Political Conservatism, Christianity, and Why They Don’t Mix

The Infiltration of Christianity

by American Political Conservatism

by Web Minister Paul J. Bern

 

It all started out with a paid Facebook posting of mine for a crowd-funding campaign I’m currently running on social media. The campaign is for a start-up for an electronics recycling center to help clean up the mess we’ve made of God’s planet (you can view the campaign, and donate if you can, from this link). It’s sponsored by my on-line ministry, plus two other ministers working with me, and we have 6 volunteers so far. But the ministry’s name, as my readers know, is Progressive Christian Ministries of Greater Atlanta Inc., and the howls of derision by political right-wing religious nuts has been similar to that of wolves on a full moon night. It seems that God is a religious conservative to these misguided individuals. God forbid that Christianity should ever be associated with anything Progressive!

 

To myself on the other hand, the meme “conservative Christian” is a contradiction in terms, since from a political vantage point Jesus was a progressive at least, or even a (gasp!) democratic socialist. So why is the term ‘conservative Christian’ an oxymoron? Because political conservatives are called such because they conserve on everything – especially money. Much of what they have they inherited from their now-deceased rich relatives, or they made it gambling on the financial markets (isn’t that all that Wall St. really is?). No wonder they are so afraid of anything that threats their ‘Giga’ nest eggs! And that includes working people like us. Show me a political conservative, and I’ll show you a stingy individual, because stingy people are always conserving. Hence the name, OK? And there is no such thing as a stingy Christian. Not really.

 

It’s been said that when poor people get together to make a political statement it’s called ‘rioting’, but when the wealthy get together to make a statement it’s called ‘lobbying’. Conservatives despise the poor while catering to the wealthy, and this is especially true for Christian evangelicals and so-called “fundamentalists”. That got me to thinking about the state of modern Christianity. There are those who call themselves ‘Christians’, fundamentalists or Evangelicals, and there are those who call themselves ‘followers of Jesus Christ’. I would definitely put myself in the latter category. The two are definitely not the same thing, although some insist otherwise. Problem is, they are the same people who think God is a conservative Republican. Moreover, it has come to my attention that those who do so are in the minority as far as 21^st century Christianity is concerned. What, if anything, did Jesus have to say about this? Quite a bit, actually. Was Jesus a conservative? Nowhere near, but don’t take my word for it. Let’s find out what Christ had to say.

 

Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7, verses 21-23, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ Further along in this same Gospel, Jesus said to the Pharisees, the ruling religious establishment of Judaism at that time, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.” (Matt. 23, verse 15) It’s pretty likely that the Pharisees had a propensity to hoard money and goods that was strikingly similar to political conservatives today.

Again in verses 23-26 Jesus says, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices – mint, dill, and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law – justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean out the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean”.

 

Let me interpret the above verses to the best of my ability, as they apply to modern life, starting with the first one. Every person who calls on Jesus’ name will not necessarily make it to heaven when they die. Some of them will include those who presume to prophesy in the name of God. Why those people? Because they are saying things that God never told them to say. They are busy telling people to be more prosperous by giving more to their churches, or to have a more “purpose driven life”. They are busy telling people how to be more fulfilled and enriched personally, financially and professionally, and all at the same time. They are busy peddling their own NYT best-selling books instead of teaching from the Bible, the #1 selling Book of all time! Why don’t they use their vast book revenues to win more people to Christ, buying airtime on cable TV and radio to warn people that time is running out? That the series of wars that leads up to the Antichrist seizing power could be only months away, and that we should warn them anyway – even if we all get laughed at or made fun of for saying so?

 

The next verse says, “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’” There’s no mistaking who this remark was directed towards; the phony faith healers and the preachers and all their followers who live double lives. I have watched a few of these faith healers on “Christian TV”, and maybe one in 20 appears to be authentic. I will decline to name names, but the remaining 95% are obviously all theater. Instead of preaching the Gospel, they’re on stage, in a pulpit or TV studio putting on a performance for the audience instead of for the Lord. These kinds of people will be punished severely unless they repent, and soon. They too are nearly out of time. For all those reading this who already count themselves as Christian, if any of this reads a lot like the church you’re currently attending, go and find another church.

 

But it wasn’t just Jesus who prophesied against organized religion, which is exactly what He was doing in Matthew chapter 23. The apostle James had something to say about that as well. In James chapter 1 verses 22-27, it reads as follows: “Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the Word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it – he will be blessed in what he does. If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. But religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this; to look after orphans and widows in distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

 

If you consider yourself a Christian, but you call 911 whenever you see homeless people in your neighborhood, you aren’t really Christian at all. If anyone identifies as Christian but uses a lot of profanity, their religion needs some fine-tuning, to put it mildly. Let God turn your rage, from which much profanity spews forth, into passion and zeal instead. The part about widows and orphans should need no explanation at all. This brings us full circle back to our original topic – those who claim to be religious but really aren’t. James, in the following chapter of his letter to the early Church, wrote this; “What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes or daily food. If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed’, but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” (James chapter 2, verses 14-17) By the same token, if one’s faith in Jesus consists exclusively in giving one’s 10% each week, all I can say is you can’t buy your way into heaven.

 

People who attend church faithfully every Sunday while being mean and stingy the other six days of the week are not going to make it to heaven when their lives are over. They will be expecting to, of course. They are, after all, the direct descendants of the Pharisees of Jesus’ time and they don’t even realize it. They are without a clue, and they will remain so as they roast in hell, still insisting on their righteousness. “But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it – he will be blessed in what he does.” James’ words, “the perfect law that gives freedom” is undoubtedly a reference to Jesus’ ministry when He said, “He who is free in me is free indeed”.

Moreover, if one considers him/herself as being a religious person, but are unwilling to share much of anything except maybe with family members, they’re not Christian, they only live to accumulate possessions and portfolios for themselves. Life is all about their narcissistic selves. They are at the center of their own universes, and just because they did so well in life, they think they are a shoe-in for heaven because they are such a “good person”. To that I would ask, good person by whose standards, yours or God’s?

 

In the next passage, James is equally blunt. Pure religiosity is looking after the needs of widows and orphans, “…and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” Defend the defenseless! Help the homeless with money or food if you can! Mentor the prisoner, and teach him or her a trade to minimize their chances of ever coming back to prison again! Have some empathy and some compassion, and become more merciful towards others less fortunate than yourselves! Despise materialism and those who blindly pursue wealth for its own sake! Do not even eat with such people, they are a vexation to the human spirit. If you ever wanted a secular definition of what it means to follow Christ, then these last few sentences are it. Plus, as James put it, “…faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” Those whose words are different than their deeds are only putting on a show, of that you can be sure.

 

There are a couple more verses on this topic I wish to point out, and they are contained in the book of Revelation chapter three, verses 15-16, which reads as follows: “I know your deeds, that your are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth”. Once again, God is laying down the challenge. Do we want to be Christian – or follower of Christ as I prefer – or just pretenders? Is there anybody out there who seriously believes that God doesn’t see and know all? You had best believe He does!! So it basically comes down to this as far as those who attend church regularly – are you just flirting with Jesus, or are you ready to get serious with Him? Are we just showing up on Sunday mornings, saying to God, “Hello again, it’s me Lord, I’m so happy to make it to church one more time”? Are we putting our faith into action the other six days of the week, or are we simply acting religious? And what about those who consider themselves devout believers and followers of Christ, who aren’t flirting with Jesus? In that case, let’s ask ourselves the same question a little differently: Are we going steady with Jesus, or are we ready to fall in love with Him and marry Him (applies equally to both genders since there is neither male nor female in heaven)? Are we a part of the Bride of Christ or aren’t we?

 

It’s time to make a decision everybody! Where do you stand? Let’s not be lukewarm Christians. We already know how God feels about those people, He will “spit you out of (his) mouth”. Or to put it a little more bluntly, lukewarm Christians – and the phony ones – literally make God nauseous, if such a thing is possible for Him in His Spiritual state. The time is very short! The series of devastating wars that will ultimately kill one third of humanity could be only months away, maybe another year or two at the most, so we are running out of time! It’s time for us all to get on fire for Jesus, lest any of us gets condemned to eternal fire instead. Let’s not go there, brothers and sisters. Hell, after all, is a real place. It’s time to fall in love with Jesus and to become a part of His Bride. It’s time for us all to fulfill our true destinies as the sons and daughters of God. Anything less just won’t do as far as I’m concerned, because I’m on board with Jesus forever. How about you? It’s time to make an affirmative decision for Jesus Christ. Ask Him to come and live within your heart, repent – or turn away from – your sins, and start living for Jesus today. Because in the end, He’s all there is.

