Violence As Sacrament

Sarah Palin says that if she were in charge, “waterboarding is how [we’d] baptize terrorists.”

But isn’t she right?

Isn’t initiation through violence into the American Religion of submission to capitalism and oppressive power structures exactly the colonial MO we expect of the United States?

Unwilling catechumens forced into the waters of death only to be raised into a new life of state-sanctioned violence, white supremacy and “Christian” triumphalism in which they’re ultimately discarded as collateral.

The horror of Palin’s metaphor reveals the horror of reality. In the American Religion, violence is a sacrament. And as long as we are worshiping Caesar, we are administering it.

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Words: Keegan Osinski
Image: Jim Kast-Keat
Music: Podington Bear