Amos's River of Justice

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  • September 23: The Day the Apocalypse Didn’t Happen

    There was a rumor going around that something terrible was going to happen on September 23, and whatever it was it was supposed to usher in the end times. [1]It turns out the rumor was wrong, but the debunkers who argue that there is no threat because Planet X does not exist are not helping matters. They reason that if the planet were real and if it were headed toward the earth we could see it. The truth is somewhere in between. Planet X may exist although no one has seen it yet. And it is not going to hit the earth.

    We’ve seen events that look very much like signs of the end of times—wars, earthquakes, hurricanes–so it’s natural for believers to wonder if the predictions about the end of the world found in the Book of Revelation are coming true. This is not just a quaint curiosity. If Revelation is not a prediction of the violent end of the world what is it talking about? If it has no meaning for our time what is it doing in the Bible? I plan to begin a discussion of Revelation in the next post, but to make a long story short it’s impossible to say whether Planet X is the cause of increased seismic and volcanic activity on Earth because the planet’s existence is more of a prediction than a sighting.

    Planet X is not the first planet to be predicted before it could be seen. Neptune was found after Alexis Bouvard noted irregularities in the orbit of Uranus in 1820. Bouvard theorized that an unseen planet might be influencing Uranus’s orbit. His observations were repeated in the following decades, and led to a prediction of Neptune by French mathematician, Urbain Le Verrier. With the help of Le Verrier’s prediction, German astronomer Johann Gelle sighted Neptune on a single night of searching. Since that amazing demonstration of celestial mechanics astronomers have been intrigued by the possibility of a ninth planet. However the search has been a roller coaster of excitement and disappointment.

    By 1910 conflicting predictions had been made for Planet Nine (Planet X). Edward C. Pickering and Percival Lowell led two unsuccessful searches for the planet, but predictions and searches continued until 1993. That’s the date when data from the Voyager spacecraft seemed to show that there were no positional anomalies in the solar system, implying that there is no Planet Nine. However this ‘proof’ was called into question almost immediately by ongoing discoveries in the Kuiper Belt.   The following account is from Mike Brown, leader of the team who announced the discovery of Planet Nine in early 2016. [2]

    At nearly the exact moment that Planet X was being put to rest, astronomers found the first new object beyond Neptune since the accidental discovery of Pluto (during a search for Planet X). As discoveries mounted, planetary scientists quickly realized that this population of objects in what we now call the Kuiper Belt is vast. To many of us who had begun to study this newest known collection of objects in the solar system, another thing became obvious: There was no chance that Pluto was going to be the only large object in the Kuiper Belt.

    By 1998 Brown began a large survey of the sky from Palomar Observatory. The goal was to detect these large objects, but there was also the hope of finding something new beyond the Kuiper Belt. Astronomers Chad Trujillo and David Rabinowitz joined him five years later. They soon discovered a new object, now called Sedna, on an elongated 10,000-year orbit around the Sun. The closest approach of Sedna’s orbit to the Sun (its perihelia) was not in the Kuiper Belt, as it is for other Kuiper Belt objects with elongated orbits, and they concluded that something massive is, or was, tugging on Sedna’s orbit. Then it was found that the orbit of another Kuiper Belt object discovered three years earlier, 2000 CR105, was being pulled in the same direction.

    Subsequently there have been many corroborating discoveries by astronomers in the U.S. and Brazil, and Brown says the odds that the similar alignment of these objects was due to coincidence are 0.007.

    …we realized that everything we were seeing could be explained by a planet a little less massive than Neptune on an eccentric orbit that takes it from around 200 AU at its perihelion out to 1,200 AU at its aphelion—its further point from the Sun—over an approximately 20,000-year orbital period. Such a planet would capture Kuiper Belt objects with distant elongated orbits into stable orbits elongated in the opposite direction from the planet.

    Moreover, it would pull the perihelia of these Kuiper Belt objects away from the Kuiper Belt…

    With the many effects that Planet Nine is having on the outer solar system, we can infer many things about its properties. In practice, because the solar system is a complicated place, understanding these properties has involved massive amounts of computer simulation. We simulate a slightly larger planet, a slightly closer planet, a slightly more inclined planet, and each time we compare the results of our simulations with observations of the solar system that we know.

