Latex lizzie
Well-Known Member
I nkow this isn't politics but its quiet in here and we need a topic to get more in here..
US policy towards the Middle East is driven by a rarefied form of
madness. It's time we took it seriously.
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 20th 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.1
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ownership of guns" should be repealed; income tax, inheritance tax,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.2 Thus fortified,
they turned to the real issue: the affairs of a small state 7000
miles away. It was then, according to a participant, that the
"screaming and near fistfights" 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.3 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)4,
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.5 The Walmart 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.6 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 debating 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 between 15 and 18% of US voters belong to
churches or movements which subscribe to these teachings.7 A survey
in 1999 suggested that this figure included 33% of Republicans.8 The
best-selling contemporary books in the United States 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."9
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 Revelations
(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.10
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 not to.
George Monbiot's book The Age of Consent: a manifesto for a new world
order is now published in paperback
US policy towards the Middle East is driven by a rarefied form of
madness. It's time we took it seriously.
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 20th 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.1
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.2 Thus fortified,
they turned to the real issue: the affairs of a small state 7000
miles away. It was then, according to a participant, that the
"screaming and near fistfights" 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.3 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)4,
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.5 The Walmart 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.6 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 debating 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 between 15 and 18% of US voters belong to
churches or movements which subscribe to these teachings.7 A survey
in 1999 suggested that this figure included 33% of Republicans.8 The
best-selling contemporary books in the United States 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."9
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 Revelations
(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.10
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 not to.
George Monbiot's book The Age of Consent: a manifesto for a new world
order is now published in paperback
