Price Of Injustice?

Price Of Injustice - Headerby Benjamin T. Moore, Jr.

THE PRICE OF INJUSTICE IS ALWAYS HIGH… THE COST? HIGHER!

Almost everyone is familiar with the Star Wars movies. They’ve become a part of not only our national but the international culture as well. “May the force be with you…” “I’ve got a bad feeling about this…” “The dark side.” These are phrases we use – sometimes daily – and they’re so much a part of our culture everyone understands the meaning conveyed often without stopping to think about from whence the phrase comes.

When they launched the prequel trilogy beginning with “The Phantom Menace,” we packed the theaters because we were invested in the tale. We wanted to know how things came to be. I remember watching the first Star Wars movie “A New Hope – Episode IV” and wondering where the hell were episodes 1-3. Thus, like most of you I found myself also sitting in a darkened theater, fully engaged to see the events that led up to the first 3 movies I had seen.

Price Of Injustice - Young AnakinWe were introduced for the first time to young Anakin Skywalker. I remember thinking, like many of you, “how in the world does this adorable child grow up to become Darth Vader?” We were told that he and his mother were Slaves. They were owned by “Watto” a Toydarian junk dealer/human trafficker in Mos Espa on Tatooine.

The reality of their Slavery was made comfortable to the audience. They seemed to have a home, own property and were able to host a meal for Qui-Gon Jinn and his party. Price Of Injustice - Qui-Gon Jinn AnakinSlavery was made to seem like just another job. You didn’t really begin to understand until Qui-Gon Jinn purchased Anakin from Watto. But hey! It was for the better wasn’t it? His mother Shimi Skywalker seemed to understand. Surely Qui-Gon Jinn would have purchased her too if he’d had enough money. The first episode left you with the feeling that they’d be back to get her. It was almost as though her gifted son was going away to college. Yes there were tears, but most mothers cry on their child’s first day of school. Were you *really* paying attention though?

Price Of Injustice - Anakin Mother Goodbye SceneIt turns out, they never did go back to get Anakin’s mother. Clearly this weighed heavily on him as he grew into a young man. There remains an unbreakable bond between mother and child and the full impact of this is realized in the second episode – “Attack Of The Clones.” Anakin senses his mother’s distress galaxies away and drops what he is doing to rush to her aid. He neglects his duties something anyone of us would do if our mother were in distress.

Price Of Injustice - Watto Toydarian Junk DealerIt turns out that Watto needed some money so he sold Shimi Skywalker to a group of “Sand People” who mistreat her sorely. It is the mistreatment she is suffering at their hands that Anakin feels. He arrives just in time for her to die in his arms. It is this hurt and rage that sets his feet firmly on the path to “The Dark Side.” He uses his Jedi training to murder them all. His rage makes him powerful. Were you paying attention?

Yes, Chancellor Palpatine – a Sith Lord – was certainly contributing by egging him on. However, the real message – almost subliminal – was the injustice of slavery, the need for retribution is what actually made him vulnerable to the suggestions of Palpatine. The Chancellor only acted as a catalyst for the explosive brew that was already present.

Price Of Injustice - AnakinYes, we see and understand the highly sanitized concept when it is surrounding by special effects and a well written musical score. However, we forget that everyday in our society we are allowing the creation of millions of people who are raised on the heady toxin of injustice to be loosed upon our society. No, they will never pick up a light saber, but they may pick up a gun. They cannot move objects with their minds but the seeds of pathology planted in the fertile soil of poverty, lack of opportunity and injustice are growing like weeds all around us.

Price Of Injustice - Darth VaderThe transformation from a young adorable Anakin Skywalker to the murderous Darth Vader whom without remorse slaughtered the “younglings” – children training to become Jedi – was jarring. Were you paying attention? Yet, it was a metaphor for what occurs on a daily basis within our society. We’ve got children murdering children. Mothers burying their young instead of the natural course of nature. Instead of paying attention, we look for the simple solution. Must be the guns! If we could just get rid of those, everything would be better. No it wouldn’t. We’re creating monsters wholesale in the test tubes of ignorance and lack. The price of injustice is high, the cost is even higher. Pay attention!