The 99% Blog Supplemental Posting Regarding Vanquishing Student Loans

Two Ways to Legally Walk Away From Your Student Loan Without Filing Bankruptcy

by Author Rev. Paul J. Bern

Sometimes being a minister doesn’t always involve things having to do with churches or even the concept of religion. Sometimes ministry is something that’s not what would be called ‘spiritual’ at all. Ministry is, to me at least, all about being a person focused exclusively on the needs of others, and sometimes those needs are of the more practical variety. That is what my inspiration is for writing this rather detailed posting today. It is my sincere hope that many hard-pressed individuals would be greatly assisted in their quest for financial independence. By that I mean independence from the damnable scourge of debt, a trap that multitudes the world over are caught up in. Being buried under a mountain of debt is not something that is confined to materialistic America. Debt is a global epidemic, and its root cause is the debt-based economic system we are all stuck living under, otherwise known as capitalism. Our current economic system is based on fractional reserve lending, which is where money is ‘loaned’ into existence as little more than digital bookkeeping entries. If this is starting to read kind of like a scam to you, that’s because it is. No wonder so many people are becoming disenchanted with capitalism!

But to finish my thought from a minute or so ago, I am writing this posting to help people – and because I have been through this very thing myself. Being unable to repay a student loan is not the borrower’s fault. Stagnant wages are to blame, wages that are at about the same level as the mid-to-late 1970’s. That’s why you’re unable to repay your loan(s). There are two ways, and only two ways, that you can legally walk away from your student loan. One is for younger workers, and the other is for older ones, of which I was one. For younger workers, the only way you can legally walk away from a student loan is to get a job in another country, and then become a citizen of that nation by renouncing your American citizenship. Of course, you will need a passport and a work visa to whatever country one wishes to emigrate to. There will also be a waiting period in your country of choice before one can declare legal citizenship, and this varies from country to country. Where are good places to emigrate to? Plenty, with South America, western Europe, parts of coastal Mexico, southeast Asia, or Canada, if you don’t mind cold weather, being among the perennial favorites. There is also a big demand for English teachers in mainland China, and you won’t need a teaching degree either. I have never been to any of the above places except for Canada, so I can’t vouch for any of these countries. Do your own research.

What about older workers still stuck with old student loans that can’t be repaid? Their first choice is the same as above, if they are able to do so. Some will consider emigration to be too impractical, especially those with families and with a mortgage to repay. Unless, of course, you walk away from the mortgage and all your other loans when you emigrate. Some would consider this to be unethical, but with desperate times usually calling for desperate measures there is no law against doing this very thing, and it happens all the time. Besides, since our capitalistic economic system is so predatory anyway, I see nothing wrong with giving them a taste of their own medicine once and a while. Just don’t make a habit of it.

But what about the second choice for older workers who can’t repay their student loans because they can’t find suitable work? The one-word answer is disability, but before you recoil at my response please allow me the chance to point some things out. Age discrimination is an unfortunate fact of the American job market and American life. In numerous other cultures globally speaking, their elders are held in the highest esteem and are viewed as sources of knowledge and experience. In short, older people get a lot more respect overseas than they do here. I had the misfortune of finding this out the hard way. Four months after my 50^th birthday, I had a stroke of moderate severity, and it took about 2 weeks to return to my job as a courier contractor. But I was soon unable to continue working due to a series of misfortunes that would take too long to explain. So I returned to my old field of endeavor, which was the technology business. I had worked as a computer and IT professional for 20 years prior to getting into the better-paying transportation business. But I had a lot of trouble finding long-term job assignments from the IT staffing agencies I was working with. Within just a couple of years, those jobs evaporated too.

After a while, my health started failing again, and I eventually would up on disability. Once the process was completed, which took me about 2 years, I called the company that was holding my old student loan and told them I had just been put on disability. I explained my reasons for not having made a payment if over 5 years, telling them my income had dropped by nearly 80% (which can and does happen), and pleading with them for better terms. That’s when I learned that people who have become disabled don’t have to repay the remainder of their student loans. Once one is considered unable to work, the balance on that person’s student loan(s) are forgiven no matter how much they owe. Period, end of story. That’s how I got out from under mine. My only mistake is that I could have filed for disability years before and hadn’t realized I was eligible. So basically, if you are older than 50 years of age here in America, if you lose your job and have no job prospects, you don’t have to have a stroke to get disability. Use some other medical condition – everybody has one – to get yours. You might as well. Your plight exists because your government allowed it to develop through their own mismanagement and malfeasance in office! Now that you’re down and out through no fault of your own, make the government help you get on your feet. There is never any shame in asking for help, and there is certainly no shame in demanding it when you have to!

One more thing about disability, and that is the unfortunate happenstance of court convictions for various crimes, particularly for people of color and minorities. Court convictions, even for nonviolent offenses, can oftentimes be a barrier to employment. In a worst-case scenario, being a convicted felon can qualify some people for disability simply because they’re felons. Sometimes this is for good reason, but not always. But if you’re a middle-aged man or woman, and especially if you’re older than that, disability may be your best way out. I guess that’s all I have to say, and I sure hope this helps a few people retake control of their finances. Everyone enjoy their day!

Why Materialism and Real Spirituality Will Never Be Compatible

Institutionalized Consumerism,

Black Friday Weekend, and the Bible

by pastor Paul J. Bern

To view this on my website, click here 🙂

The psychopathology of consumerism and the subtle brain washing of mind control – these are the insidious institutions that Americans find themselves subjected to on a daily basis, and all in the holy name of ‘profit’. We have, like it or not, become programmed like robots to spend more than we can afford on things we don’t really need. Like sheep headed to the trimmers – or to the slaughterhouse, depending on your point of view – we dutifully spend our meager little incomes at the bidding of the top 1% of business owners, the corporate elite and their stockholders while our highly vaunted capitalist economic system fleeces us all while rubbing our noses in it. Those who control America’s shadow government – the real movers and shakers from behind the scenes, not their puppets in Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court – have sold out our country to the competition and therefore have committed treason!

The reason most people don’t care about or won’t even consider these glaring realities is because they can “live so much cheaper” buying the very inexpensively made garbage that China and other Pacific Rim and South Asian countries have been dumping on America’s shores since the 1980’s. Cheaper at first, yes, but due to shoddy manufacturing and poor quality, Chinese products are notoriously short-lived and invariably cheap imitations of much better quality merchandise that used to be made here in the US. But that, of course, was before corporate America and Wall Street outsourced all those middle class American jobs overseas for pennies on the dollar. And so we fight and claw for the thriftiest deal at the various suburban big box stores, purchasing with our meager earnings from our multiple part time jobs – because there are no full time jobs available – as well as other chain stores, all of whom offer pathetic and similarly low wages and zero benefits to their staff. Just like your own employer, most likely.

So, as the ‘pitch man’ says, how much can we save on all these wonderful items (LOL)? That depends. If one uses plastic instead of paper, that “consumer” always ends up paying far more in interest, fees and hidden charges than they would have if they bought a similar higher quality item at the finest store in town and paid cash. Hmm….. maybe we should ask ourselves some more pertinent questions and explore some far more evident realities about this issue. For example, what about the Chinese workers slaving in dangerous non union factories for 10-12 hours a day? How much does the company pay them? It works out to between 1 and 2 dollars per day. Try living on that for just one week!! Yet Jesus clearly stated, “The workman is worth his wages” (Luke 10: 7). So it is clearly a sin for business owners to cheat or underpay their workers. Who benefits most from these kinds of arrangements? Is it really the mesmerized consumer, all teary-eyed with joy while giggling gleefully at 30, 40, and 50% off deals? Or could it be that the whole stinking thing is rigged from beginning to end? Of course it is!!

Just look at what is being sold and calculate how much it costs to make it. If I look at a 15 ounce can of generic or store brand pork and beans on the grocery shelf priced at 75 cents, it doesn’t take a marketing genius to figure out that 75 cents is an outrageous markup. The cans are made by the millions, so they cost just a penny or so to manufacture. The contents of the can usually cost even less. The label costs between 5 and 7 cents at the most. So we’re looking at no more than 2 cents for the can and the contents, and maybe an extra 5 or 6 cents for the label. Add another penny or two for shipping and we have 10 cents at the most. Ten darned cents, and the retail price is 75 cents? So the gross markup is more than seven times the cost, or in excess of 700%? Precisely. Or consider a far more expensive item such as the latest I-phone. They sell for about $700 dollars and up, plus taxes and “fees”, but there was a posting on the Internet just recently to the effect that it only costs Apple, Inc. about $120.00 to manufacture I-phones because they were being made in China, resulting in a profit margin exceeding 300%. So much for “God bless America”.

