25 Oct
Why the World Hates George W. Bush
In the United States, the general population is about evenly split over
which presidential candidate it supports. When the November 2 election
finally comes, we may have a nail-biter equal to the Bush/Gore 2000
matchup.
Outside the confines of the United State there is no question about which
candidate has stronger support: The citizenry of most
nations strongly favors John Kerry.
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It's not that they view Kerry to be a better person for the job of president. Most of them know very little about
him. The only reason they wish to see a Democratic nominee win is
they have a strong revulsion of George Bush. When asked by pollsters
if their opinion of the US had declined over the first Bush term, the
results were emphatic: 86 percent of Canadians, 73 percent of Britons, 66
percent of Mexicans and 87 percent of South Koreans answered yes.
Some of the comments in forging media sources have been very nasty. A report
for the British paper, The Guardian, went as far as to suggest that it would
be a blessing if Bush were assassinated.
B-bo.com - Luis Alvarez
"The Americans did not have a clear-cut plan. They allied themselves with
local warlords, and in an affront to international law, the US labeled the
Taliban and their supporters as 'enemy combatants,' an euphemism by which
those captured by the American army where denied the basic Geneva Convention
rights afforded to prisoners of war, including the right to public trial and
humane treatment. Instead, those captured were sent to Guantanamo, Cuba,
where they pass their time restrained and getting cooked by the tropical
heat. The world was outraged. America's response? Prop up a weak and
ineffective puppet government and build a humongous oil pipeline."
The Guardian - Charlie Brooker
"Throughout the debate, John Kerry, for his part, looks and sounds a bit
like a haunted tree. But at least he's not a lying, sniggering,
drink-driving, selfish, reckless, ignorant, dangerous, backward, drooling,
twitching, blinking, mouse-faced little cheat. And besides, in a fight
between a tree and a bush, I know who I'd favour. On November 2, the entire
civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod's law dictates
he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for
all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and
unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us.
John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. - where are you now
that we need you?"
Because Rapture Ready is visited by mostly Republican-leaning, conservative
Christians, I'm sure most of you folks are revolted by what the rest of the
world thinks of our President. The requirements for superpower status are
high, but any nation can be a backseat driver.
There doesn't appear to be a logical reason George Bush would garner
such a deep level of dislike among his critics. He is arguably one of the
most moral and decent men ever to have occupied the White House. So far,
there has not been a single intern found under his desk.
Many of the negative comments made about President Bush focus on the
Christian values he promotes. I think Bush's stance on biblical values
is the main reason Satan, the god of this world, has smeared him as a
villain in eyes of the world.
Former Clinton labor secretary, Robert Reich, in an article entitled "Bush's
God," typified some of these anti-Christian views when he complained about
Bush's strategy of reaching out to believers:
"In its eagerness to promote the teaching of creationism in public schools,
encourage school prayer, support anti-sodomy statutes, ban abortions, bar
gay marriage, limit the use of stem cells, reduce access to contraceptives,
and advance the idea of America as a 'Christian nation,' the Bush
administration has done more to politicize religion than any administration
in recent American history."
Many liberal columnists claim US Christian fundamentalists are the
driving force behind Bush's Middle East policy. They view us as a special
interest group that seeks to bring about the tribulation. For the record, I
think the immorality that liberals promote is doing a far greater job of
heralding the end times.
I see no need for all this animosity. I'm sure there is some way we can find
a compromise pleasing to both political camps. Perhaps we could have a
scenario where Bush wins the election, saving America from a Massachusetts
senator who wants to get "sensitive" with the terrorists. Then a few months
down the road, the rapture could take place, and the world could find relief
as men like George W. Bush, John Ashcroft, and Tom DeLay are numbered amongst
those who mysteriously disappear.
"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice
of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall
rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together
with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever
be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words" (1 Thess.
4:16-18).
"Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be
changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the
trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we
shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this
mortal [must] put on immortality" (1 Cor. 15:51-53).
A Personal Visit from Antichrist
Now, I realize the provocative title of this Update article is perhaps a bit over the top. But, this is almost how I felt upon receiving an e-mail last Tuesday evening. Reflecting upon the matter, I’m not really shocked, but for that one brief, not-so-shining moment, I was mesmerized by the content of the message –at least by one small portion of the message.
Few articles I’ve written for this column have evoked the level of response I’ve received from the article I wrote for Monday, October 18 titled “The Morality of War.” Like always, some responses were positive; others were negative, even angry. This response, however, was the first of such a personally invasive nature that I’ve received since beginning the column two 2 years ago.