Poverty By Design – It’s No Accident

Poverty_By_Design_Headerby Benjamin T. Moore, Jr.

Poverty By Design – It’s Not An Accident

The poor define the middle class. The middle class define the wealthy. When social class becomes more important than the recognition of our common humanity, the upper classes will embrace policies that increase class differences.  ~Benjamin T. Moore, Jr.

The stratification of society inevitably leads to the stagnation of progress. Human genius and innovation are random blessings bestowed without regard to race, creed, gender or social standing. Thus, when the poor are excluded from educational opportunity, or the quality of the education made available to them is substandard, society has effectively cut itself off from access to the most powerful resource on this planet, the human mind.

When you examine history, the Renaissance, Industrial Revolutions and rapid technological advancement have always been marked by a collapse in stratification of the societies in which they occurred. If you look at the most modern and advanced societies in existence today, they are the ones in which the most freedom and social mobility exists.

Poverty By Design - Walled Enclaves

The wealthy will live in enclaves, the poor in squalor.

Repression of the people may protect the wealth and power of the aristocracy. However, it also leads to a dystopian society where the wealthy live in walled enclaves and the majority of the people live in squalor. The energy which would be directed toward communal advancement is turned to maintaining the status quo. This continues until a critical mass is reached and and total societal collapse occurs.

We are well down the path to a dystopian future unless we change course immediately. While the masses have slept, lulled by the illusion of equal opportunity, the wealthy have worked to enact laws to maintain their power and control. Our tax laws have been written to nearly exempt them from taxation. Loopholes allowing offshore accounts and tax havens have allowed them to profit from the labor of the working class without reinvestment of that wealth back into our society.

Opportunity is gradually being reduced like an ever tightening noose. To be considered for gainful employment, you need a college degree. The cost of college tuition is rising faster than the economy is growing. In order to pay for college, those who were not born wealthy must incur the debt of student loans, with no guarantee of employment upon graduation.

Poverty By Design - Overcrowded PrisonInner city schools are being de-funded and closed. Most children successfully completing our public education system, find themselves unprepared to pass college entrance exams. While they’re de-funding inner city schools they are funding prisons. In fact, prisons are a growth industry. More and more goods and services are now being produced with prison labor. Prisons have become the new plantations.

Connecting The Dots

Most of the wealth of the middle class was in their pension funds, 401k and in their homes. Remember Enron? Remember WorldCom? Those were the big ones. These companies were looted by their executives. However, what many people – those who’s 401k’s were not heavily invested in these companies – missed, was the 100’s of thousands of people who saw their retirement savings vanish virtually overnight.

The next big hit was the collapse of the real estate market. The family home was the bank account for the middle class. If all else failed, they could look to their equity in their homes to see them through hard times. The family home was the vehicle for the transfer of wealth from one generation to the next. When the real estate bubble burst and the housing market collapsed, people who had built up equity saw that equity evaporate leaving many of them upside down. Many lost their homes.

Poverty By Design - Reverse Mortgage

Fred Thompson for AAG. Separating people from their wealth.

You cannot watch television for any length of time without seeing a commercial for “Reverse Mortgages.” If you survived the collapse of the real estate market, a reverse mortgage might seem attractive. However, what they’re not telling you is, a reverse mortgage prevents you from transferring the wealth you’ve built up in your home to the next generation. When you leave your home – read die – the bank acquires your home… unless your children want to apply for a mortgage and pay the bank back at interest rates that more than compensate them for whatever they paid you.

These are not coincidences. This is a well planned strategy for the stratification of our society. The only question is, how many of these things have to fall into place before we wake up? This is poverty by design, and it’s no accident!

 

Pimping Jesus – Twisting The Gospel For Gain

Pimping Jesus Headerby Benjamin T. Moore, Jr.

“A beginning is a very delicate time…” _Princess Irulan (Dune)

Pimping Jesus - Black NativitySome two thousand years ago, we are told that a child was born to a carpenter and his second wife. He was born into poverty and as things go, no one should have even known about or remembered anything about him.

