The Survivor Mentality"So what is wrong with Survivor? After all, it's only a T.V. show." Yes, it's only on television. But the acceptance of it - our total immersion in it - speaks volumes about America's moral foundation under the new theocracy. The rise of Survivor coincides with the Republican's Rising Tide, which goes along with the rise of gladiator TV. Our growing similarities with the Middle-Age Europe should scare us all, especially the rise of our new, anointed-by-God emperor George Bush. He is surrounded by his handlers - the power behind the throne. And the most powerful of these handlers have merged politics and religion into one voice. Welcome to the Crusades. Welcome to the Dark Ages. It's as if we've forgotten history - as if we WANT to relive darker, more troubled times. This American nightmare is brought to you by the Republican Party. Not the party of Lincoln, but this new shell of a party that is a "marriage of convenience" between fiscal conservatives and social-engineering Christians. One would hope that this union would give us a party that cares about people and does so on a budget. Unfortunately we are living with the opposite. We have a party that believes it's not OK to kill a fetus but bombing adults is just what the doctor ordered. We have a party that spends and spends but doesn't have the courage to ask for more from patriots. In fact, with spending completely out of control, the answer we are given is tax cuts for the rich, "because they are the backbone of American society. Without them, you wouldn't have a job." Theocrats want to outlaw abortion but don't care what happens after a child is born - because that would cost money and we're spending that money killing other people overseas. This wonderful opportunity to merge the fiscal and the social has failed and we are left with a soul-less marriage. Republicans call it a "big tent". Members of the center-left call it "politics of the living dead." Republicans have lost their sense of the village. They have replaced compassion with competition. They have replaced community with custody. They have lost their emotional center and have become self-centered. Not the people, the policies. People who call themselves Republicans are not always far-right Christian nuts, just like Democrats are not always nutty liberal extremists. But this marriage has pushed the boundary of civility to the breaking point and no one on the right is willing to pull it back. It's as if they like it this way. Through their actions it turns out that the new republicans think Survivor is how we should live. A Republican will not freely admit this of course, but they vote on what is important in our culture with their television remote control. Because of Survivor's success, we are now saddled with more and more voyeuristic TV. We are getting more and more responses that sound like Cain's response to God, "Am I my brother's keeper?" We are getting these self-centered responses from the "red" states. We are getting these responses from our theocratic leadership. The response to God is what separates the republican theocracy from the center-left. On the center-left we believe in the village, we believe that we ARE our brother's keeper. We believe that we are all spiritually the offspring of Noah. All who want to be part of the village are welcome. From the theocracy? Some compassionate conservatism of course... "Sorry." That's the compassionate part - the ONLY compassionate part. "We closed the door to the Ark. We voted you off the island. Hope you can swim."
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