Dr. Britt Minshall is the author of Ring of Angels, a book that covers the political and social climate in Haiti. He is a Pastor Emeritus, a member of the Full Gospel Fellowship Int. and a regular contributor on Fox Television Network, CNN and 200+ stations nationally. He is also a former INTERPOL Officer. |
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You've seen the TV video (NBC 6/5/08) as a man in Hartford crossed a city street. At the center three cars, aggressively driving, trying to beat each other out, approach the man. The first barley misses, but cars two and three hit the man sending him flying. They all run leaving the man near death laying in the middle of the street. Over the next 5 minuets the tape shows 16 cars pull around him. The street is filled with pedestrians, all gawking, some approach looking down on the man but ALL walk away. Welcome to the new America, we're off and running.
Our taste in entertainment: extensive election coverage, the proliferation of game shows and reality "voting someone off the island" shows, betray our new life style. The premier word in the American vocabulary is now COMPETION, acute, all pervasive Competition.
College student voice their fear of "NOT being in the running." A few years ago kids dreamt of searching for a cure for cancer, being in the Diplomatic Service or writing for a major paper, but not now. The young talk of being entrepreneurs, out there marketing themselves as a "me against all odds super hero." We have become a nation of solos forced into "a make it or break it" life of individualism, competitors all, leaving behind a society that worked as a team, cooperating with one another and striving to be compassionate. Now it's "me" not "us" - hording instead of sharing even to the seconds it take to help an old man down in the street.
A part of the phenomena is due to the exponential growth of population juxtaposed with finite resources and our natural response to it. But it's more. We've allowed the race field to intensify over the past few decades, spiraling down to engage us all. Forty-years ago companies competed with companies, Ford vs. Chrysler etc. This had little to do with regular folks making cars and researching for new antibiotics. Soon, however, local branches were competing with each other because "some had to go." Now we were all involved trying to save "our" town. Shortly afterward the competition "went to the mat" as we were fighting for our life with a little village in Mexico where the folks were willing to work for $5.00 per day.
After the dust settled the hand-full of employees left were told: "we're cutting staff, half of you must go." So we fought our "friends" competing for the crumbs.
Now we come to those "kids" entrepreneuring themselves out of college. They're out there willing to do those last few jobs as outsourced, free lancers which means they and their children will work endless hours with no medical insurance or 401 (k) or vacations.
SIDEBAR: As the Competition Life Style spirals down to embrace even the youngest and most innocent, it also spirals upward. What begins as a contest for markets intensifies into major conflict often ending in warfare. "War," formerly defined as the ultimate human failure is now accepted as the ultimate competition, an unfortunate tool in our arsenal.
Just to illustrate how important competition has become, two graduates of this years West Point class, Lts. Bede and Campbell, are the only two cadets excused from going to Iraq and Afghanistan. The reason? They're awaiting draft into the NFL.
Indeed competition has become the life blood of the new American empire. Be careful, however, in the New America if you trip and fall - you're on your own, no one will lend a hand - for God's Sake?
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| Renaissance Project 2008
Rebirthing The Modern World/Halting Our Slide Into Oblivion
To schedule This exciting Spoken/Audeo - Visual presentation of Rebirthing the Modern World/ Halting Our Slide into Oblivion, contact the Institute. 800 944 8023
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