However, the story takes a turn when we are told that Angelic beings announced his birth. Men of learning and prestige travelled from the Orient to witness his birth and the king in the area he was born, murdered every male child under two years of age in an effort to kill him. There is another twist to this tale. His mother was said to have conceived him without ever having “known” a man. Thus, she was a virgin while she carried him.

Pimping Jesus - Jesus In The Temple

Young Jesus In The Temple

We don’t really know much about his life until he turns 12 and resurfaces in a Jewish temple. We are told that his knowledge amazed the teachers of Jewish law and then he vanishes again. The next time he makes an appearance, he is a grown man on a mission.

At this point, the story is taken up by four different narrators. We learn of omens, signs, portents and of course miracles. He heals the sick, gives sight to the blind, causes the lame to walk again and even raises the dead. Small wonder, of the oppressed people he is ministering to, various political factions also began to take an interest.

Power Is More Addictive Than Crack Cocaine

This person we call Jesus – according to the Gospels – was building a following. Not of the wealthy and elite, but of the common, poor simple people. Rules, laws, traditions in society ultimately serve only two purposes.

  1. To keep a certain segment of society in power.
  2. To keep everybody else under their control.

Pimping Jesus - Women Harvesting A FieldHis message of giving to the poor, caring for the sick, no longer seeking or valuing material things was creating a problem. If people begin sharing what they have with others… for free, the people they’re sharing with, are not buying goods and services. If you’re a farmer and have a field that needs harvesting, and your friends whom are also followers of Jesus come and volunteer to help you bring in your crops, the people whom you would normally have hired, are out of work. If you then turn around and give away food to those who helped bring in your harvest, those people are not buying their produce at the local market. Thus, as you might expect, the merchants had a problem with the teachings of Jesus.

What about the political structures? The worst thing you can do to those who perceive that they have power is to make them irrelevant. Jesus’ message was not to overthrow the Romans, though there were factions who clearly wanted him to lead such a revolution. When asked about paying taxes – a trap laid by the Pharisees – Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” I know this may prove traumatic for my Republican readers, but Jesus said to pay your taxes! Jesus also said to obey the laws of the land. This hardly qualified him to be the firebrand revolutionary that would overthrow Roman rule.

Pimping Jesus - Bust of Constantine the Great. Emperor of Rome.

Constantine was the pagan – Sun worshipper – emperor of Rome who created Christianity and created your Bible.

The religious institutions also had a problem with Jesus. He pointed out the blatant hypocrisy of the Church. By “Church” I mean the Jewish religious institutions. The Christian Church as we know it today, had yet to be invented by the Roman Emperor Constantine. That would come some 300 years later.

For example, Jesus healed someone on the Sabbath. The Pharisees had a problem with this. There is a prohibition against doing any “work” on the Sabbath under Jewish Law. Of course, in my mind, this begs for a definition of what constitutes “work?” From the accounts in the Bible of Jesus healing someone, he usually simply spoke to them… but I digress. Jesus, using the Socratic method, posed the question, “which one of you if your Ass or Ox fell into a pit on the Sabbath, wouldn’t immediately pull them out?” Of course, every last one of them would, Sabbath or no Sabbath.

Pimping Jesus - Sabbath Elevator

Can’t push a button on the Sabbath? Not to worry, this elevator stops on each floor.

Ironically, even today, there are industries creating “Kosher” gadgetry to assist practicing Jews in circumventing restrictions presented by the Sabbath. Obey the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law be damned! As the saying goes, “rules were made to be broken…” or at least, worked around. If one believes in God, what does one suppose God’s opinion is? Do you think that God looks at these workarounds and gives out points for cleverness?

Pimping Jesus - Baby Sister

My baby sister from around this time frame.

Being the oldest, my parents would leave me in charge of my younger siblings whenever they left home. On several occasions, I was admonished to make sure my baby sister was in bed by 9 pm. On one such occasion, we were all watching a television program which wasn’t over until 11 pm. What to do? At 9 pm I instructed my baby sister – she was 9 years younger than I – to go and get in bed. 5 minutes later, I told her she could get back up and we finished the show, then I put her in bed. When my parents asked me the next day if my sister was in bed by 9 pm, I truthfully answered “yes.” They didn’t say anything about her getting back up. My sister loved me for my cleverness. However, if my parents had known… well, they would have had a different perspective on things. The trouble is, if one believes in God, then you have to believe that God knows that you’re employing human cleverness to circumvent the spirit and intention of his laws.

