The Unclad Soul

Steve Deace is a fledgling celebrity among religious right wing Republicans. He and them want to turn our system of government into a theocracy. He says that Newt Gingrich is like the Old Testament character King David in that Gingrich has messed up just as King David did, but, they both repented and as God used David mightily, well, so will God use Gingrich. In an article at alternet.org Deace is quoted saying, “Maybe the guy in the race that would make the best president is on his third marriage.” This of course is meant to be a sterling Christian endorsement of Gingrich. Deace is some sort of conservative radio talk show host out of Iowa. The tag line on his web page is, “Fear God. Tell the Truth. Make Money." He jokes on his profile page about barely getting through community college and says that since he’s not all that educated he “believes the Bible is literally true.” He claims that his real genius is “he knows way more about superheroes, Star Wars & Star T...

The enigmatic and unconventional artist and filmmaker, Andy Warhol, once said that we all have our own America. He said it consists of “Pieces of a fantasy America” that we think exists but which we really don’t see. He said we created this America from scenes in movies, from music lyrics, and from novels and other books. The result, he said, is an America made up of “art and schmaltz and emotions.” I find a lot of truth in that. We have the recorded history of this country in thousands of books and speeches and other forms of documentation and they all tell stories of hardship and courage, genius and empty-headedness, brotherhood and bigotry, slavery and freedom, cruelty and compassion, stampeding greed and astonishing charity, gross decadence and simple living. We continue making American history and what we’re currently up to will not read well in future years. Today, we find our country crippled by a political system that has outlived itself and is so dysfunctional it ha...