Search For A Savior

I'm in Mexico where the American residents recently celebrated Independence Day while Mexicans voted. Two populous countries celebrating the fact they are democracies.

In Rosarito we had a very effective and good Mayor, Hugo Torres. By law he can only have one three year term, so we now have a new Mayor. Mayor Torres inherited a bankrupt city, the H1N1 Swine Flu scare, plummeting real estate prices, cartel bloodshed, police graft, beheadings and murders, no tourists, businesses closing everywhere. What a mess! In spite of threats on his life and attacks on the police station, the Mayor managed to push through street paving, improved utilities, beautify the city, fight graffiti, clean up the streets, replace most of the police force, create a new tourist police to aid visitors and foreign residents and have the crime rate drop perceptibly. What a job! I bet he's relieved it's over.

Does the story sound familiar? President Obama, like Mayor Torres, inherited a monumental mess that even with the strength of Hercules couldn't be completely fixed in a short term, two wars, a country in financial crisis, brutal political division, plummeting real estate, bankruptcies, massive unemployment, foreclosures at a rate never seen before.

After all, Mayor Torres and President Obama are only men, good men, strong men, but not superheroes, messiahs or gods. And this is what everyone on both sides of the border forgets. It is what I think of as the "savior" mentality, and it runs strong throughout world culture. And man, has it gotten us in trouble! Once in a while we're lucky and we get strong and ethical men like Obama and Torres concerned with improving the lot of the people they're responsible for. But it can just as easily turn the other way.

So often throughout history, in hopes of being saved men grab power of the ilk of Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Stalin, Hussein, Geroge W. Bush, Pol Pot, Caligula, Vlad the Impaler, Idi Amin Dada, Fidel Castro, Ayatollah Khomeni, Rev. Jim Jones, Nero, and the list goes on. Think of genocide in Rwanda, Nazi Germany, Sarajevo, Turkey and the Armenians, the Inquisition, and the trail of bodies that would stretch to the moon and back.

More terrifying is not that people chose evil to lead, but it's chosen in the guise of a savior – a strong man who will know how to take care of us. Stalin came into power as a choice against the Romanoffs, Hitler as a way to bring Germany out of financial ruin caused by the inflation under the rule of the Weimar Republic. Mussolini was going to take an ailing and backward Italy to the height of glory once again. The fact that people were going to be killed, ethnic groups targeted as the roots of problems and subsequently disposed of wasn't initially looked at as evil, just a Machiavellian expediency. Evil's success is enhanced by it's many faces; especially the mask of an angel. George W. Bush was going to turn America into a right-thinking Christian theocracy; after all, he had a message from God giving him that mission. He ended up starting an unjustified war, killing untold thousands of people, polarizing and bankrupting a country, all in the course of his so-called "mission." The truth is, that a behind the ascension to power of every tyrant, evil leader and mass murderer in history lies the mistaken belief by some supporters that they were supporting saviors – look, the US voted Dubya into office twice! Shows how many people believed in him, and now, oddly, no one seems willing to admit they voted for him. Funny how that happens. Sara Palin looks like the next demagogue in line to save the country from the black man in office who has to be a spawn of the devil, after all he is probably a Muslim in disguise planted as a sleeper to ruin the country. Oh, sorry, I thought Bush junior already did that.

Modern society, as in the history of the world before us, has been driven by a hard-wired belief in superheroes, gods, messiahs and saviors. Man has ingrained into his subconscious the refusal to take responsibility for his own actions. There is an insistent clinging to the belief that someone will come along to the rescue. The Cavalry will arrive, the Prince will come, Superman will fly out of the sky and all will be better under a savior, a messiah, a hero. Every facet of our world has this belief. Let's face it, women insist on waiting for the knight in shining armor to come and take them away from their hum-drum existence. Many a good man has been refused because a woman waited for something better to come along – her knight, her savior, her Prince Charming. I know a lot of women with long expired shelf-life still waiting. Some people never give up!