“Yeah, but,” the politicians and talking heads say to us on TV, “it’s the American workers. They don’t want to work menial jobs like canning pork and beans. And we can’t assemble I-phones in America because our workers aren’t qualified.” Never mind that there are many thousands of recent college graduates who are living with their parents because they are unable to support themselves. There simply are no jobs for these poor young adults, and yet they are expected to repay predatory and exorbitant student loans. The careers for which they have been training have already been out-sourced to the third world during the last 4+ years that these hapless individuals have spent earning their degrees. They have all been robbed of their educations, which have been rendered worthless by the multinational corporations and the US military-industrial complex who are running the whole show. The very companies these young graduates are looking forward to going to work for are the ones who have sold them out. As you can see, they don’t have much to be thankful for except for being alive. But thanks be to God, who makes being thankful for being alive just enough to be happy about!

Yet we are expected to perform our patriotic duty as well as appropriately celebrate the “feast of capitalism” as we shop till we drop looking for that most fantastic bargain. We are in the process of being programmed to slave at multiple part time jobs working for starvation wages and with no health benefits while being expected to buy $300,000.00 houses, $70,000.00 cars and trucks plus big screen TV’s and $1,000.00 I-phones. While all this is occurring, certain employees of multiple multinational corporations are being well paid to line the pockets of senators, congressmen and supreme-court justices in Washington D.C., while sitting on presidential cabinets making decisions regarding our planet’s future, our own future, and our children’s future. Is it any wonder that the entire world seems to be coming unglued? Meanwhile our consumerism is devouring the planet into something that might soon become more lifeless than the moon or a Wall Street tycoon’s conscience. Yet, mesmerized by commercials with intelligence levels less than a jackass after having a lobotomy, we roll blindly into the gates of our hallowed shopping malls and venerated big box stores.

Lennon and McCartney of the Beatles wrote in the song “Revolution”, “you say you want a revolution, well you know, we’d all love to change your head.” Yes, it is about more than changing Wall Street or who resides in the White House. It is, ultimately, about changing ourselves. If we all really want some serious change, then change must start from within. Speak from your heart to your kids about consumerism, greed and how they are ruining the planet. Help them to understand that it’s not about how much we have, but rather how much we contribute. Life is not about how much we own or the value of our possessions. A life well lived is all about making a stand for good things like faithfulness, showing mercy and kindness, and above all, expressing love. Instead of buying your wife a new car while going into debt, take her up on the highest place around where you live, or to some favorite romantic spot, and renew your vows to her. Instead of buying your husband a new bag of golf clubs, give him a night he will never forget. Enjoy each other and be loving to each other. To enjoy is to enjoin is to unite. And since we’re going to unite in this regard, let’s unite against greed and materialism while we’re at it!

Consumerism, capitalism and the vain pursuit of worldly goods keeps us isolated by gimmicks of sensationalist advertising with strikingly beautiful women, absolutely perfect children and gorgeous, flaming hunks of men that are created off the corporate mold. To put it simply, the corporate mold and the Hollywood image are a load of BS. And who is being molded in all these advertising gimmicks? You are!! For what purpose? To make others rich at your expense!! The blue chip corporations have a very good reason for doing all this. As long as they can keep us isolated, we can never be united. Don’t go there. Keep your money. Find richness in your heart, your spirit and your character and share that with everyone this year instead.

America’s Debt Problem and the Bible

The USA Crosses the Forbidden 666 Barrier

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

To view this from my website, click here 🙂

The 2017 fiscal year for the budget of the US government just ended late this past summer, and the results are in. The Lame Stream (sorry, I meant ‘main stream’) media and various other “presstitutes” are dutifully reporting what they’re told to report, while not having the slightest inkling as to the Biblical meaning and spiritual significance of what they publish and report on. And yet despite all that, the headline on Saturday morning’s CNN’s website reads, “Deficit for 2017 hits $666 billion”! Now just to be clear about this, CNN is not exactly my favorite news source, but Fox and all the other old mainstay networks are even worse IMHO. But the fact that the federal budget deficit (not to be confused with the ‘national debt’) is the same number as the “mark of the beast” from Revelation 13, verses 11-18 has gone unnoticed – THAT is what surprises me a great deal. But in another way, this occurrence doesn’t surprise me at all. My reason here is simply that it seems like the whole world is going in that direction.

The similarities between the economic monstrosity known as ‘debt’ and the moral monstrosity of the Antichrist and the number 666 are striking. Both fly in the face of God because they are devoid of any love or compassion, and because they challenge the Supreme authority of God. There is plenty of scripture to back this up. Let me start in the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament and work my way forward from there, and I quote: “If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest. If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, return it to him by sunset, because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else would he sleep in? When he cries out to me, I will hear him, for I am compassionate.” (Exodus 22: 25-27) As you can see, it is not a sin to borrow money or lend it at interest provided the terms are affordable and reasonable enough. I can remember being taught as a child that it was a sin to borrow money. All the adults in my life at that time were proud of the fact that everything they owned – excluding the lots their hand built houses were built on – was bought and paid for. They built the houses themselves, and even their cars were paid for. It was a world that simply no longer exists.

The CNN article goes on to say, “The deficit reached 3.5% of the size of the economy, or GDP. In 2016, the deficit was 3.2% of GDP. The deficit reflects the gap between how much the government brings in and what it spends. Accrued deficits over the years contribute to the country’s debt held by the public, which in 2017 rose to $14.667 trillion. But as a share of the economy, it actually fell slightly to 76.3%, down from 76.7% in the year-ago period. (Those figures don’t include the money owed to government trust funds like Social Security.)“ At this rate, and if nothing is done – a frightening possibility considering the current state of the US Congress – the interest on America’s ‘national debt’ would exceed 20% of GDP by 2030 if the CNN figures are accurate, and I should hope they are! But if we set that aside and look beyond all these things, we can find the real underlying causes of America’s indebtedness problems.

For this, we’ll stay in the Old Testament and skip over to Deuteronomy chapter 15, verses 1-11, and it reads as follows from the NLT Bible: “At the end of every seventh year you must cancel your debts. This is how it must be done. Creditors must cancel the loans they have made to their fellow Israelites. They must not demand payment from their neighbors or relatives, for the Lord’s time of release has arrived. This release from debt, however, applies only to your fellow Israelites – not to the foreigners living among you. There should be no poor among you, for the Lord your God will greatly bless you in the land he is giving you as a special possession. You will receive this blessing if you carefully obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today. The Lord your God will bless you as he has promised. You will lend money to many nations but will never need to borrow! You will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you! But if there are any poor people in your towns when you arrive in the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Instead, be generous and lend them whatever they need. Do not be mean-spirited and refuse someone a loan because the year of release is close at hand. If you refuse to make the loan and the needy person cries out to the Lord, you will be considered guilty of sin. Give freely without begrudging it, and the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do. There will always be some among you who are poor. That is why I am commanding you to share your resources freely with the poor and with other Israelites in need.”

OK, let’s take this from the top since there’s so much in this one paragraph. “At the end of every seventh year you must cancel your debts. This is how it must be done. Creditors must cancel the loans they have made to their fellow Israelites.” So right off the bat we see the entire US mortgage industry has compelled an entire country into sin. After all, this certainly applies to all nations, not just Israel. In America, we either pay interest for 30 years or we rent, that’s how dwellings and commercial buildings of various types are bought and sold. So, we are faced with the choice of paying, say, $200,000.00 or more for a new basic model 3 or 4 bedroom house here in Atlanta where I reside, or renting. With interest figured in, the total price for that house over 30 years would be approximately $333,000.00 dollars. So, the Bible is telling us that a good-sized portion of that excess $133,000.00 in interest on our hypothetical $200,0000.00 mortgage is sinful, meaning it’s sinful to charge people that much interest or to make that much profit on one stinking’ house! This, my dear readers, is why capitalism as we have known it is unsustainable. Capitalism is unsustainable because it’s sinful! This is the Scriptural ‘proof of the pudding’ right here in Deuteronomy.

