Offended by the Offended by the Offended

Christmas is over! Maybe we can have some peace around here!

Since I have another early deadline and no idea what new wars might break out, let’s gossip about Christians!

We just spent an entire holiday season listening to various Christians gossip about non-Christians. “Non-Christians are offended by Christmas trees, you know.” “Really? I heard they melt at the sight of Nativity scenes.” “I’m not surprised. And the way they hate it when you say Merry Christmas to them, my word, what thin skins they have! I think they’re all hemophiliacs.”

I don’t want to ever hear one more single person tell me what offends other people. No third party declarations of offense. Also, they prefer to be called the “Christianity-Free.”

Here’s news you won’t get on FOX: it’s possible to object to Christian images in public places paid for by public funds without being in the slightest bit offended by the images themselves. Of course, reducing all such objections to imaginary offenses taken is very convenient. You can tell people they just have a Weak Constitution. “Have a hanky and go cry in the corner until Christmas is over.”

Actually, because I have some small say about what gets printed in Real Change, religious wars don’t end with Epiphany for me. Submissions come in all year round that speak glowingly of some religious figure or another.

Who am I kidding? They all speak glowingly of Jesus. Apparently, nobody that cares deeply about Ahura Mazda thinks of Real Change when they are looking for an outlet to express their feelings. But Jesus moves people to want to publish here.

Since I have only one vote in about six I make it a policy not to tell folks how I’ll vote, because it could be misleading. So if you ask, “Does Real Change publish fiction?” I’ll say, “What do you think we are, the New York Times?” and laugh insanely.

Otherwise, imagine how it would be. I’d say to someone, "No, Mr. Manson, we're not about to publish your 'If I Had It To Do All Over, Here's How I Would Slaughter Them This Time' in thirteen weekly installments." As sure as I'm sure we won't, that's just how surely the editorial committee will vote 5 to 1 in favor of slaughter. Or supposing I said, "Yes, Ma'am, we would be thrilled to print your detailed explicit graphic memoirs as a life-long callgirl specializing in rare requests," I can just bet the committee will vote 5 to 1 against good fun. I'm not naming names, but some people on the editorial committee are not me. Not in any way me.

All of that said, I’ve decided to break my long silence on this one subject in order to fill up the rest of my space today. Now, remember, I just have one vote in six, and my opinions are NOT the official opinions of Real Change or any other decent organization.

First, the rumors are not true. I do not hate Jesus. Not only that, but I have been known to vote “yes” on submissions that mention Jesus and say good things about Jesus. I am not bothered by any utterance of the names “Jesus,” “Christ,” or those of His Relatives or Associates.

I am in fact very much interested in your touching story about how you and your pet goldfish Simon and your shared love for Jesus Christ saved you both from the well during the flood. Or how thanks to Jesus your fifteen years of homelessness have been joyous throughout, or that you don’t even consider yourself homeless because, with Jesus in your heart, wherever you are is Heaven, and Heaven is nothing if not home. It really really interests me to read things like that.

I do however insist that any submission that gets my vote say something other than, “I’m a Christian; you be one too.”

Take a look at my picture on this page. Does that look like a cheerleader outfit I’m wearing?

Barbarism and Barbarella

As we've seen before, some weeks there's no news. Other weeks, like this one, there's too much. Where do I begin? How do I thread it all together? Is there a common theme, Wes? I often talk to myself this way, to feel as though I have close friends in my head.

Speaking of close friends, George Bush, a Christian, has close friends in Saudi Arabia's government and royalty. He might want to speak to them about the little raid conducted on a "clandestine" church in suburban Riyadh that netted 40 illegally worshipping Christians. Since it is legal to practice Christianity in Saudi Arabia in the privacy of one's own home (it's like drinking 40-ouncers here!) you would think that it would be GOOD that it was a clandestine church. That means "private." But the Saudi's don't see it that way. To them it means "sneaky."

Speaking of oppression of lifestyles -- and I bet you think I'm headed for Washington State's non-passage of a law to stop discriminating against gays, but no! I'll do that later! – we see that a "study" in England has determined that office workers suffer a greater loss of IQ from reading email and text-messages and taking phone calls at work than from smoking pot. Email etc. takes 10 points off your IQ, smoking pot takes only 4 points off.

I have so many questions at this point. 1) Where can I sign up to participate in such a study? I would like to have my IQ lowered by the pot, thank you. 2) When they say "study," what exactly do they mean, anyway? Do they just pass out the joints, take up clipboards, and walk around stroking their chins? Or are there electrodes implanted in brains? 3) Only 4 points off for the pot!? So why is it illegal!?

