Philip A. FarruggioPhilip A. Farruggio -- World News Trust
July 16, 2017
You go to the butcher shop and the sweet young cashier gives you change and says "Have a blessed day."
You call one of your small business customers and they bid you adieu with "Have a blessed day."
You watch some news talk show on the boob tube and the commentator says "Bless our brave warriors."
A lady at a retail store cashier line gets into a conversation about our (so-called) "Iraq War" and she states unequivocally "When someone breaks into your house, you have a right to kill them."
Churches throughout America have, ever since 9/11, been falling over themselves to make sure to "Bless our brave troops," never beginning to focus on the tens of thousands of innocent civilians our "brave troops" and drone missiles and WMDs have murdered in the name of this "War on Terror." This is madness amplified to the Nth degree!
This writer, for purposes of clarification in this column, happens to be a "believer" in the Christ Spirit that was within Jesus and many other avatars of other eras. One of the greatest books ever written is Autobiography of a Yogi written by Paramahansa Yogananda, the Indian yogi who introduced yoga to the West in the first half of the 20th century.
Yogananda, a Hindu, celebrated Jesus of Nazareth as the one who carried the Christ Spirit and taught that we ALL are sons of God. So, when I see or hear so many so called Christians who think they "own Jesus," it turns my stomach! Looking at the New Testament, especially the Sermon on the mount, one can see that he truly was "The Prince of Peace."
How can so many Christians here in this empire have the audacity to think that Jesus would condone the evil that our government has done in the Middle East? It is bad enough that we have to observe the hypocrisy that many Muslim and Jewish religious leaders and their followers spew out as well. To justify acts of cruelty by followers of those two religions is just as bad, as well as the caste system that still actually exists in places like India. The whole process is downright sick!!
Here at home in our nation, a nation that this writer loves for its true "melting pot" and constitution and Bill of Rights (even though the neocon mentality wants to subvert it), we need to be ever vigilant. The forces of empire wish to use religion and the love of God to control the masses.
These phony leaders and pundits hide behind mis- and disinformation to make so many believe that God is on their side.
What kind of a God would support preemptive wars and the continued use of collateral damage?
What kind of a God would support super rich folks keeping over two-thirds or three-quarters of what they earn, in the tens and hundreds of millions (even billions) of dollars, while our working poor and shattered middle class cannot stay above water?
What kind of a God would condone millions of us to have to decide between paying our rent or mortgage or having necessary surgery to be able to function properly? What kind of God would sit back and nod approval as mega millionaires run our governments and our industries, while the masses are forced to compete in a Darwinian ' Survival of the fittest ' each and every day?
What kind of God would sit back and nod approval as mega-millionaires run our governments and our industries, while the masses are forced to compete in a Darwinian "Survival of the fittest" each and every day?
We can read the history books about the Gilded Age in America (1870s-1900) and perhaps realize that what we have now is even worse! To sit back and rely on "blessing" each other or wait for this two party system to come to our aid....
PA Farruggio
July 2017
Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC, longshoremen. He has been a freelance columnist since 2001, with more than 300 of his essays posted on sites like Information Clearing House, Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op Ed News, Dissident Voice, Counterpunch, Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on World News Trust, whereupon he writes a great deal about the need to cut military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has an internet interview show, "It's the Empire... Stupid" with producer Chuck Gregory, and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.