Abe Lincoln once remarked, “a nation divided unto itself cannot stand,” and although the stark divide between the red and blue states created by the 2004 election shouldn’t be viewed too simplistically, it created an ideological demarcation line for many and gave us the first clue as to how horribly close we are to full blown national schizophrenia.
Just check the Internet to see the extent of the yawning culture gap. At one extreme, I can log on to something called “The Rapture Index” and find out how close we are to the mythic day when all the True Believers are carried up into the heavenly blue, while the rest of us suffer the horrors of Revelations, plus a hideous mess on the freeways. At the other end of the scale, I can browse the interlinked and often illustrated weblogs of a coven of BDSM enthusiasts who have turned their private sexual preferences into public performance art. Any way you slice it, neighbors, we have a schism.
In more optimistic times, I could deal with these divergent ideas of what’s nasty and nice with the old maxim, “everything’s cool as long you don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses.” Unfortunately in this new century of war, terror, rabid intolerance, and George W. Bush, the streets (or, at least the cable news channels) are filled with talk of a religious revolution, the horses are definitely skittish, and I’m kinda nervous myself. I had naively believed the replacement of the bible-thumping John Ashcroft with Alberto Gonzales as attorney general might mean the War on Porn would be quietly laid to rest, if for no other reason than the sheer volume of hard cash generated by adult entertainment tax dollars. But it now appears that, under Gonzales, the anti-porn campaign will be business as usual, only without Ashcroft’s overt holy rolling.
What I hadn’t bargained for was the payback demanded – and so far received – by the Fundamentalist Right for supposedly securing Bush a second term. I had assumed that, after the election rhetoric had died down, some kind of compromise would be reached and the country would settle into an approximation of normality. My mistake was not recognizing that fundamentalist compromise is the perfect oxymoron. Fundamentalists do not compromise. They want the world, and they want it now. The storm troopers of righteousness have their sights on multiple targets—the right to choose; the theory of evolution; stem-cell research; gay rights; broadcast, Internet, and cable censorship; and even the Constitution of the United States.
My only consolation was not being alone in underestimating the rabid mood of the red states. Adelphia cable made the error of believing America was mature enough – and well enough protected by V-chips and parental lockouts – to receive triple-X porn as a cable option, but then retreated in horror after a fundamentalist morality mauling. Another factor I overlooked was the capacity for politicians to pander to the demented and dangerous if it smokescreens their real mission of sucking up all the bucks they can from the bottomless Washington hog trough. A perfect example was U.S. House Leader Tom Delay using the Teri Schiavo ugliness to duck criminal and ethical investigations, and even having the gall to threaten judges who opposed him with impeachment.
The only light in the looming gloom is that much of the religious right’s power may yet prove illusory (since illusion and religion so often go hand in hand). America may be talking moral indignation, but the numbers still show few are walking it. Porn is still consumed throughout the land, the mainstream still loves Desperate Housewives, guys still buy lap dances and tune in to Howard Stern, and, according to an independent study, many of those teenage Christian-rock groupies who signed virginity pledges now take it up the ass and give blowjobs as loopholes in their deal with Jesus. Perhaps the country is not quite as insane as it seems, and a counter attack can still be mounted against hypocrisy, although we hedonists maybe need to become as loud, scary, and well-organized as the enemy.
Mick Farren blogs at Doc40.blogspot.com
