A Canadian reader writes:

A Canadian reader writes: August 17, 2011

Most of the comments I have read in various blogs or comboxes have been written from an American point of view, based on a more individualistic perspective. Maybe it would be instructive to look at the situation in the UK from a more european perspective – not everything that is done in the US may be applicable to a different social and cultural context. This is the reason I found instructive this comment from a specialist who was born and raised in the UK. And I found particularly interesting the following quote:

“Ordinary Britons, McKenzie points out, feel ‘How come you can’t bail out poor people but you bail out banks? How come you haven’t got the money to fund the NHS [National Health Service] but you’re dropping bombs on Libya which is costing billions?’”

I think some people in the US are at least thinking the same thing…

Yes. People are thinking about that. The billions we spend on maintaining the Empire are billions in corporate welfare given to enormously rich and powerful corporations. Our civilization is built on the conviction that poor people who milk the system are parasites but rich people who milk the system are savvy operators.

There’s a psalm about this:

1 Truly God is good to the upright,
to those who are pure in heart. *
2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had well nigh slipped.
3 For I was envious of the arrogant,
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For they have no pangs;
their bodies are sound and sleek.
5 They are not in trouble as other men are;
they are not stricken like other men.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
7 Their eyes swell out with fatness,
their hearts overflow with follies.
8 They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
9 They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
10 Therefore the people turn and praise them; *
and find no fault in them. *
11 And they say, “How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
12 Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease,
they increase in riches.
13 All in vain have I kept my heart clean and
washed my hands in innocence.
14 For all the day long I have been stricken,
and chastened every morning.
15 If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
I would have been untrue to the generation of thy children.
16 But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
17 until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I perceived their end.
18 Truly thou dost set them in slippery places;
thou dost make them fall to ruin.
19 How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
20 They are* like a dream when one awakes,
on awaking you despise their phantoms.
21 When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
22 I was stupid and ignorant,
I was like a beast toward thee.
23 Nevertheless I am continually with thee;
thou dost hold my right hand.
24 Thou dost guide me with thy counsel,
and afterward thou wilt receive me to glory. *
25 Whom have I in heaven but thee?
And there is nothing upon earth that I desire besides thee.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength* of my heart and my portion for ever.
27 For lo, those who are far from thee shall perish;
thou dost put an end to those who are false to thee.
28 But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord GOD my refuge,
that I may tell of all thy works.


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