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Sec. of State Mike Pompeo’s Policies “a product of ideology compounded by ignorance”

Consortium News has a recent article  by Lawrence Davidson,  emeritus professor of history, discussing the role that Mike Pompeo’s zealous evangelicalism plays in shaping his policy vision as the U.S. Secretary of State.

It’s scary, folks…very scary.

The frighteningly common notion that America’s problems can be solved by placing more “Christians” (that is, my kind of Christians; not your kind of

Pompeo talks to reporters on his recent flight to the MIddle East

Christians) in government repeatedly leads to incompetent leadership and horrific policies.

But that doesn’t stop true believers in the exceptionalism of “Christian America” from committing the same mistakes over and over again.

Secretary Pompeo is yet another example of everything that can go wrong with American evangelicalism.  His corrupted theology is affected nations around the world, exposing them to the dangers I explain, condemn and try to correct in my book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America.

The article is entitled, “Mike Pompeo’s Deranged Foreign Policy.”  I have copied an excerpt below.  You can read the entire article here.

“U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo started out the new year—the date was Jan. 10—preaching “the truth” about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and for reasons we will get to below, he chose to do so at the American University in Cairo. He implied that he was particularly capable of discerning the truth because he is “an evangelical Christian” who keeps a “Bible open on my desk to remind me of God and His Word, and The Truth.” This confession indicates that Pompeo is wearing ideological glasses through which he cannot possibly see the world, much less the Middle East, in an objective fashion. We can assume that the decidedly unthinking and amoral president he serves has no problem with this prophet in the State Department because Pompeo is one of the few cabinet ministers whom President Donald Trump has not fired. 

“So what are Pompeo’s versions of foreign policy truth? In terms of his Cairo pronouncements, they are twofold. First, as is to be expected of a man of his temperament (he declared: “I am a military man” who learned his “basic code of integrity” at West Point), he has identified the true enemy of the civilized world. And, again not unexpectedly given his Christian zealotry, the enemy is of Muslim origin. It is the “tenacious and vicious” cabal of “radical Islamism, a debauched strain of the faith that seeks to upend every other form of worship or governance.

“This initial “truth” is noteworthy for what it does not take into consideration, such as traditional U.S. alliances with brutal and corrupt military or monarchical dictatorships. Any move to reduce support for such regimes in the Middle East is, in Pompeo’s view, a “misjudgment” that must have “dire results.” As long as these dictatorships oppose what Pompeo opposes, their brutality and corrupt

nature can be judged acceptable. For example, Pompeo praised his host, the military dictator of Egypt, Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil El-Sisi, who is an

Secretary Pompeo with Egypt’s military dictator Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil El-Sisi

archetypical example of this murderous breed of ruler. He praised El-Sisi exactly because he has joined the U.S. in the suppression of “Islamists.” The Egyptian dictator, in Pompeo’s words, is ‘a man of courage.’

“Pompeo’s second “truth” is the self-evident fact of American exceptionalism. He told his listeners that “America is a force for good in the Middle East.” Pompeo does not articulate the reference, but his claim taps into the Christian image of the U.S. as “a shining city on the hill”—a God-blessed light unto the nations. This was one of Ronald Reagan’s favorite themes. 

“As proof of American’s alleged beneficence, Pompeo makes a series of dubious claims about the behavior of the United States government. Here are a few. Comments within brackets are those of this author: 

“For those who fret about the use of American power, remember this: (No.1) America has always been, and always will be, a liberating force.” [Since World War II we have been liberating dictators from their own rebelling people.] (No.2) “We assembled a coalition to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein.” [The subsequent two Gulf Wars plus the U.S. imposed sanctions regime killed at least half-a-million Iraqis.] (No.3) “And when the mission is over, when the job is complete, America leaves.” [Unless the “liberated” countries’ government wants Washington to establish bases which, it seems, they almost always do. The U.S. now has some 800 military bases in 70 countries around the world.] (No. 4) The U.S. and its allies helped destroy most of ISIS, and in the process “saved thousands of lives.”[There is no official number for the civilians killed in the so-called war on terror, of which the campaign against ISIS is but a part. However, there is no doubt that, to date, it is at least in the high hundreds of thousands. ] (No.5) “Life is returning to normal for millions of Iraqis and Syrians.” [Unless you have a really perverse definition of “normal,” this is a total fantasy.]”

