Uh... Why?
Oh Geez... Where to Begin...
In the midst of frothy will-he-or-won't-he speculation about whether Governor Rick Perry will run for this nation's highest office, he and the American Family Association are throwing a party where they invite the nation's most suggestible people to enjoy a magical solution to their problems, both real and imagined.
Let me break that down for you.
Rick Perry is a Huckster in Bed with Bigots
Rick Perry is the governor of America's second-largest state, not its pastor or witch doctor or motivational speaker. Anyone fit for the office should be implementing rational solutions for the problems facing his state and the nation, not calling for magical ones. Anyone fit for any office in a pluralistic democracy should know better than to mix his civil role and religious convictions in this manner, and suggest that only his brand of mysticism has solutions to the world's problems. That level of religious chauvinism is a bigoted dismissal of all other ways of believing, and a slap in the face to anyone who cares about the First Amendment.
And who's he throwing this party with? The American Family Association, which is listed in the Southern Poverty Law Center's prestigious index of hate groups - though the SPLC mainly seems to focus on the AFA's role as a clearinghouse for anti-gay hate, making only brief mention of their new favorite hobby-horse, hating Muslims. And Catholics. And really, anyone who's not them.
Imaginary Problems
Here's a choice tidbit from The Response website: "America is in the midst of a historic crisis. We have been besieged by financial debt, terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters. The youth of America are in grave peril economically, socially, and, most of all, morally."
At least half of the six items listed there are bullshit and fear-mongering. Despite what you might hear if you waste your time listening to right-wing radio, earthquakes and volcanoes are occurring with no more frequency or intensity than they have at any other time in recorded or measured history. The only type of major disaster that is actually happening more often or more fiercely is hurricanes - and the science points to that increase being caused by global climate change. The root causes of that are exacerbated by the conservative policy of pretending environmental problems don't exist; likewise, the human impact of hurricanes is exacerbated by conservative policies of dismantling federal government and demonstrably not giving a damn about the poor. But that's a real problem, and we were talking about imaginary ones...
How about the social and moral peril faced by today's youth? Half of everyone over the age of forty has been bitching about the morals of everyone younger than them since human language contained enough words to do so - so I'm going to ignore the phrase "moral peril" as the useless piece of youth-hating fear-mongering it is. And on the topic of "social peril" - what the fuck is that? Are they in mortal danger of not getting invited to the right parties? Here's a challenge: Grab the next five people you meet, one at a time, and ask them to define the phrase "social peril". Get back to me if any three of them come up with coherent answers that even loosely agree. It's a bullshit phrase meant to inspire an emotional reaction in people who don't think clearly about what they're reading.
Imaginary Solutions for Real Problems
If shouting at the sky and not eating were enough to solve financial problems, meth addicts would be rich. The fact is, America's debt crisis was manufactured by conservatives of Perry's ilk when they launched unnecessary wars with no clear end and introduced regressive taxation policy. (Anyone who says the rich are doing more than their share already is lying - Warren Buffet will pay less tax on the next dollar he earns than you will on the next dollar you earn.)
And terrorism? The Reagan administration funded, armed, and trained the Afghani mujahideen, the direct precursors of the Taliban and al Qaeda. His successor, the first President Bush, was a longtime supporter of the brutal, Dark Ages-style monarchy in Saudi Arabia, and sent a lot of troops into the region in the first Gulf War. The second President Bush, after dropping the ball on warnings leading up to 9/11, launched an entirely unnecessary war in the Middle East and spewed us-versus-them rhetoric like he thought it was his job (which he may have). Foreign policy in the Arab and Muslim world has consistently propped up the worst dictators (including Saddam Hussein, who was our guy before he was a convenient bad guy), and religious leaders on both sides are guilty of hatemongering and instilling the us-versus-them attitude that will probably drive this cycle of violence and stupidity for generations to come.
And a display of religious fervor is supposed to solve this? Really? We're going to ignore cause and effect and think that if we hope for it hard enough a supernatural solution will change individual and geopolitical attitudes overnight?
So Why Sex and Take-Out?
If you've read everything above, you probably think I could stand to step back and chill. I agree, and I'd like you to join me. Let's do it on August 6th.
On that Saturday, while America's worst leaders are promising magic to people who should know better than to be so easily manipulated, let's have a day of peace, love, and greasy food.