I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, "A quart of wheat for a day's wages, and three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!" --Revelation 6: 5-6

The U.S. economy teetered on the brink of collapse last week as a result of escalating failures in the mortgage industry which were themselves fueled by spiraling gas prices caused by the falling value of the U.S. Dollar, which was itself caused by the weak U.S. economy, a direct result of The Bush Administration's inattention to domestic issues while spending $10 billion per month prosecuting a pointless war in Iraq. Our current economic environment, which can at best be described as dire, is perhaps the saddest example of the president's failed administration and failed policies, caused mostly by simplistic thinking and an inability to understand how this thing-connects to that thing-connects to the other thing. It is simply impossible to live entirely on your Visa card, but the United States has been literally pouring cash into Iraq (less so in Afghanistan where it's actually needed) with no end in sight. Along the way, the Administration, with help from Arizona Senator John McCain, successfully lobbied for increasing deregulation of financial markets as the real estate bubble continued to exponentially grow. Last week saw the collapse of financial giants Lehmann Brothers and Merrill Lynch--something simply unfathomable in the minds of most financial analysts--with insurance giant AIG teetering on the brink before a government-led rescue. All of which made last week an incredibly volatile one for stock markets around the world as the Bush administration scrambled to put lipstick on this pig and calm jittery nerves by assuring the American people, as Senator McCain did last week, that "the fundamentals of the U.S. economy are basically sound." Meanwhile, other financial analysts not running for president have called this the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Associated Press: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Friday sketched out a multi-faceted effort to confront the worst U.S. financial crisis in decades, outlining a program that could cost taxpayers “hundreds of billions” of dollars to buy up bad mortgages and other toxic debt that has unhinged Wall Street. “This needs to be big enough to make a real difference and get to the heart of the problem,” he told reporters as the administration asked Congress to give it sweeping powers. In a separate press conference, President Bush told the nation his administration is taking “unprecedented action” to deal with the ailing financial markets. Bush said he appreciates the willingness of Congress to work with the administration to address the crisis “head on.”

From my chair, this mess is a direct result of having blind faith in our leaders, Christian conservatives re-electing the president who ran a campaign of anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage and anti-stem cell research--three issues the president has done absolutely nothing on in eight years. This is the result of the myopic worldview of people to whom national leadership all boils down to a single issue--abortion--to the extent where they will vote for a candidate based on his stance on this single issue to the exclusion of all other evidence of the candidate's fitness for office. so-called "values voters" voted in the millions for Bush based mainly if not exclusively on the abortion issue, and this is what we have: thousands of dead U.S. servicemen and women and an economy in shambles with only a pig's lipstick to keep public panic from turning what will certainly be a painful recession into a second Great Depression. This is what happens when you abdicate your common sense to the naked agendas of religious leaders. When you compromise your principles in order to get what you want--an enforced righteousness through legislation. It is precisely this tunnel vision that is so utterly terrifying that, here we are again, being pressured by Christian conservatives to retain this party in power and vote for a man whose campaign is the very model of a campaign of fear and lies just because the candidate is pro-life. Beloved: the world is a much bigger place than one issue, no matter how important. And throwing your support to unprincipled people who display none of the qualities of Christ just makes a fool out of you. This financial crisis is a terrible, terrible mess. And it's our mess. Without the support of Christian evangelicals, George Bush would be a full-time rancher by now.