BY KAREN WEBB
When asked whether he thought his use of the word “Armageddon” could cause people to do crazy things like spit on members of the Congressional Black Caucus, U.S. House Minority Leader John Boehner said, “Armageddon is just a word.”
Yes, it is – and so are bonsai, kamikaze, revolution, n—-r, f—–t, Taliban, secession, states rights, rap songs, sermons, sin, apocalypse, Jesus, cumquat, God, and jihad.
They are all words and they all mean something to whoever is speaking and maybe something totally different to whoever is listening. There are collections of JUST words, like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, The Bill of Rights, the Torah, the Koran, the Communist Manifesto, the Dictionary and the Bible. They are all just WORDS.
You cannot say that the teenage Christmas Eve bomber was influenced by a radical cleric of Islam and therefore all Islamic clerics should be suspect and then say that the words of
Christian clerics, politicians, parents, teachers or rap singers mean nothing and do not ever provoke anyone to wrath.
Islamic terrorists and clerics, Christian ministers, Congress and the Ku Klux Klan do not use Vulcan mind transfers – they use WORDS, just like the ones Rep. Michelle Bachmann used when she said she wanted her constituents to be “armed and dangerous.”
She could have said “I want my constituents to be informed and vocal,” but since she is the one doing the informing, they are out of luck. I have heard the best of the hell, fire and brimstone ministers who were less terrifying at describing hell than most of the GOP leadership are at describing the Health Care Reform package.
When anyone uses the term “secession,” it always brings to mind what James L. Petegru said in 1861: “South Carolina is too small to be a republic and too large to be an insane asylum.” A lot of historians believe that “States Rights” was one of the main things that killed the Confederacy. Gov. Brown of Georgia thought Jeff Davis was getting too pushy when he called for a day of fasting for the Confederacy. Brown called his own day.
Every leader from Hitler to Billy Graham has used words to influence people, so Mr. Boehner, the word Armageddon does mean something. It may mean nothing to you, but to most Christians it brings on visions of something: the END.
Why they are not looking forward to the end and the rapture and must fight it off with every part of their beings, they will have to explain.
Another pre-Civil War quote that comes to mind is the last paragraph of Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address:
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break the bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
How happy would he be that we are still fighting over states rights, but this time it is because they believe the first African American president is a socialist who wants to force affordable health care on everyone and they are not willing to let him try?
– Karen Webb lives in Moore, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer
