by CHRIS DAVIS
DENVER — To hell with Fox News and all their
manipulative, faux-patriotic jingoism. Michelle Obama was right: Sometimes
it’s hard as hell to be proud of this deeply troubled country.
On Monday night Mrs. Obama took center stage at Denver’s Pepsi Center and
delivered a message as simple and as elegant as the beautiful blue green dress
she wore so very well. Her broad smile lit up the stadium as she looked out
over the massive, cheering crowd and spoke intimately, as though she were
talking to a good friend over dinner. There was no speechifying and no
oration, just plain language echoing at every turn her husband’s belief that
too often Americans settle for “the world that is” rather than “the world as
it should be.”
“We know what opportunity and justice look like,” she said, describing her
America as a place where hope and hard work are still rewarded.
“Isn’t that the great American story?” she asked rhetorically, and the crowded
nodded their hopeful dittos to that. Then, after invoking the name of Martin
Luther King and trumpeting the true spirit of women’s suffrage, she reminded
her doting audience that America’s greatest blessings were hard-won by real
heroes who stood together against the tide, marched against injustice, and
gathered together “in churches and union halls” because they refused to settle
for anything less than the world as it should be. It was the kind of speech
designed to make people feel proud to be Americans. Meanwhile, in the streets
outside, “the world as it is” was raging.
A balding, overweight man identifying himself only as “Shultais” — a mononym
he spelled out for me — stood with a trumpet in his hands shouting at
passersby on Denver’s 16th Street mall, a wide pedestrian
thoroughfare in Downtown Denver. He wore a sandwich board on his chest
reading, “The wages of sin is death,” and his face turned as red the 2004
electoral map while he shrieked the gospel. His tongue and lips were caked
with dried spittle, as thick and white as Elmer’s glue, his eyes
smoldered like those of a malevolent angel, and his already raspy voice
cracked as he shrieked about the sins of liberals and shouted dire warnings
about judgment day.
A passerby shook his head as he passed. “Praise be to Allah,” he said
with all-too-evident irony, in a deliberate attempt to make the veins pop out
in Shultais’ temples.
“That’s exactly what the terrorists shouted when they flew a plane into the
World Trade Center,” Shultais answered back.
“I thought they said, “Jesus Christ what have I done?” an onlooker quipped.
Another young man sighed. “Christians, and non-Christians, this is the show,”
he said. “This has caused the worst wars for thousands of years.”
Shultais, who hails from New Jersey and spends up to 12 weeks a year traveling
the country, speaking out against sinfulness, doesn’t scream at everyone. If
you approach him respectfully he responds in kind.
“All we want to say is that God has issues with sin,” he explained, standing
underneath a sign reading, “Homo Sex is a Threat to National Security.”
“A lot of people think we judge, but it’s not about being judged. I’ve got no
right to judge nobody. I’ve made more mistakes than anybody in this world. But
I also know what it feels like to feel the forgiveness of Christ in my life,
and I want to share that with people. I want people to know that God can
forgive them on any level whether they’ve got a hang-up on drugs, or a hang up
on crime, lust, stealing. Whatever the case may be.
“Our group doesn’t have a name, but some of these guys spend 30 weeks on the
road for Christ…”
“Their name’s dumbfucks.com,” a blond, lanky counter protester in a black
t-shirt and pink bandana suddenly shouted, interrupting an obvious interview.
“Christ only asks people only one question,” Shultais continued, atempting to
ignore his heckler. “What will you do with me? Will you believe or will you
call it hogwash?”
“Why don’t you come to the streets when you don’t have riot cops protecting
you and see what happens,” the heckler continued, drawing his target’s full
attention.
“What was that?” the Evangelical trumpeter asked. “Are you threatening me? Why
don’t you do something right now? Because if you touch me you’ll find out what
the bottom line of suffering is all about?”
“Just touch me,” the blond snarled, puffing up his chest.
“No, you touch me,” said Shultais
“I’m not touching you,.” went the blond.
“I don’t like to be like this,” Shultais apologized. “I just don’t like being
threatened.”
“Nobody threatened you.”
“Yes you did”
“No, I didn’t.”
And so it went: The two men stood toe to toe, at the center of the mall,
condemning one another to various visions of the pit. All around them signs
waved–signs with slogans like “Repent of your wicked heart of unbelief,” “Homo
sex is sin,” and “Warning : baby killing women, so called Christians,
porno freaks, Muslims, drunks, homosexuals, party animals, rebellious women,
liberals, Jesus mockers, sex addicts, and Mormons: God will judge you.”
It’s all enough to make the most diehard atheist hope that there is Supreme
being keeping score somewhere, judging the actions of these two ridiculous
figures, and all the innocent passersby who have been forced throughout
recorded time to endure their never ending battles.
As genuine and touching as Michelle Obama’s words may have been, it’s
difficult to know where they fit in an angry America that seems to have
abandoned the vision and ideals of activists past — an America where winning
your fight is worth destroying the prize. To borrow a phrase from John McCain,
that’s not hope we can believe in.
(SEE VIDEO BELOW)
