“Come Not Lucifer, I’ll Burn My Books.”

 That famous line comes from, as many of you know, Christopher Marlowe’s, “ Dr. Faustus. ”

 I read this play in college, and we studied the period of when it was written, and real political freedom did not exist in England.  Religion was controlled, and so were written texts.  Authors had to shape their stories to please their rulers, and that knowledge posed a potential threat to rulers,  they had to control it, and they had to demonize it by associating it with sin and burning in Hell.  This tactic worked well, and the people bought it, knowing too much was bad for you.  Knowing was evil.

Of course, these people did not simply wake one day thinking this way, the government played a large role in creating this fear in the people; it was a massive effort being spread throughout Europe - plays and books were filled with moral teachings.  And the reason for that, we all know, was really about maintaining civil order and controlling the masses.  Hey, it was easier to scare folks into behaving and shaping their ideas to benefit the government rather than having to be held accountable by citizens with minds of their own. 

And hundreds of years later, somehow, this ancient technique and attitude still works in America; not all over America (thank God) but in rural America, and in small towns, where new ideas are judged as “evil,” and where everyone, except for simple hicks, will be burn in Hell for their sophistication.  Incredible.

I’ve always had some notion that this attitude was out there, out there in small town U.S.A., but it was never more clear to me than it was last night.  I found a documentary on demand, it was called “So Goes The Nation,” and this film documented Ohio in 2004 prior to the presidential election; being interested in politics, I ordered it, and I was struck and atonished by the attitudes of some of the voters out there. 

Some actors from Hollywood went to campaign for Democrats in poverty-stricken Ohio, where unemployment and poverty were so high that it was almost criminal.   Yet, somehow, many of these voters decided that gay marriage was more important than anything else; even if Bush had deserted them economically, they were happy to ignore that for the sake of “values.”  And one man commented on the actors that “we’re not like that,” as if he were offened by their sophistication.  Once again, knowledge and ideas were cast in a negative light, and outsiders with fancier lives seemed like aliens to these people, a thing kept better at a distance in lieu of preserving their uncomplicated way of life.  And then one man said “They think we’re hicks…”  I never heard ONE of these people call ANY of them “hicks,” but they allowed their own perception of what they thought others thought of them to cloud their judgement.  Typical of stupid people.  Typical of the kind of people that’d vote for Bush.  Typical that they call Democrats “elite,” when theirs is the party of the true elite.  Bush is no small-town boy.  Bush didn’t always live Crawford, and Bush, like old world rulers, lived in style while those in Ohio lived in poverty, but the brainswashed inhabitants bought his “values” and stupidly missed his hypocrisy.  What kind of “values” does one have when he can send young men and women to die in Iraq for no apparent reason?  What kind of “values” allows Americans to struggle and starve but make non-issues issues?  And what kind of voter doesn’t see the spin? 

The kind of voter that we’d be better off without.  I think the rest of us who live in a world that embraces diversity and freedom are SICK AND TIRED of rural American voters imposing their uneducated and limited views upon the rest of America.  Clearly, they don’t like us, but now, I don’t like them.  I really don’t like them.   They are what is destroying America, yet they project this destruction onto “liberals,” yet they vote without their brains, and they voted to send an idiot to the White House for four more years.  It is their hate and their jealousy of people from outside their neck of the woods that drives their madness.  It is their unfounded fear of new ideas that Bush has instilled and they have embraced, without analysis; it is their ”values” that are dividing this country.  And we all know that the politics of divide and conquer exist.  But hicks don’t understand that.  They only know that non-hicks are smarter, sometimes dress better, are stylish and sharp in ways they can only dream of ever becoming.  Therefore, they reject us because they feel inferior, and because the Republicans want them too.

They equate many things with sin, yet they sin in that they know no kindness and have forsaken the virtue of acceptance.  They are ungenerous and cruel, and the Repbulicans know their base well.  They never campaign on the real issues, because simple slogans work better with their crowd “flip-flop,” or some other simple two-word concept will sum up their hate and tap into their fears.  Since their voters aren’t that bright, they can continue to sell “values” and to villanize non-hicks.

For me, I’m a proud city girl, and that I live in a city where I won’t be judged, demonized and hated for my brains means the world to me.  And that Marlowe lived in a time where his brilliant observations of human behavior and political evils has to be written with restrictions was a real shame; but that some in America want to create the restrictions once seen in England,  is an even bigger shame. 

I encourage everyone to see this documentary, it was a real eye-opener, and I’m sure you’ll understand this even better if you watch it.