L.B.: Willful stupidity

Left Behind, pp. 412-414 (a few days late)

Imagine trying to convince yourself that curling and cricket were more popular in the U.S. than baseball and (American) football.

It wouldn't be easy. You'd have to ignore massive evidence to the contrary while also overlooking the lack of any supporting evidence. Every time you walked down the street, you'd have to come up with some explanation or evasion for all those people you saw in baseball caps and football jerseys as well as for all the people you didn't see in licensed apparel for cricket and curling teams. You could never watch Sports Center on ESPN. You could never pick up a newspaper or even walk near a newsstand. But your best efforts to shield yourself from all of that evidence could never be 100-percent effective (or 100-percent unconscious), so you'd also have to concoct increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories about why so many people pretended to follow football and baseball while millions of others apparently disguised their passion for curling and cricket.

That would be a lot of work. It would be difficult to do that much work without it being at least somewhat deliberate. This is the problem with any extensive self-deception -- part of your self is necessarily engaged in the act of deceiving and is therefore aware of and immune to it.

This same kind of deliberate evasion and willing self-deception is what it must take for Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins to be able to persuade themselves of all the strange things they claim to believe about the United Nations.

To summarize what we've previously seen, the authors of Left Behind apparently claim to believe that the U.N. is a kind of global federation, something along the lines of the Federation of Planets in Star Trek. Every member nation is thus subject and subordinate to this higher, larger, more authoritative global body. Ruling over all is the secretary-general -- the king of kings and lord of lords who wields more power and influence than any mere head of state. The secretary-general is thus the precursor to the coming Antichrist and the U.N. is a precursor to his One World Government. (As with much of premillennial dispensationalism, this is an explicit perversion of mainstream eschatology and the "now and not yet" doctrine of the kingdom of God.)

The authors' disproportionate sense of the U.N.'s importance and their utter ignorance of its actual role and function cannot be easy to maintain. How do you convince yourself that a topic is of unrivaled significance while simultaneously preventing yourself from learning anything about it? To maintain their beliefs about the U.N., the authors need to avoid all newspapers, magazines and television. Failing that, they also have to devise theories that would make pretty much everyone who isn't them complicit in a conspiracy of silence masking the supposed "true" nature of the supra-national global authority.

But no matter how intricate or comprehensive such theories are, the authors can never rest. Unreality cannot withstand the ever-present and unavoidable contact with actual reality, so the lie must always be reinforced and reconstructed. It must be exhausting. Consider what happens when Tim LaHaye stumbles across a magazine profile of the current secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon. If he really believes that this man is supreme ruler of the world and not merely a toothless diplomatic figurehead, then it would be irresponsible not to read the article and thereby learn as much as possible about the supposedly Most Powerful Man on Earth. But some part of LaHaye will also realize that such an encounter with reality would be fatal to the beliefs he is struggling to maintain. He knows -- knows -- that he cannot allow himself to read that article if he wants to continue believing the things he wants to continue believing. In other words, he knows -- or at least some part of him knows -- that the things he wants to continue believing are not true.

Whether we call it denial or compartmentalization or cognitive dissonance or willful stupidity, this deliberate self-deception plays a huge role in the authors' view not just of the United Nations, but of the entire world. Left Behind is marked throughout with touches of the overly aggressive sincerity that masks not just unacknowledged doubt, but the unacknowledged knowledge that what they are saying can't be true. This not-quite-successful embrace of contradictions is, for instance, what allows the authors to assert that they are certain the world will come to an end very soon while simultaneously investing their profits in long-term investments and estate planning.

That's a rather long and winding introduction to the passage we're about to examine from LB, but it seemed necessary due to the astonishingly strange and impossible things this passage simply assumes to be true about the United Nations, journalists, pacifists and the entire world.

Nicolae Carpathia is about to announce that he's taking over the world. Buck Wiliams knew this announcement would be happening this very afternoon, but in his new capacity as executive editor of a national newsmagazine he decided that instead of witnessing the event firsthand in Manhattan, he would spend the day hanging out with the staff of his regional Midwest office. But then Buck already knows all about Carpathia's plans and the machinations that allowed him to come to power. In exchange for that inside scoop, he has already promised both Carpathia and Steve Plank that Global Weekly won't report any of it.

Buck camped out in Lucinda Washington's old office, interviewing key people at 20-minute intervals. He also told each about his writing assignment and asked their personal theories of what had happened. ...

