Today I am almost speechless. I'm angry, outraged, apoplectic. So many threads that have been weaving around in my head for weeks converged today on one inescapable point: the utter bankruptcy of Republican values. I know the preference here is for long diaries with a wealth of links and analysis. But sometimes the job at hand is to distill.
Over the past few months we've seen the Republican agenda for what it is: a craven imperative to destroy Obama at all costs. The loser in this fight is the American people--on healthcare, on climate legislation, on economic recovery--while the winner seems inevitably to be the rich and powerful. Banks are winning, healthcare giants are winning, big corporations are winning, while ordinary people lose their homes and their lives.
As I've watched the Republicans wage their increasingly vitriolic fight against Americans, I've been trying to see this Christian Nation they yelled so much about when Obama went to Egypt. That was only a few months ago, and they were so passionate about reminding us all of our Christian roots. So where are these Christian values in today's political battle? I'll tell you.
The breaking point for me today was discussing with a Republican friend--a friend I grew up with going to the same Christian church--the case of that young woman gang raped in Iraq while working as a contractor for Halliburton. I assumed he would agree the case was a travesty of justice, a sign of a system that needs to be corrected. I was wrong. He never mentioned the girl; he only mentioned the right for Halliburton's interests to be protected in a court of law. And something in my brain snapped. What the fuck is going on? This isn't a Halliburton executive I'm talking to. This isn't a banker on Wall Street. This isn't some health insurance lobbyist. This is an ordinary middle-class, middle American guy who has gone to church his entire life, is getting just as hammered by the economic meltdown as the rest of us, and he's telling me a corporation should be protected while this young girl who was GANG RAPED AND LOCKED IN A FUCKING CARGO CONTAINER BY OTHER AMERICANS WITH NO FOOD AND WATER has NO protection, and apparently DOESN'T DESERVE ANY.
What. The. FUCK?
This is it, ladies and gentleman. This is the crossroads where Republican and Christian values really meet. Sure, there are plenty of examples of hypocrisy on many issues, but this is where it is most stark. A young woman raped literally and figuratively by a war profiteering contractor. Who would Christ comfort?
And that immediately brought to mind the core of real Christian values, as stated by Christ himself. But seeing as conservatives are now rewriting the Bible, I have a recommendation for how they can rewrite Matthew 25:35-36 to better reflect their new values for a Christian nation:
For I was hungry and you offered me a tax break
I was thirsty and you suggested tort reform
I was a stranger and you built a fence
I was naked and you arrested me
I was sick and you offered me a medical savings account
I was in prison and you built more to increase your profit
I'm sure someone could do this better, but I had to get it off my mind so I could breathe again.