The Good Ship America

Just about everyone in America is familiar with the ill-fated history of the British-made cruise ship, RMS Titanic. But just in case someone reading this isn’t, here is a brief description of its history:

“The British luxury passenger liner Titanic sank on April 14-15, 1912, en route to New York City from Southampton, England, during its maiden voyage. The vessel sank with a loss of about 1,500 lives at a point about 400 miles (640 km) south of Newfoundland.

The great ship, at that time the largest and most luxurious afloat, was designed and built by William Pirrie's Belfast firm Harland and Wolff to service the highly competitive Atlantic Ferry route. It had a double-bottomed hull that was divided into 16 presumably watertight compartments. Because four of these could be flooded without endangering the liner's buoyancy, it was considered unsinkable. Shortly before midnight on April 14, the ship collided with an iceberg; five of its watertight compartments were ruptured, causing the ship to sink at 2:20 AM April 15. Inquiries held in the United States and Great Britain alleged that the Leyland liner Californian, which was less than 20 miles (32 km) away all night, could have aided the stricken vessel had its radio operator been on duty and thereby received the Titanic's distress signals. Only the arrival of the Cunard liner Carpathia 1 hour and 20 minutes after the Titanic went down prevented further loss of life in the icy waters.”

____________________________________________________________________________

^{# http://www.britannica.com/titanic/01_01.html}

^{________________________________________________________________________________________}

Notice, in the second paragraph, fifth line down, the phrase: it was considered unsinkable. And yet, not only did it sink, but it went down in record time. Many folks believe the collision with the iceberg could have been avoided had the ship been sailing at a slower speed, thus allowing her crew the time to steer her away from the iceberg. But the owners, in an attempt to set a new record for crossing the Atlantic, demanded that she sail at what was considered an unsafe speed.

The analogy here is obvious: The good ship America, considered by many Americans to be unsinkable, is presently traveling at an unsafe speed in a sea full of icebergs.

Considered to be the most powerful nation in history, and the only remaining “superpower,” America, in the eyes of many citizens, can simply do no wrong. This nationalistic spirit has created a culture of complacency and arrogance that is going to end in the sinking of America.

Just as wiser voices were ignored by the Titanic’s owners, obsessed with zeal to “win” the race across the Atlantic, so it seems the current administration in Washington, and its group of cheerleaders in Congress, is infected with this same obsession.

Winning At All Cost

Winning at any cost is a disease that is pandemic in America. Professional athletes in America now routinely inject performance-enhancing drugs to get an “edge” on their competition. Never mind the future, irreversible side effects of this practice, because, as Vince Lombardi said, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” In America, if you aren’t perceived a “winner,” you are a “nothing.”

The disease has infected every level of our society. In a desire to “not let the neighbors get ahead of them,” Americans have indebted themselves like in no other time in our history. We now spend, on average, more than we take in, and personal savings is at a negative percentage. Our government has gone, in just a few years, from being the greatest lender nation to the biggest borrower nation, and the country that we borrow from the most (China) was once our chief enemy (and, quiet probably, still is)!

The obsession to win starts at the Top. When George W. Bush occupied the presidential office, he and the supporters of his “war,” tirelessly spouted that if we don’t “win” in Iraq, disaster will ensue for America.

Yet no one seemed to be able to come up with a verifiable definition of what would be considered a win. The definition of what a win would be there most often heard was, “when a stable government is established.” Stable compared to what? If anything, our military presence in Iraq has created anything but stability.

For all intents and purposes, Iraq was and still is a losing proposition--for Americans and Iraqis. Exact statistics on the death toll of Iraqi citizens since the initial invasion are impossible to obtain, but depending on where you look, it’s somewhere between 600 thousand and 1.4 million; 2.2 million have been displaced outside the country, and that many inside. To date the Pentagon admits to about 4400 Deaths of American soldiers, and 30,000 injuries. The cost, so far, of the war is just under a trillion dollars. It is estimated that it costs around $400,000 to deploy one soldier for one year in Iraq. The U.S. still has 50 thousand troops and twice that many private contractors on the ground in Iraq, and four permanent “super base” outposts. Never mind that this entire fiasco was launched as a result of fabricated information about Saddam possessing weapons of mass destruction. After seven years of searching every nook and cranny in Iraq, no WMDs have been found.

