FCNNEWSSOURCE Editorial
– FCN Editorial –
(FinalCall.com) – The debate and cajoling to gain support for President Obama’s ambitious stimulus package is underway as the country reels from an historic economic downturn. The president and many others are hoping that the nearly $900 billion Senate package, with money for infrastructure projects, job training, education, and other projects, can kick start the economy.
He has made good on promises to try to end partisan bickering by inviting Republicans to join the huge task of reviving the moribund U.S. economy. Mr. Obama’s outreach and his words reflect a desire to do what is right for the country he has been elected to serve. It’s sad that many Republicans and the party itself seem to be hoping that the package will fail–and are looking to score political points later. The GOP talk of Mr. Obama turning the country to socialism is laughable given the corporate welfare that companies enjoyed under Mr. Bush and the massive bailout, in particular, of the financial industry when its own greed led to its implosion and huge losses of wealth on the stock market.
Michael Steele, a Black man and the new head of the Republican Party, congratulated his party on its stand against Mr. Obama and right wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh has openly expressed hope that the president fails. Perhaps what is lost on the Republicans and Mr. Limbaugh is the reality that every failed effort means more suffering and stress for the American people.
Millions are struggling to keep their homes, fearful of losing their jobs, overwhelmed by credit card debt and very worried about the future. Tragic examples of fear for the future and economic insecurity have been seen with the recent murder-suicide of a family in California and other instances where violence and death have followed despair over losses of jobs or homes. Even the staunchest supporters of the package say it will take time and the pain is likely to grow, things are likely to get worse before getting better.
It would be best for the country if the political leaders and the corporate leaders, some of whom were recently blasted for million dollar bonuses as Wall St. firms took federal handouts, started to look beyond their narrow interests to the best interest of the country.
“When the desire for the realization of self-interest becomes excessive, the first casualty in this struggle is ‘truth.’ The leaders of the society, in their struggle, to achieve inordinate self-interests, engage in hiding the light of truth from the American people,” warned the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, in “A Torchlight for America,” a momentous book published in 1993.
“Without truth the American people are left paralyzed, unable to constructively address their problems. Eventually, their only response will be to react destructively because their very lives are at peril’s door, and they know not why they are in this condition nor how to save themselves,” the Minister warned.
The 2008 election has inspired much hope domestically and globally that America can change and a man who was derided for not having experience has inspired millions by promoting a vision of America that asks for greater selflessness and a greater willingness to sacrifice for the good of the nation.
As the Minister said during the election, America and its leaders need vision because no one has the experience to deal with the country’s massive problems and its rapid fall.
It is also true that to check America’s decline, more than an economic stimulus package is needed. For nearly 80 years, the Nation of Islam has issued a prophetic warning about America and her place in scripture and fulfillment of prophecy as the modern Babylon, the modern Rome and the modern Egypt. She is an empire that has been divinely judged by Almighty God for her sins and her plagues. Like her forerunners, America is under divine chastisement, which includes destruction of her wealth.
“When the slaves were enamored with the riches of Pharaoh, Moses was not able to get his people to listen until he prayed for God’s hand to be set against the wealth of Egypt. The more Egypt declined, the more the slaves were inclined to listen to Moses and get up and go for self,” Min. Farrakhan noted in “Torchlight.”
“God has always chosen from among the despised and rejected. Whenever there has been a master and a slave, God has always put the solution in the head of slaves. But if America has no respect for human life, or for those who are its former slaves, then America will miss the solution to its problems,” he added.
The solution to America’s problems is a divine one: In scripture the portrait of the king of Nineveh, who didn’t focus on an economic miracle, but on spiritual and moral correctness and repentance was able to stay the hand of God by leading his nation in atonement for its wrongs.
So when President Obama speaks of a different America and admits that the country has often been wrong and dictated to others, his words are a good start. The words echo some recognition that the United States must do things differently and in some way make amends for the pain it has caused and the evil it has spread throughout the earth.
The words are a welcome departure from the arrogance of the George W. Bush administration and previous administrations that may have been more subtle, but were just as diabolical in their aims and tools employed to control and exploit the peoples of the earth.
America needs more than a stimulus package to survive. She needs to understand that her future lies in prostrating herself before the lord of the worlds in sincere repentance and humility and solving the intractable problem of race by giving justice to the children of her former slaves and pursuing a course of righteousness.
