- America as the beacon of human rights
and dignity is but a dream yet to be realized. While the dream has lain
dormant, amoral opportunists have busily unleashed their nightmare on billions
of human beings. And all the while they have trumpeted the many virtues
of the United States as a Christian nation.
-
- There are many admirable aspects to our
country, but these are often over-shadowed by the actions of the Machiavellian,
ruthless, and avaricious individuals who have long dominated the social,
economic, religious, and political institutions comprising the power structure
United States of America. While a nation is an abstraction encompassing
many aspects and dynamics (i.e. its people, culture, government, resources,
etc.) that are in a constant state of flux, there are at least four elements
of the United States which have remained relatively consistent throughout
much of its history:
-
- 1. A wealthy White patriarchy has monopolized
most of the power and wealth.
-
- 2. An economic system resting on the
pillars of greed and self-interest has driven the United States to enslave
a race of human beings, commit genocide against another, and to commit
virtually innumerable crimes against humanity in the pursuit of growth
and profit.
-
- 3. Disseminating powerful propagandistic
messages through a corporate-owned media and a public school system designed
from the top down to produce obedient consumers and workers, the ruling
elite in the United States has convinced generations of citizens that their
nation is a moral icon and that American Exceptionalism justifies the slaughter
of millions of innocents.
-
- 4. Many in the United States assert that
the United States is a Christian nation. "Christianizing" the
"heathen" Native Americans and the Filipino "savages"
provided a rationalization for annihilating millions of human beings.
-
- Self-righteous hypocrisy and the banner
of Christianity have been staples of the ruling elite in the United States
as they have led their followers on a 200 year spree of economic and geographic
expansion at the expense of those unfortunate enough to stand in their
way. Exemplifying their latest crusade, in October 2003, newly appointed
undersecretary of defense for intelligence Lt. General William Boykin emphatically
proclaimed that fundamentalist Muslims hated the United States "because
we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and roots are Judeo-Christianand
the enemy is a guy named Satan"
-
- Given that the psyche of most Americans
has been battered with the notion that our country was founded by Christians
intending to form a Christian nation, and that many of those besieged psyches
have acquiesced and accepted this assertion as dogmatic truth, perhaps
an analysis of the founder of Christianity would be instructive.
-
- Jesus Christ. Was he deity, man, or myth?
The answer to that question depends on one's point of view. Christians
embrace him as the son of God and a member of the Holy Trinity. Followers
of Islam consider him to be a prophet and holy man who performed miracles,
but do not believe in his divinity. Some of us in the "pagan"
realm simply view him as an inspirational moral leader. Others doubt that
Christ even existed.
-
- Whether he was god, exceptional human
or legend, almost all of our knowledge about Jesus Christ is derived from
the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And these three books
of the Bible do reveal a story of a remarkable being.
-
- Jesus was a radical agitator and social
outcast who challenged the establishment of his day. A carpenter by trade,
Christ would have been considered one of the working poor. As is common
knowledge, he defied the Sanhedrin's insistence on strict adherence to
religious law to the extent that they eventually saw to his crucifixion.
-
- In his hometown of Nazareth, Jesus was
stigmatized as a bastard and shunned as the son of an adulteress. Joseph
is believed to have adopted him, but that apparently did little to alleviate
the situation. Jesus eventually embraced a new "family" in the
sect that followed John the Baptist. Jewish leaders, whose power was largely
dependent upon their Roman occupiers, came to view John as a serious threat
as he preached loyalty to God over Caesar. Jesus' equally tenacious commitment
to placing the will of God above that of a political leader ultimately
led him to martyrdom too. Both men represented serious threats to the social
order and it was virtually inevitable that the ruling class would kill
them.