More than a week ago (despite its name, GW seems to have the leisurely lead time of a quarterly) Buck was assigned to report on the biggest event in the history of the world. His research so far has consisted of the unsolicited opinions of a doctor in an airport lounge and interviews with two pilots (one chartered, one commercial). Now he is conducting man-on-the-street interviews with his own staff. Buck's idea of reporting doesn't involve shoe-leather or even working the phone. He's working the office intercom. This makes New York Times columnist Tom Friedman's research method -- serendipitous interviews with implausibly quotable cab-drivers -- seem thorough by comparison.

"Near the end of the day," CNN cuts away from Dan Bennett's 24/7 coverage of Chantapalooza at the Western Wall to announce Carpathia's election as Supreme World Leader. Lucinda apparently didn't spring for cable in her newsroom, so Buck invites the staff into her office to watch the report:

"Romanian president Nicolae Carpathia was catapulted into reluctant leadership of the United Nations by a nearly unanimous vote. Carpathia, who insisted on sweeping changes in direction and jurisdiction of the United Nations, in what appeared an effort to gracefully decline the position, became secretary-general here just moments ago."

The apparent "effort to gracefully decline the position" is, of course, a charade. We learned about this earlier when Plank briefed his former colleagues on Carpathia's strategic pose as the humble, reluctant leader. This is a crude attempt to describe a real phenomenon -- such a pose of reluctance is a common tactic employed by some of the least humble, most ambitious political power-seekers. That tactic is rarely as successful in real life as it is here. The authors portray every other diplomat on earth as gullible rubes wholly taken in by Carpathia's clumsy theatrics. Just how gullible becomes clearer when you consider the full extent of those "sweeping changes ... in jurisdiction" that Nicolae made a condition of his "reluctant" acceptance of global sovereignty.

The nameless CNN reporter cuts to an interview with departing secretary-general T'Challa of Wakanda Mwangati Ngumo of Botswana, who seems to indicate that he has remained the leader of that nation throughout his tenure at the U.N.:

"I have long been aware that divided loyalties between my country and the United Nations have made me less effective in each role. I had to choose, and I am first and foremost a Motswana. ..."

Carpathia, likewise, will apparently retain his role as president of Romania while serving as secretary-general. The authors don't see this as noteworthy. They seem to assume that this is standard procedure. One wonders if they believed that Boutros Boutros-Ghali -- secretary-general when this volume was written in 1995 -- was also the Egyptian president (or, as they probably think of that post, "pharaoh").

Then, almost as an afterthought, the CNN reporter turns to Carpathia's oddball list of demands/reforms:

"In only a matter of hours, every request Carpathia had outlined in an early morning press conference was moved as official business, voted upon, and ratified by the body. Within a year the United Nations headquarters will move to New Babylon. The makeup of the Security Council will change to 10 permanent members within the month, and a press conference is expected Monday morning in which Carpathia will introduce several of his personal choices for delegates to that body."

Where to start? The relocation plan is dazzlingly arbitrary. It would've been less strange if Carpathia had instead insisted that the U.N. headquarters be repainted mint green and mauve. ("Well, I'd do the Reichstag bathroom in purples and gold ...")Try to imagine some candidate for president of the United States expressing that he would condescend to grudgingly accept the office, but only on the condition that the capital be relocated from the District of Columbia to the Badlands of South Dakota. The idea is so bizarre that it would be impossible to know how to respond, but surely part of that response would be to ask, "Why there?" No one in LB asks this. The diplomats of the U.N. just cheerfully start packing boxes, apparently eager to leave Manhattan for the exciting environs of an archaeological site in the deserts of Iraq.

Buck and his fellow "journalists" at GW aren't the least bit curious about the hows or whys of this move. Buck already has some idea that Carpathia's sponsors have a financial interest in New Babylon and that this is, in part, a corrupt and blatant real estate development scheme -- but he has, of course, already promised not to report on any of that. His colleagues simply seem to have accepted their role as extras in an End Times novel and thus are comfortable with the authors' notion that the Fulfillment of Prophecy doesn't have to make sense.

The reconstitution of the Security Council would seem like an even bigger deal except that, as we're about to see, Carpathia's remaining condition renders the existence and function of that council irrelevant. As outlandish as both of those "sweeping changes" are, the least plausible part of this passage might actually be the idea that the United Nations was able to act on this entire agenda in a single morning. Arbitrary relocations and global surrender are one thing, but efficiency and unanimity? From the U.N.?

