Goodbye, Mr. Bush

Hope you are enjoying, as I am, this final day of George. We are left with wars, recession, debt, and his wisdom:

• "The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country."
• "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
• "Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child."
• "No senior citizen should ever have to choose between prescription drugs and medicine."
• "I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy, but that could change."
• "One word sums up probably the responsibility of any governor, and that one word is 'to be prepared.' "
• "Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things."
• "I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future."
• "The future will be better tomorrow."
• "We're going to have the best educated American people in the world."
• "One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures."
• "Illegitimacy is something we should talk about in terms of not having it."
• "We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur."
• "Will the highways on the Internet become more few?"
• "It’s a time of sorrow and sadness when we lose a loss of life."
• "I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office."
• "We're concerned about AIDS inside our White House. Make no mistake about it."
• "I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein."
• "I've coined new words, like 'misunderstanding.' "
• "I recently met with the finance minister of the Palestinian Authority. Was very impressed by his grasp of finances."
• "It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm's way."
• "One year ago today, the time for excuse-making has come to an end."
• "I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn't here."
• "My job is a decisionmaking job, and as a result, I make a lot of decisions."
• "America stands for liberty, for the pursuit of happiness and for the unalienalienable right of life."
• "I think we agree, the past is over."
• "Those who enter the country illegally violate the law."
• "When the governor calls, I answer his phone."
• "[The Taliban] have no disregard for human life."
• "I don't particularly like it when people put words in my mouth, either, by the way, unless I say it."
• "You teach a child to read and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test."
• "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system."
• "I think it was in the Rose Garden where I issued this brilliant statement: If I had a magic wand — but the president doesn't have a magic wand. You just can't say, 'low gas.' "
• "But oftentimes I'm asked: Why? Why do you care what happens outside of America?"
• "Let's make sure that there is certainty during uncertain times in our economy."
• "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"
• "They misunderestimated me."
• "I want the federal government controlling Social Security like it's some kind of federal program."
• "The reason I believe in a large tax cut is because it's what I believe."
• "The thing that's most important to me is to remember what's the most important thing."
• "If the terriers and bariffs are town down, the economy will grow."
• "If this was a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
• "It's clearly a budget; It's got a lot of numbers in it."
• "I'm sure you can imagine that it's an unimaginable honor to live here."
• "And there's no doubt in my mind, not one doubt in my mind, that we will fail."
• "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family."
• "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."
• "Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream."
• "Our nation must come together to unite."
• "We ought to make the pie higher."
• "It's your money; you paid for it."
• "Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."
• "I didn't grow up in the ocean. As a matter of fact, near the ocean, I grew up in the desert. Therefore, it was a pleasant contrast to see the ocean. And I particularly like it when I'm fishing."
• "It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mential losses."
• "There's an old saying in Tennessee. I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee, that says, fool me once, shame on ... shame on you. Fool me ... you can't get fooled again."
• "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
• "I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe. I believe what I believe is right."
• "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
• "I stand by all the misstatements that I've made."
• "I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office."

H/T Lee

Justice Delayed is Justice Denied

Here is my sermon for Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday:

Justice Delayed is Justice Denied
John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church
Elizabethton, Tennessee
January 18th, 2009
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday

My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation.

For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant “Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."
--Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter From Birmingham Jail

I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain-offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
--Amos 5:21-24

In his book The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus, Harvard University’s Peter Gomes writes:

One of the invitations I least welcome is an invitation to speak to some college campus in the month of January at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day service. It is not that I lack regard for Martin Luther King Jr. If Protestants had saints he would be one of them, and I am convinced that he saved America from itself and allowed it to begin to live out the full implications of its own demanding creed. I am second to no one in my regard for Dr. King’s heroic accomplishments, of which I and all other Americans are beneficiaries. Having said that, however, I still find the day, with its celebrations, problematic.

Peter Gomes goes on to wonder “if what we thought was a movement turn[s] out to be only a moment.”

He writes that

“the problem is not with the civil rights movement…but that we are reminded of how far removed we are from those great events. How much remains to be done, and how little will there is to do it.”

He continues:

“How naïve it seems now, to imagine that there was a moment within the lifetimes of many of us today when it was possible to think of redeeming social sin by moral courage, and to do so under the leadership of a Christian minister who believed that the gospel of Jesus Christ had social, moral, and political implications.”

