(no subject)

[andrewducker]

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ordained by God; "any mechanism to process, license, record, register or monitor the ownership of guns" should be repealed; income tax, inheritance tax, capital gains tax and corporation tax should be abolished; and immigrants should be deterred by electric fences.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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

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.

There is now screaming going on in my head. It's possibly the only coherent explanation I've heard for the combined US actions recently (Well, there are others, but they require an amazing mixture of cunning and incompetence).

Read the full article at The Guardian.

Comments

[thadrin.livejournal.com]

I'll be under my desk, quivering.

I was on a bus the other day, when some immigrant guy (look at the irony, me using the term immigrant when I am one myself...but I'm from western europe so I don't really count do I? go figure) - presumably from Iraq, Iran or some nearby state - started decrying the west and christians in general (lets get by the irony of "why don't you just leave if you hate us so much?" here.). Up until now I thought he was nuts, or drunk, or both.

Now I wonder.

I think Bill Hicks had it right in his anti-Bush sr. rants.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

Oh joy.
Well, that explanation certainly fits with the observed facts, so I will join you in screaming.



Our only hope, then, seems to be to persuade Dubya that when The Rapture comes he'll be at a disadvantage because some chap called God will be in charge and he'll be out of a job...

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

An interesting suggestion, but I think it borders on being a conspiracy theory really.

[andrewducker]

It definitely borders on it.

If it wasn't for the fact that people _do_ believe these things and that the upper echelons of the current US government have shown themselves to be very actually funamentalist Christian types I'd disregard it out of hand.

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

Thank you Andrew. I was meaning to look into this stuff after having this exchange with yonmei, but you've done it for me.

The trouble with Bush is I don't think he's faking his born-again-ness. Clinton I considered a fake through and through, (for instance, his going to church after the cigar incident), but Bush I find for real. Woodward was on TV here the other night and he said he'd asked Bush why he didn't talk with his father before deciding to invade Iraq. W. said he consults with a higher Father. Scary...

But I'm in two minds about www.raptureready.com, as I've a suspicion it might just be a joke site. The writing seems too relaxed and knowing to have been written by a believer. But then you do a Google for the "Daymond Duck" mentioned in one of the links and finds he's written books - that can be purchased at www.armageddonbooks.com... Waah....

[rahaeli.livejournal.com]

It is absolutely not a coincidence, and I was saying it back in December -- Bush is absolutely working on the premillennialist foreign policy. If you want to know what these people believe, and you have the time to stomach some really awful writing, go and check out the Left Behind series. I strongly suggest holding your nose while you read them; they're odious.