Mammon’s Speech to the Republican National Convention

Thanks everyone. You’re a perfectly awful audience filled with greedy sons of b------ who love denying health care, decimating education, destroying the environment, starting wars for oil profits and sending millions of new people into poverty, and I love you all very much. But while I have been following your exploits with great joy, I bet most of you have never even heard of me. Sure, you’ve heard of my lazy ass cousin Satan, even though he f----- up the only two assignments he got in the Bible. First, Job then Jesus, both times falling on his big fat face. Still he has a better publicist than I do, so while he wouldn’t need any introduction, I have to tell you who I am: I am the evil one in charge of greed, possessiveness, love of money. And I’ve come all the way from Hell to tell you that I couldn’t be happier with what your party has done for this country.

I’m sure that some of you Bible thumpers remember Jesus’ warnings about me that “you cannot worship both God and Mammon.” But you have proven him wrong by showing that it’s possible to pretend to do the former while really doing the latter. Let’s be honest, Jesus never said, "Blessed are the rich, for they shall receive huge tax cuts to make themselves richer." Or "love thy enemies, unless of course they have huge oil reserves, then go kick their asses." No, Jesus was too focused (please excuse my language) on pointless ideals like love, forgiveness and helping the poor and destitute. Alas, the early church actually took his message seriously, putting all their wealth together and dividing it out according to need. F------ Commies. Face it, your party follows Jesus about as well as Fox news follows their slogan of “fair and balanced.” But I’m not here to chastise you but to honor you. You cannot take seriously the directives of idealists like Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tsu, or Mohammed, or you will wind up in the same place as they did, out in the streets begging for food.

That’s why it’s time to give this devil his due. Or to put it in modern lingo, you are my peeps, and you need to step up and give me my props. I know that many of you here are smart enough to see where your loyalties truly lie, but for those of you who think you are a good Christian because you donate a fiftieth of your new tax cut to a homeless shelter, just consider how many programs for the poor were eliminated to give you that tax cut in the first place. Jesus, being the unreasonable man that he was, wouldn’t even let that rich young ruler off the hook when he said he gave half of his earnings to the poor; no Jesus wanted him to give it all away. How many of you are willing to do that? And also keep in mind that both homosexuality and abortion were common practices in Jesus’ time and he never said one word about either one. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut about anything else that bothered him, so in these cases too, your main concerns don’t jive with those of your supposed leader.

My directives, on the other hand, are perfectly in line with your party’s concerns and actions. First, you must do anything to stay in power. Lie, cheat and above all, distract Americans from the issues that truly matter. What does it profit you to keep your soul if you lose the rest of the world? But look who I’m telling this to, after all, your swift boat ad campaign proves your awareness that money and lies will get you much further in this society than honesty and courage. I’m still smiling over that one. Our man not only dodged the war but also managed to dodge dodging the war, and yet we put their man on the defensive by suggesting he only deserved two rather than three purple hearts. This leads me to my second directive, keep the public dumb as rocks, so they continue to fall for stuff like this. Push testing over critical thinking, continue to cut money from schools under the guise of “no child left behind,” and make certain that teachers are too busy with extra students (or having to work a second job) to give their kids any individual attention. And finally, find any excuse to make more money, especially if it involves starting another war. Every time another young man or woman dies so that Haliburton’s profits can go up, I get a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

Certainly others have twisted Jesus’s words around in similar, admirable ways, but what makes you so unique is the way you act as though you were not only influenced by him but may actually be him. How you managed to get away with this is impressive even to Satan, and he is the king of deceit. After all, Jesus was born into a poor family with little power, influence, opportunity and yet managed to rise up through his own study, faith, and wisdom to create a following of over a billion people. Though we support you, we all know where you would be without your family’s influence and wealth, certainly not at the White House but perhaps at White Castle flipping burgers.

Don’t worry; most people do not have our level of discernment. And to make certain that they never do, or even possess the tiny amount of critical thinking needed to see through your web of lies, you’ve set up a school system based entirely on standardized testing. What better way to keep individuality at bay, to get the public to trust authority so much they don’t even see the most blatant contradictions?

So please, keep up the good work and continue to do all this in the name of God and Jesus. It doubles their pain when they not only see greed, war, and lies, but also hear of it being done in their name. Don’t worry, before too long you can come stay with us down there, where your true loyalties can come out in the open. And then we will have all of eternity to get to know you better.

I see my time is almost up, but though I have to leave my physical form for now, I know that most of you will carry me with you in your hearts. Before long you will be able to smash all your false idols and proudly proclaim your allegiance to me. In the meantime, if anyone knows of a good publicist, please e-mail me at [email protected]. Thanks, you’ve been a great audience, and I am sure I will see many of you very soon.

September 2004

From Randy Fallows