NEVER MIND MY OPPOSITION to President George Bush’s domestic policy. Never mind the fact I now realize Bush’s intention is to reshape American society into the two-caste system – plutocrats and serfs – that was characteristic the Herbert Hoover era, and from which Franklin Delano Roosevelt rescued us. Never mind the fact that implementation of Bush’s domestic policy will require a no-quarter war on the American worker (and especially on lower-income Americans) that – though it is precisely what President Ronald Reagan wanted to do – is nevertheless unlike anything this nation has ever witnessed. Despite all that, I still support Bush’s foreign policy – that is after all what blinded me to the domestic implications of a Bush victory and why I voted for him. And no matter what direction my political education takes, I know too much history – history as it was taught in the years before multiculturalist censors purged it of all ugly truths save those about ourselves – to waver from my recognition of the dire necessity to defeat Islam, lest it succeed in its 1400-year dream of a global caliphate and thereby enslave the entire planet.
So do not even for a minute imagine I think Bush is “the anti-Christ,” whether metaphorically or otherwise. But the fact others do think that about Bush is significant information, and the fact that it is now being discussed in the context of a Left-Right struggle within the Christian community – and discussed by a publication so avowedly secular as The Seattle Weekly – is a significant development indeed. Here is an especially noteworthy passage:
..."1 John seems to be obsessed with language like this: 'How can you say you love God, who you have not seen, if you do not love your brother and sister, who you have seen?' Who are in need of food, clothing, shelter? The implication of the doctrine of the Antichrist is that there is an economic disparity in the community, and people are using their religion, not practicing it."
Bush policy is based on what he told his Harvard Business School professor— "Poor people are poor because they're lazy." Responds Lang, "Again, anti-Christ. It's just the opposite [of Christ's teaching]. The thrust of right-wing Christianity—their solution to poverty is to discipline the poor...”
Having spent most of my boyhood in Bible-belt Appalachia, I saw this ugly truth about Fundamentalist viciousness demonstrated more times than I can count. The relationship between the local Fundamentalist preachers and the big bosses at the mine or the textile mill or any other sweatshop was psychologically identical to the relationship between the obergrupenfuehrer and the manager at a Nazi German factory: the preacher/obergrupenfuehrer provided the oppressive doctrines – “the Bible tells us it is our Christian duty to obey without question those appointed over us” (which includes ratting out anybody who talked to that union organizer) – and the Big Boss took care of the exploitation. And to release all the resultant pent-up rage that exploited peoples always feel, there was often the “Saturday Night Men’s Bible Study Group” aka the KuKluxKlan. In the years of my boyhood, the hate-objects were blacks and those who worked for black rights – “nigger-lovers,” of whom I am proud to say I was one. This time – and having witnessed the phenomenon before, I can see it coming ‘round again – it will be gays and lesbians and their defenders, regardless of color.
One more word about The Seattle Weekly before I pass on the link: my instinct is to take anything it says with a very large grain of salt, for in my experience it is a pretentious, superficial, repugnantly yuppoid, hot-tub-radical rag far more concerned with style than substance. But I have not read it for several years, so my judgement may be outdated and invalid. Indeed the article from which I lifted the above paragraphs suggests (despite the mediocre style of the writing) The Weekly is at last trying to come of age. Whatever; the report is available in full here. I pass it on because, if its author is even halfway right, America is heading for a religious struggle the like of which has hitherto been seen only in Europe, and that at least a century ago. But with the special police powers given this Fundamentalist-dominated government in the name of the war against Islam, the Fundamentalists have absolutely all the advantages.
Posted by Loren at December 13, 2004 12:07 AMAlthough I respect your opinion, I would like to give you mine. President Bush is not looking out for the American people. Not the gays, blacks, men, women, christians, jews, islamic, etc. He has his own agenda. One of which I think comes from the want to show Daddy that he can push democracy on a country that doesn't want it.
Another point I would like to make is the war should not be on Islam. They don't hate our freedom, they hate our policies. Gihad does not mean war against another country, the true meaning is war between Ala and oneself.
Another thing I would like to address is that I don't think gay marriage or abortion is in any way a moral issue as Bush has portrayed it to be. It is a personal issue that we as Americans are supposed to be "free" to make our own decisions.
Tolerance needs to be taught and exercised toward anyone regardless of their color or creed.