Occupy's 3rd anniversary is all this month, and it's here to stay

We Are the 99%: The Focus of Our Rage (part two)

by Rev. Paul J. Bern

At the conclusion of the first half of this essay last week, the topic was free health care. Not that I wish to demand a handout from anyone or anything, it's just that good health through preventative medicine is a basic human right for everyone, not just for those who can afford the insurance premiums and the medical debt that is sure to come after one's wellness is restored. The question remains then: How does the US catch up with the rest of the developed world when it comes to universal health care? Every developed country in the world has free health care for its citizens – the US is the only exception. Also, how do we do this within the framework of the existing US health care system(s) in order to conserve on start-up costs and minimize overhead? The plan I proposed back in 2012, in a book I self-published (“The Middle and Working Class Manifesto”), is simple: Take all currently available medical care in all its forms and put it under one umbrella, so to speak. Merge Medicare, Medicaid, government health insurance for civilian employees at the state and federal levels, the military and Congress' (including the President's) health care plans, plus the entire Veterans Administration hospital system into an enhanced Medicare program (private insurance excepted) so that no one is left out. Next, streamline the new Medicare health care system by eliminating any and all duplicate departments, and make it an on-line, Internet-based and paperless system utilizing leading edge information technology in order to lower operating costs and cut way down on paperwork. And third, once this new on-line system gets rolled out and becomes available to everyone, we'll simply eliminate Medicaid so that all persons will have unconditional access to the same level of care, from the President down to the dishwasher at your favorite restaurant. And now, before I move on, let me point out another equally big advantage to having a universal health care system such as this.

Having the government take over the administration of health care for the entire country is a solution that is long overdue. Don't worry about what might happen to the existing insurance industry, it isn't going anywhere and I will explain why in the next paragraph. Allowing a proposed universal health care system to work in this manner (and so-called 'Obamacare' comes up way short of what's needed) would take the burden of providing health insurance for its employees off the backs of businesses, substantially enhancing the profit margins of all US companies both great and small. This will give the American economy – together with US businesses – a far greater financial shot in the arm than any government tax cut could ever hope to. In the process, making US medical care into a series of nonprofit entities will bring American health and wellness up to 21^st century speed with comparatively nominal operating costs.

So what happens to the existing insurance industry? These very companies will be the ones who will administer this new digitized health care system. They will do so by way of a competitive bidding process to ensure that costs are kept under control, effectively farming out the day-to-day operations of the health care program. The companies with the lowest bids will get the contracts, which will be brought up for renewal periodically – say, every 3 years. Running the new universal health care system this way will ensure that only the best insurance companies will be administering the program, and that the remaining marginal or substandard insurance companies be ultimately either forced to improve or go out of business.

The fourth and final main thing I want to write a couple of paragraphs about is that of economic inequality, or what I called in my first book “enforced inequality”. Class warfare has been declared by the top 1% against the rest of us, meaning the 99% who are losing our jobs, our homes, our cars, our savings and eventually our health as the enforced liquidation of the US middle and working classes continues. What is needed is a peaceful and orderly redistribution of wealth that is done in a non-violent manner. So how do we accomplish this without starting a brawl? I have a couple of ideas, but the first step for America would be to enact an all-new tax system, abolishing the federal income tax and replacing it with a national sales tax. This proposed new tax system will be a 2-tiered system, with the national sales tax – or consumption tax – set at 9% (excluding groceries, fuel, utilities, wholesale goods, raw materials, and all government entities). Why 9%, you ask? Well, according to some data that I obtained from the IRS, as well as from the alternative news media, the average personal income tax rate in 2013 was roughly 18%, so I am proposing cutting that rate in half.

The second part of this proposed new tax system will be what I call an “excess wealth tax” for the mega-rich on Wall St. and elsewhere, and for any financial transactions that are over a certain limit. For individuals, there would be no income tax on their first $1 million in earnings, but anything above that gets taxed at a rate of 50%. So, a wealthy household or individual who made $25 million last year would pay no tax on the first $1 million, but they would pay $12 million on the remaining $24 million. For businesses, the proposed consumption tax rate is even more generous, with the first $700 million in earnings tax free, and a tax rate of one-third on anything over and above that. So, a company that made $1 billion dollars in profits the previous tax year would pay no tax on the first $700 million, but they would pay $100 million on the remaining $300 million, and so on. On the other hand, a multinational corporation that had $300 billion in gross proceeds in a given year would also pay a rate of one third, so their tax rate would be $100 billion. As a result, all itemized deductions would come to an end, greatly simplifying the process. Ditto for the estate tax and capital gains tax, both of which would be replaced by this proposed Excess Wealth tax. The alternative minimum tax and self-employment tax would also be eliminated, replaced by the national sales tax. And the motivation under the current unfair system to stash trillions in profits in overseas bank accounts would become a moot point, generating still more revenue while cutting the tax rate as it stands today. (update: there is a bill circulating in Congress as I write this that would make such shady financial shenanigans illegal – outcome TBD.)

Under this plan, there is ample incentive for the rich and big business to get enthused about these ideas. First, the necessity of providing group health care would go away for US businesses (due to my proposed Medicare-for-all system), followed by the repeal of the federal income tax. All the money being spent on income taxes and group insurance could be put back into these businesses, making them more competitive and better funded than ever before. In fact, I would estimate that such a move by the federal government would go a long way toward making America very competitive in the global economy because the costs associated with operating a business will drop so drastically due to the elimination of these two primary expenses. And second, the “excess wealth tax” that I just proposed would still provide sufficient funding for costly government institutions like the military and the space program, not to mention the cost of public reeducation and the public works projects I mentioned previously. Finally, this proposed excess wealth tax would go a long way toward making room for a higher minimum wage a reality as a legal and orderly means of wealth redistribution in the US. Even if raising the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour (not $10.10 an hour, Mr. President, that is woefully inadequate) does not get passed into law (at least for now), the repeal of the income tax will still give every American worker an average 18% pay raise immediately (not counting the benefits of repealing corporate income taxes). Now that's what I call genuine economic stimulus!!

