by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
“Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them.” ~ Ezekiel 34:2-4
While G-d speaks here through the prophet Ezekiel to the spiritual leaders of Israel of that time, the real true nation of Israel and the Israelites, this message was, probably, also intended to its kings and rulers and is equally valid in today's world for the churches and the politicians alike.
While the politicians award themselves one handsome pay-rise after pay-rise the force government workers, as has happened and is happening in Britain, to accept pay freezes and paltry 1% rise after three years of pay freeze and thus they, as the prophet said, eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep.
The rich are allowed to get richer on the backs of the poor while the poor are made poorer by government decree. They have bailed out the banks, at taxpayer's expense, but have enforced austerity on the people. Business on the other hand, small and large, who provided jobs for the workers, are left to go to the wall.
Bankers and politicians still receive ever increasing salaries while the wages of the workers go down in real terms and putting people into real poverty.
The British welfare and health care system, which was were the envy of the world, are being dismantled while defense and foreign aid budgets are being ring-fenced and the armed forces are sent to one theater of conflict after the other to protect the interests of the oil companies and that of other corporations.
Charity begins at home and therefore the foreign aid budget should be suspended and, if need be, the money used to aid the poor and needy at home. If our troops would be brought back from the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and elsewhere) and the stupidity of having a nuclear deterrent be scrapped we would have more than enough to pay off the country's debt.
The brief of the armed forces is the defense of the realm and the realm ends at the borders of the territorial waters (and may be to the dependents, such as certain islands and territories) but Iraq and Afghanistan are not part of the realm. Being in those countries also does nothing to protect the people of Britain from terrorism. The opposite rather.
The shepherds of the nation are robbing the sheep rather than feeding the sheep. They do not strengthen the weak, they heal not the sick, nor do they treat the injured. the strayed they are not bringing back and neither do they look for the lost. But with force and harshness they rule all.
It makes also no difference what color of flag the shepherds gather and march under; they are all cut of the same cloth, with a few exceptions, and all they care for is eat the fat and to clothe themselves with the wool and make as much money as possible on the backs of the sheep.
Therefore, because the color of their flag does not matter, a new government is not the answer either. The answer is for the sheep to begin ruling themselves and to change the entire system.
While they promise the people the entire world and more at election time once they are in power it is business as usual, as could be seen with the Labor Party when it took power from the Thatcherites in that they retained all of their policies and even built upon them.
We do not need a new government, we need a new system...
© 2013
