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CageyD
Citizen
Username: Cageyd
Post Number: 219
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - 12:42 pm: | 
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This was sent to me and although it was rather scary and depressing, I thought worth posting.
There Is No Tomorrow
By Bill Moyers
The Star Tribune
Sunday 30 January 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.
Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold
stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted
as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always
bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians
alike, oblivious to the facts.
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.
That's right - the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the
best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the "Left Behind"
series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious-right warrior
Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology
concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took
disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has
captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.
Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot
recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to
my own understanding): Once Israel has occupied the rest of its "biblical
lands," legions of the antichrist will attack it, triggering a final showdown in
the valley of Armageddon.
As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return
for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and
transported to Heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will
watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores,
locusts and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.
I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported
on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are
sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the
rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared
solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support
with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up
act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels "which are bound in
the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." A war
with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed - an
essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it,
the rapture index stood at 144 - just one point below the critical threshold
when the whole thing will blow, the son of God will return, the righteous will
enter Heaven and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.
So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to
read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist Glenn Scherer - "The Road
to Environmental Apocalypse." Read it and you will see how millions of Christian
fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be
disregarded but actually welcomed - even hastened - as a sign of the coming
apocalypse.
As Grist makes clear, we're not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers
who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. Nearly half the U.S. Congress before
the recent election - 231 legislators in total and more since the election - are
backed by the religious right.
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?"
Because these people believe that until Christ does return, the Lord will
provide. One of their texts is a high school history book, "America's
Providential History." You'll find there these words: "The secular or socialist
has a limited-resource mentality and views the world as a pie .... that needs to
be cut up so everyone can get a piece." However, "[t]he Christian knows that the
potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in
God's earth ... while many secularists view the world as overpopulated,
Christians know that God has made the earth sufficiently large with plenty of
resources to accommodate all of the people."
No wonder Karl Rove goes around the White House whistling that militant hymn,
"Onward Christian Soldiers." He turned out millions of the foot soldiers on Nov.
2, including many who have made the apocalypse a powerful driving force in
modern American politics.
It is hard for the journalist to report a story like this with any
credibility. So let me put it on a personal level. I myself don't know how to be
in this world without expecting a confident future and getting up every morning
to do what I can to bring it about. So I have always been an optimist. Now,
however, I think of my friend on Wall Street whom I once
asked: "What do you think of the market?"I'm optimistic," he answered. "Then why
do you look so worried?" And he answered: "Because I am not sure my optimism is
justified."
I'm not, either. Once upon a time I agreed with Eric Chivian and the Center
for Health and the Global Environment that people will protect the natural
environment when they realize its importance to their health and to the health
and lives of their children. Now I am not so sure. It's not that I don't want to
believe that - it's just that I read the news and connect the dots.
I read that the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has
declared the election a mandate for President Bush on the environment. This for
an administration:
That wants to rewrite the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered
Species Act protecting rare plant and animal species and their habitats, as well
as the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the government to judge
beforehand whether actions might damage natural resources.
That wants to relax pollution limits for ozone; eliminate vehicle tailpipe
inspections, and ease pollution standards for cars, sport-utility vehicles and
diesel-powered big trucks and heavy equipment.
That wants a new international audit law to allow corporations to keep certain
information about environmental problems secret from the public.
That wants to drop all its new-source review suits against polluting, coal-fired
power plants and weaken consent decrees reached earlier with coal companies.
That wants to open the Arctic [National] Wildlife Refuge to drilling and
increase drilling in Padre Island National Seashore, the longest stretch of
undeveloped barrier island in the world and the last great coastal wild land in
America.
I read the news just this week and learned how the Environmental Protection
Agency had planned to spend $9 million - $2 million of it from the
administration's friends at the American Chemistry Council - to pay poor
families to continue to use pesticides in their homes. These pesticides have
been linked to neurological damage in children, but instead of ordering an end
to their use, the government and the industry were going to offer the families
$970 each, as well as a camcorder and children's clothing, to serve as guinea
pigs for the study.
I read all this in the news.
I read the news just last night and learned that the administration's friends
at the International Policy Network, which is supported by Exxon Mobil and
others of like mind, have issued a new report that climate change is "a myth,
sea levels are not rising" [and] scientists who believe catastrophe is possible
are "an embarrassment."