Another way to peacefully redistribute wealth is by converting unwanted or surplus housing and commercial or office structures into residences, live-work-play developments, green or urban garden space, or new worker-owned businesses such as cooperatives. One of the things that can and should be done with my proposed national public works program is to get rid of all the empty, boarded-up houses that have been abandoned to foreclosure and neglect. Put all the homeless and jobless to work remodeling this otherwise worthless real estate. There are millions of unemployed construction workers who would love to get a chance to do something like this, so why not let them (especially if they have families)? And when they are finished rebuilding them, let them live in them and so revitalize America. Reward them by turning them into homeowners. This is how we can end unemployment and homelessness while turning around the US foreclosure crisis. We can do the same with health care and with higher education. Make them both available to everyone unconditionally as a way to enforce economic equality and social parity. This is how we can redistribute American wealth in a peaceful and nonviolent manner, and in so doing set a good example for our kids and grand-kids. The days of making good health care and higher education available for only those who can afford it must come to an end. That is unfair, discriminatory, it is a social injustice and therefore a civil rights violation of the worst magnitude. To tell anyone that they are ineligible to receive either good health care or quality education because they can't pay the tab should be a crime.

In closing, everybody deserves to have an income and a livelihood. It is cruel and mean-spirited to tell anyone that they are no longer needed nor wanted, or that they are overqualified, or that they can't be hired because there is allegedly no money to pay them while corporate America sits on trillions of dollars in excess cash, much of it overseas. If unemployment is brought to an end using the methods and ideas that I have written about, poverty, hunger and crime will be very nearly brought to an end as well – not in a matter of decades, but rather just a few short years, or the time that it takes them to finish their (free) education. We already have the means to do this, so it would be irresponsible and immoral for us not to act. However, some will say, “I've been looking for a job for years and I haven't found anything.” I have found this to be particularly true among older workers, minorities and people of color. Having experienced this myself in the recent past as a worker in his late 50's, I know exactly what these people are going through. To call these situations stressful would be a gross understatement.

Brothers and sisters, friends and followers, if you are experiencing this now, this is not your fault. Your government, together with some of this country's most well-known institutions such as the US public school system, the 1%-'ers and the Wall Street multinational corporations and their bankers, have let you down. All the jobs that could be outsourced overseas have already been sent away, never to return. The ones that couldn't be outsourced were mostly downsized out of existence, ending millions of careers prematurely. It is for these reasons that we are now protesting in the streets and occupying America in New York, Boston, Washington, DC and Atlanta, and Ferguson, Mo., among others. Because the truth of the matter is that since these jobs aren't coming back, we as a country should be making new ones, and this should have started decades ago. America has a lot of catching up to do in the area of job creation. The good news is that there are new industries currently being born that can replace all those lost jobs that I wrote about with room to spare. Green industries like solar power, windmill power generators, the construction of a low-voltage national electrical grid and of fusion reactors, not to mention biotechnology, stem cell research, nanotechnology, robotics, seashore desalination plants for an endless supply of clean water, and a greatly expanded and revitalized space industry, all are the new growth industries of the 21^st century.

Seriously, people! We first landed on the moon in 1969, took our last trip there in 1972, after which our country's “leadership” mysteriously gave up and quit. This was alleged at the time to be due to insufficient funding, but if the US hadn't been involved with the war in Vietnam, America could easily have afforded to continue NASA's Apollo program. The immoral and strategically questionable occupations or wars in Iraq and Afghanistan today are preventing our country from returning to space in much the same way as Vietnam did. It's all a matter of the proper allocation of resources. So when do we start a grassroots campaign to stop the wars overseas so we can fund our needs at home? How much longer are we going to delay? How about starting today?

Once that serious matter is taken care of, the next step will be for us to decide how to allocate all the money the country will save by ending the wars overseas and bringing our troops home. All right, check this out. We are supposed to be in the space business already! Hello! Instead, we debate among ourselves whether or not women should have abortions, or whether gay marriage is acceptable or not. Speaking as an independent Internet preacher of the more radical kind, if we are serious about wanting to lead good lives and to be productive contributors towards the common good, then we need to be creating jobs and helping to rebuild people's lives. We need to be helping people regain their sustenance and self-sufficiency. I also am appalled that the mainstream church is so against abortion while being in favor of the death penalty and of waging war, a contradiction if ever there was one. I am equally appalled at the mainstream denominations for their condemnation of gay marriage while the divorce rates for evangelicals are about the same as for the secular world. Again, these are glaring contradictions to their faith, to say the least.

OK, so let's do something constructive in Jesus' name. Here's one way we can fix our public schools and accelerate the start-up of all these new 21^st century businesses, all at the same time. First, government and business should get together and find a way to give large grants to these fledgling companies that are already started up in one form or another. They need start-up capital, and they're not going to find it at the bank branch down the street. Government can and must step in. Our only alternative is to become a second-rate country, a has-been of military and economic power. The other thing that needs to be done is to start training future astronauts now. Update public school curriculum, and put it on-line. Turn the public schools into an Internet-based system that is paperless and that doesn't need to buy expensive textbooks every year (save the trees!). Then, start teaching the kids skills that they will need for a technology-based world and a digital workplace, with an emphasis on science and math. Start teaching them to be astronauts when they're 12 years old, because by the time they graduate from college there will be thousands of astronauts needed, not just a select lucky few like today. Allow me to tell you why in just one paragraph.

At the peak of the US space shuttle program, NASA was launching about three missions per year. Having witnessed – over the last couple of years – the ongoing privatization of space by unmanned cargo shipments to the International Space Station, I can tell you that by the end of this decade there will be about three launches per week instead of per year. Ten years after that in 2030 there could easily be more than 3 launches per day, and so on. The time to begin getting ready for our space-faring future is now. Train our children by making the space sciences a part of their curriculum, and then do the same with the adults. Retrain everybody who can't find work, or who needs a career change, and pick up the tab just like the GI Bill that was passed by Congress after the end of World War 2. Performing this service for America's workforce will literally lift them all up to the next level and make it much more competitive. I have heard people complain over and over again that “we can't compete” with some dude in China who does the same job we do for $2.00 a day. What America needs is new careers to replace those that have been eliminated. We not only have the capacity to do this already, we are way behind and America has a lot of catching up to do. But we are Americans. Our skills and work habits are second to none, and the same goes for US institutions of higher learning. We can and will succeed if only we will unite together in this effort. Let's all get started today!

This week's Bible study will be the second half of 1st Corinthians chapter one

Man's Wisdom Is Foolishness To God

[1^st Corinthians 1, verses 18-31]

In today's lesson we will finish up the first chapter of First Corinthians in our continuing series on the writings of the apostle Paul. In last weeks lesson we went into detail regarding Paul's appeal to the early church for unity among its members. But in the second half of chapter one, Paul changes gears and talks about the definition of wisdom from God's viewpoint, and how man's definition of wisdom is considered by God to be foolishness. I'm beginning today's lesson from where we left off last week, starting at verse 18.

