stop the rain

Politics. Is there a place where we collectively send rich and talented, or somewhat talented people when they have nothing left? Its hard not to acknowledge. After all, there must be something of the imminently cruel, somewhat voyeuristic attitude embedded in the modern psyche since we continue to witness the experience of the humiliation of others and there metaphorical death. At some point, we are haunted by ourselves which gives rise to creating the circumstances for this death. Perhaps we are the haunted people that create the situation of the suicidal and provide all the apparatus for enacting this drama. Anything for a vote.

Read More:http://www.pophistorydig.com/?tag=vanity-fair-1930s-politics

Christopher Hitchens:After a protracted arid interval, the state’s immodest governor, Rick Perry, announced that he was using the authority vested in him to call for prayers for rain. These incantations and beseechments, carrying the imprimatur of government, were duly offered to the heavens. The heavens responded by remaining, along with the parched lands below, obstinately dry….

---In 2006 he said that he believed the Bible to be inerrant. He also said that those who did not accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior would be going to hell. Pressed a little on the sheer wickedness and stupidity of that last claim, the governor did allow that he himself wasn't omniscient enough to be sure on such doctrinal matters. He tells us that he is a "firm believer" in the "intelligent design" formulation that is creationism's latest rhetorical disguise, adding that the "design" could be biblical or could have involved something more complex, but is attributable to the same divine author in any event--- Read More:http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2011/08/rick_perrys_god.html

…Perry did not, of course, suffer politically for making an idiot of himself in this way. Not even the true believers really expect that prayers for precipitation will be answered, or believe that a failed rainmaker is a false prophet. And, had Perry’s entreaties actually been followed by a moistening of the clouds and the coming of the healing showers, it is unlikely that anybody would really have claimed a connection between post hoc and propter hoc. No, religion in politics is more like an insurance policy than a true act of faith….

…He has enough chops as a vote-getter and—whatever you think of the Texas “economic miracle”—as a “job-creator,” that even his decision to outbid all comers on questions of the sacred and the profane can be made to seem like the action of a rational calculator….

---Well, you know, every single one of the Republican candidates—maybe not Huntsman, but every major one—is a climate change denier. It’s kind of ironic in the case of Perry. He says there’s no global warming, while Texas is burning up with the highest temperatures on record, fire all over the place, and so on. But it doesn’t matter, it’s just not happening. In fact, the one who has conceded that maybe global warming has taken place is Michele Bachmann. I heard a statement of hers in which she said, "Well, yes, maybe it’s happening. It’s God’s punishment for allowing gay marriage," or some comment like that. I mean, this—what’s going on there is just off the international spectrum of sane behavior.---Read More:http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/19/noam_chomsky_2012_gop_candidates_views image:http://www.thefancarpet.com/ActorGalleryPicture.aspx?mga_id=41179&a_id=220

It seems we manhandle the political figures so as not to be suspected of feminine inclinations. To this end, no shreds of tender feeling are to be permitted. All these candidates are a kind of self-portrait representing unresolved relationships, mental disturbance and the grotesque psyche of our other. They function as a double for the electorate; the ugliness of unexpressed guilt that we view, as well as an ugliness of desire, a twisted idealization which is why as figures there is a primal impulse to mutilate them, and why, in turn, we feel somewhat mutilated and ugly, even degraded, when we see them. We cannot help but take them seriously, ultimately, as self representation.

---Read More:http://www.pophistorydig.com/?tag=vanity-fair-1930s-politics

…And this is what one always wants to know about candidates who flourish the Good Book or who presume to talk about hell and damnation. Do they, themselves, in their heart of hearts, truly believe it? Is there any evidence, if it comes to that, that Perry has ever studied the theory of evolution for long enough to be able to state roughly what it says? And how much textual and hermeneutic work did he do before deciding on the “inerrancy” of Jewish and Christian scripture? It should, of course, be the sincere believers and devout faithful who ask him, and themselves, these questions. But somehow, it never is. The risks of hypocrisy seem forever invisible to the politicized Christians, for whom sufficient proof of faith consists of loud and unambiguous declarations. I am always surprised that more is not heard from sincere religious believers, who have the most to lose if faith becomes a matter of poll-time dogma and lung power.