Christian Prayer vs. Magic, Part 1

(This is the first in a series of posts discussing the problems of confusing Christian prayer with magical incantation.)

God’s people have always been tempted to confuse prayer with magic. Bible readers will recall the Old Testament warning that the people of Israel steer well clear of witches, sorcerers and magicians (Deuteronomy 18:10).

Such warnings admit that the the temptation is real.  Impotent temptations are easily ignored, so warnings are unnecessary.  Only powerful allurements receive their own warning signals well in advance.

Magic is one of those.

Unfortunately, human nature has not changed.  Today’s church shares the same tendencies as ancient Israel in its predisposition to blend piety with (sometimes sizeable) doses of magic, to turn intercession into incantation.

The warning against magic is not only for us to stay away from the corner-store medium, crystal ball gazer or the neighborhood séance (though it certainly includes those temptations, too), but to respect the boundary separating Christian prayer from magical practices.

Human beings have always been characterized by impatience, impetuousness and an addiction to material goods such as wealth, power and success. This triumvirate of the tawdry conspire to stir up the human desire for control over God (or whatever spiritual forces we happen to believe in).

The Christian church is no different.

In any gathering of human beings, we will always find an amalgam of the good with the bad.  In any Christian congregation, we can see maturity and immaturity, faith and unbelief, genuine prayer and unadulterated magic masquerading as devotion – often as a more attuned, more insightful, deeper brand of devotion.

In my book, Knocking on Heaven’s Door: A New Testament Theology of Petitionary Prayer (Baker, 2006), I tell the story of a fourth century church father, John Chrysostom, who publicly commends an elderly woman in one of his sermons for refusing to resort to a magician’s help as she watched her only son die of an illness.

Placing all of her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, whom she believed was the one and only spiritual power listening intently to every one of her prayer requests, she waited to see what Jesus would do, regardless of the outcome.

Obviously, not everyone in Chrysostom’s congregation was as single-minded in their devotion as was this grieving mother.  That’s why he held her up as exemplary, the model of prayerful devotion that every other congregant should emulate.

Here’s the question:  Will we hold faithfully to Jesus, even when he says “No” to our most feverish requests?

Every Christian in the ancient world knew exactly where they might turn for a little extra help, especially in times of crisis, if their prayers remained unanswered, if their pleadings and petitions needed a power boost, some additional “uuumph” to speed them on their way to God’s throne.

Find a magician, perhaps a “Christian” magician.

There were lots of them available and plenty (or so it seems) of Christians went to them for help, especially when God’s apparent deafness put the entire process of Christian prayer in doubt.  Check out the book Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power (Harper, 1994) and read an ancient collection of magical “prayers” for yourself.

The 4th century pastor, John Chrysostom, was addressing a serious problem for his congregation.  It remains a serious problem for the church today.

The shape of modern Christian magic in the developed world may have changed, but the substance of Christian magic remains the same in both the developed and undeveloped nations.  Magical thinking permeates the church in a variety of ways, but it becomes especially evident in (a) the techniques that we teach people to use when they pray and (b) the role of faith that we urge them to embrace.

This is the first in a series of posts that I hope will help my readers to distinguish between Christian prayer as taught in the New Testament and magical prayers bastardized by the human penchant for quick solutions, visible results and the nurturing of a feeble faith that never wishes to be tested.

Combat U.S. Propaganda by Knowing the Facts

“Maduro is a dictator” is the latest product being churned out by the U.S. propaganda mill.

The best way to sift through the noise is to find alternative reports that offer details from the ground.  Here are links to two such sources debunking the myths of the American government and our media monopoly.

One, an article by Pascualina Curcio, “Venezuela: Is President Maduro ‘Illegitimate’? 10 Facts to Counter the Lies.”

 

Two, a video report by Abby Martin, “Venezuela’s Constituent Assembly: Dictatorship or Democracy?”