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.' Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block for Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.” [I Corinthians 1: 18-25 NIV]

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” There are those unfortunate individuals who simply refuse to believe in Jesus, or who deny that He was the Son of God who rose from the dead on the morning of the third day, and who scoff at Christianity. Many of these people who refuse to believe are atheists. While I will respect their opinions, the whole idea of there being no God at all is very foreign to many, including myself. Any person who says there is no God is really saying that mankind is the highest form of life and intellect in existence. Personally, I don't believe that for one second. There has got to be something more, and so I do not believe that mankind is the end of all things. Besides, in the very next sentences Paul writes, “'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.' Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” Albert Einstein, arguably one of the smartest men who ever lived, is incomparable to God in terms of wisdom and discernment. Paul wrote those words 1,900 years before Einstein lived.

But look at what Paul wrote in the very next sentence. “For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.” To explain this I can just say it another way: The world, wise though it may be in its own way, did not know God spiritually or intellectually. But God made the world to be this way because it pleased Him to do so. Because only in this way could He then make a path of salvation back to himself through His Son Christ Jesus. By the same token, God was similarly pleased with men who preached without the baptism of the Spirit (more on that later in a separate study), not because they did so willfully but rather because they had been unaware of the existence of Spirit baptism. In other words, the Spirit of the Lord can cause men to act as if they were in the Spirit whether they have received the baptism of the Spirit or not. One does not need to go to a church in order to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. God will continue to do so as He continues to pour out His Spirit upon all humankind here in the last days on earth as we have known it, as it is written in the Old Testament: “... And afterward I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will turn to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved; for on Mt. Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the survivors whom the Lord calls.” (Joel chapter 2, verses 28-32, NIV)

“For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.” This bit of Scripture is a continuation of where Paul quoted further above from the book of Isaiah chapter 29 and verse 14; “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” And again it is written in the Old Testament, “Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor?” Such are the stark reminders of man's place in the universe. Paul then continues this train of thought and picks up where he left off in verse 26:

“Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of this world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God – that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: 'Let him who boasts boast in the Lord'.” [I Corinth. 1: 26-31 NIV]

In the first sentence Paul is reminding the early Christians of where they were before they were saved. In the same way, we Christians are to be doing the same thing today. We should be ever mindful of where and what we were at before we were saved, especially spiritually. But God then reassures us through Paul's words: “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of this world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him”. All those people who are in the highest echelons of government and of organized religion think they have things all figured out. They are sure that they know what is best for the rest of us. You can be sure that they boast about that among themselves. But it is the rest of us who know that God is in control. “Therefore, as it is written: 'Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.'”

So now we have an improved way to keep a better perspective on things. We know what true wisdom is and its origin. And we know that part of true wisdom is recognizing the fact the we are very insignificant compared with God, and that we should never second-guess God. Instead we are to keep focused on Him and on His Word as a guide through life. Let's all start doing this together today as we draw closer to Him so He can be closer to us. And next week we'll move on to chapter two. Shalom!

It's the 3rd anniversary of the Occupy and 99% Movements. Happy anniversary!

We Are the 99%: The Focus of Our Rage (part one)

by Rev. Paul J. Bern

On this third anniversary of the Occupy and 99% Movements, I have given a lot of thought and engaged in plenty of research regarding the plight of middle America, and what should and should not be done to bring the top 1% in line with the rest of us. Having written two books about this topic, I will now attempt to spell out the basics of what we want, and why working Americans of all kinds have continued the “Occupy” protests that are springing up all over the world (such as in Ferguson Mo. recently). We all want basically the same things. We want all the legalized bribery out of politics. This can be accomplished by strict regulation of the lobbyist profession at the very least, but most likely we should consider outlawing the lobbyist profession as it currently operates. If Washington won't do it then “we the people” will have to do it for them. We can accomplish this by, among other things, “occupying” K Street in downtown Washington where most of the lobbyist's offices are located, or by laying siege to their offices through human barricades (nobody comes and nobody goes), or other forms of nonviolent protest. Either take the rampant corruption out of our nation's politics and fully prosecute those responsible for the 2008 financial meltdown on Wall Street and for creating the housing bubble just before they intentionally popped it, or else we may well be destroyed by Wall Street and their armies of lobbyists, shady co-conspirators and other henchmen, starting with the Federal Reserve on down.

From my vantage point, and based on my own experiences, the least common denominator to everything that we are protesting, marching and occupying for can be boiled down to 2 things: the rights of workers and the right to economic equality, including the peaceful restoration of the American middle class to its former economic and social position in American society. Allow me to use the next few pages to explain exactly how we can go about accomplishing these goals in a manner that is legal, peaceful and orderly so we can set a good example for our nation's kids and grand-kids. For example, one very good way that we could go about accomplishing this is to emulate the peaceful and nonviolent tactics of Rev. Dr. King, Jr. that were utilized during the civil rights marches and protests of the 1950's and 1960's. In so doing, history will be on our side and victory against the top 1% will ultimately be ours.

Let me add one more thing before I get into this. You will notice as you read the rest of this essay/op-ed that there are a lot of ideas in here about how to restore America and its middle class, and how to re-balance the distribution of wealth in a peaceful and orderly manner for the mutual betterment of everyone. These ideas I am about to share are simple and practical solutions to some huge problems that America faces. You will also notice that these ideas can be easily implemented using our existing governmental framework and technology. It won't be necessary to reinvent the wheel in order for America's people to accomplish their goals for the perfection of our society, starting with a rescue of the poor and middle class.

The first and foremost issue of what we the people want should be the rights of all workers and independent contractors. We want a $15.00 per hour minimum wage combined with the abolition of the federal income tax and an end to the withholding of US income tax from our paychecks. This would give everyone who makes less than $108.000.00 per year a pay raise amounting to an average of 20% immediately, pumping billions of fresh dollars into the US economy that generates many millions in new tax revenue without raising any existing taxes. Full employment should become the new standard of the world, and that standard should be set by the USA.

The second issue I wish to mention is the right to higher education and/or vocational retraining at will and at nominal cost. This is what we should do for all the long-term unemployed, all the homeless who are healthy enough to work, all unemployed veterans, and for all newly released prisoners who are re-entering society. This is how we can end homelessness for good and cut back on crime; simply give these people a trade. It is an established fact that the root cause of the majority of crime is economic desperation (excluding crimes of passion). Every human being on the face of the earth has the unconditional right to a livelihood and to a living wage. Those unable to find work, and those needing to learn new job skills in order to be self-sufficient have the basic human right to professional retraining without cost. Let the private colleges and universities remain as they are, but let our public institutions of higher education become nonprofits so that higher education is unconditionally accessible to everyone. The days of exclusively for-profit educational institutions must come to an end, because I am convinced that it is immoral and mean-spirited to prevent another human being from being able to sustain themselves because some CEO or policy wonk somewhere thinks that retraining America's workers would be “too expensive”, as if they are not worth the trouble. The best part about this as far as I am concerned is that America can easily afford this, and I will use the 2 wars in Iraq and the occupation of Afghanistan as an illustration.

