... our legacy...

   For thirty years, our economic policies have turned to be about "getting more for number one".
We have deregulated business in our country so that corporations could make more profits at will. The goals of success have been moved from making a profit and expanding for the good of employees and owners, to making 100's of % of profit for the sake of shareholders and corporate executives while cutting back on salaries and benefits for employees and while squeezing everything we can out of consumers and keeping them "hooked" for future profits.  We penalize the poor and middle class for the sake of those with wealth and power.
   We have given tax breaks to the wealthy and powerful, individuals and corporations, having been told that they would do what is best for those "under them" in the society.  The reality has been a deeper concern for keeping and gaining more wealth and power on the part of those who have it, at the expense of those who are laid off or underpaid, while claiming still to be the "job creators" who should be given breaks and loopholes in the hope that more will be employed by them in the future.  We tax the middle class out of existence and cut any needed benefits to the poor that we can so that the wealthy may thrive.
   We have allowed jobs to be shipped overseas, exploiting their people for cheap labor,  to maximize profits for shareholders and executives, and so that we can pollute, waste and destroy the resources of other nations at will.  We take away jobs from our middle class and working poor workers, while exploiting others across the globe and then looking upon them in fear when they succeed.  We blame "illegal" aliens in our land for our economic plight, as invading forces that threaten our economy.  We ignore and even applaud the practices of those who control the wealth in the nation, and blame those who do not.  In return, our citizens get cheaper products and our wealthy get more wealth.
   We have de-valued our public responsibility in education, healthcare and the correctional system.  We have made it so that they are increasingly more privately owned and operated institutions for profit.  With that heightened sense of value for profit, we have lowered our values for equal opportunities and human rights in our own nation for those who need equal education, healthcare and justice.  The middle class once enjoyed some benefits in this society, but now faces a lack of foundational security in these areas.
   We have vilified the poor and blamed the victims.  Our system thrives when a certain percentage of people stay unemployed.  Our system operates better for the few with excessive power and wealth, when others have much less, and when there is a base of poor folks both to exploit and blame.  When any suggest that all people could have a better standard of living if there were more equity, those with the highest standard of living cry "socialism" as an evil we must fight at all cost.
   We have stripped the power of the workers so that those who have the wealth can pay lower incomes, offer fewer benefits and strip pension plans at will.  We have watched in silence as the power of "collective bargaining" organizations have been silenced, silencing the voice of workers while the wealthy who own and manage corporations get more profit for their families.  Instead of looking at those who have orchestrated the war on the poor, the middle class is duped into believing that any claims that poverty is wrong are expressions of "class warfare" as if they started it.  We ignore the poor.  The Law and Prophets did not.  Jesus did not.  We do.  They are not even mentioned in the class struggle going on right now.  They are at best ignored and at worst blamed for our economic problems.  Yet, the same middle class that points the finger "downward", rather than "upward" for blame, is increasingly being counted among them.
   When the "bubble" burst at the height of these thirty year economic directions, at the hands of the LAST administration, you would think that we would see the error of our economic greed and corrupt practices, but instead we blame the CURRENT administration and poor and those who want to see economic justice, as the wealthy clamor to do more of the same.  Any suggestion that we become economically more equitable or just is attacked with cries for less governmental interference so that those with the wealth and power can get back to the same business for their own benefit, at the expense of the whole nation - that they may have personal gain.
   We need MORE government intervention, in fact.  This time, not as an expression of how corporations and the wealthy run government for their own means, but rather for the oversight and regulation of profit and practices that hurt many or most of our own people.  We need MORE participation in government by all citizens, rather than only by the oligarchs who have been running rampant since 1980, gaining personal profit at the expense of the rest of the nation.  We need MORE activism that speaks justice to power, especially on behalf of the powerless and voiceless in our society, who are forgotten or blamed for the result of the practices of the wealthy and powerful in our land.  We need MORE prophetic pressure from those who claim to follow Jesus, rather than silence in compliance with the "corporate christianity" that so many practice today.  We need MORE tax revenue from those who have shirked their responsibilities to their own nation, and MORE effort to lift up the poor with education, healthcare, jobs, affordable housing and equal justice through the taxes that the rest of us have been paying.  We need MORE JUSTICE to be our concern and PEOPLE OVER PROFIT to be our value of integrity as a nation.
   So, who are "we"?  The nation... the silent majority that gets a few trinkets of benefit from the way our economic system is right now (a big screen TV, a nicer car, etc.), ignorant of or indifferent to the fact that we have these little trinkets on the backs of the poor of our nation and overseas, and all for the greater profit of the wealthy.  The church... so focused on not offending paying constituents and reflective of a nation of people whose primary concern is personal prosperity, that the Gospel of Jesus, the Gospel of justice out of Agape Love and God's concern for the poor is "walled up in the Temple" and covered up by concerns over money for the organization itself (II Chronicles 34, 35) again and has been ignored for thirty years.  It is time to uncover the Gospel of Jesus and sacrifice profit for mercy.  The citizens... who vote only for their own interests, rather than the interests of others (Philippians 2:1-11), even when we know it will hurt others around us.  Those who do not vote but complain about the outcomes of elections.  Politicians... who work hard to make it hard or impossible for some in society to vote through re-districting and voter registration and identification barriers, in effect re-creating oppressive "Jim Crow"-like practices.  Those in office whose biggest concern is getting into or staying in office, keeping power and benefitting their wealthy benefactors/patrons, rather than serving ALL the people.
We are "we".
God help us to see our part in the corruption and injustice that has been pervasive in our nation for three decades or more.  Give us a will to search out YOUR will.  Give us a will to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly (Micah 6:8) with you in American in 2012.
What will the legacy we create right now look like in 2020?
Will we stay on the path of injustice through inequity, or be a nation of just, compassionate and equal people?
Pastor Jamie