For King, the

“end was not only the end of legal discrimination, but nothing less than the bringing of the principles of the kingdom of God into play in the life of America.” Pp. 161-163.

I tend to resonate with what Gomes is saying in his book while keeping in mind that in 48 hours America and the world will taste the fruit of the civil rights movement. We will witness the inauguration of the first African-American president. We need to enjoy and savor that precious fruit. It isn’t everyday we get to taste of it.

When King wrote his letter to white clergymen in 1963 from a Birmingham, Alabama jail, there were signs in restaurants and businesses that refused service to blacks. Blacks were denied the right to vote. Colored children were not welcome to newly constructed amusement parks. Segregation was the rule of the day and the church was silent. The church was offended by the demonstrations for equality. The church said it isn’t time yet.

It is hard to imagine that the church could have been so complacent in the face of such obvious injustice. Of course there were exceptions. There were congregations and clergy who marched. There were people of faith who took great risks and who handed over their own bodies for the bodies of others. But the exceptions proved the rule. Churches were largely indifferent or offended that their peace was disturbed.

It is hard to imagine the complacency of the church until we see that little has changed. Many folks today, that is white folks, are happy to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as long as we keep it to issues that are already settled. Few people openly advocate today for segregation in schools or that African-Americans should ride in the rear of buses. Those issues are yesterday’s issues.

If King’s birthday, and that for which he stood, is going to be acknowledged today, then we would do well to acknowledge the work that remains to be done. King and the gospel he proclaimed included civil rights but it didn’t end there.

He spoke and acted for economic justice.
He spoke and acted for peace and against the military industrial complex.
He spoke and acted against the wars we wage and the lies we invoke to wage them.
He spoke and acted for the rights of workers and for access to education and health care.
He spoke and acted against corporate greed that exploits our resources and wastes our planet for the profit of a few at the expense of the many.
He spoke and acted for the kingdom of God.

He didn’t invent this. He spoke and acted by drawing from the resources of our most cherished scriptural texts. He reminded good church folks that the Bibles they carry to worship and place prominently on their coffee tables contain both indictment and promise.

Our scriptural texts indict us, if we dare read them, for our complacency with injustice and our lack of moral courage and will. They promise us, if we dare hear it, with a way of life in which justice flows down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Justice not for some of us—but for all of us.

When King spoke and acted this way he was accused of meddling. He was accused of bringing politics into the pulpit. He was accused of being an extremist. In his letter from Birmingham Jail, he answered these accusations:

But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label.

Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . ."

So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime--the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

It was extreme when King told America:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

In 48 hours we will taste that fruit of creative extremism. 50 years ago, the skin color of our nation’s new first family would have kept them from sleeping in motels. This week they will enjoy their first night in the White House.

We must not delude ourselves into thinking it was simply the passage of time that made for this new situation. It was due to the hard work of consciousness raising, of organization, of refusing to obey unjust laws, and thereby changing those laws, of speaking out, and of renouncing privilege.

King responded to his fellow clergy who told him it wasn’t time yet for justice. He was told he should wait for a better time. Justice will come in time, they told him. Be patient. King wrote:

Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.

That was Martin Luther King writing to his fellow clergy from a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama.

I find myself amazed but not surprised how consistently those who are in positions of privilege have the nerve to tell those who are fighting for their rights and for their lives that they need to wait and to be patient. If those advocating patience had their rights denied and their lives threatened I doubt they would be offering the same platitudes.

This past week in Nashville, a hotel employee was fired for being gay. This happens all too often. Thirty states including Tennessee have no laws banning workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Usually this type of discrimination isn’t quite so blatant. Usually, some other reason is given. But in this case the owner stated clearly why this employee was losing his job. He didn’t do anything wrong. He was gay. That was enough.

Where is the church in all of this? With a few exceptions the church either encourages this kind of discrimination through a warped reading of the Bible or it is complicit in its silence.

Don’t trouble us with those issues it says. Be patient.

Six years ago President Bush told America that he would put his best efforts to work for a just peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis. But just let me take care of this little business in Iraq first. Be patient.

Time has not improved this situation. Patience has not been a virtue.

What time is it for sexual and gender minorities?
What time is it for all of the children of Abraham in the Middle East?
What time is it for the poorest in our country?
What time is it for our planet that is entrusted to our care?

