November 5th Proves it: Americans Turning into Sheep

November 12, 2002. One week after sweeping nationwide Democratic losses at the polls, political pundits on both sides have reached the same conclusion: America’s citizens are increasingly embracing the “I’m too stupid to think for myself” herd mentality and metamorphosing into sheep. Only a few years ago, such a loss of collective consciousness in the electorate would have alarmed Democratic leaders, but years of extravagantly relentless attacks by the wealthy Republican party, which has kept the Democratic party on the defensive during and beyond Bill Clinton’s presidency, has clearly whipped Democrats into submission. Meanwhile, the broadening transformation of citizens into mindless sheep plays into the hands of Republicans now more than ever.

At the Oval Office, Mr. Bush offered his remarks. “I’m glad Americans finally came around. We’re all on the same page now. Everybody is unanimous, and Americans have unanimously given us a mandate to divest them of whatever of their rights we see fit. America has mandated the Republican party to start wars whenever and wherever it sees fit and to fight them until we either win or get bored. The voters have mandated me, George W. Bush, to fundraise and campaign ad nauseam at their expense for my fellow right-wing candidates all over the country. They have mandated me to aid and abet big business in fleecing the average citizen. They have voted their rousing approval of the Enrons and WorldComs of the world. They have sent the clear unmistakable message that they clearly value the rights of the Microsoft corporation over their own. My friends in big business, big medicine, big entertainment, big church, and big government: America is your plaything … just remember to give me my cut. Yes, the average American voter has clearly mandated that the rich should rule America at the expense of the poor and middle classes. But, most of all, America unanimously wants the religious right to have all power of decision over American women’s uteruses: men and women all over the country have come out at the polls in record numbers to decree beyond the shadow of a doubt that American women are too stupid to decide for their selves what to do with their own bodies. And it’s about time. The Republican mandate has reached every part of the country, even down to the tippy tippy bottom of Florida, where voters resoundingly rewarded my brother Jeb and his minions for rigging the election that brought me into power: they kept the state firmly in Republican hands, where it belongs. Yes, my fellow Americans, I am glad we are all of the same mind and that you have proven it with your unanimous Republican vote. Now, we can finally make America over in my own image and likeness. As for you Democratic holdouts, get over yourselves. We own you now—you are ours, and we will eat you for breakfast if you give us any trouble. If you had any brains, you’d disband that stupid party of yours and get on the winning side for a change. We won’t hold your liberal past against you … much.”

Enthusiastic onlookers responded to Mr. Bush’s remarks with cheers of “Hooray” and “Baa-aaa.”

Far away from victory dances and celebrations, Democratic pundits ponder how the nation came to this sorry pass. Most agree that it started with middle and lower class men who mistakenly believe that the Republican party somehow represents them in some fashion—sadly for them, however, they are not filthily stinkingly wealthy enough to merit one iota of notice from their beloved party, which nonetheless welcomes their votes. This trend of Americans’ metamorphosis into sheep is compounded by women who abdicate their personhood by voting Republican. Add to that some pretty lame campaigning in recent years, not only by ci-devant politician Al Gore but even by recent candidates for the House and Senate. To cap it all off, the Democratic party hasn’t in recent elections even seriously attempted to play its own game. Where in last week’s elections were the Democratic war cries on Mr. Bush’s lust for never-ending war? Or Bushonomics? The environment? Corporate corruption? Bush’s endless campaigning and fundraising at taxpayer expense? A woman’s right to choose? The Democratic platform was still intact, but there was an eerie void of Democrats to stand on it. The last nail in the coffin was the easy capitulation of Tom Daschle and other congressional Democrats to the administration’s demands for its Iraq war resolution.

Dr. Zoe Owens, Ph.D. philosopher and author of such introspectively religious books as “Jesus Holy Christ Almighty,” summarized the frustrations of many voters, “Personally, I’m not a Democrat—heaven knows that the Democrats have done some pretty insane things through the years, and they have some pretty screwed up ideas surrounding software, information, the internet, and censorship, to name just a few. But the Republicans' unilateral grab for totalitarian power is terrifying beyond words. I find that I have to vote the straight Democratic ticket just to try to stem the hemorrhage of my and other Americans’ basic rights. Before and during last week’s elections, the Republicans drained their wallets to put their own cronies in positions of power. The Democrats couldn’t compete with such a monumental financial outlay, but they should at least have been screaming their lungs out from the platform of issues. This administration is getting away with murder compared to the relentless hounding President Clinton endured while he was in office. Why haven’t our Democratic leaders been leading the charge to hound and harass every nanosecond of Mr. Bush’s ill-fated existence? Does this mean that they agree with Mr. Bush’s policies on everything from campaign excesses to abortion? Last week’s elections—and the presidential election of 2000—were the Democrats’ to lose. Unless the party gets off its posterior and mounts a grassroots effort to promote its platform to every single average American man and woman, the Democrats might just as well give up and go home. Every single middle- and lower-income American must be disabused of the misconception that the Republican party serves them in some way—or that it indeed serves anybody but its own disgustingly rich, greedy, and powerful members. Unless we who support the common citizen rather than the rich and powerful step up and fill the gap left by the Paul Wellstones of the world, we will have deserved what we got. Less power to us.”

