On America: A View from Abroad
Many ordinary Americans are disabused and outraged – as well they might be. America has gone bankrupt. It has lost a trillion-dollar war in Iraq against the CIA-produced and British and French-armed Saddam Hussein. It is embroiled in a futile war in Afghanistan against CIA-trained taliban, China grows stronger daily and America’s enemies in Iran, North Korea and now Yemen, are far more dangerous than ever Iraq or Afghanistan were. And, largely since the invasion of Iraq, the USA has earned hatred all over the world.
Even worse than all this, Americans are going bankrupt not only nationally, but also personally. Millions of houses are ‘foreclosed’, 10% are unemployed and factories have moved to Mexico and elsewhere, as American Big Business abandons ordinary Americans. On top of this, an administration is in power which daily increases America’s national debt, encourages abortion, stem cell research and, to many, appears to be pro-Muslim, socialist and in hock to the politically correct. Where will it all end?
Perhaps, God forbid, it will even end like decadent and anti-Christian Europe. Here, the British government, bankrupted by its irresponsible government, deregulated banks and unwanted and unwinnable wars launched by the warmonger Blair, is now in such a state that it cannot even defend itself and has to combine its armed forces with those of equally bankrupt France.
The order of the day for many in the US is revolt, not just against the Democrats, but also against the Republicans, who are no longer Republicans and as a Party appear to be as corrupt and compromised as the Democrats. Indeed, was it not the Republicans who bankrupted America with their futile wars and allowed banks to do whatever they wanted? Even if the Big Business Republicans do take over the Tea Party movement with their populist xenophobia, that will not make the real pain of grassroots Americans go away.
The fact is that, true or not, the above is what many tens of millions feel and it is therefore true for them. Of course, it is also true that many of the above views are not shared by other Americans. Nevertheless, they do represent what many feel, just as in Europe, where many feel the same way about the unelected EU government. This also appears to be a Big Government, a deeply corrupt and unaccountable money-consuming machine which no-one wanted but was imposed on us from above, with its federal tyranny, out-of-control bureaucracy and deeply anti-Christian ethos.
However, it may be wondered if those who follow the Tea Party have seen who their real enemies are. Muslim anti-Americanism comes from the occupation of Palestine by the American proxy State of Israel, which would never have existed without its annual lifeblood of billions of US taxpayers’ dollars. Then again, the greatest feeder of Muslim fundamentalism are the printing presses of America’s ally, Saudi Arabia, a country which tortures and kills Christians and does not allow a single church on its soil. Yet those printing presses are financed by the Saudi Royal family. As for the outrages of 9/11, they too were carried out by Saudis. And as for the taliban of Afghanistan, they are also supported from another American ally – Pakistan. And the menace of Iran has been fostered by the US invasion of Iraq, which was the only regional counterbalance to Iran.
The Democratic Party may not be palatable to many Christians in the USA, but is the Republican Party? Millions of abortions took place under it during its eight years of George Bush. He did not stop them. Neither did he stop the disease of credit (‘the American way’) which indebted Americans personally and almost destroyed the US banking system. Neither did he stop spending billions of dollars, meddling in and propping up ultra-corrupt puppet regimes abroad, as in the Ukraine and Georgia, further indebting the USA.
As a result of disillusion with Republicanism, US Christians may be tempted to join the Tea Party. Yet one of its main movers, Glenn Beck, confesses Mormonism – as far removed from Christianity as Islam. The Tea Party also refers constantly to the founding fathers of the US. But they were slaveowners, freemasons and deists, whose God was not the Christian God. Indeed, one of their ideologues, Tom Paine, was even a virulent atheist. As Glenn Beck said recently at a Tea Party rally in Washington: ‘Man rules himself – this is the American idea’. This may – or may not – be the American idea. But it is certainly not the Christian idea, which is: ‘God rules man’.
The little people of America are outraged – and understandably so. But have they not been hoodwinked, not only by Democrats and Republicans, but also by others who refer only to recent history? Have they not been tricked, not just in recent decades, but from the very beginning? The founding fathers were no saints, but we would suggest that until Americans base themselves on saints, holy fathers and holy mothers, they will not find solutions to their problems. In other words, if American Christians want to be really radical, they must refer to the roots of Christianity, not just human inventions and fashions of the last 250 years.
Nearly 100 years ago, a huge British ship, the Titanic, sank in the North Atlantic when it hit an iceberg. The Titanic, the pride of the British Empire, the ‘unsinkable ship’, sank swiftly and hundreds perished because there were not enough lifeboats on board. This was a warning to Great Britain. The warning was ignored and, in its hubris, Great Britain continued its policy of injustice, exploitation and world domination. Five years later, in 1917, Great Britain was humiliated, went bankrupt and was rescued by the USA.
So began the twentieth century, the American century. The sinking of the unsinkable, the collapse of English-speaking Britain and its Empire in just a few short decades, should surely be a warning to the English-speaking USA. No Political Party can save America – unless it tells its electorate that the time has come for humility and repentance. And political parties, ever the crowd-pleasers, do not do that. But the warning is there. A house that is built on sand, and not on a rock, is soon washed away:
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it (Matt. 7, 27).
