In the aftermath of Rick Perry's Christapalooza over the weekend, it's become official (though argubly it's been this way in Texas for years). The name "God" has taken a seat with the pantheon of brand names such as Nike, Twitter and Ed Hardy. The minds of the unwashed masses are being fashioned into contortionist marionettes to be bent and folded to fit into ideological boxes labeled "Jesus" on the outside while the insides look like voting booths. We tape our own eyelids open as we are led through neverending halls of scripture laced rhetoric until we are supposed to believe that huddling together in a football stadium where "men of God" who wear racism as undershirts and masturbate to pictures of beaten homosexuals and burning Qurans convince us that the solutions to the problems of the day are found once we fall to our knees, lower our heads in silent prayer. Silence is never the solution. In fact, silence is an accomplice to the problem. Let me rephrase: YOUR silence is an accomplice to the problem.
According to the University Star, tuition between 2003 and 2008 rose 51 percent. "Well, damn, Oz!!! How did that happen??" Glad you asked. Pastor/Governor Perry supported a bill to deregulate tuition at public universities in Texas so that schools like U of H can charge whatever they think a U of H education is worth. That way, they can pay for all sorts of unnecessary accoutrement such as an on campus Chili's, a karate dojo and an on campus sex shop (or was that one of their frat houses? I can't tell the difference...). Texas colleges have become corporations because of an asshole that you didn't have the good sense to vote out of office. And a bible won't solve that problem; civic awareness does. And THAT isn't in the Good Book, either. It's in a damn newspaper. It's frivolous, thinly veiled political stunts like prayer rallies that bring me to the inevitable conclusion that in America, God is not a deity, he is a mascot, another entity to wrap in the American flag as if Jesus has a tattoo on his ass that reads "Made in America."
The real irony behind Perry's prayer meeting, pretentiously titled, "The Response," is that it's not really a response if your greedy, narrow minded activity is what's causing all the questions. It's just called "cleaning up your mess" and it's going to take more than getting your mother's bridge club together in Reliant Stadium to sing "My God is An Awesome God." It's going to take people like me and you to turn off Love and Hip Hop for a few minutes to get up and hold this asshole accountable. Email, snail mail the representatives of your districts. Let them know you're watching them. And not just Perry, but the "leaders" of your religious communities, the ones stealing your money and using million dollar helicopters as their getaway cars, the ones standing outside of abortion clinics while sweeping their illegitimate children under the rugs, the ones camped out at soldiers funerals with signs that read "God Hates Fags" while going home to face-fuck your daughters and blow your sons. God is your hearts, not in the words of hypocrites and businessmen on government pensions, but then again, I could be wrong.
