You can say this more than once:
It’s awkward to say openly, but now-departed President Bush is a religious crackpot, an ex-drunk of small intellect who “got saved.” He never should have been entrusted with the power to start wars.
How much of a crackpot? It reads like an article from the Onion.
Now out of office, [Jacques] Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”
This bizarre episode occurred while the White House was assembling its “coalition of the willing” to unleash the Iraq invasion. Chirac says he was boggled by Bush’s call and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.”
After the 2003 call, the puzzled French leader didn’t comply with Bush’s request. Instead, his staff asked Thomas Romer, a theologian at the University of Lausanne, to analyze the weird appeal. Dr. Romer explained that the Old Testament book of Ezekiel contains two chapters (38 and 39) in which God rages against Gog and Magog, sinister and mysterious forces menacing Israel. Jehovah vows to smite them savagely, to “turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,” and slaughter them ruthlessly. In the New Testament, the mystical book of Revelation envisions Gog and Magog gathering nations for battle, “and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”
Now I understand those biblically-laden intelligence reports that Donald Rumsfeld gave to Bush. Remember them?
A March 31, 2003 brief cover-sheet depicted a U.S. tank roaring through the desert with a biblical quote from Ephesians: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”
An April 7, 2003 cover sheet depicted an image of Saddam Hussein under a quote from the First Epistle of Peter: “It is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.”
An April 10, 2003 brief showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down, an Iraqi child kissing an American soldier and jubilant Iraqi crowds with a quote from the book of Psalms: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him … To deliver their soul from death.”
I wonder if the warmongers knew how mentally deficient George Bush was before they recruited him to run for president. It’s a wonder we all survived. Of course, a large number of people didn’t.
Can we please recognize that contrafactual beliefs, religious or otherwise, are delusions and as such, their adherents are unfit for public office, however much they ought to be eligible for single-payer psychiatric care?
It’s not like this is the first time we’ve had one of them with his finger on the button, either. Eventually, one of them is going to push it if we keep allowing psychopaths in the Oval Office. Tolerance for pious delusions was dangerous enough in the past when there was a limit to how much damage they could do. No such limits exist today. It’s time to put “people of faith” in the Diagnostic Standard Manual and take them off of the ballot.
“Chirac says he was boggled by Bush’s call and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.”…
I wonder if the warmongers knew how mentally deficient George Bush was before they recruited him to run for president.
Hell, this stuff of Bush is really nothing more than standard Christian fundamentalist dogma. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that Bush is some wacky outlier of this group. His views are no different than those you will hear espoused from the pulpits of thousands of churches every week and which will fall on the ears of tens of millions of “believers”, just like Bush. It is representative of those from the inner sanctums of political power like those of “The Family”, the Southern Baptist Convention and most other churches who believe in “the born again” experience.
That is why this stuff is so very dangerous. And you can bet that it is playing a very large role in much of the opposition that we are seeing today on all fronts against much of what it trying to be accomplished in Washington.
If anyone thought that these people drifted into oblivion with the fading of Falwell’s Moral Majority, then they are really fooling themselves.
There are a hell of a lot more George Bush’s running around this country in the fundamentalist circle. And they are just waiting for their opportunity to put their version of God’s Stamp of Approval on their work for his kingdom (or their vision of it, anyway). And you can bet in virtually every one of their minds that the liberals, progressives and Democrats are in the camp of Satan.
This item should be much more widely circulated. Someone as certain of God’s wishes committed mayhem at a Pittsburgh gym yesterday. Same problem, same result.
Well, of course. People who believe in a “higher law” cannot be trusted to uphold the laws of men.
I just sent it off to http:richarddawkins.net, hopefully they’ll pick it up and help spread the word.
I thought he just couldn’t get laid. That was God’s will too?
It should if it doesn’t blow up on us. I wish there was some attribution other than the humanist mag. Anybody know the original source?
.
Savoir!
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Guess this quote from Second Corinthians, chapter 6 wasn’t so popular with these jerks:
The world population is about at 90000 percent of a sustainabible level(perchance I left off a zero or two).
All we can so now is put off the die-off a generation or so.
