March 14, 2008

Preachers gone wild

The latest right-wing consternation has to do with a fellow called Jeremiah Wright, who, they say, is Senator Barack Obama's "pastor." Some teevee clips have surfaced featuring Wright articulating radical politics and fulminating against social injustice in America.

The nut-wings are falling all over themselves insisting that Obama denounce Wright and all his works, because he spoke ill of the Bush administration's domestic policy, and we certainly can't have that.

Less consternation has been voiced over Obama's Republican presidential rival and fellow U.S. Senator, John McCain. McCain has lately been cavorting with John Hagee, a Grade-A delusional fundamentalist fruitcake and more recently yet another, Rod Parsley.

Parsley, who McCain describes as his "spiritual guide," raves and rants about Islam and calls on his fellow Christians to wage war against the competing Abrahamic religion, which he claims is "false." Few things are as ridiculous and amusing as one purveyor of superstition declaring it a better superstition than some other.

The Republican propensity for presidential "spiritual guides" dates back at least to the sainted Ronald Reagan, who consulted astrologers, Biblical prophecy, and other styles of necromancy to determine foreign policy.

Why is anybody surprised by preachers talking nonsense? Talking nonsense is what they do for a living. People should be more concerned about presidents and presidential candidates retaining "spiritual guides," if you ask me. That's what's disturbing.

This country was founded on principles of reason during the Age of Enlightenment. Why drag it back into the dark ages now.

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