“What US evangelicals overlook is that the end of the world may bring the second coming of Christ, but the price may be the end of the United States as a nation. By that standard, US evangelism is conceptually anti-patriotic. In World War I, the European monarchies lost their thrones in a war to defend their empires, and in World War II, the "democratic" imperialists lost their colonies in a war of intra-imperialist rivalry to gain more colonies. The next world war, launched by superpower neo-imperialism to spread bogus universal democracy, will have similar self-destructive ironic outcomes. Democracy with local characteristics, based on universal equality, will rid the world of neo-imperialism and superpower hegemony.” Henry C.K. Liu
Much of the support for the fascist agenda of the NeoConmen who have an ideological and policy stranglehold on the Bush administration is undergirded by the Christian Right. Their looney blend of doctrinal eschatology and political world view, their totally uncritical support for Zionist aggression, their tacit continuation of the Crusade against Islam and jingoist imperialism serve as a catalysts for the Rapture and return of Jesus. For those of you not familiar with Christian doctrines, many Protestant sects adopted the Judaic assimilation of the Persian notion of a penultimate global upheaval of the present world resulting from a cosmic battle between the forces of light and darkness with the forces of light eventually winning and ushering in a new world order. The battle was is often referred to as Armageddon the scene of the final conflict between the agents of good and evil as recorded in the King James version of the Christian Bible in Revelations the 16th “Chapter” and 16th verse. This conflict took place in the area near present day Iraq but called Babylon in ancient times . The Christian version of end times added the idea of a final judgement, the resurrection of long decomposed bodies amidst catastrophes, earthquakes and calamities culminating in the physical return of Jesus from the clouds to claim the faithful and beam them up to eternal glory. Sounds almost as fantastic as the Muslim notion that dying in defense of Islam against “infidels” guarantees entrance into their idea of paradise! These are the mind sets the NeoConmen and fascist ideologues manipulate to endorse and promote their immoral wars for oil and empire. It is why they can tout Bush’s election as a victory for morality despite the fact his policies have resulted in the deaths of over one hundred thousand innocent Iraqi men women and children and fifteen hundred US soldiers!? The faithful yet gullible Christian fanatics egged on by the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell don’t even blink at the moral contradictions this presents. (What ever happened to “Thou shalt not kill, and Thous shalt not steal?) The religious fanatics are only concerned about their being in the number when Jesus “returns” and being magically and mystically beamed up to meet him in the air. (It’s amazing, people who arrogantly believe themselves intellectually superior to the rest of the world actually believe stuff like this) Meanwhile back on terra firma, Bush and the NeoConmen are creating a living hell for the masses of people unfortunate enough to live over vast amounts of natural resources or strategic routes along proposed pipelines that will transport oil and natural gas to markets, places like the Balkans and Afghanistan. But then again Western (European) Christianity always had imperial links. As Liu points out in his article, Militarism and Failed States, “Christian doctrine of love and peace has always been accompanied by the theme of ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, as evidenced by the Crusades and numerous expeditionary campaigns in the colonial world to protect or avenge attacks on Christian missionaries. Professor Bacevich, along with others analysts with similar views, explains that evangelicals, aghast at Vietnam-era protests of the US war against 'godless communism', turned to the military as the repository of traditional US Christian virtues. Of course, the images of Buddhist monks setting themselves on fire to protest government-sponsored persecution from Catholics in Vietnam generally failed to disturb US Christian evangelicals, nor the centuries of anti-Semitic programs in Christian nations. For Christian evangelicals, end-times doctrines join US national security with eschatology, the belief in the end of the world coinciding with the second coming of Christ. Biblical prophecies clearly merge US fate with Israel... Islam on the other hand is a fanatic and expansionist infidel sect in the Judeo-Christian world view. Islam inherited the role of godless communism as the post-Cold War target of a Christian holy war against satanic evil.”
The religious right’s Pavlovian support of the NeoConmen agenda won’t hasten the return of Jesus but it may, as Henry Liu wrote in an eight part serial in Asian Times Militarism and Failed States ( www.atimes.com ), hasten the end of the United States as a nation. The ratcheting up of AmeriKKKa’s preemptive military interventions which by the way are nothing new, ala recent examples in Panama, Haiti and Grenada have put an undo strain on both the military and the nation’s resources. Bush’s irresponsible fiscal and military decisions are pushing the Empire to the brink of collapse! The truth of the matter is AmeriKKKa is not winning in Iraq, Afghanistan is in social and political shambles despite the construction of the trans-Afghani pipeline and permanent US military bases; the prospects of improvement in either nation any time soon appear nil. The NeoConmen are going to pursue their agenda no matter what; but the support of the gullible Christian right gives them added propaganda and PR punch. The down side is that as the situation in Iraq worsens, as the dollar slides further and further below the Euro and the deficits get larger and larger, the AmeriKKKa public will eventually tire of the bad news, the body bags and the consequences of mounting debt. We see signs of that now in the latest public opinion polling data. As this scenario worsens the religious right’s influence will wane. As reality sets in and more AmeriKKKans realize they have been duped and lied to, the religious right will be forced to abandon the sinking Neocon ship and look for the rapture to take place another time.
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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 7:09 AM
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