Topic: Prayer for George Dubya
Hello all!
Although this commentary is 13 mos. old, it is just as relative today.
A PRAYER FOR GEORGE DUBYA
What might the universe have to say to Shrub right now? Hint: It ain't
exactly fan mail
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
2003 SF Gate
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/morford/
George. Hey, universe here. Great eternal karmic engine of all that ever was
and is and will be everywhere for all time, yadda yadda yadda. We have to
talk.
Weirdest thing. I've been fighting this nasty rash, you see, this itchy
painful scabby thing, very unusual, uncomfortable and annoying as all hell,
as you might imagine. Not sleeping well. Tea tastes funny. Divine timeless
luminous glow is flickering like a bad bulb. Haven't seen anything like this
since, oh, the Crusades, or the Salem witch trials, or 'Nam. So weird.
But I think I've figured out the cause, GW. Turns out it's a person. Human.
Pale and smirky and not all that articulate. You feel me?
Let's get to the point. All sources are telling me that you are more than a
little outta control. Way out of line. Off-leash and lost and drunk on
dreams of global supremacy and in deep need of major karmic spanking, a
divine colonic. The various world deities are shooting me urgent e-mails
left and right. We gotta have some words, brother. Are you sitting down?
Thinking cap on? Pretzels out of reach? Excellent.
Word is you're reborn Christian. Great. Didn't quite get it right the first
time, is what they say, what with all the inebriants and daddy's silver
spoon and dodging Vietnam and, hey, nothing snags those
God-fearin'-fundamentalist votes more than claiming you rediscovered Jesus
while recovering from another gin bender on Dad's yacht, am I right? Fine
and good. Whatever works, I always say.
Problem is, Jesus is a little piqued. He's right here with me, right now,
and he's drumming his fingers on the table, eyes aflame. He has a question:
"Just what in the heck do you think you're doing in my dad's name? Did you
miss the part about 'Thou shalt not kill?' You dare invoke me and my father
and call yourself a forgiving Christian and yet you stomp around the globe
like you own it?" Christ, he is not happy.
He also wants to know what's with those hardcore evangelical Christian
missionaries marching into Iraq. Sure, the food and aid they bring in is
wonderful and needed, but the Bibles? The sanctimonious preaching? Billy
Graham spawn Franklin Graham's bilious Islam-bashing ideology? What's up
with that? Who you trying to kid?
Which leads us right to the thing with the prayer cards. What the hell is
this? Some sort of sanctimonious pamphlet being handed out to U.S. soldiers
in the battlefield, which they're supposed to tear off and send to you to
let you know they're praying for you? Oh dear. Are you serious?
Let me get this straight: Soldiers who are right now in the line of fire --
basically thousands and thousands of poor, undereducated young kids,
baffled, stunned, patriotically misled -- praying for you and the success of
your corporate regime? And not the other way around? Jesus has two words for
you, Dubya: Step off.
Well of course Buddha's here too, BTW. Always the chuckling one, always
laughing at the divine absurdity of it all, the delicious tragicomic
pageant. He's still laughing, but it's this sort of dry, resigned laugh of
cheerless exhaustion. You know what I'm saying, George?
See, lots of people believe Buddha is the one who taught Jesus many of those
lessons about surrendering the ego, about compassion and nonviolence and
inner peace. All about how desperate attachment to greed and power and oil
only leads to suffering. About how everything is connected, and if you
irrevocably despoil one thing, you despoil everything. Simple truths, Geo.
Always the most profound, you know?
Thing is, Buddha takes it a little personally when one of his greatest
students is slighted and mistreated and deliberately misinterpreted in the
name of violence and power expansion and empire. But then he just laughs.
Damn, he's so good at seeing the big picture. He knows, in the grand scheme,
you are pretty irrelevant. Aren't we all? Well, except me.
Whoa. You hear that? That singing? That gorgeous, overwhelming sound, like
an ocean roar? Like volcanoes erupting? Goddesses. Fiery ancient ones, they
are, most existing long before the guys. They're eternal mothers and life
givers and major destroyers.
Oh, man, they think you are so full of it. You have aggressively dissed
women's rights, slammed choice, shown noxiously little respect for women in
general and for the divine feminine cause overall. Wow. These are some of
the most powerful and divine forces around here, Geo, representing some of
the most basic, immutable laws of nature and time, and they are probably the
most saddened by you, the most appalled and sickened. Isn't that
interesting? Think about it.
There's Mohammed. Allah. Oh, man. He has such the headache right now. He
looks terrible. Keeps banging his head against my walls, over and over,
repeating, "This is so not what I meant, this is so not what I meant, this
is so not what I meant." He's talking about the fundamentalist terrorists,
slaughtering in the name of some martyrdom. But he also means you, George.
He thinks you need an inner hajj. That's a pilgrimage, George (we all
realize that, until you bought the presidency, you'd never really been
anywhere outside the U.S., so you don't know much of that "furriner" lingo).
It's a journey, to find the self. See what you're really made of, divinely
speaking. Because there are lots of doubts right now around these parts
about what you might -- or might not -- find.
That skinny guy sitting quietly over in the corner sipping herbal tea and
reading and sighing heavily? Gandhi. Nonviolence works too, bucko, he wants
to remind you. True, it's far more difficult and requires far more internal
fortitude and intelligence and calm. Not really your forte.
Peace is always harder than rage, he knows. Smashing and killing is always
easier than reasoning and diplomacy. War is the last refuge of the
small-minded and the lost. Pretty basic stuff, really. He's just sad you
don't seem to get it.
Remember what Gandhi said when a reporter asked his opinion of Western
civilization, and he said he thought it would be a good idea? I'm thinking
that's aimed right at you, GW. But now he's just shrugging. I think he knows
what awaits you, later, in the next life, if you keep this up. Uh-oh.
So, then, Dubya, here's my prayer for you: May you be suddenly reinvigorated
with shocking amounts of divine sight. May plentitudes of epiphanic
illumination and wet soapy awareness scrub your soul clean of the demons of
self-righteousness and war and smirky pretense. (Translation: Go commune
with Shiva for a change, and stay the hell away from Cheney.) May you go
through a major spiritual crisis of meaning and love, some sort of
"Christmas Carol" thing where angry ghosts show you shocking truths that
make you shudder and recoil and whimper. And may they do it quick.
Word is you were very hard on yourself in preparing for this war, George.
Word is you gave up sweets. Gosh. My prayer for you: Go back to the sweets.
Suck sweets until you faint. Drench yourself in sweetness and ecstasy and
lush sticky perspective until you're eyes roll around in your head and you
begin speaking in tongues other than simpleminded drawl. Do it, Dubya. Do it
now, before it's too late.
Unless, of course, it already is.
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Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here we might as well dance.
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If you spin around on your chair really fast, things around here will make a lot more sense.