After all of this, the CNN reporter finally gets to his buried lede: The assembled diplomats at the U.N. have, without consultation with their respective governments, begun discussing their unconditional surrender and the elevation of Carpathia to global Caesar:

"There is no guarantee, of course, that even member nations will unanimously go along with the move to destroy 90 percent of their military strength and turn over the remaining 10 percent to the U.N. But several ambassadors expressed their confidence 'in equipping and arming an international peacekeeping body with a thoroughgoing pacifist and committed disarmament activist as its head.'"

The alleged pacifist demands a global monopoly on the use of force -- what's not to trust?

These two sentences may be among the stupidest ever written in the English language. The authors here misuse and misunderstand so many words and concepts -- "pacifist," "nations," "member nations," "the U.N.," "ambassadors," "international," "peacekeeping body" -- that I'm not even sure this counts as the English language.

We'll unpack this astonishingly awful passage at greater length on Friday when we turn to Buck's colleague's response to Carpathia's announcement. That response illustrates an even more dismaying aspect of L&J's deliberate, willful stupidity: Not only have they chosen to pretend to believe many ridiculous and impossible ideas about the United Nations, but they cite these beliefs as support for an even more ridiculous and impossible set of ideas that they have chosen to pretend to believe about the pernicious liberals who don't share their animosity to this imaginary U.N.

Comments

[Sara Willow]

"This not-quite-successful embrace of contradictions is, for instance, what allows the authors to assert that they are certain the world will come to an end very soon while simultaneously investing their profits in long-term investments and estate planning."

Yeah, clearly that's corrupt behaviour if so; but do we know that L & J ARE stashing the profits from these books in such investments? If so, how do we know?

[Black Dog]

Long time lurker and LB Friday reader here...but I had to comment on one thing...later on (Waaay later) in the series, somehow the 90%/10% thing on the weapons gets flipped around. 90% of them get turned over to the United Nations, er, Global Community...and 10% get destroyed. Seriously, they don't even remember what they came up with. Either that, or they hope the readers don't.

[balt]

To merge threads: Cricket Rock, yes or no?

Bradman, about the greatest batsman ever, and
Behind the Bowler's Arm(no YouTube, just text, unfortunately) about watching cricket.

Both by the same guy.

[Tonio]

the authors to assert that they are certain the world will come to an end very soon while simultaneously investing their profits in long-term investments and estate planning.

The Peanuts strip had a storyline in the late 1970s about that contradiction at a summer camp. Peppermint Patty panicked when the camp's preacher told the children that they were in the Last Days. She frantically tried to call her father to warn him, and then Marcie saw a flyer asking for donations to build a new $3 million camp. Peppermint Patty told the camp receptionist, "Never mind - the world may end tomorrow, but I wasn't born yesterday."

[Geds]

Yeah, clearly that's corrupt behaviour if so; but do we know that L & J ARE stashing the profits from these books in such investments? If so, how do we know?

There was a magazine article a few years ago (that I'm sure someone who isn't me might be able to find) with Tim LaHaye. The interviewer directly asked him that question and insinuated he gave no money to charity. His response was (paraphrased), "I give to charity, do you know how much I pay in taxes?"

That bit of misunderstanding civic duty v. willful charitable giving is the start of the answer to your question. I'm sure others can add in a lot more.

[Geds]

Okay, here we go. From a blog entry on the original Newsweek article I mentioned above:

I wake up every morning," he says, "and I see this beautiful place, and that drop-dead gorgeous view of the mountains, and I think, 'This is fantastic.' Because God is faithful." How does he reconcile that with Jesus' injunction to sell all you have and give to the poor? "I can accomplish far more from my present lifestyle and the giving that I do to Christian work," he says. "If I just sold everything and gave it to the poor, I can't see where that would advance the Gospel as much as I'm doing." But wouldn't it advance the poor? "Well," he says, "you know how much I pay in taxes?" To LaHaye, spreading the Good News is far more compassionate than redistributing the wealth.

Wouldn't want to have to give up comfort to actually follow Jesus' teachings, now would we Mr. "Christian" author?

[Geds]

Ah. Crap.

[Chris]

One of the funniest Left Behind... Tuesdays? ever.

[Tonio]

Imagine trying to convince yourself that curling and cricket were more popular in the U.S. than baseball and (American) football.

