Posted by Iraqi Panch from ? (63.164.145.161) on Friday, April 25, 2003 at 7:22PM :
Let's step back and take the long view. I'm sure there were people at all times who felt outrage at what they didn't want but couldn't stop. That's what got the Religious Right started so many years ago when homosexuality became decriminalized...and "Free Love" took over the air waves and Commies were protected by the First Amendment, and women fought against their "God-ordained" status..and Blacks too. It's our turn now...the "other side". And we aren't going to be effective unless we do what they did...create a new reality...over time. Just stamping our feet and saying, "I don't LIKE this", will get us nowhere...worse, it might convince us that there is no hope, that there isn't anything to be done. These people have to be confronted and challenged at the local level...in schools for one.
Years ago the Right figured out that God and morality would win the White House, the governor's mansion, the school board and the Treasury. We know they could give a shit about god...that's the great thing about god, you can do everything in His name. The pont was to gain power and money...fuck god. They worked abortion for all it was worth...attacked immorality even while their preachers and priests diddled away like mad...it wasn't sex they objected to, it was open sex...honest sex..."fucking" if you will..but with a clear conscience. A life without deep psychological turmoil is a dangerous life, as far as the Right is concerned.
One of the ways they got us was by making it almost impossible to be a "free soul" as in the 60's when you could live a pretty good marginal existence...travel around like in the old labor organizing days...make trouble and take trouble with you. Mom had to go to work and then every college kid was worried about making the rent, even if you had a steady job. Adam Smith said it wouldn't be wise to allow the working man and woman too much leisure time...allows them to think and talk to others.
Finally, after years of scaring us, dividing us and making us frantic over "waves"...waves of Crime...waves of Commies, waves of Licentiousness and now waves of Terrorists...we're ready and eager to get rid of what has been the whole point...the REAL enemy, as far as the Relgious Right is concerned..."America" itself...as set down in the United States Constitution. It was some con...and they've just about pulled it off. The freedoms and guarantees in that document have been twisted around until most Americans feel the one thing standing between them and plenty of jobs and the "security" to enjoy them is the US Constitution...that subversive document par excellance. And it is... IT IS subversive, that was the whole point behind creating it...it DOES block and frustrate the free exercize of exploitation...both of resources and people. That was the way it was SUPPOSED to be because the people who drafted it had been subjected to the kind of one-party control the Religious Right would like to foist on us all over again...complete with their notion of a God blessing the whole shebang. They hope to get our blessing for it too because it will be a party of "God"...who could object?
Right now in Iraq religious fanaticism is gaining ground...exactly what they wanted. What better signifies the MidEast to Americans than the sight of fanatical Muslim Shiites dancing in the streets and beating themselves bloody, all for an Imam who was killed centuries ago? THAT is the face of Islam Fox news wants to show...and that's the view that will predominate. Saddam and the Shah too fought like hell to suppress Islamic Fundamentalism...they tried to modernize their societies...the last thing the West wants. You guys think Christians will be safer? Hell no...the West too will throw them to the lions, when they need to.
You can protest all you want to for an end "RIGHT NOW" of what you don't like, hold your breath till you turn blue...but it won't get you anywhere. They've got the institutions in hand...they've got the voting machines, the police and military, they bought up the newspapers and media so they can tell you what the facts are...cause you were all too gullible ALL ALONG. If you condition someone to follow a "leader", to believe in experts...you can later replace Santa Claus with Hitler...and the people will go along because that's the way they were raised.
School vouchers and "god" along with the willful and deliberte gutting of public education in this country and the "moral vacuum" too much freedom has brought were all engineered, or if not, marvellously well taken advantage of. These people are looking to the day when Christian madrassahs in garages and storefronts all over America will turn out a new breed of American...a righteous American...a god-fearing American and happily, a conservative one. The Opposition had better start thinking long-term cause right now we're just playing into their hands.
-- Iraqi Panch
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