Quote:
Originally posted by Mr. Deltoid
ErricZ you aright about those NUTTY NEOCONS.James Watt under Reagan made a comment about nature conservation being "useless" because Jesus will return soon!!I will try to find the exact quote and post it later.This Jesus and Allah business may be funny in this situation, thanks to the holy roller who made the first post,but folks we have MENTALLY ILL people running the show in D.C.They are hell bent on creating an enviroment favorable for there "Armageddon".And they are doing a pretty good job at the moment.If it happens will it be God?Doubtful.Just a bunch of sheeple led to the slaughter by the fundamentalist fanatics-Christians AND Muslims:(
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That so-called quote never happened. Bill Moyers just wrote an Op-Ed piece in the Minneapolis Start-Tribune using that same quote as the centerpiece for his argument saying pretty much the same thing you just did. He got shot down by none other than Jim Watt himself in a responsive Op-Ed piece. Sheepishly sandwiched in the Letters to the Editor section on the facing page from Watt's reply piece was Moyer's retraction, apology and feeble attempt to explain how he used a fake quote.
Turns out some marginal left-wing book wrote the quote as a fact back in the 80s. Web sites have quoted the book saying Watt said it as though they were saying Watt said it (get the distinction? The web sites don't say Watt said the quote, they report that a book says that Watt said the quote). Moyers picked up the quote from "The Grist" web site, which more recently has issued its own retraction and apology for conveying a made-up quote.
Watt took great shots at Moyers for using the false quote as a basis for making his point. He said that Moyers is a former LBJ presidential assistant and should know that no presidential aid who holds thoughts like that, let alone says them publicly is fit to hold his position. And to accuse Watt of saying such bizarre things without doing his own fact checking is at best careless, at worst suggests an intent to deceive. LBJ would never lie to get his way, would he? Never! A loyal acolyte such as Moyers wouldn't fall far from the tree, would he?
Oh, and Neocon is a term correctly used to describe the Wolfowitz wing of the Bush administration that urges overtrow of dictatorships so they can be replaced with friendly governements. It is not an accurate term to describe run of the mill conservatives like Watt. He was, after all, strickly involved with domestic politics. By definition neocon refers to a particular view of foreign policy.
Historically, the neocon idea of replacing unfriendly dictatorships with friendly democracies dates back to the immediate post-war era and at least Ike's administration. The neocon philosphy includes Kennedy and his missile gap and wars of liberation. It certainly includes Johnson's war in Vietnam. I say this with no irony. Historians remember the liberal intentions that got us into Vietnam and wonder how the same philosphy is now considered out of the mainstream on to the right a mere 40 years later.
What was the original thread about? I forgot. I just wanted to point out that Watt's supposed quote, being bandied about to prove the proposition that crazy right wing fundamentalist Christians ran our government and couldn't wait to bring an end to the earth so the appocolyps is as incorect as the premis behind the argument. Real Christians know that the earth and all life on it (including our own) is given to us in trust to take care of and cherish as the gift it was meant to be.
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