“They must not demand payment from their neighbors or relatives, for the Lord’s time of release has arrived. This release from debt, however, applies only to your fellow Israelites – not to the foreigners living among you.” So this time of forgiving of debts is called the “time of release” in my NLT Bible, and my NIV calls it “the Lord’s time for canceling debts”. At the time this was written, the ancient Hebrew nation was at the latter stages of their 40 years of wandering in the desert, but prior to the time of taking possession of the land the Lord was going to give them, since Moses was still alive at this time. As this was applied to the Hebrew nation from the time of Moses, so it remains with modern America. If it were against the law for any loan to be of more than 7 years duration, there wouldn’t be any poor or homeless people. But the rich would lose most of their ill-gotten gains, and the entire mortgage industry would have to be extensively restructured. Now you know why nothing ever changes.

The only way to stop this gross injustice – which amounts to legalized loan sharking – is to refuse to go along with the system. Passive resistance can be a very effective tool in forcing change to come about at the societal level – that is, nonviolent resistance. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a master of this very thing, which freaked out the FBI and the “Department of Justice” to such an extreme they enlisted the aid of the CIA to have King killed. So how do we take an cue from Rev. Dr. King’s playbook? One of the most effective things we could do today about our rigged economic system would be for everyone to boycott their student loans. If we stop paying on our homes and our cars, the bankers and finance people foreclose and repossess. But with the student loans – and other unsecured loans like your credit cards – if we walk away as a united people, there’s nothing for them to take back. It would be tantamount to a national strike, and we wouldn’t even have to leave our homes!Wow, wouldn’t THAT be something!! Moving right along….

“There should be no poor among you, for the Lord your God will greatly bless you in the land he is giving you as a special possession. You will receive this blessing if you carefully obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today.” Just as God Almighty gave what was then known as the “Land of Canaan” to the Hebrew nation – or Israelites, they mean the same thing – during the time of Moses, I am certain that God gave what become North America to the early settlers “as a special possession” too. The Bible even spells out the payoff for following the commands and tenets of the Lord Almighty in this regard: “The Lord your God will bless you as he has promised. You will lend money to many nations but will never need to borrow! You will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you!” Isn’t that the position America was in up until the 1980’s or so? Weren’t we the largest money lending nation in the world? Look at us now! We’re the largest debtor nation. We’ve gone from one extreme to the other! And it’s all because of America’s sins! What sins, some may ask? We’re the world’s largest arms maker and exporter. We’re the largest producer of pornography, the largest consumer of illegal drugs, and we have the most people in prison of any other country in the world – by more than triple the #2 nation, which is Communist China. Until America repents of these things by getting to the root cause, her problems will continue to get progressively worse!

“But if there are any poor people in your towns when you arrive in the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Instead, be generous and lend them whatever they need. Do not be mean-spirited and refuse someone a loan because the year of release is close at hand.” God despises anyone who despises the poor! Sometimes when I’m in downtown Atlanta at the main train station waiting on a bus to take me out to my neighborhood, I sit and watch the homeless people – and Atlanta has plenty of them because wages are extremely low – beg for money. I give them all my spare change if they ask for it, and I have been known to buy people sandwiches who are in need. But the vast majority of the passers-by won’t even acknowledge them if approached, and will even step up their pace to get by the beggars faster. This is one reason I have never cared for the meme “conservative Christian”. It’s because they seem to be consistently too conservative to give. They all seem to be too busy ‘conserving’ to have a single ounce of human compassion. Such individuals risk being judged harshly by the Lord, and some will be condemned.

“If you refuse to make the loan and the needy person cries out to the Lord, you will be considered guilty of sin….That is why I am commanding you to share your resources freely with the poor and with other Israelites in need.” This means if someone who is in a position to help people fails to do so, even if it’s nothing but loose change, and the homeless man or woman cries out to God against that individual, they will have committed sin against God. Sin is defined as breaking God’s commandments. Therefore, all sinners are essentially lawbreakers. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t want to spend my life as an outlaw. I want to follow God’s precepts in order to obtain my eternal reward that awaits me. Since America is collectively in sin, as I already explained, the repentance will have to start with each individual. Those at the top – America’s top 1% when measured in wealth – are certainly not going to repent of their sins. They’re making too much money to want to repent, and their end will be eternal judgment. But the rest of us can collectively stop these practices of financial corruption, one person at a time. We can make up our minds to live debt-free. And yes, it can be done. Like former president Obama said, “Yes we can!”

President Trump’s Belligerence and the Bible: a Study In Contrasts

President Trump’s Christian Supporters Would Get

Offended If I Told Them What Was Really In the Bible

by Rev. Paul J. Bern

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I met a man not too long ago who insisted that the King James Bible is the only legitimate version of the Bible available. As far as he was concerned, all other versions currently in print, including my NIV, NLT and Amplified Bibles were “not from God”. I don’t care to elaborate on this much except to say that I don’t agree with such an egocentric viewpoints as that. All I can do is pray for that man, because there will be no egocentric people in heaven! But I’m using this example to make the point that there are a lot of conservative right-wingers like that individual who have some views about the Bible and Christianity that are totally inconsistent with Scripture. Since these people’s beliefs are in fact totally inconsistent with Scripture, then the question becomes why do religious extremists on the right (and Christianity has lots of them just like the Muslims do) get away with proclaiming what Jesus would or wouldn’t support (such as endless wars and inequality)? The answer is simple: Most conservatives have not read the Bible. Not even once! Of the ones who do, an overwhelming number of Christians are astonishingly illiterate when it comes to understanding the Bible’s teachings.

On hot-button social issues, from same-sex marriage to abortion, Biblical passages are invoked without any real understanding of their context or true meaning. What America needs is Christianity without the dogma, and faith without the spiritual pollution of conservative politics. Nondenominational Christianity, with the 2 greatest commandments of Jesus Christ (see Matthew 24, verses 34-39) being first and foremost – and viewed from a nonpolitical perspective – would be far closer to what Jesus originally taught than the ultra-conservative slant being espoused all over the right-wing media today (and a heck of a lot of ‘churches’!). That’s why it’s vital as we live in these Last Days to help the helpless whenever possible. In so doing, we become ambassadors for Christ while living our lives in complete accordance with God’s will instead of our own. It surprises me how little many ‘Christians’ know about what is still the world’s most popular book!

 

So how much do secular Americans know of the book that one-third of the country believes to be literally true (like I do)? Various surveys that I pulled up on the Internet show that 60 percent of Christians can’t name more than five of the Ten Commandments; 12 percent of adults think Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife; and nearly 50 percent of high school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were a married couple. A 2013 Gallup poll showed 50 percent of Americans can’t name the first book of the Bible, while roughly 82 percent believe “God helps those who help themselves” is a biblical verse. So, if Americans get an F in the basic fundamentals of the Bible, what hope do they have in knowing what Jesus would say about endless wars, the decimation of labor unions, unfair and illegal taxation, universal health care, and Snap benefits? It becomes easy to spread lies when no one knows what the truth is.

 

I think that’s probably why the ‘Christian Right’ is constantly re-branding Progressives and those on the Left – who want free public higher education, Medicare for all and wealth redistribution – into traitors to their country or party just because they disagree. The truth, whether conservatives like it or not, is not only that Jesus was a meek and mild liberal Jew who spoke softly in parables and metaphors – except when He threw the money changers out of the Temple in Matthew 21, verses 12-13. But, when one reads down a couple more chapters in any of the 4 Gospels, it was the religious conservatives (the Pharisees and Sadduccees) who had Jesus killed! The fact that He rose again on the morning of the third day tells me everything I need to know about Jesus’ view of political conservatives. American conservatives, however, have morphed Jesus Christ into a muscular macho warrior, in much the same way the Nazis did with Hitler, as a means of combating “terrorism”, which has become a synonym for American world domination.

 

Knowing the Bible requires a contextual understanding of authorship, history and interpretation. For instance, when Republicans were justifying their cuts to the food stamp program back in 2013, they quoted the 2^nd book of Thessalonians: “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” One poll showed that more than 90 percent of Christians believe this New Testament quote is attributed to Jesus. It’s not! This was taken from a letter written by Paul to his church in Thessalonica. Paul wrote to this specific congregation to remind them that there were too many people in the congregation that were freeloading off that church. Only a few were doing all the work and making the majority of the financial contributions, and everybody else was just hanging around for the free food (see 2^nd Thess. chapter 3, verses 6-15). What Paul did say is that anyone too lazy to work shouldn’t expect anything at dinner time, and that’s just common sense, not politics.

