I’m angry today about this (so what else is new?) I just back from Church, and I more often than not come away deeply discouraged, not because of anything that was said or sung, but because of what I expect would happen were I to “speak up”; and because I realize that the there would be a backlash if I were to suggest that I see this as a “duty” of the Church (to sound concern for the rush to war, the desperate measures to cover up indications of deception aimed at butressing the incentive for this “rush”, and the dark avopidance of describing exactly what their real intentions are: to remove all stops for “free enterprise” by selling EVERYTHING, including Iraq (by hawking the “free market opportunities” that will soon be m ade available there as sson as we level the place and get rid of those “malcontents”. Such “conspiracies” of ruthless “free marketers” — which I don’t see as conspiracy at all, but actual operating philosophies of the neoconservatives —- aside, simply sticking to the fact of decpetion and unwarranted rush to preemptive war, is enough for the Christian Church to say “Enough”. This is not faithful to democracy, justice, or love.

If there were a “clone United States and a clone Bush administration” who was more powerful than us, where would that standoff lead? There are terrorists on our soil and in our cities. Would this clone U.S. be justified in changing our regime? We certainly have Weapons of Mass destruction, and we are constantly inferring and threatening that “we will not hesitate” to use them. They would actually HAVE the evidence that we didn’t. What kind of a war on terror would they be justified in carrying out on our soil? How many of you war supporters would feel “heroic” if your family was “collateral damage” as the clone U.S. bombs your neighborhood because there is a suspected cell a couple of streets over?

So, I’m angry, and depressed. Jeremiah said that “Houses and vineyards will once again be bought on this land”, and I long for something to happen that will stop the direction this country has taken in Iraq (or, I should say, our country’s “leaders” have chosen this direction; the American people were deceived, and manyof those deceived see fit to cling ot a false hope that this President has our best interests at heart. He does not. Not even that of his own Children. He is perfectly convinced that HIS children will never have to face the chaos that his troops and ruthless “reconstruction” CEO’s are calling down upon the people of Iraq. The Church has lost , or in many cases, never been aware, and in those cases, never even taught, that God is calling us to speak up for the oppressed, and that our country is the oppressor. It’s what Jeremiah was telling the Nation of Israel as well, and he mocked their rejection of the danger they were facing from Babylon by saying “You think that because you say ‘we are the people of the Lord, the people of the Lord’ that you wil be spared”. Don’t be fooled, my misled brothers and sisters on the Right, don’t blindly follow Bush because he says “We are the people of the Lord”. Even as he calls pollution increasing policies “Clean Air”, he associates his “War on Terror” startegy with “the light that shines in the Darkness”, but there the Gospel of John was referring to the Word; the logos, which stands in stark contrast to Bush’s army of righteousness.