Eventually, you manifest what you fear. America calls itself a spiritual (read Christian) nation, but weíve been living from decidedly un-Jesus-like principles since our inception. Peace, respect and tolerance for others, generosity to the unfortunate, compassion, spiritual rather than material wealth have not been part of this nationís religion.

Bill Walz

To our moral loss, we never have truly acknowledged that we were born in the genocide of this landís native inhabitants. We neglect the implications about our character that the white ruling class once kidnapped and enslaved black Africans and then, upon emancipation, kept Blacks in an inferior status for a century more. We fail to recognize that we have been driven by an ambitiousness that has always verged on pathological greed, capable of destroying what once seemed like an unlimited wealth of natural resources and beauty.

Our corporate economic system is behaving like a metastasized cancer spreading across the planet bringing global environmental crisis and cultural decline. We certainly donít trust each other very much, being the most litigious nation on earth. Everyone is on their guard worried that they will be left behind in a mad race for wealth, status and significance. Our foreign policy of the last sixty years has consistently created enemies, always in the name of protecting ourselves from enemies, bogging us down in winless war after winless war. A low-evel pervasive fear called insecurity infects our culture.

We fear the ìotherî, the enemy that lurks, waiting to destroy us, although there is no force on Earth so capable. We fear economic want although few of us have ever experienced anything approaching true poverty. We fear that shiftless, manipulative, dead-beat people will drown our society in laziness and a bankrupted welfare state.

Our latest unreasonable fears are that homosexuals will undermine our marriages and Latino immigrants will somehow damage our society. We sneer at Euro-socialism even though Western Europe has largely erased social inequities, honors civil liberties and preserves environment and culture better than we, all the while building an economy about to surpass our own. Itís all nonsense, tragic nonsense, but it drives this country like a bully with a whip. It certainly is a useful mind-state for politicians and greedy entrepreneurs who can play the American people like a fiddle by manipulating our insecurities.

A string of highly successful politicians has battered us with dire warnings that we will be perceived as weak if we donít have the largest military in the history of humanity (and the will to use it) to force our interests upon all those ìothersî who would do us in the moment our guard is down. We are constantly besieged by ads telling us that to be happy, to be secure, we need the newest, biggest, most powerful car, household appliance, TV, even shaving razor, yet they also tell us that we need drugs for sleep and reliable male erections. Our houses have become tasteless monuments to our own egos, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 square feet for two, three or four people. Forests are devastated. The Earth weeps.

Since World War II, we have been kept in a nearly constant state of war with some third-world nation that couldnít possibly truly threaten us, only frustrate our aims to bend them to our will. We install and prop up dictators as bulwarks against our enemies, only to have their people overthrow them and install a dictator who then becomes our new enemy. It happened in Iran, it happened in Cuba, it happened in Vietnam, it happened in Iraq and it may be about to happen again in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan, while Latin America is becoming increasingly anti-US. We create enemies that then become the reason for more belligerent political, military and economic behavior that creates more enemies.

Profits and power. Those are Americaís Gods. Weíll do anything for more profit and power. We are so afraid of profits falling off, that weíll sell our own souls. We are certainly selling our future. We chase resources, cheap labor, inexpensive consumer goods all over the world to keep the stock market and corporate profits high. We neglect that weíve now undermined our own laboring class, blighted a once-beautiful country with commercial uniformity and strengthened resource-rich countries that hold us no good will, and are about to be eclipsed by Europe and Asia as the economic engines of the world. We want what we want, as an addict wants his fix, and as with an addict, our high is about to turn into a nightmare.

Eventually, you manifest what you fear. America has to choose. Continue in our fearful, competitive, ignorant little world until the whole house of cards crashes down, or choose truth and hope. Can we choose to let go of our fears and begin to do what is needed, what is right? Can we truly be, ìThe land of the free and home of the brave,î a country of true Christian principles? As Gandhi said when asked what he thought of ìWestern civilization,î ìIt would be a good idea.î
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Bill Walz is a UNC Asheville adjunct faculty member and a private practice teacher of mindfulness, personal growth and consciousness. Contact at bill.walz-at-worldnet.att.net or 258-3241.