Reply #16: This is one of the best talks

[jen4clark]

I've read! Thank you Amaryllis!

...It’s not just corporations. It’s not just the drive for profits. It’s not just corporate capitalism. As a matter of fact, certain large sectors of the corporate system are extremely unhappy with this president, like the insurance industry has done a big about face on global warming. Well for rational reasons. (Audience laughter.) Because they don’t want to go bankrupt!

So this is rational self interest at work. You read accounts of the financial get together in Datyl, Switzerland...it’s like a wake there now. They’re just miserable because this guy, this cabal, this movement is destroying the economy. They are on a suicide course. So even though they are infinitely pleasing to many corporate interests, you know, Haliburton and so on, especially their cronies, they are on a suicide course. They had an apocalyptic streak, that cannot be explained in economistic terms. Now people on the left tend to explain everything in economistic terms. It’s always about the money, follow the money. That’s true to a great degree. But it is not enough, because it does not account for the ferocious strain of anti-enlightenment activism that this regime represents. (Audience applause.)

Understand that this is a theocratic movement. It is not just a bunch of corporations, that know better, slyly manipulating the pieties of the masses. That is a leftist fallacy. Because we are talking about the energetic, political participation of a number of extremely right wing billionaires with enormous clout, people like Richard Mellon Scaif, and Howard Ahmanson. These are people who are extraordinarily active and productive on the political front and they make Soros look like a piper. They spent far more money that he does. They spend it on propaganda; they spend it on political issues. Howard Ahmanson is the motive force behind the schism in the Episcopalian Church. He supports the Discovery Institute which is behind the spread of Intelligent Design. So to say there is religion over here and there are corporations over here is a mistake. It’s not that simple because there are points of convergence.

What we have here is a movement intent on turning the United States into a Christian republic. Now they often say that the United States is a Christian republic, then you say to them, "As a matter of fact, it isn’t." Look at say the First Amendment, look at Article 6 which forbids a religious test for office holders, look at everything the framers ever said on the subject. Well they don’t want to hear that so they say, "Well, it’s a Christian republic." Does this sound familiar? "Mr. President, there is no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." "0h yeah? there is too." "Go back and find it." "Oh, wait. Here it is, here it is." See? We think they are lying through their teeth, but please believe me that Cheney still believes there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. If it were only lying, or or if it was only machiavellian manipulation, I promise you we would be better off than we are right now. What we are dealing with is pathological. You tell them, "Hey, there is no evidence for intelligent design," and they say "oh yes there is." They proclaim that there is. There is no evidence that abstainance based sex education does anything except raise pregnancy rates and raise rates of sexually transmitted diseases. They say "Nope...no..." Because it’s faith based...

Long but so worth the read!! And totally worth passing on to everyone you can and encouraging them to pass it on!

btw - If anyone isn't aware, MCM has a blog - it rarely gets comments and he's absolutely brilliant!!

http://markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com/