"Miss Jackson, what did you do with the big file that was on my desk here yesterday? The one marked TOP SECRET about all the nuclear nonsense?"

"Oh yeah, I gave it to that foreign looking gentleman who called in yesterday, sir."

"DO YOU PLAY CRICKET?!!!!!!! You're fired!!"

[Fraser]

Rosina, I live next to a massive air force base that includes several thousand acres of nature preserve and there are developers here who have acknowledged how much they'd like the base to shut down and all the land to go up for grabs. So yeah, I can believe condo-izing the UN building would appeal to lots of people.

[pollywannatheism]

This willful stupidity is classic "doublethink" from 1984. This was the concept whereby you forget something (like that the enemy last week was Eurasia/Afghanastan and this week is Oceana/Iraq) and then you forget that you forgot it. It's alive and well here in America and goes well beyond religion.

[Jon]

Yeah, clearly that's corrupt behaviour if so; but do we know that L & J ARE stashing the profits from these books in such investments?

From LaHaye's Wiccapedia entry:

In 2001 LaHaye gave $4.5 million to Liberty University to build a new student center and School of Prophecy, which opened in January 2002, was named after LaHaye

That's not an investment per se, but it does seem to indicate a certain far-sightedness on his part. What's the point of donating money to build buildings and create schools that aren't going to be around for very long?

[damnedyankee]

Scott ranting about "what liberals REALLY think about the UN" fits in so perfectly in a thread about willful stupidity. It's the perfect illustration, really.

[Vermic]

Do we all see the genius of Fred now? He lets us spend a long weekend debating the dumbest things we've ever read; then, once the subject is all hashed out and we're exhausted, he steps in and hits us with Left Behind excerpts that put all of them to shame. Well played, Mr. Clark; well played indeed.

"But several ambassadors expressed their confidence 'in equipping and arming an international peacekeeping body with a thoroughgoing pacifist and committed disarmament activist as its head.'"

I'm pretty sure that in the real world, disarmament philosophy means something different from "everyone should be disarmed except me". By that logic, Genghis Khan was also a committed disarmament activist.

Also, I want to see the scene where the American UN ambassador comes into the Oval Office and says, "Mr. President, the Secretary-General demands 10% of our weapons!" and the POTUS says "Yes sir, Mr. UN Ambassador!" Which is apparently how L&J think things work.

I think if I were a national leader, I'd obey the letter of the law and saw 10% off the end of each gun, tank, and missile in the country, and mail the useless scrap to Carpathia, C.O.D. Just to be a wiseass.

Within a year the United Nations headquarters will move to New Babylon.

Honestly, in all the post-Rapture chaos, how hard would it have been for L&J to write a scene where New York, or Manhattan, or even just the UN building, gets damaged, providing an actual reason to move the headquarters somewhere else? How hard is that, really?

[Keith]

Regarding the relocation of the UN to Babylon-- this is what's wrong with Fulfillment of Prophecy: it's based on a geopolitcal model that is at least 1800 years out of date.

Sure, back in the late first century when Saint John was gnawing on moldy bread and most likely, tripping badly on ergot, writing acid poetry, the Roman Empire was the top dog and Mesopotamia still wielded some power. Of course, even by then the power center had mostly shifted out of the Near East, to the Mediterranean and was creeping towards greater Europe but some yokel in a Roman prison wasn't really in a place of perspective to notice the steady but gradual Northwesterly drift of power, so we can forgive his ignorance.

But Lehay and Jenkins don't get off so easily. They may be ill-informed but they at least know enough about the history of the last thousand years to know that global influence has changed hands from the Spanish to the French, to the British, to the US. Sure, they may not have noticed back in the nineties what is becoming obvious now: that we're in the process of watching the power center shift once again, this time to China. But come on! Moving the UN is silly. Even in PMD land, you don't get more Godless and Babylonian than New York City (New York City!?! yell the cowboys incredulously, eating salsa). This is just one of the many ludicrous details that must be made because it says so, right here in the Bible. It also says somethign about the Antichrist branding livestock with the mark of the Beast, so, does that mean Nicky of the Mountains will start rustling longhorns, too?

[PurpleGirl]

Fraser -- Real estate developers in NYC would love to get their hands on the UN site for several reasons: It's a large parcel, contiguous from 42nd Street to 49th Street, between First Avenue and the East River. They wouldn't even have to demolish the buildings because they could repurpose them easily -- quite a large number of office buildings have been/are being converted to residential use or hotels. And since the site has security gates, etc., they wouldn't have change any of that.

