Calling for an End to Opposite Day

[struggle4progress]

by Dawn Baldwin

We're entering year five of opposite day in America.

You know the drill: More mercury emissions means cleaner water. More sulfur and carbon dioxide in the air means clearer skies. Cutting old growth trees means creating healthier forests. Less money for expensive education programs means better education for every child. Abolishing initiatives for equal pay and restricting reproductive freedom is pro-family. Waging pre- emptive war is defending the "culture of life." Imprisoning suspects indefinitely without due process is protecting our democracy. Being pro-war, pro-gun, and pro-death penalty is being not only Christian, but pro-life.

Millennium Jesus is a pumped-up warrior brandishing the Bible as a weapon with which to beat folks into submission, or more succinctly, damn them to hell. (Not to be confused with the Historical Jesus, a pacifist who taught his followers to love their neighbors as they loved themselves.)

Unlike their historical predecessors, the new conservatives are hyper-consumers who deplete the world's resources with impunity, ravage the environment without concern, and wage war without either provocation or planning. The new morality defines non-marital and homosexual sex as sin, uttering a four-letter word as a crime, and torture of "detainees" as a necessary tactic. The Geneva Conventions are dismissed as quaint and civil liberties an indulgence we can ill-afford if we are to defend our way of life. <snip>

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0107-32.htm