I WAS ONCE A WRASP

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (9/29/09)

I was once a WRASP until my Christian values overcame my familial loyalty. A WRASP is a White Republican, Anglo-Saxon Protestant. My family had been Republican back to Abraham Lincoln when Democrats were Copperheads, but then the ethics of grace and mercy overcame the Republican embrace of greed.

Something else happened. The nation changed from a hegemony of WRASPS into a multi-ethic society while they remained WRASPS. They aren't as important as they once were, especially after the election of a black man as president. So they became angry, peevish, and badly mannered. It's not that they're racists which they are, it's that they don't like anyone else in a kind of crazy tribalism.

There's not much to do about it, except ignore them, because there is little hope for change. Political and social fossils, they don't grow. They may gradually slough off, unless they're hardened in perpetuity into grumpy white old guys.

Appallingly, they seem to be getting worse. Not only are they
grumps, they're coarse and low class. No longer hoity-toity, they sound like riff-raff, shouting "nasties" in hallowed halls. They're enough to make a grumpy white old guy, a WASP, like me even grumpier.

Things are a little wobbly with just Democrats running things. They tend to run wild, something like the nouveau riche redecorating the castle in the bad taste. However, they're concerned about health care, education, prosperity, civility, and equality. Let's hope they chop off corporate welfare and send the corporate scoundrels to the rock pile.

MORE TROOPS

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (9/17/09)

When General William Westmoreland called for more troops in Vietnam in 1968, he saw "light at the end of the tunnel." On April 30, 1975, came the "Fall of Saigon" on our Embassy's roof top.

The French General Henri Navarre said the same thing in May 1953. Dien Bien Pho fell in May 1954. Following the French defeat, President Kennedy sent American troops, military advisors, in 1956. President Johnson in 1965 sent in the Marines. In 1968 General Westmoreland wanted 200,000 more.

There's no light at the end of the tunnel in the Afghan War. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke claims the war "will become the longest in American history." After almost nine years, we haven't defeated Al Qaeda or the Taliban and haven't captured or killed Usamma Bin Ladin. The Afghan war has transmogrified into nation building, a fool's errand, if there ever were one, especially since the Afghan government is as corrupt as was the South Vietnamese.

Nations are built from the ground up, often through a revolution of the people, not by foreign interlopers imposing a government militarily. President Eisenhower in 1954 enunciated the "falling domino theory," the metaphoric rationale for the Vietnam War. If Vietnam fell, Southeast Asia would go communist. It didn't. General Eisenhower's metaphor was wrong.

General Stanley McChrystal wants more troops. What general doesn't? What's the metaphoric rationale for an endless war with no clear purpose without a victory in which thousands of America's finest will be killed and maimed? Sorry, no dominoes this time.

SLITHERING IN FROM THE GUTTERS

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (9/15/09)

Republican barbarism slithered from the guttered town halls and rallies into House Chamber when an obscurity from South Carolina accused President Obama of lying. Heretofore, the hope was that their barbaric base would remain in the gutter, but now the Republicans let it slip inside as though a little muck on the carpet doesn't matter. Reportedly, the obscurity suffered from the vapors and couldn't help himself. Wimp City.

The theory is that the Republicans appeal to their base. Well, the base has revealed itself in town halls and rallies throughout the country as, what was once called, gun toting "white trash." It slithered into the House Chamber, disguised as a representative from South Carolina.

Guns, amongst other things, are penile and testicular substitutes for those ill at ease with their own masculinity. In other words, guns are toted around town by those who are either powerless or feel powerless like in the last election. Socially and politically impotent, they feel compelled to show how tough they are, carrying their cajones holstered on their hips and slung over their shoulders where everyone can see them because they aren't where they're supposed to be. Elizabethan codpieces look ridiculous nowadays, but the gun toting, scrotal Republicans look even more ridiculous as well as barbaric.

Silence is frequently assent. The reptilian silence of Republican politicians about their barbaric base slithering into the House Chamber is an assent to political barbarism. How do you do bi-partisan with barbarians? You don't. You give them another drubbing.