Bush's millennialism

Former President Bush's reputation as a Christian Fundamentalist is widely recognized. In at least one White House press briefing it has been asked what millennialist/ apocalyptic beliefs he had with the result being Scott McClellan immediately ending the press conference--"running off the stage." Admittedly some...many...Americans have no problem with this, but there are many more who find it very disturbing. Simply put, if the leader of the nation believes that the four horsemen of The Apocalypse could be trotting up the street at any time, then the leader is practically bound to make some ill-advised decisions. Reportedly, he is ...and did. And, Blair was on board with him.

For example, I think it was George Schultz, Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan, who when asked about policy on some environmental issue--like global warming--responded something like "The world is coming to an end anyway, so why should we bother?" In light of current events (global politicians at long last embracing scientists concerns about CO2 and its climatological effects) we can see how such Apocalyptic Millennialism could have, at the time, led the Reagan administration to fail in its environmental responsibilities. (There's a good bit more on Reagan ~page 239 of "Longing for the End" on Googlebooks.)

Belief that human existence faces some finite fate over which they have no control is one thing (a sufficiently silly thing on it's own), but actively trying to bring about The Apocalypse is a whole other! Using the military of a supposedly areligious/ secular nation as the means? Illegal and immoral. Believing that some god is telling you to do it? Delusional. Believing you have the right, obligation, or mandate to do it? Megalomaniacal. Believing for a second that some prehistoric Apocalyptic fantasy is a part of your personal reality or that of all of us? Fucking wacko. Voting for a millennialist to be POTUS? Well...

And, with all the hullabaloo currently being made over the end of the the Mayan calendar in 2012, the biblical "end of the age" as well as the Mayan prediction are astronomical predictions--not even necessarily astrological. So, turn off the Nostradamus special on the "History" Channel, and go get a fish sandwich.

Bonus psychobabble.

Honored more in the breach than in observance

A great chapter in Samuel Kramer's History Begins at Sumer thirty-nine firsts in recorded history is The First "Sick" Society. Identifying himself as a Sumerologist, Kramer conveys vividly Sumerian culture and societal values. In this chapter he set out to compare our contemporary (mid to late 1900s) social ills with ancient ones. What he found was basically a mirror image of today's society that "yearned for peace but was constantly at war," "professed ideals such as justice, equity, and compassion but abounded in injustice, inequality, and oppression," that was "materialistic and shortsighted." The general message seems to me to be human society hasn't changed so much in 4500 years. It is particularly interesting though that the examples, which repeatedly point to the ideal of justice and the eradication of injustice, specify that it is the thievery and brutality of the rich and powerful that must be reigned-in. Perhaps it's telling that Sumer was an egalitarian society and that Sumerian kings generally rose from the population and therefore were all too acquainted with the ways of the rich and powerful and the challenges of the poor and meek--also that they relied on the support of the populace to maintain their rule. So, even 4500 years ago the picture of human values seems a battle between the rich, the powerful, the egoist and the poor, the meek, the altruist.

Evolution deniers are idiots.

Just a little pointer for evolution deniers: George Bush, a denier himself hedged his bet on the Almighty when he directed Federal agencies to prepare for the adaptation of bird flu to human infection. For, if bird flu was not adapting so much as being engineered by a god to infect humans, then Bushie would be going against the will of the god. And, that just couldn't be the case, could it?

Now, there is an even more striking similar case of evolution in which “the flu … combines pig, bird and human viruses in a way that researchers have not seen before, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. The evolution and outbreak of this virus seem to be a pretty novel occurrence—it’s the platypus of viruses.

I just caught onto his as an everyday example of evolution, but it is also interesting that it could just as well provide fuel for intelligent design advocates. You see, while the scientific community generally sees phylogeny in the similarity of DNA and RNA, ID advocates say the appearance of phylogeny is the result of God’s re-use of previously created building blocks. For example, chimps must have been the last thing created before homo sapiens, since they have the most similar DNA to us.

Anyway, the point is that evolution deniers are idiots.

Happy late Darwin Day.

Evangelism is rampant in the military...duh!

This story on NPR about Sikhs not being allowed to maintain their religiously prescribed personal grooming after enlistment is interesting. There are some issues in conflict--military respect for religious freedom, military rules laid-out for practicality and uniformity, the honorable service of Sikhs in the armed forces before the rather recent "gotta-shave" rule, basic fairness. But, what really gets me is that so many of the commenters seem oblivious to the fact that religious bias is not only accepted in the US armed forces, Christian evangelism is unofficially endorsed, sanctioned, and promoted--despite rules that prohibit any such act. Perhaps the mass uninformedness is a result of news media failure. The Public Record is the only journal doing a decent job of covering the issue, and their latest article is here.

Maybe Rapture is really meant to save the rest of us from the "saved" by getting them off my planet?! If so, bring it on!

Why couldn't we have a shadow government that didn't suck?!

Like a hypochondriac who won’t go to the doctor because he thinks he’s just being hypochondriacal, I have doubted my own assessment that the US government is controlled—essentially owned—by wealthy oligarchs who pay for the elections and votes of our politicians, that the Executive and Legislative branches (at least) of the US government are simply an elaborate puppet show designed to appease the masses with illusions of self determination. Finally, much to my chagrin, a former chief economist at the IMF says I’m right. Fuck! I knew it all along—wishing whole-heartedly I was wrong. (Original article.) This dude at the Rolling Stone takes a different tack to say practically the same thing and spells it out with more detail in a ridiculously long article. So, all you paranoid conspiracy hounds, rest easy; there really is a “shadow government” controlling your nation and your fate.

SOS

OK, so I've been keeping my thoughts to myself for a while. ‘Fraid I usually stop paying attention so closely to politics after an election, because no matter what the result I feel basically helpless to affect anything once the ball gets rolling—not that I ever have any power beyond my one little vote. But, this blog is only for my personal gratification anyway, so I guess I’ve just been lazy.

I’ve been watching the Israel-Palestine conflict, like I always have. This article and many others like it are particularly disheartening. I am glad to know that so many Americans feel the way I do about it—that the US has been enabling the oppressors and that we need to stop if there is to be any justice and peace, but I’m blown away that the administration fails to grasp our undermining role. For all of the positive and negative “internationalist” finger-pointing, Obama is after all either a poor student of the I-P conflict or he is on the wrong side of the philosophical debate about US’s role. The US has a moral obligation to support the underdog and when it fails to do so, it is usually if not always for transparent political or economic motives. Turkey has been a much better ally than Israel, WTF do we need Israel for? Are we trying to keep them paid off so that we don’t have to fight them? The ass-kissing is one-sided. When do we get something back from them for our support? Idunno.

The whole domestic sustainable power thing is looking like a hamster wheel. We have all this money we just said we were gonna inject into the economy. But, the guys with the power are bickering about investing through deficit spending—Yeah, it sucks, but ya got another idea? I want my goddam sidewalks, so I can walk to the store. What’s it gonna take to get you jackasses to gimme my goddam sidewalks!?!? I see no reason why we can take a chunk of that money and put it directly into wind turbine factories and the purchase of property to put ‘em on. Yeah yeah. Socialism. Blah. The private sector aint doin’ it. The gov’t forced me to pay for the Iraq war and subsidize Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, they can damn sure force some SUV-driving Limbaugh listener to pay for a sustainable energy system.

SOS. Same ol’ shit.