A continuing survey of the ways temporal government addresses its concerns often brings nifty new insights into the way Cain's agency functions. One such incident arose during the budget debate in Congress at the end of July when intractably strident interests turned up the volume on their resolve. Turns out there is an obscure section in the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution that ensures that any attempt to deny borrowing to the U.S. government is prohibited. The text: "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." During the "crisis," some more widely published pundits got the itch that Barack Obama should "impose" this part of the law upon Congress to compel its members to keep spending money in their dutiful service, which has always been to convince their constituents that they are their brother's keeper. While many decried raising the debt ceiling as yet another example of unsightly profligate fiscal behavior, it is really just a way to say, "We, the present officers of duly authorized federal governance, are officially making pronouncement of full activation of all constitutional powers at our disposal to move the workforce to keep them generating returns for the entrenched value extractors." This is a perfectly legitimate operation. Section 4 of the 14th Amendment was put into effect right after a huge swath of the population exhibited the most rank insurrection and rebellion—eleven whole states to be exact—and the feds simply responded in kind. Effectively: "Any and all moneys spent in any and all amounts are fully justified to crack heads of the liars, cheats, and murderers who ask government to provide the service." This is not just a legal relic from the American Civil War. It is precisely what the Agency of Cain does, God made it that way, and most perversely, World inhabitants like it. As I thought about this convenient provision highlighting the gargantuan expense of sin management, I wondered, how much could that get to be? Yes, it turned out the beginning of August did see the debt ceiling raised. And yes, the U.S. government rushed right in to borrow gobs more money, a lot of it used to pay off people who'd be in violent revolution otherwise. (Take a peek at what's been happening in Greece and most recently London to get an idea of this at work.) Again, how much will be excised before the country breaks under the weight of the required debt load? I honestly think it could go as high as there are people who go right along with it all, no matter how much some elements appear to zealously protest (Tea Party anyone?) Now, how many people is that? The United States has a largely Catholicized population. They instinctively desire head-cracking officials to corral the moral rottenness of not only their neighbors but themselves. And Cain was given seven-fold power over all insurrectionists and rebels, and seven-fold force does require ungodly amounts of cash. On the other hand, it has been said that a country simply cannot survive a 90% ratio of debt to GDP, and depending on what factors are used, the U.S. is easily around that mark at this point in its history. So is it possible that enough people will continue to be convinced that the U.S. government is able to crush the will of enough laborers and keep them enslaved for the purpose of institutional value extraction? After all, one of Cain's close direct descendants, Lamech, announced that after a serious offense against him he would exact seven plus seventy times the vengeance. Ooooo, scary... I make fun, but the value is important. For how much and for how long can the reigning value extraction managers convince the American people: "We will be taking care of you!"? It is axiomatic that historically any country collapsing under the weight of such promises is eagerly replaced by another one better at lying and cracking whips. The lesser-known much more significant truth is that the legacy of Cain not only survives through the transition but is supposed to sustain its divinely ordained hegemony within each version. All of this may be hard to understand, until you can see how the General administers the affairs of the World System.
I've recently been poking my eyes in and out of Join the Club by Tina Rosenberg, in which she introduces the significant principle she calls the social cure. It is none other than the profound effectiveness of peer pressure, and if harnessed and directed properly it can be a wonderful force for good in society.
The double strength of dramatic presentations and the vibrant peer interaction cannot be understated. I'd love to delve more into Rosenberg's narrative here, but two items relate to the inexorable power of the group. She says a key principle of the social cure is that "information rarely motivates people; identification is much more effective." I don't think information can be so readily dismissed as a factor, but it can be impotent if not accompanied by good, smiling, welcoming people. Everyone wants to be in the club—in fact not just in, but near the top identifying with the top people. One look at the virulently growing power of social networking says a lot—how many Facebook friends do you have? Even more importantly, how many are "players" who genuinely solicit your input in the "club's" progress and success? Related to this was her citation of the key way to mobilize people from top military psychologist William Darryl Henderson. One of the questions for the ages: "What can you do to get a guy to charge out of a foxhole?" His tremendously veritable and strikingly simple answer: "The only force on the battlefield strong enough to make a soldier advance under fire is his loyalty to a small group and the group's expectation that he will advance." For the whole of society this remarkably potent force comes in the form of the echo chamber, which really consists of a number of chambers. The largest are the political ("Pay taxes without question," "Say the Pledge proudly," "Vote or die") financial ("Get into debt," "You deserve more than that," "They owe you") and religious ("You are good enough," "Just get absolution and you'll be fine," "Pay tithes to earn God's favor") The key element of all the humanist propaganda fed into these chambers is that it gets there through the auspices of one authority honorably charged with the duty of faithfully supervising the Agency of Cain. The way his minions carry out those designs always involves the most imaginative theatrics and innovative social coalescing.