-
- Aside from the fact that he claimed to
be the Messiah and seriously threatened their authority, the Pharisees
feared and hated Jesus because he developed such a mass following throughout
much of Galilee during his three year ministry. He won hearts and minds
with his messages of redemption and compassion. Whether it was through
the placebo effect, alleviation of psychosomatic illnesses, or true divine
intervention, Jesus performed many miraculous cures and exorcisms. Encouraging
his considerable throng of followers to follow the spirit rather than the
letter of the law and asserting corruption in the Temples, Jesus demonstrated
that he was an anarchist capable of initiating a successful rebellion against
the status quo.
-
- Excepting his martyrdom, perhaps his
crowning achievement as a spiritual leader was the Sermon on the Mount.
As he spoke, he shocked his listeners with the Beatitudes in which he defined
the blessed in ways that defied orthodoxy. According to Christ and his
Beatitudes, the blessed and the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Heaven include
mourners, the hungry, the persecuted, the merciful, the meek, the poor
in spirit, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers.
-
- Note that his criteria for blessedness
did not encompass the aspects of humanity which Americans have been programmed
to worship, including winning; accumulating wealth; attaining power; being
thin, youthful and beautiful; succeeding; heterosexuality; regular attendance
of church; being Caucasian; and patriotism.
-
- Besides the Beatitudes, Jesus Christ
gave us several other gems of moral wisdom. His "turn the other cheek"
metaphor inspired the powerful non-violent spiritual leadership of Gandhi
and Martin Luther King. The Golden Rule has acted as a cornerstone of civilized
behavior. And Christ's hyperbole concerning rich men, camels and eyes of
needles has served as a largely unheeded warning about greed and the accumulation
of excessive wealth.
-
- Were Jesus Christ incarnate today and
living in America, what would he think of a nation inhabited by many who
claim to be followers of the spiritual movement he founded? And how would
the ruling elite of the United States receive him?
-
- Imagine this scenario:
-
-
- Jesus Christ returns to Earth as he was
portrayed in the Gospels at the height of his ministry. Geographically,
his manifestation occurs in a blighted urban core in a large American city.
Despite his humanity, he is endowed with omniscience and omnipotence. But
he will not use them to change the course of humankind. He is here to act
as a mortal agent of change.
-
- Jesus' initial reaction to the knowledge
flooding his mind and the assault to his senses is a catatonic state. Horror
at the rapacious and avaricious nature of the United States' social order
overwhelms his consciousness.
-
- Shaking off the initial shock, he succumbs
to a wave of uncontrollable nausea. Thoughts of institutionalized racism,
the wealth chasm, and the military industrial complex evoke a burst of
primal and toxic hatred. He retches violently.
-
- Having purged his loathing, Jesus sits
back and rests quietly on a soiled mattress someone had dragged into the
garbage strewn alley where he finds himself.
-
- Surrounded by broken bottles, hypodermic
needles, and used prophylactics containing their repulsive spent payloads,
Christ falls into a deep state of reflection which is unhindered by the
scurrying sounds of rats and roaches. As he contemplates the many horrific
atrocities committed in his name, a resident of the alley brushes past
him in a drunken stupor, urinates in his pants and promptly passes out.
-
- A country claiming to practice his spirituality
spends $600 billion a year on its behemoth murder machine while over two
million of its own people live on the street and eat from dumpsters. Rage
surges through Jesus' being. He grabs a chunk of broken brick, hurls it
with abandon, and shatters what is left of a broken window. The thought
that his ministry and martyrdom had spawned such inhumanity infuriated
him.
-
- Regaining his calm and composure, Jesus
resumes his contemplation.
-
- What is this abomination called Capitalism?
Permeating nearly every facet of the United States (including his churches),
exploiting human beings and the Earth, demanding perpetual war, and ensuring
the comfort of a few through the suffering of the many, Capitalism is a
cancer that reduces its blind adherents to empty, soulless shells.
-
- Greed is good? Had his flock truly strayed
so far that they enshrined selfishness, mean-spiritedness, ruthless competitive
instincts, and avarice as virtues? What chance would his message of compassion
and peace have competing with the clever propaganda and allure of immediate
gratification purveyed by the likes of Fox, McDonald's, Wal-Mart, and Rush
Limbaugh?
