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A Webzine of
Meaningful Contrasts |
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May-June 2012 |
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"R2D2
loves Anacott
Steel."
A few weeks ago millions of moviegoers
began swarming to see The Hunger Games, an extraordinarily popular book turned into
a major motion picture now famously known as the melding of American Idol and
the classic short story "The Lottery."
A few days ago an edition of the renowned
PBS journalistic television series Frontline premiered with much less of
an audience, but I'd say quite a few still got a good dose of
more reasons to be enraged at Wall Street.
A couple months ago, far fewer paid any
attention to the news report about the summary displacement of
200,000 people in the African nation of Mali for the purpose of yet
another summary implementation of shariah law.
Right now I'd venture to say that the
fewest of all are reading this home page piece, a place
where the critical truth about what
all this means is elucidated. I humbly confess I'm no genius—this isn't
very revelatory, really; that truth is not mine, it's just
there. You could easily figure it out yourself by reading the Bible in light of even the
most widely disseminated current events. It's just that the work of the authoritative
operatives from the World System is so effective in keeping people deep in the darkness
they so gruesomely embrace.
For some years I've been writing about this
quintessential truth, one which is rarely ever seen
for what it is because so many are habitually immersed in
socially acceptable murder and deceit that it is virtually
impossible for them to see their behavior for what it is. No
wonder. They're not only in it, they must do it by
necessity.
That truth is nothing
other than the pandemic execution of fully stratified contemporary human sacrifice.
This isn't any new thing at all. Since
Cain started doing it millennia ago, it's been practiced in hundreds
of different forms, enabled by all World operatives through the ages
for the benefit of the hundreds of millions of World inhabitants they manage in
virulently myriad ways.
Here's a new one.
Two British teenagers were caught
snatching up over a million dollars in fees from people wanting to
get the boys' stock-picking robot to help them add to their retirement
funds.
Observers chuckled, dupes blushed, but only the most perceptive saw
this as another instance of large numbers of people seeking to commit rank
value extraction against others.
You'd have seen it all arrayed in its most
luminous glory on the Frontline
episode "Money, Power, and Wall Street." A conga line of experts—business managers and executives and
financial analysts and journalists appeared and either candidly detailed
the brazen iniquity of standard extractive practices or sheepishly
pled nolo
contendere to it all. Most did both.
The title could've just been "The
Futile But Rabidly Ongoing Attempt To Invent Riskless Credit." It was all
about how everyone from Ivory Tower to Sewage Drain were working
like crazy to figure out what to do with systemic risk. The grail of
financial innovation is quite elusive because they
don't really get that systemic risk is simply the toxic
sinfulness rife in each of our souls. They all look so
aggravated about it, but I actually think they like
it because it keeps everyone
clamoring for those who can appear most like rescue heroes.
It's fun to sneer at that nebulous entity
"Wall Street" for being so loutish, but everyone still drops gobs of
cash in the hands of those heroes to keep on extracting.
Think the stock-picking robot is a hoot? New investment firm start-ups
boast about employing the latest I.T. and promising
their robot will do everything just
right. Brett Arends' goofy quote at the beginning of the piece
pulled
the best from the films Star Wars and Wall Street
to poke great fun at it.
The insane thing is that there is Wall
Street, and there is what is happening in much of the rest of the
ravaged world. The Mali incident was just a brief story on the margins of news
coverage. The world shrugs, ehh... not worth much attention... happens all the time in
Africa... why should we care... it is so far away...
Just FYI, from what I gather, these people
in Mali have been used as weapons by militant rebel groups for the
cause of advancing rule by shariah law. There's a reality for
you—people with guns, numbers, a cause, and a name (Ansar Eddine
is the latest version there in Mali) behold the awful things that
people around them do to one another, and rush maniacally into the only way
they know to
solve it: shove awful law enforcement down their throats. I
simply can't get into the whole shariah law
debate right now, but I will point out that Muslims consider the word shariah
to mean, literally, "the
divinely-sanctioned path to salvation." Many others passionately
revile it. Neither of them have to do much to have their sentiments
broadcast widely to the masses of their persuasion—how splendidly harrowing is that
culture war battle.
At about the same time all of this was
transpiring, this editorial
cartoon appeared in my Los Angeles Times. Kudos to John Cole of the
Scranton Times-Tribune for his exquisitely succinct illustration of
the truth about human sacrifice and the abjectly contemptible
dismissal of that reality.
They are hard to find, but I
happened upon
a couple other places where human sacrifice in its actual
manifestation is mentioned. I don't know if
this web piece from
something called the Costa Rica Times was a generally distributed piece or it
was written specifically for the webzine,
but after the appalling murder
of French children by a politically zealous Islamicist, Martin
LeFevre laid it all out there, "Human sacrifice is not a thing of the
past."
