Thumbing Our Noses

With the closing of the World Weekly News I was wondering if the recent newspaper story on the Dugger family wasn't just a hoax by a displaced WWN staff writer.  I couldn't believe that the quarter page story was true but there in front of me was a picture of a woman on a hospital bed holding her newest child, surrounded by her other 16 children.  That's right, it is not a typo.  The Dugger family of Arkansas now has 17 children and it doesn't seem that they are planning to stop there, at least not according to Jim Bob, the leader of the clan.

The title of the cutesy article was "Counting Noses" but I immediately thought it should be titled "Thumbing Our Noses" because that is just what Jim Bob and Michelle are doing to the rest of the world by having so many kids.  I don't know about you but there is something obscene and rapacious about that level of reproduction.  It is not a "gift from God" as this family believes but more of a blight on the world at large.  Anyone not wedded to Fox News knows that there are vast populations around the world living in abject poverty without enough food or clean water for themselves, let alone their families.

But here in America's Heartland affluent (by global standards) hard core Christians reproduce like a demonic duplicators cranking out mega-consumer after mega-consumer who will waste more food and water each year than are consumed by small villages in Asia.  This one family, now so large that they may need their own zip code, seems to think that this is all predestined by their God, a supreme being who just loves to laugh because he knows humans aren't smarter than microbes.

The volatile mixture of far right wing ideology with delusional divinity gives us these mega-families who believe that they have the right to make as many consumers as they want as long as they pay for their production.  As long as they aren't on welfare or food stamps or other government handouts then it is perfectly fine to procreate until you have your own congregation to interpret the good book to.

If this family, who proclaim their love for the Lord and their faith in Jesus Christ, love children so damn much why don't they open up their hearts and wallet to the orphans of the world?  If not the world, then how about the orphans here in the United States?  There are thousands of children that could use the vast amounts of love this family declares it has.  What is stopping Jim Bob and his amazingly fertile wife Michelle from tying off their tubes (his or hers) and untying the purse strings so that a few orphans can have a fair chance at making a life for themselves?

But we all know it isn't about love or religion or the good work of the Lord.  It is about that fiendish fifteen minutes of fame that is more addicting than heroin and that leads to that holiest of all grails--corporate sponsorship.  This foundation for future fortune was laid down with the Dugger Family Website.  It allowed them to position themselves for the possibility of wealth accumulation and God knows they must need some money to support all those children.  The question I have is how on Earth can this family have time to host a freaking website! 

Don't get me wrong.  These Dugger's are smart and they are demonstrating that the right-wing Christian coalition is better at business then the liberal-minded, minimal children nature worshiping heathens trying to profit by going green and saving the Earth. They have made it to the America mainstream by having their own show on the Discovery channel, a web page on Discovery Health and a game called "Name That Dugger". 

If that doesn't say Brand America I don't know what does!