Would God "Damn" America? - Democratic Underground

Yes We Did

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Mon Mar-17-08 09:39 PM
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Would God "Damn" America?

If you are unable to look past inter-party partisanship, then please read no further and leave no comment. This is about more than politics, and if you can not see that, then you will only look ignorant in your response.

I used to be very proud of our country; the great United States of America. I love the pledge of allegiance, the star spangled banner, and everything I read growing up in History class pertaining to what our country was all about. Fortunately, then I grew up.

I came to the realization that I was not proud of our country. I was merely proud of what our country was "supposed" to be.

As it says on the Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

As it turns out this country doesn't stand for any of those things any more. And quite frankly, if you look back at our history, it never really did.

We are a country if immigrants, yet throughout history have treated immigrants as vermin, and had no problem with them becoming sick huddled masses of homeless. We discriminated against the Irish, the Italians, the Polish, the Jews, and now it is the Middle Easterners and the Latinos. We also turned our backs on the Haitian refugees, stopping them in the water and forcing them to turn back, despite knowing they would never make it.

How easily the citizens of this country forget where their ancestors originally came from.

The United States was in fact a country founded on the ideals of genocide, as nations of what we now call "Native Americans" were slaughtered in countless masses, and their land stolen from beneath their rotting corpses.

If that onslaught wasn't enough, we then began engaging in slavery by having what we now call "African Americans" stolen from their families and shipped from their native countries to our borders. We call them "African" Americans because we don't even know which countries they were stolen from; just the continent. Thirteen percent of our population can't track their family genealogy back more than three or four generations; at best. Many can't even go back more than two. The records were simply not kept. Of course, why would they want to keep records like that?

In World War II we turned our backs on the Jews, pretending that nothing was going on until 6 million of them were murdered by the Nazis. The guilt of our inaction has forced us to side with Israel as they attempt their own form of genocide on the Palestinians. And now, if you even dare make a dissenting statement about Israel and their current political actions, you are labeled anti-semitic.

During WWII we also became the first and only country to use an atomic bomb when we dropped it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then, back here in the states we rounded up anyone of Japanese descent and put them in Japanese Internment camps.

To engage in the Viet Nam War we made it look like the Vietnamese attacked us first with the now infamous Golf of Tonkin LIE.

We also ignored the Rwandan crisis in the 1990's until it was too late. Of course, there was no oil there, so we were told that it wasn't really in our best interests to act.

We are now doing the same thing in Darfur; ignoring yet another genocide because it does not benefit our government to help.

The United States has also been responsible for millions of deaths of innocent civilians as a result of our involvement in regime changes.

Just look at our huge debacle in Iraq; the most recent example. This was not about "Fighting the Terrorists." It was about regime change and oil. As a result, we have lost nearly 4,000 of our own troops, with at least another 75,000 injured. Those are the small numbers. We are also responsible for 600,000 innocent dead Iraqis and millions more displaced in foreign countries.

We went to Iraq because "Saddam gassed his own people" with OUR gas after WE told Those people to rise up against him. When they did, we abandoned them and allowed Saddam to murder them. In his 30 some odd years of rule, he killed around 300,000 of his people. It took us 5 years to kill twice as many.

Now our government is proud to tell us that we engage in torture, as the Abu Gharaib scandal broke. Now we are fighting in congress to determine if it is acceptable to essentially "almost" drown someone.

The country in effect has now endorsed using terrorism; the very thing we are told that we are combating in the Middle East. And in the last seven years, that terrorism has be used against our own citizens in order to keep them in line.

At one point outing a CIA operative was grounds for treason; punishable by death. Now, it's just policy.

The list of this country's immoral crimes is endless, and I have really just touched on a few.

The point I am making is this. While Pastor Wright's comments were not pretty, and he definitely didn't sugar coat anything, they were still at the very heart of them true.

By our own admitted actions, God, regardless of who you think God is, would not bless the United States of America. He would in fact Damn this country. What has this country really done to deserve his blessing?

Now, I am sure many of you are wondering exactly what I am actually grateful for, since I have spent the last 3 hours writing about all the horrible things our country has done. Well, here it is.

I am most grateful of course for my family and the fact that I have the right to come on here and say everything I just did without worrying that someone is going to bust down my door and lock me away.

I am thankful for our constitution because in this document remains the truths of our forefathers. It is a guiding tool for our country and our leaders. It explains that all men are created equal, and as a nation we are to act accordingly.

They gave us a road-map to success and salvation. They left us with directions on how to become a great nation and how to appreciate how each person had something different and valuable to offer. This country is supposed to be the land of opportunity; free of oppression and tyranny.

Unfortunately, things didn't quite pan out that way. That is why it is our responsibility to change things. There is a reason George W. Bush was able to become president; to remind us of what we have lost, and how much more we could lose.

It is time to right the wrongs of this nation. And it starts with one.

One moment of compassion.
One act of kindness.
One great speech.
One great leader.

Who is that person? You are. I am. We can all be that person.

You want God to bless America? Help give him ONE reason to, because ONE is all it takes.