Iqbal Tamimi - How come the USA politicians pray ‘God bless Am a wreck a’?
By Iqbal Tamimi • Aug 28th, 2008 at 21:46 • Category: Analysis, Counter-terrorism, No thanks!, Features, Newswire, Religion, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, War
For thousands of times I have watched USA president George W Bush bomb Iraq and then talk about his accomplishment with pride, and pray at the end of his speech… ‘GOD bless America’. He shelled Afghanistan many times, killing civilians, and then addressed his troops ending his speech by his old famous prayer ‘God bless America’. He visited the US troops in Kuwait and talked about how important it is for them to stay there for the sake of their country, leaving behind their mothers, wives and children. Then finishing his speech to the half asleep totally fed up soldiers by the same prayer.. ‘God Bless America’. He blessed America after Israel bombed Lebanon, and blessed America after a speech he addressed defending Israel’s decision to impose its siege on the Gaza people.
Then today I remembered him again after I have heard the same prayer from Joe Biden. What’s wrong with those guys? Isn’t it bad enough that they do not even have the common courtesy to include other nations in their prayer for blessing? I guess they are worried that their prayers might not be filtered well, and God might just bless everybody including Osama Bin Laden, Hamas, and Hezbollah. So they thought, "it’s better to be on the safe side and not to include anyone else."
Do they think that God never created any other nations worthy of peace prayers? After all, are there no tax deductions from heaven should they pray to God to save the entire universe?
Everything is calculated well in America, even the prayers. It seems that the Am air i can s are full of themselves to a point they even believe that God is going to take their Bull and accept their exclusive prayers.
I can almost hear an angel losing his temper, risking his rank amongst the holy creatures, taking off his halo, and shouting back at him … Shut up… and get lost, do you think God was not there when you massacred all those people?
How can they believe that God is going to accept a prayer of someone as selfish and heartless as such leaders, worrying only about their own interests?
Did they think that their forged documents and dirty policies will not be checked out by God. O… No, the Almighty has his own troops.
I can imagine every time Bush cried God bless America; a special convoy of angles will download a fresh load of Iraqi oil in his pit of hell. Should God bless America he does not do that because of the prayers of the American leaders, but because he knows what kind of hell the Americans endured because of their leaders’ stupid policies. Americans are robbed by their leaders on daily bases. The invasion of Iraq costs Americans $4,681 per household, this equals $1,721 per person. In other words, waging the war against Iraq costs the American nation $341.4 million per day. Trillions of dollars were spent on this war up till this minute.
The US budget for Iraq in 2007 came to $4,988/Iraqi. It's like spending $121,000 per person in the US. Why not just bribe the whole country?
As an American citizen once suggested, "if some other planet invaded our country, and spent $121,000 per American per year to straighten the country, we'd say—just give us the money and we'll do it ourselves." I guess such suggestion applies to Iraq and Afghanistan too.
By the way, the Congress has cut funding for foreign aid and diplomatic operations for Iraq and Afghanistan by $1.4 billion. I do pray God saves America from its leader’s greed, selfishness,and savagery.
Iqbal Tamimi is a Palestinian journalist and poet from Hebron. She is the creator of a vibrant and important activists' network Palestinian Mothers, open to all who share the vision of peace and justice, men and women alike. She is working now in UK.
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The problem is not with Christianity, but that too few have actually followed what Jesus taught: that one is to remain NONVIOLENT even if nailed to a cross and one must love and forgive all.
A little history on the early corruption of Christianity:
In the latter days of Nero's reign [54-68 A.S.] through the domination of Domitian [ 81-96] Christians were persecuted for following the nonviolent, loving and forgiving Jesus. That Jesus was first left behind when Augustine penned the Just War Theory.
Before Emperor Constantine brought Christianity into the mainstream, all the early Church Fathers taught that Christians should not serve in the army but instead willingly suffer rather than inflict harm on any other. St. Augustine was the first Church Father to consider the concept of a Just War and within 100 years after Constantine, the Empire required that all soldiers in the army must be baptized Christians and thus, the decline of Christianity began in earnest.
With the justification of war and violence supplied by Augustine’s Just War Theory, wrong became right. Nothing much has changed in two millennia, for in today’s Orwellian world politicians claim the way to peace is through war and that nuclear weapons provide protection. American money claims 'In God we Trust' but the truth is America's faith is in an out of control Military Industrial Complex that seeks domination, power and control over any who would defy and challenge the American status quo. Eisenhower warned America not to bind our economy to the Industrial Military Complex and like most prophets, he was ignored.
