Americans made the best choice they could in electing Barack Obama as president, and it was a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, whether it turns out to be a big step or a small one is still yet to be determined, and right now it doesn't look very good. Obama has not addressed the root causes of our problems, and he has not yet learned how to deal with his malicious enemies, either domestic or foreign.
However, whether that step becomes big or remains small, I submit that Americans need to make a much greater choice -- a choice that will bring much greater, lasting change, which will enable us to progress forward more united. For divided we are still falling, and if we perpetuate this partisan political-economic system and its built-in conflict and division we will fall further. A people divided against themselves cannot work together in common purpose to achieve common goals for the common good, and a nation divided against itself cannot stand.
We can and will save the nation and be truly united. However, in order to do that, the political-economic system must be reformed or replaced by one that is better and more fair, and the U.S. must give up its globalist imperial role. After all, the U.S. is the only nation maintaining regional multi-service military commands in all parts of the world, and even though Americans have been conditioned to regard their role as totally beneficent and good, that is mostly ostensible rationale. The U.S. position in the world was accomplished in a process initiated in the nineteenth century by the imperialist notion of "manifest destiny," expanded significantly following World War II when the U.S. became the most powerful military force in the world, and finally fulfilled during the reign of George W. Bush. It was ostensibly to establish the U.S. as the greatest worldwide "Christian" military superpower, but it is actually the biggest "piece" of the symbolic "Babylon" of prophecy. It serves not God, but "Mammon," to use Christian terminology. But it's the same thing regardless of religion. It's fueled by greed and self-interest, and the agressive pursuit of personal wealth, power and domain, at the expense of others.
That is why I'm talking about really reforming our government so that it is actually of, by and for the people, so that it is truly representative, so that it will protect us from those who are robbing us blind, so that it will prevent lawmakers and policy makers from being bribed by the wealthiest few and their large corporations and lobbyists, and so that it will protect us from theocratic hypocrites who claim to serve God and Country when they actually serve themselves and Mammon.
First, to deal with the hypocrites who claim to serve God, I need to point out how Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln and other founding fathers felt about equality and religion. As I discussed on the page titled Little Known American History, the founding fathers wanted no laws respecting an establishment of religion (or faith-based institutions), or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and State, as Jefferson so clearly stated.
That was not only to establish freedom of religion, but also to establish freedom from religious bigotry and theocratic imposition, because to have real religious freedom we must have mutual respect and equality of religions.
In other words, it was not meant to give license to the power-hungry clergy of any religion or religious sect so they could influence federal or state laws or public school curriculum according to political agendas based on their own "religious" opinions and beliefs. That is exactly what the founding fathers wanted to avoid and prevent!
Unfortunately, we have increasingly been subjected to religious bigotry and theocratic imposition, and the founding fathers would be appalled at what has happened to America. They would be shocked at the extent to which religious bigotry has affected the political process, and they would be alarmed that the former wall of separation between church and state has been so badly eroded since 1980, and particularly since 2000, to the point where it was practically torn down in 2008 during the presidential campaigns when being a Christian became a litmus test for becoming president.
That is one of the reasons why I urge Americans to not allow themselves to be pushed backwards by those who still wish to virtually rule the world in the name of Christianity and/or patriotism and/or "global free market economy." Why? Because that is the ostensible, misleading, self-serving rationale that has been used for the last sixteen centuries by rich "Christian" emperors, kings, heads of state and their very wealthy loyalist supporters to gain personal power, wealth and domain at the expense of others.
They too claimed to be Christians and believed or claimed they were doing the "right thing," but they lived by the sword, gun and bomb and killed many innocent peoples all over the world, mainly to gain and maintain such material power, wealth and domain, plunder natural resources, and try to rule the world, while ostensibly claiming it was their "divine right and duty" and all in the name of "civilizing the heathen and saving souls." And even today it's the same old story.
That is certainly not to say that all Christians have been wrong and harmful. In fact, most Christians are good and conscientious. They understand and abide by the golden rule, like the good and conscientious people of other faiths who abide by the same universal divine imperative. They are the "sheep of the good shepherd."
However, not all who claim to serve God do. During the last sixteen hundred years there have been many leaders of churches and nation-states who have justified themselves by claiming to be Christians even though they were not. They have been and are even now the hypocrites and "goats" that Jesus talked about, who boastfully claim that they have done "many wonderful works in the name of the Lord" when they are actually wrongdoers who serve themselves, not God. And that has been especially true in the U.S. between 1981 and 1989 under the influence of the Reaganites and the so-called "Moral Majority," in the 1990s when right-wing Republicans dominated Congress, and between 2000 and 2008 under the Bush Regime and the so-called "Christian Coalition" and "Christian Right." They hypocritically serve Mammon, not God.
I urge Americans to instead progress forward now, toward the day when ALL human beings, all nations, all religions, all races and all cultures are respected equally, and enjoy truly equal rights under the laws of our lands and our world.
It is the choice of the people, and I hope the people choose wisely.
But, as I said, I'm not talking merely about the choice of a good democratic leader for U.S. President. In fact, as I discuss on the page titled Partisan Politics, even though that will certainly be far better than what we have had, it will not really fix everything, and it may not fix anything for very long. Any improvements could be only temporary, because if we perpetuate this partisan political-economic system we will still be stuck having to choose between the lesser of two evils, and it would keep the partisan political pendulum swinging. It would perpetuate the partisan political conflict, division, polarization and instability, and it would perpetuate the corruption that it inevitably produces.
No, I'm talking about a much bigger choice, a choice that will actually change and improve our nation, establish government that is really of, by and for the people, and make it a truly good example to the whole world.
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