Bill Moyers: There is no tomorrow

[question everything]

This sobering essay was published today in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. I apologize if already posted, global search gave me "a bug."

=======

startribune.com

Bill Moyers: There is no tomorrow

Published January 30, 2005

One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.

(snip)

Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first secretary of the interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."

Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true -- one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index.

(snip)

Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups. They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Policy Chair Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted from the biblical book of Amos on the Senate floor: "The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land." He seemed to be relishing the thought.

And why not? There's a constituency for it. A 2002 Time-CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the book of Revelations are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks. Drive across the country with your radio tuned to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations, or in the motel turn on some of the 250 Christian TV stations, and you can hear some of this end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected, as Grist puts it, "to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth, when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same God who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a word?"

More...

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5211218.html

Bill Moyers was host until recently of the weekly public affairs series "NOW with Bill Moyers" on PBS. This article is adapted from AlterNet, where it first appeared. The text is taken from Moyers' remarks upon receiving the Global Environmental Citizen Award from the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.

[robbedvoter]

1. I share his pessimism, but not his reliance on numbers. The lunatics

did take over the asylum Bill, but polls, voting had nothing to do with it.
But in the end, you are right: the power is theirs, there is no tomorrow.

[murray hill farm]

2. Amazing, isn't it?

Ya know...i moved from the USA to a more civilized country...but sometimes when i read such as your post, it is so frightening that i think i need to move to a new planet, but since that is not an option..who knows what to do..ha...just sit back and watch the insanity grow and grow! And of course...be amazed!

[HysteryDiagnosis]

7. And in those days.... evil will be considered good, and good will be

considered as evil.....

http://www.sliderfamily.net/hippiasminor.html
SOCRATES: Stop. Let us recall what you say. You say that the false are powerful and intelligent, and knowing and wise in those things in which they are false?

HIPPIAS: Yes, I do.

SOCRATES: And that the true and the false are different and complete opposites of one another?

HIPPIAS: I do.

SOCRATES: Well, then, the false are among the powerful and the wise, according to your statement.

HIPPIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And when you say that the false are powerful and wise for falsehood, do you mean that they have power to utter falsehoods if they like, or that they are powerless in respect to the falsehoods which they utter?

HIPPIAS: That they have power.

SOCRATES: In short, then, the false are those who are wise and powerful in uttering falsehoods.




"The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self." - Albert Einstein

[KoKo]

19. That's the Bushies for Sure! "Evil shall be considered as Good." Yep

what else can one say. I thought I grew up in an "Enlightened Time." Where Science, Reason and the Arts were all melded as ONE! Where the future was "Ours" to pursue as reasoned folk.

Little did I know that we would be back in the "DARK AGES" the "time of superstition where plagues and witchhunts were the occupation of the "masses."

Shit! Why was I BORN NOW! Give me a BREAK! We have the highest forms of TECHNOLOGY...We have the BEST OF CENTURIES OF SCIENCE AN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT...AND WE LIVE IN CAVES!!!!!

Jaysus.....what the hell else is there?

[question everything]

22. This is why it is so frustrating: people with dark ages mentality

but who, nonetheless, enjoy all the benefits and discoveries of the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries that came about because earlier generations tossed away these religious based policies and replace them with knowledge based ones.

[LizW]

3. Awesome and frightening

Thanks for posting this.

[EFerrari]

4. The solution to this is the same as the cause: propaganda

That's how these poor souls got into this mindset and now they're being exploited by GE, Boeing and Haliburton.

How hard is it to mount a propadanda campaign? I mean, the neos did it :)

[AuntieM1957]

9. THEY'VE GOT ALL THE $$$

Hey, they got the media machine and all the marbles.

How the heck are we going to pay for this?

[EFerrari]

10. I don't think so, AuntieM!

We did an AMAZING JOB of fundraising this last time out!

Kerry raised more money than any other Dem candidate has in the history of this country. (And that's just Kerry -- not Dean, Edwards et al.)

We have plenty of $$$ and we've now a coalition to put it to work.

[rurallib]

5. Moyers - a voice in the wilderness now.

HE used to be mainstream. Now he's considered radical.
Since the article was on the environment, he only briefly mentions something which I feel is probably more frightening. That is that the underlying reason for the Iraq invasion and the upcoming Iran invasion is to hasten the armegeddon.
Along with that is the raiding of the treasury and handing it overf to the rich. In the view of evangies rich on earth equals favor in the next life. So, with armageddon coming they've got to get some bucks built up. Steal the treasury and keep the common people fighting each other about gays and abortion. The people will never notice their treasury's been stolen, the land and resources raped and their children killed or bankrupted.
LOOK OVER THERE A GAY GUY!!