In 313 AD, Emperor Constantine legitimized Christianity and thus, those who had been considered rebels and outlaws began to enjoy political power and prestige. Jesus’ other name is The Prince of Peace, and with the marriage of church and state, his true teachings were reinterpreted. The justification of warfare and the use of state sponsored violence corrupted what Christ modeled and taught. Jesus was always on about WAKE UP! The Divine already indwells you and all others. Christ taught that to follow him requires that one must love ones enemies; one must forgive those who hate, curse and revile them, without even a thought of payback.
Christ lived a life that proved evil can be opposed without being mirrored, and that the cycle of a “tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye”, will never bring peace and justice. Before Emperor Constantine brought Christianity into the mainstream, all the early Church Fathers taught –and all Christians never served in the army but instead willingly suffered rather than inflict harm on any other.
The term Christianity was not coined until three decades after Christ walked the earth. Until the day of Paul, followers of Christ were called members of The Way; the way being what he taught!
Christ was never a Christian, but he was a social justice, radical revolutionary Palestinian devout Jewish road warrior who rose up [intifada in Arabic] for he challenged the job security of the Temple authorities by teaching the people they did NOT need to pay the priests for ritual baths or sacrificing livestock to be OK with God; for God already LOVED them just as they were: sinners, poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all living under Roman Military Occupation.
What got Jesus crucified was disturbing the status quo of the Roman Occupying Forces of his time, by teaching the subversive concept that Caesar only had power because God allowed it and that God preferred the humble sinner, the poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all living under Roman Occupation above the elite and arrogant!
And by the way, The first mention of "ISRAEL" is in Genesis 32, when Jacob WRESTLED/STRUGGLED with The Divine and was re-named ISRAEL.
I contend that ANYONE who wrestles/struggles with the MYSTERY we call God; is Israel too!
The geographical state of Israel was man-made and Zionism is a political ideology that is not based on what the Hebrew prophets always reminded the people of:
"What does God require? He has told you o'man!
Be just, be merciful, and walk humbly with your Lord." -Micah 6:8
"BLESSED are the PEACEMAKERS: They shall be called the children of God."-Jesus, Matthew 5:9
Oxy-moron!!
Today, most people see the violence and torture done for their palates as absolutely acceptable: Human and Animal exploitation is the norm, despite the contradictions inherent in it. Given how overwhelmingly strong the societal currents run against treating Humans/Animals as anything more than commodities and property, the kind of change we need will require more than violence, more than property destruction, and certainly more than a re-creation of the exploitative dynamics that got us here to begin with. If we are to ever win or advance, we must do so by changing the social relations that are at the heart of the problems we face. If we re-create those damaging social relations by relying on the dominance and oppression of violence, we are essentially doing nothing but deepening the problems that exist, and more often than not, claiming to be the fighters of "life" .
In short, we can’t force people to make decisions about morality while they’re staring down the barrel of a gun (or on the receiving end of a bomb). We have to do the hard and often inglorious work of creating a broad-based social movement that will call into question the Humanitarian/Speciesist dynamics that underlie our social and cultural norms or traditions. Bombs or guns or violence or completely shameless attention whoring cannot achieve this, ever. To attempt to control behavior through force, whether it be singular or societal, has never worked and never will.
GOD bless America is the perfect propaganda tool because it to bring the masses on board to their "agenda". I've been using the phrase " What is it about the the words " THOU SHALT NOT KILL" that you don't understand", and the reply is usually one of countless quotes out of the Bible. Then I ask, "does a "quote" out of the Bible supersede one of the 10 Commandments? Does anything? Should anything? I've never received a logical response from those simple questions. Usually defensiveness or rhetorical put downs. GOD is not blessing these Tyrants, and the American people need to wake up and smell the Frankincense. People from all Religions need to wake up to the vulnerabilities their Religion brings them, because the "powers that be" use it as a tool to manipulate them, and they always have. Beware of false Prophets and bad faith!!
Well… You people have pretty much said it all. Joe Biden has proudly declared that he is a Zionist, and Bush is also unconditionally "devoted" to the illegal Zionist state of Israel!
When Bush says: "God bless America" he is not praying to our God but to the god worshipped by the Zionists.. We all know that the Zionists worship another God. Harold Rosenthal, has even boasted about worshipping a different God. (See "The Rosental Document - The Hidden Tyranny" at http://www.iamthewitness.com/ ).
The Americans seem to believe that we all want to be in the US… Al least, at a time they did. Now, they are being advised not to wear an American flag on their luggages! They have dragged my country into their insanity too. I wouldn't wear a Canadian flag on my luggages, maybe a British-Columbia one…
As MP Vic Toews said in the House of Commons: "The state of Israel is a disgrace." People who support the Zionist beast are also a disgrace! No decent human being could ever support this fake state committing genocide against the legitimate inhabitants of this place.
