Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Monday, May 29, 2017
America Is Slowly Running Out of Patience
How Much
Longer Are We Going to Tolerate This?
By Pastor Paul J. Bern
I
have always strongly believed that it's not possible to be an
effective Christian without taking a stand against social and
economic injustice, and against government corruption in all its
forms (such as lobbyists at the federal and state levels who give out
bribe money like Halloween candy). In
fact, I have been a proponent for radical change for a number of
years now, and I have written
and published 3 books
on this very topic. Where shall I begin? In
God-blessed America, the land of the free where everyone is an
economic slave, our Founding Fathers' sacred idea of a government "of
the people, by the people, for the people" has become but a
cruel joke. Former president George W. Bush has notoriously (for both
Christian and secular people) called our Constitution – our supreme
law of the land – "that (uses God's name in vain) piece of
paper". The
federal government is currently spending at least $60 billion per
month on military excursions in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and
northern and western Africa – not including operating between 800
and 1,000 (depending on who you believe) foreign military bases all
over the world. Our country's over-used flying drone aircraft kills
hundreds daily overseas, many of whom are only innocent bystanders.
Our
political and court systems are openly rigged against the best
interests of the American people, particularly those of color. A
massive market mechanism is securely entrenched in our political
system where political influence is openly bought and sold. Tens of
thousands of highly-paid middlemen called "lobbyists"
facilitate the legal transfer of billions between moneyed special
interests and our so-called "representatives" in Congress.
This very lucrative business of buying and selling political
influence has become the driving engine of our government. Our
so-called "representatives" in Congress vie for millions in
legalized bribes in return for delivering billions of our tax dollars
to moneyed special interests. It's pure folly to think our current
political system could possibly look out for the best interests of
the American people.
Just ponder what our
government has done, not for us but to us, in the last ten years
alone. It's utterly mind boggling! The installation of Donald Trump
to the US presidency is only the latest insult. Not because it's
Trump, but because he promised to “drain the swamp”! Instead,
Trump bought it and is now remaking it in his own best interest. The
best interests of the American people have been sacrificed to moneyed
special interests time and time again. Hopefully this time the
American electorate has learned their lesson. The Wall Street bankers
paid millions in bribes for a legal license to steal hundreds of
billions of dollars from the American people. When greed got them in
trouble, our so-called "representatives" gave them billions
more of our money, American tax dollars, to bail them out in October
of 2008. In the last ten years, our so-called "representatives"
shared nearly a billion dollars in bribes from the "defense"
industry alone. In return, they doubled our (2016) defense budget to
$700 billion (equal to all other countries combined!) and lied us
into unnecessary, endless, expanding wars that will ultimately cost
us trillions.
This is aside from
the extreme human costs of war with multiple consecutive deployments.
For example, 1 in 5 returning veterans from US occupations overseas
have permanent psychiatric disabilities so severe that they will
never work again. Speaking as a minister and lifelong peace activist,
I find this to be utterly reprehensible on the part of the US
military! Be all you can be? Yeah, but it's all for them and none for
us except for some vague talk about 'battlefield honor'. I've got
some new information for all those people. There is no honor in
killing other human beings, especially for religious or ideological
reasons, and particularly for financial gain, which the US military
is notorious for!
Our so-called
"representatives" are slashing social spending for senior
citizens and the poor just when far too many American people need it
most. Yet they continue to spend hundreds of billions on weapons of
mass destruction to protect us from our “enemies”. But most of
our "enemies" are purposely created by our government's
blatantly unjust foreign policies (that openly support oppressive
military regimes for the most rigid internal control possible), and
by our violent military operations within their homelands. Without a
perpetual supply of "enemies", 'defense industry' profits
would plummet, and Washington's wealthy paymasters will never have
any of that! If that weren't enough, our so-called "representatives"
have worked hard to keep America the number one weapons merchant on
earth. Our so-called "representatives" continue to support
the sale of billions in weapons to oppressive dictatorships around
the world, which creates still more "enemies", which
creates more special interests profits, etc. So we can fight wars,
but we can't have a robust space program? We can fight wars, but we
can't update and upgrade America's dilapidated power grid? We can
fight wars, but America can't replace its crumbling infrastructure?
We can fight wars, but we can't afford to make public colleges and
universities free? America can't forgive $1.3 trillion (as of the end
of the 2017 school year) in student loan debt so those of the
millennial generation can get on their feet and start families and
buy cars and houses? We can fight wars, but middle and lower income
families can't afford school lunches for their kids? This is utter
insanity!
