One of the most harmful lies that Republicans have told themselves for decades is that poverty is a choice caused by laziness and immoral character.
There are certainly immoral and lazy poor people. But there are just as many billionaires, millionaires and middle class people with these same traits. And no one works as hard as the working class poor, who struggle for survival with a fierceness that only the hungry can understand.
Yet this slanderous propaganda has been the bedrock of every effort to demonize the poor, in order to undermine sane economic policy, and to ignore our moral obligation to those not born into the self sustaining arms of privilege.
And at the same time, conversely, we glorify the wealthy, to justify their privilege and excuse the systematic transfer of wealth away from the worker, because the rich are more deserving, by virtue of their supposed superior intelligence and harder work.
America is a cargo cult, we have made a religion of wealth. Money is proof that you are superior, favored by God, blessed. Which is why money is the ultimate goal in the American psyche. Wealth is the symbol of success, it is power, it is salvation from the relentless struggle for life.
But money is only power if you possess more of it compared to others. So it’s important to maintain that privileged status, to prevent any dilution of power shared with the dirty masses, who are needed to work in your factories. The billionaires are the high priests of the American religion. They control the laws, and saturate the culture with consumerism, to ensure everyone keeps their priorities in line with the religion of wealth. And the faithful, obediently lust for more posessions, to be filled with joy and assurance of God’s blessing.
The greatest irony is that this cult has become successful only with the full support of Evangelical Christians, who believe this premise, and helped craft this priority gospel, because of a belief in their own moral superiority as evidenced by God’s economic blessings and their place in the socio-economic hierarchy.
Americans have taken Jesus' "blessed are the poor" and turned it into "blessed are the rich." And every priority of the Jesus they claim to follow has been inversed. Blessed are the soldiers and those who make war. Blessed are the wealthy. Blessed are the pussy grabbing arrogant braggarts (as long as they have money). Cursed are the dirty poor. Cursed are the weak and marginalized. Cursed are the foreigners. Cursed are the sick, let them die the death they clearly deserve.
Jesus says, "You will know them by their fruit." We are now tasting the rotten fruit of America’s religion.
American is at a turning point. The majority will either remain silent while the priests double down on this self destructive religion, and America will devour itself. Or we will wake up before it’s too late, see the bankrupt and immoral promise of this toxic ideology, unite around common sense and kindness, firmly reject this ideology, and embrace something beautiful, just, and sustainable.