I not only read the news but the fine print of the recent appropriations bill
passed by Congress, with the obscure (and obscene) riders attached to
it: a clause removing all endangered species protections from pesticides;
language prohibiting judicial review for a forest in Oregon; a waiver of
environmental review for grazing permits on public lands; a rider pressed by
developers to weaken protection for crucial habitats in California.
I read all this and look up at the pictures on my desk, next to the computer -
pictures of my grandchildren. I see the future looking back at me from those
photographs and I say, "Father, forgive us, for we know not what we do." And
then I am stopped short by the thought: "That's not right. We do know what we
are doing. We are stealing their future. Betraying their trust. Despoiling their
world."
And I ask myself: Why? Is it because we don't care? Because we are greedy?
Because we have lost our capacity for outrage, our ability to sustain
indignation at injustice?
What has happened to our moral imagination?
On the heath Lear asks Gloucester: "How do you see the world?" And Gloucester,
who is blind, answers: "I see it feelingly.'"
I see it feelingly.
The news is not good these days. I can tell you, though, that as a journalist
I know the news is never the end of the story. The news can be the truth that
sets us free - not only to feel but to fight for the future we want. And the
will to fight is the antidote to despair, the cure for cynicism, and the answer
to those faces looking back at me from those photographs on my desk. What we
need is what the ancient Israelites called hochma - the science of the heart ...
the capacity to see, to feel and then to act as if the future depended on you.
Believe me, it does.
-------
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.
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Robert Livingston
Citizen
Username: Rob_livingston
Post Number: 797
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - 12:53 pm: |
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Great piece, Cagey, thanks for posting that.
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Innisowen
Citizen
Username: Innisowen
Post Number: 368
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - 1:50 pm: |
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Scary piece as well. This country has historically been a haven for religious dissenters from other societies. I'm a religious person myself. However, I also have observed at close hand what Moyers so accurately describes, and it frightens me that non-thinking, bible-thumping apocalyptics are having a a hay day running rampant over our political and social systems. The concepts of social justice and care and compassion for the less fortunate have just about been obliterated from the speech and thought of far right wing religionists. Scares the hell out of me, or have I already said that? |
weekends
Citizen
Username: Weekends
Post Number: 47
Registered: 1-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - 1:52 pm: |
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Wow. |
notehead
Supporter
Username: Notehead
Post Number: 1985
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - 1:55 pm: |
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This is genuinely scary stuff. Will some of our right-leaning regulars please confirm that you are not specifically supporting Bush in the hope of hastening the Rapture? |
Ukealalio
Citizen
Username: Ukealalio
Post Number: 1793
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - 3:10 pm: |
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A lot of the right-leaning regulars on this board appear to be Jewish. Wait till W starts spending his political capitol to push his fundamentalist viewpoint, we'll see just how much they love their boy then. |
Bobkat
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 7442
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - 3:33 pm: |
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Actually Soda posted this a few weeks ago in the South Orange thread where it didn't get a lot of play.
During the first campaign back in 1999 I read an article indicating that Bush was very concerned about Jews and his fundementalist view that only Christians can go to heaven. His Mom put him in touch with Reverend Billy Graham who informed him that it would be very presumptious for we mere mortals to try to figure out God's plan. I guess he has changed his views, at least for now. |
Soda
Supporter
Username: Soda
Post Number: 2461
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - 4:24 pm: |
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http://www.southorangevillage.com/cgi-bin/show.cgi?tpc=3133&post=320201#POST3202 01 |
Mustt_mustt
Citizen
Username: Mustt_mustt
Post Number: 249
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - 6:39 pm: |
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Ukealalio - you got it right. |
shoshannah
Citizen
Username: Shoshannah
Post Number: 716
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - 7:41 pm: |
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I recently read that applications by Jews for German passports -- imagine! -- have increased exponentially (Jews with ancestors who had property confiscated in Germany between, I think, 1933 and 1945, are entitled to apply for German citizenship) as a way to gain entry to live and work in the EU. Historically, Jews always want to know where the nearest exit is. I've always had an escape strategy in the back of my mind for a theoretical, hypothetical situation. Not so theoretical anymore. |
Southerner
Citizen
Username: Southerner
Post Number: 75
Registered: 2-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - 8:07 pm: |
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It's funny. You lose a political election and now everyone who doesn't agree with your political views are "non-thinkers". Moyers is entitled to his opinion but that is all it is, his opinion. I agree with some points he made. Out here in red land there sure are a bunch of wackos. But do ya'll really believe that it is a majority view? (Okay, I know, some of you actually do believe this, however, I seriously doubt you rarely leave the confines of the Garden State very often). I might disagree with a lot of liberal ideas but I don't believe for a minute that the far left speaks for the mainstream liberal agenda. Besides, I love the healers and the "end is near" crowd. It makes for interesting tv viewing at 2am. |
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 3063
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - 9:35 pm: |
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And what is "the fundamentalist viewpoint," Uke? |
Chris Prenovost
Citizen
Username: Chris_prenovost
Post Number: 311
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - 9:41 pm: |
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Southerner, you have a wonderful way of making a point.