 

What often comes as a surprise to your average Sunday wine-and-cracker Christian is the New Testament did not fall from the sky the day Jesus ascended to Heaven. The New Testament is a collection of writings, 27 in total, of which 12 are credited to the authorship of the apostle Paul, four to the Gospels (Luke also wrote the Book of Acts), and the balance with the remaining apostles. What we do know about Jesus, at least according to the respective gospels, is that Jesus’ sentiments closely echoed the social and economic policies of the political left in the 21^st century. The Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5 read like a Progressive Christian mission statement: “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is kingdom of heaven,” “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” and “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called ‘Sons of the living God’.” Jesus also said, “Judge not, or else you shall be judged, for you who pass judgment do the same things yourselves”, and “Sell what you have and give it to the poor, so you can have treasure in heaven” (I’m paraphrasing here). Sounds an awful lot like wealth redistribution to me, a societal woe that urgently needs to be addressed if ever there was one. So when Republicans, our current president included, accuse president Obama and Progressives like myself of being brown-skinned socialists who wants to redistribute the wealth, they meant Jesus, who they would surely crucify if he were to return today!

 

Biblical illiteracy is what has allowed conservative wing-nuts like president Trump to get away with shaping their image to resemble that of Jesus, like Washington is doing us a great big favor by being in charge. That’s why politicians on the right can get away with saying ‘the Lord commands’ that our health care, criminal justice, public schools, retirement pensions and transportation systems, together with all the rest, should be run by corporations for profit. When the Christian Right believes it’s channeling Jesus when they say it’s immoral for government to tax billionaires to help pay for health care, education and the poor, they’re actually channeling atheism. When the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and “the real Alex Jones” insist the poor are worthless, immoral and lazy, that’s not Jesus, it’s atheism! It’s impossible to love God while simultaneously despising his creations! The price this country has paid for biblical illiteracy is measured by how far we’ve moved toward atheism’s “utopia”. In the past three decades, we’ve slashed taxes on corporations and the wealthy, destroyed labor unions, deregulated financial markets, eroded public safety nets, and committed to one globalist corporate free-trade agreement after another. With the far-right, Republican-appointed majority on the Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Koch brothers’ Citizens United, the flow of billions of dollars from anonymous donors to the most reliable voting bloc of the Republican Party – the Christian Right – will continue to perpetuate the Biblically incompatible, anti-government, pro-deregulation-of-business, health-care-for-none-but-the-rich, Tea Party American version of Christianity, and I for one have had more than enough!!

 

Biblical history mirrors current events

History Repeats Itself, Even in the Bible

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

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One of the hot-button issues facing the entire world, and particularly in the US, is that of economic inequality. We find ourselves in an intractable and intolerable situation where 99% of the country’s wealth is concentrated into the hands of an elite few. As this situation is ongoing, the American people find themselves compelled to pay for the most expensive health care, higher education, and housing prices on the entire planet! Plus, we find ourselves taxed to death by a federal income tax whose legality is open to question, and hemmed in both politically and economically by an unconstitutional curtailment of our rights, all while having the world’s largest prison population! This would be ridiculous if it weren’t so serious. For this week’s message, then, I want to share a passage of scripture that closely resembles our current situation, so go to your Bible app or open your Bible to the Book of Nehemiah chapter 5, verses 1-13, and I quote:

“Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their Jewish brothers. Some were saying, ‘We and our sons and daughters are numerous; in order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain.’ Others were saying, we are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our homes to get grain during the famine.’ Still others were 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)

To put all this in its proper context, the Old Testament Israelites had been conquered by the ancient Assyrians and had been in exile for many years. With Israel’s first period of exile ending, they had begun to return from Assyria where they had been enslaved, and a great rebuilding process had begun in and around Jerusalem. There was, unfortunately, also a great famine going on at that time because there had not yet been a harvest, and this was creating a lot of problems. The above passage of scripture has striking similarities to what is happening throughout much of the world today. People don’t have enough to eat. They have trouble meeting their financial obligations because prices are impossibly high. Back then they had to give away their sons and daughters as slaves – presumably sex slaves – because they had no other way to pay their debts. Today, some of our sons and daughters are still taken as sex slaves. It’s just that they are taken by force and not by barter. The rest of us are slaves, too. It’s just that the world is a lot more subtle about it than back then. We work our jobs – if we’re lucky enough to have one of those – for pay that is oftentimes pathetic. Many younger workers don’t realize how drastically wages have been cut in the last 15 years or so. So, there are striking parallels between the time of Nehemiah and today. Now, let me go on with the second half of today’s scripture, beginning 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 brought 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 the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of your 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.’ ‘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 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!’ And the whole assembly said, ‘Amen!’ and praised the Lord. And the people did as they had promised.” (Nehemiah 5, verse 6-13)

There are striking similarities between what was going on in Israel during the time of the first rebuilding of the wall around Jerusalem and what is occurring in America today. Everything is financed. Nobody pays cash for their cars much anymore, and everybody uses credit cards to make purchases from a flat screen TV all the way down to a week’s worth of groceries. We are forced to pay interest on everything we need – even the food we eat. This situation has gotten completely out of hand, and unless the government steps in and stops it the American people will find themselves forced into conflict with the government, the outcome of which could lead to another American civil war. In the first civil war, it was fought over ending the slavery of Black people. The second one will be a fight to end the enslavement of us all, and there are going to be casualties, so you may as well start getting used to that idea. This is what was occurring during the time of the prophet Nehemiah.

Nehemiah then told the authorities, “What you are doing is not right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of your Gentile enemies? I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain. But let the exacting of usury stop!” Nehemiah and his brothers and enlisted men were helping those in need as best they could, but they were charging no interest for their services. They did it for free because they realized they were in a crisis situation that called for emergency measures to make sure everyone got their basic needs met. Their compatriots, on the other hand, were guilty of price gouging and criminal exploitation against their own countrymen, and in some cases even their own families. So Nehemiah told the nobles and officials to give it all back, very similar to an executive order issued by the President. Notice too, in verse 11, they were charging 1% interest, far less than what is being charged today (on the best of terms, 30 year mortgages are currently at just over 2.5%).

Imagine the uproar if such an executive order were issued today! I can almost see it now – president Trump giving a direct order to the banking and financial industries that all single family home loans were to be canceled immediately – would that be fun to watch or what? One thing is for sure – the American people are overburdened with excessive housing costs, combined with stagnant wages in the face of other rising living expenses like groceries. “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 made the nobles and officials take an oath to do what they had promised.” Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could do that today? Actually, we could, it’s just that there is still insufficient political willpower among the American people. A national strike could be called – a mortgage strike. Everybody stopping their mortgage payments all at once would be the same as slaughtering the beast by starvation! But first, we should do a dry run using student loans as the pariah that this debt crisis has become. Then we call a meeting via social media, and make the powers that be promise to give us all some badly needed financial relief! Either that or we take to the streets and shut down entire cities.

“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!’ And the whole assembly said, ‘Amen!’ and praised the Lord. And the people did as they had promised.” The above example is what it looked like to issue a law that had some teeth to it back in those days. I can practically visualize president Trump calling his senior leaders into a conference room and telling everybody that everyone’s mortgage, their student loans plus all unpaid medical bills will be canceled immediately and without preconditions. All the Wall Street bankers would have heart attacks, and debt collectors would have to go and find a new profession – just like myself. I was once a well-paid senior IT professional, but my career evaporated after the dot-com crash and I wound up working as a courier contractor for a local delivery company. I survived the changes I went through, and so will they because actually we are not so different after all. In closing let me also say those noblemen and government officials repaid those people they had exploited out of fear of the consequences from God. That fear of the Lord is largely absent here in modern times, but soon it will return, and then everyone will know exactly who God is.

More on last week’s message about taking our country back from those who have stolen it

A Follow-up to Last Week’s Commentary

Last week for the July fourth holiday break, I published a warning stating that unless the American people organize and begin a campaign of passive resistance against the twin evils of Oligarchic capitalism and the Deep State that has enslaved us all (yes, I mean past tense), both ourselves and our children, plus and their children will find ourselves permanently enslaved. We will not be enslaved by the government because the government is little more than an arm of law enforcement whose paymasters are the mega-rich elite. And it is this Bilderberger elite who controls all the banking, which in turn funds the world’s economies, who have hoarded 99% of the world’s wealth, leaving us to scrap and skirmish for the remaining 1% of the leftovers. It is the super-rich elites who are the government’s paymasters. It is with that thought in mind that I am posting this supplemental to last week’s message, which you can find here or here. As you can see, this is an excerpt from my first book, which I published back in 2011. It is now in its third edition, which you can get on Amazon by clicking here.