Catholic priest Robert Barron
added his
say about
how much things are gravitating toward human sacrifice, addressing
its more notoriously unsavory moments and intimating that it may be
winding its way toward us.
The problem with both is that they are
insidiously manipulative, products of the System that keep World
inhabitants in the dark despite these expositions. LeFevre doesn't
say much other than "There's really nasty evil right there!" —foolishly dismissing
the crucial supernatural element that provides the only reason the murders could
meaningfully be
considered human sacrifice. Barron is simply an industrious Roman
minion doing his duty in a partial hangout, defined as a
media-showcased coming-clean from some ostentatiously portrayed bad
thing for the purpose of keeping a much worse thing hidden. In his
piece he only hints at
the possibility of human sacrifice, subtly insisting that as
long as he and other valiant knights of Catholicist goodness are
around it will never get that way.
This leads us to The Hunger Games,
which Barron himself says initiated his remarks. It is clear,
however, that
Barron is sworn to avoid sharing the deepest meaning within the
brutal metaphor that is this film, to insist this silly thing
human sacrifice only swirls annoyingly in our imaginations.
One reason has to do with the definition of
tribute. Tribute as portrayed in The Hunger Games was the
sacrifice of those young contestants, but it is exactly the same
thing in real life. The federal government demands taxes, the Roman
ecclesia insist on tithes, and the banking system requires
interest, all payments consisting of individual value tendered to
the powerful racketeers who are asked to regulate the wickedness of
their constituents. This is all
perfectly legitimate, even divinely ordained. But accurately identifying
and carelessly broadcasting today's standard for
tribute as today's institutionalized human sacrifice only serves to
gunk up the
gravy train.
I told each of my classes of 17 year-old
students
that I'd seen the film and considered it a unimaginative predictable
bore. Some objected, but some agreed. We discussed it a bit, but in
my last class of the day I asked a very simple question. Before I share
it with you, a brief preface for those not familiar with the story.
The
"Hunger Games" take place in a distant dystopian future when
randomly selected teenagers—24 "gladiators" in
all—are picked to
fight to the death until one is left standing. They come from each
of twelve districts, which interestingly mirrors the arrangement of
the Federal Reserve banking system. Just before the actual contest begins, they stand on pedestals in a
circle facing a large cornucopia-looking storage unit with lots of weapons and supplies.
Once the countdown ends, they're off to start taking out opponents.
It is all televised for a rapt audience.
Now, the question I asked my class was, "What would happen
if a contestant simply stated well before the games, 'I won't hurt
or kill anyone, I won't aid anyone in doing so, and I will do my
best to care for the well-being of anyone who needs it'"?
One very intelligent young lady eagerly responded
with a couple of thoughts. First, she'd said if I'd read the book it
would all make more sense. But then she rattled off a number of
qualifications that would make it hard to do that. My thoughts are
added after each.
One, "They've all lived in this
post-apocalyptic world for their entire lives. It has been done like this for so
long—it is just the way it is. Everyone accepts this."
And why have they accepted this? Who
has had so much sway over them that they've allowed this barbaric
practice to continue? And if they decide to reject it, is violent
revolution the only answer? (I'm told this occurs in a
subsequent book of the Hunger Games trilogy.)
Submission, revolution, or alternating
convulsions of the two are the only things people trudging through
the darkness of the World know. Any semblance of democracy will
always be a pithy marketing tool to further nourish the autocratic
elite administering the World System.
Two, "There is no religion at all in this
environment."
Does religion equal God? Why do so many
presume that? And what god would they believe on? The one the
highly-paid propagandists promote for at least some effective
control of the populace? Or
would it be One
who insists on genuine self-sacrifice out of gripping, authentic love for another?
The World System quite deftly employs
religious extravagance and its cunning machinations to enable other-sacrificers
to thrive. Particularly diabolical is the frequent claim that
adherence to no-religion
excuses one from moral responsibility. World operatives labor to get
gleeful commitments to the
secular to keep them just as religious as anyone else.
Three, "Refuse to cooperate? They would do
things to force you in, even subjecting your family members to the
most ghastly tortures."
If any individual or organization
tortured or murdered others because you refused to be manipulated to
commit an evil act, whose fault is that? Who is committing the moral
crime here? How would you respond to this command: "Go murder
someone else's child in order to keep us from murdering your own"?
How many in the World would do this! And
how many don't think for a second about it! I love my children like
crazy, but this is much more about insightfully understanding the
breadth of God's justice as well as His mercy.
Finally, a statement that did not come
from the student but one that I believe would easily follow: "When
faced with that choice in reality, you simply wouldn't really
choose to stubbornly refuse to cooperate in something like the Hunger
Games. You just wouldn't."
I would.
And I would for only one reason.
