The word “are” is one of my favorite words. The word is small and powerful. The word “are” has the quality of truth and fact. The qualities of truth and fact are needed more than ever these days. The truth about ourselves is a scary thing to face. We can look at ourselves in a certain light, but is the way we look at ourselves truthful? We can look at America in a certain light, but is the way we see America factual?
Who are you? What are you? Why are you, you? Those are tough questions for a lot of people. Not everyone is happy with who they are, what they are, nor do they understand why they are who they are. There are some people who believe they are one thing and yet the truth of their actions show they are something different.
Who are the American people? What are the American people? Why are Americans so divided into different identities? Those are questions we need to try and answer with truth and facts. What we believe we are is based on our beliefs of who we are and who we want to be.
Let us talk about who people are as individuals first. I believe it is our collective identity that represents itself as who we are as a nation. So let us try to understand who we are as individuals and that may help us understand who we are as a nation. Is who we are as individuals determined by what we say we are? Is who we are determined by who we believe we are? Or maybe who we are is determined by what we do, how we act and how our actions affect others.
A typical example of how our actions speak to who we are would be someone who goes to church, reads the Bible, the Qur’an or the Torah and they believe they know and follow the tenets of their religious beliefs. But when they leave their house of worship, their actions tell a different story. They physically and/or mentally abuse their spouse and children. They steal from work and point the finger at a fellow employee. They post and repost hateful messages on social media. Despite their awful actions, they believe they are a God fearing, religious person who attends church regularly. How do we determine who that person is? How do we determine who they really are? Are they a follower of the teachings of their prophets? Or are they guilty of not understanding how their actions really speak to who they are? My belief is that we will be judged on our actions and not by who we think or say we are. Can we justify harming other people and declare ourselves followers of our faith? Some people believe they can cause harm to others and still be a righteous person. I don’t believe people can do harm to innocent people and be righteous at the same time. Isn’t it their actions that determine who they are?
I stated before that I believe America takes on the collective identity of the people that make up the nation of America. Is it possible that America could see itself as righteous but its actions tell a different story? Is it possible that the actions of America determine who we are as Americans? I believe it does.
It is much harder to determine who Americans are as a nation. We have so many different groups of people doing so many different things that pulling out certain actions to determine who Americans are at any specific time isn’t accurate or fair to groups of people doing something different.
If we take a look at America from 30,000 feet, and see America giving large tax cuts to the wealthiest of people and then claiming America can’t afford to keep funding programs that feed and care for the poorest Americans, it paints a certain picture of America. If we take a look at America from ground level, it paints a much different picture of America. We can see Americans volunteering at food shelters, we can see Americans raising money for shelters and programs to help the poor. That is why it is so hard to determine who we are as a nation at any given time. Is it possible the only way to determine who we are as a nation is to determine what kind of nation we appear to be? Who America is and what kind of people Americans are is better determined by how we treat others rather than ourselves.
I want to show you a stark example of how the appearance of who we are as Americans can change and change for the worse.
In December of 2018, America announced its withdrawal from Syria. The withdrawal left a security void for the Kurdish fighters who were instrumental in taking back the city of Raqqa from Isis forces who had declared Raqqa as the capital of the Isis caliphate. The Kurds fought a long bloody battle with the backing of the United States to take back the city of Raqqa and defeat Isis. The Kurds suffered heavy casualties among its fighters and made great sacrifices along the way to defeating Isis. The Kurds captured and held many of the Isis fighters in prisons preventing a reinsurgence of Isis forces in the area. The swift and sudden withdrawal of US forces early in 2019 left the Kurds vulnerable to being slaughtered by neighboring Turkish forces and the Kurds were forced to turn to the Russians for security and to fill the void left by the American withdrawal. The American withdrawal played right into the plans of Russia wanting to control all of Syria. The Kurdish prisons housing the Isis fighters were overrun and many Isis fighters escaped. The perception of America as a trusted partner to fight Isis and put an end to their violence changed overnight. America turned its back with very little notice and abandoned the Kurds. The perception of America changed from a trusted partner against evil to a nation that can choose to let evil happen and flourish.
Turkish backed rebel forces and the Turkish military were blamed for the murders of Hevrin Khalaf and Zehra Berkel. The targeted murders of these prominent Kurdish women magnified the sense of betrayal felt by the Kurds after America turned its back and left them vulnerable to violence by Turkish backed forces.
I have said for a long time the only way to defeat terrorism is that the terrorists have to be the only bad guys in the fight. America cannot murder terrorists out of existence, for every terrorist America kills it creates more terrorists bent on vengeance towards America for the killing of their loved ones.
