Home > America Has Lost Its Moral Compass, Again
6002 04/13/2009
America Has Lost Its Moral Compass, Again: An Open to My Fellow Citizens
Sam Hamod, Ph.D.
I write this open letter with sadness at how far our country has fallen from what it claims to be. This is not to say that we have ever or always truly lived up to our stated ideals as a nation, but things are worse than ever at this time. To be frank, our national and international priorities are wrong, they are upside down. We have lost our moral compass, again...
We have so many homeless that it is a moral and national disgrace, not to mention the lack of health care for even those who have full and part-time employment. There is no reason for our country to have homeless, with 60% of them children. Not only this, but it is deplorable that we have women, children and men without healthcare in a country so rich that its known single annual military budget could support our citizens for decades...
I am sincerely and deeply grieved that our nation has lost what was left of its moral path, a path some tried to to forge on a path to greatness. The teachings of Jesus, Muhammad and Moses, the leadership of Washington and Lincoln have been lost to greed and selfishness on the part of so many; among the most corrupt are our political and financial leaders,not to mention preachers who are more interested in money and power than in morality. How can those people go to church and deny the deeds of Washington, Lincoln and those who gave their lives for this country, and the words of Jesus and Moses, when they know of the killing going on in Gaza, in Sri Lanka, in Kenya, in Iraq, in Afghanistan. I
fear too many live in a state of denial—and this includes our top political and social leaders, never mind the greedy financial demons who run Goldman Sachs, the major investment banks and financial situations that take advantage of the poor. Thus, it is apparent that we have become a warring nation that is interested only in the greed of power, money, celebrity and immorality of the worst sorts, and again, clearly, this is fed by our media, by our bankers and worst of all by our political leaders who are among the worst. With the skewing by the media, it is difficult for our people to ever hear the truth about anything.
I am aware that our nation, in some ways, but not in health care and homelessness, is still better than many others, but that still does not lessen our shortcomings as a nation or as a people. We can no longer hold our heads high and say we are the torchbearers of democracy and justice. One has but to look at the torture we have visited upon people at Guantanamo Bay, at Bagram Prison in Iraq and other such places all over the world, and we have held these people without evidence or charges in most of the cases. Even our previous president, GW Bush and now Obama, have destroyed habaes corpus, the basic foundation of our legal and moral system This is a violation of our moral code and our judicial codes.
Far too often people have been content to go to church on Sunday, especially yesterday at Easter, or at Christmas and act so pious, but they have not shouldered their moral or citizens responsibilities to call a halt to these unbalanced and wrongful priorities in our nation. Not only that, but the fact that churches have been turned into entertainment centers with pastors asking for people to even donate their social security checks so that these high living " pastors" and their wives can live the high life while their many of their members go hungry and without health insurance.
Something is vitally wrong when a man of the stature of the Reverend Billy Graham calls for war and advises presidents, as did the late Jerry Falwell when he urged President George W. Bush to invade Iraq. Something is vitally wrong when an entertainer, a member of SAG, Rush Limbaugh, a person no one elected, feels he can and should make foreign and domestic policy! Even our soldiers have been turned into killing machines, causing innumerable mental problems, depression and conflicts between their moral upbringing and what how they are often told to act on the battlefield.
Rather than facing our problems and trying to deal with them in an honest way, why do we have night after night on HLN, Nancy Grace speaking about a kidnapping and death, when so many more deaths are taking place in the world and so many homeless are dying and so many children are going to bed hungry right here in our own backyard? Our media has become nothing less than a sewer of sensationalism. Why do have more media time examing the life of Britney Spears than we do of the national budget or our wrong-headed foreign policy? Why was it that every time GW Bush, and now Obama, made a political speech, which was clearly biased, it was reported as "news?"