[earth mom]

31. Good post...so true that Moyers is a voice in the wilderness.

I've been reading about this stuff for months and it's scares me more than ever now, because no one is stopping *. There is no election fraud fight, there are no impeachment procedings-the writing is on the wall if people just knew where to find it but the MSM is so f-in skewed that most people in this country are absolutely oblivious as to what's really going on! :scared:

[terip64]

6. I refuse to be this pessimistic.

Why not just go jump out of a window? I believe that things will get ugly but I will fight until the end. There are a lot of very intelligent and gifted people out there and the strong will survive. Get your rest and keep yourself healthy. We're going to need our strength!

[murray hill farm]

8. you might fight the large and evil giant until u die...

and for what...who can stop them? Will the people rise up in revolt? And, if they did, wont they just be killed..of course they will! There is pessimism, and there is facing reality..and the reality here is that those who are the evil giants..do not plan to be stopped. Maybe the best thing you can do in the way of optimism would be to plan to ride this out...in a way that you can survive and your children can survive..and to find your own personal peace in the ways that you can, given the reality of now...and the foreseeable future.

[Eloriel]

11. Ahistorical

Your take on this is ahistorical, according to Gandhi who has a few words for you:

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Always. -- Gandhi

Even if it doesn't happen in our lifetimes, we have to be believe this is ture and be part of this fight. We have to, and here's why:

Each of us is put here in this time and this place to personally decide the future of mankind. Did you think you were put here for something less? -- Chief Arvol Looking Horse

[murray hill farm]

12. I agree with Gandhi

I believe that truth and love and goodness will win in the end..but that day is not today..when we are talking about the tyrants and murderers that rule us now..and who move on madly to spread their personal tyrany around the globe. What we can do is to love and care for those who we are able to in our own personal lives. We can give to those who we are able to help..and to spread the love and truth and to seek our own personal peace..now! There are times in history..and this is one of them..where in this time and space,each of us must face the reality of now..and to give our love and our truth and or caring to those who we can most benefit from it..and those will be the ones close to you..or within your reach to help. I think Gandhi would agree with me on this one.

[terip64]

13. Exactly!

And the way I see it, what option do we have? I have two kids in college and one in the eighth grade. I have to be optimistic, I'm the mom! And of course, when I do start to worry, and believe me I do, my husband reassures me that we have too much debt for this to end before we pay it off! Seriously, I am spreading the word as to what these crazies really believe and I am taking them on. I am asking my Christian friends that voted for Bush if they believe that we are in the 'end time'. They, for the most part look at me as if I am nuts and say no. So then I start emailing them all these great articles that we all search for every day. We have to spread the word and even though we were raised not to discuss politics and religion, all bets are off. I'm talking about it and nobody can stop me. Not yet anyway!

[KoKo]

20. Eloriel...the key is: "Even if it doesn't happen in our lifetimes...."

I think some of us have lived through to much of waiting for Gandi's principles to come true in America...I don't have that time...and I don't have that "patience" since my WHOLE LIFE has been a fight for what Gandi believed in...and Gandi achieved it in his own lifetime...I don't want to be "underground or my ashes scattered to the winds" to see what we've worked for be achieved...even in some small measure.

In my lifetime I've only seen "Dismantling"....I want to see "Building" before I pass on into that beyond.

We don't have time...I don't want to leave this legacy of American Depravity behind me...:shrug: I feel too much "Immediacy of Purpose" to be able to let it go with hope that after me will be better...

[question everything]

24. And has already started

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-na-westair29jan29,1,5709996.story

It's Not All Blue Skies for Drilling Project

Expansion of gas wells in Rocky Mountain states will degrade the air at several national parks.
By Miguel Bustillo
Times Staff Writer

January 29, 2005

GILLETTE, Wyo. — When he turned Mt. Rushmore into his granite canvas, sculptor Gutzon Borglum wrote that the faces of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln would remain visible, Lord willing, "until the wind and the rain alone shall wear them away."

Borglum's vision endures in the Black Hills of South Dakota about 130 miles from here, but for nearly a month every year, it may soon become harder to see the famous faces through the man-made haze generated by the addition of 50,000 gas wells in northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana.

It is just one of several ways in which the largest expansion of natural gas drilling approved by the federal government is expected to degrade air quality in the region that today has the clearest skies in the lower 48 states.

The federal Bureau of Land Management, under pressure from the White House to fast-track energy production, approved the drilling plan two years ago without incorporating any requirements to reduce the resulting air pollution.

(snip)

[Toots]

29. But didn't you hear.................9-11 changed "everything"

All the truths of history are no longer valid. :shrug:

[Clarkie1]

14. We know what we have to do to fight this

Reframe and educate. We need religious liberals in the party who speak our values and communicate those values to the religiously illiterate who don't know how to properly interpret Jesus' message for themselves. Jesus was not a right-wing fundamentalist; he was quite the opposite.

[borg5575]

15. Exactly

Yes, true Christianity is much more in line with what we progressives believe. Charity, caring for the disadvantaged, and world peace are all concepts that we on the left believe in and those principles are in line with true Christianity. The fundies are not.