Read and listen and then ask the question:  is it more than a coincidence that American media feeds us a message resulting in public support for another U.S. instigated coup?

Then remember, what were the consequences of our other recent efforts at regime change in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya?

I’ll remind you:  they were not good.

Tell Your Elected Officials, “Hands Off Venezuela!”

The Alliance for Global Justice has created an online petition and letter writing campaign that allows you to easily tell your elected representatives that you oppose the current U.S. coup attempt in Venezuela.

You can sign the petition here as well as call or send a letter to your members of Congress.

Regardless of one’s opinion of the Bolivarian Revolutionary governments in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez or Nicolas Maduro, the U.S. has no business overthrowing foreign governments because we don’t like their policies.  There are many other avenues for addressing such issues.

Whether America likes it or not, or will admit it or not, Maduro was democratically elected by the people of his country.

But, of course, the U.S. has a long history of overthrowing democratically elected governments around the world whenever they possess abundant natural resources and the nation’s leaders dare to diverge from the mechanisms of U.S. economic control.

Check out this recent piece from MPN News, “US Backs Coup in Oil Rich Venezuela, Right-Wing Opposition Plans Mass Privatization and Hyper-Capitalism.”

Let your voice be heard.

 

No, Mr. President, Israel’s Border Wall Has Not Worked

President Trump regularly appeals to Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims about the supposed success of Israel’s border wall with the West Bank as ironclad evidence in favor of his own border wall plans with Mexico.

The problem is, it’s not true.

The wall dividing Israel from the West Bank has not “worked” to stop terrorism, but then that was never its actual intent.  It has, on the other hand, been very successful in accomplishing its actual purpose, which Israel will never acknowledge in public.

Here’s why:

First, it is true that after Israel began construction of its separation/annexation wall during the Second Intifada in 2000, terrorist attacks within Israel came to a slow but steady halt.  But in 2001, Hamas leaders (the organization headquartered in Gaza largely responsible for the suicide bombings) claimed that their decision was driven by internal, political considerations and had nothing to do with Israel’s wall.  Check out this 2001 article in the British newspaper, The Independent, “Hamas Orders Halt to Suicide Bomb Attacks.”

Of course, Hamas leaders could be lying about their motives in order to save face.  But I suspect not, for the simple reason that Israel’s wall is not much of a barrier to the determined terrorist.

I have seen people climb over the wall quite easily.

Long stretches of the wall are nothing more than a fence, mostly strung up in far-flung, isolated areas.  It would be easy for a would-be bomber to dig under, climb over or cut through this fence at any number of spots where they would never be seen, or long-gone by the time a border patrol appeared.

This is why I believe Hamas is telling the truth.  They chose to stop their bombing campaign because it was costing them support for their cause in the international community and creating division within the membership of the Palestinian Authority.

Second, regardless of all this, touting the awesome success of Israel’s “wall” makes for great P.R. among the Zionist community.  It also provides a good illustration of a classic logical fallacy.  It’s just a shame that logic never stood in the way of a Zionist hoping to score political points – especially when that Zionist’s name is Benjamin Netanyahu.

Perhaps you have heard of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy.  If not, I’ll clue you in.  It’s a Latin phrase meaning “after this, therefore because of this.”  Its purpose is to point out the invalid assumption that just because one event follows after another event, we cannot assume that the first event was the cause of the other.

Yes, the rooster crows every morning just moments before sunup.  That doesn’t mean, however, that Mr. Sunshine is hovering below the horizon, waiting for Mr. Rooster’s signal.

In other words, correlation is not proof of causation.

Just because suicide bombings ended soon after Israel began building its separation wall is not proof, in and of itself, that suicide bombings ended because of the wall.  We must search for other evidence to prove this claim to be either true or false.

I think that the wall’s easy permeability – any determined bomber could get through if he/she wanted to – tips the scales in favor of believing Hamas’ own explanation:  they chose to stop using that particular tactic.