Our current
political system guarantees our so-called "representatives"
will continue to pass and sustain legislation that transfers billions
of our hard-earned tax dollars to moneyed special interests. That's
because members of Congress who oppose moneyed special interests are
promptly punished, ostracized, or replaced (if their offense is great
enough). President Kennedy paid the ultimate price for opposing the
elitists, but he achieved martyrdom among the American people.
Because of the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and Rev. Dr.
King, Jr., our current political system guarantees moneyed special
interests and our "representatives" must participate in
this influence-peddling scam against the American people. It's mainly
because they're being coerced by the implied threat of assassination,
but also because it's so lucrative they'd be stupid not to.
Big corporations
could be at a competitive disadvantage (and would likely resort to
cheating their shareholders to replace lost profits) if they refused
to buy political influence. Likewise, our so-called "representatives"
would be at a competitive disadvantage getting elected or staying in
office if they refused to broker political influence. Another
“problem” as these elites as I see it is that, if corporate
influence were to decline, it would open up windows of opportunity
for start-up businesses and entrepreneurs, and there's no way Wall
Street will tolerate that. Anything that puts money into the hands of
ordinary folks – such as owning a business no matter how small –
is seen as a potential threat and gets treated as such. Just ask any
of the American merchants who lost their businesses because they
couldn't compete with Wal Mart. I should know, I used to be one
myself up until around the year 2000 or so.
The rigged national
elections in 2016 were merely melodrama for the masses. Our 'choices'
had all been chosen for us in advance by moneyed special interests
pumping millions of dollars into the process. Besides, whoever “wins”
will be forced to play by established political rules that guarantee
moneyed special interests will always come ahead of the American
people's best interests. After all, the money special interests own
the American electoral process outright, like a company owning an
asset. For months before the elections, the complicit mainstream
media, using colorful pundits who talk smart and know little,
entertain us with political melodrama and often-intolerable
rhetorical bull-crap. They arouse us by pitting one segment of the
American people against another. They make millions bombarding us
with empty, emotional, 15-to-30-second TV ads that are little more
than name-calling or patriotic platitudes. Congressional elections
have devolved into a herd of sheep fighting among themselves for
their favorite wolves. Congressional elections merely determine which
segment of the America people gets screwed the most by which moneyed
special interests group.
Trying
to reform our current political system using that same corrupt system
is just an exercise in futility. It's like trying to fix your broken
arms using your broken arms. It's like trying to start a car that is
out of gas or has a dead battery. Our current political system is
designed to be reform proof, although that's not how it started out,
as those who have read the US Constitution well know. The
Constitution has well-established checks and balances to protect and
maintain the country
and the American people from tyranny from within and without.
That's why "campaign finance reform" and all other such
efforts to "reform" our current political system from
within are doomed to either fail outright or be so watered-down as to
be nearly useless. All these outrageous government actions are
exactly what we should expect from a government openly for sale to
the highest bidder. “We the people” are just
government-controlled fodder and political afterthoughts for the
moneyed special interests. Moneyed special interests paid for these
outrageous government actions, and they got what they paid for. How
much longer are we going to tolerate this? We, the people, got
screwed while corporate America and Wall St. received obscenely huge
bonuses and golden parachutes! I have the solution to this problem,
and it can be found in any English dictionary.
rev-o-lu-tion
(Dictionary.com) 1. an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough
replacement of an established government or political system by the
people governed.
Our country's
elections amount to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. We can't
vote our government back to us. It was deliberately taken away from
us, so we will deliberately take it back. A peaceful, people's
revolution is the preferable way we can take back our government.
But, like a now-deceased colleague of mine used to say, “Use your
first amendment rights and protest! If that doesn't work, use your
second amendment rights!” The trillion dollar business of buying
and selling political influence (currently the driving engine of our
government) must be overthrown, repudiated and thoroughly replaced if
democracy is to survive in America. This massive influence-peddling
scam must become our number one political issue because it underlies
and thus greatly affects all other issues. If we don't get all the
dirty money out of our politics, our democracy and our standard of
living will continue to decline and surely America will take the rest
of the world down with us. That doesn't sound like the kind of legacy
I'd like to leave at all. The prophet David's son, King Solomon of
Jerusalem, wrote near the end of the Book of Proverbs something which
still holds true over 3,000 years later, and I quote: “Speak up
for those who cannot speak up for themselves, for the rights of all
who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of
the poor and the needy.”
proverbs 31: 8-9) And again it is written, “He who
oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is
kind to the needy honors God.”
