Woe Unto Thee

(Considering what Jesus had to say to the politicians of His day, what might He say to ours?)

Woe unto thee, Republicans and Democrats, hypocrites! You preach sexual morality, but cheat on your own wives; you preach family values, but ignore your own children as you work 70-hour weeks to buy yourselves better cars and computers. You take the money from the schools, but make sure your pet lobbies don’t lose any funding. And you are surprised when your children rebel against you and tell you they hate you!

Woe unto thee, Republicans and Democrats, hypocrites! You honor God with your lips, but worship Mammon with your lives. You carry large Bibles for show, but your hearts are with your checkbooks. You profess to follow Jesus, who wandered the cities homeless, but you throw the homeless out of your cities, and demolish whatever shelters they manage to build.

Woe unto thee, Republicans and Democrats, hypocrites! You tell people what they want to hear to get their votes, and then spend your terms of office working only to ensure that nothing threatens your re-election campaigns. You vote for or against measures based on what will get you re-elected, or what will benefit your own businesses, rather than what will be good for the community. You say your concern is to create jobs, but all you care about is keeping yours.

Woe unto thee, Republicans and Democrats, hypocrites! You sit in air-conditioned offices and send men ten thousand times your betters to die in the desert; you tell them to save the oppressed abroad, while you continue to oppress the weak at home.

Woe unto thee, Republicans and Democrats, hypocrites! You gleefully oppressed women and minorities until the sympathies of the voters changed; and you are still racist and sexist in your hearts. You are still the haven of rich white men, though you allow the right quotas of women and minorities for show. When a black man is in a figurehead position, and his every move is blocked by filibuster, have minorities truly been given a voice?

Woe unto thee, Republicans and Democrats, hypocrites! You hold the vulnerable for ransom with every proposed tax increase, and threaten that they will suffer unless we pay; but you do nothing to change the factors that make them vulnerable. You don’t even try to find real solutions – for if you did, how would you blackmail us into giving you more money? And yet, somehow, you never lack funds to advertise how desperately you need our money.

Woe unto thee, Republicans and Democrats, hypocrites! You live on human credulity, feed on the hopes and fears of those who work for a living. You grow rich and fat on your professed commitment to help the poor and hungry, and leave them poor and hungry. Will you escape the wrath to come? Will He not ask why, when He was hungry, you did not feed Him? Woe, ten thousand times woe unto thee, Republicans and Democrats, hypocrites!

© John M. Munzer