So, NO.  When president Trump says over and over again that these walls are always 99.9% effective, he is simply one presidential blow-hard mimicking another presidential blow-hard’s propaganda point. But then, both of these men, Trump and Netanyahu, are 99.9% die-hard political opportunists and only 0.1% intelligent thinkers – and I suspect even that figure is too generous for Trump.

Third, without going into the background here, political Zionism has a very, very long history of believing in the need for a literal wall of some sort to isolate Israel from the bloodthirsty Arab hordes around them.  Their current isolation/separation/annexation barrier is the product of Zionist colonial racism.  If you want to learn more about this issue, read Avi Shlaim’s important book, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (W.W. Norton, 2000).

The only way in which this wall has actually “worked” has been its success in illegally expropriating more land for Israel, in stopping Palestinian farmers and herdsmen from tending their flocks, their fields and their orchards, in dividing villages and families.

Israel’s wall is only one more Zionist tactic for stealing Palestinian land and oppressing the people of the West Bank.

In that way, it works marvelously.

Why Christians Should Care About Venezuela. It’s Class Warfare, Folks.

What we are witnessing in Venezuela today is a classic demonstration of the most extreme expression of class warfare. (See my recent series on the class war in America here, here and here).

Let’s begin with two observations:

One, starting with the election of Hugo Chavez in 1999, the Venezuelan government has put an extraordinary amount of energy into improving the quality of life for its poorest members.   International capitalists haven’t approved of their methods, but then, they weren’t elected by the Venezuelan people.

Check out this article from The Guardian to see statistics on the dramatic improvements brought about by the Chavez-Maduro party in Venezuela’s levels of education, health care, poverty, infant mortality and unemployment.

Two, Americans in general, and Christians in particular, need to break out of our simple-minded binary (either this or that) way of thinking.  The world is more complicated. It rarely offers only two possibilities, e.g.  it’s either this way or the highway; it’s always America against the world; vote either Republican or Democrat; you either support another American coup in Venezuela or you are a communist who thinks there is nothing wrong with Maduro.

Christians must think differently!  

As citizens of God’s kingdom, we know that there is always another alternative.  We are obligated to look at this world through the radically alternative lens of Jesus Christ and his gospel.  This requires nuance, an understanding of alternatives, and stepping outside of the conventional “wisdom.”

So, an alternative option in this current situation is opposition to any and every U.S. attempt to manipulate and control the internal politics of a foreign country.

It doesn’t mean that we are blessing everything that the Bolivarian Revolution has done in Venezuela, but it must mean that as followers of Jesus (a) we applaud the government’s attempts to prioritize the needs of the poorest members of Venezuelan society, and (b) we oppose any actions intended to reestablish domination by wealthy elites inside the country and/or foreign, corporate powers like the U.S.A.

Jesus Christ never bludgeoned anyone into following him.   HE is our one and only model in life, not the realpolitik of American “strategic interests.”  Using force, deception, or cheating to get our way is not the way of Jesus Christ.

Anyone who wants to understand this world with the mind of Christ; to embrace his/her role as a citizen of God’s kingdom, now living in America; to grasp Jesus’ call to live lives of peaceableness and non-violence, will always oppose, in words and actions, any American attempt to spread more violence, war and social unrest by forcing its will onto other people in the world for its own selfish purpose.

Below are several brief videos offering a picture of the widespread, popular support Maduro has among the poor of Venezuela.

Here and here are two longer videos (about 30 minutes each) offering more detailed discussion of what is happening in Venezuela from long-time students of Venezuelan politics at The Real News.

 

Bill Van Auken Offers a Good Discussion of US Intervention in Venezuela

The Greanville Post has published a good article by Bill Van Auken explaining some of the history that has led up to the current coup attempt in Venezuela.  It’s entitled, “Washington Engineers Right-Wing Coup in Venezuela.”

I have posted an excerpt below.  You can read the entire article here.

“…Washington’s recognition of Guaidó as president constitutes a naked intervention by US imperialism with the aim of achieving its own predatory aims in Venezuela, which boasts the world’s largest proven oil reserves. At the same time, it is aimed at rolling back the influence in the hemisphere of Russia and China, which have both established close economic and political ties with Caracas.