(Proverbs 14: 31)
We
can't afford to sit by like sheep or stand around like cattle meekly
waiting to be slaughtered! We must find ways to hinder and harass the
corporate state at every turn, and to control the violent tendencies
of the police who protect them. Nothing will change unless we, the
people, begin to organize radical acts of civil disobedience to
disrupt our current political system, upping the ante until this
massive influence-peddling scam is thoroughly exposed and eliminated
(search: 'overturn Citizens United'). For example, in Iceland in 2012
when the entire country went completely bust (you know, like the USA
is about to) the people – not the government, but the PEOPLE!) –
had arrested and jailed over 100 bankers after throwing the old
government out of office – peacefully but evidently very
effectively. The citizens stood in the streets and banged on pots and
pans, and they didn't stop until they got what they wanted. Nobody
worked, and no children went to school for the first part of this
national strike. Then they (the people, not the government!) wrote
a new constitution
and passed it into law. It was reported all over the European press
but largely censored here in the US. Is it any wonder? If there were
enough people inspired by what happened in Iceland, it could happen
here next. Indeed, it well should! Well, what do the elite
capitalists want? They can either allow what happened over there to
happen here, in which case America will turn into another Greece,
Spain, Ireland, Italy or Portugal. Or maybe even another Egypt, Yemen
or Syria. Or they can declare martial law and simply seize absolute
control. The only way to prevent this from occurring here in America
is that “we the people” must take back our government by peaceful
revolution because it will never be given back voluntarily. So get
your pots and pans and your biggest serving spoon ready, and brush up
on the US Constitution and all 27 of the amendments! Remember what
President John F. Kennedy said: "Those
who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution
inevitable."
One final thought. “Rich and
poor have this in common: God is maker of them all.” (Proverbs 22:
2)Friday, May 26, 2017
Sunday, May 21, 2017
Renewing America From the Bottom Up
The
USA Is Becoming A Failed State:
Seven
Simple Steps to Turn It
Around
by Pastor Paul J. Bern
To view this in your
browser, click
here! :-)
As
I look around me today, I see the United States of America as a
failing country. There are just too many things going wrong with
America today all at once! Failing
to adequately tackle the inherent problems in our economic system:
Failing to reflect on the deep flaws in our system of government:
Failing to repair our image abroad: Failing in education, in health
care, in human rights, and in religious tolerance. In fact, we look a
lot like the USSR in 1990 – except with a lot more big-screen TV’s.
And so I have composed this
week's commentary listing what I view as our worst problems, followed
by some helpful suggestions for solutions to the mess that we
Americans find ourselves in today.
First, a quick word
about president Trump. I have already written at length about my
feelings regarding Donald Trump's handling – or mishandling,
depending on your point of view, of his still-new presidency. But
there is another side to all the hub-bub about president Trump, and
that is the fact that he is a Washington outsider. Trump came into
Washington, DC last January to shake things up, and he has run into a
mountain of resistance from the existing political establishment.
Instead of “draining the swamp”, the swamp has nearly swallowed
up president Trump! But at the end of the day, much of the storm of
controversy about the Trump presidency has been generated by the
press, and at least as much as the Democrats, if not more.
Some people may well
take issue with my contention that the political and governmental
systems are broken, including the courts and penal systems, or even
that we have a great health care system. I respect anyone's right to
those opinions – freedom of expression is one of the few things our
country hasn't managed to screw up in the last couple of hundred
years. But in every case, the data backs me up. Allow me to try and
substantiate my claims first, before suggesting a few possible
solutions. First, let's take a look at the economy: in 2009 alone,
131 banks failed. That number had dropped to 5
in 2016, and there have been 5
more so far in 2017 with more than 6 months to go. The 2008
bailout granted billions of dollars – with strings attached – to
private companies who then used the money to short-sell the market,
make countless billions more, hand the government back its money
(removing the strings) and pay out lavish bonuses while Americans
lost their jobs. Meanwhile, the median family income is less today
than it was in 1970.
Our government,
meanwhile, is no longer run by competing ideologies but by corporate
interests (I include both parties in this category since both are
moneymaking enterprises disguised as political parties). There are
good Republicans who would prefer that your cancer-stricken child had
health insurance. There are responsible Democrats who are horrified
by our country's 'spend now and pay later' approach to finance. But
since they are beholden to their version of a higher power –
corporate America, Wall St. and the almighty dollar – they have
convinced themselves to vote with their wallets, not with their
conscience. At the Federal level, AT&T and Goldman Sachs combined
have contributed over $75M over the last 20 years to both political
parties, and the American Federation of State, County & Municipal
Employees, plus the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers,
aren't far behind.