The Battle Cry of the American People

(excerpt from, “The Middle and Working Class Manifesto” by Rev. Paul J. Bern)

When in the course of current events the constituency of the United States finds itself oppressed and hemmed in by that which governs us, and when the working people of this great country which I love so much finds itself with its backs against the wall due to circumstances and situations which are beyond our control, it naturally becomes the patriotic duty of every concerned American to stand up to and to oppose that which suppresses and restricts the God-given freedoms spelled out in our US Constitution. Moreover, we find ourselves forced to draw a line in the sand that guarantees the health, wealth and prosperity of us all against the ruling elites and their associates and family members, who are the real force behind all government funding including police, military and intelligence gathering. As peaceful and law-abiding citizens, we have been governed by the rule of law which is summarized in a document that working Americans continue to hold in highest esteem, the Constitution of the United States, in keeping with the time-honored traditions passed down to us by our founding fathers. But lately our sacred Constitution has been bastardized and prostituted not only by those in power within the federal government, but more directly by the armies of corporate lobbyists who have invaded Washington and seized control of our executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, for the sole express purpose of engineering a bloodless coup de etat that is being carried out not by bullets but by vast sums of money that are at once immoral, illegal, and a veritable avalanche of green and greedy corruption. The sole express purpose of this financial warfare is to forcibly liquidate the middle and working classes in this great country of ours. This is being done deliberately and with sinister calculation by the wealthiest Americans from Wall Street to a myriad of corporate boardrooms all across America, orchestrated by the unconstitutional Federal Reserve and its minions, for the sole express purpose of focusing and concentrating all available wealth into the top 1% of income earners and big business owners all across America. In fact, I further submit and assert that this is all being done at the expense of the US middle and working classes, the result of which is to force an ever-increasing number of working Americans from all walks of life into ever-increasing poverty from which there is no escape.

 

With mass unemployment, a veritable storm of foreclosures, increasingly unaffordable health care, and higher education rapidly becoming ever further out of reach for the US middle class and particularly for the poor and minorities, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the middle class and working people here in the good old USA finds themselves surrounded and besieged by an army of the usurpers of power in our country. As a direct result more and more working Americans, the people who are the backbone of the US economy, are forced into moving in with friends, family members and even strangers to stave off what would otherwise be a pandemic outbreak of homelessness and despair. And it’s all because people can’t find jobs.

 

In point of fact, the are now more college-educated people living in homeless shelters, under bridges or in their cars – if they are lucky enough to still own a vehicle – than at any other time since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. And that is a social injustice and a moral outrage tantamount to class warfare! Indeed, the circumstances and situations that the middle and working classes in the US find themselves today are a series of gross social and economic injustices that demands a sharply focused and well-coordinated response from the entire populace, a rebuttal and decisive counterattack designed and intended to right, correct and re-balance US political power back into the hands of the overwhelming majority of American citizens to whom it rightfully belongs. There can be no doubt that class warfare has been declared in the US, perpetrated by the wealthy against the middle and working classes, for the sole express purpose of eliminating from society the constitutional majority of working Americans, with the end result being the complete and merciless liquidation of middle and working class wealth, general prosperity, and even our health. This has been accomplished by the largest transfer of wealth in all of human history, and it has been manifested in four different ways.

 

First, the employment of American workers has been decimated by closing down manufacturing facilities and shipping jobs overseas to the third world for pennies on the dollar. The result of this has been mass unemployment of many millions of American workers, and those jobs in the American manufacturing sector which was once the world’s largest, and whose direct result was victory in World War Two, are very likely to never return. One direct effect this has had is the gradual elimination of labor unions in this country, and the US labor movement is now on life support as a result. All the wages of the blue collar sector of the US economy are now redirected into the pockets of the top 1% of the American populace in terms of net wealth, not to mention the benefits and retirement pensions of these same people who made these corporations into the mega-companies that they are today.

 

Second, the retirement savings of the middle and working classes have been severely compromised or even liquidated altogether by the crooked and devious manipulations of Wall Street bankers, the World Bank and the IMF, plus all the market speculators, hedge fund managers and corporate boards of directors who engineered the largest swindle in human history back in 2008. This criminal act resulted in the US government bailout known as TARP, an $850 billion bank robbery of the US Treasury conceived and carried out by the same Ponzi schemers who ran the US economy into the ground in the first place, with the Federal Reserve conveniently stepping up with a solution at just the right moment. The cost of this bailout has been put on the backs of the middle and working classes, their children and grandchildren, and has generated a federal government budget deficit that has exceeded $20 trillion dollars as I write this, a staggering sum that threatens to bankrupt the country and destroy the formerly good credit rating of the United States.

 

As a matter of fact, in only one generation our great country that I love so much has been transformed from the world’s greatest lender to its greatest borrower, with the majority of this debt being financed by China and Japan. One of these days China is going to get tired of lending us money and will at that point call in the debt, which America will likely not be able to repay, particularly if China refuses to accept US dollars as a form of repayment – which is entirely possible. If the value of the dollar were to collapse for any reason, that is exactly what would occur. I shudder to think of what would happen next, with China taking large chunks of American collateral to satisfy this crushing debt load. This could even lead to Chinese troops on our western shores occupying whole cities in a worst case scenario. The final collapse of the US economy would inevitably follow, descending into another American civil war that will make the current conflicts in Syria, Egypt, Yemen and Libya look like a day care center in comparison.

 

Third, the largest transfer of wealth in human history is being enforced by runaway prices for food, utilities, housing and transportation, not to mention tuition for higher education. These tuition increases are being deliberately engineered by wealthy elitists for the sole express purpose of putting higher education financially out of reach for an increasing majority of Americans. And those who do make it into colleges or universities are finding themselves buried under an overwhelming pile of student loans, some of which are so huge that they end up well into six figures, larger even than some home mortgages. Some of these student loans are so enormous that an increasing number of graduates find themselves moving back in with their parents, or sharing living quarters with friends and acquaintances, when they finally do graduate. These same hard-working graduates are now increasingly finding that they can’t find suitable employment upon graduation, or are winding up in menial jobs that pay so poorly they can’t repay their student loans. This ruins their credit ratings, making it even harder for them to find employment. What good is a four-year degree if you wind up flipping hamburgers, selling shoes or digging ditches? Meanwhile, the best jobs, the best educations, and the best incomes are reserved for the top 1% wealthy and their families.

 

Fourth, the largest transfer of wealth in human history is being further reinforced by a health care system that has become so outrageously expensive that over 24 million Americans can no longer afford health insurance as I write this. An increasing percentage of working Americans are one accident or catastrophic illness away from bankruptcy, and all without remedy, even with Obama-care in force. Worse still, the average cost of medical care for US senior citizens from the time they retire until their death is $260,000.00 based on a report published in Money magazine. As more and more US workers find themselves unable to afford long-term health coverage, an increasing number of people are putting off doctor and/or dental visits and not refilling needed prescriptions for purely financial reasons, and the physical and mental health of these hapless and impoverished individuals slowly erodes away as a direct consequence.

 

There are tens of millions of formerly middle class people just like me all across the country who find themselves in similar circumstances to varying degrees of severity. Many have not been as fortunate as me. They have lost jobs or entire careers like I have, been forced out into the street due to the ongoing epidemic of foreclosures throughout America, had their cars repossessed leaving them with no way to get to work assuming that they are lucky enough to still have jobs, and are hounded by collection agencies for debts great and small. Too many still have no access to health care except to show up at the local emergency room with no way to pay the bill, putting them even deeper into debt than they already are. They have watched their pensions and their retirement savings evaporate due to market manipulations by unscrupulous “financial managers” who earn obscene bonuses whether they succeed or fail, and all at the expense of their clients. Either that or they have spent their savings during interminably lengthy periods of unemployment after their jobs were downsized or out-sourced overseas to the third world, never to return again.

