New Rome

The American empire was in full flowering with the fall of the Soviet Union. American companies dominated world markets. America controlled finances through Wall Street, the IMF and World Bank. By proxy, America also controlled the second largest economy, the Japanese. America had political world control through its dominance of the United Nations and having an awesome  military.

Today we recognize a limit to American military power. The Wall Street financial community has rivals, such as London. The financial crisis that started in America with Lehman’s demise, has left a sour taste throughout the world. 

People in Europe are seriously questioning the American form of Capitalism. Far right governments have taken center stage in the industrialized world. They tend to be extremely self centered and polarizing, bolstering a select part of their nations. America’s scientific and space exploration is losing steam. 

The American education system is not even close to being world class. Higher education is becoming the exclusive domain of the economically well off. 
The nation has moved to a triage of disenfranchising the majority in favor of the financial elites. There is a lock on the political, judicial and economic system by these people. 

American Conservatives want to abandon the United Nations because America can longer control the outcome of its polities. The same is true with our distancing of the IMF and World Bank. The European Union has emerged as a counterbalance to many American initiatives. America would like it dissolved, starting with the unifying currency. Now America has the specter China and India eventually becoming a rivals.

No major politician has had the nerve to state the obvious in terms of American foreign policy as Ron Paul. It is why there is such a Conservative rush to paint him as unpatriotic, distort his words and cast him as a traitor. But he seems to be saying the truth in the area of foreign policy. He is saying that we cannot expect people not to hate us when we interfere in their affairs. When we embrace radicals, like our embrace of Bin Laden to fight the Russians in Afghanistan, we can expect it to turn and bite us. We cannot expect people to rush to democracy when we have supported autocrats and dictators against the will of the people, such as the Shah of Iran. We need to focus on protecting ourselves and not controlling the world.

It is a new year. No matter how things evolve over the coming years, I suspect the “American Rome” is history.

The Book

The religious pontiffs admonish their followers that they must accept, “…every jot and title” of the Bible [Matthew 5:18; Luke 16:17]. This means you must accept everything it says without question. Why?

The Bible, its historical origins and even the texts themselves contains flaws. The inconsistencies are through out. The book is also referenced outside its historical context. Assigning divinity to the book eliminates any need to consider its problematic nature.

An anagram results from the questioning: if anything in the Bible is subject to question, everything is as well; if an error, then what is truth? You can quickly see how questioning will stumble acolytes and dissuade converts.

There is no inherent problem viewing the Bible as an absolute by the faithful. The problem comes in when this believed “absolute” is applied in the temporal realm. The book becomes subject to the very quantitative and qualitative analysis of “…every jot and title” it seeks to avoid. It utterly fails this test. The failure portrays the believers as purely delusional.

There is another Biblical saying that the believers would be better served to adhere. It is located in Mark 12:17, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” The message is not to mix the two. Too bad our politicians do not adhere to this in their quest for votes.