Letter from Slim Wolfe
Colorado Central – December 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
Hear Hear! John Mattingly for the most apt bit of commentary (November’s edition). It boggles the mind how many folks seem to think Kerry is intelligent and has a program, or that the debates were somehow heartening (to use Martha’s word), but given the past four years it comes as little surprise that we’ve forgotten what intelligence looks like.
The debates were only notable for their omissions, the verbal punches Kerry might have thrown but didn’t, the issues few Americans are willing to think about: one, what makes a terrorist in the first place, and two, how much longer will we tolerate Republican sabotage of our political process.
Republican shenanigans go back to the Watergate burglary, re-emerge with the Clinton impeachment, proceed through the 2000 election theft, the war empowerment vote prior to the Iraq invasion, and the current large scale tampering with voting rights nationwide. These have, like monkey wrenches, brought our nation’s processes to a standstill time and time again, never mind the minor peccadillos like no-bid-contracts and subsidies. A sane nation would ban the party from holding office for at least ten years: these aren’t people with any interest in democracy. Let’s face it: Christianity as its practiced is every bit as authoritarian as Islam, every bit as bloody and rampant.
And, while these alleged candidates are strutting like Dr. Strangelove hollering, “kill, destroy, prevail,” we get our October surprise from Osama bin Laden: the rather calm-sounding message that, if we don’t mess with them, they won’t mess with us. Seems a bit late to make that point, but never mind: America has been whipped to hysteria and never thought about cause-and-effect. Did we provide Saddam with anthrax and other weapons to use on his own people and Iran? Is our puppet prime minister a former CIA assassin as alleged in the New York Times? Are we continuing a strategy of global economic and military dominion begun in Iraq by the British in the 1920s or more accurately by Alexander in the 4th century BC…. Have we destroyed agricultural infrastructure so these people would be forced to buy their food from us? Have we rained death in the form of depleted uranium? Maybe we have earned the wrath of a billion people, without even arriving at the question of Israel? What good
FOR SEVERAL YEARS I’ve been writing letters here, frequently critical, and for once I’d like to act as peacemaker instead, between Martha Quillen and George Sibley. I think Martha may have misread George’s reference to “the jealous old billygod” as a reference to Christians, whom she then defended. I take “the billygod” to mean the horned, testosterone-laden, self-serving demon who the Walker boys kneel and pray to in the mistaken impression that it’s the prince of peace. You’d think with all their money they could afford a decent optometrist … but maybe they spent the wad on Boy George’s speech therapist instead. Suffice it to say that, while the followers of the billygod of Sibley’s reference may invoke the name of Jesus, that doesn’t make them Christians or worthy of Martha’s defense, any more than Wonder Bread builds strong bodies nine ways. There are indeed true Christians out there who care for the needy, walk in love, and don’t need to bang their shoes on the lectern and shout,
Mattingly’s jest about the partial-vote election raised the real issue of the shutting-out of third parties, which give more substance and dimension to elections in more civilized nations. Peacenik spokespersons who endorsed Kerry seem to forget that, without the counterbalance of a Green vote, he’ll keep flopping rightward. Americans who seem happy to drown in the tar-pit of consumer choice are somehow afraid to give themselves the political spectrum … like the cyborgs of tomorrow, we want only to choose in the binary mode: on or off. How bloody boring. Saved or damned. Free or slave. Fast or fastest. No wonder the more intelligent among us may be jumping ship, in search of a bit of nuance….
One last point, Martha. Monica was the second person in the Oval Office to be victimized (if that’s what you call it) by Bill Clinton’s pecker. The first victim was Bill himself. Call it our collective blessing or our collective curse, but humans are designed with this mechanism dominant. For a reason.
Slim Wolfe
Villa Grove
