<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META content="MSHTML 5.00.2919.6307" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY bottomMargin=0 leftMargin=3 rightMargin=3 topMargin=0>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<P class=header>Well, I am spending several months in West Virginia, and could
only take one computer, the laptop running the software that DOES read HTML. So
its a moot point for now, but yes, I could read the content of the jokes when
sent HTML.</P>
<P class=header>I got this article forwarded to me, and it seems so
accurate.</P>
<P class=header>Siarlys</P>
<P class=header> </P>
<P class=header>AMERICA'S FINITE FUTURE?</P>
<P>By Arianna Huffington</P>
<P>Near the beginning of "Saturday Night Fever," John Travolta's Tony Manero,
frustrated that his boss thinks he should save his salary instead of spending it
on a new disco shirt, cries out, "F- - - the future!" To which his boss replies:
"No, Tony, you can't f- - - the future. The future f- - -s you! It catches up
with you and it f- - -s you if you ain't prepared for it!"</P>
<P>Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but America has morphed into a nation
of Tony Maneros — collectively dismissing the future. And nowhere is this
mindset more prevalent than at the Bush White House, which is unwavering in its
determination to ignore the future.</P>
<P>The evidence is overwhelming. Everywhere you look, it's IOUs passed on to
future generations. Record federal debt. Record foreign debt. Record budget
deficits. Record trade deficits.</P>
<P>And this attempt to f- - - the future is not limited to economics. You see
the same attitude when it comes to energy policy, health care, education, Social
Security and especially the environment — with the Bushies redoubling their
efforts to make the world uninhabitable as fast as possible. (See their attempts
to gut the Clean Air Act, gut the Clean Water Act, gut the Endangered Species
Act, gut regulations limiting pollution from power plants.)</P>
<P>And the even bigger problem? They don't see this as a problem. In fact, it
actually all may be an essential part of the plan.</P>
<P>If this last sentence doesn't make a wit of sense to you, then you are
clearly not one of the 50 million Americans who believe in some form of End-Time
philosophy, an extreme evangelical theology that embraces the idea that we are
fast approaching the end of the world, at which point Jesus will return and
carry all true believers — living and dead — up to heaven ("the Rapture"),
leaving all nonbelievers on earth to face hellfire and damnation ("the
Tribulation"). Christ and his followers will then return to a divinely
refurbished earth for a thousand-year reign of peace and love.</P>
<P>In other words, why worry about minor little details like clean air, clean
water, safe ports and the safety net when Jesus is going to give the world an
"Extreme Makeover: Planet Edition" right after he finishes putting Satan in his
place once and for all?</P>
<P>Keep in mind: This nutty notion is not a fringe belief being espoused by some
street corner Jeremiah wearing a "The End Is Nigh!" sandwich board. End-Timers
have repeatedly made the "Left Behind" series of apocalyptic books among
America's best-selling titles, with over 60 million copies sold.</P>
<P>And they have also spawned a mini-industry of imminent doomsday Web sites
like ApocalypseSoon.org and Raptureready.com. The latter features a Rapture
Index that, according to the site, acts as a "Dow Jones Industrial Average of
end time activity" and a "prophetic speedometer" (the higher the number, the
faster we're moving toward the Second Coming). For those of you keeping score,
the Rapture Index is currently 152 — an off-the-chart mark of prophetic
indicators.</P>
<P>Now I'm not saying that Bush is a delusion-driven End-Timer (although he has
let it be known that God speaks to — and through— him, and he believes "in a
divine plan that supersedes all human plans"). But he and his crew are certainly
acting as if that's the case.</P>
<P>Take the jaw-dropping federal debt, which currently stands at $4.3 trillion.
Just last month the Government Accountability Office released a report that
found that Bush's economic policies "will result in massive fiscal pressures
that, if not effectively addressed, could cripple the economy, threaten our
national security, and adversely affect the quality of life of Americans in the
future."</P>
<P>And what was the administration's reaction to this frightening assessment?
Vice President Cheney shrugged, took a hearty swig of the End-Time Kool-Aid, and
announced that the administration wants another round of tax cuts. Basically a
big f- - - you.</P>
<P>Then there's our trade deficit, which ballooned to a record $165 billion in
the third quarter of 2004, when imports exceeded exports by 54 percent. Thanks
to this imbalance, America is racking up a staggering $665 billion in additional
foreign debt every year — that's $5,500 for every U.S. household — and placing
our future economic security in the hands of others. Here is Bush's response to
this daunting prospect: "People can buy more United States products if they're
worried about the trade deficit." Sounds like he's really got it under
control.</P>
<P>I guess after the Rapture, debts of all kinds will be forgiven. The White
House is promoting a similar "What Me Worry?" attitude with our
live-for-the-moment energy policy. America currently spends $13 million per hour
on foreign oil — a number that will only increase as U.S. oil production peaks
within the next five years just as consumption by industrializing nations
doubles over the next 25 years.</P>
<P>So is the president pushing for a long-overdue increase in mileage standards
or launching an all-out effort to break our dependence on foreign oil? Hardly.
Instead, he's getting ready to make his umpteenth attempt to open the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. </P>
<P>And that is just a small part of the president's full-bore assault on the
environment, best summed up by Sen. Jim Jeffords, the ranking minority member on
the Environment and Public Works Committee: "I expect the Bush Administration
will go down in history as the greatest disaster for public health and the
environment in the history of the United States."</P>
<P>That said, it's not hard to see why Bush has hopped aboard the Apocalypse
Express. Acting like there's no tomorrow dovetails just as neatly with his
corporate backers' rapacious desires as it does with his evangelical backers'
rapturous desires. It offers him a political twofer: placating his corporate
donors while winning the hearts and votes of the true believers who helped the
president achieve a Second Coming of his own. No small miracle, given his
record.</P>
<P>It's important to point out, however, that it's not just the White House and
the End-Timers. Acting as if we have a finite future has infected our entire
culture. Just look at personal savings, which have fallen to next to nothing,
with Americans socking away a meager two-tenths of 1 percent of their disposable
incomes. Meanwhile, the average U.S. household carries about $14,000 of
credit-card debt; one in four consumers spends more than he or she can afford;
and, as a result, every 15 seconds, someone somewhere in America is going
bankrupt. Which, I guess, in Bush World is how an angel gets his
wings. </P>
<P>All this represents a seismic shift in our cultural outlook. Since our
founding, the American ethos has been forward-looking, geared to a bountiful
future, with each generation of parents working as hard as they can to ensure a
better life for their children. Those days are clearly gone.</P>
<P>And it has put our entire civilization at grave risk — a point echoed with
great clarity by Jared Diamond, whose new book, "Collapse," looks at the reasons
why so many great civilizations of the past have failed.</P>
<P>Although Diamond offers a range of reasons why these societies collapsed, one
message comes through loud and clear: We've got to stop living like there is no
tomorrow — or "f- - - the future" will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.</P>
<P>© 2005 ARIANNA HUFFINGTON.<BR>DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES,
INC.</P></DIV>
<DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>