The current American election is based on a choice between the Old and the New Testament world views.
The Old Testament preaches blame and revenge. The New Testament preaches the very opposite. When Jesus said ‘Love your enemies as yourself’ he was teaching a profound truth. When life circumstances are seen as the result of personal actions and the impact of karma on an individual, then clearly the suffering one experiences is the result of limitations in oneself. These afflictions are the means whereby the Soul tears the coverings away from the Self to allow its free growth.
Yet today in America we see a struggle between two philosophies of life based on this juxtaposition. For Donald Trump it is someone else’s fault, and he has chosen the immigrants as the source of discomfort in the lives of Americans and speaks in the most disparaging terms of these economic migrants. Many Americans are so discomforted that they need to find someone else to blame and as always choose the foreigner. They do not look to the banks and the inequality of wealth in the nation. It is too hard for them to realise that the inequity of the system is the source of their discomfort. Despite the gazumping that went on even so recently as the 2008 land grab by the banks and estate agents. All that is forgotten, when it is easy to point the finger at the disenfranchised and declare they are the cause. It is this blame culture that Trump is exploiting.
By contrast Kamala Harris declares the right of the individual to control their own body. What could be more personal among freedoms than the right to control what happens to one’s body? There is no hint of ‘blame the other fellow’ in her presentation to the American people, and as she says, the election is a choice between two very different futures for America.
That choice is readily identifiable in the stance taken in the Old Testament – my God is a jealous God and he will smite mine enemies etc. etc., a vengeful approach to life – and the New Testament ‘do unto others as you would be done by’. One can only pray the American people choose a wiser course and direction than the heckling and shouting would seem to suggest.
