Back to Basics

America’s involvement in the Middle East is due as much to the support of the military as to determination of Evangelists.

(PASO ROBLES, Calif.) - In the 1950's and 60's, banks were not permitted to operate beyond state lines. All that changed, and we have seen what happened; banks too large to fail have also become obscene payers of bonuses to employees that adds them to a list of nouveau-rich at the expense of ordinary people. It is time to get back to basics.

Billions of dollars that should more wisely be spent may not be. And now the Supreme Court has added its voice in the interest of bigness and aristocracy, to what once was the best defense against such intended prolificacy. The result can only be to give power to the Republican Party - the Party of Jesus - so that Evangelists can gather to themselves again [what they‘ve always wanted] the ability to dictate how Americans should live - according to their version of Christianity - by returning America to the Dark Ages when religion reigned supreme.

Republicans have used every opportunity to install its believers in positions of political authority who support their goal from the Supreme Court down to the media. The Evangelical Holy See calls the shots, and virtually every political appointment must meet its Divine approval, as did Geo. W. Bush who viewed his office as an extension of the will of Jesus. But Jesus is not the Universal God; Christianity is a construct of a Judaic cult; an Institutional religion whose purpose it was [and is] to elevate the One God of the Jewish Nation to the level of One God of All Nations. But the Republican Party is geared to elevating itself to the constant Leader of the American Nation.

Confusion is the engine that drives the Party which regards Jesus as the epitome of God’s Universal Nature [N], which he is not. The difference between the Universal [Neutral] God versus the nature [n] of man’s “Institutional Gods” can be demonstrated by Earth’s water-cycle. Moisture rises from oceans to fall on every level of earth’s surface as rain, ice or snow from whence it eventually flows back to the sea, in the same way as souls revert to their beginning by which the span of every life is measured.

God doesn’t manage the functions; His neutrality allows human intelligence and natural events to decide events. People decide where they shall live! If overpopulation dictates the choice, residence often is one of necessity that eventually can be catastrophic. If it appears to be by design, it is because those who cannot know impose their super-righteous pretensions of an Institutional religion and God on the minds of conditioned individuals. Hurricane Katrina and the New Orleans fiasco proved the point when Geo. W. Bush, who believed that with “God in His heaven, all’s right with the world,” found that what he believed lacked something to be desired, and lost his taste for the job.

Christianity promotes fecundity within its ranks to produce offspring, especially in large numbers, to add to its followers, and is against any sort of what it claims is abortion, including contraceptives, as being contrary to the will of its Institutional God. Mother used to say, “the rich get rich and the poor get children,” which lends purpose to needed decreases of populations as well as human catastrophe. Yet, the best of circumstances and judgment, cannot avoid the vagaries of Nature, as was proven in Haiti. And one is left to ponder - if logic is insufficient to the need - who, or what, is to blame for the excessive loss of life from natural disaster, a neutral God, or man whose insistence misses the point? The earth is a work in progress, and man’s mind must solve the riddle or else!

God’s Universal domain extends hundreds of light years beyond earth making Him an inscrutable Being or force not limited to earthly interpretation. Pat Robertson is just one of many evangelical pretenders who will impose ludicrous views on others if they let him. When Pat says Haiti’s earthquake is a punishment by God of the people of Haiti for having made a pact with the devil in the 1800's, he speaks not for the Universal God but for Christianity’s Institutional God [Jesus] of whom he is a devout pretender.

Rod Parsley of Cincinnati, Ohio is another whose musings exceed all logic. He claimed that Christianity’s God expects American Christians [not every Christian] to destroy Islam. America was swept into the Iraq War on the wave of Rod Parsley’s absurdity, helped in his warped design by “slam-dunk” George Tenent head of the CIA and the DOD‘s Rumsfeld and cohorts and the military, plus Attorneys General and others appointed by President Bush who would support him and the Republican Holy See’s agenda, even to the extent of denying Americans some of their Constitutional Rights.

Jesus is a symbol; True God is neutral, and the American big bonus nouveau-rich a bought commodity. It and the Republican Party seem not to realize the meaning of “noblesse oblige” which within espouses responsibility: “the idea that people born into the nobility or upper social classes must behave in an honorable and generous way toward those less privileged.” The favored and elected persons are less responsive to the concept because they were not born to it. But the example of Republican Party loyalty - the Party of “No” - ought to convince the rest of us that people can be bought!

America’s involvement in the Middle East is due as much to the support of the military as to determination of Evangelists. The Bush Administration created an ”Axis of Evil” against which Americans must fight rather than use diplomacy. Where is the logic in such a conclusion?

Military Academies exist to train graduates to fight wars, but not all do it with as much will as do others. If the Administration favors war over peace, the Commander in Chief [the President] - who may also be a born again Christian, as was Geo. W. Bush - could be most persuasive, as he was in the case of Iraq. Nevertheless, many retired high-ranking officers whose retirements are secure, sided with the opposition. The purpose of the Iraq War was ill-defined, and in spite of insisting it must be won before our troops are withdrawn, there was left the lingering question of the exact meaning of “winning.”

Barack Obama has been in office more than a year now, and some 130,0000 troops are still stationed in Iraq. Iraqis continue to kill each other as has been their nature for centuries. American lives have been lost, and many wounded left in a condition nearly as severe as death. The cost continues to mount, as it does in Afghanistan, which if equal to Iraq is enormously costly in lives and money; for what? To defeat Islam? Not likely.

President Obama inherited the full burden of what Christianity and its disciples created to advance the ongoing Republican agenda. His domestic Healthcare reform is on the ropes, and Haiti’s Port-au-Prince human disaster has added to his dilemma. The Party that got him into this mess criticizes him as being fiscally irresponsible, and his popularity and programs languish even to the extent members of his own party won't support him. Had the President dealt head-on with reality as he promised he’d do in his campaign, instead of trying to be all for all, he and America would be better off today.

Charity begins at home. The cost of maintaining two armies in foreign lands, plus America’s commitment to Haiti is unsustainable. Cut our losses quickly, except in Haiti which is a humanitarian endeavor. More important things need to be done, and reducing expenses tops the list. Improving Homeland Security at home is surely cheaper than chasing elusive bad guys all over the world where they are taking root. More can be gained by cementing America’s International relationships and by insisting Iraq and Afghanistan go it alone. President Obama gives his State of the Union Address tonight and it will be interesting to see if he appreciates these truths by actions that will get the American people behind him again.

P.S. I am pleased with the president’s State of the Nation speech in which he said “the war in Iraq is over, and we are going to bring our troops home;” [not all, but most] by this fall and the remainder by the end of next year.

At first the Republican bloc sat quietly while Democrats applauded, but by the end of the speech it looked as if Obama was beginning to reach some Republicans. It remains to be seen if he swayed any to renounce their obedience to Party demands. The audience at least was pensive and seemed seriously to be taking in the meaning of what he said.

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Kenneth G. Ramey was a 79-year old "writer without a Website" who is generating excellent, provocative articles on the subject of religion and world affairs. We are pleased that Ken's "lone wolf" presence as a writer in the world has been replaced by a spot on our team of writers at Salem-News.com. Raised in Minnesota and California during the dark years of the Great American Depression, Ken is well suited to talk about the powerful forces in the world that give all of us hope and tragedy and everything in between. You can write to Ken at: darken1@sbcglobal.net