[mmack]

"Romanian president Nicolae Carpathia was catapulted into reluctant leadership of the United Nations by a nearly unanimous vote.

Uh-oh. Looks like Nicky Sierra Nevada's Anti-Christ Mojo didn't take in EVERYBODY!

What kind of Anti-Christ can he possibly be if he can't pull 100% of the vote? That's worse than Stalin.

[Sara Willow]

What's the point of donating money to build buildings and create schools that aren't going to be around for very long?

Well, quite. And as far as living in luxury goes, per Newsweek (cheers Geds), I think that's buttocks. Fair enough, the labourer is worthy of his hire and all that, so I have no problem in a Christian author getting paid for the books he writes, but over and above a certain amount - however much is needed to live comfortably, say - I think L&J should seriously consider the message they're portraying by amassing riches in their own "storehouses" (per Luke 12:18 onwards). What about compassion for the third world poor who are suffering NOW, for example?

As for paying taxes in full, quite apart from Jesus's "render unto Caesar" instruction, isn't it criminal to NOT pay due taxes in the US?

[Vermic]

Because having the planet-ruling mind-controlling Robert Redford vampire Antichrist win a unanimous vote would have been unrealistic, that's why.

[Sara Willow]

a nearly unanimous vote.

Hmmm... beardy stroke. "I wanna know which one of you mofo's didn't vote for me... cos his ass is MINE"
Wouldn't the Girund pick up on that too?

[Tonio]

this is what's wrong with Fulfillment of Prophecy: it's based on a geopolitcal model that is at least 1800 years out of date.

I can't imagine L&J even caring about the accuracy of geopolitical models. Is the significance of the New Babylon site because the region was allegedly the original Garden of Eden?

[damnedyankee]

I can't imagine L&J even caring about the accuracy of geopolitical models. Is the significance of the New Babylon site because the region was allegedly the original Garden of Eden?

Nah, it's just that Babylon is mentioned in Revelations, and L & J are just so gosh-darned literally literal in their interpretation of Scripture that- ack, *kaff-kaff*

Throats a little dry. 'Scuse me. Anyone else want some grape juice?

[Keith]

Oh, I don't think they care either, Tonio. Babylon was on the checklist, so off the UN goes! To one of the most contentious areas in the world.

Just more proof that they aren't much concerned with cohesive motives, logic, naturalistic character development or anything resembling what we earthlings call good writing.

[Tonio]

Romanian president Nicolae Carpathia was catapulted into reluctant leadership of the United Nations by a nearly unanimous vote.

Maybe the Event missed someone, or else the dissenter was a recent convert. Either possibility seems to go against against L&J's worldview.

I once heard Colman McCarthy talk about Jeannette Rankin, mentioning that Rankin is almost unknown today. I told McCarthy that one of my college professors mentioned Rankin simply to dismiss her as a kook. The professor falsely claimed that Rankin had accused FDR of lying about the Japanese attack. I later found out that her accusation was that Roosevelt deliberately provoked the attack to bring the US into the war with Germany.

[damnedyankee]

What kind of Anti-Christ can he possibly be if he can't pull 100% of the vote? That's worse than Stalin.

Mel Brooks as Nicky: "I didn't get a 'harrumph' out of that guy!"

Harvey Korman as Rosenzweig: "'Harrumph' for the Antichrist!"

Delegate: "Harrumph!"

Mel: "You watch your ass!"

[aunursa]

than New York City (New York City!?! yell the cowboys incredulously, eating salsa).

I often mimic that commercial when a topic involving the Big Apple comes up.

This not-quite-successful embrace of contradictions is, for instance, what allows the authors to assert that they are certain the world will come to an end very soon while simultaneously investing their profits in long-term investments and estate planning.

Actually I think that the authors have indicated that they believe that the world could end at any time, and that the conditions are right for the Rapture to happen. I don't recall any statement in which they indicated a certainty that The End is imminent.

destroy 90 percent of their military strength and turn over the remaining 10 percent to the U.N.

Okay, I can't believe that this didn't occur to me before, but this is, quite possibly, the dumbest idea ever from a purely logistical standpoint.

