Posted on 11/06/2004 8:47:13 PM PST by dukeman
Many years ago, I ran away from home — Jacksonville, Florida — to Washington, D.C. I had just graduated from high school and had been awarded a full music scholarship to a prestigious Florida performing arts institution.
My departure was unplanned. It was an instinctive gesture that later proved to be my salvation from the religious cult that masqueraded as a Baptist Church. I asked my mother, a convert to the cult, to take me to the airport. She was glad to get rid of me. Years of brainwashing efforts by her, other members of my family, the evil preacher that she worshipped, and the intimidating churchgoers that formed her circle of friends, had not converted me. She reminded me every chance she could that I would burn in hell. Well, it won’t be as bad as living here, I would retort.
I left on a Saturday in August, with $100, a trunk, a small suitcase, and a conviction that I could make it on my own. An uncle in Virginia, my mother’s brother, had reluctantly agreed that I could stay with him and his family for a few days. My mother told him I was a devil — he was doubtless surprised that I was quiet and thoughtful. He gave me a ride to the Pentagon on Monday, two days after my arrival.
By the end of the week, I had a job there as a typist at the bottom of the pay grade — a GS-2. I signed a lease on a one-room apartment, and rode the bus to work. With little expendable income, my free time was spent, on the weekends, walking the streets of Washington, D.C., delighting in the beauty of the city, especially its monuments and museums. It was an exciting time to be in Washington, a time of anti-war protests and people who were championing causes like peace and social justice. Though young and uneducated, I felt I had come home.
On Wednesday, November 3, more than thirty-nine years later, I was leaving a D.C. courthouse, traveling down Constitution Avenue, headed to my law office. Traffic was at a standstill, but rush hour was over. I soon learned that the streets were clogged with media and secret service, flying up and down the avenue in their black SUVs with tinted glass, preparing the way for our new emperor to claim his mandate.
I experienced an immediate sense of physical revulsion. Yes, I had been up late Tuesday night, sitting with friends quietly in front of the television as it became increasingly clear that what we feared would come to pass. Yes, I had had a little too much wine to dull the pain. Yes, I had slept fitfully, if at all, fearful of the future.
But these election night indiscretions were not the source of that sick feeling in my stomach, that sense of being punched in the gut, that difficulty in breathing. It was the recognition that what I had run from thirty-nine years earlier had caught up with me. The religious fanatics who had terrorized my childhood and adolescent years were back.
The fact that the right-wing bigots who call themselves followers of Jesus Christ but who worship only their own power were going to be a big factor in the election came as a surprise to me — and I, a political junkie, thought I knew a good bit about the campaign. I knew that churches, who ought to lose their tax-exempt status for doing so, were telling their members how to vote. I occasionally listened to the religious Rush Limbaugh’s of religious talk radio. I had read that Bush believed that God chose him to run for office in 2000 (I believe it was James Baker and George Schultz who did so, but I guess the God story tells better). My sisters and their families are still enmeshed in the religion, they and my cousins educated in the Christian madrasas-church schools and universities like Bob Jones that teach hatred and bigotry like other schools teach reading and writing.
So I knew they were out there. However, I did not know that they, not Kerry supporters, were registering in droves. Told to vote or fry in hell, I guess they figured voting was a decent option. (I can remember, when the minister of my church preached that voting was a sin — we were told not to be “worldly,” to shun all things political.)
But I did not know they would carry the day. Or, at least, be a major factor in the big Bush win. Well, they were.
Bush himself is neither an evangelical nor a fundamentalist Christian. Take it from someone who knows. A good and decent family-values fundamentalist Christian would not allow his daughters to drink all night with Secret Service agents, appear in public in tight pants with their boobs hanging out, hair uncombed, and allow gays to work for him. A good and decent family-values evangelical Christian would not allow his wife to smoke and drink (Laura professes to taking sneak smokes and to enjoying Margaritas with her friends). Bush’s “Christianity,” like all of Bush, is a fraud, a fake, a mask, a political tool. He is no more a Christian than my pet rock. (Ashcroft, now there is a Christian for you. Not my type of Christian, mind you, but at least the man walks the walk. He covers bare breasts on statues with drapes. Bush’s daughters let theirs hang out.)
But the religious bigots worked hard for Bush and he will pay them back. He said as much November 4, in remarks to the press. “I have a lot of political capital, and I aim to spend it.”
And spend it he will, on trying to enrobe federal judges who will impose their sick values of fear and division on the American people. He will spend it on laws that further inhibit civil liberties. He will spend it on legislation that overturns abortion rights and gay rights and women’s rights. I can see him establishing a “litmus” test for government officials. Say you have accepted Jesus Christ as your lord and savior and you shall be appointed. Don’t say it, and you won’t have a chance.
I cannot even begin to imagine all the ways he can spend that capital to enslave you and me.
On November 4, Washington, DC lost its charm for me. That charm had begun to fade after September 11, when the beautiful monuments were fenced off from the people with barbed wire, concrete barriers, and rickety wooden fences. But, I still looked lovingly on the Jefferson Memorial from a distance, a dim reminder of better times. I admired the rows of embassies, testimony to the day when the U.S. had friends and allies. I even admired the White House. There have been times when the occupant was not to my liking, but I never feared him.