 

The same goes for the best health care, the nicest cars and boats and even airplanes, not to mention the best retirement plans. All of this and more are systematically being procured by the top 1% income bracket at the expense of everybody else. It’s steak for them and beans for the rest of us, and the portions for the remaining 99% are getting ever smaller each day. There is no question whatsoever that class warfare has been declared by the rich, powerful and well-connected, and all at the expense of over 99% of the rest of America. I think it’s time to fight back, and that is why I began researching this topic back in 2010. My books, blogs and website are the new voice of protest and dissent in middle America. It is not right-wing nor is it from the left, but rather it is written from from the standpoint of middle America and from the vantage point of the oppressed multitudes who are crying out for relief and rescue from the perilous circumstances and life-threatening situations that working Americans from all walks of life find themselves in.

 

This book is a wailing civil defense siren ringing out across the land that I love. It is a warning buzzer on the basketball court of life signifying that a new American team of endless depth is now taking the court, sending the wealthy and powerful to the showers so that the stench of corruption can be washed from them, since they so desperately need it! It is the national anthem of true American patriotism being played before the start of a baseball game signaling that the new expansion team from middle America is about to take the field. This book is an air raid siren sounding out across the land of the rich and powerful as a warning that the middle and working class counterattack is about to commence. (My next book, “Occupying America: We Shall Overcome”, takes up where the first one left off, and predicts mass civil unrest in America in the near future.)

 

No more will we stand and stare or sit and grumble about having our houses, jobs, cars, savings, health, higher education and our retirements forcibly taken away wholesale while an ever greater portion of American wealth is concentrated into the hands of a small minority of multimillionaires. It is time for the middle and working classes to put our collective foot down and say “no more”! The time has arrived for us to take back our country by any and all means necessary. It is time for political power to be taken out of the hands of corporate America and their invading hordes of lobbyists and Wall Street bankers who would presume to take over our country by means of economic warfare, and to place it back into the hands of “we the people”, the true owners of this great country of ours. And we will do so knowing that history and our founding fathers are on our side, because they left us with a sacred document known as the Constitution of the United States that guarantees us that right. Our free speech and freedom of expression that are guaranteed under the First Amendment, as well as our right to keep and bear arms and to form militias that are guaranteed under the Second Amendment, will not be compromised or trampled upon. We will demonstrate in the streets, we will besiege government buildings, we will bombard our congressmen and women with phone calls and emails, we will form new political parties, we will organize and build new labor unions and worker-owned cooperative businesses, we will blockade wealthy neighborhoods, we will organize peaceful public events and non-violent sit-ins, we will call general strikes and consumer boycotts, and we will not stop until the balance of power in this country undergoes a paradigm shift back into the hands of hard-working Americans, particularly those who want full time jobs and can’t find any.

 

We will fight from the highest mountains, from the lowest valleys, from the rooftops of buildings, we will fight in the cities and in the countryside, from the Jersey shore to the beaches of California, and from the Canadian border down south to the border with Mexico. We will not stop until we get our country back, and we shall never surrender. If the abusive government authoritarians label us as domestic terrorists, which we most certainly are not, then we will “remind” them that we are freedom fighters and American patriots. We shall fight with non-violent civil disobedience, we shall – so far as it is possible – demonstrate and march peacefully throughout the land, until we get our country restored to us, the workers of America, to whom it rightfully belongs!

Let there be no mistake – America is past being overdue for mass civil disobedience, and it is ripe for outright revolution if political and economic power are not restored to the people. If our First Amendment rights continue to be taken away, then we will fight back using our the Second Amendment rights instead. The conditions and circumstances in which the US middle and working classes find ourselves has become intolerable. President John Kennedy once said, “Those who make peaceful protest impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”. Those words will soon come true, and the American people to whom this country rightfully belongs will make them so!

 

Personally, I am a very patient and thoughtful man. I work hard each day to be slow to speak and quick to listen because I know from experience that there is much wisdom to be derived from living my life this way. But by the same token, I am a Christian man and an angry minister whose patience is at its end. Just as surely as Jesus preached against the political and religious establishment of His day, in like manner I will do the same in the present day in order to emulate the man I regard as my personal Savior. So, if you truly care about the deteriorating state of our nation, if you are really concerned about the issues that we are faced with collectively as a people, and if you want to make a stand against social and economic injustice and outrageous inequality, then you owe it to yourself to join this movement and to read these books. It is my sincere hope that you will be inspired to take decisive action against the rich and powerful who have nearly finished enslaving us all.

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Enjoy your July 4th, because if we don’t start forming an organized American resistance it could be your last!

A July 4^th Memo To America From a Concerned Citizen

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

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One of the primary purposes of this Web ministry is to stand against social injustice and economic inequality in all its forms, as well as the extreme immorality of waging warfare. I firmly believe that any minister who does not do these things is only doing half his or her job. In that case, all they would be doing is collecting a paycheck every Sunday morning for the sake of profit and materialism, forgetting that Jesus preached against this very thing over and over again. (But don’t take my word for it, it’s in all four gospels, go and read it for yourself. Anyone who doesn’t have a Bible should visit the “Contact Us” page on my website and ask for one. I will personally send you an Adobe/PDF version free of charge. Don’t forget to include your email address.) Although Jesus did take His ministry to the religious establishment of his day, which centered around the temple at Jerusalem and the Sanhedrin (or Hebrew ruling elect) of that time, he was rejected and ultimately executed by them just as the Old Testament prophets foretold. This compelled him to reach out to the poor and downtrodden, the outcast and the marginalized who otherwise had no voice at all. He ministered to the sick, the homeless, the addicted and the unemployed and all others who had nothing, with the knowledge that the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ is vastly superior to mere material possessions. I try my best to emulate this mind-set in my ministry and in the people I meet in order that my words and actions may most accurately imitate my Savior and the redeemer of my very soul, Christ Jesus the Lord.

 

In today’s world there is social injustice and what I call ‘enforced inequality’ everywhere we look. A veritable class war is ongoing here in the USA, throughout the Middle East, in Europe and in Asia that has the wealthy accumulating ridiculous amounts of wealth in a downright obscene orgy of greed, and all at the expense of the middle and working classes who are being economically decimated. This illegal and immoral accumulation of wealth is unparalleled in world history. The signs and indicators of these obscene amounts of wealth that has fallen into the hands of an elite minority are everywhere. Mass unemployment is at every turn and stands at stubbornly high levels. I am well aware that the US Labor Department just released figures last month stating that unemployment is at all-time lows. But if we look at the true levels of unemployment, which by definition must include those who are underemployed (working part time at one or more jobs when full-time employment is both desired and required) or those who have left the job market for good (like men and women in their middle 40’s and older such as what I experienced first-hand), the true level of unemployment exceeds 24% in the US alone, not counting the rest of the developed world. Instead of creating more jobs that are the hallmark of any economic recovery, fewer and fewer people are doing more work for less pay. The rest of US and European workers are increasingly finding themselves out in the cold, often literally.

 

In the meantime, those lucky individuals who still have jobs run the increasing risk of having their jobs out-sourced overseas for pennies on the dollar, or being replaced by workers being imported through H1B work visas to work for wages that are a fraction of their American counterparts. Those who are agile enough to avoid either fate will find themselves being replaced by robots and automation in 10 or 20 years. The government has been concealing this from its constituency for decades, but they can’t keep it a secret any longer, thanks in large part to the Internet. One thing is for certain – the centuries-old paradigm of working for money to buy or rent overpriced housing, not to mention overpriced food, clothing and oftentimes poor quality merchandise, is going to have to be replaced. This is simply inevitable. What is also inevitable is that this change will have to come from the bottom up rather than from the top down for obvious reasons. It will also mean the end of the capitalist economic system as we have known it, and the same goes for the current 2-party political system. Until then, the unending occupation of Afghanistan plus the clandestine wars being wage on every continent are costing the US government $6 billion dollars each day, money that could be much better spent here at home to create some badly needed new jobs.

Clearly this is unsustainable and will bankrupt the country if it isn’t stopped, if we are not there already. American capitalism and the American empire have run their course, and I maintain that capitalism and the American Empire as we have known them are on the deathbed of history where all empires go when they die. America is in decline while the former “third world” has become the developing world, and where even poor countries continue to develop rapidly. The combined economies of China, Russia, India, South Africa and Brazil will overtake the US economy by 2020 at the latest, with China in the lead. The US could change this trend by creating jobs through large public works programs to give US infrastructure a badly needed overhaul, and by an accelerated and invigorated space program. On the other hand, there must also be a program in place such as a civilian version of the GI Bill to retrain all the workers who are unable to find jobs, or who would like to change careers. What’s holding that back, you may ask? Political will power; and the people are just as guilty as those elected to lead. Let me illustrate why America can easily afford to do this. If the combined US military and intelligence communities set aside the financial expenditures equal to a single day’s cost of the occupation in Afghanistan and put the money into an interest-bearing account of your choice, there would be sufficient funds for a 4-year college education for every school kid in America, from pre-K to a high school senior inclusive. And that’s just from one day’s expenditures! So, those who say we can’t afford free public education from the cradle to the grave simply don’t know what they’re talking about.