There is absolutely no chance that this won't result in, say, a tank unit equipped with American M1A3s, German Leopard 2s, British Challengers, and Russion T-80s all at the same time. That's four types of ammunition, four kinds of spare parts, four types of control layouts, four levels of technological incorporation, and, finally, you need diesel for two of those and jet fuel to run an M1 or T-80's turbine engine. Then you run in to the problem that Libya is going to be pulling surplus T-62s and T-55s of Vietnam war vintage out of a desert somewhere, plenty of former American Cold War allies will be turning over thirty- or forty-year-old M60s and M551s.

Okay, so your average international peacekeeping force that has no opposition isn't going to need a lot of armored cavalry units. So let's just take long arms for infantry forces. You're going to get a mish-mash of American M-16s and British L85s that share the NATO cartridge size but nothing else. You're also going to get Russian AK-47s and AKMs, which use the standard Russian cartridge from many, many years ago. You'll get some AK-74s that don't use the same cartridge as, really, anything else.

But then comes the biggest problem: how, exactly do you find the people to actually man the weapons you've now had turned over? You'll end up with, say, Iranian and Israeli or PRC and ROC soldiers in the same units. You'll also end up with highly trained American or British soldiers alongside African militia whose "training" consisted of being told which end of the AK to point at the other guys.

For someone who spent 400 pages obsessing over the tiniest logistical issues, Jenkins really dropped the ball on this one.

[McJulie]

Steve Plank

Every time I see this name I dissolve into fits of giggles.

I suspect that, when it comes to the UN, L&J are simply following on from the well-established John Bircher anti-UN paranoia. How else would you reconcile paranoia about New Rome and one-world government with US-first patriotism?

Because that's the biggest really super obvious thing they have to ignore, is that if you're looking for a New Rome, and you're looking for a likely candidate to institute a one-world government, and you're looking for a nation head to be a plausible Antichrist -- HELLO, United States of America!

(One reason I tend to respect Jack Van Impe as sincere, but crazy, is that he is a premill who *doesn't* give the US a pass as a source of Antichristy behavior.)

In fact, this is the kind of thing that make me wonder how cynical L&J really are. That is, to what extent is their "literary" empire based on sincere (but misguided and hate-filled) beliefs, and to what extent is it based on their knowledge of what the rubes will buy?

[Geds]

That weapons-geekery was me, by the way. Although re-reading it, grammatical errors and broken thought-processes intact, I'm not so sure I should claim it.

[Lauren]

For someone who spent 400 pages obsessing over the tiniest logistical issues, Jenkins really dropped the ball on this one.

Umm, he was only obsessing over logistical details in his own head. Remember all the contortions Buck went through to get to New York just after the Event while Chloe calmly crossed the country with no fuss?

[MikhailBorg]

Okay, I can't believe that this didn't occur to me before, but this is, quite possibly, the dumbest idea ever from a purely logistical standpoint.

And it isn't just manning the weapons. Where are you going to put all those tanks? Who is going to maintain them? Who is going to feed the troops and the maintenance personnel? Who is going to keep track of who is driving what tank today, and when he was last paid, and how much? Who is going to keep track of all these supplies that aren't compatible? Who is going to pay all these people?

I'm not saying this couldn't be done, but I think that the Messiah would be back in charge before the first successful set of training maneuvers had been accomplished.

[PurpleGirl]

Geds -- all errors aside, you make some very good points.

[Marsten]

Yeah, but the American distribution for the movie is being handled entirely by Disney, and all they have is Shang Tsung's soul-sucking ability.

For once in their existence, Disney isn't the problem.

The problem's that Sci-Fi Channel has the current rights to distribution of things based on the Earthsea books in the US. Because they wanted to make that rather dreadful mini-series, remember. So they need to wait for that to finish up first before they can release the Ghibli one.

[Caravelle]

Dahne : Caravelle: Now I'm curious. What's the French expressions?

It's "à la décharge de X" (etymologically it would come from trial vocabulary : the "charge" is the case for the prosecution and the "décharge" is the case for the defense).
That said the differences I perceive between "to X's credit" and "à la décharge de X" are subtle enough that they might be in my own mind.