Other Democratic politicians and voters were not so vehement in their predictions for an America under total Republican rule. Texas Democrat I. M. Awaffle said, “Oh, it won’t be that baa-aaad.”

A different point of view came from members of the winning side. “I’m perfectly happy to give President Bush and the Republicans all my money. I’m perfectly happy to think what they tell me to think and do what they tell me to do,” stated Mr. Harcourt Fenton Milksop, a constituent who traveled to the nation’s capital to celebrate upcoming Republican control over all three branches of American government. He was joined by his wife, Mary, whom he graciously allowed to speak as she preened her luxuriously woolly ears and tail: “My husband is absolutely right. Thinking is just too much work for the average American. Who has the time? I’m just grateful somebody in the government finally realized just how stupid I am and decided to take care of me after all. Now, I can get back to important things.” Mr. Milksop added, “We’re only too happy to put our lives and welfare into the hands of the religious right. After all, they are religious. If you can’t trust the religious right, who can you trust?”

Bishops Renounce Lay Groups

November 12, 2002, Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C. as Roman Catholic bishops from all over the country gathered today to celebrate Mass at the National Basilica, they took the opportunity to speak out with one voice against lay organizations who have become involved with the Church’s recent sexual abuse scandals.

A lowly seminarian, acting as indentured servant and spokesman for the group, offered the bishops’ statement: “These survivor and involved lay people organizations have no true generous interest in the one true Church’s welfare as a hierarchy of men. They have egregiously celebrated this debacle from the outset and are using it as a ploy to forward their own liberal agendas. They seek to destroy the Church by allowing married priests, ordination of women, unlimited abortion, and other recklessly wanton impurities and perversions. They have been willingly misled by Satan. As faithful Catholics, you must ignore them. Oh, and pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”

Outraged, a spokewoman representing a handful of interested lay people’s organizations dissented, “the bishops’ statements are complete falsehoods. Take Voice of the Faithful, for example. From its inception, VOTF repeatedly instructed its membership that its sole raison d’etre was to help oversee the Church’s handling of the sex abuse scandal by promoting greater involvement of lay people in their own Church. VOTF has been and continues to be vehemently opposed to using the scandal to promote a liberal Catholic agenda, if for no other reason than this is neither the time nor the place. Many other lay-involvement organizations have followed similar protocols. We are shocked and grieved that our own bishops have chosen to see our loving outreach as a threat. All we ever wanted to do is help our Mother Church get back on her feet.”

A sexual abuse survivors’ group member shared his disappointment, not only with today’s remarks but also with the watering down of the Church’s rulings against sexual abuse by priests. “I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised that any priest’s rights far outweigh any non-priest’s rights,” he lamented. “That’s how the hierarchy goes. It projects itself and its mores beyond itself into the rest of society. There’s God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Mary and all the angels and saints, the Pope, cardinals, bishops, priests, brothers, deacons and seminarians, and then there’s everybody else: lay men, altar boys, lay boys, animals, girls, and, finally, women. I guess a priest’s right to stick it where he wants outweighs my right when I was an altar boy to lead a normal life from that moment on. But, hey, even though I have it rough, I’m grateful I wasn’t an adult woman. At least the Church is giving lip service to protecting children from priestly organs; if a priest sticks it to an adult woman, she has no recourse … she’d better not even try to seek redress unless she wants to be blamed wholesale for the abuse that has been perpetrated on her—the Church will treat her as a whore of Babylon and accuse her of strutting herself in front of the poor defenseless priest and trying to seduce the poor innocent bastard.”

Dr. Zoe Owens, Ph.D. philosopher and author of such introspectively religious books as “Jesus Holy Christ Almighty,” further lamented the Church’s needlessly defensive attitude toward survivors’ and involved lay people’s organizations. “I find it nearly impossible to believe that the Church truly perceives a liberal agenda in the outreach extended to it by groups like Voice of the Faithful. Perception of that particular threat is untenable. What is far more likely is that the American segment of the Catholic hierarchy seeks to play on the ignorance of a vast number of Catholic lay people who have no idea who these organizations are or what they’re trying to do. The Church knows that members of these groups have, en masse, no liberal agenda to push, but they nonetheless feel threatened by the prospect of an increasingly involved laity. And that is a legitimate fear. If more lay people get involved with the Church, the Church will have to become more accountable. I don’t blame the Church for being terrified of the prospect of having ordinary lay Catholics sniffing around the hierarchy, looking under its rugs, peeking in its cabinets, and letting its skeletons out of the closets. I have no doubt that instituting accountability would indeed destroy the Catholic Church’s hierarchy as we know it. But I remain unconvinced that that would necessarily be a bad thing.”