Well said. |
notehead
Supporter
Username: Notehead
Post Number: 1991
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - 10:19 pm: |
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Southerner, when you said, "I seriously doubt you rarely leave the confines of the Garden State very often" I think I heard Yogi Berra chuckle.  |
CageyD
Citizen
Username: Cageyd
Post Number: 222
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - 10:33 pm: |
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Southerner, the concern isn't that the majority of the population red or blue, agrees with the fundamentalist christians and the pending rapture. The issue is that those in power do agree with the fundamentalists and most of us, concerned or not, are too busy or feel inept to do anything about it. THe people in power will be the ones who make the changes, and we average Joe's busy living our every day lives probably can't stop them. |
Southerner
Citizen
Username: Southerner
Post Number: 76
Registered: 2-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - 9:29 pm: |
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Notey,
You got me man. Hey I'm from a red state so please cut me some slack. We don't much figor on book learning. We could use some more of the blue tax dollars to help us out!
Cagey, your point is well taken but don't be so concerned. Our country isn't a bunch of wackos. If they go to far a change will be made. These guys are politicians and will say anything to any group to get their support. I don't agree with your assessment that those in power do agree with the fundamentalists. Hey, they got to look out for re-election, right. It doesn't surprise me when Boxer and Kennedy say outrageous things either because I know they are pandering to their constituents even though in private their views probably aren't so extreme.
It's just a game and the Republicans are just a little better at it these days. Bush has been President for 4 years now and the Constitution hasn't been torn apart yet. Abortion is still legal, protests are still allowed, etc, etc. I remember during the Clinton years the other side thought the same thing and guess what? He wasn't so bad (although lying in a deposition is never a good idea) in running the country and a lot of the drumbeat pessimists were way over the top. Politics is a game and will ebb and flow from side to side. After eight years of Clinton it was inevitable. If the Dems have any savvy they will find a middle of the road moderate (not from the Northeast) to run in '08 and they will have a good shot after 8 years of a Repub. Congress is another story however as the Repubs seem to have a nice hold of this branch. |
Michael Janay
Citizen
Username: Childprotect
Post Number: 1555
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 12:20 pm: |
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Ha Ha!!!
Turns out that Watt never said this and the Washington post printed a retraction last Friday.
The closest thing he actually said was testifying before the House Interior Committee on Feb. 5, 1981, Watt said that as Secretary, he must be a steward of the nation’s natural resources so that they remain available for those who follow us.
“I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns,” he said. “Whatever it is, we have to manage with a skill to have the resources needed for future generations.”
Moyers, it turns out, reported a internet hoax as fact. |
notehead
Supporter
Username: Notehead
Post Number: 2028
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 1:01 pm: |
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The retraction reads: "A Feb. 6 article quoted James G. Watt, interior secretary under President Ronald Reagan, as telling Congress in 1981: "After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back." Although that statement has been widely attributed to Watt, there is no historical record that he made it."
Somebody dropped the ball, certainly, but it was long before either Moyers or Grist used the bogus quote. Anyway, I hope that Moyers responds to this.
