It is frightening to live in a nation whose future depends upon whether or not its citizens continue to shop, spend and use credit. Is the breath of life in America shopping, spending and using credit, is that what we breathe? Should we refer to what we are often asked to engage in as 'shopping slavery' in an economic Apartheid system, a calculated system where 95% of the population is governed by an wealthy economic minority elite and the benefits more and more inure to the minority?
There has been plenty of evidence of late that will that seems to show that if America's citizens were to stop shopping, spending and borrowing that America's fragile economic-market system would collapse!
How many Americans have considered that America's two most recent crises during the past decade, the 9/11 terrorist attack and the cascading collapse of the 'American Idol's' economic-market complex could be consequential, and wielded by the hand of a higher source? Or, could it be that America is simply reaping what it has sown, which is another law of the Universe?
More and more the world is recognizing that what happens in the USA does not stay in the USA, it effects everyone! Other nations have suddenly realized that they must build world banks that are independent of the American system, and that they must find another economic standard to depend upon, in order to free themselves from the American dollar and its fragile system.
George Bush normally would instruct Americans not to worry about the conditions that have been occurring on his watch. He might say something like this, Americans should simply go shopping, as he once did during a recent crisis or to continue to borrow. Does George Bush know something that we don't know? Again, it is frightening to live in a nation where its future and the well-being of its citizens depends upon whether or not the people continue to shop, spend and borrow or not!
Most Americans are furious, they are ignoring Bush and at the same time questioning their representatives, for after all this is a representative democracy or is it really? More and more America appears to be headed back to where it began, a nation that was conceived for wealthy white men, who wanted others to work for little or nothing, and the wealthy would receive all of the profits in addition to tax relief.
Americans have begun to realize that by casting their bread (dollars) upon the waters that in many days they may not receive 'a return' after all, and that only a wealthy elite will be doing so, if exclusively in the form of an undeserved 'golden parachute'! Other Americans who can not gain access to the opportunity structures of this nation are also furious? Why?
They continue to look at the wealth of a minority elite who depend upon individual Americans borrowing, and purchasing their goods and services. But at the same time, the growing majority that borrow, and purchases goods and services that benefit the minority-elite causing them to flourish exponentially are not being benefited themselves. Hmm!! The majority are, to borrow a colloquialism being hosed! More and more of America's middle-class is being pushed into America's permanent underclass.
Being a part of the underclass is something that many Americans escaped from by borrowing just a generation or two ago, and they do not want to go back there!
It is even more disconcerting when one considers that the elite group that controls and wields America's wealth, the ones who have benefited the most, have shut out those who are the source of their exploitative wealth! And on top of everything else many in the corporate elite group are moving production and research overseas, leaving the American majority unemployed and unprotected.
The fact of the matter is that the wealthy are getting wealthier, and more and more the majority are being downsized and repositioned in deference to burgeoning corporate wealth that is being captiously divided up among a small corporate elite! Are we approaching a time of class warfare? I believe that we are very near to a time when the people are going to revolt. In fact some are already revolting! To those who are being returned to the permanent underclass, you ignored the warnings that were provided you when you looked down on other Americans!
Perhaps this is a time that Americans ought to consider what President Bush understands, that America's macroeconomic system depends on borrowers and spenders, and as long as they keep spending and borrowing you never have to pay off your bills. And that is how Bush conducted at our national economic affairs,you pay this month's installment which makes you eligible to borrow even more.
Unfortunately economic realities have caught up with President Bush too. He will leave America with a national debt that quadruples the GDP of many a group of nations in the world combined. In other words he spent, and he will like most American Corporate Executive, walk away with his Golden Parachute, and the American corporation that he will leave behind will be bankrupt.
Is it any wonder that when George H.W. Bush, Lee Iacocca and others once visited Japan to ask for concessions, that the Japanese executives referred to their American counterparts are 'gangsters', or the kids would say 'gangstas'?
Another question to ask is whether or not the current American system serves all Americans, or whether or not all Americans are simply slaves to America's credit based market-driven economic system, whose benefits inure to the benefit of an elite group, instead of to all hard-working Americans? The latter represents most Americans, including those who are willing to work hard if they just had the opportunity, despite all protestations to the contrary. I would ask that Americans consider this other explanation for America's present crisis.
We have all heard of cyberspace and the blogosphere. And where have Americans been living? I believe that we have been living inside of creditspace or a collapsible creditsphere?
Over the course of the past century, America has engaged in military terrorism (purchased on credit) as well as ecoterrorism against other nations in the world. And as a result, America has willfully and intentionally wrecked economies at one time or another in nations like Cuba, the DPRK, Iraq, Iran..., causing other individuals prolonged unfair, needless and undeserved suffering!
Perhaps this is comeuppance that we are experiencing as Americans for average averages Americans are being given the opportunity to feel what we have caused other people in other nations to experience because for decades, simply because we did not agree with their politics. The average American has looked the other way, and some have even stood by to justify the venal practices of our government, against other people and nations of the world. I am certain that God does not always agree with America's way of doing things. Tom Jefferson once said that God's justice won't sleep forever!
Isn't it the result of American greed, hegemony and arrogance that we are witnessing? Perhaps the Sovereign, the Universe or the Unifying Principle have had enough! Each of us ought to consider whether or not we have abandoned divine principles in exchange for the quest or pursuit of wealth, and corporations should consider the same in terms of their insatiable drive for the acquisition of corporate wealth and the maximization of profits.
We are a nation that is clearly out of sync we universal principles! Can we shop, spend and borrow or in other words buy ourselves out of this current crisis? Let us end where we began, has anyone considered comeuppance as an explanation for America's its two most recent crises, or that we are simply reaping what we have planted?
In conclusion, I suspect that it is time for a course correction in America. We must forget the lyrics of Bobby McFerrin, 'don't worry, be happy. Americans have lived that way for too long. The course correction must take place across all class lines, even at the rank and file level. At one time the majority of the world's goods and services benefited 6% of the world's population. How did that happen we must ask?
America's last two crises, the terrorist attack and its current economic crisis could have both been avoided. What's next? I suspect that the American people based upon what has been taking place of late, will have to decide that for themselves for there is plenty of blame to go around!
Peace & Grace,
Rev. C. Solomon
Addenda: Shop and borrow less, on the other hand think more!
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