-
- Grief-stricken, he cries in despair for
the Native Americans, Black Americans, and the tens of millions of victims
of the imperialist United States foreign policy in Latin America, Africa,
the Philippines, Vietnam, Iraq, and Palestine. He smiles briefly at the
thought of Judea and Galilee and feels a twinge of home-sickness. Joy and
nostalgia are short-lived as thoughts of Palestinian suffering at the hands
of the merciless Israeli government quickly intrude on his nostalgic reminiscence.
-
- It perplexes him that the United States
has not lived up to the rich promise spawned by the American Revolution
that broke the shackles of tyranny against tremendous odds. Early Americans
had created a phenomenal instrument with which to govern a nation when
they wrote the Constitution. They even included a mechanism to amend its
inherent flaws (i.e. the legalization of slavery). But despite the valiant
struggle of many poor, working class, and minority Americans, the de facto
tyranny of wealthy elitists has endured.
-
- Jesus concludes that many Americans were
amongst the blessed he had enumerated in the Sermon on the Mount and that
many Americans would enter his Kingdom. Yet he agonizes over those millions
who had succumbed to the propaganda and sold their souls for the hollow
rewards offered by the "American Way". Torment consumes him as
he realizes that conspicuous consumption, aggressive militarism, overt
and covert racism, abject inhumanity, torture, theft of land and resources,
corruption, "win at all cost", survival of the fittest, and pathological
self-absorption are the hallmarks of the social and political systems of
the United States. Jesus marvels that so many people would fall prey to
such obvious spiritual cancers.
-
- Limping severely, a one-armed man with
a very bad prosthesis, matted gray hair, and a badly tattered Army jacket
flops himself onto the mattress next to Jesus. He smells of alcohol and
stale urine. Vacant eyes transfixed on the alley wall before him, he mutters
unintelligibly as he pulls a rancid-smelling piece of meat from his pocket
and begins gingerly munching with the remaining stumps of his severely
decayed teeth.
-
- Christ feels overwhelmed with compassion
and embraces the man. There is little response, but he does feel a slight
shudder. This coupled with the fact that the man does not reject the embrace
satisfies Jesus that at some level of his being, the hapless itinerant
welcomes human contact and kindness. Jesus realizes that this man had answered
America's call to "fight for his country" in Vietnam. Abandoned
by the government he had served, this lost soul had been condemned to suffer
a living hell of homelessness, untreated PTSD, and substance abuse.
-
- Suddenly Jesus had an epiphany. Despite
being one of the wealthiest societies in human history, the United States
has a homeless population of about two million. As a fisher of men, he
would troll America's cities, reaping a bountiful harvest of loyal followers
from amongst the homeless and other disenfranchised groups. And he would
start with the human derelict he had just embraced.
-
- Jesus begins laying out his strategy
to his first disciple. As Christ talks, the despondent man's vacant expression
is replaced by a crooked smile and a look of enthusiasm. He feasts upon
a small loaf of fresh bread from Christ's goatskin bag and listens to Jesus'
message of hope and redemption. Jesus talks for several hours. His willing
adherent absorbs his words like a desiccated sponge.
-
- Jesus speaks of his vision to cast out
his net, gathering millions of loyal followers from amongst the homeless,
poor, gays, minorities, the working class, and other people who felt powerless
to stop the momentum of the corporatocracy in Washington. Reminding his
disciple that the strength of his moral revolution will lie in the sheer
number of participants, Jesus predicts that tens of millions will abandon
working and shopping to join him in a triumphant non-violent march on Washington.
Crippled by the loss of its cogs, the profit and war machine would finally
grind to a halt.
-
- Feeling mildly annoyed, Jesus pauses
briefly to brush away a fly that had been persistently buzzing about his
face.
