{"id":14432,"date":"2024-05-07T18:32:10","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T08:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/?p=14432"},"modified":"2024-05-07T19:01:28","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T09:01:28","slug":"scomo-and-the-rapture-gang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/07\/scomo-and-the-rapture-gang\/","title":{"rendered":"Scomo and the \u2018Rapture gang\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mp_wrapper\">\n  <div class=\"mepr-unauthorized-excerpt\">\n    <p>Editor\u2019s note: If you would like to submit a letter for possible publication, please email it to editor@rationalist.com.au. See our\u00a0Publishing Guidelines.\nDear Editor,\nThis, it seems, is the pivotal year. The moral war has been launched. By December 25, we will have learned whether George Orwell\u2019s 1984 was an accurate prediction of the future or just a scary tale of what might have been.\n2024 has already been billed as the \u2018Year of the Democracies\u2019 since there are so many nations going to the polls. But some are dark gestures \u2013 vile shadows of the process. In Russia, for instance, Vladimir Putin murdered or jailed his opponents yet still conducts a farcical poll and boasts of the result. Xi Jinping continues his act as pretend emperor, and the little dictators trail along.\nThe good guys are such as us, most of the Scandinavians and Europeans, the Kiwis and the Canadians.\nThe top dog in that happy pack for many years has been the United States, and this year their election is of enormous consequence. That is really where the future of humankind will be decided, and we won\u2019t know the answer until a certain Tuesday in November.\nWe got off to a pretty good start with the peaceful election of the 72-year-old former General Prabowo, supported by his predecessor, the popular Djoko Widodo, in Indonesia. And in his State of the Union address, Joe Biden made a very good case for four more years. America\u2019s electoral college will make the final decision, but my money is on Joe. Trump is ...<\/p>\n  <\/div>\n  <div class=\"mepr-unauthorized-message\">\n    <hr style=\"width: 100%;max-width: 1000px !important;height: 5px;border-width: 0;color: red;background-color: red\" \/>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\">\n<h3><em>You're part way through this article. Want to keep reading?<\/em><\/h3>\n<h4><em>Only members of the Rationalist Society of Australia can read our Premium articles.\u00a0<\/em><\/h4>\n<h3 style=\"height: 20px\"><span style=\"color: #c83200\"><em><a style=\"color: #c83200\" href=\"https:\/\/rationalist.com.au\/membership\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Become a member today.<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n<h4><em>Already a member? 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See our\u00a0Publishing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":444,"featured_media":14435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[75],"coauthors":[114],"class_list":["post-14432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters","tag-premium"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/444"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14432"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14439,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14432\/revisions\/14439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14432"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=14432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}