The Path to Armageddon is Paved with Bad Intentions, or Why I think Carl Rove is the Anti-Christ

Ah, the people we elect to office in this country. On what basis do we choose who will be CEO of the largest corporation in the free world? It's no different, really, than that totally illogical and asinine way that our bosses make their way into the big chair in the boardroom. The cronies, the frat boys, the guys still smoking those illegal cuban cigars in the back room; they pick a favorite based on who's going to take care of them and then parade them out in front of us to vote for. Of course, whoever gets tagged is run thru the mill first, coached and vetted, some even going thru an extreme makeover. They don't have to BE good at the job, they just have to LOOK good doing it. Well, at least it used to be that way.


Then a young man named Carl Rove discovered a huge, untapped reservoir of votes out here in the hinterland, those the elite and the educated and the aware forgot were there.........all those salt-of-the-earth, ill-educated, rabidly religious, hyper-patriotic good old boys and trailer park mothers of 8 kids who all could fall in love with a candidate who looked, spoke, and acted like them. Those of us living in our cities and suburbs with our college educations and stock portfolios had no idea that these are truly the silent majority in this country. People who live hard, play hard, and die even harder in the rural and semi-rural outback where judgment is easy when some preacher assures you that going to HIS church has saved YOUR soul, devil burn the rest. Republicans have always known how to appeal to the baser instincts of this constituency; resist change, resist diversity, instill fear of difference, encourage keep-your-mouth-shut patriotism, and create an external enemy to keep their minds off the unemployment that constantly haunts them. Just as the lamb looks at you for that treat in your hand, ignoring the knife about to cut it's throat, this mindless herd lacks the capacity to know when they are being bent over and sodomized, all in the name of good old fashioned family values. It's sickening to watch, and even harder to explain to them.


The Republican Machine successfully recruited the raw power of this demographic just in time for one of the most successful (actual performance wise) presidents ever elected to make the ultimate mistake, i.e. getting CAUGHT involved in sexual hanky panky in the oval office. To think that Bill Clinton was the first president ever to suffer from such a brain-fart is laughable considering all the dirt we have dug up concerning past presidents, but this time there was a rabid dog outside the gates just waiting to take that bite. So, a president that not only LOOKED good doing the job but was actually GOOD at it almost got thrown out of office, despite having done some incredibly good things for this country. Then comes good old Dubya.



Listening to George Bush trying to elucidate his platform was like listening to Buckwheat trying to recite the Gettysburg Address. This was a college "educated" man who is purported to have actually flown a fighter jet, yet couldn't have possibly written a college essay that would have allowed him into a community college. Listening to what he wanted to do with the country was even more painful, alarming even, but it wasn't his philosophy people were eating up; it was his STYLE. This good-old-boy was JUST LIKE THEM. An angry, marginalized mob loves nothing more than being led by somebody just like them, whether or not that somebody has a clue as to what leadership is.


So, Carl Rove and his buddies had struck the jackpot. The traditional candidate spouting promises they may or may not honor once elected, looking good while they did it, didn't stand a chance. And every money hungry corporation in the country knew a good thing when they saw it, a candidate with no brain of his own that they could manipulate at will, ensuring that they would get their cut of the spoils. Plus, there was that added bonus of having an external threat out there brewing on the back burner that this new president could use to keep our minds off the massacre of everything American back home. That threat was not Al-Quida, but an arab mafia chief that had managed to slip from the grasp of Dubya's daddy, the OTHER George Bush. Revenge and vindication would be sooooo sweet!


The worst possible thing that could have happened to both America AND the middle east occurred shortly after this new kind of president took office. The twin towers in new york were brought down by a collection of suicide terrorists that had been right under our noses. The author of that attack was living in the relative shelter of an oppressive Islamist regime who had thumbed their noses at the civilized world. Once we got our vaulted "intelligence" machine (the CIA) to wake up and notice what was going on, we knew the attack had originated in Afghanistan. We knew where the enemy was. But Dubya didn't. It took alot of arguing and cajoling by his advisers to convince him that Saddam Hussein was not the primary target, but that didn't stop the president from putting into motion his hell-or-high-water effort to take the Iraqi president down. First, a minimal effort utilizing airpower and the afghan Northern Alliance was undertaken to bring down the Taliban, the regime sheltering Ossama Ben Laden. But the REAL effort underway was to fabricate whatever it took to hoodwink the American people in to thinking that Saddam was the real threat and had to be eliminated.


So, years later, what do we have? We have the architect of 9/11 still hiding out, and a mess of a so-called occupation of a country just waiting for us to leave so they can get on with their civil war. This quagmire has already taken more than 2000 of our sons and daughters, and promises to take many more before we finally find a way out. We have the largest federal deficit this country has ever had, down from the first surplus this country ever knew thanks to the efforts of President Clinton. Social services have been gutted, only because the Republicans haven't had the guts to try and eliminate them altogether. The rich have enjoyed tax cuts that would put a glutton to shame, and the oil companies are swimming in an ocean of cash courtesy of the administration and our thinning pocketbooks. The environment.......hell, you can just kiss THAT goodbye. And, if all that isn't enough, this proud country, that shining city on the hill, is now despised in most parts of the civilized world and pitied in the rest. We have become the new Roman Empire, rotting within even as it begins it's march to "bring democracy" to those places that wouldn't know what to do with it if they had it. Meanwhile, China is quietly buying us up, waiting patiently for the day when they become THE only superpower that we used to be once we outlasted the Soviets.




I do not believe in the end times as prophesied by the bible, but I DO believe in self-fulfilling prophecies. The United States is in the grip of people who actually believe in a rapture, a coming kingdom of God on Earth, and an Armageddon that shall wipe the blasphemers from the face of the Earth, thus, there is no need to worry about social justice, the environment, or all those silly things that God himself will set straight one day anyway. So where does that leave the rest of us? It leaves us in HELL as the world is brought to the brink of ruin by this president and his army of religious zealots. But that's alright, for they have been SAVED.