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Unleashing the Christ Within: Last Hope for the Moribund Soul of a Nation?

By Jason Miller

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11-07-06, 9:46 am

“What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?”
---Jesus Christ

Humanity’s “beacon of hope” is unraveling at its moral seams faster than George Bush can say nucular. 230 years ago, disciples of the Enlightenment shattered the shackles of colonial oppression and inaugurated their conception of a haven for humanity. While tainted by patriarchy and racism, the founding of the United States was arguably the pinnacle of social and political evolution. Tragically, the descendents of those who ascended to that zenith are racing to the bottom at a dizzying velocity.

In a collective sense, the soul of the United States is writhing in the agony of spiritual asphyxiation. Trapped in an overflowing cesspool of its own making, the nation’s élan vital desperately needs freedom and an infusion of spiritual oxygen. Sans significant change, its odds for survival equal those of an under-sized fish carelessly tossed ashore by a heartless angler.

Yet it is not too late for the “cradle of democratic civilization” to fulfill the dream of a nation governed by We the People. Our ancestors overcame seemingly insurmountable odds by defying a tyrant. What is preventing us from following their lead? Humanity and the Earth desperately need for us to end the Corporatocracy’s destructive rampage and direct our unparalleled resources, wealth, and technology toward the betterment of the world.

We the People need to recapture the Zeitgeist of 1776 and initiate a revolt. To overcome a ruling class that maintains its power through the manipulation and enslavement of our psyches, we need a spiritual revolution. Since reactionary forces have assassinated the influential spiritual leaders whom have arisen in recent history, it appears we will need to resurrect one in the abstract.

While there have been a number of viable potential candidates throughout history, Jesus Christ appears to be the obvious choice. While people continue to debate whether he was man, myth or God, few would deny the wisdom and virtue of the teachings attributed to him. His popular appeal and impact on civilization are unprecedented. And one need not subscribe to organized religion or ecclesiastical zealotry to manifest the soul-nurturing principles of Christ.

What would happen if the poor and working class of the United States said “no mas” to the Corporatocracy? What if the wage slaves finally became self aware and leveraged the overwhelming strength of their numbers against their parasitic masters?

Over 250 million US Americans acting in unison and embracing Christ as their leader “in absentia” would overwhelm the relative few manning the bulwarks of exploitation, imperial conquest, and obscene militarism. While it is unlikely Jesus would have advocated open revolt, it is a virtual certainty that he would have instructed his followers to minimize or end their participation in a system driven by avarice and abject cruelty.

Improbable that such an evolution will transpire? Yes. Impossible? No.

So let’s indulge ourselves by taking a glimpse at the potential results of a mass movement of the wage slaves and disenfranchised in the United States acting in accord with the enlightenment of Christ:

[Five years have slipped by since the “rise of the Proletariat” in the United States. Working in unison according to the spiritual principles embodied by Jesus Christ in the Synoptic Gospels, the poor, the working class, and the besieged middle class had finally renounced their allegiance to their pecunious over-lords.

Consumers staged mass boycotts, decimating the cash flow that served as the life-blood of predatory capitalism. Sweeping strikes and sick-outs deprived the vampiric moneyed class of their wretched wage slaves. Spreading like a plague, civil disobedience infected the fascist titan and brought it to its knees. Military personnel refused to serve, bringing the war machine to a grinding halt. Law enforcement personnel rejected their loathsome task of enforcing unjust laws, exposing the miscreants ruling the nation to the terrifying possibility of enduring consequences for their heinous actions.

Realizing that neither their wealth nor their gated communities would afford them ample protection from receiving the just punishment they so richly deserved, the power elite emptied their bank accounts, cashed in their decimated securities portfolios, and scattered like roaches scurrying to evade the Light.

Riding on the wings of their hubris, the haute monde fled to nations with no obligation to extradite fugitives to the United States. Tragically for them, their repeated displays of contempt for international law and rapacious actions toward other nations proved to be their undoing. Officials in nations harboring America’s noblesse were delighted to cooperate with the newly formed United States government of We the People.

Within less than a year, astoundingly large numbers of the deposed Bush Regime, members of the US Congress, false prophets like James Dobson, and avaricious swine like Lee Raymond found themselves occupying the grim confines of the vast gulag of prisons they had built to “protect” themselves from non-violent drug users and impoverished Blacks.

At last the abusers of power and exploiters of humanity faced consequences for their unabated spree of crimes against humanity. How the mighty had plummeted. Stripped of their wealth, freedom, authority, and individuality, with shaven heads and sunken shoulders, the uniformed inhabitants of the nightmarish “correctional facilities” (of their making) choked on the acerbic medicine they had so gleefully prescribed for so many of their “inferiors”. Fortunately for them, justice and compassion guided their jailers. State executions, torture, and prisoner abuse had been eliminated.

While the ousted power brokers met their fate, a new Constitutional Convention had convened. The new founders were truly representative of We the People. The assembly was comprised of men, women, Blacks, Latinos, Whites, Asians, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Atheists, Gays, Native Americans, the disabled, the mentally ill, and more. Ensuring diversity and equality was a significant priority to the new government.

