Brutally Honest Rant - 03/15/06

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: "I’ve Read The Book…"
Audio Transcripts
03/15/06

[Start Program]
(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – "American Idiot Remix" – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening, and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

Couple of years ago I came across one of those look-alike "Left Behind" end-of-the-world movies. This wasn’t the actual "Left Behind" story, but it was done by a different religious group trying to capitalize on the whole Book of Revelation craze of the time.

Now for the uninitiated, the Book of Revelation is the last chapter in the Christian Bible and it talks about the end of the world as we know it. It talks about how Jesus would come back and the forces of good will triumph over the forces of evil through his cataclysmic battle that will totally destroy the world, but that those on the side of good will triumph because of who they are and how devout they are. But prior to this final battle, there would be this global event called the Rapture, where all of the truly devout and innocent people would suddenly disappear all at once. Everyone else would be "left behind", hence the catchy title. During or sometime after this event, a false messiah would appear… the Antichrist… and he would sway the masses to his side under the pretext of being the TRUE messiah.

Anyway, in this "Left Behind" lookalike movie, a TV producer looks at the whole chaos going on in the world and wonders if they really are living out the Book of Revelation. He starts to pick up his copy of the Bible, which is just conveniently laying on his desk, when some stranger appears at his doorway and says "That won’t help you."

The producer asks why not. The stranger replies "Because you know how it ends." He then hands the producer a list of demands that the TV station must fulfill regarding the person who claims to be the messiah. The producer asks who the stranger is, and the stranger replies "someone who knows how it ends." Which completely blew my mind, because if that stranger really DID know how it ends, then he would know that he was on the wrong side.

You see, that’s the thing that amazes me… the people who believe they know where they stand if the "end days" happen would not want be on the side of the multitude of masses, because if they DID "read the book", then they’d know that the widely popular guy claiming to be the messiah that has the masses cheering and praising his name… is really the imposter. That’s the guy sending everyone to hell!

Now personally, I take the general idea of the "end of the world" with a grain of salt. But that one scene, the scene where the TV producer is bullied into conforming to the demands of a phony messiah, brings up some interesting comparisons to the real world.

There seems to be general malaise when it comes to our government and the media. Our government screws up, it flagrantly and carelessly tramples on the rights of others, and then excuses itself by saying "we’re at war". It makes mistakes, but nobody wants to call them on it! Even when the CONSERVATIVES say that the government has crossed the line, they get cowered into compliance. They don’t have any BALLS to stand up for what they believe in!

Take a look at the whole thing over the White House and domestic spying. Here we have liberals AND conservatives saying that what the White House is doing is wrong, but NOBODY in Congress wants to stand up and do something about it. Oh no! They’re afraid! They’re afraid that it might "send the wrong message" to the terrorists.

What, that even the president is not above the law? The FISA court system was revised numerous times since its inception in the 1970’s, including in 2002. And yet even with THESE revisions, the White House still felt justified in violating certain provisions of this law!

And when news of the violations came out, the conservatives even offered to FIX the law so the White House would be in compliance of it, and the Bush Imperium said no, because it might "tip off the terrorists". So the conservatives – rather than standing their ground and defending the RULE OF LAW like they would have done ten years ago - became pussy-whipped dumbasses and said "Okay… we don’t have to change a thing… we’ll just let you go on doing what you’ve been doing… because, you know, we’re at war…"

And I suppose that’s to be expected of them, because these Republicans don’t even have a tenth of the caliber they had as a party ten years ago, never mind the kind of people we expected during the eight years of Ronald Reagan. Do the Republicans even remember the RULE OF LAW? You guys impeached a sitting president because of it! What sort of message does it send the terrorists that you’ll go after someone who screws with an intern but not someone who screws over the whole country?

That’s just ONE instance, folks. I haven’t even gotten into the FUBAR concerning FEMA!

What’s worse is that the party that’s supposed to keep the bloated elephants honest can’t even begin to capitalize on the screw-ups. The Democrats have become so complacent in their roles as also-rans that they can’t even rally behind a simple CENSURE vote over this domestic spying matter.

We’re not talking impeachment, folks, we’re talking censure, which is about as pathetic as you think it is! It’s not even a slap on the wrist. It’s just a wag of the finger and a "tisk, tisk, don’t do it again you naughty little rednecks". The Democrats can’t even get behind THAT! They let one of their own, a military veteran who was well-respected in Congress, get his character viscously assassinated by a bunch of mealy-mouthed chickenhawks who would otherwise have their asses kicked from here to Baghdad, and they don’t stand up to defend him or to go after the chickenhawks. And these losers think that they can somehow manage to regain the Congress in November without providing any kind of REAL alternative to the Imperium ass-kissers!

Let’s not forget the media! A good story came out last week involving a speech made by retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor about some of these abuses of government. But you didn’t hear about it on ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, or even Fox News! You know who ran this story? National Public Radio. Five years ago, a retired Supreme Court Justice could sneeze and it would make the news. Today, a retired Justice had something SERIOUS and IMPORTANT to say about the way things are going, and she couldn’t even get noticed in the United States outside of a couple of bloggers… including yours truly!

Let’s get brutally hones there, boys and girls…. I’ve read "the book" too, and I know exactly how this story plays out! In fact, I’ve read several booka that we’re following. We are becoming George Orwell’s "Animal Farm"… we are living out Arthur Miller’s "The Crucible"… and yes, even if I’ve never read the book, I still know that we are also following down the path of Ayn Rand’s "Atlas Shrugged".

But more importantly, I’ve read another book as well… one that’s published by the folks at the Cato Institute. It’s not a big book, mind you, but what it does have is just as important as any message in any of those other books. It’s the combined documents of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. It’s a very good read, but I don’t think that the Republicans will like the first part of it… I mean, the author of that part had some pretty unkind words about the ruling government of the time. Well, that and the fact that the author WAS the very FIRST Democrat, and you know how the GOP feels about those folks.

(Computer – a small mix of clips that you have to hear to understand)
(Fade Music In – "Session" by Linkin Park)

You know, it’s a whole lot easier to talk about character than it is to live up to it, especially when doing so means taking a stand and doing something that may be unpopular.

But then again, we forget what character really is.

Character is what you ARE, not what you wish yourself to be. Character is the self-application of your own ideals. But you cannot call the ideals that you lack the strength to implement to be character. That’s simply idle fantasy. And insisting that others adhere to and incorporate the ideals that you yourself refuse to adhere to is called something else entirely: hypocrisy.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production, all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/"End of Recording")

[End of program]
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