GOD'S GET-REAL COMMISSION FOR OPENED EYES

Preacher (James) Robison:

With all due respect, I believe you have some explaining to do at Judgment. You being "Commissioned" and all, to "proclaim Truth and Liberty" "from the rooftops," etc. And as you "see through the eyes of God" it must be so very easy to know the right course on public policy. It's not POLITICS, mind you, it's just knowing, as you do, God's will, right? And, since God speaks through you--you who were "called"--we can just read your words for God's message.


In your other message you thankfully give us specifics: God is against government auto makers, government climate regulations, government energy policy, government handouts...government...government...government! Whew! God HATES government!

Thanks to God's message channeled through you I now realize how incensed I am that there are sidewalks being built at this very moment in a part of my town in which many people are probably on government handouts! How fair is that? I demand my tax money be withdrawn from such a bad policy. I'll probably never use those sidewalks!


I'm glad you mentioned "sustainability," because that's a hint you will get around to preaching about the consumerism that is the dominant dynamic of our era, leading to destruction of God's Earth, and engendering the delusional self-contained individualism that is at the core of each of us. And when you mentioned "sound principles," that leads me to think you will preach in a later message (after you finish with government) about the overriding influence--yes, control--of gigantic corporations on our very lives and souls.


Get it? Consumerism (as much more than just lifestyle), self-contained individualism (as our delusional personal construct), corporatism (as the most powerful spiritual force in the world), and destruction of God's Earth (as suicidal project)--they all go together.

God is speaking to you at this very moment about these issues. Pray about it. There might even be some public policy involved. But, first, rant, as you did, against government favoritism to unions!


As I said, you will have some explaining to do. This question will be asked, Who convinced you of your Great Commission and what does it really say? You might start your explanation with how you needed (since you were "commissioned") to institute God's anti-government program before you could turn attention to the really big issues.
At that time, don't bother to open your eyes--because you don't have them open now.


--Peace

SOCIAL EXPERIMENTATION

Legislation concerning climate-change mitigation, some say, is a "social experiment" "imposed" by politicians. These people then advance the idea that technology will solve our energy and environmental problems.

But the introduction of (any) technology is always a social experiment, too, sometimes radically altering society on a massive scale--think of the telephone, television, or the smart phones my students now see as vital extension of their minds and bodies. It has been the case, also, that technologies (and techniques in the arts) might be available but not used (think of renewable energy sources) because of the social/political milieu, now largely controlled by a techno-corporate state system.

Should we wait until the gargantuan energy industry (and its techno-corporatist state political partners) decides that the time is right to introduce a new socially experimental energy technology, based on its own profit (and political) needs? That likely will come much too late for the global environment and the energy/transportation needs of most people, even as it more than satisfies the profit-making requirements of private enterprise.

Life today is changing so extremely rapidly that all legislation and all technological introductions must be seen as "social experimentation" that will deeply impact society in all areas of existence. Our task is to decide which technologies and legislation are the vitally appropriate ones for survival and sustainability.

It is my opinion that at this point the social experimentation (again, technological and public policy) that is advanced is crucial for survival on a direly short time-scale. Waiting for corporatist decision-making seems a fatal option. Mistrust of government is necessary; but government is the only institution that will, in some degree, listen to the will of the people. If not, then we are entirely at the whim of the profit motive of an Empire of global corporations which could very well take the physical Planet and all people down with it.

Let's hope that social experimentation for survival is even an option left for humanity in the short time-frame that many scientists allot to us. 

CLOSING OF THE MENTAL FRONTIER

Criticism of government seems to be a deeply ingrained attitude in the American psyche. Think of Western movies out of Hollywood in which the sheriff is not doing the job of ridding the town of scofflaws. The lone hero rides in and supplants the ineffectual government of the fainthearted sheriff. Feelings of powerlessness by the western townspeople in the face of lawlessness are reflected in current feelings of individual powerlessness. This could be part of the reason why we Americans enjoy, even perhaps have some need, to criticize government, because we do feel powerless in the face of large corporate and governmental interests, and because we are an individualistic people, and because we are free to criticize government in various ways. Thus, we might feel more powerful when we do.

This reminds me of Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis, first propounded in 1893, in which the American Frontier, as it moved gradually westward across the continent, was the font for American institutions and American character. Out of the Frontier was created American individualism, distrust of authority, and dependence on ad hoc organization. The Frontier Thesis has fallen out of favor, but does it not prefigure the frame story of many Hollywood films? The western townspeople distrust the sheriff (always for good reason in the movies), the Lone Hero is the ad hoc organization to take care of the problem, and individualism as the highest value suffuses the hero's persona.

It is my thesis that a salient segment of the deep structure of American culture was formed in the space--both literally and figuratively--between tamed urbanized-civilized places, on the one hand, and on the other the untamed Wilderness. If the Frontier Thesis is more myth than reality, I contend this does not entirely override my thesis, because a myth is a social creation that "never happened, but is always true." This means that the myth itself, as a mental construct in the minds of millions of people through many generations, has the power to substantiate and reify. Humans create myths; myths, in turn, inform minds.

I remember 30 years ago, while working as a strip coal-mining Inspector for the Kentucky Dept. of Natural Resources, in Appalachia, one day we were out looking at some mining operation when I made fun of the Civilian Conservation Corps, set up in the Roosevelt Administration in the 1930s. The older, wiser Inspector drew me up short and pointed out that the work accomplished by the CCC was of the highest quality, sometimes carried out under difficult conditions; and that some of the very stone bridges we were traveling over were built by the CCC, and looked as if they could last forever. Take a look at some National Parks: they have many CCC-constructed facilities that are still functioning yeomanly 70 years later.

I learned to be careful about the knee-jerk criticism of government which seemed to be a part of my nature. It was so automatic and government is such an easy, non-responding target. Perhaps Turner's Frontier Thesis has been operating within my own psyche. If so, then it is time to close the Mental Frontier and operate on a different set of assumptions and values and myths.

I MET THE...AND HE IS US?

Most likely you have received an email sometime with a list of strange laws in the U.S. I was quite skeptical about many of them, so I checked snopes.com at that time and found their page about "loony laws." Snopes says there are thousands of websites churning out the nonsense and has checked many of the purported laws and found all they checked to be untrue. It has a page devoted to Arizona and lists some supposed law about camels there (Arizona did sport camels at one time). These mythical laws fall under another category of Urban Myth.

What I find more interesting to speculate about is the American pastime of castigating government. I have not been immune to this, by any means. But, I clearly remember my father continually disparaging government and especially politicians in his newspaper.

We, as Americans, must have some need that is satisfied by criticism of government and politicians. What's that about? Why are we so ready to believe the ridiculousnesses of governments? I imagine that it is not a recent phenomenon and might have begun just after the setting up of our government. If you answer that our several layers of government ARE ridiculous, I'd say you have not answered the question. My question is re WHY we are so gleeful and willing to believe the worst about government. What does this say about us as a people?