pat, while he was on the run and after his arrest. He came across as a pretty nice guy, but at the same time it doesn't surprise me that he would resort to terrorism (the scary thing is I can think of a few other people I've known I could say that about, and I was well on the way to that mindset myself in my teens and early 20s). I will say that he is more connected with the racist Cristian Identity movement than he claims to be, regardless of his current beliefs or affiliations. He was at the Church of True Israel for a few months with his family, until his mom had a falling out with their leader, which he claims, but they gloss over how they ended up in NC. The family moved to Topton to be near Nord Davis, who was this hardcore Christian Identity militia leader type guy that died in 1997. Eric's older brother was involved in the Northpoint Teams with them (he's left all that behind and is fairly liberal now), and his mom was way into the political and racial stuff, although she'd move from one group or leader to another because she'd find a small disagreement and get pissed when they wouldn't change their views to conform to hers (she was a nun before getting involved with CI, but didn't stay long enough to take her vows).

Anyway, the Rudolph family definitely follows the fundie pattern of claiming to be patriarchal and hating feminism, while following a woman's spiritual leadership into some whacked-out territory (in this case, Pat, Eric's mom).

JFC is right about their beliefs though. I read the Army of God's training manual years ago, and they really make a convincing case, if you buy their arguments, that anyone not actively working to stop abortion, to the point of closing clinics through sabotage and threats and/or killing providers, is complicit in murder. I do not believe this at all, but they do it by degrees. They define fetuses not as potential children, but as babies, and call them babies throughout the literature- there's this image of the babies looking over your shoulder crying because nobody has avenged their deaths - it's creepy, but could be very powerful for someone already a little nuts looking for some sort of "holy" purpose. With that sort of guilt trip in place, they go on to convince their followers that anyone who doesn't act to stop abortion is guilty of murder, so these people start holding up murderers who kill abortion doctors as the only ones who are living morally right.

[JesusFightClub]

Raine, I sometimes feel we are opposite sides of a coin, whereas most FJists wouldn't see the coin at all. It is to be expected, I guess.

Anyway, the info about Rudolph is really interesting! There are a lot of parallels with other people. It is so strange that strong women pretend to be weak...

[Boltingmadonna]

Raine, the information you share is valuable and useful to know. Thanks for your insight. I feel kind of a connection to you because my step-grandfather was in touch with similar people to the ones you talk about. He was thrown out of the John Birch Society because he was too blatantly and overtly racist, anti-semitic, and a raving conspiracy theorist. He was a scary man.

[Kaylee]

Raine, I sometimes feel we are opposite sides of a coin, whereas most FJists wouldn't see the coin at all. It is to be expected, I guess.

I understand what you mean. It's sort of weird at times, but nice to know at least one or two people get where I'm coming from with some of this stuff, if from the opposite "side". One thing that's so strange is that growing up around a lot of extremists in the racist and paramilitary/militia movements is probably what helped me see through a lot of the crap in fundamentalism - it's the same bs directed at slightly different targets (and sometimes the same ones, like the crazy hatred both have for gays, feminists, and dissenters).

Raine, the information you share is valuable and useful to know. Thanks for your insight. I feel kind of a connection to you because my step-grandfather was in touch with similar people to the ones you talk about. He was thrown out of the John Birch Society because he was too blatantly and overtly racist, anti-semitic, and a raving conspiracy theorist. He was a scary man.

Thanks. I know a lot of people like that. The scary thing is I'm one of those people who was raised by someone who was maybe a moderately "hardcore" anti-government racist type, but I ended up taking it and running even more to the militant/extreme end of things because I was trying to impress my dad and it was the only sort of "rebellion" my parents would tolerate. I'm just glad my husband and I both saw through it in the past few years, and are determined not to raise our son that way, because I still have a lot of baggage left over from it and have to "check" my thoughts and assumptions pretty often because it's like I was raised to look at the world from almost an alternate sort or reality.

The part that freaks me out is I can still identify with a lot of extremists and think "he was a nice guy", at the same time it doesn't surprise me when those "nice guys" end up killing people. That, and the fact there are a couple people I'm almost certain are going to end up flipping sooner or later, but there's nothing I can do about it in advance. (I have tipped off a few people when there were threats of violence towards them, but I've seen a few people I knew were off end up in news stories after I'd almost forgotten about them, and then it's sort of a "yeah, saw that coming" type of moment).