Apocalypse Management

the web is the most fascinating thing. i love the way it mirrors the psychology of our social systems.

today, atrios blogged an article in the washington post and another article in the washington monthly about the people who are running the nation building department in iraq: fresh faced young republicans right out of college. ideologically pure, inexperienced, young republicans who had all submitted their resumes to the heritage foundation were shouldered with the responsibility of managing a multi-billion dollar enterprise in the midst of a quickly deteriorating security situation in the midst of a war zone. just effing beautiful. this war has not only been an election campaign from the start, it has been a hideously managed election campaign.

atrios also blogged an essay by one of these young, fresh-faced reincarnations of alex keaton.

commentor joe briefcase notes that this tract regarding the dangers of eternal hellfire is hosted on the same website. note that the url is 'somebodycares4u' and it has a horribly designed homepage that reeks of christian zealotry. it also hosts an essay that takes a mealy-mouthed non-committal stance on the authenticity of various signs of the end times, at the end of which is a link to an animation of the second coming of christ.

and the final kicker is that there is an essay about how to 'reach muslims.' so, there you have it. at least one of the Inexperienced Fresh-Faced Ideologically Pure Young Republicans charged running with the nation building department of Iraq War, v 2.0 is associated with christian zealots who hint that our troubles in the middle east could be a sign of the end times, but they could also be sign of a great and wonderful flourishing of christian capitalism in the middle east. you sure can't fault these folks for not trying to cover all the bases.

be ready for the end-times, but keep an eye on the big picture, guys! this could also represent a fantastic opportunity to 'reach' the muslims.

yes, this whole endeavor has all the rotten ingredients we suspected it contained: fanatic, religious GOP apparatchiks and the crony capitalists are in cahoots with one another. i don't know that they share all the same goals. i think the whole mess is a loosely organized, badly run coalition of the craziest elements in the republican party. for some reason, there is something in the iraq war that animates their various naive, blind ambitions for glory. there is one goal they all have in common however -- to re-elect george bush. he's another empty canvas for these vastly different elements in the GOP to illustrate their own version of the 'grand plan' for american greatness.