On October 13, 2008 the General's work was on display in bright, bold colors when the United States Treasury Secretary asked the Federal Reserve Chairman, President of the New York Fed, and FDIC Chairman to join him in an extraordinarily unprecedented meeting of the nation's nine most powerful banking heads. The nine were all lined up across the table, and while a bit of arm-twisting was employed to get them there, they all knew the stakes. The economy was rapidly imploding. Bear Stearns had to be lifted from descent into oblivion, Lehman Brothers had just evaporated, Merrill Lynch was on life-support, and countless other supposedly stalwart financial entities were being pulled under with them... Secretary Henry Paulson essentially told them, "Take federal dollars, all of you. If you think you're solvent, you're not, and the FDIC will prove it." The key was in why he insisted on unanimity. It wasn't an issue of nationalizing the banks; they're already nationalized and always have been. It wasn't an issue of whether or not the banks would pay it back; hey, they're banks—and "too big to fail" at that. It was because they all had to be together on this because if they weren't, the impression that they weren't would eviscerate the nation's confidence in its credit. This wasn't about actually producing anything but another manifestation of The Lie, spoken through every blowhole of the Megaphone's many chambers. With the social cure weapon in their hands, it was only about feverishly shoving money in the faces of worthless people. Buying up toxic assets, or with a smile, "Cash for Trash." Interminable guessing at the highest levels of value assessment to keep the extractors ecstatic and the extractees extant. "We knew we were wrong, but tried to convince ourselves that we were right." is the classic "keeping up appearances" line, this one from financial writer William Fowler about his circle of speculator acquaintances, as far back as 1870. That may seem like a long time ago, but it's all been humming along for millennia (with the standard economic temblors every dozen years or so). We all know Washington-enabled Wall Street predictably operates this way. What is less understood is that it is done for the purpose of human sacrifice. It is spiritual at its core.
Remember when Cain said he'd been given seven times the power over any usurper? Remember when Lamech said he'd exact seventy-seven times that? The power of the World System, it's a lot. But there is the power of the Kingdom. Remember when Peter asked Jesus, "How many times should I forgive someone who wrongs me? Seven times?" Jesus replied, "Seven times seventy." I truly believe this is a direct response to Cain and Lamech's claim of World dominion for the expressed purpose of dwarfing its value. Lamech is about seventy plus seven. Jesus is about seventy times seven. The World will indeed exact as much as seventy-seven times the productive capacity of it's people to prosecute lying, cheating, murdering. The theater is the heavily showcased "debt ceiling" crisis, the "social cure" is the incessant bleating that "we're all in this together." That 77-fold magnitude is stratospheric to the World... The Kingdom has one dynamic the World lacks.
Love.
True, authentic, giving, sowing, communal, charitable agape love. That is the social cure—the eternal and infinite social cure—and it only comes through Christ. He is The Social Cure. The World has its counterfeit Christs ...and its counterfeit communities. The Kingdom's community has those who give everything for another, as many times as it takes, because Christ already gave everything of His. They have nothing to lose, and have already gained everything. They are gaining Him. Gaining those with Him in the Kingdom. Gaining the Kingdom and everything rapturously glorious about it...
And just Him.
***
# Answers, anyone?
These were effectively the very last words in the Thursday October 27 2011 edition of the Los Angeles Times, right there on the lower right-hand corner of the last page of the main section. They end Timothy Garton Ash's piece on the summary financial implosion eviscerating the world right now. It began with "Untangle this knot, if you can." I love these challenges! I have the answer! I can untangle that knot! But I'm no big shot, it is not just me who can take it on successfully, and really, without much difficulty. Anyone who has Christ in his or her heart has the answer. Indeed they have The Answer. Sadly, millions through history under the spell of a counterfeit Christ have claimed to have the answer, including the World System operatives themselves whose job it is to promote such an idol. What is more tragic is that after the first human sacrificer was expelled from the place where he would truly know That Answer, it is impossible for any who follow him to find it. It is not surprising then that so many spend so much time in a pathetically futile effort to get it. The interesting thing is that Ash's plaint is so often shared quite openly in a variety of ways by those who cry out about the way of the World. Right now Europe is convulsing under the weight of some of its more irresponsible members and their spendthrift ways. Lots of shouting drowns the truth that it is all done simply to facilitate human sacrifice for all those who can't know The Answer. Probably the most striking admission of this chronic exasperation was shared in a speech from Dallas Federal Reserve Bank president Richard Fisher. He curiously spoke about a sign that greets visitors to a meteorological and communications station on Jan Mayen, a remote island in the Arctic Ocean. It reads: "Theory is when you understand everything, but nothing works. Practice is when everything works, but nobody understands why. At this station, theory and practice are united, so nothing works and nobody understands why." Indeed amusing, but quite a phenomenal opening by a top bank executive in a speech that predictably does nothing other than confirm how much Fed policy mirrors that sentiment. It is quite a confession from ivory tower dwellers given over to World System administration but are oblivious to who is pulling their strings. Or... is it more insidious that they do know who the puppetmaster is, but are doing their best to keep their value extractees in the dark so they will always return for their prescribed dose of exploitation? Sometimes I think people like Fisher and Ash are a bit too obsequious with the brutal transparency regarding their ignorance. These guys are highly paid spokesholes for the World System, after all.