If the US government took all the money spent in one single day on the illegal occupation of Afghanistan or Iraq and put it into an interest-bearing account, there would be enough money to put every school kid in America through 4 years of college fully paid for, including tuition, books, dorms, food, transportation and Internet access, plus a new desktop or laptop computer. Let me give you another example. If the US government took all the money spent in one single day on the war in Afghanistan and put it into an interest-bearing account, there would be enough money to put every homeless person or family in America – all 2.2 million of them as of 2013 – into a new 3,000 square foot home fully paid for, fully furnished, with the utilities turned on including Internet access (which the UN declared to be a basic human right as of 2011), and stocked with a years worth of groceries. This is what converting to a peacetime economy can do for America. And all on one day's military expenditures. Then, send them all back to school to teach them new trades so they can keep those houses and leave them to their children upon their departure from this earth.

There is one more important thing that I have yet to mention. The world is changing and developing so rapidly as scientific and technological advances are made that the job market has become very dynamic. As you know, the pace of this advancement is accelerating, resulting in different types of jobs coming and going rapidly in order to meet an ever-changing demand. Higher education, the US public school system and for-profit vocational schools will most definitely have to adjust their curriculum accordingly. You have probably noticed that some very traditional jobs are disappearing. Just ask anybody who used to be in the travel industry, or direct sales, or a factory worker, or a former computer and network technician like I was for 22 years. When I went back and tried to get retraining I was told that my credit rating was not good enough to qualify for a student loan. Many of the courses taught in various vocational schools cost tens of thousands of dollars, and I was broke at the time (come to think about it, I still am, but I digress). So, I found myself shut out from any chance at changing careers. As I began to research this I found that this is actually quite commonplace in today's dreary job market. Instead of going back to work like I wanted, I was forced into early retirement, and forced to depend on a federal government that I despise for my monthly sustenance. I would much rather be self-sufficient, but never mind that. My government has already decided to throw me away because I'm allegedly too old (I'm in my 50's as I write this), and therefore too expensive to keep around. Therefore I insist that this practice must come to an end, that higher education should be free for everybody, and that higher education is a basic human right. The days of a college education or vocational retraining being only for those who can afford the tuition (or who “qualify” for predatory and highly unethical student loans) must come to an end. Do you want to have a better educated country? Fine, so do I! Let everybody who wants to get educated – or reeducated – go back to school, and let the government, the Wall St mega-rich and corporate America foot the bill. The funds are definitely available, as I wrote above.

Of course, I can hear my critics laughing already. Where, they will say, do we get the money to fund re-educating the whole country? We're running a $16 trillion deficit as it is! You know what? You're absolutely right, we do have a seemingly insurmountable federal deficit. How do we tackle both problems together? By creating new taxpayers who have found new careers and gotten their incomes restarted thanks to low cost retraining, and there is ample precedent for this very thing. At the end of World War 2, there were about 600,000 former GI's who had just returned from the European and Pacific theaters in the wars against Germany and Japan. Many of them didn't have any marketable job skills, so Congress passed the GI Bill and put all those soldiers through 4 years of college. It paid off handsomely, paving the way for the record economic expansion of the 1950's and 1960's. Well, if they could do that in the 1940's, why can't they do it in 2014? The answer is that the system most certainly can, and we of the Occupy and 99% Movements must count reeducation as one of the things that we occupy and protest for. Either employ us or retrain us, and we're not leaving until we get what we want.

One final thing about the basic right to higher education. According to data I obtained from the US Department of Labor, and some additional information I obtained from CareerBuilder.com, the average student graduate from college today will have to change careers from 5 to 8 times during the course of their lifetime of employment. So, by today's standards, and assuming career changes involve getting 2-year degrees, somebody going back to school a total of 8 times multiplied by the average cost of obtaining each of those degrees – roughly $30,000.00 times as much as eight – could be as much as a quarter of a million dollars, plus interest. Do our colleges and universities seriously believe that people will be willing to go into that much debt from student loans in their lifetimes, just so they can remain employable? How ridiculous! The cost of tuition for higher education in the early 21^st century has reached a level that is so unreasonable that getting a degree has become financially out of reach for all but the top few percent. Excluding the overwhelming majority of all others for purely financial reasons is a social injustice and a human rights violation if there ever was one. We must start demanding our right to free or low-cost higher education as part of our goals. And so we will continue to “occupy” and protest peacefully until we get what we want. We are the 99%!

The third fundamental human right that I want to write about is to be free from poverty and hunger, with an equal chance at prosperity, in a clean and peaceful environment. How do we do all that? We clean up the environment that we already have, and for that we will need lots of people. That brings me to the topic of a huge public works program that this country urgently needs, and this is part of the solution that I see. Therefore, this is indeed another basic human right. This is something that should already have been done at the Presidential level, but unfortunately it has not since president Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930's. We need massive protests and demonstrations, and a major effort through the social media to get this passed into law. My proposed solution is that all the long-term unemployed people plus all the others I mentioned above be put to work in this new series of public works projects. Some will be doing environmental cleanup, others will assist with bridge and highway repairs, and still others will be repairing sewers and sidewalks. The homeless will be put to work revitalizing abandoned homes left over from the “great foreclosure robbery” (as I called it in my first book). When they are finished with the first home, they can go live in it as they begin repairs on others. We do have the capacity to have full employment at a living wage, and to end homelessness while ending the foreclosure crisis. This is one way to accomplish just that. I encourage anyone having additional ideas to publish them as I have, and the more input the better. And what about all the households where both parents work, or single-parent households? Who is going to watch all those kids? I think we should have on-site daycare available for everybody free of charge. It would be yet another way to create jobs with a starting wage of $15.00 an hour.

The fourth fundamental human right, and another way to articulate what we want, is to address the problem of health insurance and its ridiculous cost, pricing 54 million Americans out of the health insurance market and forcing many of us to rely on the local emergency room for medical treatment. It is an indisputable fact that every developed country in the world has national health insurance for its citizens except for the United States. From Europe to Canada to Japan, getting sick is never a problem unless the illness is terminal. Not so in the USA, where health care is on a for-profit basis, and we are the only country in the developed world where this is so. We have the highest cost for health care and the most expensive prescription drugs of any country in the world by far. In other words, good health care in this country is only for those who can afford it. The rest of us are left stranded on the side of the road to health and wellness and without remedy, eventually to die, and well before our time. Speaking as an Internet pastor, I find the idea of denying health care to nearly a fourth of the US population (about half of whom are children) just because they can't pay for it to be immoral, unjustifiable, and utterly barbaric.

