I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight (21 page)

David reaches out to me with both arms. His hands are warm as he holds my face. He kisses me on both cheeks, and says my name.

He smells like violets.

jerry corsi

J
erry Corsi is one of the astonishingly idiotic authors of the book
Unfit for Command
, that infamous attempt to smear John Kerry's Vietnam military record, claiming he betrayed his fellow soldiers by alleging they committed atrocities while he earned his medals by indiscriminately killing a Viet Cong teenager.

Corsi appears frequently on
freerepublic.com
, an online right-wing insane asylum, and at one point he had to make a public apology for posting: "Islam is a peaceful religion—just as long as the women are beaten, the boys buggered and the infidels are killed." He said that his words were taken out of context, and he was sorry if he had offended anybody. What context would these statements not be offensive in? A Ku Klux Klan rally? A neo-Nazi music festival? A GOP convention? These types of statements make Jerry Corsi unfit for comment—on anything, really—let alone politics.

I'm constantly amazed how absurdly ignorant some people can be. They act as if they are the only beings on earth. Their reality is terribly knee-jerk, and they have a manner of speaking that reeks of the arro
gance of independent thinking even though they possess precious few independent thoughts.

It's depressing how much we'd rather believe what we are told than find out things on our own. We are bombarded with propaganda today that tells us to blindly believe that Islam is bad, that the religion itself is somehow un-American, that evil springs from the Fertile Crescent. If only the world were so simple, that all bad people came in one color so that they could be stamped out effectively for the good of all. Corsi and his ilk—and there are many—believe that this is true, and they're looking for the best way to make it known without meeting too much resistance from anyone who thinks for him- or herself.

Corsi's statement is clumsy and incorrect. Domestic abuse is global. If you pay attention to the latest rumors surfacing about the Iraqi prison scandal, the death tolls on both sides show that the "infidels" are cleaning up, and it seems that American soldiers are doing a lot of the boy buggering.

This whole war is subtly slanted as being between Islam and Christianity, but it isn't. It's about oil and ownership, but since people can't grasp the idea that their government might lie to them, that the people they might vote into office (or, more likely, let cheat their way in) care far more about their own interests than the lives of American soldiers or Iraqi civilians, it's much easier to make it a "holy war." God becomes the ultimate gauntlet to throw down, because no one questions or gets specific with God. God is approached with apprehension, fearful of argument, with bowed head and offering in hand.

When it comes to religion, people are hyperaware, intensely sensitive, incredibly myopic. There is the unstated but implied absolute superiority of the Protestant faith, for to make reference to it would be to cast doubt upon it. There is an air of cleanliness about these denominations, almost a sanitized secular quality, as if they were the only true way to salvation, a path that is so clear it doesn't seem like a path at all. These sects are like Diet God, all the heaven but none of the calories. Other faiths are looked upon with suspicion that borders on justified rage at its most malevolent. Atrocity is easy when you assume your victim is godless. If God sees what we were doing in His name, He must weep copiously indeed. How about that Hurricane Charley?

The apology Jerry Corsi made is questionable, as I can't imagine that he could be really sorry for what he said when he is so flip and arrogant about it. The casual nature of his hatred is evident in his absolute devotion to nonthinking. He's not sorry for what he said; he's sad people called him on it. Because to be a true veteran for truth, you can't be what he is: an adolescent, irresponsible, cowardly, ruthlessly immoral, unfunny bigot.

Here's more of Corsi's genius: "So this is what the last days of the Catholic Church are going to look like. Buggering boys undermines the moral base and the lawyers rip the gold off the Vatican altars. We may get one more pope, when this senile one dies, but that's probably about it."

I'm no huge fan of the pope, but, then again, Corsi claims to be a devout Catholic, so I'm not really sure what that's about. Is he looking to get Bush into the Vatican, too?

And that's not all: "After he married TerRAHsa, didn't John Kerry begin practicing Judaism? He also has paternal grandparents that were Jewish. What religion is John Kerry?"

What's the meaning behind the spelling of Theresa Kerry's name? Is that a way to Arabicize her in order to insult her? If so, then that's a double slur, not only because it's derogatory toward the Arab and the Jewish worlds in assuming that to be part of either is a bad thing, it also makes her out to be some kind of faith bandit, inferring that she would be the one controlling the nation with her wicked, witchy Judaic ways. It's saying the potential First Couple might be Jewish. And why's that such a bad thing? Dreidels in the White House is no cause for alarm. What's so scary about Passover? Who cares what religion they are? It matters less to me that they are religious than that they care. Incidentally, the Kerrys are Catholic, which to the backward, let-other-people-do-their-thinking-for-them-like-it-was-laundry, Charlie Daniels–listening, freerepublic.com-posting, FOX News–watching, Bush-voting, Islam-despising, everyone-who-ain't-us-hating nincompoop contingent is practically an ancient pagan earth religion.

Jerry Corsi immediately rebukes himself with his own prejudice and bigotry. Once you see someone's ignorance, you can't see anything else. It's the glorious thing about stupidity: it's sticky. Those who didn't think that Corsi was a dummy before now have to admit just how dumb he really is. What's dangerous is, the real morons only will see more of themselves in him. And I hope there's more of us than there are of them.

jimmy swaggart

J
immy Swaggart thinks the idea of one man marrying another man is ludicrous, and announced on TV that he'd never met a man he wanted to marry. Then he threatened to kill any man who gave him the eye, that he would "tell God that he died."

