What If All Religions Viewed Other Religions As Equal?

First let’s start with some basic facts.  For millennia now, three of the world’s major religions have believed in one God. Whether one is Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, when one speaks or prays to God, one is praying to the same being. Indeed, the ancient history of these religions are to be found in the same story.  Where they separate is in their belief of who the true prophet of God was and then they further separate based on the institution that best represents the faith or the sub-prophet that is more worthy of adoration.

Religions, from the earliest times to the present, exist to make the universe, nature and man sensible to man, setting up an orderly relationship between nature and man, and between man and man. As such, religion has been central to the core identity of its adherents, be they individuals or nations. While in the modern world, the ties of religion have been markedly reduced for many people as they have found other ways of explaining the universe and man, it continues to be a primal force for probably the vast majority of mankind.

It is this primal identity with religion coupled with the belief of most religions and sub-sects that they are the true and only source of communication with God ... the exclusiveness of religion ... that has made religion, either on its own or as a tool of nationalist leaders, the cause of much conflict, persecution, and death over the centuries. Indeed, it is safe to say that religion has either been the cause of or lent itself to the cause of more human misery over the ages than any other force. How ironic and how sad. 

And we’re not only talking about conflict between Christians and Jews or Jews and Muslims. As we know all too well, there has been deadly conflict between Protestants and Catholics (most recently in Northern Ireland), and between Shia and Sunni (still ongoing). And while the conflict between ultra-orthodox Jews and all other Jews has usually not been deadly, the conflict is intense.

All of these religions have an institutional authority, some more formal and absolute like the Catholic church.  Conflict has continued over the centuries because the people in leadership positions have seen it to be in their religion’s or sub-sect's  best interest to foment discord and conflict with the members of other religions or sub-sects.  

Now of course, such individuals always speak in the language of faith ... that God has ordained whatever the object is.  But really it is man who has ordained these conflicts and positions just as it was man who created each of the religions or sub-sects in the first place, whether it was the result of a received vision or otherwise.

If someone truly believes in God ... and remember here that we are in all cases referring to the same God ... can he or she honestly believe that God would wish such misery on the members of another religions? If man is made in the image of God, then even those who don’t believe in Yahweh, let alone those who believe in a different prophet, are still his children.  Do Christians believe that Jesus would do what they have advocated over the centuries? True, the God of the Old Testament was often wrathful and jealous, but for most people, Jews included, that God of the ancient Hebrews has been replaced by a loving God.

My point is that all it would take ... and I know this is an over-simplification, but its impact would be enormous ... would be for the leaders of Christianity, Judaism, Islam and their sub-sects to come together and say, in the presence of the leaders of Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism, 

“Enough is enough.  We all believe in the same God.  We are all children of the same God.  We may have our own prophets, our own rituals, our own institutions, but there is no question that it is against the will of God to continue to fight with one another.  We choose to reject the conflicts and forgive the misery that has been inflicted over the centuries.  What is past is past.  And beyond our religions, today we join with leaders of the eastern faiths ... Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism ... and say with them that from this day forth, we declare an era of peace and respect between us and all other religions.  

We therefore say to our followers: may you love your fellow man regardless of their religion, or indeed regardless whether they believe in God. May you always follow the Golden Rule and do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

And so the world would come to a point where all religious conflict, or religious-abetted conflict, would be a thing of the past.  No longer could a nation claim that God was on its side and not the other’s.  The waging of war would be made much more difficult for political leaders if the world’s religions took the position I advocate in a steadfast and very visible way.

What Obama Should Have Said But Didn't

Opening Statement:  I want to be a president for all the people, whether rich or poor, Democrat or Republocan ... not just the 54% that don't receive any government benefits.  I will not write off any American.