    From these constraints we have determined that Planet Nine is about 10 times the mass of Earth, that its orbit is inclined by approximately 30 degrees to the plane of the planets, that it has an average distance of something like 600 AU from the Sun, and that when it is at its most distant point from the Sun, it lies toward the outstretched arm of the constellation Orion.

    All of this relatively detailed knowledge might make it seem like we could, like Le Verrier, simply say to the world, “Go look; it will be THERE!” But we can’t. Le Verrier had the advantage of being able to analyze the full orbit of Uranus around the Sun to see its deviations. If we waited 10,000 years to fully track Sedna around its orbit, we, too, would be able to pinpoint Planet Nine.

    Instead, though, we have only a snapshot of the orbits of a variety of different objects, and we must infer what should have happened in the past. In practical terms, that means that although we know the orbital path of Planet Nine through the sky, we don’t know where it is in its orbit. We no longer have to search the entire sky to find Planet Nine, but there’s still a lot of work to do.

    The team is using the 8-meter Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea and they expect other astronomers to join the search. As of June, 2016, Brown thought it was likely that someone in the world would spot the planet during the next five years.

     

    [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/09/20/the-christian-numerologist-whose-biblical-doomsday-claim-has-some-nervously-eyeing-sept-23/?utm_term=.51fe7109988f

    [2] Mike Brown, How we discovered Planet Nine, Astronomy, June 2016)

  • Cain and Abel in the Hindu Pantheon

    I should explain the reference to Cain that was in the first version of the Patriarchy article, and which I left out of this version. I wrote that in the Old Testament story Cain sinned because he forced the ground, which was how it was presented in “Mythology Among the Hebrews.” At the time I also thought it was meaningful that Cain was male. I think that approach may have created unnecessary confusion about the meaning of the myth. I suspect that the assumption that the Hebrew patriarchs are the model for modern patriarchy is incorrect, although the story of Cain and Abel wasn’t the best way to argue that point.

    In Mythology Among the Hebrews, the story had more to do with the age-old strife between nomads and city-dwellers. Cain, a solar figure was a builder of cities and an agriculturalist. Abel was a nomad. Their mutual animosity was a fact of life.

    I found another version of the story in Edward Moor’s “Hindu Pantheon.” Moor cites Mr. Wilford, who argued that the following is similar to the death of Abel.  It provides an interesting perspective on the Hebrew interpretation.

    “Iswara attempted to kill his brother Brahma, who, being immortal, was only maimed; but Iswara finding him afterwards in a mortal shape, in the character of Daksha, killed him as he was performing a sacrifice.” (Iswara is Siva or Mahadeva.)

    “There had subsisted for a long time some animosity between Brahma and Mahadeva in their mortal shapes; and the latter, on account of his bad conduct, which is fully described in the Puranas, had, it appears, given much uneasiness to Swayambhuva (Adam) and Satarupa (Eve); for he was libidinous, going about with a large club in his hand. Mahadeva was the eldest, and was indignant at seeing his claim as such disregarded in favour of Brahma, which the latter supported by such lies as provoked Mahadeva to such a point, that he cut off one of his heads in his divine form.”

    Later, Brahma, in his human shape, or Daksha, was found boasting that he ruled over mankind.

    “One day in the assembly of the gods, Daksha coming in, they all respectfully arose except Mahadeva, who kept his seat and looked gloomy, which Daksha resented; and reviled and cursed Mahadeva in his human shape, wishing he might ever remain a vagabond on the face of the earth; and ordered that he should be avoided, and deprived of his share of the sacrifices and offerings. Mahadeva, irritated, in his turn, cursed Daksha; and a dreadful conflict took place between them: the three worlds trembled, and the gods were alarmed.”

