Saturday, July 17, 2004

The Root of All Evil     George Bush scares the hell out of me.  In my mind, the root of human atrocities, from the destruction of biblical cities by the Hebrews, to the Spanish genocide of Indians in America and the New England genocide of Indians in Massachusetts—right up to the holocaust and now the militant Jewish settler movement—all have one thing in common.   The perpetrators believe they are the only ones who are fully human, and their enemies are less than human.  Mostly this is expressed through religion—the way one becomes fully human is by adopting or respecting the religion of the oppressor.  Hitler was extreme because he so hated the Jews he would not allow them to convert.   Thus, if a Palestinian would only recognizes the Jewish settlers’ god given right to the land, or an Indian in Massachusetts recognize that only by becoming Christian and trying to live as an inferior white can they hope to save their lives, etc. etc.   In the war on terrorism, the fundamental error made by Bush was to respond to a religious war with another religious war.  This is what was at stake with his “axis of evil” speech.  This is why he constantly speaks of terrorists and killers, because he himself only sees that in his enemies.   Today, a report picked up on Tagen Goddard’s Blog, from the Lancaster, PA, newspaper, reported on a meeting with Bush and a group of Amish. Bush said “I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job.’’  In his heart, Bush is just as much a religious warrior as Osama Bin Laden.  Both get their orders from their god.  Both deny the humanity of those who are non-believers.    For Bush, the circle of non-believers is not simply non-fundamentalist Christians—it is those dark skinned people who don’t accept U.S. hegemony.  In this way, unless they repent, just as the doomed Indians of Massachusetts in King Phillips war in 1680—the dark skinned non-compliers are evil, are to be “dealt with” are to be made “not a problem anymore.”   With his fundamentalism comes his incuriosity.  Many people in the press and government, who have gotten to where they are by being both smart and curious, are astounded at the lack of questions in George Bush.  Well, I know, from personal experience with fundamentalism in my family, that this lack of curiosity is a hallmark of the disease.    Since the fundamentalist already knows the answers, there is no need to ask a question.  In this vein, children of Jewish fundamentalists in Israel get an education only in Torah—not even learning anything of history, of other countries, of geography.  In short, their fundamentalism leads them to become throwbacks to a previous time—and sure enough in these communities, fear of witches, and many other supernatural beliefs arise.   So we have a president who doesn’t need to listen because God speaks through him.  How convenient.  Because God speaks through him, we can only assume that it must be the devil who speaks through his opponents.   Do you doubt this.  Josh Marshal today had a follow up on the Chair of the Republican party in Jefferson county, (Louisville) Kentucky who was distributing bumper stickers saying "Kerry is bin Laden's Man/Bush is My Man."   Get the picture?  This is why this election has become a matter of life or death for our democracy.  When we have leaders who no longer share the values of our founders—to whom fundamentalism was anathema—then we are in danger of transforming into a religio-fascist state, with corporatism and religious fundamentalism controlling lives here as much as war lords and mullahs control lives in Afghanistan.   Has Bush really managed to bring us this low—so that we now fight on the same fundamentalist field as our enemies.  This is a war we can’t win, because by winning, we become the religious fundamentalist tyrants we are trying to defeat.   No more waffling. I now think we must get out of Iraq immediately before we indelibly change own national character. 12:09:18 AM   comment []

© Copyright 2004 Toby Sackton. Last update: 8/2/2004; 2:46:03 PM.