Jesus Christ already gave His life as the
sacrifice for me, simply so I could live with Him for eternity
because of His rich abiding love. By giving up trying so hard to
keep this life by doing awful things to those I love—even those
who'd run me through with some painfully sharp object—I gain His
inheritance, His Kingdom, and Him.
It is utter folly to think that puttering
around to try to kill others and avoid being killed will gain you
anything of lasting value. Yet this is what World inhabitants do all
the time without Christ. No, they don't regularly take the entire
life of any given individual, but they do other-sacrifice merely by
appropriating another's value in whatever way they do that. I've put
together an entire page with some
of those ways.
I should add briefly there would most
likely be the presumption I would only be doing this to try to
become some celebrated martyr. How worthless—it defeats the entire
purpose and is itself quite the Catholicist thing to do. Indeed, if
the authorities knew of my intentions, were convinced I'd make a
poor contestant, and quietly made me disappear long before the
event—then so be it.
Should I be allowed to participate after
all, I must say I definitely would like to see others follow
His lead. Can you imagine? 24 young people turning the tables on the
exploiters—building a community together or, if necessary, boldly
accepting whatever evil they may do to them—all 24 living or
dying with the name of their Savior on their lips, gently
accomplished with humility and grace not just toward one another but
even toward the exploiters and their enablers.
I just wonder—however naively but still
firmly, leaning on Scripture—what if we did that with hundreds?
Thousands? Even millions?
Right now?
That Frontline episode featured a
brief clip of John Mack, CEO of Morgan Stanley, during one of the
delightfully entertaining but ultimately pointless Senate grillings
of real-big-shot financial ne'er-do-wells. He said this:
"It is simple. The regulators and the
industry need to look at the complexity."
Guh???
It is actually quite a profound statement.
Frontline followed it immediately with another clip of
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein spewing incomprehensible
financialese that
served the show's purpose: "See, we know you're doing it we just
don't know what you're doing," is the idea.
But it is what World inhabitants want
them to do.
So what of it?
Yes, look at the complexity.
The complexity is the lie.
And look carefully.
The human sacrifice is all in it.
Through-and-through.
Everywhere.
Not just in a whimsical albeit provocative
film, but everywhere right now in every corner of every place
that pushes away The Light.
This webzine is all about contrasts, as
you see just below the title of the whole enterprise on page one.
Here is the contrast, right here:
You will have either the murderous
complexity of the World, or the beautiful simplicity of Christ. You
are either incessantly grasping for the newest latest trendiest ways
to get yours, or vibrantly sowing Christ, the Kingdom, and His
provision into the lives of others. Either you are following the priests,
scholars, financiers, and bureaucrats enabling your other-sacrifice,
or you are following
The Self-Sacrificer.
***
This is how
we know what
love is:
Jesus Christ
laid down
his life for
us.
And we ought
to lay down
our lives
for our
brothers and
sisters.
-from the
first letter
of John,
third
chapter
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Notes:
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Martin
LeFevre's article is
here. Robert Barron's is
here. Brett Arends writes about the latest value extraction
here.
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In a
blog post at my
blog I gave a
quasi-review of The Hunger Games.
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The
divine ordination of Cain's agency of World System
administration is all explained in the fourth chapter of the
book of Genesis. Web links to the significant parts of that
system are here.
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A Rough Sketch of Human Sacrifice
is that page with a list of many of the ways World inhabitants
do other-human-sacrifice. There you will read more about what it
means to be a self-sacrificer instead.
This home page piece
is when I first started writing about it.
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The
Roman ecclesia include all churches, ministries, and
organizations with formally declared 501c3 tax-exempt non-profit
incorporation statuses. Here is a page
with more detailed information about how each and all types of
"Protestant" churches are actually doing Rome's work.
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Some
more thoughts about The Self-Sacrificer are
here. A description of the World
System He set in motion apart from Him and His Kingdom is
here.
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I
encourage you to read
all of John's letters to get the fullest idea of what it
means to lay your life down for those you love. Yes, that does
include your most heinous, murderous enemy. But think carefully
as you read those letters: he or she murders you. Then
what?...
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***
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and links.
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To best identify the
characteristics of the church attached to the Catholicist Nation and to
understand Christ's response to it, please read carefully both of Paul's
letters to the Corinthians.
Scripture
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The Latest in the Webzine (May 2012):
I don't blog much, but I try to at least once a month. It is
Wonderful Matters.
One of my more recent additions is my Rough
Sketch of Human Value Transfer. I'd like to touch it up some when I
have time. I've also just created a page
with my take on 9/11, along with some links. |
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The home page essay above
was written by David Beck and was posted on this site
April 28, 2012
The website The
Catholicist Nation at yourownjesus.net was originally uploaded by
David Beck on August 3, 2004
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