Rick Santorum

I was raised an Evangelical Christian by my mother. I gave my life to Christ when I was eight, or I played like I did. I remember the day clearly. I was with my mother at a meeting in the high school gym, held by the Peters brothers, Dan and Steve, semi-famous, or infamous, for burning rock and roll records on the steps of our state capital in 1979, interviewed by no less than Dan Rather and Ted Koppel. Claiming to have found subliminal lyrics by playing rock songs backwards, I remember straining to hear “smoke marijuana” in an otherwise, or really entirely indecipherable jumble of sounds, of Queen's, “Another one bites the dust,” in reverse. When the call went out to be born again, as it does at every Evangelical service everywhere, I bowed my head and repeated all the words, just like I knew my mother wanted me to. She was delighted. So was I, insofar as I had made my mother so happy, who was otherwise a typical Gemini, equal parts holy and holy terror. If Jesus accepted me, I do not know. I like to think he approves of my alienation from the religion in his name, if not necessarily from him. He may not approve of my service to the Goddess, which would be too bad, though I'm not convinced he disapproves. I don't think he was the dominator his followers make him out to be in approval of.

Thus, my interest in the two-term Representative, and two-term Senator from Pennsylvania. Here is a man who makes little attempt to hide what he believes. He is very earnest. That he rose to such an astoundingly high leadership position early in his second term in the Senate, the third-highest ranking, is almost as astonishing as his re-election loss by 18%. It's an open question as to whether Pennsylvanians objected more to his preoccupation with polygamy, man on man, and man on dog sex, or the fact that he was living across the border in Virgina. A lesser man might have given up politics, esp. after being nicknamed after a gross anal profusion (see Google). You don't fuck with the gay guys in a free society. But so anointed a cultural warrior by the media, he aspires to be Emperor. I find it perfectly fitting that a potential future President of the American empire should have such a nickname, except in foreign relations we don't usually use lube.

Most pundits don't take him very seriously. He is viewed equally too far right to be electable, and a liability to Republicans. One might think any man capable of saying, “there has always been inequality and I hope there always will be,” would be embraced by Republicans, but even if you believe it you aren't supposed to say it, and who really thinks a guy who condemns contraceptives could be acceptable to promiscuous America? Not even Fox News knows what to do with him. Of the entirety of Congress, in both houses of which he served, he has the support of zero Senators and three Representatives. And yet he has won as many contests as Romney, and is tied for the lead or leading in polls.

He has won these contests because of people like my mother. I don't know who she supports this time; she just returned from Israel, and seems otherwise preoccupied with the Constitution and the movement to restore the Republic. But she has always participated in local elections, as a volunteer, and she has always voted according to her understanding of the Bible. These days participatory democracy is inconvenient for most of us, preoccupied as we are with making a living, raising children and our televisions and computers and phones. The only people who tend to show up early in the process are the most passionate, and on the Republican side, at the local level, that's more often than not Christians, serving in the name of God, and more particularly Jesus.

The nightmare scenario for the GOP is Rick Santorum entering the RNC with more delegates than Romney - God forbid Gingrich comes in second, or even first in this crazy process. Romney is Obama's GOP reflection in alabaster, possibly not electable even if the economy tanks. This crowd is probably a nightmare any which way for the GOP, but the worst scenario is having to broker a deal for Romney, a Mormon. It might be preferable to pull someone out of a hat who hasn't run at all. Imagine the fuss Santorum and his Christian supporters would make. I could see that tearing the Republican party in two. Santorum could start his own party, call it INRI (the supposed Latin inscription on the cross meaning Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.)

The problem is, Rick Santorum is on firmer ground than pundits think. "This idea that man is here to serve the Earth, as opposed to husband its resources and be good stewards of the Earth.... is a phony ideal. I don't believe that that's what we're here to do...man is here to use the resources and use them wisely, to care for the Earth, to be a steward of the Earth, but we're not here to serve the Earth.

"The Earth is not the objective, Man is the objective....Man should be in charge of the Earth and have dominion over it and should be good stewards of it.”

If stewarding and caring for the Earth is what we have done, I can't bear to imagine what dominion would look like. And, it is for every man and woman to decide for themselves whether they serve the Earth. That aside, his is precisely the message for a people accustomed to the lifestyle of empire, with dominion in their blood, who live as if the lifestyle is a divine right. Emphasizing the objective to be Man and not Human, he is affirming for men who have felt powerless against the perceived rise of women, and an economy that doesn't give a damn, that they are not only of value, but that they should by divine right rule over women, children and the Earth. There are plenty of Christian women who don't disagree with this.

His message is primarily moral, which is to say, emotional. Americans have been very well trained by media to respond emotionally, without thinking. And lest we forget, something like half of Americans don't believe in evolution. A people who refuse to deal with the greater implications of what Science has taught us about the world we inhabit, a people ready for one more thrust of imperial rape and pillage, have the perfect candidate in Rick Santorum.

The nightmare scenario for America is the American economy, or its perceived safety, heading south in a bad way in the next six months. If that happens, it will be a horse race between the fire-breather Gingrich and the theocrat dominionist Santorum, not just for the Republican candidacy, but for the Presidency. If Americans are especially afraid, I can see us falling for Santorum and war in Iran, with inflamed visions in the minds of people like my mother, of the apocalypse described in the book of Revelations, (all because of gays and liberals and pot smokers and radical environmentalists and women having sex for pleasure and abortion and dark skinned people,) the continuation and radical expansion of G-dub's “crusade.” Unless Americans have more sense than I think.

I hesitate to speak clearly to my feelings about Christianity. Mostly because I do not want to alienate Christians. Like it or not, they are bedrock in this country. Most of them are good people trying to live peaceful lives. Still, if I have been hard on the presumptions of scientists in recent posts, I have a similar disgust with the Christian refusal to re-evaluate their creation story. Which I consider a betrayal of their humanity, their country and their God. Some have, but most have not. When I think of the trouble ahead for America, I imagine a people inflamed with the violence sanctioned by the Old Testament God (see Jehrico), and their infatuation with firearms. A myriad number of male Americans inflamed by the likes of Chuck Norris and Ted Nugent (working class Americans both Liberals and Conservatives have abandoned as if they do not exist), as if the only cure for America's ills were to eliminate with extreme prejudice, anyone who fails to ascribe to the dictates of those who lust to kill in the name of God. If it comes to that, I hope good Christians rise up to fight the lunatic ones.

I've said before I've thought 2012 might be the year when people are forced to face the reality of impending oil constraints, with potentially massive upheavals. More and more, the attitudes about biblical apocalypse seem a mirror for the attitudes swirling around the 2012 Mayan end of an Age meme. I've begun to hope for a dud of a year. When I look at Santorum, I don't expect it will be.

If this last debate showed anything, it's that he can speak a language besides a purely moral one. That's to his advantage, if he's savvy. You don't rise to the third ranking position in the Senate after your first term by being a putz. Though I'm also well aware, it may not matter who the President is. Things aren't likely to change much that aren't going to change regardless.