Before Tuesday, I never thought we had evil in the White House. Those of you who hated Nixon, Johnson, and Clinton will look more kindly on them when you watch a puppet for Ralph Reed, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson try to destroy your life. In a couple of years, we will all be longing for the moderation of a Rehnquist Supreme Court. You think weapons of mass destruction was a lie? Wait until you hear the lies that will be told in the name of religion. Wait until Bush tells you that God told him that all Unitarians or Jews who don’t “accept” Jesus can’t get a passport. Wait until he tells you that AIDS, cancer, heart disease, and more are God’s way of punishing you for sins past. Wait until he tells you that if God meant for you to have health insurance he would have given you a job to pay for it. I know this will come to pass because this is what they believe. This is what they say. This is what they do.
I am going to be spreading the word about the evils of this movement like I think only one who has lived it can. That is, when I can find somewhere to run to.
Right now, I gotta get out of this place.
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Elaine Cassel is an attorney and teacher of law and psychology.
She's run out of her anti-psychotic meds.
The last time that I heard diatribe like this it came out of the mouth of Angela Davis.
This woman ran away from fire and brimstone moralism, devoid of God's love.
A lot of people who go on to hate Christianity were raised under "scriptural headship", (i.e., systematic bullying) in fire and brimstone moralism. They naturally saw Christianity as tyranny, thus being convinced of Satan's first lie ("Is it true God doesn't want you to eat any of the fruit in this paradise ? Is it true he is a bully who wants you to starve ?").
I don't blame her. I blame her mother. Someday I pray that she may find a way to Christ's love and mercy and learn that God is actually good and kind.
Delusions.
I fear this divide will never be bridged and that's a shame.
Baptist Church - some of these Churches do go to extremes - and perhaps her family went the same path -
Over the top on anything - will do damage
just my thoughts -
I agree. That or something similiar. Something made her crazy - and it wasn't GW.
As an atheist, I can honestly say that to have a person like this in power would frighten me far more than a Ralph Reed. She is projecting her own fanaticism and bigotry upon those she disagrees with.
In a nutshell, the book's about the coming conservative revolution in America and all the evil associated with it. The conservatives finally have enough liberalism and they stormed the Capitol building and shot all the politicians (I guess elections weren't working because everyone 'was on to us'). There was a war, nukes were used, and a lot of people are sterile. The conservatives set up a bizarre Puritan society and engage in equally bizarre sex rituals to procreate because everyone's sterile. The wackiness goes on, but you get the point--conservative backlash = the end of culture and society as we know it.
I thought of this book because it's a popular read at colleges. At first I thought it was the product of a fevered brain, but it's starting to dawn on me--this is who leftists think we are! Now this behavior around us is starting to make sense. Leftists really do think we're monsters. Look at everyone seriously thinking about leaving the country; that kid that killed himself at Ground Zero; all the leftists in therapy. I'm seriously starting to think we're not too far out in the weeds when we call them Kool-Aid drinkers.
"I knew that churches, who ought to lose their tax-exempt status for doing so, were telling their members how to vote."
I wonder if she felt the same indignation every time Kerry spoke at a Black church? Not to mention some of Jesse Jackson's rhetoric.
She teaches law and psychology? That is an interesting mix.
what a fanatical bigot..
This poor woman is "over the top"
But, we all know that there are individuals, unbalanced individuals, who take their religion to the Extreme!
This girl MAY (probably was) have been the victim of a demented/sick mother and it has turned her against ANY religion.
We see it in the news every year or so.... some nut job kills the child because the "demented parent" sees nothing but evil in their son or daughter.
My prayers are with her. I hope she finds her way home and can someday understand that God is not her enemy.
I do not remember the same vitriol by conservatives when clinton was elected twice. Conservatives did not talk of abandoning the USA, Conservative did not draw little maps with names intending to insult.
After 1992 we came back with the Contract for America, after 1996 we came back with welfare reform and the DMA.
Do the Democrats realise their party is so crippled that they must man the lifeboats? (abandon ship, this is not a drill)
If the situation was reversed, George Soros would be the subject of an anal probe of IRS audit to "explain" his funding.
As for the author, since he is a "professor" and does not work in the real world I doubt he understands the real world. Remember folks, law professors are refugees from the legal profession.
I've been lurking on DU since Tuesday night. There is a theme of paranoia running through that website like a herd of elephants (pun intended). Their world went topsy-turvy between Tuesday and Wednesday and they fear in their imaginations what might come next. To them, Hitler was just elected president of the United States!
"This woman ran away from fire and brimstone moralism, devoid of God's love."
You don't know that! Don't take her word for it, she has an agenda. Plus, her perceptions mask her judgement.
Besides, God is indeed love - but He is also just. To focus only on love or wrath is to misrepresent God as He is presented in the scriptures.
so you got a scholarship to go to school to be unemployed?
Pray for her.
LOL...I get the feeling the author has jet black hair, multiple piercings, and nearly all black clothes.
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