Entitlements:  Just a few weeks ago, Governor Romney, in a private gathering of donors, sounded very different from the way he is sounding tonight speaking to all of you. He said that the 46% of Americans who receive government benefits feel like victims, that they have become dependent on government. It sounded like he felt they were losers.  I strongly disagree.  The seniors who have paid into Social Security all their lives, the injured veterans coming back from Iraq and all our wars after having fought for their country ... these are people who have paid their dues, they are indeed entitled to support from the government at this point in their lives.  What about the poor?  The poor who have never had a fair chance to get ahead because of poor schooling, a government obligation, deserve the support of the government to help them pursue their dreams of life, liberty, and happiness.  That is why President Clinton turned welfare into workfare.

The Role of Government: As it says in the Declaration of Independence, the role of government is to "secure these rights" ... meaning the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In other words, government's role is to create a situation where everyone has at least an equal opportunity to pursue those rights. The government needs to be there for all the people, and especially those who are at a point in their lives when they are facing hardship and are vulnerable ... whether it is from old age, from natural disaster, from injury received in defense of their country, from unjust discrimination, or being born on the wrong side of the tracks. That is the ethic of the American sense of government, the American social contract.     

Health Care:  No, Governor, you're wrong.  We do not have the best health care system in the world.  Far from it.  Despite spending more money by far on health care per person than the rest of the world, the United States consistently scores near the bottom of the pack of industrialized countries on almost every measurable outcome of national health. That is why the board, that you are so fond of mentioning, was created.  While places like the Cleveland Clinic and several others have instituted practices that have delivered better health care at lower cost, the rest of the health care industry has not embraced those examples and so our costs keep rising while we have unsatisfactory health care outcomes. This is clearly confirmed in a recent report by the Institute of Medicine.  The board was created so that these excellent health care practices developed by private clinics would be mandated for the entire health care industry.  So that we can at the same time significantly lower costs while improving people's health.

Closing:  I have tried to be the President for all Americans.  Countless times during my first four years, I have reached across the aisle on all the major issues to try to work with Repulican legislators.  But in virtually each and every case, the Republicans just said, "no."  They have stated very bluntly, as did the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, that their sole goal was to see that I would be a one-term president.  Every decision they have made was to weaken me by weakening the country. During the Republican primary season and at the nominating convention, Governor Romney sounded like the most radical of the radical Tea Party Republicans.  He wrote off almost half of America's citizens, half of you. Tonight he tried to make you believe he is now once again the old caring Mitt Romney who was Governor of Massachusetts. I ask you ... who is he?  How will he really govern?

Romney Shows His Dark Side

Whatever else one could say about Mitt Romney … that he was a flip-flopper, an opportunist, that there was no “there” there … one couldn’t say that he was a nasty man. One felt that he would do or say anything he had to to become president, but that he would stop short of being nasty.

Well, that barrier has fallen.  On the stump the other day, Romney said that no one had ever asked him for his birth certificate … that everyone knew without question where he was born, where he was from.  How despicable!

Clearly, this was a reference to the Obama birth certificate canard.  Although obliquely, Romney with this statement signaled to the “Birther” movement that he was one with them.  And he signaled that no blow would be too low for him to throw in this election campaign.

So not only is Romney an opportunist … witness his most recent proposal that states be given the right to control drilling and mining on federal lands … but far worse than that (for among politicians this character trait is not unusual), he has shown that he has no shame.  And that should be beyond the pale, certainly for someone aspiring to be president of this great nation.

Republicans’ Seven Biggest Lies

The propaganda theory of “the big lie” is that if you tell a lie big enough often enough, people will begin to believe it, and the Republicans are masters of this tactic. The Republican Party has been selling the American public a bill of goods and unfortunately the public is falling for the scam. They want the average American to think that they are going to protect their interests and that the Democrats will ruin them.  This is a classic “big lie” if ever there was one.

Their “argument” is based on the following subsidiary lies, which fall predominantly into two categories … the economy and health care/Obamacare:

Lies About the Economy

Lie #1: The financial crisis and joblessness is the fault of big government, of government regulation.

