Gustav, God and the GOP
by JVS on Sep.01, 2008, under 2008
Last night, a CBC news report showed a week-old youtube clip of a Focus on the Family dude talking about how great it would be were God to send a storm to rain out last week’s Democratic National Convention. (Obama’s speech was held in an open air stadium.) How ironic that the Republicans are now in their current dilemma; having to totally reign in their convention because of hurricane Gustav. An act of God?…
Sure, I guess. It’s hard to attribute the weather to anyone else (even though we should know better than to build cities below sea level). Hurricanes do have the power to remind us of things that are bigger than us. But perhaps this “act of God” has something more to say.
This morning’s Globe and Mail noted that, because of this impending natural disaster, both political parties have decided to pull all partisan political ads off the air for the next few days. You don’t want to be playing politics when the greater concerns of the American people are pressing in on you.
This move is, of course, good politics.
But it also begs the question. Shouldn’t both political parties always be acting this way? Avoiding partrisan BS for the greater good of the people? Why should it take a storm to cause everyone to behave?
It seems to me that, long before Gustav made the scene, there were already a lot of dark clouds in American skies. The sub-prime mess, social problems, recessionary (or worse) pressures, etc… The threat of these surging issues should have been more than enough to evoke non-partisan politeness.
But that didn’t seem to be the case. It took an ‘act of God’ to get everyone to play nice, to be fair, to work for the greater good of all Americans.
Perhaps this storm is an answer to someone’s prayers; for a more selfless and strong country.
(And I pray that everyone in the Gulf States stays safe today)
