V re Bush's paranoid, neo-facist, Christian world view

[Richard Ryan]

Not from a source I normally find myself in agreement with these days, but a
good refutation of the assertion that Hitler was a Christian or sympathetic
to Christianity can be found at:

http://www.nationalreview.com/shiflett/shiflett012102.shtml

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org]On
> Behalf Of pynchonoid
> Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 12:43 PM
> To: Pynchon-L
> Subject: V re Bush's paranoid, neo-facist, Christian world view
>
>
>
>
> <http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15326>
>
> Dear Mr. Vonnegut
> By Kurt Vonnegut, In These Times
> March 6, 2003
>
> The recent Kurt Vonnegut interview (Kurt Vonnegut vs.
> !*@) has become the most popular story at
> inthesetimes.com, where the article originally
> appeared, with hundreds of readers expressing their
> opinions in the Comments section. The interview has
> also been translated and reprinted in Aftonbladet,
> Sweden's largest daily newspaper, and La Jornada,
> Mexico's most respected daily newspaper. In light of
> this response, Vonnegut has agreed, on an occasional
> basis, to entertain readers' questions. If you would
> like to submit a question, write to
> vonnegut at inthesetimes.com, and the editors will pass
> along your question to him.
>
> What genuinely motivates al-Qaeda to kill and
> self-destruct? The president says, "They hate our
> freedoms  our freedom of religion, our freedom of
> speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree
> with each other," which surely is not what has been
> learned from the captives being held in Guantanamo, or
> what he is told in his briefings. Why do the
> communications industry and our elected politicians
> allow Bush to get away with such nonsense? And how can
> there ever be peace, and even trust in our leaders, if
> the American people aren't told the truth?
> -Peter Hoyt, Little Deer Island, Maine
>
>
> Dear Mr. Hoyt,
> One wishes that those who have taken over our federal
> government, and hence the world, by means of a Mickey
> Mouse coup d'etat, and who have disconnected all the
> burglar alarms prescribed by the Constitution, which
> is to say the House and Senate and the Supreme Court
> and We the People, were truly Christian. But as
> William Shakespeare told us long ago, "The devil can
> cite Scripture for his purpose."
>
> And what remains the best-kept secret from the Second
> World War, because it is so embarrassing, is that
> Hitler was a Christian, and that his swastika was a
> Christian cross made of axes, an apt symbol of a
> political party for Christians of the working class.
> And there were simpler, unambiguous crosses on all
> Hitler's tanks and planes.
>
> Again: One wishes, for the sake of the whole planet,
> that the people in and around the White House nowadays
> truly mean it when they say, "Forgive us our
> trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against
> us," and that they respect as children of God the
> losers, the nobodies so loved by Jesus in the
> Beatitudes, in His Sermon on the Mount: the poor in
> spirit, they that mourn, the meek, the merciful, the
> peace makers and so on.
>
> But such is obviously not the case. George W. Bush
> smirks and gloats unmercifully as he boasts of his
> readiness to loose more than a hundred cruise
> missiles, what I call "Timothy McVeighs," into the
> midst of the general population of Iraq, nearly half
> of whom are children, little boys and girls under the
> age of 15.
>
> His domestic policies, whose viciousness is peewee in
> comparison with what he is so eager to do to
> foreigners who don't look like him and talk like him,
> who don't have names like his, nonetheless inflict
> pain on those Americans of the sort enumerated in the
> Beatitudes, by depriving them of decent health care
> and educations, and of food, shelter and clothing when
> times are bad. It seems quite possible that his
> opinion of the American people has been formed while
> watching the Jerry Springer Show, which is Republican
> propaganda of the most pernicious kind.
>
> But America was certainly hated all around the world
> long before this coup d'etat. And we weren't hated, as
> George W. Bush would have it, because of our liberty
> and justice for all. We are hated because our
> corporations have been the principal deliverers and
> imposers of new technologies and economic schemes that
> have wrecked the self-respect, the cultures of men,
> women and children in so many other societies.
>
> It's that simple.
>
> What are we to do when confronted by such hatred?
> Respond to Code Red and run around like chickens with
> their heads cut off.
>
> Keep in touch,
> Kurt Vonnegut
>
>
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