Across the world
America's reputation is tarnished, perhaps irrevocably, and yet we
find our President – in the words of former vice-president Dick
Cheney – following the 'Bush Doctrine' of a surge in forces
occupying a foreign country with seemingly little chance of
categorical success. We are seen as an economic and religious bully,
and we don't seem to care. We vilify our political enemies for their
human rights records, and import cheap goods from countries we know
to exploit child labor. We are, to much of the world, intolerable
hypocrites. About this Jesus said, “....you experts in the law,
woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly
carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.”
(Luke 11: 46) Isn't this exactly where we find ourselves in 21st
century America?
Apologists for the
American health care system, not to mention “Obama-care” or
so-called “Trump-care”, will continue to defend those systems at
all costs, claiming that so-called 'socialist' states such as
England, France and Sweden (which, incidentally, is actually a
constitutional monarchy governed by a center-right coalition) kill
their citizens at will in order to save money, or make you wait
thirty years for a kidney transplant. Deflecting (especially with
such utter garbage) doesn't make our system any better, and it's
always bad business practice to spend too much time putting down the
competition. When our own kids can't get health care because mom and
dad have no money to pay, something is terribly wrong. Any
anthropologist will tell you that we took better care of our young
when we were Neanderthals – so what's changed? For one in six of
our citizens to remain uninsured is a national disgrace. We deny
basic human rights to our own people! Whom you choose to marry is not
a matter for the government to decide, it is a matter for the
individual (“work out your own salvation with fear and trembling
before the Lord”). So it is for what religion to follow, if any
(although I will continue to vigorously preach pure Christianity as
the only true way to eternal salvation). Some may not like our
choices, but they are inalienable rights and you should be free to
exercise them as you will. Our US Constitution says you can (search:
First Amendment).
As far back as 2005,
statistics showed that hate crimes against Muslims were increasing
50% year-on-year. Even so, the FBI reported that in 2016 hate crimes
against homosexuals had increased 10% from 2015, and those motivated
by religion had risen by 12%. This is outrageous in the extreme as
far as I am concerned. The track we have taken over the last fifty
years has been the wrong one, and America is way past due for a
serious course correction. We have let corruption, greed, fame,
intolerance and a stubborn refusal to acknowledge our problems almost
ruin our nation. We are failing to live the American Dream, and if we
don't start now our children will never even know what it was. I have
several fairly radical ideas. I'm sure you have some of your own, and
I welcome them in the comments below. I have chosen not to expound on
what I personally think the consequences of these actions would be,
as I would be diving headlong into speculation.
1. Immediately and totally stop all corporations from giving money to political parties. Reverse Citizens United and make our elections publicly funded!
2. Make a
promise to our children: you will be well-educated, and you will be
treated with dignity and respect when you are sick.
3. Change the
game. Capitalism is broken and must be replaced, and the smoothest
transition I have found is that of a resource-based
instead of a debt-based economic system. Any time you have less than
1% of America's population controlling the upper 99% of the cash
flow, some legislated redistribution is clearly called for (or maybe
an executive order to that effect). We can start with worker owned
businesses instead of shareholder ownership. Public business
ownership will still exist, but smaller – such as a cooperative –
will be much better in many cases.
4. Take a page
out of the Bible and just treat everyone else with some genuine
respect and unconditional love. If it was good enough for Jesus, it
should be good enough for you. About this the apostle John wrote,
“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and
sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends,
since God loved us, so we ought to love one another” (1st
John 4, verses 10-11). True love for each other means unconditional
love with no strings attached! Respect others and yourself as well.
Leave the gays alone. Leave the blacks alone. Leave the immigrants
alone whether you think they're here legally or not. Leave the
Muslims or the Christians alone, too. Even the atheists, despite the
fact that they're all totally lost! Pray for them instead! When
respect departs, enmity is the next train along.
5. Pay for it.
Child labor is inexcusable! If it costs an extra ten bucks, or extra
hundred bucks to buy something that was made by willing workers, pay
for the darned thing! And the same goes for government. You want
health care? Pay for it. More troops? Pay for them. Tax breaks for
corporations? Not a chance, they have way too many of those already.
6. Form
coalitions based on issues, not parties. Not every NRA member is
anti-abortion. Not every tree-hugging hippie thinks that owning a gun
is wrong. When a party tells you how you should think, and what
issues should be thrown together into what bucket, you're a lot
closer to communism than you think you are.
