This Book....BAH!

I can't stop talking about "Irresistible Revolution." I think I am going to buy a copy for my family. I think I want to buy a copy for the world. It has so managed to change my opinions so forcefully. I never thought I would not be a republican. For a while now, I've questioned my party allegiance. For a while now my dad has simply called some politicians the lesser of two evils. I think it was the fact that I really wanted to believe someone would be good for this country. Someone would really have everything right. But it's not that way. And I held on to one side for so long because they were against abortion. And let me say, that hasn't changed, and I'm not democrat, and I WILL NEVER EVER vote for any person who would willingly support a law in our country that allows mothers to kill their own children. That's a different blog for a different day, just wanted to clarify. All that to say, I've lost political ties through the process of reading this book. And I don't have any idea who I will vote for in the upcoming elections. I don't have answers. I don't know exactly what I am going to do, but at least I'm not so stuck on one idea anymore.
I've become anti-war through this book. Never thought I would go there. Never thought I would take a stand, but I can no longer defend the killing of innocent people or guilty people. I just can't support violence as a response to violence. Or violence to prevent violence. It no longer makes sense, Praise God.
I no longer linger on the topic of the death penalty. I can't be for it. I used to say I leaned toward being against it, just because I couldn't be the one to kill the criminal. Now I am sure. I could not. There is a story of a man who came out of the war, and became a murderer, receiving the death penalty. The book said it this way: The country that taught him to kill killed him to teach others that killing is wrong. Enough said.
I have decided to think totally differently about my finances. This isn't exactly new. I have to give some credit to Mike Bickle for totally changing my thinking on money. I must say this book just strengthened my idea that when there are hungry people living, and I'm overeating... well there's something wrong. And I'm wrong. I need to work on implementing this idea.
I've come to realize how horribly racist I am. I always knew that I grew up in a racist community. I will openly confess that to anyone who asks. I also always thought that I was not myself completely racist. Again, I must contribute another source to my original discovery. A few years ago I watched Hotel Rwanda and it made me realize how much I don't count Africans as people. Why? Why would I think such a thing? But it's true that when I hear about their wars and their struggles, their hunger and their disease, I think that's it's horrible, and go about my life. And somehow I do think that if I went through the things they went through, it would be somehow worse. God forgive me. I realized through reading this book I had done the same thing with the people of Iraq. I had removed their faces from my mind. Somehow their children with bullet wounds, their fathers dying, and their homeless widows weren't as important as September 11th. Somehow America's struggle was more important. A war veteran once told me that they never called the enemies nick names because they truly hated them. They used nick names for the enemies so that when they pulled the trigger, they didn't have to think about the father, the son, or the brothers they were killing. I don't know that I use nicknames, but I remove faces from my mind, so I don't have to think about the children that starve everyday, while I get fat.
I finished the book, and I am going to read it again. I'm also excited because I found out just a few days ago that the author is coming to our school. I think I will have to write him an e-mail. Maybe take him out to lunch or something.