| This summer I watched the Republican
and Democratic political conventions and as much of
the Reform party's as I could stomach. Everything was
carefully staged and everyone stayed on script-—all
told, it was as stimulating as a glass of lukewarm skim
milk, except for the Reform party's split. Yes, the good
news is that we saw another barrier broken, when Al Gore
selected a Jew, Senator Joseph Lieberman, to be his running
mate. Finally, being a Christian is no longer a prerequisite—at
least when it comes to the vice-presidential slot. But
at the end of the day, we still got George and Dick, and
Al and Joe. Four pale males representing the country's
two major political parties. Ralph, representing the Green,
and Pat and John, the feuding Reforms, are the other pale
male presidential candidates.
The truly bizarre news was that
Patrick Buchanan, he who gives a whole new meaning to
the term "right wing," selected a black woman as his
running mate. Leave it to Buchanan to find a "sistah"
from another planet-how else to describe a black woman
who's been a member of the John Birch Society and never
saw a progressive policy she didn't hate. That certainly
trumps the Republican "we-are-the-world" convention
as a study in diversity using trick mirrors.
But what really troubles me is that
in the wake of the Bill & Monica sleazy soap opera,
this presidential election comes down to a bunch of
men, all save Nader, trying to outdo themselves in claiming
who's got the best FAMILY VALUES and the closest personal
relationship with GOD. All the references to the importance
of God in their lives, themselves as true believers
and men of faith and morality—began to make my
skin crawl.
History is littered with horrific
acts committed by people invoking God and faith. And
I've seen far too many people in my lifetime do the
talk but not the walk, or practice their belief in highly
selective ways. And we've all witnessed acts of violence
and intolerance justified by people on the basis of
their religious beliefs. No, I am not comforted when
I hear politicians using their relationship with God
as a vote-getting device. Or, for that matter, when
religious belief becomes one of the criteria for elective
office in a democracy.
Here we are on the eve of a presidential
election, and the candidates of the major political
parties are all professing to be God-fearing champions
of family values. Not one of them is opposed to the
death penalty or seems outraged by the fact that one
in five children in this, the richest nation on earth,
lives in poverty. Not one of them has made eliminating
poverty a cornerstone of his agenda. We hear too much
talk about tax cuts and too little about the fact that
tax cuts are meaningless to most of the working poor,
or that our taxes aren't being effectively used to improve
the quality of life of all the people or the life of
the planet. They talk about personal morality but maintain
a deafening silence about the morality of putting profits
before public good—as though, for example, this
nation has no obligation to provide quality child care
for all who need it. The mindless self-gratification
that fuels our consumerism—ever-bigger and more
expensive vehicles that guzzle gas and increase pollution,
the rush to kill animals for their fur to satisfy fashion,
the waste of natural resources—none of these issues
get addressed.
If we must have a bevy of pale males
vying for our votes, let's at least insist that they
cut the moral platitudes and show some real balls.
—Marcia Ann
Gillespie
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