Current Comedy 4/6/09: God Is Dead

Yes, it’s true, god is dead.
I saw it on the radio; saw it being officially announced by the pope himself. We Americans lost a great hero. But it’s true, based on this last week’s news cycle, we have conclusive evidence that god, at least as far as we Americans have dreamed up our own personal plastic Jesus on the dashboard kind of god, has now died of elder abuse. Beaten down by a mob in New York City, betrayed by those who claimed to love him, then crucified by the vengeful crowned heads of Europe; and more people stood around and watched this martyrdom than the Kitty Genovese slaying.
Of course if this were an Easter bunny kind of tail, then god would be up and pitching for the Yankees again in three days, though I’m not so sure this time. By now the Christians in the audience, if there are any still reading at this point anyway, are wondering, “What kind of god are we talking about here?”
Fear not, holy people, it was only the American god, our Manifest Destiny image of ourselves, the one we insist the rest of the world bow before, not one that an actual Christian could be expected to like. Christians are supposed to love their neighbors, cherish all life, not just the unborn, honor the planet, turn the other cheek and make sure that the least at least are treated as well as the finest. Obviously no American god would behave like that. Once upon a time those who would call themselves Christians called the American god Mammon and our main streets Babylon. I guess that was before they thought they owned them. But back to our story--
As mentioned earlier, from his sound proof room, dressed in his finest raiment, the high priest (pun intended) to the self-proclaimed “most holy of Americans,” Rush Limbaugh himself, was on hand to deliver the final communion, share an oxycotin wafer or two, and then, along with his friends at Fox, cheer on god’s post-mortem disemboweling after the deity was pronounced dead upon arrival. In all truth, god was actually still lying there grasping his last, but Rush ruled god dead anyway so he could have something to bitch about. Then in typical Limbaugh fashion he went on to repeat himself fifteen different times in twelve different ways, liberally mixing in the occasional paid product placements.
But that was just the beginning of the death of our god. Like Tinkerbelle, a god needs to be believed in to survive and in the last few months an amazing amount of folks who like to call themselves good loyal Christian Americans have turned their backs on their country, the Christian Nation so Manifestly Destined to rule over all. These supposedly god-fearing pious have taken to praying for our country’s ruin. As part of the stampede, Fox “News” is now moving into Rwandan-style media propagandist territory, promoting the tepid ersatz revolutionary theater trend known as tea parties, militias and even war-gaming civil war against the government.
After years of calling for those who didn’t love the government to shut up, or even be deported as traitors, now Fox calls calling for armed insurrection against a duly elected president (a term they may not be familiar with). Religious leaders, pundits, and considerable regions of the US Congressional map (including oddly numerous “blue state” congressmen) are all condemning our country in ways that make Rev. Wright’s infamous “God Damn America” seem like a misprinted request for water conservation.
If the people who most loudly insist the rest of us have to listen while they crow that they are the true Americans, if those kind of folks have turned to hating the country this much, it’s no wonder our god died—from absolute embarrassment over the actions of the people who claim he supports them.
Then, following that desecration, as if to add injury to insult, god’s corpse was next flown to London so the heads of state of 19 other nations could kick around god’s dead body for the plague it had brought among them, AKA Obama’s turn with the G20. You know inflation done set in when in the course of less than a year the number of Gs around the world that want to stand around and call us names has increased 250% from a G8 to a G20.And when they all got together to say what they wanted the nations of the world also shunned and condemned the American god.
With Bush we were told not to care that the rest of the world hates us. America didn’t need the other 94% of the population anyway. After all we were told they only hate us for our freedom. But in truth it had something to do with our particularly rapacious brand of capitalism, something to do with our greed, and a whole lot to do with the kind of laziness and thugishness that expects our entitlement to never end, not to mention our own special brand of hunger that would rape a whole world for a whim and softer toilet paper.
It is the kind of appetite that Americans are famous for and the kind of thing people all over the planet are dying over and this last week the rest of the world told us they were tired of putting up with our crap. Around the world people are calling for an end of the Washington consensus as Gordon Brown so stylishly put it while pandering to Sarkozy.
As you may recall under the ideals of the Washington Consensus rest of the world including the non-wealthy Americans, were told to trust our leaders and their pals on Wall Street. Just let the plunderers have absolute control and everything is going to be all right. But guess what they did? Yep, that’s right, they plundered. And when you have ripped off an entire planet, that’s a lot of pissed off people. Folks around the world had been calling for Bush’s head, or at least his ass, for years; but our current president doesn’t want to play it that way. Guess what again? The people of the planet are more than willing to be pissed at him instead. And so around the world Obama is going to be greeted with as intense an anti-message as Bush ever got. The difference is that the message to Bush was an accounting for all of his wrongs. Obama is being called to the carpet for our wrongs.
My, how the tone has changed in a year. Bush laughed at the rest of the world when they asked us to become just a little more green by changing our technologies and energy investments. Instead, Obama laughed at US, at our efforts towards more greenery in his recent electronic town hall meeting when Americans asked him to legalize marijuana by pointing out the economic benefits; wouldn’t even entertain the question, blowing it off the way an arena rocker ignores those outside the gate asking for an autograph.
But if the rock star Obamas had “skipped across the pond” expecting to be welcomed Iraqi-style, with flowers and all, and then dabble in petty faux gaffes with the queen, what they got were their April Foolish hats handed to them, first in London and then at NATO. Obama had to hightail it to Iraq and Turkey for safety sake to get away from the angry crowd of twenty Gs. At least the assassins in Turkey only use knives and not their tongues and everyone knows they’re goofballs.
Here we give them syndicated radio shows and “news” networks, then let them parade around claiming to be patriots while they eviscerate our god.
-mikel weisser writes from the left coast of Arizona.