Tell Me What To Tell My Children

We've become a nation of More. I remember the "Excess is best" "Dress For Success" Eighties. Women were making it big in the business world. Big Hair, Big Makeup, everything was More. The more you had, the more you needed, and Gordon Gekko was the boss: Greed is Good. Everything was break-neck speed, jump out of bed running, get ahead, get ahead, get ahead. Under Ronald Reagan, our national debt skyrocketed. We had to have Star Wars Missle Defense. Bigger, Stronger, Faster. The Eighties gave us Top Gun, the "feel-good, let's go to war and kick some butt" movie. We were on top of the world. And then, we got tired. Faith Popcorn, of the Popcorn Report predicted that the phenomenon "Cashing Out" would hit mid-nineties, and she was right. Having arrived, young baby boomers looked around, and didn't know where the hell they were, nor how they got there. The view wasn't that great, and frankly, the victory was a bit hollow. In masse, they sold their BMWs for Jeeps and SUVs, and moved to the suburbs, the better to raise their children in safety. They started spending more time at home (cocooning) , bringing in movies, pizza, having groceries delivered. Home was where the heart was, and that is where it stayed. Having been to the top, they found the view wasn't worth it, and climbed to a smaller hill. There they hunkered down, found faith, and raised their families. At the turn of the millienium, there was a lot of optimism. the National Debt was being paid back. People were concerned about one another, it looked as though America, her heart and her soul, was back. Greed no longer ran the lives of most people, and the middle class was firmly comfortable. We could relax a bit, and just enjoy life, now that we knew that stuff wasn't the meaning of life. And then he came to town. George Bush came sliding in with his down home vernacular, and his Texas swagger (what we in California call Attitude, if we are nice. If not, there are other A words that fit). He charmed the country into believing he was a good ol' boy, fun to have a beer and share some bbq with. In truth, he was a blue blood from Kennebunkport, went to Yale, born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He spoke in cliche, and dealt in the commodity of fear. Despite dire predictions, and some questioning, he won the election. He had his coup. He brought his posse with him, gun-toting, Christian-claiming men who had one goal: own it all. They were the movers and shakers, the wheelers and dealers, the guys who controlled the cash flow. To enumerate their backgrounds would take a month, but they were all connected in the business world. They had been throwing around the money for years together, in one corporation after another. Cronyism in administration is to be expected. Leaders like working with people they can trust. But George W. Bush took it to a new level. His was the high art of Corruption. Under his administration, our national debt is the highest in history. We waged war under false intelligence, and later, it was found, under false pretenses. In my book, we call that a lie. Those who voted to send our troops to war have no children in the armed forces. We know what happened with Hurricane Katrina and FEMA. Michael Brown couldn't get his horses to giddyap. He was in over his head and was more concerned with how he looked and where he was going to eat instead of doing his job. The Deputy Secretary of the Interior is a former oil and coal lobbyist. The Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety is, you guessed it, a coal industry executive and lobbyist. The Undersecretary of the Interior has ties to a think tank funded by the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron Corporation, American Plastics Council and Dow Chemical. She isn't for recycling, doesn't believe that Americans are wasteful, and would prefer to protect the environment without regulation, bureaucracy or central control. We see where that kind of attitude has gotten us! The Secretary of Health and Human Services has allowed large corporations to increase their amounts of sulphur more than 1000 times between September 1994 and November 1997. He has had allowed the toxic releases chemicals, including Mercury, a nuerotoxin that has been linked in some instances to autism, by saying, "in reality it is not pollution." And I could go on. The bottom line is, when the people who control the coroporations control the government,there are no checks and balances.

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group,”- Franklin D. Roosevelt

We are heading where we have been before, and with a vengeance. Did we learn nothing from the Gotta Have It All eighties? It left us empty, and dissatisfied. And these people are taking us back there again. Americans were bought with a tax cut; Greed won again. At what point will America say enough is enough? How many times will we have to be lied to? And when will Americans say, "We don't care that you claim to be a Christian, you are a liar and a thief, and it is NOT what Jesus would do?" How do I explain to my children that what the government is doing is wrong, when all they hear is what a wonderful Christian man our President is? (remember, I live in Orange County- Bush Country). Every day, I watch the antics of this adminstration, the lying, the breaking of laws, the scrambling to cover their tracks, and every day, I think, Today. Today is the day that the people will rise up and demand accountability. And every day is just like every other day. I am growing weary, but still fighting the good fight and running the race. I pray, "Lord, please, please Clean House. These men do not worship you. They worship money, and power. Power is their God, and money is the means to the end." I wonder, will these be the people that Jesus said this about in Matthew 7:

15 "Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 "You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? 17 "So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 "A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. 19 "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 "So then, you will know them by their fruits 21 "Not everyone who says to Me, `Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 "Many will say to Me on that day, `Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' 23 "And then I will declare to them, `I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'

I don't always agree with Bill Maher, but someone sent me this quote from his show Real Time today, I am using only a portion of it:

The Christian Right are now officially the party of paranoia: secularists are attacking Christmas, gays are attacking marriage, liberals are attacking values, white girls are being abducted at an alarming rate. You know if you're going to be that paranoid all the time, just get high. And the worst part is, the people bitching loudest about being persecuted for their Christianity, aren't Christians at all. They're demagogues and conmen and scolds. And the only thing they worship is power. If you believe Jesus ever had a good word for war, or torture, or taxcuts for the rich, or raping the earth, or refusing water to dying migrants, then you might as well believe bunnies lay painted eggs. And Jesus never said a word about gay marriage. He was much too busy hanging out with 12 guys. Now, I know George Bush says Jesus Christ changed his heart. But believe me, Dick Cheney changed it back. You know the only thing Bush has in common with Jesus is they both went into their father's business and got crucified for it. Thomas Jefferson called the type of Christian who trumpets his own belief in the divinity of Jesus rather than the morality of Jesus 'pseudo-Christians' and that's who's running our country today. And since they thrive so much on turning water into whining and get off on their endless pretend persecution, this Easter season, let's give them what they want. Let's go to the zoo, get some lions and feed them Tom Delay."

It worries me, because so many have fallen for the song and dance from the conservatives. They don't have a lock on Christianity, though. They don't own it. For some thought-provoking reading, check out this article from Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners in Mother Jones Magazine . This is a man after God's own heart! T, who loves this country, but hates what it has become