If it seems that Dennis Kucinich is the only democrat with balls it may be because he is. Yes, we have seen Christopher Dodd throw his "body upon the gears" of the machine that was destroying our civil liberties, by putting a "hold" on the latest FISA bill, but at least there are a few thousand ACLU types and libertarians who support him. Kucinich, by contrast, is going to bat for "atheists in foxholes" who, by popular slogan, do not exist. So Kucinich, by forming an organization to combat the fundamentalist christian takeover of the U.S. military will have EVERYONE, save the ghost of madeline murry o'hare, pissed as hell at him. For information of how lonely this must be, I refer you to a poem by the welsh poet Halden Caufield; "the ballad of the breadman" where he uses the words "no man was THAT mans freind" to describe the isolation of Jesus, just before he got capital punishment.
In the same light, a freind sent an e-mail forward of merriments, one of which was read by Jay Lenno (solidarity to the writters strike!) in which Jay said essentually; "with all these floods and wild fires are you sure we should be taking God out of the pleadge of alligience?".
The following screed was a responce to this popular foolishness
As to Jay Leno, theologian, I would be the last to deny the need of divine providence, but his support of such incantations shows the power of flimflam and a lack of history, not withstanding that these positions are very popular they are still wrong.
The pledge to the flag was composed by a person beyond the present American imagination, a Christian socialist who was also a Baptist minister. Long ago, Baptists were among the greatest defenders of religious liberty and the separation of church and state, as they had been abused by the Episcopalians and other majority religions. American Baptists today eat at the same table as the president of the United States, an ample user of religious slogans, with now, Episcopalians and other former majority religions licking at their feet like so many puppies, such principles can fall by the wayside. Anyway, Francis Belamy, the writer of the pledge, did not see fit to include G-d in the pledge. Such inclusion did not come until the Eisenhower administration, when in a moment of national crisis, we set out to differentiate ourselves from our former World War 2 allies; the Russians, by tagging them the "Godless" victors over the" axis of evil" whilst we were the "Godfull" victors over the" axis of evil". Thousands of innocent schoolchildren awkwardly piled "under God" on top of "indivisible" on our behalf, to stamp out Godless communism. To this day, millions of innocent schoolchildren in China express their gratitude for this victory of Christian Capitalism over Godless communism; they express it just after lunch, when they have to leave school to go sweat in the fireworks factory to pay for their books.
Could we perhaps stack up enough national introspection to consider that the prevalence of fire, earthquake, wind and pestilence May be a sign that God is a bit pissed with the way things are going and our insistence on dragging his name into it? Being as innocent schoolchildren have emerged as a point of focus; consider those of Iraq, who over the years have viewed the United States as “the evil bastards who sold arms and poison gas to our oppressor Sadam” to “the evil bastards that got rid of Sadam, along with running water, electricity, sewage and civil society. Would the sweltering shit-stink of 100 degree high noon Baghdad be swept clear as a fall mountain breeze by a Blackwater helicopter, festooned with the stars and stripes and blaring Lee Greenwoods “God bless the USA”? Call me a surrender monkey, but I think not. Beyond that I think that the present scheme of national Godly incantation is a constant irritant to the master of the universe and that these natural disasters are Gods form of “cease and desist” orders, which I fear, will grow in proportion to the continued divine insult. So if someday, you hear thundering from the skies (with the sartorial tones of Charlton Hesston, no doubt) “You F#&*$rs keep it up and I’ll put a volcano where Colorado used to be”, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