What has become of the men and women like Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, Peter Jennings, and Helen Thomas, the people who would ask the hard questions of our leaders and hold their feet to the fire. Helen Thomas is still out there punching, but Cronkite has been kept off the air, Murrow and Jennings are gone, and the slew of young reporters are nothing less than marshmallows who could not ask or dare to ask a hard question of a leader. They throw the leaders "softballs", as we used to call them in Washington,DC.
As to the "liberal mass media," it doesn’t exist. The NY Times, the Washington Post are to the right politically, and the Nation magazine is so boring, so poorly edited with long and redundant articles that there is no independent thinking mass media except on some few sites on the internet. The NY Times and the Washington Post, plus all our major networks, plus NPR and PBS were among the loudest voices urging us to go to an illegal and immoral war against Iraq. There were no hard questions asked of Cheney, Bush or Powell, just acquiesence.
Unless our people wake up, Obama and his crew of banker friends who run our economy, will lead us down the path of bankruptcy that was started by Ronald Reagan and exponentially made worse by GW Bush. These people will keep us in a perpetual state of war, as has been the case since the end of WWII. It is apparent that America always has to find "enemies" in order for our military-industrial-congressional complex can stay in power and spend us into oblivion while they all become richer and richer. As one person put it, 1% of the American public controls 84% of the wealth of the country—and this same group owns 100% of the media, and unfortunately, too many of these same people are zionists who care more for an outside country, Israel, than they do about America and our citizens.
It is time we awaken to these facts, if we don’t then we’ll all go down the toilet together.
c: sam hamod, april 13, 09
sam hamod, ph.d. has written extensively on American and world affairs for a variety of domestic and international journals,newspapers and websites; he may be reached at:
drsamhamod@gmail.com
Forum posts
17 April 2009, 06:29, by Amerikagulag
The people haven’t lost the compass. Washington never had one and what we thought was good intentions has turned out to be a charade. The American people have come to realize their government does NOT represent "we the people". It is an organized crime syndicate which must be brought to justice and abolished.
There will be no prosecutions under Obama. No indictments for TORTURE. No indictments for WAR UNDER FALSE PRETENSES. No indictment for MASS MURDER. 2 countries destroyed, destabilized, MILLIONS murdered for LIES. Obama is just another one of "them". Obama has proven the two party system is nothing but a two-headed hydra.
To those who say "give him time", I say he had from Nov. til Jan. to get ready. If he will not prosecute for war crimes, he’s an accessory; an enabler. He cannot have it both ways. And it’s too late. The mask is off.
The people haven’t lost their compass.
17 April 2009, 21:05
Your points are strong. But your defense of the people is off the mark. Immigrants came to this country, with few exceptions, primarily lured by the sound of coins tumbling in their hands. Sure, religious tolerance, freedom, and the luxuries of an unexplored wilderness were fabulous add—ons, but the unifying purpose for the United people was making the Almighty Dollar.
There’s nothing wrong with money per se, and acquiring wealth has prompted many innovations and advancements, even when, like Carnegie, the acquisition was highly unethical. And that’s the point. The people, eager to swell their coffers, looked the other way when the stream of prosperity was pouring into their pockets. United Fruit, ITT, GE, imperialism, South American dictators propped up by the CIA, Halliburton etc. were clandestine in their operations but as of the 60s, the people knew about these activities.
Where was the call from the people to investigate the illegalities performed by the U.S. in Vietnam? Other than a few documentaries, a slew of best selling books, and a few people on the talk circuit, the people went on about their Bu$iness. Well, that’s foreign affairs and there’s nothing we can do about it, the public seemed to be saying.
And then came along the supreme Snake Oil salesman — Reagan — promising to pad the pockets of the industrious, of the "hardworking," of the Ayn Rand believers who feel as if the great unwashed deserve their misery. And the people, well, they bought it hook, line, and sinker, and they bought it until the crash of ’08. And now they wonder, not how to reorient the democracy to make it work for as many people as possible, but, Where’s mine going to come from?