            Fact:  The financial crisis was caused by rich investment bankers and mortgage brokers trying to find a way to make a fast buck at the expense of ordinary Americans or small-fry investors. It happened because people in the financial industry are greedy and cannot be allowed to regulate themselves.

Lie #2: The financial crisis continues because of the failure of the Obama stimulus package and the increasing government deficit.

            Fact:  The Obama stimulus package, while not creating many new jobs, resulted in preventing the elimination of millions of jobs, especially state and local jobs.  This kept the country out of a second Great Depression.

            Fact:  Once the stimulus funds were spent, Republican-led efforts to slash the budget in order to cut the deficit have made the jobless crisis far worse by reducing support for state and local governments, causing increased unemployment in that area that the stimulus had prevented and stalling the recovery.

            Fact:  The deficit, while large and undesirable, is more of prac†ical concern to investors in government bonds, and interestingly rather than fleeing from US bonds, investors continue to flock to them as a safe haven in this volatile global financial market.

Lie #3: The key to getting the American public back to work is cutting taxes for the rich and corporations, as well as cutting the deficit.

            Fact:  Cutting taxes for the rich only helps the rich get richer.  There is no trickle down effect, as was proven during the Reagan years.   Reducing corporate taxes only results in corporations and their investors making more money; it does not encourage investment and job creation unless the tax cuts are specifically tied to that effort. Corporations are into doing more with less labor; they have no interest in job creation or giving raises.  It’s not that they don’t have the money … they are sitting on $1.74 trillion … yes trillion … dollars of cash.

            Fact: Income inequality between the very rich and the rest of us is worse now than at any time in US history.  And income stagnation for the average American is a real crisis. 

            Fact:  Cutting the deficit by cutting funding for all sorts of programs and support for state and local governments will only make the job situation even worse by increasing layoffs at all levels, as it has already done.

Lie #4:  The answer is not the government; government is the problem.

            Fact:  The crisis was caused by market forces working in a for-all-practical-purposes unregulated atmosphere.  Its only guide was greed.  Even Alan Greenspan has admitted that his theory that the market would be self-regulating was an error.  The answer to protecting the American public from this type of thing happening again is regulation of the financial sector that has teeth in it.  The Republicans are dead set against such regulation. The Democrats support it.

            Fact: We got out of the Great Depression through massive government spending including the WWII effort.  In a financial crisis, the private sector has no interest in investing.  Their only concern is protecting or growing their profits.  Thus they find ways to do less with more, which is great for their shareholders, but bad for the American worker.  We need more government stimulus, hang the impact on the deficit, in order to get the unemployed back to work.

The Lies About Health Care/Obamacare

Lie #5: Obamacare will get between you and your doctor and reduce the quality of your medical care.

            Fact: There is nothing whatsoever in Obamacare that would do this.  It is built on the existing private insurance system. It is not a “government takeover” in any sense, which Medicare actually was, although interestingly everyone loves that.

Lie #6:  Obamacare will force individuals to get health insurance. The implication of this is that individuals who cannot afford health insurance will be forced to buy it or suffer a penalty.

            Fact: One of the main drives behind the enactment of Obamacare was to provide health insurance to the millions of Americans who don’t have it as part of their jobs and who can’t afford to buy it.  It does this by subsidizing health insurance for those who can’t afford it. The individual mandate will provide health insurance and proper medical care to millions of Americans who currently can’t afford access.

            Fact: Republicans have for the last 20 years urged the individual mandate as part of any health care reform.  It was central to the bill that Governor Romney supported in Massachusetts. Now they are against it solely because it’s a Democrat-passed program.

Lie #7: Obamacare will ration health care.

            Fact: There is nothing in Obamcare that would ration health care. There are measures in the law that encourage the medical profession to apply their group knowledge more consistently so that everyone gets the best care and money is not wasted on unnecessary or counterproductive procedures.