Pimping Jesus - Black Jesus Wearing A Hoodie

Jesus was always around the poor and common people.

The Bible says that Jesus made of himself no reputation. What this means is that Jesus did not promote himself, did not build himself up, lived his life as a common man. People think that Jesus was poor. He was anything but poor. He was born in a stable, because of timing and accident of birth. His father was a carpenter. This means he owned his own business. His uncle was Joseph of Arimathea who was not only a wealthy merchant, but was a member of the Sanhedrin and politically well connected. If Jesus had been born a pauper, the “Three Wise Men” brought him gifts of gold at his birth. This would have immediately made his family wealthy.

Jesus could have afforded a very fine horse. Yet, he walked everywhere he went. Jesus could have afforded a very fine house. Being a carpenter by trade, he could have built himself one. He could have built churches all around Palestine. Yet, he did none of these things. He chose a life of poverty and self-denial. This is far different from the so called preachers today who measure their success by the size of their churches, their homes and the expense of their cars.

Pimping Jesus

Jesus has been turned into a commodity. His message has been repackaged, turned over to advertising agencies and is being marketed at a profit. Churches take in 100s of billions of dollars a year pimping Jesus. Tours to the “Holy Land” sponsored by various church groups dump billions into the economy of Israel.

Pimping Jesus - Creflo Dollar's Private Jet

Pastor Creflo Dollar’s Private Jet

Preachers are buying mansions, corporate jets, Bentleys and Rolls Royce cars. They’re taking vacations on the French Riviera and buying expensive yachts. They’ve got personal chefs, personal trainers, tailors and stylists. Pimping Jesus has become a wildly successful business. Jesus has become the perfect product. It is an intangible product from which you can never get a refund. You don’t know whether or not it works until after you’re dead. Of course by then, it’s too late to ask for a refund.

Pimping Jesus - Paula White's Rolls Royce

Televangelist Paula White’s Rolls Royce in front of her Italian home

I often wonder, if Jesus came back today, would he even recognize today’s Church? 100s of billions taken in, mostly from poor people who can barely afford to give, yet they give because they’ve been manipulated into believing in a message that is the very antithesis of what Jesus actually taught.

How is it that with all the money churches are taking in, homeless shelters are having to turn people away? How is it with all the money churches are taking in, families with children are going to bed hungry right here in this country? Whenever those heart wrenching commercials come on my television showing children in some foreign land living in abject poverty, I think to myself, there are children living right her in these United States that are every bit as impoverished.

Pimping Jesus - Kirk Franklin Grammys

Kirk Franklin at the 54th Annual Grammys.

In Luke 18:8 Jesus asks an interesting question. He asks, whether or not he will find “faith” upon the Earth when he returns? This seems like a strange question to ask. Especially given that we have a church on almost every other corner in some communities. We have gospel recording artist who have songs that are doing well on the R&B charts. How could there not be faith when he returns? Isn’t faith everywhere? Perhaps not?

Matthew 25:31-46
King James Version (KJV)

31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

42 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

You may want to read that twice. That is the true message of Jesus. Notice at no point is anyone asked about their religious affiliation, how much money they gave to their church, whether or not they paid tithes or even whether or not they believed in Jesus at all.

Now read the following and ask yourself if this is talking directly to and about all these preachers that have been pimping Jesus for gain?

Matthew 7:21-23
King James Version (KJV)

21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Pimping Jesus - Jesus Montage

You either believe or you don’t.

So, what do you believe? No really? You don’t get any credit for donating money to a church. Caring for the poor, feeding the hungry, tending to the sick, sheltering the homeless and clothing the naked is a personal responsibility. Only you can discharge this obligation. Remember, it was the act of turning over the tables of the money changers and driving them out that triggered the events that led to Jesus being crucified. Today, the money changers are no longer out in the courtyards. Today, they’re running the Church. Are you following Jesus, or just pimping him?