Re: MSNBC News Link: A Very Mixed Marriage

Tim Jones Wrote:

<The Christian fundamentalist's have ulterior motives  ... precipitate the Apocalypse,

the "Rapture." Considering the failures of capitalist economies, The peak in world oil

production, Bush's neocon war on the world mentality, instability in the Middle East,

the extinction of biological diversity and climate change, the fundy's timing is about

right. Actually they are precipitating planetary destruction by thwarting efforts to

attenuate climate change and other kinds environmental degradation, etc.

See: <http://www.raptureready.com>

These guys and their ilk hugely influence the guys in charge of the most lethal

arsenal on Earth.>

Luke Rondinaro responds: Yes, the “rapture” is part of it, (and perhaps a big part of it), but there’s more. The alliance with Israel and the Zionists exists also because of a “West [‘Jewish’ Israel and ‘Christian’ America] against the rest” mentality (ala Samuel Huntington) emergent in many neoconservative, internationalist circles. At the heart of this mentality is the idea that the human social condition is based in conflicts [“Our” “West” versus “Their” “East”, versus the Muslims, versus the seculars, & so forth]. And, through the Zionist-fundamentalist alliance, these people believe they have a bloc from which they can hold their own and fight for their specific ideological and material interests against the rest of the world.

The current policy ideals of neoconservatives seem, however, to focus on prematurely starting and exploding such conflicts before they can get bigger and become more destructive. The idea is to exercise all this conflict “Clash of Civilizations” out of the world’s system in order to bring about an American-led “New World Order” and Fukuyama’s “End of History.”

Not surprisingly though, some of these secular, neocon political ideals clash with the religious ideals of other neoconservatives of a Christian fundamentalist and right-wing Jewish persuasion. Thus, the Bush aim of stabilizing the Middle East (after exploding its conflicts in war), via the “Roadmap”, lies in direct conflict with the ideological interests of religious groups that believe the conflict must continue until either Armageddon comes or they wipe out their enemies from being any sort of a “threat” to them and their interests.

So, the mentality of “conflict” may be very important here; maybe even more important than any of the rapture rhetoric being given. Yet, Alan Spector is also correct. Political-economic motives are also at the center of such an alliance; and so we are faced with a very systemic picture of the factors behind the neocon alliance of Zionists and fundamentalists.

We are faced with a strange picture here as to the causes of this alliance w/I the neoconservative movement and its modus operandi. Analyzing the matter, it is like mixing the dynamism of Anderson’s Imagined Communities up with the specific materialist explanations of motive inherent in World Systems (...) and Longwaves Analysis (via business, finance, and investment); very intellectually interesting in the theoretical sense, but at the same time confusing if you try to pin down a proximate cause.

In any event, neither a soley economic-political or ideological-psychological explanation will do. All these factors play a role. (Luke R.)

Luke Rondinaro,

Group Facilitator, The Consilience Projects

www.topica.com/lists/consiliencep