Cold Turkey — by Kurt Vonnegut

Cold Turkey -- In These Times — If you haven't read anything by Kurt Vonnegut yet stop reading this blog immediately and go find a copy of Slaughterhouse Five and / or Cat's Cradle and get on it. This is a good little piece on human nature and draws a good disctinction between those who seek to help others and mean it in their hearts and those who use populist language to control people.

Eugene Debs, who died back in 1926, when I was only 4, ran 5 times as the Socialist Party candidate for president, winning 900,000 votes, 6 percent of the popular vote, in 1912, if you can imagine such a ballot. He had this to say while campaigning:

As long as there is a lower class, I am in it.
As long as there is a criminal element, I’m of it.
As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

Doesn’t anything socialistic make you want to throw up? Like great public schools or health insurance for all?

How about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes?

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. …

And so on.

Not exactly planks in a Republican platform. Not exactly Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney stuff.

For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.

“Blessed are the merciful” in a courtroom? “Blessed are the peacemakers” in the Pentagon? Give me a break!

The fact that Jesus sounds like a socialist must make the most vocal Christians' heads spin. Probably why they don't like to discuss the actual message of their proclaimed faith as much as they are obsessed with persecuting women and gay people.