The larger point, however, concerns the prevalence and influence of Christian evangelicals. This is hardly altered by the new information about Watt's speech. |
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 3106
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 1:07 pm: |
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Bill Moyers. We've lost a giant, all right. A giant..... |
lumpynose
Citizen
Username: Lumpyhead
Post Number: 1102
Registered: 3-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 1:16 pm: |
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liar. |
Guy
Supporter
Username: Vandalay
Post Number: 545
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 1:17 pm: |
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Moyers Response:
Moyers' mistake
In a recent speech that I made on religion and the environment ("There is no tomorrow," Jan. 30 Op Ex), I made a mistake in quoting remarks attributed to James Watt, former secretary of interior, by the online journal Grist without confirming them myself.
Because those or similar quotes had also appeared through the years in many other publications -- in the Washington Post and Time, for example, as well as in several books that I consulted in preparing my speech -- I too easily assumed their legitimacy.
Despite their widespread currency, I should have checked their accuracy before using them. Grist and the Washington Post have now published corrections concerning the quote attributed to Watt in 1981.
I talked to Mr. Watt on the phone and expressed my own regret at using a quote that I had not myself confirmed. I also told him that I continue to find his policies as secretary of the interior abysmally at odds with what I, as well as other Christians, understand to be our obligation to be stewards of the earth.
Bill Moyers, New York.
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notehead
Supporter
Username: Notehead
Post Number: 2029
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 1:19 pm: |
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Liar? Lumpy, is that fair?
Thanks, Guy. |
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 3107
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 1:23 pm: |
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After using a quote that was wrong, Moyers takes the time to tell the guy he's against his policies as a Christian.
What class!
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Guy
Supporter
Username: Vandalay
Post Number: 546
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 1:29 pm: |
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CJC, I like Watts reponse better.
James Watt: Moyers' article put false words in my mouth
James Watt
February 10, 2005 WATT0210
A blogger brought to my attention an Op Ex article by Bill Moyers that appeared in the Jan. 30 Star Tribune entitled, "There is no tomorrow."
The third paragraph reads as follows:
"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.' "
I have never thought, believed or said such words. Nor have I ever said anything that could be interpreted by a reasonable person to mean anything similar to the quote attributed to me.
The paragraph does have one true statement about me; I did serve as President Reagan's first secretary of the interior. I am very proud of being associated with such a great president. After 20-plus years of hindsight, I am delighted that the revolution I helped to bring about remains fixed in America.
The Moyers column tells the one truth about me; it also tells us many things about him. First, he did no primary or objective research for the truth, because there is no record, in congressional hearings or elsewhere, of such words attributed to me.
Because Moyers is at least average in intelligence and has a basic understanding of Christian beliefs, he knows that no Christian would believe what he attributed to me.
Because Moyers had the privilege of serving in the White House under President Lyndon Johnson, he knows that no person believing such a thing would be qualified for a presidential appointment or be confirmed by the Senate, nor would he, if confirmed and then saying such a thing, be allowed to continue in service.
Since Moyers must have known such a statement would not have been made, what was his motive in printing such a lie?
Did he want to demean or degrade a man who has been out of the public arena for 22 years? Did he seek to damage the cause of Christ by attributing lies to his followers? Did he want to try to damage the record of President Reagan by repeating such an outrageous claim?
One way out of the mess would be for Moyers to respond by saying, "I did not say you said that; I correctly reported that Grist magazine [or whoever] said you said that."
That is the cowardly way out. It is the sort of response many of the mainstream media gave when I was in the Cabinet and caught a news reporter or anchorman attributing quotes to me that I never made.
Another way to handle this matter, the way many in the mainstream media would handle it, would be to simply ignore the matter and continue on with the same ruthless disregard for the truth.
Or Moyers could simply apologize to me in the same space and with the same flair he used to impugn me; then the public might respect him as the honest man he should want to be. [Moyers' response is in Letters, link on this page.]
The Moyers text was adapted from remarks he made when receiving the Harvard Medical School's Global Environmental Citizen Award. If the school honored him for environmental reporting, and if this example is typical of his reporting, I question its judgment in giving him the award.
James G. Watt was President Reagan's first secretary of the interior.
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lumpynose
Citizen
Username: Lumpyhead
Post Number: 1103
Registered: 3-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 2:24 pm: |
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Guess he believed what he wanted to believe and didn't check the facts, like Dan Rather, so liar would too strong a word. |
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