Endgame Volume I_ The Problem of Civilization - Derrick Jensen [121]
All of this means that to many fundamentalists, the killing of the planet is not something to be avoided but encouraged, hastening as it does the ultimate victory of God over all things earthly, all things evil. Someone once asked Rick Santorum, this government’s third most powerful Senator, why he consistently implements policies that harm the natural world. He replied that the natural world is inconsequential to God’s plan, then referenced the impending rapture: “Nowhere in the Bible does it say that America will be here one hundred years from now.”212 (Now tell me you still believe the problems we face are tractable through reasonable discussion: tell me you believe these people will stop because we ask nicely, or because we make our cases through even the most impeccable logic.)
It’s important to note that one hundred and seventy-eight members of the U.S. House of Representatives and forty-four members of the U.S. Senate are Christian fundamentalists, or are otherwise allied with the Christian right. The President of the United States and former attorney general are self-described fundamentalists. 213 The President of the United States has stated publicly his reason for bombing and invading Afghanistan and Iraq: “God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did.”214 And one of his advisors said, “George W. Bush really does seek information. He’s very curious about the downing of a U.S. spy plane by China, and so he asked a lot of questions. He asked some detailed questions. Several times he asked, ‘Do the members of the crew have Bibles?’ ‘Why don’t they have Bibles?’ ‘Can we get them Bibles?’ ‘Would they like Bibles?’”215
It is quite possible, indeed likely, that the man with his “finger on the button” that could turn all of this planet into a radioactive wasteland (faster, rather than the slower way civilization is currently accomplishing this) could be actively and eagerly—rapturously—putting in place policies aimed at bringing an end to our time on earth, and the arrival of a mythical Prince of Peace.
This is why civilization is killing the world.
WHY CIVILIZATION IS KILLING THE WORLD, PART II
There have been periods of history in which episodes of terrible violence occurred but for which the word violence was never used. . . . Violence is shrouded in justifying myths that lend it moral legitimacy, and these myths for the most part kept people from recognizing the violence for what it was. The people who burned witches at the stake never for one moment thought of their act as violence; rather they thought of it as an act of divinely mandated righteousness. The same can be said of most of the violence we humans have ever committed.
Gil Bailie 216
IT’S NOT JUST THOSE IN POWER WHO ARE INSANE. IT’S THE WHOLE culture. A national poll in 1996—and we see this sort of result all the time—showed that more than 40 percent of Americans believe the world in its present form will end at the battle of Armageddon in Israel between Jesus and the anti-Christ. 217 Presumably the evening’s opening bout will be between the Virgin Mary and the Easter Bunny.
We’re fucked. We’re so fucked.
Not in the good sense of the word.
A reasonable definition of insanity is to have lost one’s connections to physical reality, to consider one’s delusions as being more real than the real world.
WHY CIVILIZATION IS KILLING THE WORLD, TAKE EIGHT. Arrogance.
I have before me an advertisement for the University of California Berkeley Extension. It shows a picture of a man leaning back in his chair, arms folded behind his head, feet on his desk. He wears a white shirt and black tie. I can clearly see the soles of his business shoes. To the left of his shoes an artist has rendered four footprints. On the far left is a bird print. Then a small mammal’s. Then a bear’s. Then leading up to his shoes is a bare human footprint. The caption: “Evolution . . . doesn’t have to take a million years.”
The implication