What the US do not seem to realize is that 80% of the world is against them, and they can't win this "war". The world is waking up! They have made a lot of ennemies, mostly because of its unconditional support for Israel…
"You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." Lord Jesus.
And the truth is now leaking out of everywhere. It is only a matter of time. Palestine will be free!!!
Love,
Crystal
Bush is a con man. He knows whom to please for his personal gains. He has no shame telling people that he talks to Lord Christ before taking any major decision - while he sleeps in bed with anti-Christ Zionist Jews.
Bush comes from the family, which had business dealings with Nazis. The man is a perfect Zionist - with no shame.
I am an atheist and felt that if anyone of faith truly believed in the power of their god then they would ask their god to bless everyone as god's grace is not limited and such grace bestowed universally would help the bad be good and the good be better.
I've always loved the maxim that says, "If your god hates the same things you hate, it's probably not real."
He says it to get votes, Iqbal. It is like a rah, rah, rah chorus at a football game (pep rally); it has nothing to do with God. Every word that comes out of the presidential candidates mouths, at this point, is for the same goal. It is hard for me to comprehend WHY people (the people of the US) want to listen to this…. why this rah rah substitutes for thought.
Never mind, even, the world situation, take just the US- people will continually vote against their own best financial interests, why? What is it in the human psyche that causes this nonsensical behavior? I know it has something to do with when people feel powerless, they want to identify with the strong guy, the rich guy, anything to not feel the pain and frustration of having very-little-personal-power, of admitting that they have been left out of the winner's circle. But still, it does not make sense- we are not that stupid, really… to settle for identifying with the bully so you do not feel like his victim? How will you ever stop being victimized that way?
Yes, I digress. But as I watch these discussions, the manipulation and cross manipulation is incredible. And it comes down to the human psyche, and how prone we are to bully and scape goat, to separate and rank ourselves down to the smallest, most inane details, in an effort to satisfy our insatiable need to feel "better than" the next guy. I don't know, I am only 50 years old, I have not lived long enough to figure these things out : )
The bible says so many beautiful things, whether you "are a believer" or not. When I hear, "God Bless America", I hear a sin, the sin of taking God's name in vain. But this is a whole other discussion, another one I am not qualified to have
as salaamu alaikum Iqbal–
I have been pondering the same thing for years everytime I hear bush say "God Bless America". The only thought which quickly pops in my mind–is that inshallah, God in his infinite forgiveness and divine mercy will bless america because we–those who desire peace and love-and oppose all this genocide, greed and evil dealings, NEED to be blessed due to all the atrocities committed by those in power which we-have no control over nor condone…
blessing america would hypothetically be REMOVING all the evil and wrongdoers who are destroying this precious world and people…that would be a blessing would it not???
However, I think my definition of "blessing america" is much different than bush's!!
as my definition of blessing amerika is the removal of the destrucive forces which have caused so much pain and suffering-here and worldwide….
….so bush can continue to say "God bless America" but perhaps indeed–he does not know how that blessing will be carried out by God nor does he realize by asking God to bless america-he is indeed asking God to remove the corrupt and unjust leaders…hmmmm…
Love Esha
Hi.
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And I wish you the best you can get,
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Allan Svensson, Sweden
Why does the revival tarry? It is because God's
people tarry to obey the powerful command of
the Lord in Rev. 18:4. This is the most powerful
revival message of the Lord to his people in our time.
http://www.algonet.se/~allan-sv/INDEX.HTM
As in the days of Lot, it is now. Lot was not interested
to leave Sodom. God sent two angels to rescue him,
and they must persuade him to leave Sodom. When
he yet lingered, one of the angels said to him:
"Flee for your life sake …"
Just like as Lot, God's people are not interested to
leave the great Babylon, but finally they must flee
for their life from there.
http://www.algonet.se/~allan-sv/PAGE88.HTM
God's people are destroyed for lack of knowledge
because their preachers have rejected knowledge.
Hosea 4:6-11. Instead to preaching the truth of the
Assembly of God, they have preached lies about the
Assembly of God. The Pentecostalists have abused
the expression "Assembly of God" and used it as a
name of their church.
What does hinder the Antichrist to appear?
What is the Restrainer?
http://www.algonet.se/~allan-sv/MESSAGE.HTM#Antichrist
Why did the Pentecostal Revival take an end?
http://www.algonet.se/~allan-sv/CRISIS.HTM
The coming revival, a nameless revival
http://www.algonet.se/~allan-sv/POWERFUL.HTM
What will happen before Jesus comes?
http://www.algonet.se/~allan-sv/BEFORE.HTM
America, Bless God!