Again, the critical nature of the writer’s response was rather mundane and without adequate reasoning, in my view. I must say, however, that the writer, a fellow named Robert –sorry Robert, I can’t remember your last name, and I deleted the e-mail, and couldn’t retrieve it when I decided to use it in this article—did bring up one point somewhat unique compared to others I’ve received.
Robert, if I remember correctly, asked a question something like: If I believe Allah to be Satan, then how could I support Bush’s war, because the US is fighting to help people (the Iraqis) who are mostly Islamic. Robert reasoned that we are fighting, thereby, to support Allah.
Nice try, Robert. Your question does show some degree of cleverness. So, maybe designating your e-mail as “mundane” was a bit unfair. I should have said that your e-mail is sophistry, a specious argument against liberating a people who were literally being butchered by one of Allah’s/Satan’s most murder-prolific madmen. As a matter of fact, Saddam is termed “The Butcher of Baghdad,” isn’t he? Or, was so termed before being dragged from his fraidy-hole like the vermin he proved himself to be.
Sorry, I digress…
Robert’s true stroke of brilliance made its impact on me –sort of temporarily stunned me—with one line he put in parentheses.
After he scolded me for supporting, in effect, Bush’s “illegal” war, Robert said: "(and this from a draft dodger, who joined the Air Force three days before being drafted)."
At first, second, and third glance, I thought out loud: “Is he writing about himself, me, or whom?” Then, I realized his writing was pointing at me! He was saying I was a draft dodger because I joined the US Air Force only three days before I was to be drafted. I have no idea what that had to do with the article, and why I shouldn’t support our military action against the Saddam regime, but the revelation that Robert somehow had gotten such personal information–about an event that occurred in my life about 38 years ago this month--made me feel as if maybe Robert is Antichrist himself! A personal visit from the son of perdition –and this side of the tribulation, at that! Amazing!
Robert is right in his intelligence-gathering from 38 years ago. He is right except on one point. I wasn’t, and am not, a draft dodger.
I got my draft notice, being finally out of college. (October of 1966 was, if not the largest call-up month of the Vietnam War era, certainly one of the largest.)
I unashamedly confess I didn’t want to go into combat, into which, it is true, most draftees were sent during that period. I chose to join the Air Force, and it was, indeed, just three days before being drafted. Subsequently, I went into a field that led to a much-needed AFSC that worked at training pilots in the T-38, a high-performance jet fighter-trainer.
I served four full years in that capacity in a job that was pretty much frozen because of the critical nature of the mission. I was honorably discharged in October of 1970. If that makes me a draft dodger, then I’m totally confused about the term. I thought they ran off to Canada or somewhere. Many of those who did so held then, and hold now, to the mindset that says we should just love the Islamic terrorists, like Jesus does, and they would stop sawing off heads and murdering small school-age children by the hundreds in the name of their god, Allah/Satan.
Now! That was extremely cathartic. Now I feel cleansed of my crime.
Sorry, folks, for putting you through that personal matter, but it was to make this one final point. Robert, I’m sure, sat at his computer, looking up my military record from 38 years ago. Do you understand the significance of that?! Both Todd and I received many, many copies of news accounts of the recent announcement of the FDA’s approval of the implantation of computer chips in human beings. One version of the announcement is found in the following exert:
Security Under the Skin
By Sean Coughlan
BBC News Online Magazine
How would you like to have the equivalent of a barcode built into your arm?
It would be convenient. A quick scan could save the need to show passports or ID cards. It would be handier than carrying cash or producing medical records.
And a particularly clever barcode would let people find you if you were lost or abducted.
Would it mean less hassle and more security? Or would it make you feel like a DVD tagged in the supermarket? Or like a criminal being monitored everywhere
you went?
These are the questions being raised by the emergence of microchips that can be implanted in people's arms - with the technology moving from geeky future-gazing to a mainstream proposition.
This week, the United States Food and Drug Administration gave its approval for an implantable chip which can be used for medical purposes.
A microchip the size of a grain of rice can be inserted below the skin - and will carry an individual's medical records which can be read by a scanner.
Todd wrote about this in the October 18 Update, I think. It is a developing technology and application of that technology I’m sure we will address in the future. Antichrist might not have literally visited me Tuesday evening by e-mail, but Robert (whom I now thank for being part of sparking this article) sure brought home the prophetic probability that the man of sin will one day soon be making personal calls on all citizens of the one world he will seek to master.
Again we read the words from John, given him by none other than the Lord Jesus: “And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six” (Rev. 13:16-18).
--Terry