“This regime change operation has been two decades in the making, from the abortive 2002 CIA-orchestrated coup against Maduro’s late predecessor, Hugo Chávez, under George W. Bush, through the imposition of sanctions by the Obama administration and its designation of Venezuela as an ‘extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.’ (emphasis mine)

“By in effect throwing US support to a rival government, the Trump administration is seeking to create the conditions for a military coup or even civil war within Venezuela as well as a US military intervention from without…

“It was revealed last year that US officials repeatedly met between the fall of 2017 and the beginning of last year with a group of Venezuelan military officers seeking US support for the overthrow of Maduro. These contacts failed to reach fruition because Washington believed that the conspiracy was insufficiently prepared…”

Another U. S. Coup Unfolding, This Time Against Venezuela

The U.S. has ramped up its hostilities against the democratically elected government of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.  America’s clandestine

President Nicolas Maduro

attempts at Maduro’s overthrow have culminated in open calls for a coup against him.

To be fair, CNN did publish a report describing American involvement in the recent attempt to kill Maduro; see the article “US officials secretly met with Venezuelan military officers plotting a coup against Maduro.”

Juan Guaido has Trump’s support

Trump has publicly “recognized” an opposition leader, Juan Guaido, as Venezuela’s real president.  Guaida unilaterally declared himself president with American support, despite the fact that he has never run for president and has never been elected president.  (Wow, is that how it works?  Maybe I should declare myself president?)

Maduro, on the other hand, has achieved both of these things, with a significant majority of the Venezuelan vote.

John Bolton, the current National Security Advisor, recently called Maduro “an illegitimate” leader who needed to be removed from office.

President Trump has imposed crippling sanctions against Venezuela which have helped to devastate its economy.  Check out the State Department’s website listing U.S. sanctions against Venezuela going back to 2014.

Economic sanctions can be seen as an act of war.

Listen to Maduro supporters reject America’s anti-democratic shenanigans:

What is happening now is the culmination of a long-standing American attack against a country that (a) elected to install a leftist government by a popular vote, (b) to nationalize its biggest industries rather than watch its natural resources continue to be exploited for American corporate profits, and (c) to shake itself free of the American Empire.

But as any good slave should know,  shaking your fist at “the master” is always a no-no.  And the America master will not stand for such disrespect.

If you have not been following recent events in Venezuela or know only the things repeated by American-based media, then a good way to catch up and become properly informed is to watch this video by the journalist Mike Prysner.

Mr. Prysner, who has spent considerable time in Venezuela, unlike the

Mike Prysner attending a Venezuelan political meeting

typical U.S. reporter, thoroughly addresses and debunks the most common pieces of misinformation, aka propaganda, being spread about Venezuela’s current problems.

If you are as disturbed as I am by America’s oppression of innocent people around the world, and the the rank hypocrisy of our government’s claims to “defend freedom” around the world, then please watch the video above and call your elected representatives.

Tell them to leave Venezuela alone!

Forward Magazine: “Does Israel Have the Right to Exist?”

Yousef Munayyer has an excellent article in the Forward entitled “‘Does Israel Have a Right to Exist’ Is a Trick Question.”  Mr. Munayyer provides an

Yousef Munayyer

excellent demonstration in critical thinking and the value of recognizing a leading question when asked.

Asking this question, do you recognize Israel’s right to exist?, is a favorite “go-to” strategy for Zionist apologists when debating critics of Israel.  It can arise in different forms.  Another favorite is the Zionist accusation that non-Zionist criticisms of Israeli policies “delegitimize” the state.

What does that mean, “to delegitimize Israel”?

The implied answer is that critics of Israel’s Zionist policies are denying Israel’s right to exist.  It’s another rhetorical trap.  Don’t fall for it.

Below is an excerpt from Mr. Munayyer’s article.  You can find the entire piece here.

“The truth is that no state has a ‘right to exist’ — not Israel, not Palestine, not the United States. Neither do Zimbabwe, Chile, North Korea, Saudi Arabia or Luxembourg have a “right to exist.”

“States do exist; there are about 200 in our world today, even though there are thousands of ethno-religious or ethno-linguistic groups.

