Anguish & Political Messiahs

Sometimes, when disillusioned by the antics of those who rule our public and private institutions, I wonder, if as a people, have we not only lost our mind but our moral compass? I pray not. When in moral decay a nation loses its virtue, then despair replaces hope. When a nation descends into financial chaos, then impulse replaces patience. Such a nation will cry out for a worldly messiah—as did Germany after World War One. For us today, if not a lesson to be learned, at least a warning.

By 1900, Germany was Europe’s great economic and industrial success story. Her culture and educational offerings unequaled in Europe, so too the strength of her financial institutions. Only America rivaled her in modernization of industrial technology and advances in scientific research. Then, in little more than a generation, this financial and industrial powerhouse was morally and financial bankrupt. She voted herself into the hands of a false messiah and plunged Europe into ruin.

In 1929, John Heygate a young Englishman seeking diversion visited Berlin. What he found was disheartening, a nation in moral collapse and financial ruin.

"So degraded was the picture, Heygate formed the impression that Germany had not only lost the war but, in its hopelessness and distress since, had lost its virtue: 'A whole generation of growing-up girls and boys came to think that it didn't matter...’ " ____ Peter Padfield's Himmler Reichsfuhrer-SS

World War One’s human and financial cost was high. The social cost that followed even higher. Pestilence and economic catastrophes demoralized those who survived the battle field. The 1917-19 influenza pandemic—the twentieth century's "black death"—killed multiple millions throughout the world, including more than 500,000 Americans.

In peasant Russia, the Communist revolution aborted any hope of a future Soviet middle-class. Lenin's socialist utopia swept away all idea of a caring God. In place of church and family, Lenin established the dehumanizing state.

In Germany, World War One’s impact was worse. Germany printed and borrowed money to finance the war. After the war, the inflationary policy continued until Germany’s currency was destroyed. But inflation destroys more than a nation's currency.

Run away inflation crushed Germany's potential for a growing and stable middle-class. Instead, violence and political intrigue shaped postwar Germany. Fear and despair fueled the class struggle for jobs, security, and position. Mobocracy ruled. Marxist, Fascists, and other socialist groups marched and battled each other. To perpetuate their privilege and position, industrialists, large landowners, and the military class embraced violence and political intrigue.

The general population lost faith in inherited customs and beliefs. They blamed God, other social and economic groups, or anyone different from their own norm. An embittered population packed the country's major cities. Perversion and eroticism saturated Hamburg and Berlin. Berlin provided the European sex-market with young bodies. Facing a future without hope or promise, teen and preteen boys and girls from the provinces flocked to Berlin. Desperate for money, wanting acceptance, Germany's future sold itself into drug addiction, sexual perversion and sadistic practices.

Germany lost the war, their hope, their virtue—a nation in financial ruin and moral collapse.
Families disintegrated. Husbands and wives abandoned each other. Parents abandoned their children, leaving them to fend for themselves or to die. Some Germans’ embraced mysticism. Others, with the cry, "For tomorrow we may die, "sought refuge in hedonism.

Prior to the war, anti-Semitism was only an undercurrent. Anti-Semitism was far worse in France. But, after the war, the Jewish community bore the blame for Germany’s afflictions. Anti-Semitism became a national policy. Press, political leaders, and the public blamed their fellow Jewish citizens for the war’s loss and for Germany’s moral and financial bankruptcy.

Out of financial chaos and moral decay rises a false savior. Germany’s messiah, Adolph Hitler and National Socialism, a socialist state system based on new-age paganism. Hitler became a human deity. He would deliver Germany from despair and disgrace. But, instead of a savior, extermination of Europe’s Jews and a global holocaust—World War Two.

"Two things only the people anxiously desire, bread and circus games." ___ Juvenal

World War One’s human and financial cost was high. The chaos and suffering that followed, higher. To establish order, Marxist Russia and Fascist Germany replaced church and family with the dehumanizing socialistic state. Millions were to die and millions more to suffer.

Seeking after bread and circus, Germany rejected God and abandoned Biblical truth. She sought after a worldly messiah—and got one. She lost her moral compass, her source of hope and virtue. And today, what of America’s moral compass? Will we turn our back on Biblical truths and embrace the false gods of secularism and the socialistic state? Will we put our faith in political messiahs? We appear to be going in that direction.

"Hope is no longer appropriate because they have left the One Who is the source of hope."
____ Unknown

Many American’s have forgotten without God nothing is worthwhile. A growing number of middle-aged men and women fear the future and feel they cannot do anything about it. Many young people either believe they face a future without hope or promise, or have a false sense of entitlement. And we are not just losing our moral compass, but purposefully throwing it away. Drug abuse, sexual promiscuity and perversion are now our norms—practiced and publically accepted by many.

As America faces financial chaos, many are ready to trade their dreams, hopes, and freedom for government’s false promise of security. More and more voters pursue political messiahs, divide-the-wealth politicians who preach a government based on envy, a secular and socialistic dehumanizing state that robs success and rewards failure.

To avoid the economic chaos and the moral collapse that engulfed Germany, we must reorder our priorities. Forsake the false values of entitlement. As a people, stop living beyond our means. Reject political pandering with its promise of government succor. Wealth does not flow from government. Government devours wealth. The bigger the government the bigger the appetite.

Let us learn from history. It is not too late. Ours is still a great nation. Let us work and pray to keep it that way.

Be Informed Be Involved _________ Michael E. Odell

Your thoughts and comments are welcome, well most of the time.
E-mail: MichaelOdell@Lycos.com

If you wish to initiate right change in both our public and private institutions, go to Blog Archive May-11-08, "But What Can I Do?"