Of course they knew – it made him more maleable. And Cheney (and Rumsfeld) also knew just how to manipulate Bush – though in the end he rebelled and didn’t pardon Libby. Wondering if he rebelled in other ways. Also wonder if the same warmongers were behind the McCain candidacy.
Assuming the Democrats in Congress had had the same success, a McCain presidency would have been very interesting. Aside from the foreign policy of course.
McCain would have been forced to adopt a very moderate agenda to get anything done at all. With only 40 senators, he couldn’t do anything but veto, veto, veto. It might have actually been healthy in certain ways because the Republicans would have been forced to beg and plead with a rather large bloc of centrist Democrats, and that would have changed their behavior in a good way.
interesting – and maybe kept the republicans from falling into their current craziness. I’m driving across country and when I start to get sleepy listen to right wing radio which ordinarily I never hear. Michael Savage, some Rush yesterday. they are blaming Bush and entities like WSJ even more than they blame Obama and us dems (they say Obama is just carrying out a program but Bush began this program). Facts are few and far between as far as I can tell (did you know that McCain released all his school- kindergarten through college- and medical records? in addition to his birth certificate evidently)
I can’t say I’m surprised. Bush was a creature of the imperialist faction; he didn’t offer much to either the religious loons or the fiscal conservatives except grief. Given the choice between dropping bombs on heathen brown people on the one hand, and cutting taxes and enforcing school prayer on the other, the bulk of the Republican base would — granted, somewhat reluctantly — choose the latter.
Also wonder if the same warmongers were behind the McCain candidacy.
You do realize that Bill “William the Bloody” Kristol and the boys(PNAC) were all McCain supporters in 2000, right? They only switched to Dubya once he secured the nomination.
I never could figure out McCain’s motivation for running and speculated that his “owners” – whether that’s Cindy or PNAC I don’t know – made him run. Does seem to have recovered his health now. weird.
I’m not fan of Bush, but I don’t believe this. We’re told Chirac confirmed it, but there’s no quote; just one person referencing another person who wrote a book with the title, “If you repeat this I will deny it.” Consider the title of the book. . .
If Chirac or someone a journalist with a solid reputation quoting Chirac confirms this, then I’ll believe it. But until then, this doesn’t pass the smell test. Even if, for the sake of argument, we assume Bush was a believer in fundamentalist prophecy, would he really use it to try to persuade Chirac? It just doesn’t make sense.
.
Un petit scoop sur Bush, Chirac, Dieu, Gog et Magog
By Jacques Sterchi
Rue89 in partnership with La Libert , Fribourg
Monday 17 September 2007
In 2003, University of Lausanne theology professor Thomas Römer received a telephone call from the Elysée. Jacques Chirac’s advisers wanted to know more about Gog and Magog … two mysterious names pronounced by George W. Bush while he was attempting to convince France to enter the war in Iraq at his side. In its September edition, the University of Lausanne’s review, Allez savoir, reveals this story that could seem fantastic did it not, as Allez savoir’s Editor-in-Chief Jocelyn Rochat emphasizes, reveal the religious underpinnings of Bush’s policy …
Allezz savoir"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Well done Oui – as always you are the Google-maestro!
Why are Bush’s true beliefs so hushed up? Did his advisors tell him that publicly proclaiming his deeply held beliefs about Gog and Magog would look a little too “kooky”? Did they tell him that it looked bad to base important historical decisions on mumbo-jumbo?
Bush didn’t have the courage of his convictions, or the confidence to tell the world the fundamental reasons for his most important decisions and actions.
Or maybe he knew that the Gog and Magog story was complete anachronistic hogwash, and he was only playing at being a man of faith. If Bush can’t or won’t stand behind his beliefs, what kind of a man is he?
If his stated philosophy is commonly misrepresented, and his real motives are always hidden, why does he deserve any credibility at all?
.
Bush a new-born christian
Blair converts to catholicism
Prince and Bremer convert to catholicism
…
even stranger
Tony Blair about public discussion of religion:
“You talk about it and, frankly, people do think you’re a nutter.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I used to think this – that Bush put on a good sheen of being a fundie but really figured they were all rubes and just used it for political gain.
