Power

Power feeds upon itself, swallowing up people in the process. In many ways, it is the very sin that is said to have corrupted Adam & Eve, in the metaphorical fruit that would make them "like God," which represented the fruit of power. It is also what Lucifer is said to have tried to bride Jesus with in the desert.

Power moralizes the very worst of horrors, lies,and actions, whenever they are performed in the service of power. Power does, however, offer up a few of its sons for sacrificial crucifixion every now and then, like it did with Abu Ghraib and Richard Nixon  (Watergate being almost like "divine intervention" by helping to divert the people's attention from the Pentagon Papers and COINTELPRO). It does this as a way of "cleansing its soul," in order to maintain the illusion of a moral superstructure, where truth always triumphs over evil, in a world where the exact opposite is "true."   

Humans have always sought a Jesus Christ, but have only ever found Barabbas. That is why we are all so willing to sacrifice ourselves and each other like lambs, in service and devotion to the wolves.  And why the past, as Alan Watts put it, is the result of the present.

 We wash our hands of those who died as martyrs to the immortal truth that power is a lie, by refusing to see how our differences today are manufactured by those in power, so they can stay that way.