Religion: The Dye-Pack of the People

Bridgethought of the Day: If you want to really smear someone or a large number of someones, use a dye pack.

What does this mean? And What, in fact, is religion?

These are questions, profound questions, with which men like Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Ariel Sharon, L. Ron Hubbard, and Jerry Falwell have wrestled, professionally I might add. And we'll start with the ex-World Bank heavyweight, Paul Wolfowitz, since Banks and Dye-Packs sort of go together.

You see, since the invention of the expression "politically correct" to undermine the taboo against racist, sexist, or otherwise demeaning speech, there's still been that contingent out there looking for a Plan B. But this Plan B was not to be an alternative to Plan A, but rather B was for "Big", as in Something Very All-Inclusive.

Bad-mouthing non-familiar social groups, aka racist/sexist/ethnic slurs, goes along with Free Speech in the minds of members of Familiar Social Groups, namely WASPS, as part of the American Way. And even more important, it goes along with the Institution of Xenophobia, where the more American a person is, the more '50's apple-pie/mom/smiling clean-clothed/Euro-ethnic or Jewish-professional-entertainer/ flag-obsessed/buck-earning/English-speaking/tax-paying/non-foreign-looking/white/ dentally-intact a person is - and vice versa. Patriotism is a culture with a club.

With that in mind, let's find a solution to terrorism. If only all terrorists could be easily identified. What we need is a good dye-pack, something to explode in their faces everytime they try to pull off a terrorist act, successful or not. Problem is, it's not like they're always after something like money that can be planted. But they are after something - somewhere between vengeance, attention, and that feeling of conquering an impossible beast, if only for a moment. Aha, the Beast! That's it!

The Beast reminds us all of what? Religion, of course! "And what rough Beast, its hour come 'round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born ..." What could be more religious than T.S. Eliot, Bethlehem, and Revelations? And to a terrorist, what is the Beast? America is!

Who else watches silently, slouching, as Israel slaughters Lebanese civilians from the air? Who else watches the Palestinians get bulldozed out of a pauper's lane of land for some rich, imported Chosen Ones - and claps with all the fervor and pride of the Romans in their amazing Coliseum? Who else cares so little for infants and children killed from starvation by sanctions, bombings or wars, referring to them callously as "collateral damage"? Who else clamors for more cruel torture and interrogations and demands and end to the humane treatment of prisoners of war? Who else doesn't give a damn about the international laws against assassination or invasion of countries against their will? The Beast, that's who!

So, in the gospel according to Rove, we call ourselves the Savior, and they are the Beast, see? Just reverse the roles. And then the dye-pack. It's religion, the religion of the Beast. Islam. All we do is associate Islam with the Beast and we've got it made! So every time someone who is Muslim fights against anyone from the West or Israel, or better yet, attacks civilian targets, the dye-pack explodes! They are "Islamic Terrorists." They are The Beast.

Religion is really, for the guys mentioned above, something of a racket, a thing that you use to get what you want. So now it's turned into a thing you use to splatter indelible ink all over the enemy you wish to create. So now we can find the Terrorists. They are Muslims! Anyone who is Muslim who does anything "suspicious", becomes a part of Terrorism. He's into the Beast! Then, just to be "politically correct", you have to say "Of course, we don't mean the Good Muslims." Like the Christian or Jewish ones. Or the ones who never pray. Or the ones who don't speak Arabic. Or the ones who work hard to make money and don't give a damn if children are dying in Palestine because it's none of their damn business, right? Those are the Good Muslims. We don't mean them.

The Beast is Islam. The religion of people who are so angry about the extreme continuous oppression of people around the world that they can't wait for the "system" run by the U.S. and Britain to work. Wasn't patience supposed to be a virtue?

Were the terrorists of 9-11 attacking America, their Beast? In the so-called "post 9-11 world", they were creating a new Beast - Islam! And we believe! All Americans follow closely "terror level - elevated" and wonder, where will they strike next? FBI officials dutifully interview every Muslim student, fishing for plots: "Do you know Osama?" As if every Muslim has some sort of conduit to America's Most Wanted Terrorist. Is America crazy, or are they just building up the dye-pack chemical base?

Listen closely to the news: "A group of Muslims has been linked to a terrorist plot." But no one said "Timothy McVeigh, the Christian who blew up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City." Does anyone even know what his religion was? Before he was caught, the first to be arrested was a Muslim from Jordan - the old Middle East Muslim thing. If someone in a terrorist plot is not Muslim, his religion is never mentioned. Terrorism is not a religion, and yet the dye-pack security plan wants it to be. It's a new religon called "Islamist." It's The Beast.

It's driving tyrants crazy overseas. Look at Hosny Mubarak, Egypt's cruel dictator. He bends over backwards, even having his security forces rape innocent women, even locking down mosques to prevent people to pray, even making it a criminal act for any "sheikh" - all are now government-appointed, usually police officers - to say anything remotely construed as "activist" or political. Mubarak's going all out to destroy The Beast of Islam. He's undermining the teaching of the Arabic language. He's preventing the teaching of Islam as a religion. Freedom of religion is part of the Beast. Islam dictates that no religion be coerced or a state religion. That is another part of Islamism, the Terrorist Beast!