            Fact:  Contrary to the statements of Republican talk show hosts and some Congressmen, there is no “death panel” in Obamacare. What the law does encourage is for doctors to talk about end of life issues with their patients so that the patients’ desires regarding various levels of medical effort will be known and respected.

Bottom line … Republican politicians and radio talk show hosts have presented a Big Lie to the American public. And by saying it over and over again, and by the Democrats not effectively countering the lie, a large segment of the American public has come to believe the lie. But in fact, Republicans are only concerned with protecting the interests of the rich and corporations; they have no concern for the average American. It is instead Democrats who are fighting to protect the well-being of the average American.

There is no question that government is not the entire solution … the private sector and individuals have a major role to play … but government is certainly a necessary part of the solution.

A Troubled Republic On This July 4th

As we celebrate this July 4^th, the state of our republic is troubled. Two core principles of American democracy are under attack … the role of government and the democratic process. And the attack is cynically being waged under the banner of protecting our system and our rights from the power of government.

As we all know, the Declaration of Independence’s most famous line is, “All men are created equal,” and that they have “unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Less commonly known are the words that follow … “That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.” In other words, the role of government is to act in a way so as to secure the rights of the people to equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Both of these thoughts were truly revolutionary in a world where governments were in the hands of and benefited solely those with power and wealth. This new view of the role of government and the equality of all people was the cornerstone of the American republic, despite the fact that it would take almost a century for African-Americans to become legally equal and another 50 years for women.

Over the course of the last century, after suffrage was made universal and all citizens were finally deemed to have the rights embodied in the Declaration, the role of government in securing those unalienable rights for all evolved of necessity to helping the less fortunate through a variety of government programs.  Prominent among them have been universal education, Social Security, labor laws, government welfare, and Medicare/Medicaid.

Without these programs, government recognized that the legal equality of all people was meaningless. People needed to be given real equal opportunity to pursue their rights. Both Republicans and Democrats agreed on this basic principle, but would of course regularly disagree on the particulars of government programs to secure that equality.

With regards to the process of our democracy since universal suffrage, it can best be summarized by the dictum, “One man, one vote.” This means that every citizen of voting age should be able to vote and that each person’s vote should count the same.

Viewed in this light, the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United makes a farce of our democratic process by caring only for form, not substance. If those with wealth and power have the ability through television advertising to in effect control an election because of the disproportionate influence of such advertising, then those with wealth and power have achieved their aims through the back door.  Who votes is of little consequence if the real power lies elsewhere.

Only if candidates are on an equal or relatively equal financial footing can there be the fair contest of ideas that is essential to our democracy and to the efficacy of freedom of speech.

The health of our economy and the business community is of vital importance to the health of our country and the welfare of its citizens. But we have long since passed the day when one would say, “What’s good for General Motors, is good for the country.” The same criticism holds true for the radical pro-business, anti-government policies of the Koch brothers, the Tea Party, and their Republican allies. Our democracy depends on a balance between private rights, the public good, and government.

We are as Lincoln said, a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Let us not pervert that heritage by making our system a government “of big business, by big business, and for big business.” Let us learn from the past, not return to it.

Savings Lives Doesn’t Count If There’s No Profit!

Another example of the failure of American-style capitalism appeared recently in a New York Times report.  There is a generic drug, transexamic acid, which was shown in a large multi-country trial in 2010 to save the lives of hemorrhaging trauma patients by slowing their bleeding.

The British and American armies began using the drug immediately with great success, saving lives of badly injured soldiers.  It is used in British hospitals and is carried in British ambulances.

The drug could save an estimated 4,000 lives in the United States each year  … victims of car crashes, stabbings, and shootings. Yet American hospitals have been “slow” to begin using it.

Why? The drug is cheap.  So cheap that there is little profit in it for its manufacturer, and so it has not marketed the drug, hasn’t pushed it. And if a pharmaceutical company doesn’t push a drug, it doesn’t get used.

