They Don't Understand

The election was a few days ago on Tuesday...

And I'm still recovering from the shock. What I learned, I suppose, is that the United States is a REALLY religious country. That's alright because there's nothing wrong with being Christian or religious, I suppose. But it's the hypocrisy that absolutely kills me. It's like one narrow set of twisted morals have been thrust upon this land — and the Americans are trying to push them on the world as well.

I never thought I'd see the day when Christians form a coalition with gun owners and rich industrialists. What is moral about guns? What is moral about giant rich corporations that plunder the environment and screw the workers? Why do the Christians give their loyalty to industrialists, who are busy outsourcing American jobs overseas?

What is so Christian about tax breaks for the rich, which makes our country so financially strapped that we can't help the poor? What is Christian about cutting taxes and leaving the national debt for our children to pay? What is so Christian about war? Who are these people in the American Heartland who are so eager for vengeance?

What is so Christian about an American lifestyle that is based on selfishness, comfort, and the worship of materialism?

Yet, myself and the nearly half the country who voted for Kerry are the scums. We are the poor, the jobless, the disenfranchised, the minorities, the gays, the liberal intellectuals, and the lowly progressives like myself. We are the "out" crowd and there's not enough of us to stand up against the Heartland.

The Walmart shoppers — the God-fearing citizens of the small towns and suburbs have spoken. "Let us roll over the gays, feminists, environmentalists, Iraqis, Iranians, and whoever else stands in our way. Let us crush them with our tank treads, for we are the people of God."

When a thief steals a loaf of bread or some crack head buys some dope, the Christian Taliban puts him in jail and throws away the key. But what about the corporate polluters? Or the Ivy League boys who get nice jobs in glass towers and then spend their lives cooking the books? What about the tainted public officials who only serve the masters with the deepest pockets?

Where is the justice? Where is the dignity?

Of course, it all comes back to the evils of gay marriage — shit, imagine two people who love each other getting married. How sick is that? Or it comes to abortion ... let us show no mercy for those women who are poor, desperate, and have no one to help or care about them. Now they are pregnant and the Christian Right wants to throw them in jail. "No, we only want to go after the abortion providers," they say. But there were only a few of them to begin with, and now they are all gone ... so it's time to go after the young women.

All I ask, all I've EVER asked, is that we all make our decisions based on long-term sustainability.

But we are going in the wrong direction. The people of the Heartland put on their Christian Halloween masks, and then they condone environmental rape, global climate change, exploitation of the downtrodden, and the perpetuation of a system that is based on "ME" instead of other Americans and the World Community.

So, yes, come tell me what it means to be a Christian. Lead me to Christ. Tell me what a rotten, wretched person I am. Please, I believe I've missed something here and I really need to know.

Yellow Canary