Blame it on Jimmah!

My email to Hugo Zoom:

Why, why didn't I take the blue pill?? I'm overusing the Matrix analogy only because it fits so closely to what I've observed about my own perception of life in the U.S. When I watch and listen to a conservative, it really does seem like he's still got the spike in his neck. Of course, the paradox is that that's exactly how he views me, that I haven't awakened yet to the lies and half-truths of the liberal charlatans and abandoned all of that for the party of the real people and the real values. And that conservative is as settled and integrated into his perception as we are into ours.

Have I mentioned that the polarity really bothers me? ...Heh. ("You've mentioned it once or twice.") If I understand the situation correctly, the extreme polarity now is a result of the increase in influence of the Christian fundamentalists over the past couple of decades. And I blame that on Jimmy Carter. I remember reading in Time, back when he was President, that he taught a Sunday School class, if not every week then frequently, at a church in D.C. A Bible-totin' president. Before him were Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower...I don't think anyone associated any of them with Bible study and Sunday School. So I'm thinking that Carter's bringing the atmosphere of fundamentalism to the White House emboldened the Christian right, which led to the Reagan era and the Christian Coalition et al. It's all Jimmah's fault!!

As much as I admire him and acknowledge his intelligence, I just wish things had, um, worked out differently.