The High Church of Madness

[Daveparts]

Do you believe brothers and sisters? Can you accept that it is the truth that has made you is its prisoner? That the truth confines your thinking and limits your judgment! Can I get an Amen! Until, Brothers and Sisters you can see that the aggressor nations are spreading democracy, of peace through war and that those who resist our will are the rouge nations! Come to me and let me baptize you in the spirit of political relativism. Let me set you free from the cage of care and concerns and of conscience. Accept that insanity is God and that sanity is the work of Satan confounding all of our best efforts! Amen.

The key to determining insanity is when someone is holding a conversation with invisible men, do they really believe the invisible man to be there? A stage actor knows clearly which is stage and which is reality, he can be masterful on stage and yet can still struggle with reality. The full tilt bozo’s whacked beyond comprehension generally know the score, crazy enough to know they’re crazy and if not to show enough symptoms to make a diagnosis swift and obvious. The problem then becomes those who are somewhere in between, insane but not insane enough to know they’re insane.

Now if you’re Joe Six Pack or Mary Sundress after just a few forays across the sanity desert you will ensconced and entertained at the pharmaceutical Disneyland. But what of those who are powerful such as the case of King George the 3rd who would appear lucid at times and then full tilt bozo, what could be done? When is enough enough, how could the civilian government draw the line between indulgence and irresponsibility. Then there’s the Elvis syndrome to consider, Elvis would tell crude jokes and everyone in the room would laugh. Elvis eventually became isolated and paranoid by those who sought only to indulge him. FDR combated that in his administration by rolling into the outer office and telling a joke that wasn’t funny and anyone that laughed didn’t get in.

The enablers who leave the seat empty so Harvey can sit next to Mr. Dowd compound the situation. They validate the insanity, they’re laughter makes us question whether the remark was actually funny or maybe we just didn’t get it. The insanity once validated takes on a life of it’s own and runs loose in the halls and in the streets and after an elbow or two in the ribs we all see the emperors new clothes! The latest fashion esprit in the Presidential madness collection is the Iraqi surge. It comes in one-size fits all and it is ever expanding but only comes in one color blood red.

In China after Mao’s death it was the gang of four, all failures and fiascos could neatly be fitted to the gang. In Russia it was wreckers in Nazi Germany communists and in America, Al Queda. The CIA estimates three thousand as a total membership scattered through out the world yet this average crowd at a high school football game is everywhere! In Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon and Iraq in fact where ever trouble pops up or the King wants trouble to pop up The gang of three thousand is there standing on the corner waiting for our bus to arrive. The Former chairman of the Bin Laden task force was asked; “Who are our best allies in the war on terror?” His response was, “Pakistan and Great Britain.”

What country is it accepted that Bin Laden is hiding in? Who signed a peace treaty with Al Queda in North Whiristan? And these are our best allies? Houston, we’ve got a problem here. But wait! We’ve got a plan we will catch them all wait and see, if we make everyone boarding an aircraft take off their shoes sooner or later Al Queda will slip up.

To win a war you must take your enemy’s strength away from them, Robert Bruce defeated the English calvery by digging thousands of holes in front of his line. The Germans used combined operations of fast attack vehicles and coordinated air cover to over run Europe. These tactics became as useful as a tennis racket in the Russian winter at Stalingrade. The panzers became prisons air cover became impossible. To the Russian soldier the defeat of a surrounded German army in the face of unlimited Russian replacements became a certainty. While to the German soldier his perimeter and numbers shrinking could not blot out the reality of the situation. Insanity is funny that way, we have a comfort zone for our insanity, if the boat flips over or the house catches fire none are too crazy to run for it or swim for it.

But the parallels between Iraq and Stalingrade are as striking as they are undeniable. Thousands of miles back from the front line a madmen is banging his fist on the table insisting more of the same is what’s needed to save the day. Isn’t that the very definition of insanity? To continue to do the same things which haven’t worked in the past and expecting different results. While the green zone takes mortar rounds the comfort zone is still safe.

In it’s extreme group insanity becomes a religion and a test of loyalty as heretics such as federal prosecutors are burned at the stake. To dare openly to challenge the accepted gospel becomes impossible, until only the voices of the rah rah choir can be heard. Critics? They are heretics and should be ignored! So we pile the lie of Al Queda the Muslim supermen in turbans on top of the lie of Saddam. Of mission accomplished of setting up democracy and of WMD’s. Just add it to the pile, we can win in Iraq all that’s needed is one more surge or another new General. But accepting madness as the state religion isn’t cheap the scales must be balanced by the blood and bodies of the innocent sacrificed upon the alter of the great lie.

The poor Republican faithful seeking that old time religion are discovering like the Democrats that their party has ceased to exist. John McInsane continues to follow in George’s footsteps and is ready to follow him off the cliff by lashing himself to Bushes Iraq policy. Tooty Fruity Rudy who under normal circumstances wouldn’t be allowed into the party let alone given candidate status. But these are anything but normal times! The faithful arrive for services only to ask themselves, “What are they going to do with all that Kool aid?” Give the devil his due the only truly successful campaign this administration has ever waged has been the war on sanity.

The Iraq war was based on lies and is the largest foreign policy disaster in American history. We cannot lie our way out of it or finesse our way out of it; there is no comfortable way to say I screwed up or to gracefully make an exit. But by the very refusal to even acknowledge that these were lies in the first place and to accept that we can’t win plants the crown of insanity squarely on the King’s head and installs him as the Holy Father of the Church of the mad. It is hard to fathom a coronation of the next monarch at this point in time that could advocate continuing this policy.

Yet the high Church of madness is so pervasive that not only do the Republicans candidates drink from the cup but the Democratic candidates are singing the hosannas of true believers as well. If there was ever a time for a political messiah I’d say its now to save us all from this madness otherwise we are all certainly going to hell! Amen.