“And these states don’t exist because they have a ‘right’ to. They exist because certain groups of people amassed enough political and material power to make territorial claims and establish governments, sometimes with the consent of those already living there and, oftentimes, at their expense.

“Most people understand this. I’ve never heard anyone demand to know whether Switzerland, or even the United States, has ‘a right to exist.’ States come and go over time; borders can change, names can change, regimes can change and yes, discriminatory systems underpinning regimes can change, too. But one state demands to be beyond reproach through a mythical ‘right to exist’: Israel.

“Can you imagine asking indigenous Americans and indigenous rights activists — fighting for the rights of a population whose languages, societies, culture and possessions were categorically decimated in the process of erecting the United States — whether the United States has a ‘right to exist’?

“That you can’t imagine this is testimony to the disingenuousness of the question. For this question is asked — almost always of critics of Israel’s policies — not for the purposes of debate and discourse, but rather, to create a gotcha moment, to undermine the credibility of the person questioned.

“It is intellectually dishonest and intended, almost always, to silence critics and criticism of Israeli policies.

“Worse, factors like the unfortunate though all-too-often-commonplace conflation of the State of Israel with Judaism and world Jewry, coupled with the awful history of persecution Jews have faced, mean that anyone who doesn’t answer the question about Israel’s right to exist with an unequivocal ‘yes’ risks being portrayed as an eliminationist radical worthy of labels like ‘anti-Semite’ and otherwise marginalized.

“In other words, it’s a set-up.

“Criticizing Israel’s policies toward the Palestinian people, including during its establishment and since, in the form of discriminatory policies against refugee repatriation, should never be conflated with eliminationism. The policies of all states should be open to criticism.

“…it is humans, not states, that have a right to exist. This includes all people: those who identify as Israelis and Palestinians alike, along with seven billion others.

“People also have a whole set of other rights — human rights, which states cannot deny. These include the right to free movement, the right to consent to being governed, the right to enter and exit their country, the right not to be tortured or collectively punished, and so on.

“It is by guaranteeing these rights and only by guaranteeing them that states derive their moral legitimacy; it is not from some mythical ‘right to exist’ or even the historical need of their people, but rather from the extent to which their policies respect the rights of people.

“The question should not be ‘Does Israel have a right to exist’ but rather, ‘Is the way in which Israel exists right?’”

National Budgets as Weapons of Class Warfare

(This is the final installment in my series on class warfare in America and the church’s failure to address its immorality.)

Budgets are moral documents.

How we budget our money, whether personally or as a nation, is determined by our priorities.  And our priorities are an expression of our ethics, our moral concerns.  As Jesus reminds us, your treasure is invested where your love is directed (my paraphrase; Matthew 6:21; Luke 12:34).

What we care about determines where and how we spend our money.

Which raises two important questions accompanied by a few implications concerning the politics of rising deficits and the ethical significance of Christian support for conservative  politicians.

First, what does it say about this country when approximately 25 cents out

President Trump signs the Republican tax plan

of every tax dollar is spent on the military-industrial complex?

For 2019, the total amount of defense spending is budgeted to be $951.5 billion; nearly 1 trillion dollars.  The military alone will receive $688.6 billion of that money.

When that budget item is combined with various other tidbits, such as our 800 military outposts in some 70 countries around the world, and our standing as the #1 manufacturer and exporter of military armaments around the world, it is hard not to conclude that the U.S. finds its moral raison d’etre in the maintenance and expansion of the American Empire, no matter the cost in human lives.

How else can we explain our persistent, even habitual, addictive, military interventions across the globe?  According to The National Interest, the U.S. “engaged in forty-six military interventions from 1948–1991, from 1992–2017 that number increased fourfold to 188.”

Those figures are incredible.

In light of the recent revelations regarding the mind-boggling, fiscal fumblings that pass for book-keeping at the Pentagon (see post #2), I suspect that no one has the slightest idea how much money has been spent on these continuously bloody exercises in global, American muscle-flexing.

