Robin has decided to broaden my musical horizons again, and is playing me Randy Newman's Faust whilst I go through my blogroll and keep him company as he inks. ("Nobody does 'contempt' like Newman," Robin smiles.) Right now I'm reading, via Avedon Carol (link at sidebar), a BuzzFlash (link at sidebar) interview with author Joe Conason about moral relativism and how many Republicans who "put out long lists of words accusing Democrats of perversion and decadence" have been guilty of far worse. And I'm listening to Newman's lyrics and thinking, here comes the Devil (Newman, natch) pointing out all those uncomfortable truths:
In all my lifeAnd it's a glorious role and terrific lyrics, to be sure, but truth has a way of making people squirm. As I've mentioned in past entries, many people don't want to hear "Bullshit, the Republicans are lying hypocrites, we're all gonna die, you're too stupid to see what's really going on!" Lots of folks prefer to believe the part of their imagination that dreams up heaven's promise than the part that cowers in fear of hell (or hell on earth). And as long as Republicans have staked out the religious high ground, until voters are past the point of either-or dichotomies, anything that makes you feel bad or uncomfortable (including telling the truth about what's going on around us) will be seen as the work of the devil, and blind faith (like leaders asking us to trust them, and apparently quoting Scripture at us in the process, never mind who usually quotes Scripture) the work of the angels. So I wish Conason, and all of us, a lot of luck, but I think we have a bit of an uphill battle ahead of us, and we always will. Update: More on the entwining of church and state here in Emma Goldman's Notes on the Atrocities.
I don't believe I've ever heard such bullshit...
Some fools in the desert with nothing to do...
...invented me, and they invented you
And other fools keep it all going and growing
Everybody, we're a figment of their imagination...
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