America: Losing its true moral compass

By Jane Stillwater

I’m currently reading a rather good book entitled “The Nurturing of Time Future,” by Howard Richards .  Although the author’s love affair with run-on paragraphs causes eye-stain at times, he does make several very important points — including that whenever a country loses its true moral compass, it soon becomes vulnerable to having pseudo-morality imposed upon it from above.

And Richards isn’t talking about God here.

Richards is talking about dictators — dictators who are able to impose their own moralities on us because we no longer have any moral code of our own.

Take, for instance, the folks in Washington and on Wall Street who are currently leading our nation away from its traditional Judeo-Christian values — while at the same time declaring themselves to be doing God’s work.  Really?  “Screw Christ’s message of tolerance, compassion and love for our neighbors,” they constantly preach to us.  And we let them.  “Justice is dead.  Greed is now God.”

So much for greed being the Third Deadly Sin.

Take, for instance, what is currently happening to the Occupy Movement.  After a few of us started to wake up and demand economic morality?  We got punched in the face by corporatistas who want none of that.  “Screw fairness,” the One Percent chant — and then the rest of America sides with the Big Guys and applauds from the sidelines as black-shirted cops beat our moral minority to a pulp.

Take, for instance, Palestinian non-violent protesters who dare to think that it is morally wrong to blatantly seize other people’s land.  Israeli corporatisitas then kill these protesters — using weapons paid for by Americans.  “Screw non-violence!” yell our leaders, happily rejoicing that they now get to kill unarmed humans beings instead of having to fight men with guns.  And we let these dictator-wannabes get away with this because making obscene profits by any means necessary now matters more to us than morality.  No surprise there.

Take, for instance, American women’s demands for equality.  “Keep them barefoot and pregnant!” scream our leaders.  Where’s the morality in that, you might ask.  But most Americans don’t even bother to ask, not even American women.  Corporatistas on the prowl for cheap labor would love to see women treated like chattel.  And we let them.  Why not.  There’s profit involved.

Take, for instance, all the television commercials we see daily.  In the course of only one half-hour of TV, we sit through perhaps 20 to 30 commercials.  But that in itself is not immoral.  What is immoral is the messages embedded in these commercials:  “Keep buying!”  Keep buying and buying and buying — even as we cannibalize our own planet.

And those of us Americans who demand a fair tax rate for the rich, one that would only be in proportion to their obscene profits at our expense as we pick up their tab for infrastructure, worker training, healthcare, pensions, resource loss, weapons supply, etc.?  Dare to object?  Boy are we put in our place fast.  Obscene profits should never get taxed — no matter where they come from.  Only Jesus and communists think like that.  “Screw Jesus!” the Big Boys cry.  And we let them.

And then of course, there is the morality of Endless War, that seems to be catching everybody’s eye right now — wars paid for by monies taken from America’s veterans, little old ladies and our working class.

The Good Old Boys’ Club has found a whole new way to “Support the Troops” — by taking away their pension plans.

And with regard to small businesses that demand a slice of the pie because it’s the moral thing to do?  Too bad for them also.  Corporate morality doesn’t care about anything but itself.

And apparently American morality doesn’t care much about anything but obscene profits for large corporations either — and, under America’s new moral code which lacks any compass at all except for one that points toward the Pentagon and Wall Street, our country is moving closer and closer to becoming a dictatorship.

It looks like Howard Richards is right.

*****

For Mothers Day, my daughter Ashley gave me a beautiful bouquet of organic greens.  What a thoughtful daughter.  Then we all trooped over to San Francisco and ate dinner at the Seven Hills restaurant.  And Mena slept through it all.

How lucky I am to have such a nice family and to celebrate Mothers Day in such a wonderful way.  Many less fortunate mothers than me don’t have such a choice.

Several years ago, I had the honor to meet with the mother of one of the men who had died in the famous Belfast Maze prison hunger strike — and 30 years after that tragedy, this mother was still grieving for her lost son who died fighting injustice.

And now the mothers of Palestinian hunger strikers are also torn up because their children have not eaten for up to 74 days in protest of injustice in Palestine.

We American mothers are so LUCKY that we can go to fine restaurants with our happy healthy children on Mothers Day and not have to suffer the tortures of injustice that have broken so many Belfast and Palestinian mothers’ hearts.

For more from Jane Stillwater visit her blog @ http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/