So what is the solution to this pressing problem? One thing is for sure, every human being on the face of the earth has the unconditional right to good health care. It's as basic as access to clean water (another area where mankind has some work to do). I strongly maintain that it should be a crime for any patient to die because they lacked access to treatment due to having no money or health insurance. There is simply no excuse for that to be happening in the richest country in the world, and I for one am ashamed that it is occurring, and I doubt that I am the only one who has this opinion. Also, people with preexisting conditions or who are beset with a catastrophic illness should always have unconditional access to health care. One possible way to do this would be to change the health care industry in the US from for-profit entities to nonprofits. Anyone seeking treatment for substance abuse or mental illness, or who are in need of any organ transplants, or kidney dialysis, cancer treatment, or any other serious illness requiring constant monitoring or ongoing therapy, must be able to get treatment without financial qualification. This is not a privilege of the well off, it is a basic human right. For example, it is pointless and prohibitively expensive to prosecute and incarcerate nonviolent drug users. They don't need jail, they need treatment.

See you next week for part two! Until then, shalom.

This week's Bible study will begin a series on the book of First Corinthians

Beginning The First Book Of Corinthians

[1^st Corinthians 1, verses 1-17]

Today's Bible study continues our chronological series on the writings of the apostle Paul in the order of their appearance in the Bible. Today we will begin an in-depth study of the first Book of Corinthians in the New Testament. This epistle is the first of two letters the apostle Paul wrote to the early church in Corinth, which is a coastal village located in what is modern Greece today. At the time Paul wrote this, he was addressing a few problems with divisions that were occurring there. With that in mind, I will begin at chapter one and verse one.

“Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes: To the Church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ – their Lord and ours – grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” [I Corinthians 1: verses 1-3 NIV]

“...(T)ogether with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ...grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Simply put, this means everyone who calls upon the name of Jesus has direct access to the unfathomable peace of God the Father and His only Son Jesus Christ. So if you have been praying a prayer for some peace in your life and an end to turmoil and strife, you can stop now because you've been praying a redundant prayer. God's peace and the love of Jesus Christ are already available to us, all we have to do is ask for it with a thankful heart, and we will receive it because God enables us to. Paul then continues:

“I always thank God for you because of His grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in Him you have been enriched in every way – in all your speaking and in all your knowledge – because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. Therefore you do not lack any Spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.” [I Corinthians 1: verses 4-9 NIV]

In this passage of Scripture, the apostle Paul continues his theme of all true believers receiving free gifts from God, first through salvation and second through grace. At first Paul is talking about the peace of Christ, which is incomprehensible by human standards (see Philippians chapter 4). But here he also mentions several things that true believers can receive from God if only they will ask with a thankful heart. Jesus said, “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened.” I can tell you from personal experience that this simple precept works very well when it is properly applied. But Paul then goes on to say, “I always thank God for you because of His grace given you in Christ Jesus.” Grace can be generally defined as undeserved favor from God. So it is easy to see that grace, like peace, is a very desirable gift. But Paul then expands that statement by saying, “Therefore you do not lack any Spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.” Paul goes on much further into the 1^st Book of Corinthians about Spiritual gifts, so I will save that topic for another study. But for now Paul continues and begins to address the needs of the church at that time. He starts out with a plea for peace among the members.

“I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says 'I follow Paul'; another, 'I follow Apollos'; another, 'I follow Cephas'; still another, 'I follow Christ'. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanus; beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel – not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” [I Corinthians 1: verses 10-17 NIV]

Does this sound familiar? As you can clearly see, the various denominations of the church sprang up almost immediately after Pentecost and began competing with each other for members, a behavior that continues to this day. Equally visible is Paul's consternation over these divisions when he pointedly asks them, “Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?” The same or similar questions could be asked of the church today. Does the church you attend worship and love God with all its heart, mind, soul and strength? Does it love its neighbor as it loves itself? Or is there – such as is the case with many churches today – a cult of personality surrounding the pastor that supersedes everything else having to do with worship and church affairs? If anyone reading this discovers that this is the case with the church they are currently attending, leave quietly at or near the end of the service and never go back there. You could be caught up in a cult without realizing it, and this can happen even to seasoned and mature Christians.

In the modern world, organized religion has gone to extremes as far as the divisions currently existing within the church are concerned. In the United States alone there are over 400 denominations of Christianity. The Catholics preach against the Protestants and the Jews. The Protestants preach against the Catholics and against each other. The Jews don't have anything to do with much of anybody. In the meantime, the Muslims and the Jews keep threatening to wipe each other out. The Christians and the Muslims don't get along any better because they can't seem to stop bombing each other. They can't even agree on God's proper name. As a result, several wars have been fought over Israel, and two more much longer wars have been fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. And now, it looks like yet another war is breaking out in Iraq, as if that country needed any more war. Does anyone who reads this think that God is pleased with us for fighting these wars over His name? What do they think God will do to America when His patience with us runs out? When that happens, He will split our land into two, mark my words!

We would serve God a lot better if we all began to unite under the cross of Calvary instead of under a flag. We would also serve God and each other much better if we stopped the fighting in the Middle East and withdrew from Afghanistan. Think of how much money that would save! We're talking trillions of dollars here, people! And so, beginning today, let us all begin to learn more tolerance towards each other so we can be more united under the one true God. This is how we can carry out Paul's command to the church. In so doing, we make his words just as relevant today as they were when they were first written nearly 2,000 years ago. God's word still matters – indeed, it matters more than ever considering the tumultuous times we live in. So let's start living by His Word so we can have an enriched and enhanced life.

Our capitalist economic and tax systems are breaking down. Maybe that's not so bad.

America's Tax and Monetary Systems Are Broken

Excerpts from the book, "Occupying America: We Shall Overcome"

by Rev. Paul J. Bern

Wall Street has gotten completely out of control when it comes to the salaries, and especially the outrageous bonuses, being paid to top management, sales and other executives. This problem has been ongoing for a long time, and it continues to get worse. The scenario usually works out something like this: A global financial catastrophe occurs a la 2008. An outraged public shakes pitchforks at the corporate culprits. Lawmakers respond by proposing some new BS laws that appear to require corporations to more fully disclose what they’re doing. Corporate America, sensing encroachment on their hunting territory, goes ballistic. Sound familiar? We’ve seen this story play out before. In fact, we’ve seen this story play out after almost every grand corporate catastrophe over the last 80 years.