But I do know this:  between 2001 to 2014 the wars and continued U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq alone cost the U.S. $1.6 trillion.  Spending on all of America’s post-9/11 wars reached $5.6 trillion by 2018.  A large portion of that expense is made up of the interest payments required to service the debt created by those wars.

Yep, America fights its wars, in large part, with borrowed money.

So, when was the last time Congress tried to stop another U.S. military intervention, another war, or another bombing campaign because we could not afford it; because it was another “unfunded mandate” not included in the budget; because it would grossly inflate the ballooning national debt?

To the best of my knowledge, this has never happened.  We always seem to find the money necessary for more war, which speaks volumes about the blood-thirsty American character.

Second, the national debt has become the most grotesquely manipulated budget item in our national conversation…but NOT for the reasons many suppose.

Ever since Ronald Reagan implemented the voodoo economic formula of “tax cuts for the rich + massive military spending = a growing national deficit” conservatives have eagerly used their feigned hysteria – feigned because they never complain when Republican presidents are creating this debt; in fact, as with the recent Trump tax overhaul, they applaud the creation of more debt – over the national debt as an excuse to cut the budgets of government social programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start and others.

The Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell – one of the more manipulative, cynical politicians ever to sully the halls of Congress – is

Sen. Mitch McConnell

already at it.

Not long after Congress passed both Trump’s disastrous new budget and his tax overhaul last year, Sen. McConnell began trumpeting the predictable, and wholly fallacious, lament that the growing national deficit is due to “the three big entitlement programs that are very popular, Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.”

But his conservative mantra bemoaning our “entitlement” programs as wholly responsible for the national debt is the Republican (and weak-kneed Democratic) equivalent of Chicken Little flailing her wings and crying, “They sky is falling!”

Not only is this warning a lie, even if it were true, it would be a predictable result of our immoral budget priorities, inhuman spending decisions flaunted by Congressional conservatives every time they take out their fiscal crowbars and pull the sky down onto the heads of America’s weakest members.

Let’s think clearly about this issue:

  • America does have a growing debt, but let’s be honest. That debt grows faster during Republican administrations.  That claim is not partisanship; it’s just a fact.  (I know, analyzing national debt is complicated. I am not suggesting that budget priorities are the sole cause of the national debt.  But because conservative arguments always make it the #1 issue, I make it my primary focus.)

Sorry for the poor quality of the following image.

This is class warfare.  It is the weaponization of our national budget, using it to bludgeon the poor while enabling the rich.  It is the very behavior that God’s Old Testament prophets condemned as deserving of God’s judgement.

Some of the richest members of our society – remember that Congress is composed largely of millionaires (see post #1) – decide to give more and more of our tax dollars to support the expansion of American Empire and protect its multi-national, corporate investments around the world.  (Read The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government, by David Talbot, for a shocking account of the CIA’s history of shameless dirty-work performed in obedience to America’s richest, corporate task-masters.)

At the same time, those millionaire politicians ask the richest Americans to contribute less and less to assist the country’s most needy members.  See here and here about the vast level of economic inequality in America and the global economy.)

Then these very same millionaires have the unmitigated gall to accuse senior citizens and the poor of inflating our debt burden and insisting that the only solution is to cut their benefits.

Really?!  Are you kidding me?

To make matters worse, most evangelicals, who overwhelmingly vote for conservative, Republican candidates, mindlessly support this God-forsaken economic hocus-pocus.

Not only is it all a tawdry display of narcissistic political theater, it is a heartless strategy to balance the budget-breaking expense of American Empire on the trembling backs of society’s weakest members; to rip food from the mouths of children whose only healthy meal comes through a school lunch program in order to shovel new, despoiling delicacies into the voracious, gaping maw of the American war machine, endlessly thirsting for more blood.

I am sorry, but I must be emphatic.

Every follower of Jesus Christ, every disciple who is serious about conforming themselves to the image of a crucified, suffering Savior, has no choice but to decry the politics of America’s ever-expanding global warfare in the cold-hearted pursuit of America’s intensifying class warfare.

Voting matters.  Why do most evangelical voters use theirs to oppress the poor at home and to wreak havoc around the world?