By Jason Miller Prescott Bush made significant contributions t to the Nazi cause before the Trading with the Enemy Act became law in
1942. We also need to remember that the United States refused to lift
a finger to help the poor and working class in Spain as they fought
to preserve their democratically-elected government from the fascist
onslaught of Franco, the Church, and the moneyed elite.
We lost about 500,000 people battling fascist imperialist forces in
World War II. Russia sacrificed 20 million human beings. Were it not
for Russia, we would probably be speaking German right now.
Besides, the United States is now in the prefigurements of fascism.
We are becoming the very threat from which we allegedly saved the
world.
America needs to maintain its leviathan military industrial complex
to ensure its security and to spread freedom and democracy
The United States spends more money on "defense" each year than the
rest of the world combined. With the vast arsenal of weaponry we
possess, it is beyond farcical to suggest that our security is
seriously threatened at the existential level.
We maintain military bases in 130 countries. We invaded Iraq and
Afghanistan preemptively (which is a war crime for which we hanged
Nazis). Yet we tenaciously strive to perpetuate the inane assertion
that we are not an empire. Capitalism demands perpetual growth,
meaning capitalist nations inevitably engage in imperialism to expand
their markets, enhance their profits, and find cheaper wage slaves.
We utilize the legions of the empire to spread the misery of "free
markets," consumerism, exploitation, and environmental rape.
America is a Christian nation.
While many argue endlessly over the separation of church and state,
or whether or not the United States was founded as a Christian
nation, an equally profound question receives far too little
attention.
What is the nature of the Christianity that our nation, in which a
large number of denizens label themselves as Christians, collectively
manifests?
Our rigid Puritanical roots still maintain a tenacious grip on our
psyches. This impedes our capacity to overtly experience life's
carnal, sensual pleasures without experiencing guilt at violating
taboos. Denying ourselves reasonable indulgence triggers the
bacchanalian excesses that lead to rampant addiction to pornography,
drugs, and alcohol.
The isolation, rage, and spiritual emptiness engendered by our
consumerist, narcissistic, and violence-obsessed culture catalyze
events like the ones at Columbine and Virginia Tech. With
lamentations and hand-wringing, the mainstream media repeatedly
expresses its utter astonishment when people snap to such an extent.
After all, human beings living in a spiritually vacuous, hyper
competitive environment have an infinite capacity to absorb insults,
loneliness, rejection, exclusion, bullying, and hatred without
reacting violently, don't they?
One of the basic principles Christ espoused was to practice the
Golden Rule. Whoops. Slaughtering millions of human beings throughout
our history leaves us well short of the mark on that one.
Perhaps the most inspiring spiritual wisdom the Jewish carpenter
conveyed to humanity came in the form of the Beatitudes. How do we
manifest them in the United States?
The poor in spirit are considered to be impotent and irrelevant in a
culture that thrives on egoism and self-promotion.
Those who mourn over moral injuries and tragedies are instructed
to "get over it," take some pills to mask the pain, and "move on".
The meek are crushed by aggressive, acquisitive mobs.
Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness find that their
efforts to satisfy, slake or quench are in vain as they wander a
seemingly endless spiritual wasteland.
The merciful are considered weak and fall prey to those who abuse
their compassion for their own personal gain.
The pure in heart are exploited as a reward for their decency.
The peacemakers are ridiculed as idealists, cowards, and
collaborators with the latest enemy our plutocracy has created to
justify its endless wars.
Despite the brutal nature and seemingly insurmountable power of this
juggernaut of a nation, there is still hope for humanity and the
world. While the opulent class, military careerists, fundamentalist
Christian leadership, corporatists, AIPAC, "elected" officials, and
the prostitutes in the corporate-dominated media propagate a
sociopathic agenda through maintaining the simulacrum of the United
States as the "leader of the free world," there is abundant evidence
of an increasing awareness of their perfidy and malevolence.
Simmering beneath the surface for years, moral outrage now threatens
to reach full boil thanks to the increased awareness facilitated by
the Internet.
The people of the United States are not freaks or anomalies. 96% of
us have a conscience and can act empathetically. It is simply a
matter of time, and perhaps a few more doses of pain, before reality
obliterates what is left of the fiction we have been inculcated to
embrace as the United States of America.
Jason Miller is a wage slave of the American Empire who has freed
himself intellectually and spiritually. He is Cyrano's Journal
Online's associate editor (http://www.bestcyrano.org/) and publishes
Thomas Paine's Corner within Cyrano's at
http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/.
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