Mother Jones:Does Michele Bachmann Think the Apocalypse is Imminent?

[RandySF]

Bachmann's support for Israel isn't simply an embrace of an ally in a historically volatile region; it's rooted in biblical prophecy. As Bachmann explained in a 2010 speech, she believes that if the United States turns its back on Israel, "a curse" will be placed on the land. As proof, she cited Genesis 12:3, in which God says to Abraham, "The one who curses you I will curse." It was an uncommonly explicit blurring of policy and theology from a prominent politician—but for Bachmann, who's expected to formally enter the presidential race in the coming weeks, it was hardly an isolated incident.

Over the last decade, Bachmann has enjoyed an on-again off-again relationship with Olive Tree Ministries, an evangelical Christian organization dedicated to "interpreting current events from a Biblical perspective." Bachmann has appeared on Understanding the Times, the radio program hosted by Olive Tree's founder Jan Markell, at least half a dozen times, discussing topics like gay marriage, the war on terror, and biblical prophecy. As she told Markell in 2004, "We're seeing the fulfillment of the Book of Judges here in our own time, where every man is doing that which is right in his own eyes—in other words, anarchy."

In an appearance on the show in 2009, Bachmann railed against a Department of Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism, originally commissioned by the Bush administration, in part because she felt it singled out individuals who embrace end-times prophecies—that is, the idea that major events like natural disasters, wars, and international alliances are harbingers of the apocalypse, as foretold by the biblical Book of Revelation. Although subject to a range of often conflicting interpretations, many evangelical Christians believe that in the last days, the Earth will fall under the control of the Antichrist, a messiah-like figure who will rule the world before the second coming of Christ.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/does-michele-bachmann-think-world-ending?page=1

[Drale]

1. If she truly believed the end was near

why would she be running for president? If I knew 100% the end was near, I would think I would spend my time preparing myself and my family but then again she is really really really really really stupid.

[RandySF]

2. People like her want to usher in "the end".

Just like the people who build bunkers and stock up on guns and ammunition.

[LongTomH]

3. She's as phony as a 3-dollar bill with Richard Nixon's picture!

She does this just to sound some whistles for the extreme religious right nutjobs who are a major part of the Republican base.

[Newest Reality]

4. If you want to get into

apocalyptic politics, then the end of something is certainly near, but it may not be the World or life as we know it.

When people go there, it becomes a strange bedfellow to Negative Utilitarianism. That is, things are so bad and we are not doing anything meaningful to relieve the suffering, so why not blow the fucking thing up and consider that the true and undeniable end of suffering? It has a practical meaning and value and no hope or change is required.

On the other hand, there are so many problems and so much suffering that these ignoramuses have no capacity to understand or deal with, that we are now forced to live in the quagmire of their incapacity to deal with the problems at hand.

There are resources and there are people. If we were not beholden, right now, to special interests, corporations and wealthy families who have a special game they need to play on us all, we most likely could redirect our technology, wealth and power towards real and enduring solutions to the problems our species faces right now.

What is holding us back is not any mystical, magical or spiritual element. Nor is it a philosophical or scientific problem. All that we face is the element of a few who have managed to commandeer the scientific, mystical, spiritual and philosophical in a way that gives them the power and money and now, the resources, that this bountiful planet has to offer our species.

They want what we have. They own what is there. We are trying to survive and the options they have given us are few right now. Those options must open up to us all so that we can start to determine how this vast and enduring crisis will turn out. We, collectively, will either take hold of the helm and move this whole planet in a way that supports and values life, or we will become slaves to a few who want to create their own utopia and, most likely, do that after culling a vast majority of us in order to do so.

What do you want to leave your kids and their kids? Was it your denial or complacency so that you could have the crap they told you you needed and try to live, in a time of great change and need for action, as comfortably as they told you you should?

This is it. Make no mistake where you are. The rest of this world's fate rests on the common understanding of a real and vital cause for our species, other species, and the planet. If that is not clear to you yet, they you really have some homework to do. Can you spare the time and the effort for such a great thing?