The shockwaves of the November elections are still reverberating in the Pantheon of the left. The latest coping strategy is apparently to demonize the "religious right" in an attempt to show America the dangerous fanaticism she is embracing.
Bill Moyers did his best in an acceptance speech for the Global Environment Citizen Award. He laments:
One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a world view despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.
We poor blind Christians, clinging to unprovable premises that contradict reality. But it gets better:
In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index. That's right the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the left-behind series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious right warrior, Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.
Anyone who calls himself Christian, must necessarily believe in the rapture, which makes him unfit for political service, and pre-disposed to destroy the environment in order to bring on the eschaton. What is the solution to this mess we find ourselves in?
The news is not good these days. I can tell you, though, that as a journalist I know the news is never the end of the story. The news can be the truth that sets us free not only to feel but to fight for the future we want. And the will to fight is the antidote to despair, the cure for cynicism, and the answer to those faces looking back at me from those photographs on my desk. What we need to match the science of human health is what the ancient Israelites called "hochma" the science of the heart ... the capacity to see ... to feel ... and then to act ... as if the future depended on you.
Now who is clinging to unprovable premises? Enter the journalist-king. The only one fit to rule in these difficult times. Listen to the news, and the news will set you free. Never mind the fact this contradicts the leftist complaint that the conservatives have a stranglehold on the news media now.
Poor Bill. it must be tough feeling left behind in this changing political landscape.