But that was before stories like this one started to trickle out. If that was the case, Bush wouldn’t have been so open about it with people who were non-believers. If that was the case, Rumsfeld wouldn’t have bothered putting all of the Christian prophecy garbage into his reports to the White House.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that pre-9/11 Bush mostly didn’t think too much about it and post-9/11 he decided it was capital-T Truth and needed to do something about it. That would fit with what we know of his character (or lack thereof) – after all the actual “official” story was that he was pushed into fundie land to get control of his alcoholism (his parents were freaking Episcopalians for crying out loud). Not exactly a healthy way for one to “find religion”.
Evangelicals of Bush’s sort believe that they are answerable to a higher law that gives them a pass on ordinary morals, to say nothing of mere secular law. When people like him say they talk to God, they mean it. Having a direct line to God, the rules in the Bible are no longer necessary.
They keep quiet about it not because they’re trying to fool the rubes, but because the rubes wouldn’t understand the elevated position of living sainthood from which they believe they are operating. From this, you get apocalyptic politicians like Bush and “stealth Christianity” subversives like Rick Warren who — it should be noted — apparently has no small influence on our current Christian president. Hillary Clinton is also apparently on their side of the fence, albeit from a rather more elitist Calvinist angle.
Calvinism, incidentally, is on the rise again, with the usual dangerous notions that are tailor-made for tyranny: a belief in the predestination of a very small elect and the irrelevance of the deeds of that elect. I’d argue that they’re much more dangerous than your garden-variety Southern Baptist because they tend to be better educated, wealthier, and more circumspect. They may incite SBC mobs, but you will not see them holding signs with the slack-jawed yokels on the evening news.
Let’s see we have Gog and Magog and Bush I and Bush II. Seems like a pretty good formula for world devastation.
I am almost finished reading Keven Phillips- American Dynasty.
He has a lot about the fundie bit with Bush.
I don’t think that Bush believes anything. I think he latched onto religion to get him out of the drunk scrapes and after 9/11 he had to rally the Right.
Bush is shallow. He is a narcissist and stupid.
Whatever got him what he wanted is what worked for him.
I think that the Iraq War had more to do with competing with Daddy.
The word Crusade that Bush used has always alarmed the sensible.
Bush has always been a failure. He was always cruel. He used the power he had to torture and kill.
The msm has a lot to answer for.
The msm has absolutely nothing to answer for. It’s served the interests of its owners exceptionally well & continues to do so. It’s a tool of power — as was Bush, as is Rush.
Ignorance is bliss. Power loves it.
just a quick note to point out that his supporters are mentally deficient as well.
for one thing, they don’t have foresight. i realize i keep flogging this, but it’s a really dangerous cognitive deficit. they can’t plan ahead, and like the psychopaths they are, they leave their mess for others to clean up.
they didn’t know he was mentally deficient because they are mentally deficient in the same way.
You guys are merely scraping the surface of the weirdness surrounding Bu$hCo. I didn’t credit half the stories I read years ago because they were so sensational and strange. These days I realize that when it comes to secret societies and religious beliefs there is no end in sight.
Sarah Palin might be an easier case in point : just go to the Wikipedia article on Dominionism.
Bush, though, is even stranger…and at first blush that would seem a stretch. Instead it rivals anything from accounts of David Berkowitz and the Boston Strangler : though both are tied to assassination and Satanism.
If I really wanted to lay it out it would be tough to know where to start – though YouTube is a phenomenal resource, as is Wikipedia. Suffice it to say that the Ron Paul brigade and their revelations about Bonesmen and all those progressive posts have a wild background information trail including Illuminati, Council for Foreign Relations, Bilderbergers and more.
I used to be bemused at Salon Esoterica/Invisible Opportunity on WordPress, which would link to David Icke and Hong Pong.
Nepmak2000 at My.Opera and Dad2059 on WordPress have links to blow your mind.
And there’s my cache, of course, even though I’m in the process of moving.
http://my.opera.com/oldephartte/blog is moving content to http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com
The strangest stuff isn’t all under Science Fiction : Not ‘P.C. ‘ is just as odd. Then again…there’s ‘Overton Window and Perception Alteration’.
Not all this stuff just jumps out at you at first on Search.My index on Del.icio.us is a jumping off point into stuff that makes me look tame.
From Opit Online – a list of where I’ve posted –
http://delicious.com/OPIT