Pendulum

Why weren’t all the German Jews murdered by the Third Reich? Because some of them saw the handwriting on the wall and got the hell out of there, that’s why.

Well, I see the handwriting on the wall. And it is written in the blood of the past and future victims of this regime.

There will be round ups. There will be witch-hunts. There will be blacklists. There will be camps.

I am no Nostradamus but I am capable of deductive reasoning and discerning sequential cause and effect. After the next (non-homegrown) terrorist attack on America, the first victims will the Arabs. There will be round ups facilitated by the rosters and fingerprints collected of every Arab male 16 years and over living in America --- oh I forgot, that already happened, and without the inconvenience of another attack.

That, of course, will not stop the attacks; but like the shortsighted invasion of Iraq, will swell the ranks of the attackers.

Simultaneous with the round up of Arabs, who will be presumed to be Muslim, will come the further decimation of our remaining illusory civil rights.

What better way to control a population than by making sure we all read out of the same playbook? Or should I say pray out of the same Bible.

Attestations of loyalty to the fundamentalist evangelical Christian faith will provide a convenient dividing line between the us and the them. A whole lot of people will be born again, probably in mass ceremonies held in government buildings where “I Am Saved” ID cards may be easily distributed.

Probably a small town in Mississippi, or Arkansas, or one of the Carolinas, will signal the next phase of the de-evolution. Such a town will vote (or perhaps the mayor will receive divine inspiration) to replace the Town Charter with the Ten Commandments.

Taking the Lord’s name in vain will become an offense punishable by death and fashions will revert to Puritan times so as not to lead the young folk into temptations of the flesh. Television and radio programs (except for certain evangelical ones that are mandatory viewing at mass meetings held at Town Hall) will be outlawed. The new form of “government” will spread like a California forest fire. And now, instead of just exporting democracy to the rest of the planet; we will start a new Crusade of Christian Fellowship that will sweep across the unwashed masses, whether they like it or not.

The holy war will have extended into Iran, and Syria, and any other state our divinely inspired leader decides to bless with the gift of democracy. While back in the Homeland, the scourges will begin. First to go (or second if you count the Arabs) will be openly gay people – they are easy to spot, they tend to flock, and are destined to go the hell anyway.

Dissenters, particularly academics, civil rights workers and scientists, will of course be scourged along with whatever demographic they have the temerity to try to protect.

Students, at least initially, will be spared in order to populate the draft that will be necessitated by the pursuit of our Manifest Destiny --- at least until it is clear whether they are Arabs, gay or dissenters.

Of course, while religious persecution will begin with Muslims, it will extend to Hindus, Jews and even Catholics; probably Lutherans and Episcopalians as well, until all believers are true believers and all Americans are the real McCoy.

Women of childbearing age will be denied contraceptives (and don’t even think about abortion --- it will be a “thought crime” punishable by death); and all women with children will be forbidden to work outside the home. That will solve the unemployment problem.

Right around then stratification among the sainted ones will intensify, and all that old shit about the Children of Ham will get real popular. All those evangelical Negroes who thought they were “saved” will have a rude awakening – and Ham’s kids won’t be limited to Blacks but will encompass the brown as well.

Our borders will have been closed long before that happens, and circled with razor wire with armed guard stations every half mile or so. Ostensibly, these precautions will be to keep non-believers out but realistically they will keep those among the citizenry penned up for easy disposal.

Oh, and probably before a lot of this comes to pass, our next president will be an evangelical preacher. If Oral Roberts or Pat Robertson weren’t dead or too old, and Jimmy Swaggert and Jim Baker weren’t dead or disgraced, I’d bet on one of them. But his identity really won’t matter as long as he’s white, male, born again and holier than thou.

If this is a wild-eyed, doomsday prediction and if some or (dare I hope) most of it doesn’t come to pass, I will be as relieved as I am currently fearful.

Politics, like all of life, is about change. The pendulum swings one way then the other.

Damn I’m ready for it to start swinging in the other direction. But instead I fear we’ve much worse to come before it gets any better.