Gwine Up Ta Hebbin*

If you read just one thing today (besides this, of course), make it this Bill Moyers speech. (A slightly abridged version, without the prefatory remarks, has been making the rounds on the internets. You can check it out here.)

Some truly startling stats here for us American heathens. Over 43% of the members of the 108th United States Congress received 80-100% approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups. The only Democrat to score 100% with these folks was -- wait for it -- Zell Miller, who has long since crossed over from merely being Terry Bradshaw scary-silly, and well into shithouse-rat country.

We've all seen the infamous post-election "Jesusland/United States of Canada" map by now, and had a good laugh. Meanwhile, the publicly pious just keep on plugging away with their agenda, which seems to begin with insisting that the Earth is 6,000 years old and end with lining homosexuals and papists up against the wall. The wall of Christ, that is. To be perforated by holy bullets of Christian love, one presumes.

The problem is manifold, but its thrust mainly takes place on two obvious fronts -- money and politics. Politically, not only have these groups somehow managed to retain their tax status (which should have ended decades ago, anyway; there is absolutely no reason US taxpayers should be compelled to subsidize houses of faith -- any faith), but they've even more perniciously managed to convince significant portions of Americans that the Founding Fathers begat this country with the explicit intent of inculcating the delusional notions of the Rapturists.

This is the classic example of the Big Lie technique -- just keep repeating the same nonsensical bullshit over and over and over again, and eventually most people will be worn down and buy into it, or at least allow it to come in from the intellectual margins, where it belongs. Certainly the Founding Fathers had individual spiritual beliefs. They did not have the same exact beliefs collectively, nor did they intend to have spirituality be such a part of public governmental policy. They -- especially Jefferson and Franklin -- were adamant advocates of the Age of Reason, particularly Scottish Enlightenment philosophers like David Hume and Adam Smith.

(Smith, who is invoked as an article of faith by these right-wing vultures as a free-market mantra, would be mortified to see his name be dragged through the mud by these liars and fools. Anyone who's actually read Wealth of Nations can tell you that while Smith was not exactly Thorstein Veblen, he had nothing but contempt for the breed of predatory capitalists who exist for no other reason than to perpetuate their own useless aristocracy. See "Bush, Prescott".)

So the Founding Fathers did not intend for the United States to be an explicitly Christian nation. This is indisputable by any honest scholarship and research (as opposed to the intellectual cherry-picking these morons and their "intellectual design" cohorts indulge in). Certainly the Western and English legal systems whence came our own are based on a moral code which stems largely from the Judeo-Christian ethos, but this is a far cry from saying that the Ten Commandments must be displayed in every public place (or even that it is the primary basis for our legal and moral codes). The people who started this country knew firsthand the consequences of the tyranny of a particular religious majority. They understood that using logic and reason, and the moral basis of Scottish Enlightment figures like Hume and Smith, would allow the nation to grow to its full potential, rather than merely its fullest Christian potential.

Premillenial dispensationalism is the catchall term for this particular current breed of politically active Rapturist. It was something slapped together in the mid-19th century by a couple of itinerant immigrant preachers, so the Founding Fathers could not even have dreamed of this nonsense. They believe world events conspire as told in the Book of Revelations, that natural disasters are a sign of God's disfavor, that certain geographic areas can bring us closer to the Rapture by dint of war or peace. (Thus, both war in Iraq and peace between Israelis and Palestinians bring us all closer to the rapture moment.)

At the moment of the Rapture, as we all know if we've read our Left Behind books, the righteous are drawn up to Heaven, while the rest of us godless bastards are left here to deal with the aftermath of Tribulation, and ultimately Judgement. The thing with the PD crowd is that their ridiculous beliefs and priorities basically give them carte blanche to trash the enviromental laws as they see fit. After all, between divine providence and imminent rapture, why bother with something as foolish as stewardship of the planet?

I'd really like to see these stupid fucks try to pawn off their bullshit on some poor mother mourning a child who died from chronic asthma, or chemical poisoning, or any other number of enviromental factors that affect a great many poor (they're always poor) children. Apparently Providence doesn't factor into their celestial equation. Or maybe it's part of the Great Plan to let them die gasping for air so folks in Sugar Land can tell themselves they're better than non-believers.

This is what's happening: while the rest of us are going about our lives, and minding our own business, there is a large and growing cadre of wingnuts (and that is exactly what they are) who have more access than you do. They control your life more than you do. They tell the makers of law and the formers of policy what to think. And you're on a need-to-know basis.

We all profess to allow people to believe what they want to, so long as they mind their own business. Take a look -- are these people minding their own damned business, or are they more concerned about yours? So what are you going to do about it?

*For non-Frank Zappa fans, the post title is a phrase FZ liked to use, particularly in the song Dumb All Over. It's basically how an Amos N' Andy character would say "going up to Heaven".