Kings Abdullah & Abdullah are trying to do their part to undermine The Beast. The Beast that wants to devour Childe Israel the beloved. The Beast that does not love Childe Israel as Childe Israel should be loved. And who doesn't love beauty, especially beauty that comes from pampering and wealth, flaunted before the filthy vermin that they call the poor people? Ooooh, those stinky poor! Royals understand the disgust of the Israelis. They understand the need to be special. They understand birthright, wealth, inheritance, and being born on a higher plane, born to be pampered, special, Chosen, the Chosen Few, God's beloved. And how could God not love the Beautiful People who live in splendor and indulge their every desire while unworthy creatures do not even deserve a few shekels' worth of drudgery to feed their always-devouring children's mouths?

Yes, Royals and tyrants understand the need for security to protect what was stolen from others less deserving. You know how low-lifes are, always ranting and raving about "rights" and "humanity" and "compassion". But that's not what religion is about. It's about creating fear, love, and loathing. It's about mass emotional manipulation, or so I overheard from those guys who're supposed to know.

Religion is about dye-packs, about putting to sleep 300 million people so they can BELIEVE that they are always RIGHT just because they are Americans and to say otherwise would be unpatriotic, just like the Israelis are always right, because to say otherwise would be anti-Semitic, and that Muslims are always terrorists unless they are the Good Muslims who just want to assimilate and believe the same dye-pack of lies, just like everybody else, so we can all go to hell on the back of one great big Beast.

Whose hour has come 'round at last...

The Beast Walks

Bridgethought of the Day: If "The Beast" is a sign of the Day of Resurrection, look no further. For insatiable optimists like myself (I can almost feel the universal cringe), think: Could this be the Resurrection of ... conscience?? I'm referring, of course, to "The Beast", aka "Buffalo Beast."
If you think there's something wrong with politics as usual, the Bush budget, the media, the way government is being run, and the way the news is being reported, you might be surprised at how easy it is to take your breath here - this site has plenty of O2, and is shockingly lacking in sulfur ... that popular gas given off by Mass Hypocrisy.

Here you can actually find out some statistics on the Bush Budget, such as these reported in the article by Mike Taibbi:

Not only does it make many of Bush's tax cuts permanent, but it envisions a
complete repeal of the Estate Tax, which mainly affects only those who are
in the top two-tenths of the top one percent of the richest people in this
country. The proposed savings from the cuts over the next decade are about
$442 billion, or just slightly less than the amount of the annual defense
budget (minus Iraq war expenses). But what's interesting about these cuts
are how Bush plans to pay for them.

Sanders's office came up with some interesting numbers here. If the
Estate Tax were to be repealed completely, the estimated savings to just one
family -- the Walton family, the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune -- would be about
$32.7 billion dollars over the next ten years.The proposed reductions to
Medicaid over the same time frame? $28 billion.

Or how about this: if the Estate Tax goes, the heirs to the Mars candy corporation -- some of the world's evilest scumbags, incidentally, routinely ripped by human rights organizations for trafficking in child labor to work cocoa farms in places like Cote D'Ivoire -- if the estate tax goes, those assholes will receive about $11.7 billion in
tax breaks. That's more than three times the amount Bush wants to cut from the
VA budget ($3.4 billion) over the same time period.
Some other notable estimate estate tax breaks, versus corresponding cuts:

Cox family (Cox cable TV) receives $9.7 billion tax break while education would get $1.5 billion in cuts

Nordstrom family (Nordstrom dept. stores) receives $826.5 million tax break while Community Service Block Grants would be eliminated, a $630 million cut.

Ernest Gallo family (shitty wines) receives a $468.4 million cut while LIHEAP (heating oil to poor) would get a $420 million cut.

And so on and so on. Sanders additionally pointed out that the family of former Exxon/Mobil CEO Lee Raymond, who received a $400 million retirement package, would receive about $164 million in tax breaks.

Compare that to the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which Bush proposes be completely eliminated, at a savings of $108 million over ten years. The program sent one bag of groceries per month to 480,000 seniors, mothers and newborn children.

Somehow, to me, that's the worst one on the list. Here you have the former CEO of a company that scored record profits even as it gouged consumers, with gas prices rising more than 70 percent since January of 2001. There is a direct correlation between the avarice of oil company executives and the increased demand for federal aid for heating oil programs like LIHEAP, and yet the federal government wants to reward these same executives for raising prices on the backs of consumers.


Even if you're a traditional, Barry Goldwater conservative, the kinds of budgets that Bush has sent to the hill not only this year but this whole century are the worst-case scenario; they increase spending generally while cutting taxes and social programming. They commit taxpayers to giant subsidies of already Croseus-rich energy corporations, pharmaceutical companies and defense manufacturers while simultaneously cutting taxes on those who most directly benefit from those subsidies. Thus you're not cutting spending -- you're just cutting spending on people who actually need the money. ...

...This is something different from traditional conservatism and something different from big-government liberalism; this is a new kind of politics that transforms the state into a huge, ever-expanding instrument for converting private savings into corporate profit. ...

That's not only bad government, it's bad capitalism. It makes legalized bribery and political connections more important factors than performance and competition in the corporate marketplace."

The Resurrection of Conscience. Read the fine print.

And while you're at it, read the articles about Barak Obama - whom I tend to support as a candidate, but the celebrity thing is worth looking at - and the best advice the Bush administration could possibly receive in one letter. It's not so much saying to someone to tell the truth, it's how you say it.

Next: when to say it, and how to actually get the people you're saying it to, to listen.

Suggestion for both: The Day of Resurrection.

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