"What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?"
---Jesus Christ
Humanity's "beacon of hope" is unraveling at its moral seams faster than George Bush can say nucular. 230 years ago, disciples of the Enlightenment shattered the shackles of colonial oppression and inaugurated their conception of a haven for humanity. While tainted by patriarchy and racism, the founding of the United States was arguably the pinnacle of social and political evolution. Tragically, the descendents of those who ascended to that zenith are racing to the bottom at a dizzying velocity.
In a collective sense, the soul of the United States is writhing in the agony of spiritual asphyxiation. Trapped in an overflowing cesspool of its own making, the nation's élan vital desperately needs freedom and an infusion of spiritual oxygen. Sans significant change, its odds for survival equal those of an under-sized fish carelessly tossed ashore by a heartless angler.
Yet it is not too late for the "cradle of democratic civilization" to fulfill the dream of a nation governed by We the People. Our ancestors overcame seemingly insurmountable odds by defying a tyrant. What is preventing us from following their lead? Humanity and the Earth desperately need for us to end the Corporatocracy's destructive rampage and direct our unparalleled resources, wealth, and technology toward the betterment of the world.
We the People need to recapture the Zeitgeist of 1776 and initiate a revolt. To overcome a ruling class that maintains its power through the manipulation and enslavement of our psyches, we need a spiritual revolution. Since reactionary forces have assassinated the influential spiritual leaders whom have arisen in recent history, it appears we will need to resurrect one in the abstract.
While there have been a number of viable potential candidates throughout history, Jesus Christ appears to be the obvious choice. While people continue to debate whether he was man, myth or God, few would deny the wisdom and virtue of the teachings attributed to him. His popular appeal and impact on civilization are unprecedented. And one need not subscribe to organized religion or ecclesiastical zealotry to manifest the soul-nurturing principles of Christ.
What would happen if the poor and working class of the United States said "no mas" to the Corporatocracy? What if the wage slaves finally became self aware and leveraged the overwhelming strength of their numbers against their parasitic masters?
Over 250 million US Americans acting in unison and embracing Christ as their leader "in absentia" would overwhelm the relative few manning the bulwarks of exploitation, imperial conquest, and obscene militarism. While it is unlikely Jesus would have advocated open revolt, it is a virtual certainty that he would have instructed his followers to minimize or end their participation in a system driven by avarice and abject cruelty.
Improbable that such an evolution will transpire? Yes. Impossible? No.
So let's indulge ourselves by taking a glimpse at the potential results of a mass movement of the wage slaves and disenfranchised in the United States acting in accord with the enlightenment of Christ:
[Five years have slipped by since the "rise of the Proletariat" in the United States. Working in unison according to the spiritual principles embodied by Jesus Christ in the Synoptic Gospels, the poor, the working class, and the besieged middle class had finally renounced their allegiance to their pecunious over-lords.
Consumers staged mass boycotts, decimating the cash flow that served as the life-blood of predatory capitalism. Sweeping strikes and sick-outs deprived the vampiric moneyed class of their wretched wage slaves. Spreading like a plague, civil disobedience infected the fascist titan and brought it to its knees. Military personnel refused to serve, bringing the war machine to a grinding halt. Law enforcement personnel rejected their loathsome task of enforcing unjust laws, exposing the miscreants ruling the nation to the terrifying possibility of enduring consequences for their heinous actions.
Realizing that neither their wealth nor their gated communities would afford them ample protection from receiving the just punishment they so richly deserved, the power elite emptied their bank accounts, cashed in their decimated securities portfolios, and scattered like roaches scurrying to evade the Light.
Riding on the wings of their hubris, the haute monde fled to nations with no obligation to extradite fugitives to the United States. Tragically for them, their repeated displays of contempt for international law and rapacious actions toward other nations proved to be their undoing. Officials in nations harboring America's noblesse were delighted to cooperate with the newly formed United States government of We the People.
Within less than a year, astoundingly large numbers of the deposed Bush Regime, members of the US Congress, false prophets like James Dobson, and avaricious swine like Lee Raymond found themselves occupying the grim confines of the vast gulag of prisons they had built to "protect" themselves from non-violent drug users and impoverished Blacks.
Jason Miller is a recovering US American middle class suburbanite who strives to remain intellectually free. 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/.
