Monday, January 10, 2005

i can't believe i missed this

In following the Al Franken AAR Blog I frequently find lots of informative stuff that the very astute bloggers post over there. Today has been no exception, but I'm amazed that I didn't read this report from the wonderful Truthout alot sooner.

The article dated December 1, 2004, reports Bill Moyers acceptance speech On Receiving Harvard Med's Global Environment Citizen Award and it goes a long way in explaining the frightening mindset of many of the Religious Right.

"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 - 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 Senator 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 Revelation 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 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?' "~~~Bill Moyers

To read the whole thing is a very real, very scary eye-opener..... but I think he's totally got his pulse on the dilemma we currently face. I just haven't been able to understand how we have gotten into such an absurd situation but the power of the fringe media is absolutely not to be underestimated.


Posted by etherealfire :: 3:16 PM :: 0 Comments:

Post / Read Comments

---------------oOo---------------