 

But what do we have instead? American workers are being discarded like so much human scrap by multinational corporations as being no longer useful or too expensive to keep around, resulting in a wave of homelessness not seen since the 1930’s. The majority of today’s homeless population are college educated professionals, not stereotypical street bums, and that is a great social injustice, not to mention a colossal loss of human potential. This has been going on for so long now that America has become indifferent to it. I strongly wish to shake you all out of your indifference and complacency! If people don’t snap out of it and come to grips with the fact that we will all soon be facing financial oblivion, oblivion is where we will all soon be!!

So it is for all of the above reasons and because of my deep concerns that I say we don’t have much to celebrate this Independence Day. ‘America the Beautiful’ has become America the tarnished, America the bankrupt, America the ruthless drug dealer, America the hustler of oil, and America the unscrupulous arms merchant. I want no part of any of the above. I want to be part of the American resurgence, but also part of the American resistance. My country has been stolen by a cadre of very wealthy psychopaths, and like millions of others I too have come to that realization. Like all those other millions, I too have come to the realization that we will have to retake our country by force, since it will never be returned voluntarily. How that comes about remains to be seen, but we won’t have long to wait until we find out. Happy independence day, then, such as it is. Let’s all start planning how we can restore that independence which has been taken away. That’s when our true independence will begin!

National Health Care, Trump and the Bible: They’re Doing This All Wrong

President Trump, National Health Care and Jesus

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

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The ongoing debate here in America ever since Donald Trump announced he was a presidential candidate back in 2015, and that he was going to “repeal and replace Obama-care”, has reached a crescendo as of this past week as everybody knows. Moreover, the resulting infighting and partisanship, all of which is manufactured, amounts to little more than a systematic division of the American people by design. What many do not yet realize, however, is that this manufactured division of the people has already become weaponized. We see evidence of this glaring anomaly in American society every time Republican goes against Democrat, liberals butt heads with conservatives, and where ever hate groups of various kinds clash with each other. This is also evident whenever we see citizens clashing with the police. I’ve got some surprising news for those who hate the police, and especially those who shoot police officers – the police aren’t the problem, they’re merely part of the symptoms. The real problem is with those at the top. Put your guns down before they kill you!

The Bible has things to say about treating people brutally and government oppression of its citizens, as well as the enslavement of people for financial gain. The Bible says in the Book of Proverbs chapter 29, verse 7, “The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern”. That’s God’s take on poverty in a nutshell. “The poor you will always have”, Jesus said not long before His crucifixion, “but you will not always have me”. The poor are humankind’s responsibility, starting with the churches, and the churches have shirked their responsibility to render assistance to their surrounding communities by allowing the government to step in. This is the exact opposite of Christ, who healed thousands. During the early part of his 3 ½ year ministry his immediate predecessor, John the Baptist, had become imprisoned for refusing to stop preaching about Jesus. While awaiting sentencing for his “crime”, for which he received the death penalty, he inquired about his cousin Jesus and the status of his ministry, as the Bible relates it. “When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, ‘Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?’ Jesus replied, ‘Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.’” (Matthew 11, verses 2-6)

Jesus didn’t merely take responsibility for his ministry, he seized on it as if each one of us is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to perform great works on his behalf. Because, you see, that’s exactly who He is, and Jesus continues to do everything in the above 4 verses. Although we have state of the art medical care here in the US, even so the US has – globally speaking – by far the most expensive medical care and the highest priced prescription drugs. American medical care generates the highest profits because America charges its citizens the highest prices by far. Jesus, on the other hand, never charged anybody one stinking penny! Moreover, in case anyone hasn’t noticed, the very people who call national health care “socialism” are the ones who are profiting off the existing system the most. They’re afraid they’ll lose their cash cow.

Jesus also had lots to say about these same rich people and their cash cows (such as Wall St. and the Federal Reserve). But, one of his most famous and beloved comments comes from the Sermon on the Mount when the Redeemer of our souls said: “Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6, verses 19-21) The more attached we become to our material stuff and our accumulated wealth, the farther away we get from God. But it’s more than just stuff. We can become more attached to our spouse or significant other, to our children, to our careers, and even to recreational activities like water skiing, snow boarding, our boats and motorcycles, or fitness training. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of the above. But we must always put our personal relationship with Christ first (which should not be confused with religious belief) because it’s invariably the most important! I cannot overemphasize this crucial point!

But God gave all of us brains to think and reason with, and we know when we’re being had. No more will working Americans, together with its multitudes of unemployed, stand and stare or sit and grumble about having upside down loans on our houses and cars, and being the only developed nation on earth that refuses to provide national health care and higher education to its citizens! Exactly the opposite occurs in America, where financial institutions extract an ever greater portion of American wealth (in the form of student loans, unconstitutional taxes, etc.) and concentrate it into the hands of a small minority of multimillionaires! It is time for the middle and working classes to put our collective foot down and say ”no more”! The time has arrived for us to take back our country by any and all means possible! Yes, I know the Bible says we must obey the laws of our land (see Romans 13, verses 1-7). I am not suggesting for even one moment that we should stop doing this. But nowhere in the Bible does it say that Jesus expects us to be doormats for everybody, either (see Mark 11, verses 15-18). Didn’t God force Pharaoh to let the Israelites go from their captivity? Did God not motivate Rahab the prostitute to hide the spies sent from the Israelite encampment from the king of Jericho (see Joshua chapter 2)?

In much the same way, I believe the American people are being motivated by God in our modern times. Our ride to being set free from the slavery of low wages and high debt is now boarding at the gate. It is time for political power to be taken out of the hands of corporate America and their invading hordes of lobbyists and to place it back into the hands of “we the people”, the true owners of this great country of ours (talk about obeying the laws!). And we will do so knowing that God, history and our founding fathers are all on our side, because they left us with a sacred document known as the Constitution of the United States that guarantees us that right. Our free speech and freedom of expression that are guaranteed under the First Amendment, as well as our right to keep and bear arms and to form militias that are guaranteed under the Second Amendment, will not be compromised or trampled upon. Neither will our rights in the court systems, which are routinely violated for the sake of profit. We will demonstrate in the streets, we will besiege government buildings, we will bombard our congressional representatives with phone calls and emails, we will form new political parties, we will organize and build more labor unions, we will blockade wealthy neighborhoods, we will organize peaceful public events and non-violent sit-ins, we will call general strikes and consumer boycotts, and we will not stop until the balance of power in this country undergoes a paradigm shift back into the hands of hard-working Americans, as well as the millions of people who want jobs, health care or higher education but can’t get any of them!

 

Let there be no mistake, America is ripe for mass civil disobedience, even for outright revolution, and I say it’s about time. The conditions and circumstances in which the middle and working classes find themselves has become intolerable! Personally, I am a very patient and thoughtful man. I work hard each day to be slow to speak and quick to listen because I know from experience that there is much wisdom to be derived from living my life this way. But by the same token, I am a Christian man and Web evangelist who stands against oppression, social injustice and economic inequality, and whose patience is at its end. Just as surely as Jesus preached against the political and religious establishment of His day, in like manner I will do the same in the present day in order to emulate the man I regard as my personal Savior. So, if you truly care about the deteriorating state of our nation, if you are really concerned about the issues that we are faced with collectively as a people, and if you want to make a stand against social and economic injustice, and since it’s in all our best interests to do so, you owe it to yourself to stand up in the face of power and say, “That’s it! You’re done!!” You know why? Because if Jesus Christ were to return this very day, that’s what He’d say. And the ones who are having the homeless thrown in jail for begging for spare change would be the first ones Christ would send straight to hell!

To find books on these topics and other Christian nonfiction, please visit http://www.pcmatl.org/#!books-and-donations/c17et Thanks so much!

Renewing America As Progressive Christians Should

The USA Is Becoming A Failed State:

Seven Simple Steps to Turn It Around

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

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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 21^st 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” (1^st 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!