Dear God: Thanks for all the Great Moral Leaders

To some Catholics in the K-W community Bill Clinton is a deeply immoral man – because he supports abortion and because of his escapades with his intern. Clinton is to come to Kitchener on November 27th to be the keynote speaker at a $500 per plate fundraiser for the Catholic Family Counselling Centre – and many are not happy. Some members of the community have taken issue with Clinton coming to raise money for them because his actions and own morals are contrary to theirs. While I applaud them for standing up for what they believe, their protestations leave a sour taste in my mouth. It seems as if Clinton is amoral only when it comes to oral sex and a women’s right to choose – Not when he bombs civilians in Kosovo, Iraq in 1998 or a baby formula factory in Sudan. Because, after all, killing an innocent baby is okay so long as you bomb the mother too, right? Maybe it is just me that thinks that killing people, innocent or not, is wrong – although in most religious scriptures it is written that that you should not kill, period.

But who am I to complain? I’ve benefited from Clinton’s decisions, moral or not. Morals are so 19th century anyway; today we have a thriving Military Industrial Complex that is bringing us unfathomable wealth. Plus, the more places we spread our version of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ to, the more places we can get cheap stuff made, and I know for a fact that we all love cheap stuff. Who cares if a few of ‘them’ have to die, or be maimed, or be kept in abject poverty so that I can have more stuff then I will ever need.

Instead of protesting the fact that Clinton is coming to our town, we should be giving thanks for his policies that have kept us safe (at least in the short term) and living in luxury. Since it’s Thanksgiving season, we should be giving thanks for what we have, not what other people don’t have. So, close your eyes, bow your head, and give thanks. Give thanks for the suppression of the press, for genocides, for inequality, injustice, war, disease, hunger, pollution, apathy, and greed, as they are the bedrock of our ‘civilization’ and they are keeping us rich. Let us give thanks to all of the Presidents of the United States of America for doing such a great job of keeping all of these things intact so we can be thankful for them.

Most of all, let us thank all of the religious institutions for being such a moral voice in the world and for standing up for what is right! Or not. Because after all, while religious organizations are supposed to be moral institutions, our moral guides, and tell us what is right and wrong, we realize that they have more important things to do – like war-mongering