But I just had to mention this.
Barrack Obama is taking a lot of heat right now for citing radical pastor Jeremiah Wright as his “spiritual guide”. Damage control must be a bitch for him right now. And he probably deserves it. There’s no way he could have been a regular member of that church without having heard at least some of the minister’s personal viewpoints and opinions (as it seems quite apparent from videos of him preaching that he sees no wrong in using the pulpit as a soapbox to propagate them).
Whether or not it hurts Obama’s campaign, I’ll say this for him. At least he had the integrity to say that his mentor was the leader OF HIS OWN CHURCH.
John McCain, on the other hand, proclaims that his “spiritual leaders” are Rod Parsley and John Hagee, two snake-oil selling televangelist charlatans. These guys are recognized by MILLIONS of professing Christians who regularly watch the religious broadcasting networks, where they’ve bought enough airtime that anyone fool enough to follow them could see them every day if they wanted. Airtime, I might add, that was purchased using funds of contributors who they’ve fleeced using “seed-faith” promises and other questionable tactics. We’re talking MILLIONS of dollars here.
The point being that there must be thousands of people who send money to these guys. And who knows how many people tune in without sending money, but who respect the views and statements of Parsley and Hagee. And that’s their business, of course.
But doesn’t it seem a bit disingenuous and tacky that John McCain would choose these Trinity Broadcasting Network superstars as mentors? A presidential candidate who shared their extremely intolerant views would never be elected, so one must assume that McCain has distanced himself from going that far. He probably wants to nurture the association with the hard right that Parsley/Hagee represent, but I doubt he would be so naïve as to firmly entrench himself in their camp.
Oh, no. It seems perfectly obvious to me, and I have no doubt that I am probably the LAST one to figure it out:
It’s numbers he wants. And it’s numbers he’ll get, because millions of people buy into all this televised preaching bullshit. And if they are fool enough to put their trust in a quack like Hagee, then they’re fool enough to vote for who he tells them to vote for. If they believe the same way that Rod Parsley believes, then they’re not going to vote for anyone but an ultra-conservative anyway. Read his books and you’ll see what I mean (plus, you might get a chuckle or two out of ‘em).
Pandering to the Christian right has been a staple of the election process since before I can remember. I don’t like it, but oh well. But it seems to me that if John McCain had any sense at all he would exercise better judgement over who he proclaims to be his “spiritual guides”. It’s just TOO obvious what he’s doing here. It should be considered an insult by every believer in this country.
I won’t disclose my political affiliation, but I will say this, hypothetically: even if I were a staunch Republican I would never vote for John McCain. Obama or Clinton, either one, but NOT McCain.
What a fuckin’ jackass.
No comments:
Post a Comment