A NATION DIVIDED: A WORLD IN PERIL
Concordia parvae res crescent, Discordia maximae dilabuntur.
A Latin phrase, meaning: “As concord makes small things grow, discord brings the greatest to ruin”.
Jesus twice echoed this very truth: “Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall”. (Luke 11: 17). And again: “If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand”. (Mark 3: 25).
The above quotes perfectly apply to the USA, to the nation as a whole. The division in that great country, just south of where I live, resembles the years 1861-65, that war about slaverythat came at the cost of 625,000 lives – the bloodiest war the US waged, ever.
A lack of soul-searching
The USA has never had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that in Canada brought the conflict between the aboriginal people and the new immigrants into the open and opted for solutions. The same procedure was followed between Canada’s French and English population, so that today Canada is at peace and united. The painful task of such soul-searching in the US, probing into the root cause of the war between the North and the South – between the country and the city – has never been attempted and so the old wound became a Cancer that has become metastatic, spreading from where it originated as a one-issue conflict, to all parts of the National Body. It has become like a soured marriage, exactly as Euripides coined it 2,500 years ago: “stronger than lovers love is lovers hate incurable in each the wounds they make”. Yes, incurable!
From a beacon of light to unquenchable hatred.
Ronald Reagan called the USA a country on the hill, a beacon of light, an example for other nations to follow. That was perhaps true at the time: No longer!
Here I rely on my intuition, a matter of projecting the past into the future combining history, trends and human nature, basing my thoughts on my gut feelings. I strongly sense how the economic, environmental and spiritual decline, world-wide, is gathering speed, and plays an important role in the unreasonable attraction America’s ‘Christian’ segment has for a devilish man with definite dictatorial designs.
Let’s call a spade a spade: we have to face reality: the planetary crisis is deepening; the situation is dire and will only get worse. Only a universal ‘metanoia’, that beautiful Greek word that designates a radical shift in attitude, can avert total annihilation. The traditional model of unlimited economic growth, driven by avarice, jealousy, and domination, leads to doom, because as 1 John 5: 19 tells us: “the whole world is under the control of the evil one”. Just look how Donald Trump and his loyal legionnaires speak and act.
2024: a crucial year.
The next 30 plus weeks are among the most consequential in the life of the USA, if not the world. Mr. Trump was a clear danger in 2016; he’s a mortal threat now. The former president is more vengeful, more bitter and more unstable than he was, which is saying something. There would be fewer guardrails and more true believers in a second Trump term. He’s already shown he’ll overturn an election, support a violent insurrection and even allow his vice president to be hanged. There’s nothing he won’t do. It’s up to the rest of the US to keep him from doing it.
American leadership is failing: That is the argument of an eccentric new book that since January has stood near the top of France’s best-seller lists. It is called “La Défaite de l’Occident”: “The Defeat of the West”. Its author, Emmanuel Todd, is a celebrated historian and anthropologist.
Mr. Todd calculates that the United States produces fewer engineers than Russia does, not just per capita but in absolute numbers. It is experiencing an “internal brain-drain,” as its young people drift from demanding, high-skill, high-value-added occupations to law, finance and various occupations that merely transfer value around the economy and in some cases may even destroy it, witness the opioid crisis, mainly affecting the young.
America has always been a world-leader. Twice it rescued Europe from its foolish wars, 1914-18, 1939-45. Then, through its generous Marshall Plan, it helped devastated Europe to recover. Now the opposite is true: its divided status imperils the entire Western world: no longer are there national principles, only partisan ones, with each side convinced that the other is trying not just to run the government but also to capture the state.
Look at religion.
According to one study, three-fourths of American Christians agree that “God wants us to prosper financially.” At the expense of creation, I should add. This false religion, this individualism, is at the root of its crisis. “A nation divided, and a world in peril”. The USA is a (false) religion-soaked nation, suffering from a severe spiritual crisis. It’s in deep trouble, everywhere, a situation that will adversely affect the entire world.
Pray for Christ’s Return.