Throughout the history of this world a certain type of human being has always come to the forefront. These human beings have taken it upon themselves to say that they are divine. They have appointed themselves as Gods. They have declared that they have the divine nature of God or that they are on a mission from God. They have made themselves superlatively good and beautiful, and all who are against them are evil and ugly.
This is a historical fact, and a sad one at that. These self-appointed human Gods have committed some of the worst crimes against humanity. Those crimes were mostly committed against poor people or people who were considered "different."
Presently George W. Bush fits into this mold of the self-appointed God. He has stated that he is on a mission from God in this so-called war on terrorism. A very real question must now be asked, even though it may never be answered. How many human beings can this man murder before he is recognized as a murderer, no matter how godly he believes that he his?
We know for certain that he legally murdered 152 poor human beings while he was the Governor of Texas, including some who were innocent! No one knows for certain the exact number of innocent people that he has murdered, in Texas or in the Middle East. Between the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, who can say how many people this man and his policies have put into the ground, or blown apart by his bombs?
We must add to this count the number of poor U.S. soldiers who have died, because they died doing Bush's bidding. He calls himself a man of God, a man of faith and a true believer. This means that he prays about the things that he is doing. This also means that he believes he is doing God's will. He has been quoted as saying that he believes that God is on our side in this war against terrorism. "Our side" to George Bush means the Judeo Christian society of the United States.
What this man fails to realize is that war is not godly, nor is what happens to human beings during war. This is true whether it's a war against terrorism, a war on drugs, or any other type of war where human beings are made to suffer because other human beings want them to. The inhumanity that certain human beings inflict on others is not of God. Inhumanity in not divine, nor are the people who have committed these crimes. In crimes against humanity, a leader is responsible for the atrocities no matter how far he removes himself from the actual killing. These leaders must be held accountable.
God does not choose sides, man does! Especially men or women who have had personal problems in their lives. Before George Bush started murdering other human beings and hurting their families, he was only hurting himself and his family through his drinking problem. As an alcoholic he hurt his family so much that he was told that if he didn't get help for his addiction that he would lose his family-his wife would leave him and take their children with her. Somehow he found the inner strength to end his addiction to alcohol. But in the process of losing that addiction he picked up another addiction, and this one was to God.
Just as he was once addicted and controlled by alcohol, he is now addicted to God. And it wasn't until after he converted to religion and became a man of God that he started murdering poor people! Once he started on this path of murdering human beings he just kept going and he hasn't stopped yet!!
How many more human beings must this man of God be allowed to murder before he is stopped? History is has taught us that they vast majority of crimes against humanity have been committed in the name of religion. Never forget that those people who flew the airplanes into the World Trade Center were, in their minds, on a mission from God. These atrocities and crimes against humanity are committed by men, period! Sometimes it really appears that God is nothing more than a scapegoat for human beings to stoop to their basic animalistic nature.
What is really sad in this whole thing is that the vast majority of human beings who rely on their leaders to protect them go along without question when their leaders start committing these crimes. Then whenever they do start to ask questions it is too late. We poor people are truly tired of being executed, bombed, maimed and tortured just so that one selected group of people can feel that they are doing God's will! We are truly tired of suffering and we want-no, we demand that this inhumanity is stopped!
In Struggle from Death Row
At San Quentin Prison
Kevin Cooper