For example, back in 1933, with the nation still reeling from the 1929 stock market crash, newly-elected President Franklin Roosevelt pushed for legislation that required firms to register securities trades and provide basic financial information. That act eventually passed despite fanatical Wall Street opposition. A more modern example? In 1984, a Union Carbide chemical leak killed thousands in Bhopal, India. U.S. lawmakers had to battle relentless industry opposition before they could pass a right-to-know law on toxic emissions.

Runaway executive pay played a key driving role in the run-up to the Great Recession. Executive pay excesses, as President Obama once put it, “have contributed to a reckless culture.” By attempting to avoid the issue, it seems clear that corporations simply want to avoid embarrassment and public outrage, not to mention the attention of investigators outside the scope of Wall St. such as the Office of Management and Budget and the US Attorney General's office, among others. If we are going to be successful in reversing this trend for the purpose of redirecting America's cash flow from the top 1% back in favor of the rest of us, the remaining 99% of Americans – that's us – will have to forcibly take back what has been shamelessly stolen from us. Political and economic power is never surrendered voluntarily, so forcibly retaking it is the 99%'s only option as of now. Is this too much to ask of ourselves? I think not! In fact, I made up my mind a long time ago that this would be a cause that I would always believe in, the cause of social and economic justice for all.

Outrageous pay packages, research indicates, encourage outrageous executive behaviors that range from high-risk investing gambles to outsourcing jobs while firing long-time workers without cause, to cooking the corporate books for the aggrandizement of upper management. The wider the pay gap between the guy in the top floor corner suite and everybody else, the lower the workforce morale and the higher the employee turnover. In other words, the more cash we let corporations stuff in executive pockets at their employee's expense, the less competitive our corporations become. Is this any way to run the richest country in the world? Whose lame-brain idea was this to begin with?

Is it any wonder that the US economy has been run into the ground when we find such egregious examples of inexcusable mismanagement, criminal malfeasance and offensive buffoonery? It is abundantly clear to me that the system has been abused so badly that it is no longer functional. Allow me to present a couple of examples taken straight from the Web on what happens when abusive people who also happen to be exceptionally greedy take control of our country's entire governmental system. Vast sums of money are being quietly diverted from the wallets, pensions, banking and investment accounts of the American public just by changing the tax laws to favor the ultra-rich.

In my example #1, tax cuts for the wealthiest five percent of Americans cost the U.S. Treasury $11.6 million every hour, according to the National Priorities Project. America’s top earners got an average tax cut of $66,384 in 2011, while the bottom 20 percent will get an average cut of $107. These enormous tax cuts are weighing on the national debt. The non-partisan Center for Budget and Priorities found that the Bush tax cuts costs about the same as the shortfall from Social Security in the ten years after they were signed into law. If the U.S. reverted to Clinton-era marginal tax rates, the U.S. Treasury would net an additional $72 billion annually, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. In addition, increasing taxes on the wealthy could also help to narrow the widening wealth gap. In 2012 when this book was first written, the net worth of the bottom 60 percent of U.S. Households – about 100 million households – was lower than that of Forbes 400 richest Americans. Tax cuts for the wealthy provided Americans making more than $1 million with a $128,832 benefit, while Americans earning from $40,000 to $50,000 got an $860 benefit on average. This disparity has since gotten still worse. As of this summer 2014 update, the entire Walton family of Bentonville, Arkansas, the six sons and daughters of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, now have roughly the same wealth as America's “bottom” 100 million people, as if one's net worth correlated somehow with the measure of a man, or of a woman. This is how twisted and distorted capitalism has become, and economic inequality doesn't happen by accident.

Besides the broken tax system, as if this set of problems were not enough, I offer our broken monetary system as my second example. The US Federal Reserve was created on December 21^st, 1913 and given a 99 year lease to print America's money. This lease was given to an organized group of nameless, faceless investors who formed a private holding company that is the de facto sole proprietorship of the Federal Reserve. (The Federal Reserve Bank is not a public entity, and never was). That 99-year lease expired on December 21^st, 2012, but the Fed is still there occupying that real estate and those reserve banks. Legally, that makes the Federal Reserve and all its employees nothing more than mere squatters on US Government property, and I think they should be treated as such.

What many people don't realize is that the US Constitution gives the right to mint money to the Department of the Treasury, which makes the Federal Reserve Bank in its current form completely unconstitutional, as it has been right from the start. To make matters worse, in all the time the Federal Reserve has been in existence it has never – ever – been audited until fairly recently. Nobody in Washington, not even the president, knows the exact true state of the Federal Reserve as I write this, although I have no doubt that many in DC will claim they do and a few will even believe it. For that reason senator Bernie Sanders, an independent US senator from Vermont with (thankfully) no party affiliation, sponsored a bill calling for an audit of the Federal Reserve system that was made public in the summer of 2011. He published a blog post regarding this first-ever Fed audit that was widely cross-posted on the Web, and I offer a short excerpt of what the senator wrote.

“The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. 'As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world,' said Sanders. 'This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else. Among the investigation's key findings is that the Fed unilaterally provided trillions of dollars in financial assistance to foreign banks and corporations from South Korea to Scotland, according to the GAO report. No agency of the United States government should be allowed to bailout a foreign bank or corporation without the direct approval of Congress and the President. One thing already is abundantly clear. The Federal Reserve must be reformed to serve the needs of working families, not just C.E.O.'s on Wall Street'...”

The so-called “national debt” is nothing more than the indebtedness of the US Government to the Federal Reserve for the money it prints for our government. For example, when former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke initiated what he called “QE3” (for quantitative easing), what actually occurred was the need for Washington to borrow more money. This necessity was met by having the Fed print what we now know was $16 trillion dollars in order to flood American markets with liquidity. Unfortunately for the American people, there was a price tag to be paid in the form of interest on the money that the Fed printed. And so it turns out that the United States has to borrow to print its own money, an arrangement whose legality is highly questionable and whose very existence is contrary to the best interests of the United States.

I'm not a politician and have no plans to become one, but if I were President I could solve America's national debt problem in one afternoon. On my first day in office, I would send certain platoons of US Army soldiers to seize control of the Federal Reserve Banks in Washington DC and all other locations throughout the country, along with federal agents and local SWAT teams, to arrest all the directors and managers along with anyone else who opposes us. They will all be charged with treason for ruining the financial health and general welfare of the US, or with being accessories to the same, and they will be prosecuted. The Federal Reserve will be immediately nationalized, with the authority to manage and oversee returned to the Department of the Treasury where it belongs, pursuant to Article 1, section 8 of the US Constitution, which says this: “Congress shall have the power... to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and to fix the standards of weights and measures”.... One thing would happen for sure: it would be 'bye bye national debt'! In fact, maybe the Federal Reserve banks across the US should be “occupied” until they are returned to the rightful owners, the American people. Now THAT would be something to see! Who is with me today?

