Still Threatened

The Masters. Just the name elicits imagery of the ante-bellum south and a cold chill down my back. And that it is; it is a genuine, bona fide throwback to the good old days of good ol' boys and polite talk and mint juleps and women knowing their place. Pass the bourbon and branch water.

Massa Hootie said that a woman would be a member the august Augusta National over his dead body. This from a man who's private club has lost millions of dollars in sponsorships and endorsements because his cronies have run for cover during this firestorm of recalcitrant behavior. The toe-tapper is, of course, that he is backed by the bastion of human rights called the Ku Klux Klan.

Certainly not the most burning issue of the day but endemic of the malodorous mindset of twenty-first century America.

Forged in the Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott School of Contemporary Thought, Rick Santorum has made international news with his insightful revelations on privacy in the twenty-first century. He stated "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to do anything." He then went on to equate homosexual sex to man with dog. Santorum is, or at least up to this point had been, a power broker in Congress. Given this rather unique take on "right to privacy" issues, one can only speculate what new pearl of wisdom will fall from the lips of our policy makers.

The answer was not long in coming from Moses, better known as Charlton Heston, president of the National Rifle Association poised with a rifle in his hands before that hotbed of civil libertarians stating "from my cold dead hands."

Apparently, there is a lot of that going around.

Let us not forget Newt Gingrich's attack on Colin Powell's soft war hawk stance. More importantly, why does he again have two cents to put into anything?

During World War I the Allies encouraged Arab nationalism. Moreover, these same nationalists were promised free Arab states after the war in exchange for their support during the war. After WWI North Africa was divided among the European victors. The United Kingdom and France were especially interested in certain sections of North Africa because of strategic access to their other possessions, er, colonies, ah, protectorates and of course their newfound dependence on, you guessed it - oil. Iraq was placed under the "protection" of Great Britain as directed by the League of Nations.

Universal health care. In their infinite wisdom our political leaders have chosen to provide universal health care to free Iraq, while domestic health care costs are skyrocketing and the mere mention of universal health care here elicits accusations of socialism. Heaven forbid that affordable health care is ever available in the good old USA.

Concurrently, the rebuilding of Iraq has begun at a fever's pitch, as these plum contracts had been awarded prior to the beginning of the war. Proper Christian education of Muslim Iraqi children has begun, as well. It is conservatively estimated that this rebuilding will take at least three (3) billion dollars a year. That's in today's dollars, not counting for inflation. Pick a domestic social ill, any one, that could be addressed or even eradicated by this kind of money being thrown at it.

Our set of misplaced, misdirected and mean-spirited priorities inspired by history and wrapped up in Christianity and the American flag continues to threaten the very fiber of American society and threaten our future. The masters must be challenged.

In Sisterhood,
Gail McWilliams