Well, let's get right to it. No reason to keep waiting. Here are those answers. It is actually a single matrix answer, with each stratum introduced in the order that demonstrates the answer's verity.
The World inhabitant doesn't just neglect to understand this, he is violently repulsed by it. Should he actually draw his attention to it, attempt the slightest intentional grasp of it, it would look and sound like the most vulgar swearing in a really strange foreign language. Not only completely incomprehensible, but downright nasty. Who wants to hear that? But it is the answer. Every problem on the planet originates from the conditions described above. Every one. From the anxiety about the value of the billions in sovereign wealth funds and derivatives speculations, to the more common worries people have about tax breaks and retirement promises, all the way down to the jittery aggravation of Occupy Fill-in-the-blank Street activity and the typical agony of a meager paycheck-to-paycheck existence. Everything is explained right there. Oh sure many will spit up the standard idiocy. "Jesus, huhmpf, he's just not part of who I am." Never mind that they're thinking of the Catholicist Jesus so deftly slotted into their brains by experts keeping them chained to the System. "All of that is just a fairy tale." Never mind that philosophical naturalism is an entire mindset with the flimsiest of logical foundations, and was itself put in place throughout the higher education system to draw people from Truth. "But I believe in Jesus! He's a great guy, I'm with you on that!" Never mind that so many who say that do nothing to actually nourish the relationship they claim to have with Him. It is really Him or one of a hundred other Jesuses? Here's one of my favorites, "The United States government would simply never do anything that evil." Never mind that those sworn to it must be expert practitioners of evil so evil would effectively be prosecuted. Even more important is that this is the way God arranged it to fulfill His purposes among people who are always making excuses about not turning to Him.
A few days ago Libyan dictator Moammar Kadafi was gunned down after being discovered in a drainage pipe in his home town. The 1,000-point headline across the top of the Los Angeles Times in the next day's edition was "Free Of Kadafi." (Hey, we started with the last words in the Times, let's finish with the first.) I thought for a while about those three words. Hmm, I pondered, why are they free from this guy now when he was run out on a rail weeks earlier? The dude was scurrying from sewer to sewer, no better than a common rat. Why was he still commanding any kind of sway over anyone? It is simple. He's a clone of Cain, and there are thousands like him who populate every part of the globe. Sometimes they happen to be designated exceedingly unpopular, as Kadafi was, disgraced as Cain Wanna-Be's I guess. But every bastion of power—political, commercial, financial, ecclesiastical, religious—processes the most appealing human sacrifice for all who demand it. Anyone not abandoned to the rule of Christ in their hearts will absolutely look for a Kadafi, which is no different from looking for a Romney or similar spiffy Republican challenger, an Obama or similar bureaucratic pencilpusher, a Benedict or similar charismatic organizational figure, a Bernanke or similar top bank executive charged with handling their clients' retirement money, even some idiosyncratic non-conformist like a Ron Paul who seems to be quite popular among the most principled libertarians. Doesn't matter. They're all part of Cain's legacy, all trying to make good by waving around the law, marketing their peculiar version of it, and provoking more fear and loathing of people not on their side. Come on, if the Libyan people are free from Kadafi, are they really now free? Really? Those people waving around guns are truly free? It'd be comical if not horrifically tragic. Try this. Instead of "Free of Kadafi," think of it as "Free of Cain." What would that be like? Succeed as a rebel and actually break from his grip, then some murderer stronger than you takes you out. Guess that's sort of a freedom. Remain in his clutches and you just put yourself under his screws paying tribute to him and his duly authorized racket. You'll still be murdered, just a bit later. Then there is "Free into Christ." That means walking through the narrow gate into the Kingdom, there for anyone who wants to experience sublimely authentic and rapturously real freedom. Flesh and bones people reside there, right now, today. They aren't highfalutin religious nuts—there are enough of those in the System's churches. No, even though these people know all too well about the World's idiocy and they insightfully understand just how abjectly wicked it can be, they step up and do something the World just can't figure out. They love those who are given over to it just the same. They'll even walk up alongside someone who keeps whacking himself on the head with the metaphorical large iron mallet, the one who keeps muttering "Answers, anyone? Answers anyone? Answers anyone?..." They provide The Answer with a smile, a prayer, a blessing, a soft comforting voice of assurance they themselves get from The One Who Is The Answer. Even when the answer-less mallet whacker turns on them with the deepest disdain and dismissive sneer... They stay.
And still love with That Real Love.
***
I look but there is no one—
-Isaiah 41:28 ***
*** Scripture | Homepage | Site Map Archives IX #
This page was originally posted by David Beck at yourownjesus.net on October 30, 2011 |
||||||
I was particularly taken by the chapter on
Otpor, which was name of the Serbian resistance movement working to topple
genocidal dictator Slobodan Milošević in the 1990's. Otpor utilized all sorts of
cutting edge techniques to discredit the regime, including the
staging of clever theatrical events intended not only to bring
attention to the cause but to rally support for it.