7. Buy
American whenever possible. From what I can tell, the great empires
of yore – from Egypt to Rome to England – were 'first-to-market'
with some manufacturing innovation or other, that led to more
innovations, and greater strides, that in turn led to them becoming
the largest producers of goods in their region. This happened to the
USA from the dawn of the twentieth century until the 'fifties. Then
we began to transform into a service economy, just as those others
did. Producing goods is what is making China become a world
powerhouse, and if we are to compete, we must produce our own.
American goods are always equal to the best even though they are
almost never the cheapest, but if we are to reinstate our status as
the world's greatest country, we need to start by supporting our own
businesses and workers. We're in a really big mess, but if enough
people commit to working together to solve our problems, we can do
anything we set our minds to!
Sunday, May 14, 2017
An American Microcosm
A
Microcosm of the USA and Christianity
by Pastor
Paul J. Bern
To view
this in your browser, click
here! :-)
The
events of this past week have left the office of the American
presidency in shambles, made the US the laughingstock of the world,
and I – for one – am appalled at the state of my country.
President Donald Trump – or at least so long as he remains
president – has left all of Washington in disarray from the
presidency on down. He is also proving once again, as president
George W. Bush did after September 2001 and especially after March
2003, that those who vote straight conservative every election have
very short memories. It is the Republican party who, prior to Bush
43, brought us endless wars, the 1995 government shutdown, Iran
Contra, the Drug War, president Nixon and Watergate, and the Vietnam
War and the phony “Gulf of Tonkin Incident” that started that
war. They are also indirectly responsible for the assassinations of
Rev. Dr. King and the Kennedy brothers, which makes them accessories
to murder.
President
Donald Trump is a microcosm of America because he represents what
America represents, and as such is someone who is admired by many.
Donald Trump represents the American dream of becoming wealthy from a
capitalist economic system that allegedly gives everyone a fair shot
at becoming a rich businessman or real estate tycoon like Donald
Trump. But president Trump is finding out the hard way that being
president of the United States is nothing at all like running a real
estate empire! When he ran for election last year, he wanted a job
that he wasn't prepared to take on. Worse yet, he failed to
appreciate the difficulty and long hours of being the US president.
His assumption of the office of the President was poorly planned and
is still being poorly executed. When it comes to the presidency, it
appears that Donald Trump is a fish out of water. Our country,
therefore, is in serious trouble, and this situation is serious
enough to warrant our undivided attention.
So
president Trump is more than a microcosm of America, he represents a
microcosm of capitalism. As such, Trump represents everything that is
wrong with America, and everything that is wrong with capitalism. The
ugly truth is that Donald Trump didn't become a mega-billionaire
because he is an exceptionally shrewd individual, or because he has
some kind of inside track in the business world. Donald Trump got
rich by screwing people every chance he got. Since Donald Trump has
been elected president, he has been sued 134 times, according
to the Boston Globe. He has reportedly filed bankruptcy at least
4 times since the 1980's, evidently for the sole express purpose of
stiffing his creditors while short-selling the property(s) in
question. Donald Trump is a human shark, and a big, menacing “great
white” at that! He reveals capitalism for the essentially predatory
economic system that it truly is. Trump is also a perfect example of
the fact that, in a capitalist economy where everything is organized
in a hierarchical manner, there are only a handful who end up at the
top of the heap, just like Donald Trump. Everyone else winds up
underneath, where many of them get financially crushed without mercy.
Moreover,
Donald Trump represents all that is corrupt with Washington, D.C.
Washington is overburdened with corruption from within, and crushing
debt from without. In fact, Washington is so heavily laden with debt
and corruption that it is slowly sinking into the soil it sits on.
Not only that, but the entire District of Columbia is literally
sinking, according to the US Geological Survey named in a 2015
article from CNN.com:
Washington, D.C. Has a 'Fore-bulge' Problem
By Jareen Imam, CNN, Updated Sat. August 1, 2015
(CNN)
“Washington,
D.C., where the powers that reign over the United States reside, is
sinking into the ocean.
Scientists
predict that the land underneath the nation's capital will drop more
than 6 inches in the next 100 years, according to new
research from the University of Vermont and the U.S. Geological
Survey (USGS).
Surprisingly
though, Washington's sinking land is an entirely independent
phenomenon from the rising sea levels, which scientists have
attributed to climate
change in the past.
For this
study, researchers examined the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge,
one of the most rapidly subsiding and lowest-elevation surfaces,
which borders the Chesapeake Bay.
