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Show THE ZEPHYR/ APRIL-MAY teachings of their elders, our home-grown fg Christians find themselves in asimilar situation, except they aim their rhetoric af anything perceived to be “liberal”, because it represents change and causes people to question the teachings of their elders. It’s hard to understand how anyone, no matter how fundamentalist, could truly want a world so hate-filled and paranoid, but think there is great appeal in a victim mentality. For one, it’s easy. And second, once you perceive yourself as a victim, almost any behavior is excusable. Our leaders, and this is true whether they come from the right or the left, seem bent on enhancing this nation’s fearfulness. We are constantly being told that we are in danger. If al Qaeda doesn’t get you then the bird flu will. We teeter on the brink of 2006 MISSING JIMMIE CARTER Jim, That was awesome putting that Carter speech in the Zephyr. How very relevant; and ~ disconcerting. It is amazing how completely blinded by consumerist culture the American public has become. "Greed is good". But, as I've told my wife on several occasions, it's only a matter of time until that system is no longer economically, environmentally and socially feasible. It will run its course, and then American culture will have to do some self examination. Priorities will change. I hope. The Carter speech reminds me, unfortunately, of when I was in Mr. Grua's social studies catastrophe barely surviving from day to day, if you listen to our political, religious and class at Vernal Jr. High in 1978. Mr. Grua was an out and out Democrat, and had a medical professionals. All this paranoia buys them our compliance. We give up our freedoms; we sacrifice our sense of self-responsibility. We let hate-mongering spin-meisters like Rush Limbaugh inform the public, and allow chicken-hawks like Cheney, Ashcroft & Rumsfeld to make the most horrendous decisions in our name. And why not? Our poster of Jimmy Carter on the wall in his classroom. Doing this in Vernal was akin to having a poster of Chairman Mao or Fidel Castro, and I'm sure he received his share of comments and criticism from fellow staff at the school. Well, my friends and I used to love to torment Mr. Grua, even though I liked him and he wasn't a bad teacher. He was probably the only "progressive" in Vernal at that time, and a very kind and thoughtful person. The daily ritual in class was to fire all manner of projectiles at the poster of Jimmy Carter, including, but not limited to, rubber bands, spitwads, used chewing tobacco and paper clips. One day, after months of this, he finally blew up, lost his temper and actually started crying in class. My rowdy "wrong side of the tracks" friends and I smirked and tried to keep our laughing under our breath. The "good kids" in class couldn't understand why he reacted that way, being oblivious as they were, and my ftiends and I thought we had achieved our goal of pushing him over the edge. The relevance of Christianity to most Americans has far more to do with the promise of salvation from this world than with any desire to practice the teachings of Jesus while we're here. system fl while local boards of education attempt to replace science with theology. The dumbing down of America is working. Who.knows or cares what the facts are anymore? Who will question these leaders? Who will hold them accountable? Who will stand up for not just our own rights but the rights of the people we invade and kill and at ot torture? After all, we’re just innocent victims. Just good Christians trying to live in an un- Christian world. (!) Anyway, I’m not sure it hasn’t always been this way. We seem perilously close to the brink of something. But I don’t know that that isn’t what is always needed to evoke real change. I’m a child of the 60’s, and I believed all that stuff back then about peace and changing the world. What I remember most about that time was how empowered people felt. Just the opposite of now, when there is so much apathy and thinking you can’t do anything anyway, so why try? And if bombing the rest of the world buys us another cheap gallon of gas, who cares? These Christian greed-heads, as you so aptly called them, are giving people direction and a sense of purpose that their lives apparently lack. (Not that different from the religious fervor of some environmentalist movements, or the more extreme elements of our Islamist brethren.) So, it’s our materialist, rich-get-richer, poor-getpoorer, cog-on-the-wheel culture, honey. The Christians are just as morally and intellectually impoverished as everyone else. What else do you want to know? Best regards, Gwendolyn Zeta large How very relevant and disconcerting. It is amazing how completely blinded by consumerist culture the American public has become. "Greed is good." Then a realization of sorts fell over the class, bringing a pall of shame and remorse. Some of us in the class realized that what had caused our teacher to be moved to te’.cs wasn't just disrespect of him per se, or the Carter poster even, but also of the disrespect for American institutions and history. Istill feel bad about having been part of that. Sure, we can pass this off as a bunch of small town kids doing the inevitable, but looking back, I think it's actually a small part of the larger story that Carter was pointing out in his speech. Ron Weales Vernal, Utah continued on next page... 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