Compared to Shrub, Don Vito's a Freaking Humanist


Consider: Don Corleone refused to kill the men who attacked Bonasera's daughter; later, after Sonny was murdered, he directed there be "no acts of vengeance...This war stops now."

In contrast, here's the boy-emper-ator:

Asked about the Israeli attack...in an interview on Fox's "Your World with Neil Cavuto," Bush said the deaths had added pressure on Israel to stop bombing. But, he said, "stopping for the sake of stopping can be OK, except it won't address the root cause of the problem."

"Yesterday's situation was awful," Bush said. "I understand that, but it's also awful that a million Israelis are worried about rockets being fired from their neighbor to the north."

And here's his statement of "concern" for victims of Qana:

"We mourn the loss of innocent life, both in Lebanon and in Israel."

Yeah, sure you do, you sociopathic freak. More than 50 people are killed in the most horrific way: huddled in a shelter, no doubt scared out of their wits by the deafening, thunderous roar of jets...before finally realizing their worst fears have, in a split second, become all too real. And the best the "leader" of the free world can come up with is a throwaway line.

Your "Christian" commander-in-chief:

The fundamentalists' rejection of science is deeply linked to their apocalyptic vision. Even the relatively sober ID theorists segue easily into Rapture-speak. "Great shakings and darkness are descending on Planet Earth," says the ID philosopher Paul Nelson, "but they will be overshadowed by even more amazing displays of God's power and light. Ever the long-term strategist, YHVH is raising up a mighty army of cutting-edge Jewish End-time warriors." They all condemn the attempt to reform social ills. When applied socially, evolutionary theory "leads straight to all the woes of modern life", says the leading ID ideologue Philip Johnson: homosexuality, state-backed healthcare, divorce, single-parenthood, socialism and abortion. All this, of course, is highly agreeable to the Bush administration, which is itself selectively leery of science. It has, for example, persistently ignored scientists' warnings about global warming. Why bother to implement the Kyoto treaty if the world is about to end? Indeed, some fundamentalists see environmental damage as a positive development, because it will hasten the apocalypse.

This nihilistic religiosity is based on a perversion of the texts. The first chapter of Genesis was never intended as a literal account of the origins of life; it is a myth, a timeless story about the sanctity of the world and everything in it. Revelation was not a detailed programme for the End time; it is written in an apocalyptic genre that has quite a different dynamic. When they described the Jews' return to their homeland, the Hebrew prophets were predicting the end of the Babylonian exile in the sixth century BC - not the second coming of Christ. The prophets did preach a stern message of social justice, however, and like all the major world faiths, Christianity sees charity and loving-kindness as the cardinal virtues. Fundamentalism nearly always distorts the tradition it is trying to defend.

Whatever Bush's personal beliefs, the ideology of the Christian right is both familiar and congenial to him. This strange amalgam of ideas can perhaps throw light on the behaviour of a president, who, it is said, believes that God chose him to lead the world to Rapture, who has little interest in social reform, and whose selective concern for life issues has now inspired him to veto important scientific research. It explains his unconditional and uncritical support for Israel, his willingness to use "Jewish End-time warriors" to fulfil a vision of his own - arguably against Israel's best interests - and to see Syria and Iran (who seem to be replacing Saddam as the "enemy of the north") as entirely responsible for the unfolding tragedy.

Fundamentalists do not want a humanly constructed peace; many, indeed, regard the UN as the abode of Antichrist. The willingness of the US to turn a blind eye to the suffering of innocent people in Lebanon will certainly fuel the rage of the extremists and lead to further acts of terror. We can only hope that it does not take us all the way to Armageddon.

I'll go further than that: Christ, if he showed up tomorrow, would spit in Dubya's face. And yeah, I'd offer good money to see that in person...or even on pay per view. Of course, if Christ DID show up, he'd probably get shipped down to Gitmo on the first available jet and treated as an enemy combatant.