That's the message that we need to get out. If the truth were known, then most religious people would be on our side, not the other way around.

[AuntieM1957]

17. Progressive BECAUSE I'm a Christian

Sometimes it's a bit frustrating to read posts that speak about Progressive and Christians as if the two belief systems are mutually exclusive.

When I study the New Testament, I look to the words of Jesus himself. Others, well I just don't agree with all of them - because their intolerance (e.g. Paul and John) offends me and is not what Christ taught.

So, please those of you who practice beliefs that differ from Christianity - do not take part in the right wing lie that all Christians are Republicans.

It's hard enough to take from them, but I find it truly painful to think that my fellow DUers believe it, too.

[Northern Perspective]

23. Actually, you're in very good company (#5 on NYTimes list)

God's Politics: A Better Option
Why can't personal ethics and social justice - together - become a real political choice?

by Jim Wallis

Why can’t we talk about religion and politics? These are the two topics you are not supposed to discuss in polite company. Don’t break up the dinner party by bringing up either of these subjects! That’s the conventional wisdom. Why? Perhaps it’s because these topics are too important and too potentially divisive, or because they raise issues of core values and ultimate concerns that make us uncomfortable.

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0502&article=050210

[Strelnikov_]

16. Rapture Index 153

http://www.raptureready.com/rap2.html

Looks like they have great hopes for the EU!!!!!

33 Beast Government:
There is a growing belief that the EU is going to have a difficult
time ratifying its Constitution.
34 The Antichrist:
The EU is looking a new President.


On Edit: Great, the webmaster of this site has possible access to the bomb.

http://www.raptureready.com/rap16.html

"As many of you already know, when I’m not maintaining one of the most pervasive prophecy websites on the internet, I work for the US Air Force. Occasionally, Uncle Sam invites me to one of these all-expenses-paid vacations to various parts of the world. From November to December I was his guest at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida."

"Right now I’m in Southwest Asia. For security reasons, I'm not allowed to tell my specific location. But because there are very few differences between the bases over here, I can tell you this: I’m in an Islamic nation that has a desert environment."

. . .

"The dictatorial rule of Islam is proof of its demonic origin. Christianity gains its membership by inviting people to freely choose to follow Christ. Followers of Mohammed have no such options. They are slaves of Islam from birth."

"While I am in Satan’s domain, I would like to ask that you folks back home pray for my spiritual protection. Whenever I leave the US, I often find that problems seem to materialize out of nowhere. It my belief that the distractions are caused by local demonic forces. "

[KoKo]

18. Oh Jeeze....I'm already so despressed...I'll download and print...and

try to read it with some wine or something...

I think that maybe Moyers is trying to "Wake Up" those of us who haven't been "on the ground" for four years with this fight. So, he might be kind of depressing hoping to reach the "unenlightened...those asleep in their "Mc Mansions with the Media Rooms" to see that their days "might be numbered?" :shrug:

[Kat45]

21. My reading of the Bible tells us to be stewards of the earth,

not destroyers of it. If God wants destruction, he doesn't need our help. He will have Jesus return when he will; he doesn't need or want our help to bring it along. And do the fundies forget the passage that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Aaaaaaaaaargh!:Fundies make me crazy.

[Hissyspit]

25. Revelations Is Misinterpreted: Need Links

and probably shouldn't even be in the Christian Bible. My point is if you know of any good scholarly links about these issues, feel free to post them. I have to leave to go teach college students who have grown up being taught all of this Rapture stuff is true for the most part...

[mhr]

26. This Video Will Shed Light On The Enemy Of Our Democracy

These people must be stopped!

http://www.theocracywatch.org/av/video_dominion.ram

More here:

http://www.theocracywatch.org/audio-video.htm

[xchrom]

27. he's right

and i think these people{and i'm not talking a frist and co} will push to unbelievable extremes.

i have said it repeatedly and i will say it again: we do not talk enough about the character of the american people.
rove does -- i'm guessing he talks about it alot.

the division -- in spite of barak abama's purplr americans -- is real in this country.
and it's gonna get worse.

it'll get worse for perhaps two reasons

first is -- the extremists, they want it to get worse -- or rather they want action on their ides.
second --{liberal} people are going to fight back -- they have to.
it's how they fight back that will make the difference.
i also believe that the right does not want peace with the left -- that's a myth.
and we had better know that in our bones.

[realFedUp]

28. I'm so glad he's addressing these issues

It would sound a lot loonier coming
from a less prestigious but still truthful
reporter.

[La Femme]

30. Have to register

I read this earlier without registering. Now when I attempt to pull up the page, it requires I register. Does anybody have this entire story saved elsewhere? Sorry, I don't like to register for all these things.


On edit: I was able to find the article on another website that did not require registration.

http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/printer_15874.shtml