The people were hypnotized, deluded, and to a great extent blinded by their own self-interest. Take Herb and Marion Sander of the World Bank — just a couple of "the people" CNBC, FOX, the right wing, and the Austrian school of economics insist are pushing the world forward. In the 80s they invented the ARM — the option Adjustable Rate Mortgage. Not Bank of America, not VISA, not Wells Fargo, not Lehman Brothers. Just a couple of people looking for a slicker profit.
During the 30s through the 70s, mobsters offering 30% interest rates on "loans" were commonly deemed Loan Sharks and sentenced to long prison terms. And then a new form of predatory Capitalism — the legal kind, backed by legislators responding to popular appeal from lobbyists — comes along featuring interest rates in the neighborhood of 60%+. Loan sharking, in the hands of "the people" has become legal. And what did the rest of the people do? Very little. You make yours, I’ll make mine.
The people have been asleep at the wheel, or worse, blinded by their own self-interest. Scapegoating the top dogs and the right wing is employed too often here and by the left as a way of disassociating from the way things have turned out. But the truth is, most of those CEOs, and corporate leaders came from the people, as opposed to a landed aristocracy. The people, not some factory in Langley, is turning out these types because the people consist to a great extent, if not largely, of these types. That’s how W got elected twice, with only a little juking at the booths.
And what was W’s appeal? More people will get wealthy. And they did, for a while. But now, holding the bottle up to the light of day, it’s clearly obvious, Hey it was Snake Oil all along. If the people weren’t so eager for it, weren’t so willing to assist in dispensing it, weren’t so rabid in preaching about it, we wouldn’t be in this mess. No, sorry, the people are not off the hook. It is after all a democracy, or at least it could be if the people got up off their asses and took it back.
19 April 2009, 08:32, by Amerikagulag
"...No, sorry, the people are not off the hook. It is after all a democracy, or at least it could be if the people got up off their asses and took it back....."
I’m not saying the people aren’t guilty of the things you describe. W’s appeal? He lost both elections - that should tell you something. 2000 was rigged and 2004 he lost after all the counting finally stopped. Kerry was a setup, just as McCain was.
We’ve been dealing with a rigged election system for the last decade. Obama went from relative obscurity to the top of the ladder in 2 years. NO ONE does that unless they’re DEEPLY connected with the machine. This time round, we were offered a pretty face, a toothy smile, youth and a promise of ’change’ from someone who seemed to genuinely offer an alternative to the last 8 years. He was overwhelmingly approved of. But that is how it was scripted. There HAD to be something drastically different this time around (at least in appearance)
As it turns out we merely elected the other head of the 2 headed hydra. The people’s compass was pointing to CHANGE, JUSTICE, FAIRNESS, PEACE. We want good to come out of DC. We were given a cardboard cutout...again. The difference this time is Obama’s credentials. He knows the Constitution inside and out, unlike his predecessor. Therein lies the conundrum. He also knows well how to get around it. This time it’s not a snake oil salesman but a possible dark wizard.
"....I write this open letter with sadness at how far our country has fallen from what it claims to be....."
The US has NEVER been what it claims to be. Since the Native Americans were systematically annihilated in both the US and Canada, not to mention Mexico, this nation has been built upon greed, power and control, with corruption to achieve it. The American people have been offered toys and trinkets which we knowingly and willingly gobbled up, otherwise known as a ’standard of living’. But those days are gone and the current plan is the elimination of the middle class, the merging of all three countries under the "North American Union" label and the further exploitation of not only the people of South Am. and Mexico, but also our northern neighbors. But these actions are not the goals of the ’people’ - they are the goals of the elite, the few; those in power. Washington DC is an organized crime syndicate. The people are involuntary accessories to these crimes, by funding it.
You can tell, however, that the compass of the people differs from that of the government by the number of prisons we’ve built in the last 20 years - many of which are standing empty.....waiting. And the days are coming. But do you expect a people to rise up against a government whose current bag of tricks include laser, sonic and heat weapons? Those are just what we know about. And I forgot the media.
Good letter Sam. Keep up the good work.