Finally, however, hospitals in several cities are now “debating” its use. But in most others, it is not being considered.

This is a scandal and yet another indictment of American-style capitalism. There’s nothing wrong with making a profit. But profit should never be a factor when it comes to providing health care.

If everyone in the health care field … from drug manufacturers to hospitals to doctors groups … were by law required to be not-for-profit organizations, we would not have many of the types of problems that we have with health care in the United States. 

To those who will say that taking away the profit incentive would negatively impact innovation, I say, “nonsense.” Three reasons. First, the people inventing drugs or delivering services do so because they are motivated and have professional pride. Second, drug companies would continue to innovate because new products and increased sales leads to greater security for its labor force. Third, it might actually increase innovation because a drug would not be deep-sixed because it wasn’t going to be sufficiently profitable.

Taking the profit motive out of American health care would more than likely greatly improve the entire system and the quality of care Americans receive, which contrary to the posturing of some politicians is consistently shown in international studies to rank rather low compared to the other industrialized countries.

Energy Policy Ignores the Elephant in the Room: Saving Us from Global Warming and Peak Oil

In current thinking, the issues presented by global warming concern using less fossil fuel and replacing that energy source with alternative”clean” energy.  We are all familiar with the options that are on the table: solar power, wind power, ethanol, and nuclear power. Oh and I suppose for accuracy one should add clean coal. There is also modest incremental talk of conservation.

However, there are problems with all of these “solutions.”  Clean coal, which requires the deep burial of carbon dioxide, will never be politically or economically viable.  For one, the energy companies want to be left off the hook legally if the gas should happen to escape its underground habitat and kill people.  Then there’s the problem of removing mountaintops and the resulting environmental degradation to access the coal.

Nuclear power, at least nuclear fission, has the inescapable and unsolvable problem of what to do with the nuclear waste product that will remain radioactive for thousands of years.  Nuclear fusion, which would be safer and produce less radioactive waste is still experimental; a test reactor is under construction in France.

The remaining “green” options are generally agreed not to have the capacity to provide anywhere close to our massive energy needs.  And even the green options, including electric cars, would need massive amounts of energy … generated by fossil fuels, of course … to be financially viable. Corn ethanol, which has only thrown world corn markets into a frenzy resulting in increased food costs for the poor, has been proven to be worthless as an energy saver.

If one is objective, one therefore has to say that all the talk about substantially reducing our carbon footprint through the use of alternative energy sources just is not very realistic, given our current  and future dependence on energy, which will just get worse as the world population grows and more of it experiences modern development.

And as one thinks about this issue, it is important to remember that there is another energy-related catastrophic event waiting to happen out there … it’s not just global warming. At some point in the future … whether it’s starting to happen already as some argue or will happen in 20 or 50 or 100 years … we will reach “peak oil.” The availability of oil then will be drastically reduced and the price of what oil is available will skyrocket to unimaginable heights.

So if one is trying to plan for the future, the inescapable question that must be addressed is how can modern man live, with a reasonable level of creature comfort (one must be practical), using only a fraction of the energy that is being used today. Only if that question can be realistically answered is there any hope for mankind’s future. If that question is not answered, sooner rather than later our economies will collapse, our standard of living will evaporate … the world will become a very ugly place, not all that different from the futuristic world depicted in “Mad Max.”  We will have destroyed ourselves, not by nuclear weapons, but through our insatiable greed.

I certainly do not have the answer.  What’s scary though, is that I am not aware of any great minds or think tanks that have addressed this issue and come up with various models for how we could live using only a fraction of the energy being used today. No one seems to be thinking or talking about this. This goes way beyond what could be achieved through conservation, energy-efficient appliances, green buildings, and the like. This would most likely require a massive change in the way we currently live.

To my mind, government and industry must join forces in a project even larger than the fabled Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb. The future of our children, and certainly our children’s children, will depend on whether and how this issue is addressed.