April 15, 2007

Dear Sis~
I just finished watching two more episodes of the Planet Earth series on the Discovery Channel. The last 2 episodes will air next Sunday night ...
This morning I was flipping through the channels on my little 5" TV, encountering mostly church and TV preacher programs, when I was moderately surprised to find one church program (Dr. Kennedy of the Coral Ridge Baptist Church - it's one of those megachurches rolling in money, with fleets of luxury cars parked out front) doing a "special" which purported to debunk the whole idea of global warming as some kind of liberal plot. The program featured a couple of pseudo-scientists (they has "Dr." in front of their name, but the fine print identified them as doctors of theology) who utilized very conclusionary statements to "prove" that global warming is a myth, or even if it's true, is just a natural cycle and that mankind's activities/pollution are in no way contributing to it. This, of course, is the position of the conservative/Republican Far Right who fight to protect the status quo (i.e., it's OK to continue to pillage and rape the earth, stripping it of its resources). The Wall Street Journal (which I subscribed to for many years) has, for decades, railed against any and all forms of environmentalism and sneers at the idea of global warming (I'm speaking of its editorials here) as a liberal/communist/socialist plot. Anything which even tangentially threatens to check the expansion of big business/industry interests (i.e., rules, regulations, pollution control equipment, restrictions on land use, etc...) are absolute anathema to the Wall Street Journal, even if we're poisoning our planet and obliterating our natural resources. It's always amazed me how the Journal, and the interest it represents/protects, could take such a short-sighted view, and how they equate protecting the planet with a "liberal" political ideology (you'd think that a concept like protecting the planet is politically neutral, neither left nor right, conservative or liberal). Anyway, my point is that as I watched this "church" program, with its lame effort to convince people that global warming is a myth, I found myself wondering why a church/religious program would feel compelled to push this agenda. What is the theological basis for trying to convince viewers that mankind isn't harming the planet? In short, why is this "church business"? The only conclusion I could come to is that this is a very rich, mainstream church and they want to protect the status quo and be in partnership with the same forces who also push this agenda (i.e., right wing, conservative Republicans and "big business"). That is this church's constituency, after all. What blind sheep they are! (Gee, stupid me...I thought the Bible teaches that God wants us to be good stewards of the earth, not kill all the creatures, strip it of its resources and poison the water and land. Guess I'm just a dumb, liberal commie bastard!)...
Christopher Scott Emmett has a June 13, 2007 execution date, and in Virginia that means it's a done deal...
With Love,
Bill