I believe in free speech, and Swaggart has a right to say what he likes, but it's irresponsible, and highly un-Christian, to advocate murdering someone and lying to God about it. His words point to all kinds of crazy. He clearly has a history of insanity, with his odd, well-documented relationship with a prostitute, which caused him to leave his ministry and beg for forgiveness from his congregation. I think the congregation
did
forgive him, out of embarrassment, hoping he would just shut up, if nothing else.

People think too simplistically nowadays. They need only sound bites to sustain them. This is why the news anchors on the FOX network always coin and then repeat catchphrases, to manipulate and brainwash the masses. The ease with which the message is heard and assimilated is the key to FOX's success, and ultimately may lead to the demise of democracy itself. Isn't that sad? That stupidity alone might take America down?

That's what Jimmy Swaggart was aiming at. But isn't it just plain dumb to think that if you killed someone you could hide it from God? That's the scary thing about Swaggart's statement. It would not take
much for him to end another man's life, and all he would have to tell God is that the dude just died. What happened to "Thou shalt not kill" or "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor"? There's nothing in the Bible that says, "Thou shalt not cruise"!

Why does Jimmy Swaggart get a free ride through sin city? Because God really hates gays too? When did
that
happen? Swaggart should recant his hateful statements, and truly apologize to the gay community. If he did, it would be a miracle. But it's going to take more than a miracle to change the minds of people who believe that homosexuality is wrong.

I have a terrible suspicion that you can't really change these people's minds, that even glaringly obvious logic wouldn't penetrate the hardened heart of one of these false Christians. They're too dumb to fight. They keep bringing God into it, stating and restating what the Bible supposedly tells us, that we are going to hell. They've never really read God's Word; they just know the slogans. Christianity took a wrong turn somewhere.

There are major problems with the way prejudice and bigotry are sanctioned by the Church. They are at cross-purposes with the nature of Christ, which is tolerant and compassionate. Since when does the righteous God overshadow the loving God? The only way to solve this Christian-chaos problem is to have a true separation of church and state. Only then can we begin to recover from this ecumenical nightmare, and get back to the business of democracy.

THE RIGHT TO LIFE

"so many people on death row do not belong there, we kill the innocent time and time again, the american judicial system is guilty of more crimes than any criminal . . ."

Here is something you can't understand How I could just kill a man
.

—CYPRESS HILL

I
love this song
, and, of course, the lyrical mayhem and murdering rhymes of the great Cypress Hill. B-Real's sneery, cheery cadence lends lightness to the incomprehensible idea of taking another's life. But, then again, is taking another's life so incomprehensible? Cypress Hill also speaks to me because I have such rage inside me, because I ask myself, all the time, could I just kill someone? I think we all have that killing instinct, that fire, in us. It is an animalistic yet highly human response. When I am behind someone at a tollbooth and he doesn't have the exact change, I shudder to think what his fate would be if I were packing heat. When I go to the post office, where the lines are always too long, and the window way down at the end is about to close, leaving only one window open out of the dozen that should be open, it reassures me to know there is a seven-day waiting period to purchase a firearm, which inevitably would place me in another long line, so that killing a slow-moving clerk would do no good except to expedite my own death by firing squad. Since I haven't yet picked up
a sledgehammer and really brained the last salesgirl who wouldn't let me take more than three items into a dressing room, the death penalty is probably the deterrent it's meant to be, that perhaps we are all afraid to die, scared enough to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves. But I don't know if I'm as afraid of death as I am of jail, and I don't know if I'm as afraid of jail as I am of boredom. A lengthy jail term would be so unbearably boring that a death sentence might be a welcome reprieve. But that's just me.

What is that saying "Judge not, lest ye be judged"? I can't help but judge, and that is why I hate judgment. I dare not cast the first stone because my arms are loaded down heavily with sin rocks. Looking at my own prejudices and biases, which might be different than those of the status quo yet which dwell in my heart nonetheless, I hate to think that I am guilty of the same crime as those whose ideas I try so desperately to fight. If I have the capacity for such hideous thinking, I don't want to know the thoughts of those who might be less compassionate. If I can't trust myself to make life-or-death decisions for people around me—don't get me wrong, I
trust
myself—I certainly don't think that the government should have the power to enforce the death penalty, in any situation. If my own murderous tendencies can rise to the surface, how could I, in good conscience, place the power of life or death in the hands of a bureaucracy? Or, worse, a theocracy?

So many people on death row do not belong there. We kill the innocent time and time again. The American judicial system is guilty of more crimes than any criminal—yet the issue never seems to get anywhere.

The prisons are so racially imbalanced, what could the reason for that be other than clear and present racism? We have special "hip-hop cops"! There are no law enforcement specialists for other "non-ethnicity"-driven music. Could you imagine the "Emo-enforcers"? Narcs in
JESUS IS MY HOMIE
T-shirts and reddish brown vintage Levi cords, alternating between riding skateboards, hiding in bushes and documenting Conor Oberst's every move? "Okay, he's leaving his girlfriend's house. I believe that the suspect is crying. Copy that. We will be requiring backup. Tell them to bring Kleenex." He is sweet, I love that little white boy, he is very sensitive and deep. But I wouldn't consider him any less dangerous than, say, 50 Cent. It's always those quiet, unassuming types who blow up buildings or spray schoolyards with bullets.