Oh, never mind, I know the answer to that last one! It's illegal because there's a law against it, and we can't have lawbreakers can we? Golly, I don't know if there is any connection, but here in the news it says that even though violent crime is way down in this country we still have more people in prison than just about any other country in the universe.

OK, one more news story and then I'll shut up for another week: we're talking about oppression again, only this time it isn't oppression of a lifestyle, exactly. We're talking about the incident that occurred while Jane Fonda was in Kansas City on her book tour, and a Vietnam Veteran, Michael Smith, spit tobacco juice in her face for having been a traitor to America who had "spit in the faces of war veterans for years."

Since many of you readers are too young to remember the Vietnam War, I will summarize it for you. We picked up the war right about where the French had lost it. It was popular for a while, then it became unpopular. So a lot of people expressed their displeasure with it, including the star of the movie Barbarella. Most of those people have not been accused of having spit in the faces of war veterans for years, since actually not as much of that occurred as has been reported. Jane Fonda herself did not ever spit, literally, in anyone's face, as far as I know. But Jane Fonda was the star of the movie Barbarella.

Tom Hayden could protest the war to his heart's content, but Jane Fonda was a woman, and that's all this is about. It isn't really even about Vietnam. It certainly isn't about treason, because Jane Fonda just wanted what our president at the time eventually gave us, and called good.

It's all about oppression. Mind your superiors. Don't pray to Jesus in Riyadh. Don't smoke pot. Three strikes and we'll put you away for life. No uppity women, especially during wars. Oh, yes, and don't forget Rule #9: There's always a war.

You Can't Say That!

It's a good time to recall the standard disclaimer: the author of this column, me, Dr. Wes Browning, is solely responsible for its content. Real Change, its management, staff, and volunteers have all said on many occasions that I, Dr. Wes, am nuts, and they assume no liability for anything I say here or anywhere else.

I had just finished saying, last week, that Susan Sontag was right about something and that Ed Koch may or may not have been. I also mentioned the Planters Nut Company. What you all may not have known, because I didn't tell you, was that last week's entire column was an attempt to write about Ward Churchill that got sidetracked.

Ward Churchill is the Colorado University professor who has taken a lot of flak for an essay he wrote after the 9-11 attacks in which he pointed out that the Pentagon was a military target and added that many (not all) of the people in the World Trade Towers at the time of the attack were willing participants in "America's global financial empire." One particular phrase that fetched Mr. Churchill a heap of heat was "little Eichmanns."

"Oh boy, talking about this will be fun!" That's what I've been thinking. I thought, "Let's talk about Nazi technocrats and the Americans who can be compared to them, ha, ha!" That's when I remembered what Susan Sontag said and got distracted.

Now Bill Maher has got back in the news and distracted me. Bill Maher said essentially the same thing that Sontag said, that the 9-11 attackers had not been cowards, whatever else they were, and got his show yanked from TV. Now he's back with a new TV show and he's getting himself in deep by disparaging evangelical Christians, and the conservative Christians are romping all over him.

OK, he said something real bad about Christians in general, and it was TOTALLY inappropriate. Christians do NOT all have neurological disorders. Bad talk-show man! BAD! No talk-show man cookie!

As if that isn't distracting enough, Chris Rock gets picked to host the Oscars and he lets fly that he thinks no straight black man would ever watch the Oscars and that, in general, awards for art are f-ing idiotic. You might think that would mostly offend gays, but actually right-wing conservatives are doing most of the complaining, with the same ones calling for his dismissal from the Oscars as are calling for Bill Maher's new show to be cancelled.

Just as I'm hearing about all this and I'm reassuring myself that everything is all right, we still have First Amendment protection of freedom of speech in this country, I find out that the House of Representatives passes a so-called Broadcast Decency Act which will give federal regulators power to levy massive fines against broadcasters for airing material they deem indecent.

Remember when conservatives used to oppose regulation of markets?

There I go again, digressing. Which as I see it is the continuing problem, and what's wrong with the whole picture.

Instead of having a serious national discussion about what Ward Churchill said, we are immersed in a war of words over whether he should be allowed to keep his job, having said that much. We are all forced to join the fight to keep the debate open rather than debating. Things like the Broadcast Decency Act only serve to prove that we are right to be concerned. Today they would fine CBS for an exposed breast; tomorrow it will be for a quote from Chris Rock (or even Alfred Kinsey); the next day it will be for "unpatriotic" speech.

All of which keeps all of us from talking about the extent to which Ward Churchill was right, and in all the confusion no one notes what the corporations that built the World Trade Towers do to the rest of the world in our names.