The Geopolitics of World War III

For this weel's Bible study we'll close out the Book of Romans

Finishing Up The Book of Romans

Today I will complete the study of the book of Romans that I started some weeks ago. I will conclude this series by selecting some passages from the end of chapter 15 through all of chapter 16. The following quotes from Scripture are a summary of Paul's closing thoughts as he finishes up his letter to the early Roman church. I will begin by taking up where I left off last week in chapter 15, beginning at verse 14.

“I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another. I have written you quite boldly on some points, as if to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15: verses 14-16 NIV)

“I myself am convinced … that you yourselves are full of goodness...”. As it was with the apostle Paul when he wrote this letter to the early Christian church at Rome, so it is with this Bible study that I send over the Internet today. All of you who are reading this must be doing so because you are seeking Spiritual knowledge and growth, realizing that the empty pursuit of material possessions and meaningless wealth has no bearing on where you stand with God, let alone one's own happiness. So let me take this opportunity to encourage you to continue in your faithful studies of God's Word, and to never let up in your quest for more learning of the deeper mysteries of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. By getting to know Jesus Christ personally as Savior, teacher and best friend, He then causes us to gravitate toward him as we are drawn ever closer to our dear Lord Jesus.

“...the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God...” As I wrote about in an earlier study of Romans, Paul was a Jewish man and a Roman citizen. The audience Paul spoke to and the class of people Paul wrote to were neither Jews nor were they Roman citizens. Although this may seem insignificant to the modern Bible student, it was a really big deal in Paul's day because, being raised and educated as a traditional Jew, he would normally have had nothing to do with non-Jews. The religious Jews of Paul's day regarded themselves as being superior to non-Jews because of their faith, traditions and their formal training. If this sounds familiar to you, it is because this same attitude of spiritual snobbery and religious “superiority” has infected the modern church just as it did back in the day when the book of Romans was written by Paul. That is what Paul meant when he mentions his “priestly duty” in his letter to the early church at Rome. He was referring to the Levitical priesthood described in detail in the first five books of the Old Testament known to the Jews at that time as the Law of Moses. Paul then continues with this train of thought starting in verse 17.

“Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done – by the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Holy Spirit. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation. Rather, as it is written, 'Those who were not told about Him will see, and those who have not heard will understand'. This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you.” (Romans 15: verses 17-22 NIV)

“I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me...”. I strive to do what Paul did when he wrote these words nearly two thousand years ago. You have noticed as you have read these weekly Bible studies that I never mention anything from my past, nor do I cite any of my own experiences in life as illustrations. Instead, I have always stuck with God's Word and I have taught solely from that frame of reference. I do this in order that what I am teaching and writing about conforms to the Word of God and to the teachings of Christ Jesus. In point of fact, as a teacher and minister I am held to a higher standard in God's eyes, and He expects me to live up to it. Since this is my Christian responsibility, I “study the word to show myself approved” and I make myself “transformed by the renewing of my mind”. There are those who teach the Word of God but who do so from their own frame of reference, based on their experiences in the secular world outside the Church. Paul warned the early Christians about this in chapter 16 as he was finishing his letter to the early Roman church.

“I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.” (Romans 16: verses 17-19 NIV)

When Paul implored the early church at Rome to “watch out for those who cause divisions”, he was actually prophesying about the advent of church denominations that was beginning at the time these words were being written. In the first century AD, various churches were already proclaiming themselves to be followers of Paul, Peter, James and other apostles who were the original twelve followers of Jesus during His ministry on earth. As you read the New Testament you will notice numerous occasions where Paul and the other apostles preached against this very thing. The above example is only one of many throughout the Bible. In the early 21^st century here in America, there are over 400 denominations not counting the rest of the world. That's just here in the US! You have no doubt heard or read about examples of this sort of thing either in church or in print. One denomination preaches against another as they try to convince other people that their pastor's point of view is the only correct one. In the worst cases, different churches from the same denomination preach and teach against each other, no doubt to the complete chagrin of Almighty God. What will God do with these churches? I will tell you: When the rapture of the Church – that is, the Bride of Christ, not just certain denominations – occurs in the next few years or so, these churches will find themselves left behind to endure the Great Tribulation prophesied in the Book of Revelation, Matthew's gospel chapters 24 and 25, and in a fair number of other places in the Bible as well. Let's not go there, people! Instead of following one denomination or another, let us instead be followers of Jesus Christ and Him alone.

Watch out for and steer clear of churches such as this. It is for this very reason that this web site is not connected with or affiliated with any one particular denomination. If you go to a church and you hear hate or intolerance being preached against any other church or group of people, get out of there immediately. Pray and ask God to lead you to a good church, one where the preaching and teaching comes straight out of the Bible, and one where the baptism by water and by the Holy Spirit is being taught. This is how you know you are on the right track. Above all, keep searching until you find a church that you are comfortable with and where the full gospel of Jesus Christ is being taught. And always stay in the Word, reading and studying your Bible diligently, because you reinforce your own Spirituality whenever you do so. And next week we will begin our study of the first of Paul's two letters to the church at Corinth, known as the Corinthian epistles. Until then, keep Jesus in your hearts and minds.

Those who try to marry politics and religion are setting themselves up for failure

Christian Hypocrisy In Washington DC

by Rev. Paul J. Bern

Remember when we were kids in school? We used to recite the pledge of allegiance to the flag every day. Among other things, the pledge calls us “one nation under God”. Judging from how things are going in Washington these days we have become anything but that. We are faced with endless wars overseas with no end in sight, and these wars on multiple fronts threaten to bankrupt the country. Meanwhile here at home, it is the American people who are already faced with bankruptcy and even homelessness due to long-term unemployment, while citizens everywhere continue to lose their houses to foreclosure under circumstances that are questionable at best. The rapidly growing population of homeless people is already in the process of turning into a human tidal wave of misery and hopelessness. Here in Atlanta where I live, the homeless population on any given day averages around 7,000 or so, of which half are children. This is a gross social injustice considering that it is happening in the richest country in the world. Even the cave men lived in caves tens of thousands of years ago. So it is accurate to say that they had it better than the homeless folks do today. It is a basic human right to have a roof over your head. Shelter is not a privilege, and throwing children out into the elements is nothing short of barbaric. And yet some have the nerve to call America a Christian nation!