I am hopeful about this new administration. It certainly is time for a new direction. But I am concerned for our new president. He has a long to-do list. If we do nothing but leave this list on his desk and ask him to take care of things for us, we will be in for some grave disappointments. His to-do list is our to-do list.

I am also concerned that the economic changes we are facing may cause us to put issues of social and environmental justice on the back burner. Bailing out the status quo will not move us toward a sustainable future. Now more than ever do we need creativity and collaboration. The lives of our great-great grandchildren not yet born are counting on us.

Martin Luther King’s vision was not limited to one issue. He proclaimed boldly a new vision for America and for humanity. White, black, gay, straight, Palestinian, Israeli, Christian, Muslim, religious, secularist, female, and male all make up what he called a beloved community.

It is false to think that we need to pit issues of justice against each other or that one has to wait for another. They all work together and must work together. I will give Martin Luther King the last word:

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

Amen.

‘Everyone Welcome’—Even Now

Do take a few moments and read this column in Newsweek by my colleague, Rev. Chris Buice, minister of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville. A few months ago, this congregation experienced a tragedy when a gunman shot eight people killing two during a service.

You can read posts about it here.

Chris writes:

After a senseless act of violence in our church, we did not give in to anger. We sought a better way.

This is the spirit of true religion. Here is the article:

"Shall we meet hate with hate?" that has been a recurring question throughout history and, recently, a personal one for me. On a Sunday morning last July, a man walked into the sanctuary of my church, took a shotgun out of a guitar case and opened fire on a room of unarmed men, women and children. Two precious people, Greg McKendry and Linda Kraeger, lost their lives. Six others were injured. Our entire community was traumatized....

....Members of my congregation have been hurt. But we have also been healed by the feeling that there is a love greater than our theological differences, a compassion that is not limited by the boundaries of any creed. I firmly believe, now more than ever, that love is stronger than death. Love is more powerful than hate.

(Read the rest of the article)

What a powerful witness and presence for peace this congregation has for all of us.

PFLAG Tri-Cities Meets Thursday

PFLAG Tri-Cities will meet Thursday at 7 p.m. on the campus of East Tennessee State University. We will meet in Room #315 of Warf-Pickel (building #18 on map). We are a growing group with nearly 200 on our listserve. I am very proud of this group and with what it has done and will continue to do for equality for LGBTQ people.

I am also happy to be the secretary and web guy. We have a number of ways to connect on-line:

1. See our website
   
2. Our weblog
3. Yahoo discussion group
   
4. Facebook group
5. e-mail
   

We are also thrilled to have a Tennessee Equality Project chapter that has newly formed in the Tri-Cities. Here is their meet up group.

A number of local businesses and professionals have lent their name in support of our work. Thank you! If you would like to know more about being an LGBTQ friendly business, or would like to know more about PFLAG Tri-Cities, e-mail me!

It is about saving lives, saving jobs, saving families. The more people come out in support of equality the harder it will be for people to get away with this.

Fired for Being Gay

This is from the Human Rights Campaign:

Over the past few weeks, managers fired two openly gay employees of the Arte' Hotel in Brentwood (formerly a Holiday Inn). David Hill told WSMV news, "They literally said to me because of my orientation and my alternative lifestyle, that I was not a fit for the hotel."

Asked if David had been fired strictly because of his sexual orientation, the hotel’s assistant general manager Leonard Stoddard replied, "I do believe that's a very fair assumption." Click here to watch news story. Leonard was subsequently fired as well.

This case is shocking, but the story from the Arte' Hotel really should come as no surprise. Thirty states, including Tennessee, do not have laws banning workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. And there are no laws against discrimination on the basis of gender identity in 38 states. At the Human Rights Campaign, we hear stories from around the country that demonstrate the need for a federal ban on employment discrimination to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers.

Yet even as we push for federal workplace protections, we must also work to educate local officials about the lives of LGBT Tennesseans and the issues important to them. This year, we must do everything possible to defeat any bill that would deprive children of stable, loving homes.

Last year, fair-minded legislators helped scuttle a bill that would have prevented unmarried individuals "cohabitating in a sexual relationship" from adopting. Unfortunately, this year a similar bill could find more support with a more conservative legislature. For more on last year’s bill, click here.

