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Faith in Our Present and Future
By L.A. Steel
As I and many other Americans try to make our personal decision whether to accept the present administration’s foreign and domestic policies, it seems that we are being asked to cast all rational thought to the wind and simply believe and not resist. We are even being asked to accept the evangelical cacophony of doomsday threats and end time prophesies by Bush’s cultist conservative Christian, Christ-loving, corporate-loving cronies of the American Jihad. But before I will accept these idiotic concepts pumped out of the Bush Propaganda Machine, I would rather accept the biblical condemnation of the U.S. because of its total apathy, arrogance, gluttony and indifference to global suffering and environmental destruction, and believe that the conservative Christian Republican citizenry voted a demon into the presidency to bring about the end of the world in the Armageddon of the Iraqi War.
This may sound facetious, but religious historians have documented generational authorities who considered Napoleon and Hitler the first and second Antichrist, and I’ve seen websites that proclaim G.W. Bush as the third and final Antichrist. Really, the idea of an Antichrist—which literally means anyone who does not believe in Christ—amuses me; even popes have been called Antichrists by Protestants. Is Osama bin Laden an Antichrist, or is Saddam Hussein, or is any one of five billion people around the globe who do not believe in Christianity?
The irony of this great intellectual and moral morass is having to choose between the lies of G.W. Bush and lies of Saddam Hussein, while both men publicly attest to their great faith in their God. The eternal question is which God do you trust: Allah, God, Yahweh, Krishna, Christ, Buddha, Wonkatonka, Zeus, Jupiter, The Goddess, Mother Earth, Mother Universe, Manu, The Force, Obi-won Kenobi? The list is endless, just as God is endless.
I ask Voice readers to please contemplate the following historical passage, spoken by the first American president to the new nation in his first inaugural address in 1789—a man whom an entire new nation had full faith in as their undisputed leader. This passage serves as proof to all Americans how far we have fallen in faith and nobility as a people and nation, and how pathetic our government has become when our contemporary example of executive virtue, intelligence, dignity and idealism is exemplified by G.W. Bush.
"… it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States … No people can be so bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency; and in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united government the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities from which the event has resulted can not be compared with the means by which most governments have been established without some return of pious gratitude, along with humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government can more auspiciously commence …" (George Washington's first inaugural address, 1789)
Listen to my new radio talk show on Tuesdays from 8-10 p.m. on WQQQ 103.3 FM. Also check your local TV listings for the L.A. Steel Show, which can be seen on most public access stations throughout Connecticut.
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