The area
is going through what geologists call a "fore-bulge collapse,"
also known as the reason for many of Washington's foreseeable
geological woes. During the last ice age, a mile-high ice sheet
pushed the land under the Chesapeake Bay region up. When the ice
sheet melted 20,000 years ago, the bulging land began to settle back
down.
"It's
a bit like sitting on one side of a water bed filled with very thick
honey... when you stand, the bulge comes down again," said
former USGS geologist Ben DeJong, one of the lead authors on the
study, who conducted the research at University of Vermont's
Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources.”
President
Trump is also a microcosm of the current state of mainstream
Christianity, whether denominational or otherwise. In spite of doing
all the things I already wrote about, president Trump is a regular
churchgoer. President Trump, like much of the rest of America, seems
to think he can do whatever is expedient for himself and his family
real estate empire, and he undoubtedly calls himself 'blessed'
because of it all. Well-to-do mainstream Christians are filled with
people just like that every Sunday morning, believing God has blessed
them when all they really did was to help themselves to all they
could carry away from the 'negotiating table'. Or sometimes, whatever
they can take by force, it happens every day. They go to church every
Sunday as a token of acknowledging their sinful natures and
professing their devout beliefs, but then they go back to doing the
same things the following week! Jesus had something to say about this
issue, and I quote: “Looking at his disciples he said, 'Blessed
are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are
you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you who hunger, for
you will be satisfied. Blessed are you when men hate you, and when
they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because
of the Son of Man.” (Luke chapter 6, verses 20-22)
But
then Jesus continues: “But woe to you who are rich, for
you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed
now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will
mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that
is how their fathers treated the false prophets.”
(Luke 6, verses 24-26) So based on this quote from our Lord and
Savior, those who think they are richly blessed by God are actually
on their way to hell! These are the people who think life is all
about accumulating as much as we can, when in fact life is all about
the legacy we leave behind. Instead of being focused on ourselves,
we're supposed to be focused on Christ and the blood he shed for us
all! But what are today's churches focused on? The bottom line, which
is propelled by church membership and the money those members donate!
Christianity isn't about Christ at all; Jesus is more of an
afterthought than anything else, and this is wrong!
Pulitzer
prize winning author Chris Hedges was asked about corruption in
churches during a forum with Mr. Robert Scheer, who said of Mr.
Hedges, “There’s a complexity to your view. You come out of the
mainstream Protestant Church. Your father, who is a minister, is a
man you had enormous respect for, championed gay rights, civil rights
when it was not popular. And I just wonder, and I know you resent
when I say you have a prophetic voice, since I know nothing about
scripture I probably don’t know anything about prophetic voices,
but nonetheless it does seem to me your strength and clarity comes
out of your Christian background.”
Chris
Hedges responded, “Yeah, without question. And what I’m willing
to do, which the mainstream church is not, is to denounce the
Christian right as Christian heretics [applause]. You don’t have
to, as I did, spend three years at Harvard Divinity School to realize
that Jesus didn’t come to make us rich [laughter]. And he certainly
didn’t come to make Pat Robertson and Joel Osteen rich. And what
they have done is acculturate the worst aspects of American
imperialism, capitalism, chauvinism, violence and bigotry into the
Christian religion. And again let’s go back to Wiemar and the rise
of Nazism. We saw the same thing in the so-called German Christian
Church, which fused the iconography and language of Christianity with
Nazism. It’s not a new phenomenon. It was the minority within that
church, Bonhoeffer, Niemoller, Karl Barth, Schweizer who created the
underground Confessing Church. And my great mentor at Harvard
Divinity School, James Luther Adams [applause], was at the University
of Heidelberg in 1935 and 1936 and dropped out and joined the
Confessing Church. And when I had him in the early ’80s at Harvard,
he used to tell us that when we were his age we would all be fighting
the Christian fascists. Because, he understood that the Weimarization
of the American working class, essentially pushing (America's)
working population into utter despair and hopelessness, coupled with
a religious movement that fused national and religious symbols, was a
recipe for fascism. And I think the great failure of the liberal
tradition that I come out of is they were too frightened and too
timid to stand up. I don’t know why they spent all the years in
seminary if they didn’t realize that when they walked out the door
they were going to have to fight for it. And they didn’t fight for
it.”
Jesus
said it, the apostle Paul wrote it, and I still believe it: There
will be no cowards in heaven. Period, end of story! We as Christians
have a moral obligation to stand up to tyranny, and to oppose greed
and materialism as being the very antithesis of what it truly means
to be an authentic follower of Jesus Christ, the Son of God!