We need your help to help pass federal workplace protections so that we can put an end to stories like the Arte' Hotel. And we need your help to ensure that children up for adoption in Tennessee have the best chance of finding a loving, permanent home.

Join us at the Brentwood rally this Saturday. Plan to be in Nashville for Tennessee Equality Project’s lobby day. And if you think you’re not political or that you wouldn’t know what to say to elected officials, join TEP at a Lobbying 101 training near you!

Stay tuned to www.tnequalityproject.com for updated information.

Fun With Tennessee Politics

This is so rich on so many levels. Rep. Kent Williams, from Elizabethton, Carter County, TN, is Speaker of the House. And he did it by doing what he said he would do--vote for a Republican. The Republican turned out to be himself!

This is making national news. Tennessee Republicans thought they had a mandate to push through all their stone age legislation. Not so fast. The Dems pulled a fast one and elected a moderate Republican.

I like Kent Williams. He is tough, smart, and has integrity. He cares about Tennessee as opposed to partisan politics:

Williams said that “I probably did violate my promise,” but that it was outweighed by a desire for change that would bring bipartisan fairness to the Legislature while protecting employees.

“I believe history will record that this was a great thing for the state of Tennessee,” he said.

Williams said he would push for passage of a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the state constitution that has been killed in Naifeh-appointed committees in past years after winning approval in the Republican-controlled Senate.

While saying he still considers himself a Republican and will not become a Democrat, Williams acknowledged that he may be banished from the GOP.

The Republicans think leadership is get a majority and be boss of the planet. That is not the leadership we need. Here is video of the historic event:

And an article in The Tennesseean.

Fundie Spam!

Snad, the keeper of the email at First Pres., got spammed by fundies! The Presbyterian Homophobic Coalition sent out love spam apparently to all PCUSA congregations. It must be all. Good grief, we got one. We are about the last church in the denomination to vote with the religious Reich.

The Presbyterian Coalition wants all folks to love their Bibles (especially the naughty parts) more than actual human beings. I think that is a rather odd theory of life. But these are odd folks. If you didn't receive their spam of hate (oops spam of love), here it is (with exegetical commentary of what they really mean):

Dear First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton, TN,

Damn heretics!

Voting on the amendments will start up again this month after a break for the celebration of Jesus' birth.

We have finished buying useless crap for Jeebus and now want to bash gays for him!

The Joint Renewal Team completed its review of all fourteen amendments (08-A through 08-N) sent down by the 218th General Assembly for a vote by the presbyteries, and their comments and recommendations are now available.

We have been working on renewing the perfect joint--preferably with fewer seeds and stems.

You will see that the team made recommendations only in cases where we judged that the amendment would bring about a significant change.

You can bet we don't like change. We are still ticked that women got the vote.

The most important amendment before the Church this year is Amendment B. We recommend a "no" vote on that amendment.

There is nothing more important on God's green planet than avoiding gay cooties.

To date, thirteen of the 173 presbyteries have voted on Amendment B. Twelve have voted "no." Most of the voting still lies ahead; the greatest number of votes will occur between January and March of this year. The voting must be completed by the end of June 2009.

So get out there with that anti-gay propaganda! Time's a wastin'!

I'm available to help you prepare for the vote in your presbytery. Please visit the Campaign website, where you will find a wealth of resources. You can reach me by email (terry@presbycoalition.org) or phone (703-680-4571) as well.

I got a whole bucket of lies and threats to help you pummel the unsuspecting!

May God grant that 2009 be a year in which we Presbyterians experience with renewed hope all of the benefits that are ours in Christ Jesus, and rejoice in the abundant riches of his grace.

We couldn't keep Negroes on the plantation or women in the kitchen, but with God's help we can keep gays in the closet!

Pray for the Church.

Or failing that, refuse to pay per capita and foment schism.

Yours in Christ,

Terry Schlossberg
Coordinator, Campaign to Defeat Amendment B

Looks like a fun couple of months ahead!

Who Will Save Israel From Itself?

