WASHINGTON, April 14 - As the Senate heads toward a showdown over the rules governing judicial confirmations, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as "against people of faith" for blocking President Bush's nominees. (Kirkpatrick, David D. "Frist Set to Use Religious Stage on Judicial Issue." New York Times.)
“Dr. Frist” is a fristing nutcase. And he either knows nothing about this country’s true theology or he knows way too much and is just a cynical bastard. The only god left for the Republican base is money. If you doubt this, don’t look at what they do on Sunday morning; rather look at their behavior the rest of the time. As the greatest of all prophets (Douglas Adams) wrote
This planet [Earth] has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.These Republicans can rave & rant about Jeezus all they want but they will still drown a puppy for a dollar. They use religion as a means to gain control and consolidate their power, but what have they done with power once they have it? They sure the hell haven’t turned the other cheek. They sure the hell haven’t fed anyone’s sheep. And they haven’t loved anyone’s neighbor— unless you count those stories about Paul Wolfowitz.
Instead, they’ve lined their own pockets.
Marx— Sha la la lala lalala / Is this the way to Guantanamo Bay? — said that religion was the opiate of the masses. In 2005 he might say it was the masses' methamphetamine, but the essential point remains, perhaps more than Marx understood—and these Republicans are the playground pushers of Drug War mythology, giving voters a little bit of Jeezus for free to get them hooked-- and after that they own themselves another junky.
And what do those poor addicted voters get for their trouble? Their teeth fall out, their skin turns sallow and rots off. They’re wracked by the muscle cramps and chills of environmental destruction, they’re throwing up a bloody, phlegmy death-economy. And they run to their Republican pushers—but now the price has gone up a little: We know you used to get Feelgood Jeezus Government if you voted for nice grandfatherly Ronnie Reagan. But now it costs two Bushes and a Tom Delay. Sorry, the underground economy is always capitalist, you know. It’s the Democrats' fault, really, you know they’ve got this War on Jeezus going on—all the busts, trying to seize all the Feelgood Jeezus Government dope. We think they’re secretly using and selling it themselves.
So even though it’s written that I shouldn’t judge, I gotta say that I’ve actually read the Bible cover-to-cover (twice), and I just can’t see how modern Republican Big Business Wal-Mart Hypercapitalism has anything at all to do with Jesus Christ of Nazareth. It’s become a truism that is Jesus really did come back, we’d crucify him again. Of course, it's also a truism that these Republicans would first complain about his dirty feet, call him an anti-American hippie traitor, and—“Omigod, he looks Middle-Eastern to me!”—lock him up in Gitmo.
SPACEDARK
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