Something weird's happening to me. Internet at my present place of employment is very restricted, tons of sites are blocked out. Slacktivist isn't, but this weird thing happens where it's not always updated. For instance, I'll be innocently reading Post 1, but when I go to the latest comment on Post 2 suddenly it will forget the last three hours of posts there... even though when I read Post 1 I can see them on the sidebar !
Even stranger, if I then go see Post 3 it (and the sidebar) will be frozen at yet another moment in time. And the moment in time it's frozen at also differs on whether I go to "slacktivist.typepad.com" or "slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist"...
Of course when that happens whatever comments are in the sidebar I won't be able to read, even if there's a configuration where I can see them.

And then three hours later the site will work normally again. Anyone have an idea of what might be going on ? Is there a way to stop it ? (I've already tried clearing firefox's history and cache).

[mmack]

I've figured out why Nicky Sierra Nevada didn't get a unanimous vote confirming his election to Lord Supreme High Poobah In Charge of Everything. One delegate probably said "Y'know, I like his disarmament plan, and I can kinda see moving us to Iraq, but this marking everyone's forehead with a 666 thing, well, I really don't know . . . ."

[Tonio]

For someone who spent 400 pages obsessing over the tiniest logistical issues, Jenkins really dropped the ball on this one.

Maybe he and LaHaye would explain it as Antichrist mojo making all the ammunition fit all the weaponry.

[aunursa]

Wait 'till you see the next point on the list. The UN announces "a seven-year pact between U.N. members and Israel, guaranteeing its borders and promising peace. In exchange Israel will allow the U.N. to selectively franchise the use of" Rosenzweig's miracle-gro formula.

This point implies that UN members whose names are not spelled I-S-R-A-E-L are guaranteed neither recognized national borders nor peace. Presumably all of those other UN members would want to hang onto their weapons to protect themselves.

[rampancy]

For the people confused about Nicky getting a unanimous UN vote - I just assumed Nicky successfully cast Charm Person and everyone in the room failed their Saving Throw.

[baf]

2.) Goro Miyazaki's take on Earthsea ("Gedo Senkei")

Wait. Goro Miyazaki?
Suddenly I'm a lot less excited about this than I was.

[Vermic]

In exchange Israel will allow the U.N. to selectively franchise the use of" Rosenzweig's miracle-gro formula.

And again, I'm thinking that in a world suddenly bereft of all its little mouths to feed, the issue of food supply just doesn't seem as crucial anymore. Psst! LaHaye & Jenkins! Remember that one thing that happened recently? Hint: it's the title of your book.

[aunursa]

Also presumably Israel would want to stash away a few weapons for when the seven year treaty expires.

[Caravelle]

Me : Ok, LaHaye is actually a bit nuttier than I remembered. He actually believes humanity (or at least the sinful, don't-trust-in-God parts of it) yearns for a One World Government

Scott : Don't you? Don't you want 'global' initiatives and supra-national agencies for the environment and other "worthy causes"? Don't you favor ever more centralized government, so we can all have 'unity'? Don't you want global wealth 'redistribution', with those paying unable to leave the program?

Actually I think that's a reasonable point, especially having read Kant's Treatise on Perpetual Peace (or whatever it's name is in English). If you could have a world government that's egalitarian and respectful of the cultures it comprised and democratic and guaranteed human rights and free speech and...

Unfortunately 1) such a Perfect World Government is completely unrealistic, 2) Intrisically I don't think an entity that governs six billion individuals can do it very well, 3) National sovereignety and identity are too entrenched to give it up like that.

Not that it couldn't happen in the very long term (like, Star Trek time seems like a good deadline), but in the short and even the middle term it is entirely unrealistic and I don't think anyone credible advocates it.
What we can have in the short and middle term is a gradual buildup of international organisations and treaties that normalize relationships between countries.

I mean, look at Europe. Time before some kind of large-scale agreement gets considered : a few centuries and tons of bloody wars. Time for that large-scale agreement to be implemented : fifty years and counting. Time before the European Government makes national governments moot : still waiting.
And the European countries are of roughly equivalent power (at least compared to the disparity between the US and Sierra Leone for instance) that are surrounded by huge powers (the US, the Soviet Union in the past and China in the future) so there's good incentive to band together. The whole world doesn't have such an incentive.

Also, the building of the European Union was so everybody going "hey, isn't war a bummer ? I know what, we'll all disarm and give all our weapons to the French/German/English, hold hands and sing 'Kumbaya' !".

McJulie :Because that's the biggest really super obvious thing they have to ignore, is that if you're looking for a New Rome, and you're looking for a likely candidate to institute a one-world government, and you're looking for a nation head to be a plausible Antichrist -- HELLO, United States of America!

