Dave in Seattle just sent in this clip from a Naomi Klein piece in the current issue of “Harpers.” As it ties together a few different threads of discussion here at MM.com, I thought that you might enjoy it.
Perhaps part of the reason so many of our elites, both political and corporate, are so sanguine about climate change is that they are confident they will be able to buy their way out of the worst of it. This may also partially explain why so many Bush supporters are Christian end-timers. It’s not just that they need to believe there is an escape hatch from the world they are creating. It’s that the Rapture is a parable for what they are building down here on Earth–a system that invites destruction and disaster, then swoops in with private helicopters and airlifts them and their friends to divine safety.
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2 Comments
The truly intelligent people aren’t complaining about global warming. They’re buying land in cooler climates and picking up mining rights for the areas of Greenland where the permafrost is melting. They won’t just survive as the world warms. They will thrive. God doesn’t reward complainers.
Mark-
I noticed that you did not use the possessive singular form for Harper’s, which got me thinking about how funny that is. Back in Michigan, I remember a lot of businesses were referred to in the possessive singular form – Meijer’s, Ford’s, Kroger’s, Kresge’s, etc. I was surprised years later to find that the signs did not include the s or the apostrophe. I’ve wondered why that is. It acknowledges ownership by an individual rather than a more communal ownership implied by a plural form.
Anyways, there is another Harper’s article from a few years ago that I thought was interesting too. It is about a version of the New Testament that Thomas Jefferson put together. He removed all the miracles and pared it down to his teachings.
“The difference between Jefferson and Hamilton is the difference between a version of Christianity based on Jesus’ life and death and Resurrection, and one based on his teachings. Or to put it another way, it is a difference between where one locates basileia tou theou—the kingdom of God. Is it, as Luke’s gospel says, “in the midst of you” (17:21), or is it, as John’s gospel claimed, a reward saved for the sweet hereafter? To live by Jesus’ teachings would be to live virtuously as stewards of the land; it would be to create an economy based on compassion, cooperation, and conservation; it would be to preserve the Creation as the kingdom of God. Jefferson was proposing a country of countrysides, a pastorale in which we would want to live; Hamilton was giving us a nation of factories from which we would want—perhaps in the end need—to be saved.”
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/Jesus-Without-Miracles1dec05.htm