Nearly 1000 Gazans are dead. Hundreds of them are women and children. The world is watching this one. Al Jazeera is posting footage from the assault on Gaza. Here is the latest from January 13th:

In an article posted yesterday on Huffington Post, Mark Levine writes:

None of this excuses or legitimizes the firing of rockets or mortars by any Palestinian groups at Israeli civilians and non-military targets. As UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk declared in his most recent statement on Gaza, "It should be pointed out unambiguously that there is no legal (or moral) justification for firing rockets at civilian targets, and that such behavior is a violation of IHR, associated with the right to life, as well as constitutes a war crime." But by the same logic, Israel does not have the right to use such attacks to launch an all-out assault on the entire population of Gaza.

In this context, even Israel's suffering from the constant barrage of rockets is hard to pay due attention to when the numbers of dead and wounded on each side are counted -- almost 700 Palestinian dead and thousands wounded, versus 3 dead Israelis civilians and a few dozen wounded since December 27. Any sense of proportion is impossible to sustain with such a calculus.

Israeli commentators and scholars, self-described "loyal" Zionists who served proudly in the army in wars past, are now publicly describing their country (in the words of Oxford University Professor Avi Shlaim) as a "rogue" and gangster" state led by "completely unscrupulous leaders." Ben Gurion University Professor Neve Gordon declares that Israel's actions in Gaza are like "raising animals for slaughter on a farm" and represent a "bizarre new moral element" in warfare .

"The moral voice of restraint has been left behind... Everything is permitted" against Palestinians, writes a disgusted Haaretz Columnist, Gideon Levy. Fellow Haaretz columnist and daughter of Holocaust survivors Amira Haas writes of her late parents disgust at how Israeli leaders justified Israel's wars with a "language laundromat" aimed at redefining reality and Israel's moral compass ("Lucky my parents aren't alive to see this," she exclaimed). A few pages away there is a report of paramedics finding another seventy Palestinian corpses.

Meanwhile, the big news in the United States is that a college student is auctioning her virginity on ebay.

Hi ho.

So it goes.

Attaboy Kent Williams!

Just when we thought the right wing in Tennessee was going to move us to the right of Saudi Arabia, Rep. Kent Williams of Elizabethton becomes Speaker of the House. Best Republican we could get. Check the story:

In an extraordinary move in the opening session of the state legislature this afternoon, Republican Kent Williams won speakership of the House, beating veteran Democrat Jimmy Naifeh and Republican leader Jason Mumpower, who was widely expected to get the post.

Shortly after, Williams voted for Democrat Lois DeBerry for speaker pro tem, the number two position, illustrating his willingness to power-share with Democrats who elected him to the speakership.

Williams, while a dark horse candidate, was not completely unexpected. There had been rumors weeks before that Williams, who had supported Naifeh as speaker in the past, might defect from the Republicans.

The election of Williams was what Democrats called the “nuclear option:” electing a Republican who was friendly to Democrats, creating coalitions between the parties. As recently as Monday, Mumpower had dismissed such talk, saying that Republicans were united. (Read More)

NT Wrong: Our Shooting Star

It looks like the good bishop, NT Wrong, has closed up shop. That was a great blog that burned quick and bright. Here is his last post that links to this song by Lilly Allen, The Fear.



Hear are the lyrics:

I want to be rich and I want lots of money
I don’t care about clever I don’t care about funny
I want loads of clothes and f***loads of diamonds
I heard people die while they are trying to find them

I’ll take my clothes off and it will be shameless
‘Cuz everyone knows that’s how you get famous
I’ll look at the sun and I’ll look in the mirror
I’m on the right track yeah I’m on to a winner

[Chorus]
I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore
I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore
When do you think it will all become clear?
‘Cuz I’m being taken over by The Fear

Life’s about film stars and less about mothers
It’s all about fast cars cussing each other
But it doesn’t matter cause I’m packing plastic
and that’s what makes my life so f***ing fantastic

And I am a weapon of massive consumption
and its not my fault it’s how I’m programmed to function
I’ll look at the sun and I’ll look in the mirror
I’m on the right track yeah we're on to a winner

Chorus
I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore
I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore
When do you think it will all become clear?
‘Cuz I’m being taken over by The Fear

[Bridge]
Forget about guns and forget ammunition
Cause I’m killing them all on my own little mission
Now I’m not a saint but I’m not a sinner
Now everything's cool as long as I’m getting thinner

[Chorus]
I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore
I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore
When do you think it will all become clear?
‘Cause I’m being taken over by fear

Thanks good Bishop for a glimpse of no B.S. truth.