In the meantime, we have our nation's leaders in Washington invoking the name of God as a justification for waging immoral and illegal wars all over the globe, with many being of the clandestine variety. Here at home, our nation's lawmakers debate whether gay persons should serve openly in the military or not, and various individuals in our country's leadership take a stand on whether they are pro-life or pro-choice. These side-issues are being debated while our country grapples with record deficits that threaten to swallow up what is left of the US economy, just as Nero fiddled while Rome burned. They pontificate about “family values” while the value of American real estate continues to stagnate, depriving millions of formerly middle class people of their chief source of wealth – their homes. They threaten to do away with the American social safety net at a time of record unemployment and rampant homelessness, just when it is needed the most. If these neo-conservatives succeed in taking away, or even reducing, the social safety net that millions are currently depending upon because they can't find work (and often because they can't even feed their kids), you can be sure there will be rioting in the streets similar to Ferguson, Mo., and let's not forget the civil wars in Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere. These current events line up with much of what I have been saying on this web site since day one about what is wrong with the world in which we live, and what we should change to make it better. Anyone can be religious, but I choose to take it to the next level. I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to make a real difference.

Being a blend of liberal Christian, Teddy-Roosevelt-style Populist and political progressive (hence the name Progressive Christian), I particularly enjoy going after big government and main-stream denominations at all levels, taking them all to task not just for the way in which they are running things, but challenging their thinking and their values. For example, many Republicans in Washington keep talking about God and politics as if they are interchangeable. They like to make it look like they are on the side of God, as if God were a political conservative. And they like to make it seem like the Democrats and “liberals” are a party of loose morality, favoring abortion, gay marriage, and hanging around with terrorists. They are experts at crafting and delivering their message – good enough to inspire many middle-class folks to vote against their own financial interests in the 2010 mid-term elections. Their message works because it appeals to people's base emotions, not their intellects. And reacting is so much easier than critical thinking, especially when we're so emotionally drained from these years of unemployment, or working multiple part time jobs, or home foreclosures. They are so effective with their message that they don't think twice before selling the idea that God wanted George W. Bush to attack Iraq, God favors the Tea Party, and God wants Sarah Palin to be President. Or maybe Mike Huckabee.

They completely ignore the First Amendment's separation of Church and State. The first amendment to the US Constitution begins by saying, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.......” To me, this means anyone who wishes to engineer a merger of government and organized religion either knows nothing about the Constitution or they openly wish to break it. Either way, that means they would be committing treason if the neo-cons were to actually pull off such a thing as that.

They publicly thump the bibles on which they were sworn into office. They brag about giving 10% of their incomes to the church, even though many don't. And they make sure they're seen praying, whether it be in church, in public, or on TV. Jesus had something to say about that, and those words of wisdom are just as relevant today as they were 2,000 years ago when they were first spoken. “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go to your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Matthew chapter 6, verses 5-6, NIV)

But if you set aside the hysteria and look at the facts, Jesus was part liberal and part socialist by today's standards, and much of the New Testament condemns the attitude of the so-called religious right (which is neither as far as I am concerned). For example, Jesus condemned the greedy rich, saying, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." [Matthew 19:24] He denounced the moneychangers in the temple at Jerusalem as He threw them out, saying, “My house will be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.” [Matthew 21:13] And Jesus stood up for the poor and underprivileged, saying, "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me." [Matthew 25:40] So then, how can the nation's leadership, especially the conservative right-wingers, call themselves Christian – followers of Jesus Christ and He alone – as they hold the unemployed and retired pensioners hostage while fighting for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires? They don't care about us, and they don't care if we know that or not. We the people, America's middle and working classes, need not tolerate what amounts to being openly insulted. We can and should fight back! Who is with me today?

Jesus acknowledged the need for both government and tax-supported government services, saying, "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's." [Matthew 22:21] So then how can the conservatives call themselves Christian as they rail against taxes and their definition of "big government"? Never mind the fact that it is the same bunch of people railing against big government who are voting in favor of the continued funding of the largest and most formidable military in world history. Last year the US government spent more money on military expenditures than all the rest of the world combined. Then again, there is the fact that the United States has more people in prison than all the rest of the world's countries – again, combined. There is something very wrong with this picture, that's for sure. When faced with these facts, I am forced to come to the conclusion that America isn't the world's greatest country anymore. It's up to us, the American people, to turn this around.

Jesus healed the sick – even lepers – for free. He didn't ask them for an insurance card first, he just healed them because it was the right thing to do, but more importantly because that's what he was called to do. Jesus was the original "socialized medicine" machine. So then, how can the Republicans call themselves Christian (that is, followers of Jesus Christ in Spirit and in truth) as they condemn the much less socialistic (and woefully insufficient) "Obamacare"? The truth of the matter is that much of the effectiveness of any government is directly proportional to how well it cares for its people. (By the way, it was Thomas Jefferson who first said that.) The United States is the last developed country in the world that does not have national health insurance for its citizens. Every other developed country – and many developing ones – has national health insurance except for us. As I said above about shelter being a basic human right, so it is with health care. Proper medical care is not a privilege available only to those who can afford to pay. Good quality health care is a basic human right that must be available to everyone without qualification, including preexisting conditions. The money to implement such a plan as this is already available with plenty to spare. All the government has to do is call off all the wars and occupations overseas and bring the troops home. Whatever money is left over can be used for a giant public works project to put all the long-term unemployed back to work, or to send them back to school to learn a trade. Is there sufficient money to accomplish and finance this worthy goal? Absolutely, and all without adding to the federal deficit. Here's an example: If the US military set aside one day's expenses for the twin occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq (Again! Wasn't twice enough?) and put those funds in an interest-bearing account, there would be enough money to send every single American school kid to four years of college education – fully paid for. We'd get all that from just one days military expenditures! So don't tell me we can't afford quality education without qualification! Oh yes we can!!

As he stood there on the Mount, Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of the living God." [Matthew 5:9] Still, the conservatives call themselves Christian as they continue to call for endless war, be it legally and morally justified or not. At the same time, they expound on how pro-life or anti-abortion they are. So, let me get this straight. In order to be a good Christian, one must be pro-war and pro-life simultaneously? Sorry, Reverend, but you're going have to explain that one to me. And then they try to justify torture. So I ask them, in the words of the popular button and bumper sticker: Who would Jesus torture?

In the end, I see many conservatives paying much homage to the Bible while ignoring what is inside it. As for myself, I could not stand to live like that, being a Washington hypocrite. Let's vote these right wing-nuts out of office this November and start all over again on a clean sheet of paper. It's the only way we can peacefully force things in Washington to change. But if things don't start changing, and soon, the unrest of Egypt, Syria and Greece will be arriving on American shores with a vengeance. If governing power cannot be returned to the American people peacefully, then things will deteriorate to the point where we will simply have to retake it by force.