I always knew this was coming, and it will get worse. This country never got over slavery and the myth of the West with its guns and frontier justice. The Tea Party people are no better than the Klu Klux Klan and the Southerners who lynched black men and attacked the black children trying to enter all white schools. Except now the Southerners have become us. Racism and religious fundamentalism are a dangerous mixture.
Religion itself is a dangerous phenomenon, as evidenced over history by the witch drownings, the Inquisition tortures, and now the Catholic priests raping little boys. And the combination is many times more lethal.
Now the crazies and their multinational company friends and benefactors are in political power, and have essentially taken over our military as shown by the influence of the evangelicals in places like our Air Force Academy.
But perhaps the most dangerous aspect is the fact that the crazies refuse to believe science except when it provides them with better weapons of mass destruction. This could be either true ignorance or, worse, an intentional deception in order to maintain power and achieve short term benefits, but it is likely a combination of both factors. But this does not matter since the problems of political and ideological violence, and worst of all, the coming world-wide disaster of climate change will affect everyone, even the crazies' families and children. Racism, violence and religious fundamentalism will matter little when coastal cities around the world and even entire countries and are flooded, when millions of displaced Bangladesh start a forced migration to find refuge, when millions of Mexicans unable to find food due to the drought enter the United States only to find that it cannot even provide food for its own people and that its entire financial system is collapsing and martial law has been imposed. Countries that have nuclear weapons will begin to use them out of fright and impotence.
I fear for the future and see no cause for optimism. The die has been cast.
Religion itself is a dangerous phenomenon, as evidenced over history by the witch drownings, the Inquisition tortures, and now the Catholic priests raping little boys. And the combination is many times more lethal.
Now the crazies and their multinational company friends and benefactors are in political power, and have essentially taken over our military as shown by the influence of the evangelicals in places like our Air Force Academy.
But perhaps the most dangerous aspect is the fact that the crazies refuse to believe science except when it provides them with better weapons of mass destruction. This could be either true ignorance or, worse, an intentional deception in order to maintain power and achieve short term benefits, but it is likely a combination of both factors. But this does not matter since the problems of political and ideological violence, and worst of all, the coming world-wide disaster of climate change will affect everyone, even the crazies' families and children. Racism, violence and religious fundamentalism will matter little when coastal cities around the world and even entire countries and are flooded, when millions of displaced Bangladesh start a forced migration to find refuge, when millions of Mexicans unable to find food due to the drought enter the United States only to find that it cannot even provide food for its own people and that its entire financial system is collapsing and martial law has been imposed. Countries that have nuclear weapons will begin to use them out of fright and impotence.
I fear for the future and see no cause for optimism. The die has been cast.