Habeas corpus, checks and balances, the separation of powers, and the Bill of Rights were restored and enshrined as the cornerstones of the new federal government. Numerous rights and responsibilities were ceded to the state level, balancing the power between the federal and state governments. The rule of law once again prevailed over the rule of man. Big Brother was properly neutered and caged.

Wisely retaining the Preamble, and building upon it, those crafting the new Constitution determined that public funds would be dispersed in equal measures to revamp and sustain the judicial system to “establish Justice”, to provide the means to “insure domestic tranquility”, to maintain a military just large enough to “provide for the common defense”, to fund humanitarian programs to “promote the general Welfare”, and to perpetuate an independent watchdog entity comprised of elected representatives from each state (empowered to initiate a national referendum at any time to call for another Constitutional Convention) “to secure the Blessings of Liberty”.

They abolished the Electoral College and electronic voting machines. Congress was reduced to a unicameral body comprised of elected members with each state represented in proportion to its population. Each member was limited to one term of six years. An unlimited number of political parties were given the right to equal share of public campaign funding. New legislation made private campaign contributions and lobbying felony offenses.

The infinitely complex tax scheme which had enabled the criminal class to pay so little was relegated to the dust bin of history. A flat rate tax on personal, business, and corporate income, sales taxes, luxury taxes, tariffs, and property taxes filled the public coffers with money that benefited each citizen as equally as possible.

Corporate personhood was abolished. The new government of the people nationalized major corporations providing essential goods and services such as healthcare, food, and utilities. The plethora of corporate industrial complexes, including the prison and military, naturally withered as federal funding for their malevolent and profligate programs was cut to the quick.

Assets seized from the criminal ruling class were utilized to provide a financial jump-start for this second attempt at forming an “asylum for mankind”. Collaborating closely, national and local governments, nationalized industries, and businesses kept in check by a reasonable degree of public oversight worked to ensure that every citizen in their nation of excessive wealth had access to quality health care, education, food, and shelter.

As a majority of US citizens focused their attention on matters of the spirit and new laws were implemented to deter rapacious capitalism, many of the social and economic institutions shriveled, atrophied, or collapsed. Consumer protection statutes and diminished appetites for material possessions dealt severe blows to Master Card and Visa. New and more effective anti-trust legislation crushed leviathans like Wal-Mart and Microsoft. Small business owners could flourish (at last) in an environment devoid of competitor-crushing monopolies.

Moral clarity and clear-mindedness armed the masses against the relentless flow of lies and manipulations manufactured by Madison Avenue and the corporate media. Individuals and churches exploiting religion for their empowerment and enrichment found their pews and collection plates as empty as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. Grossly overpaid entertainers and athletes awoke to a stinging reality in which the public no longer worshipped them nor showered them with obscene riches.

Begging forgiveness from the rest of the world, US Americans withdrew hundreds of thousands of troops occupying other nations. Together with the rest of the “nuclear club” they began dismantling their doomsday weapons. The Zionist state collapsed when the United States ceased subsidizing its genocide and militarism. Palestine became a model of diversity as Jews, Christians, and Muslims imprisoned the proponents of violence and hatred in their midst and followed the example of their former patrons by forging a new government that truly served the interests of the people.

With the Neocons tried, convicted, and imprisoned for egregious war crimes, a withdrawal of US troops around the globe, and justice restored in Palestine, the “unfathomable” came to pass. Asymmetrical attacks on the United States and its Western allies came to a screeching halt. At long last the “War on Terror” was exposed for the sham that it was.

Having surrendered their perceived invulnerability, hubris, and narcissism, US Americans awoke from their state of mass delusion and began to perceive reality. Rather than launching military invasions that murdered millions of innocent civilians, the servants of We the People crafted and implemented a foreign policy based on the simplicity of the Golden Rule. Acting with fairness and respect, US leaders employed diplomacy, dispensed humanitarian aid without strings, and eliminated the military option excepting situations involving self-defense.

Despite the “loss” of material wealth, the power to dominate the world, and the “entitlements” associated with the capacity to crush virtually all opposition, those who had found a unifying set of convictions in the wisdom of Christ and dismantled the American Empire could rejoice. Gaining far more than they had lost, they had reclaimed their souls, individually and collectively. And they believed Christ’s assertion:

“He who rules his spirit has won a greater victory than the taking of a city.”]

Mother Teresa once said, "Each one of them is Jesus in disguise."

Christian or otherwise, WE are Mother Teresa’s THEM. We who have been psychologically, spiritually, and financially enslaved by the insidious malevolence of American fascism have the love, compassion, and power of Christ within us.

We have the capacity and the moral obligation to reject the Faustian bargain offered by the ruling elite. Temporal security and prosperity afforded by raping humanity and the Earth are not worth the price of our eternal souls. And without the complicity of their minions, the emasculated oligarchs’ reign of terror would be reduced to a historical footnote.

Off with the disguises and down with the Corporatocracy!

--Jason Miller is a wage slave of the American Empire who has freed himself intellectually and spiritually. He writes prolifically, his essays have appeared widely on the Internet, and he volunteers at a homeless shelter. He welcomes constructive correspondence at willpowerful@hotmail.comor via his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.