That, too. One good reason I see for Obama to become president is to see what the PMDs make of him, 'cause he is sooo Antichrist material !

[Geds]

And it isn't just manning the weapons.

I was thinking of going in to the logistical tail, but decided it was in everybody's best interest if I didn't...

What about compassion for the third world poor who are suffering NOW, for example?

There seem to be two options for that. 1 - don't think about it. 2 - decide that only Jeebus can do something about it and "work" on saving their soul so they have a great afterlife (and I put work in quotes because I'm not sure exactly how Tim LaHaye would actually be converting anybody or if he'd try).

This point implies that UN members whose names are not spelled I-S-R-A-E-L are guaranteed neither recognized national borders nor peace.

Well, it could be the No Israels Club...

[Caravelle]

Wait 'till you see the next point on the list. The UN announces "a seven-year pact between U.N. members and Israel, guaranteeing its borders and promising peace. In exchange Israel will allow the U.N. to selectively franchise the use of" Rosenzweig's miracle-gro formula.

Ah, but Israel isn't a country you see. It's, hum, God's promised land or something. Peopled by God's Chosen People, who nevertheless are destined to go to Hell unless they convert to Christianity, just like everybody else.

Stuff like this makes me think of an interview I heard of a guy talking about pro-Israel PMDs a few years ago. He basically said their attitude was a kind of antisemitism because even though they're pro-Jews, their attitude stems from seeing the Jews not as people but as mythical beings. It's just that they concentrate on the "bring about the Apocalypse" part of the myth instead of the "they killed Jesus and control the world's banks" part.

[aunursa]

That, too. One good reason I see for Obama to become president is to see what the PMDs make of him, 'cause he is sooo Antichrist material !

Well for one thing his rise to power would rival that of ol' Nicky, although not quite as dramatic:
State Senate: 1997-2004
U.S. Senate: 2005-2008
President: 2009-

[Tonio]

their attitude was a kind of antisemitism because even though they're pro-Jews, their attitude stems from seeing the Jews not as people but as mythical beings.

While I agree, that's only part of the story. These are generally the same people who claim that Hollywood, academia, and the media are controlled by cabals of secular Jews who seek to destroy Christianity intellectual and cultural elites.

The whole world doesn't have such an incentive.

That's part of the Gordian Knot that Adrian Veidt sought to unravel.

[Geds]

He basically said their attitude was a kind of antisemitism

Christopher Hedges American Fascists goes in to that very topic. There's an entire chapter built around a pro-Israel rally thing where the PMDs talk about how great Israel is, how the US needs to support it and bring in a bombed-out Tel Aviv bus as an illustration of how horrible the terrorists are. At one point he records a Jew who was there actually saying, "These people don't like Jews," or something to that effect after realizing that they're only using Israel as a pawn in their own bizarre little eschatology, which the Jews won't be allowed to participate in, anyway.

From a cultural standpoint (and I think this came up in the book), PMDism is really not all that different from the Holocaust (not Godwining here...). The Jewish people are simply being used as a political pawn by people who ultimately expect them to disappear. Because even if the PMDs don't send them to Auschwitz, they'll either become good little Christians or burn in Hell, so there isn't really much of a distinction to be made.

[Dan]

One good reason I see for Obama to become president is to see what the PMDs make of him, 'cause he is sooo Antichrist material

Ah, but don't forget this: How many different letters does it take to spell Hillary? Six!!! (I know, "L" is in there twice, but it counts as the same letter.) And how many to spell Rodham? Six!!! And how many to spell Clinton? Six!!! (again, "N" only counts one time, since it's the same letter.) And what do you get if you put Hillary Rodham Clinton together? 666!!!!

I'm just sayin', because nobody else will.

[Dan]

Imagine trying to convince yourself that curling and cricket were more popular in the U.S. than baseball and (American) football.

You know, you could replace that sentence with "Imagine trying to convince yourself that the U.S. staged the whole moon-landing thing in Arizona. . ." Or "Imagine trying to convince yourself that George Bush orchestrated the 9/11 attacks. . ." Or "Imagine trying to convince yourself that the Grammys and Oscars actually reward talent. . ." or "Imagine trying to convince yourself that that cute girl in your Economy 101 class actually digs your mullet. . ."

It's all the same in the end.

[damnedyankee]

"Ronald Wilson Reagan" was an easier sell. Six letters apiece.