Moreover, the Bible has a few other things to say about rich people
who are obsessed with obtaining even more wealth, just like president
Trump, and I quote just a few of the many examples in the Bible:
Keep your life free
from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has
said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
1
Timothy 6:10
For the love of money
is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some
have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many
pangs.
Matthew
6:19-21
“Do not lay up for
yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where
thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in
heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not
break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will
be also.
Luke
12:33-34
Sell your
possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags
that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not
fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your
treasure is, there will your heart be also.
1
Timothy 6:17-19
As for the rich in
this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their
hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides
us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good
works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure
for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may
take hold of that which is truly life.
As
you all can see, the above quotes, combined with the farcical nature
of the Trump presidency and the corrupt nature of America's political
and economic systems, are a microcosm of what is wrong with America,
capitalism and Christianity. I'm trying to sound the alarm about this
because I see danger ahead, and we had better begin preparing for it
now while we still have a little time left. Better hurry, too, or it
will be too late.
Friday, May 12, 2017
Sunday, May 7, 2017
The government, our responsibility to uphold the less fortunate, and the Bible
Which
Does the Bible Say Is Better? Helping the Rich Distribute to the
Poor, or Helping the Poor Directly?
By Pastor
Paul J. Bern
To view
this in your browser, click
here! :-)
The
events of this past week inside the Beltway in Washington, DC have
been a reminder to us all that the super-rich have taken over our
country in a bloodless coup. The first step has been taken to repeal
the national health insurance passed by the previous presidential
administration known as “Obama-care”. In actuality, had both the
presidential candidates in last year's election endorsed Bernie
Sanders' idea of simply putting the whole country on Medicare, this
entire discussion, not to mention this past week's legislation of
“Trump-care”, would be unnecessary. But sadly, that is not the
case. So, what has occurred this week is that roughly 38 million
people will lose their health care coverage while corporate America
and the Wall Street billionaires get a $500,000,000.00 tax break.
President
Trump, a man whose own qualifications to be president are becoming
increasingly open to question, is the one who has spearheaded this
entire series of events while conservative white Americans have been
cheering at Trump's every move. This, my dear readers, is what
America has devolved into – an all-Caucasian oligarchy! Slavery may
have been abolished in 1865, but starvation wages still prevail. If
“Trump-care“ passes into law, the bottom 20% of wage earners in
America will lose their health care coverage, but not so much for
everyone else. This is the reason the “Occupy” Movement has
remained so popular, except that it has evolved into Black Lives
Matter, Standing Rock, S.D. and the fight for a $15.00 per hour
minimum wage, among other things. And why is it that the rich have
taken over the whole country while the remaining 99% of us languish
in poverty? I can sum it up in one word – debt! The rich have
buried the remainder of us under a mountain of debt. Today's American
consumers are faced with being forced to borrow just to pay their
bills. We have upside-down mortgages, upside-down car loans,
never-ending student loans, usurious title pawn loans, payday loans
and a whole host of other predatory practices that are fundamentally
unfair.
So
I got to wondering what the Bible has to say about this topic. After
considerable thought, prayer, study and meditation God has shown me
which Scriptures to use for today. So let's go back in the Old
Testament to the Book of Nehemiah chapter 5 (for you newer readers,
Nehemiah is between Ezra and Esther). I will start at verse 1, but
I'm going to break this passage up into a couple of parts so that I
may do the best job I can at breaking this down for everyone. “Now
the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their Jewish
brothers. So were saying, 'We and our sons and daughters are
numerous; in order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain.'
Others are saying, 'We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and
our homes to get grain during the famine.' Still others are saying,
'We have had to borrow money to pay the king's tax on our fields and
vineyards. Although we are of the same flesh and blood as our
countrymen and though our sons are as good as theirs, yet we have to
subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have
already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because our fields and
vineyards belong to others.'”
(Nehemiah 5, verses 1-5)
The
people during Nehemiah's time were experiencing a severe food
shortage, and whatever food was available was priced so far out of
the reach of the working people and the farmers that they were having
to mortgage everything just to feed their families. As you can see,
government assistance during hard times was nonexistent during this
time, and people were really suffering as a result. “Others
are saying, 'We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our
homes to get grain during the famine.' Still others are saying, 'We
have had to borrow money to pay the king's tax on our fields and
vineyards.” In today's terms,
credit cards, student loans and 30-year mortgages – combined with
stagnant wages that are stuck at 1960's levels – are the new
famines and new insurmountable debts of the 21st
century.
“....we
have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our
daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because
our fields and vineyards belong to others.”