No one is willing to take responsibility for themselves. Years ago, a girlfriend became a Born Again Christian. I asked what motivated her to make the decision and she looked me straight in the eye and said "I've been married twice to terrible men who mistreated me, made many wrong life choices by getting pregnant when unmarried, drank too much, ran around too much, dropped out of school so I've no education and have to work crappy jobs. I've fucked up my life so bad, I figured I'd give it to Jesus and let him have a try...he couldn't fuck it up any worse than I've already done."

Well all-righty now, that made a certain kind of sense to me, nonsense, but sense. The part I couldn't wrap my mind around was - if Jesus was so all-powerful, why screw around with such a fuck-up? He must have much better things to do with his time, like stop racial injustice, rebuild New Orleans, stop global warming, clean up the oil spill in the Gulf, stop the war over Palestine, throw the Americans out of Iraq…like that.

I find it incomprehensible myself. Why would an all-powerful being give a rat's patootie about what happens to us? We are obviously an unworthy species as our main job seems to be whining. We can't take care of ourselves, we keep getting into messes, and like women who make terrible choices in men, and men who similarly make terrible choices in women, we try to choose saviors to take care of us and we end up disappointed. Just another terrible choice!

But no, we insist on superheroes. When the Germans were invading Europe and killing Jews, Superman was born. He was an instant success, because he was the embodiment of what people were looking for – a real, honest to goodness superhero! Okay, so he wore blue and red tights and was an alien from Krypton. Obviously he couldn't come from Earth, we only have screw-ups here. We have to resort to outsourcing to get a hero or savior.

When the obvious thing is not to get into messes like wars, rotten marriages, unwanted pregnancies, tyrannical rule, in the first place, we can't seem to stop ourselves. Hey, when people are bankrupt from medical bills and still scream against universal health care, it's obvious we haven't a clue what side our bread is buttered on.

The downfall of the savior culture always comes when the awaited one falls short of what was expected. As soon as the feet of clay appear everyone is on the march for the next fool to take on the thankless job of superhero-curer-of-all-ills. Prince Charming can't live up to his perfection forever. There has to come a time when he goes out drinking beer with the boys, comes home snockered, passes out and farts in bed. The savior who gets rid of the Jews in Germany also takes the Gypsies and homosexuals because they too are unworthy of living with the Aryan race. And then, shock of all shocks, he also takes all the beautiful young German men to die in his wars. The savior supporters are always astounded when they find out they're either too poor, or outclassed, or unworthy themselves to take a seat at the victor's table where the spoils are divided. Instead, they are shuttled aside to pay the bills in either blood or money. Happens every time. How happy are the warmongers who stood behind Dubbya as he went on his crusade to make America safe when they see the death tolls, but maybe more to the point, they see the financial cost to themselves. Most of his supporters wouldn't send their kids to war, that's for the poor folk. But man, can they hurt in the wallet.

Born Again Christians can do whatever they want and Jesus will forgive and take them in his arms when they are born again, free of all prior sins. Think of kids games and a "do-over". My neighbor years ago employed a butcher in their market who turned out to be playing unsuitable games with all the neighbor kids, and, brilliant man that he was, commemorated the games with Polaroid photos. When he got caught with his pants down, so to speak, he found Jesus in jail and got out early because he had been reformed. I wouldn't trust my kids with him, but the religious community welcomed him as being "cured" of his affliction by Jesus. He went on to become the minister of the small church. Another soul saved. Hallelujah! Praise be!

The abnegation of taking responsibility is a heady drug, better than crack or Valium or Ecstasy. Coke can't compare with the high of doing anything you want in full knowledge that it will be forgiven.

The savior, superhero, Prince Charming, the messiah, is a way to avoid taking personal responsibility. If you wait long enough for your hero to arrive, you can sit on your butt and do nothing because at his arrival, all will be taken care of. Of course, the other side of that coin is that he might never appear. Sometimes it can be a very long wait.

Bye for now and have a great day!