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April 2004

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Mike Brand <[log in to unmask]>
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Science for the People Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
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Mon, 26 Apr 2004 15:10:00 EDT
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Their Beliefs Are Bonkers,
But They Are at the Heart of Power
By George Monbiot
The Guardian U.K.

Tuesday 20 April 2004

To understand what is happening in the Middle East, you must first 
understand what is happening in Texas. To understand what is happening 
there, you should read the resolutions passed at the state's Republican 
party conventions last month. Take a look, for example, at the 
decisions made in Harris County, which covers much of Houston.

The delegates began by nodding through a few uncontroversial 
matters: homosexuality is contrary to the truths ordained by God; "any 
mechanism to process, license, record, register or monitor the 
ownership of guns" should be repealed; income tax, inheritance tax, 
capital gains tax and corporation tax should be abolished; and 
immigrants should be deterred by electric fences. Thus fortified, they 
turned to the real issue: the affairs of a small state 7,000 miles 
away. It was then, according to a participant, that the "screaming and 
near fist fights" began.

I don't know what the original motion said, but apparently it was 
"watered down significantly" as a result of the shouting match. The 
motion they adopted stated that Israel has an undivided claim to 
Jerusalem and the West Bank, that Arab states should be "pressured" to 
absorb refugees from Palestine, and that Israel should do whatever it 
wishes in seeking to eliminate terrorism. Good to see that the 
extremists didn't prevail then.

But why should all this be of such pressing interest to the people 
of a state which is seldom celebrated for its fascination with foreign 
affairs? The explanation is slowly becoming familiar to us, but we 
still have some difficulty in taking it seriously.

In the United States, several million people have succumbed to an 
extraordinary delusion. In the 19th century, two immigrant preachers 
cobbled together a series of unrelated passages from the Bible to create what 
appears to be a consistent narrative: Jesus will return to 
Earth when certain preconditions have been met. The first of these was 
the establishment of a state of Israel. The next involves Israel's 
occupation of the rest of its "biblical lands" (most of the Middle 
East), and the rebuilding of the Third Temple on the site now occupied 
by the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques. The legions of the 
antichrist will then be deployed against Israel, and their war will 
lead to a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. The Jews will 
either burn or convert to Christianity, and the Messiah will return to 
Earth.

What makes the story so appealing to Christian fundamentalists is 
that before the big battle begins, all "true believers" (ie those who 
believe what they believe) will be lifted out of their clothes and 
wafted up to heaven during an event called the Rapture. Not only do the 
worthy get to sit at the right hand of God, but they will be able to 
watch, from the best seats, their political and religious opponents 
being devoured by boils, sores, locusts and frogs, during the seven 
years of Tribulation which follow.

The true believers are now seeking to bring all this about. This 
means staging confrontations at the old temple site (in 2000, three US 
Christians were deported for trying to blow up the mosques there), 
sponsoring Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, demanding 
ever more US support for Israel, and seeking to provoke a final battle 
with the Muslim world/Axis of Evil/United Nations/ European 
Union/France or whoever the legions of the antichrist turn out to be.

The believers are convinced that they will soon be rewarded for 
their efforts. The antichrist is apparently walking among us, in the 
guise of Kofi Annan, Javier Solana, Yasser Arafat or, more plausibly, 
Silvio Berlusconi. The Wal-Mart corporation is also a candidate (in my 
view a very good one), because it wants to radio-tag its stock, thereby 
exposing humankind to the Mark of the Beast.

By clicking on www.raptureready.com, you can discover how close you 
might be to flying out of your pyjamas. The infidels among us should 
take note that the Rapture Index currently stands at 144, just one 
point below the critical threshold, beyond which the sky will be filled 
with floating nudists. Beast Government, Wild Weather and Israel are 
all trading at the maximum five points (the EU is debat ing its 
constitution, there was a freak hurricane in the south Atlantic, Hamas 
has sworn to avenge the killing of its leaders), but the second coming 
is currently being delayed by an unfortunate decline in drug abuse 
among teenagers and a weak showing by the antichrist (both of which score 
only two).

We can laugh at these people, but we should not dismiss them. That 
their beliefs are bonkers does not mean they are marginal. American 
pollsters believe that 15-18% of US voters belong to churches or 
movements which subscribe to these teachings. A survey in 1999 
suggested that this figure included 33% of Republicans. The 
best-selling contemporary books in the US are the 12 volumes of the 
Left Behind series, which provide what is usually described as a 
"fictionalised" account of the Rapture (this, apparently, distinguishes 
it from the other one), with plenty of dripping details about what will 
happen to the rest of us. The people who believe all this don't believe 
it just a little; for them it is a matter of life eternal and death.

And among them are some of the most powerful men in America. John 
Ashcroft, the attorney general, is a true believer, so are several 
prominent senators and the House majority leader, Tom DeLay. Mr DeLay 
(who is also the co-author of the marvellously named DeLay-Doolittle 
Amendment, postponing campaign finance reforms) travelled to Israel 
last year to tell the Knesset that "there is no middle ground, no 
moderate position worth taking".

So here we have a major political constituency - representing much 
of the current president's core vote - in the most powerful nation on 
Earth, which is actively seeking to provoke a new world war. Its 
members see the invasion of Iraq as a warm-up act, as Revelation 
(9:14-15) maintains that four angels "which are bound in the great 
river Euphrates" will be released "to slay the third part of men". They 
batter down the doors of the White House as soon as its support for 
Israel wavers: when Bush asked Ariel Sharon to pull his tanks out of 
Jenin in 2002, he received 100,000 angry emails from Christian 
fundamentalists, and never mentioned the matter again.

The electoral calculation, crazy as it appears, works like this. 
Governments stand or fall on domestic issues. For 85% of the US 
electorate, the Middle East is a foreign issue, and therefore of 
secondary interest when they enter the polling booth. For 15% of the 
electorate, the Middle East is not just a domestic matter, it's a 
personal one: if the president fails to start a conflagration there, 
his core voters don't get to sit at the right hand of God. Bush, in 
other words, stands to lose fewer votes by encouraging Israeli 
aggression than he stands to lose by restraining it. He would be mad to 
listen to these people. He would also be mad no


"I have a need to be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice about me 
to melt" William Lloyd Garrison

"It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society" 
J.Krishnamurti

"The world is my country, all mankind my brethren, and to do good is my 
religion." Thomas Paine

"…it It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, 
tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds…" Sam Adams

"You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do 
nothing, there will be no results". Gandhi

"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to 
think things out for himself, without regard to prevailing 
superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion 
that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and 
intolerable." H.L. Mencken




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