And what has all this expenditure of human life and money obtained? The “stable” government our occupation has established is totally Muslim (most Christians and Jews who were allowed to live there under Saddam’s rule, have been chased out of the country), with a shift to Shiite rule over the former Sunni rule of Saddam.

The point is there can be no such thing, in the true sense of the word, as a “win” in Iraq. Iraq was and still is a losing cause, and two years out of office, former President Bush still refuses to admit it. After all, nobody wants to be remembered as a “loser,” right?

And while he was waging “his“ war, he presided over the greatest expansion of the national debt in our history and the sub-prime real estate debacle, which ultimately lead to the crash of the economy during his last year in office.

Has anything changed with President Obama? Well, he promised change. But what he’s done is anything but that. He did remove some troops from Iraq, but only so as to re-deploy them in Afghanistan, “his” war, which is fast turning into a bigger mistake than Iraq, if that is possible. It’s estimated that the cost to maintain present troop levels there will be around $120 billion in 2011. Of course, experience tells us that this is underestimated. Regardless of what it costs, the question is, is any expenditure at all, in lives and money, worth it to the security of America? What is the “bang for the buck? Not any better, and perhaps worse than Iraq. The government we’ve installed is one of the most corrupt in the world, and has no clout whatsoever outside the capital city. What’s more, our military protects the largest production of opium in the world, used to make heroin, much of which makes its way back here, contributing to our epidemic of drug addiction. And Obama’s economic policy? More (much more) of the same borrow and spend, government is the answer to all our problems policy of the Bush regime.

Some wise soul once said, “everybody makes mistakes, but not everybody chooses to live with them.” To continue to live with the policy mistakes our government has committed is not just stupid, it is insane.

Not only do we see this, “I will not admit I was wrong about this, lest I be labeled a loser,” attitude with the occupation of Iraq, but we now see it with the cheery, “everything will be alright,” prognosis on the state of the economy, causing more of the same policy decisions (flood the market with more borrowed “money”) that caused the problem in the first place—expecting different results! Ben Franklin defined this as insanity.

American foreign and domestic policy needs to take a paradigm shift in course, or the good ship America is going down, and it is going to happen much faster than most folks think. Maybe we’ve already hit the iceberg, and at this point all we can do is salvage whatever we can. I choose to believe we’re not there just yet, and there’s still time to make the change in course and avoid the fatal collision. That change of course needs to start at the top, but the only way it will happen is for the American people to stop listening to the vain talk coming from the former and current administrations and their cheerleaders in both major parties, and wake up to the reality of our situation. If we continue to live with the obvious mistakes of the past, out of fear of being called “losers,” we are, indeed, going to become the biggest losers in the history of the world. You can take that to the bank.

I am speaking to all Americans in general in this essay, but, since this is posted on a Christian website, I am particularly speaking to folks who call themselves Christians. Of all people in America, Christians should be at the forefront of this fight to restore sanity to our government. Sadly, many with whom I am acquainted are not concerned at all about the present peril in which we find ourselves. In fact, incredibly, many vainly defend our domestic and foreign policy course, believing the nonsense that God will not allow his new “chosen” nation to stub its toe. If you are of this persuasion, I implore you to consider what God has to say about it. Micah 6:8 says: “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” And Romans 12:17-18: “Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.” Moreover, Proverbs 22:7 says: “….the borrower is servant to the lender.” In view of these admonitions, how can Christians support the arrogant, violent, spendthrift, immoral, ungodly policies of OUR government. Whether we Christians like it or not, we ARE citizens of this country, and it is therefore contingent upon us to oppose and speak out against the current government policies that blatantly violate these admonitions from the word of God. To do otherwise, as Martin Luther well said, “is mere flight and disgrace.”

Mike Schroeder

Feel free to publish this essay as you see fit.

All  references to Scripture are from the King James Bible　

Post Script

While there are thousands of variations of Christianity in the world today, the common thread that runs through them all is; Jesus Christ is “the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.”(1 Tim 4:10). This is to say that Jesus Christ and his sacrifice at Calvary provided the way for all men to be saved, but only “them that believe” will be justified before God and saved. (Romans 3:22). “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved, for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation; For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Rom 10:9-13