These are dangerous times.
George Bush and his top partners in crime in the past couple
of weeks have been speaking throughout the country to try to justify their
ongoing wars, and both prepare and mobilize people for the wars they are
planning.
Bush has recently roused American Legionnaires and an
association of military officers. He and his wife, Laura, piously spent
September 11 visiting the three sites associated with that date in New York,
D.C., and Pennsylvania, before he gave a nationwide
speech announcing his intention to pursue those wars as the “calling
of our generation”, and declaring that “we must put aside our
differences and work together to meet the test that history has given us”.
From the President who has given the world the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, and Ghraib, this translates as
“go along with me, or else”.
|
General Boykin, Undersecretary of Defense, who has said at a mega-church rally that America’s enemies “will only be defeated if we come against
The slogans of Operation Save America, a Christian fundamentalist group that attempts to forcibly shut down abortion clinincs.
|
Now Bush is (once again) declaring that God is on his side.
And of course, Bush is on God’s side. And, of course again, anyone not with
Bush (and God), who are “good”, must be against Bush, and therefore
“evil”.
On Wednesday, September 12, Bush spoke of the divine calling
he feels is moving him. The
Washington Post reported that he told a group of right wing journalists
that “A lot of people in America
see this as a confrontation between good and evil, including me.” He told
the journalists that what he calls this confrontation between “good and
evil”, or as he sometimes calls it, “war on terrorism” (both meaning,
on the existing planet earth, the wars his regime has unleashed to expand and
consolidate empire) has coincided with what he called a “Third
Awakening” of religious devotion in the United States. And he reiterated
that he sees this confrontation lasting decades.
Bush’s view of this apocalyptic and protracted series of
wars in the Middle East is a perfect fit with
the brand of hate-filled Christian fundamentalism found in places like the Left Behind series of novels by Tim
LaHaye.
This “Third Awakening” Bush
talks about cannot be seen as simply a religious revival, but as moves towards
establishing a theocracy, with horrific and oppressive implications. Today’s
Christian fundamentalist movement is led, organized, and financially backed by
powerful forces, including the White House. Bush also said yesterday that
“there was a stark change between the culture of the ’50’s and the
60’s-boom-and I think there’s change happening here.” The “change” being talked about
included not only reversing many of the gains of the 60’s, from civil rights,
the right to abortion, and values of tolerance and diversity, but means doing
away with the separation of church and state that has been an integral part of
the US since its founding. This regime
has already gone a long way in doing so, and has whipped up a base of blind
supporters to support its every action. Living in denial, thinking this will
stay confined to the “red states”, or seeking to find “common
ground” with theocrats (as the Democratic Party does) will only find us
waking up one morning to a full-blown theocracy. Bush’s “Third Awakening” – the
theocratic political program and the fundamentalist doctrine driving it – needs
to be repudiated and stopped from getting any further.
Think of this for a minute. The man responsible for saying
these things is not a half crazed street preacher warning of the end of the
world. This is a man with a nuclear arsenal at his command, and he is
threatening to use it. This is a man who presided over the executions of hundreds
of people when he was governor of Texas
and has gone on to orchestrate the deaths of tens of thousands more throughout
the world since becoming president. This is a man who has signed off on the
savage torture in Abu Ghraib that has shocked the world. This is a man
convinced that all the mayhem and slaughter he and his regime have unleashed
are part of “God’s will”, and “God’s plan”.
This madness must come to a halt. Thousands of people – many
of them with deep religious convictions – have already acted to drive out this
regime. Religious leaders, among others, have spoken eloquently of the need to
drive out the Bush Regime. (See, for example, the recent statements from Father Luis
Barrios and UCC
minister Robin Meyers.)
October 5 is the day to stand up in our tens of thousands
and make a powerful political statement that we are determined to create a
different future from the nightmare Bush has embarked on. Our planet, the
people on it now, and future generations demand no less than that we act
heroically and with great determination to Bring this to a Halt!