Show me a people who have had their economic power taken away by
debt, and I will show you a people who have lost their political
clout as well. Plus, the slavery back then for the daughters and at
least a few of the young men was sex slavery, of that you can be
sure. God will never be pleased with us as long as this we allow this
kind of bad behavior among humankind! It's up to us to take charge of
this situation and turn it around! What are we waiting for? And now
let's move on to the next few verses, starting at verse 6.
“When
I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry. I pondered
them in my mind and then accused the nobles and officials. I told
them, 'You are exacting usury from your own countrymen!' So I called
together a large meeting to deal with them and said, 'As far as
possible, we have bought back our Jewish brothers who were sold to
the Gentiles. Now you are selling your brothers, only for them to be
sold back to us!' They kept quiet, because they could find nothing to
say. So I continued, 'What you are doing is not right. Shouldn't you
walk in fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies?
I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and
grain. But let the exacting of usury stop! Give back to them
immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and
also the usury you are charging them – the hundredth part of the
money, grain, new wine and oil.'” (Nehemiah
5, verses 6-11)
Just
like in verse 6, when I see people having to file bankruptcy because
of unpaid medical bills, or becoming homeless because of that, or
maybe a job loss, I too get angry. It is fundamentally unfair to be
living on the streets, or in your cars if you are lucky enough to
still own one at that point. But let's put this into its historical
context for a moment. The sentences, “As far as possible,
we have bought back our Jewish brothers who were sold to the
Gentiles. Now you are selling your brothers, only for them to be sold
back to us!' They kept quiet, because they could find nothing to
say....”, are referring to the
then-recent release of the Israelites of old from the Babylonian
Empire, where they had been held captive for the previous 70 years by
King Artaxerxes before being released so they could rebuild the
Temple at Jerusalem. All this was done at Nehemiah's request, which
he formally made to the king, not unlike a modern-day petition to the
government. The request was granted (see chapter 1 of Nehemiah), the
Israelites – who had just spent the previous 70 years in Babylonian
captivity – went back to what was left of Jerusalem to rebuild the
temple there. So this entire conversation is actually taking place
long after everyone has returned, but before the first crop has
matured enough to be harvested. Nehemiah is giving those in charge of
the rebuilding a stern lecture on fairness.
“What
you are doing is not right. Shouldn't you walk in fear of our God to
avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies? I and my brothers and my
men are also lending the people money and grain. But let the exacting
of usury stop! Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards,
olive groves and houses, and also the usury you are charging them.”
I could modernize those first 2 verses by writing, “You're charging
too much interest, and it financially cripples the entire population!
This is grossly immoral! And so now, in the interest of fairness and
ethics, you must give back all the properties, cars and trucks you
have forcibly taken even though the debtors were making serious
efforts to make good on those debts. This is a 'cease and desist'
order to stop this unethical practice immediately!” This also
includes credit cards, which people often must use to pay for
groceries, clothing, medical bills and utility bills. People should
not have to pay interest just to be able to feed their children and
pay their power and phone bills! And now let me conclude today's
message, beginning at verse 12.
“'We
will give it back', they said. 'And we will not demand anything more
from them. We will do as you say.' Then I summoned the priests and
and made the nobles and officials take an oath to do what they had
promised. I also shook out the folds of my robe and said, 'In this
way may God shake out of his house and possessions every man who does
not keep this promise. So may such a man be shaken out and emptied!'
At this the whole assembly said, 'Amen!', and praised the Lord. And
the people did as they had promised.”
(Nehemiah 5, verses 12-13).
This
is exactly what the Big Five banks and Wall St. investors need to do,
and the same goes for the IRS. Let go of the strangle hold,
Washington and Wall Street, that you currently have the American
people locked into! Not just a head-lock, mind you, but a
stranglehold! That's felony assault and battery the last time I
checked. If any of us were to do any such thing to an individual,
we'd be in jail for assault. If any of us were to do that to a
business or other financial institution, we'd be charged with
extortion. But if the government does that to any of us, then it's
called “taxation”. The warning from God is clear here. The
governmental and financial systems must start treating the population
– and each other – fairly, or we will find ourselves judged and
will be found wanting in the presence of God. Trust me, you don't
want to go there, that's for sure! So the lesson for today is only
this: Stop mistreating each other for profit! And governments,
starting with America's, enact better laws to protect working people
so that the problem of economic inequality can be permanently solved.
If none of these things are done, and if things are allowed to
continue on for much longer, the whole country is going to turn into
a powder keg. Then again, maybe that's the only choice the American
people have left if we're going to be able to take back our country.
Friday, May 5, 2017
Thursday, May 4, 2017
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
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