If we want to defeat terrorism towards America, America needs to be a country that saves lives and not ends them. I don’t know how many of you have been in the waiting room of a hospital waiting for news about your loved one and seen other people waiting and praying for good news about their loved one. What if someone walked into that waiting room and sat down next to you and that person said I am here to save your family member’s life. That person who came in and sat down next to you states they have the medicine and the technology to save your loved one’s life. How grateful would you be? How grateful would others be if that happened to them and their loved one was saved. America has the ability to do that everyday for thousands of people. America has the ability to save lives all around the world and America has done that for decades.
What is happening now is just the opposite. America has given tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans. And at the same time America has cut funding to groups such as USAID, PEPFAR, UNFPA and the World Health Organization. These cuts have taken thousands of health workers off the front lines of health crises around the world. Instead of walking into the hospital waiting rooms around the world and saving lives, America is walking out of these health care facilities knowing they are leaving human beings behind to die. I want you to put yourself in that room and imagine how you would feel watching Americans leave, knowing that will probably lead to the death of your loved one. I wonder if your view of America and Americans would change from a country and a people who care about other human beings, to a country of people who can turn their back and let people die to save money.
America has chosen to underfund the government by the wealthiest Americans so it can claim the need to save money. America is the richest country on earth with the ability to save the most lives around the world and show that the terrorists are the only bad guys in the fight. Can a country or the people of a country, who turn their backs on partners or innocent human beings to let them die, be considered to be a good and righteous country or people? Probably not. When that country and those people who turned their back to let people die are in a conflict with terrorists, is it possible that both parties in the fight can be considered bad people? Probably. Does that make the circle of violence against each other justified? Maybe. A circle of violence leads to both sides being able to win certain battles, but no one side is able to win the war and set the stage for peace.
I have told my kids this many times and tried to teach them this lesson, “ Doing the right thing is always the right thing to do.” I go on to point out that by them taking the high road, when the dust settles, they will be up here and everyone else will be down there.
America needs to recognize that this so-called America First agenda is nothing more than a smokescreen for the justification that America can do whatever it wants whether it is right or wrong to do so.
A country and a people who strive to do the right thing and take the high road around the world only needs a department of defense. A country and a people who strive to take what they want by any means possible, right or wrong, will need a department of war.
I want to ask you some questions. Keep in mind I do realize there are a lot of good people doing a lot of great things, things that are both kind and humane. The questions I want to ask have more to do with our appearance and how we are treating ourselves and others around the world.
I have a friend who had an email group a long time ago and he used to send out email messages that were echoing the messages he would see on Facebook or on certain cable news channels. Then all of a sudden the messages stopped, I saw him at the country club and asked him about it. I asked him if he stopped sending them out to the group. He said no. I asked him why he had taken me off the list. He told me it was because of my responses to his posts. I asked him what it was about my responses that bothered him so much. He said my responses always ended with, what would Jesus think about that. He said he couldn’t respond to my replies because he felt like he would be arguing with Jesus. So when I ask these questions, I want you to ask yourself what would your prophet say or your savior think.
America is celebrating its 250th anniversary of its founding this year. At the time of its founding America thought it was ok to own human beings as slaves and to do to them whatever they wanted to do to them. Rape, tourture and murder of slaves was ok and lawful. Should we as Americans be deporting human beings who have come to America to work and build a future for themselves and their families, deporting human beings who have not committed a crime here in America other than cross the border to work, should Americans be deporting these human beings to third world countries who are being paid by Americans to hold these deportees indefinitely in third world prisons where they can be raped, tortured and murdered with no recourse for justice?
America was founded on the principle that free and fair elections would rule the day and the results would stand and be treated as law. Should we as Americans let people in power decide the results of elections, should people in power be able to forcibly hold onto power or use force and intimidation to keep people from voting?
America was founded by people who thought the truth was the truth and people who lie are liars. Should we as Americans allow people to lie to us and stay in power only to benefit themselves at the expense of the quality of life of the poor?
America has signed off on the use of starvation along with the use of a blockade of medicine as a weapon of war thus empowering a foreign country to use these tactics to cause human suffering on a large scale and blocked the reporting of such suffering from the rest of the world as if to say it never happened. American Congress people chose not to interfere and allowed this suffering to happen. American citizens elected these people to Congress who have allowed this human suffering to go on when the members of Congress had the power to stop it. Not only did Americans allow the use of starvation as a weapon of war, Americans also allowed the foreign country to set up food distribution centers only to use snipers to shoot and kill young men who showed up to get food for their starving relatives. Americans have signed off and allowed all that to happen. Should we as Americans be looked at as Holy, Righteous people?
Americans have the ability to change the answers to these questions for the better. Should Americans use the power of their vote to show the world that America is not the bad guy in the fight? Should Americans show the world that America can return to being a country whose people have souls their prophets would be proud of? I believe we should.