-
- Continuing his monologue, Jesus reveals
that he plans to expose the true weakness of the iniquitous corporate militarists
ruling the United States by awakening the millions of Americans it had
psychologically enslaved. He would free those who had been deluded into
giving their blood, sweat, tears, and children to expand a malevolent economic
empire. He would lay the nightmare to rest and awaken the dream.
-
- A sharp screech of tires gives Jesus
and his newly anointed apostle a jolt. Two powerfully built men with close-cropped
hair and serious expressions emerge from an ominous-looking black SUV with
heavily tinted windows. With the quick precision of a trained assassin,
one of the "men in black" snaps the disciple's neck. The other
snatches Jesus by his hair and hurls him into the back of the Escalade
-
- Awakening in a mental fog induced by
heavy sedation, Jesus struggles to remember what had happened. Barely lucid,
he slowly takes in his surroundings. He is in a small cell dimly illuminated
by a lone flickering candle. It is chilly and the air is dank. Seated at
a small table in front of him, a simple-looking man is glaring at him with
deep contempt. Jesus notes a rotund male figure wearing a permanent snarl
and a cruel looking woman with dark skin hovering nearby. He senses that
wickedness and deceit are habitual with this trio.
-
- Despite his significantly inferior intellect,
it is obvious to Jesus that the two others maintain the pretense that the
man at the table is their leader.
-
- "I am George W. Bush. I am President
of the United States and the leader of the free world. Our spies at the
NSA were monitoring your conversation in the alley. We know of your terrorist
plot to destroy freedom and democracy in America. I am declaring you an
enemy combatant."
-
- Brimming with smug arrogance, Bush leans
back in his chair and locks his fingers behind his head. He trains his
gaze on Jesus with the air of one studying an insect and contemplating
whether or not to squash such an inferior being.
-
- Finally he returns his attention to the
script laid before him. After several minutes of careful study, he gives
Jesus, Cheney and Condoleezza a start by forcefully slamming his fist onto
the rickety wooden table. Feeling triumphant because he is about to vanquish
a tremendous threat to the established power structure, he begins speaking
again,
-
- "You are a threat to national security.
Like that MLK bastard, your goal is to empower the poor, minorities, and
the other groups we keep oppressed to protect our selfish interests. You
would awaken the masses to our moral bankruptcy and to the foolish self-destructiveness
of supporting us.
-
- I cannot let that happen. My wealthy
base has spent years selling Americans on the virtues of war, greed, free
trade, free markets, tax cuts for the rich, cutting social programs, surrendering
their rights for security, and mixing religion and government.
-
- Millions of Americans need to remain
indifferent to our wealth obtained by exploiting billions of people, the
prison system we have used to replace slavery and Jim Crow, the millions
we slaughter to feed the military industrial complex, and the torture of
enemy combatants like you.
-
- Many of my people believe that I have
a personal relationship with you and that your Father guides me on a divine
mission. They must continue believing these atrocious lies.
-
- We learned from the mistake of the Roman
and the Jewish leaders. You will not get a second chance at martyrdom.
I have decided to rendition you. You will simply disappear and die anonymously
in a torture dungeon in Syria."
-
- Wearing a confident smirk, the self-satisfied
little man fires a question at Jesus,
-
- "Well, Jesus? What do you have to
say?"
-
- Shedding tears born of profound melancholy,
Jesus responds,
-
- "In the words of the inimitable
Russian novelist, if God does not exist, then everything is permitted."
-
- Jesus then sighs heavily, looks heavenward,
and makes a quiet appeal,
-
- "Father, forgive them. Despite the
fact that they know what they do. And Father. I beg you to have mercy on
the souls of their many wretched victims."
-
-
-
- Jason Miller is a 39 year old sociopolitical
essayist with a degree in liberal arts and an extensive self-education
(derived from an insatiable appetite for reading). He is a member of Amnesty
International and an avid supporter of Oxfam International and Human Rights
Watch. He welcomes responses at willpowerful@hotmail.com or comments on
his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.
|
