Having spent the last few days working from home, some of it through a lovely cold-medicine-induced haze, I was feeling positively benevolent toward the world in general. I mean, hey, I may be chock full of phlegmy goodness, but at least I’m sitting in natural light, with trees and plants and a nice warm cat. But somehow I can’t stop thinking about these links that came to me the other day. First off, I like the Village Voice and all, but why are they the only media outlet covering this story? I’m no expert, but the sources seem legitimate enough, if a bit pissed off. Why has nobody else picked this up? Is this common knowledge and I’ve just been in the dark all this time? Do people realize that Bush is snuggling under the proverbial duvet with organizations who break Israeli law (and every ethical code I can think of) by actually bribing poor citizens to convert to Christianity? In case you’re too lazy to click the link, here’s the quote:
The staffer, Kim Hadassah Johnson, wrote in a report obtained by the Voice, “We are establishing the Meet the Need Fund in Israel—’MNFI.’ . . . The fund will be an Interest Free Loan Fund that will enable us to loan funds to new believers (others upon application) who need assistance. They will have the opportunity to repay the loan (although it will not be mandatory).” When that language was read to Moshe Fox, minister for public and interreligious affairs at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, he responded, “It sounds against the law which prohibits any kind of money or material [inducement] to make people convert to another religion. That’s what it sounds like.” (Fox’s judgment was e-mailed to Johnson, who did not return a request for comment.)
And that’s just a teensy-tiny part of it. The article starts off scary and just keeps getting worse and worse. I would have thought this would merit at least another look, but perhaps it’s just me.
As for the other story, to be honest I could almost get behind this idea – I mean, at least we’d know where to avoid, right? But I fear Kos is right and they don’t really have the wherewithal to make it happen. It’s an interesting idea from an electoral perspective, though: is there a possibility that the bible thumping, snake-handling Christian Right, were they to concentrate themselves geographically, could make their votes count more? Wouldn’t their departure from their current states weaken the GOP vote there, at least to some extent balancing out the gain? This is where I show my achilles heel – the finer points of politics are awfully foggy to me. It’s the big picture I tend to look at. And the big picture at this point is pretty damned scary. I’ve said in the past that the war on Terror/Iraq has a goodly dose of religious fervor behind it – inasmuch as we condemn the idea that the western world has been attacked in the name of Islamic beliefs, by our ongoing ignorance of and/or disrespect for those beliefs we perpetuate the same conflict. Only of course it’s OK when we do it, because we’re Christians, and Christians = good guys. Right?
Right?