Obama, this is God


Obama has his first controversy with his base: his choice of an Orange Country Megachurch evangelist to represent American spirituality at his inauguration ceremonies. I wonder where he thinks those millions of dollars were coming from that got him elected. This is our payback? Oh well. Maybe Jerry B. Jenkins wasn't available. Warren hasn't been plucked off the earth yet by le deus ex machina.

I remember when the Republicans came to power and began to dismantle the government regulatory agencies by cutting off their funding, hiring political hacks to run them, and setting up a "faith based" system of government. To understand faith based administration you need only refer to The Music Man, and Professor Harold HIll. Just close your eyes and wish really, really hard, and viola!

The Republicans had no problem saying right out loud and right up front that they won, and theirs was the spoils of war. For eight years we have watched the most incompetent and arrogant administration anybody can remember or even read about in the history books. It may prove to be fatal to America's leadership role in the world. And so as we inaugurate the man we selected to try and repair the damage, our efforts will be blessed by ...

Rick Warren? He represents to me the people who promoted this faith based administration idea. I understand the gesture of inclusion, but inclusion isn't the same thing as elevation to America's Pope. Can't he just give him a Medal of Freedom award or something?

Rick Warren is James Dobson with a good public relations firm. The problems we face are mostly caused by overpopulation, and he's one of the wingnuts who can't quite grasp that unless we are raising people for food, we have to stop an exponential increase in births. Obama wants to decrease abortions by making them unnecessary. There is no better way to accomplish this than gay marriage, which he and Warren oppose. Obama opposes it for political reasons, I'm sure, and I accept that. But Warren opposes it because he thinks it's against the wishes of big daddy. Missing in the debate is the obvious question of what evolutionary pressures are causing the changes in society. Change is not optional. Warren representing our spirituality is optional.

I started out liking Warren when I first heard about him. I tuned in to watch his interviews with McCain and Obama. But when I realized that McCain was not in the advertised and much touted "cone of silence," and that Warren wasn't going to say anything about that, or change the questions, I began to see him as just another evangelical con man. I think he had an obligation to tell his audience that McCain was capable of listening to everything Obama was saying, and planning his strategy appropriately, because he is the one who set the rules and made a big deal out of the "cone of silence."

Obama's picking Warren reminds me of the Native American story about the girl who finds a frozen snake and takes it home and warms it and saves its life. It bites her, and because it is poisonous she is not feeling all that well. "Why would you bite me when I saved your life?" she asks.

"You knew I was a snake when you picked me up."

The problem with the right wingers is that they are always right. They divide everything into right and wrong, which is okay, but it's culture specific. What is right in one culture, or sub culture, is wrong in another. So they want to enforce what they see as ordained truth on everyone. They even see that as their duty. There is no way to have that kind of attitude and avoid conflict and war. Ask the Arabs. They understand the problem with fundamentalists.

In a nation with a lot of different cultures and subcultures the elevation of fundamentalism is always going to end up fostering the oppression of minorities and outsiders. It might be done for your own good, but it will also be done with as much force as is required. If McCain had won the election, Warren wouldn't be trying to tone down his website to make himself appear more tolerant than he is.

If Obama had thought this through, instead of trying to make political hay, he would have asked a Native American to bless this particular inauguration.

Posted: Tue - December 23, 2008 at 01:37 PM