    The conflict escalated to the point that the gods separated them and effected a reconciliation. Eventually Daksha gave one of his daughters to Mahadeva in marriage. But later when this daughter, Devi, was treated disrespectfully by Daksha, she threw herself into the sacrificial fire. The battle between Daksha and Mahadeva resumed, and Mahadeva killed Daksha by cutting off his head. But before that, several of the gods were wounded in the battle, “particularly the Sun and Moon: heaven, hell, and the earth, trembled.”

    Sources:

    Moor, Edward. “The Hindu Pantheon”. T. Bensley, London. 1810.

  • Is the King James Translation of the Bible the Cause of Christian Error?

    Meanwhile, back at the Patriarchy article an editor has been arguing that Sarah Grimke did not question the divine origin of the scriptures; she only doubted the King James translation. In my opinion this distinction doesn’t change things much, although it makes an interesting discussion. (The claim that Grimke questioned the divine origin of the scriptures was taken from Ginette Castro’s book, “American Feminism.”)

    It seems to me that Grimke’s challenge to the Christian scriptures makes sense; the feminist objections to the Judeo-Christian tradition arose only after centuries of defamation of the female sex. But I suppose the point in question is the same whether we are talking about religion or politics. Is loyalty to a creed an all-or-nothing proposition? Should criticism of a tradition be forbidden, regardless of its history?

    A similar question came up in an essay by American Protestant Scholar Franklin H. Littell, “The Other Crimes of Adolf Hitler.” In the Holocaust, “six million Jews were targeted and systematically murdered in the heart of Christendom by baptized Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern Orthodox who were never rebuked, let alone excommunicated.” Of course, there were many other individuals and groups of people who were targeted and murdered, but Littell argues the uniqueness of the Jewish Holocaust is found in the identity of the Hebrews, the people of the Book. The Holocaust is unique to the history of the west in its betrayal of Biblical morality. The failure to face this fact has resulted in a credibility crisis for Christianity, as well as for the institutions of democracy and academia. But that little problem is studiously avoided in current discourse.

    Littell also stresses the role of Enlightenment thinking, which serves to block effective analyses of this “terrifying, mysterious, and demonic chaos for which we have no adequate words.” We, in our “reasonable universe” think of it “in terms of the exigencies of modern war, or the inexorable logic of dictatorships, or the disposal of surplus populations…” But these are merely attempts to explain it in a way that people “long-out-of-touch-with-the Bible worldview, can understand.”

    He concludes that the world’s most powerful nations are ”idolatrous nations, peoples who have turned aside, a civilization that sorely needs to have its feet set on the high road of righteousness and justice and peace.”

    In this light, the attempt to distinguish between the King James translation as the cause of Christian error, as opposed to some hypothetical, accurate translation, misses the point. What difference does it make after all? One version is as easy to ignore as the next.

    Sources:

    Littell, Franklin H. “The Other Crimes of Adolf Hitler”. The Holocaust and History: the known, the unknown, the disputed, and the reexamined. ed. Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck. Indiana University Press. Bloomington and Indianapolis. 1998.

  • Remembering the Important Things

    The premise of these essays is that our turbulent times represent the birth of a new age—in other words, the turmoil actually carries the hope of something better in the future. Many of these essays have attempted to continue conversations begun by sociologists, poets and political analysts who clearly believe in America’s future, and who have responded to a need for clear thought and accurate perspective. However, in order to continue the discussion it seemed necessary to address the continuing roadblocks of arbitrary taboos and ideological rigidity. I didn’t intend this to be the final word or to be dogmatic in any sense. In my opinion, the only thing really necessary to progress in this discussion is honest intent.

    My main regret at this point concerns the influence I allowed the national media to have on my comments about Libya. The fear that they are no longer trustworthy has been the biggest conversation stopper I can imagine although I still hope something good will come of our involvement in the Middle East. It is always possible that someone will do the right thing. However, without free presses everything is much more complicated.

    But in any case the main ideas in America and the World (the original name of this blog) were never presented as quick fixes. They have to do with fundamental principles and require far more time and thought if anything is to come of them. You could say America and the World is a discussion about the discussion. As I pointed out previously, the great civilizations of antiquity were thousand of years in the making. We would be cheating ourselves to arrive at this auspicious time only to add a few symbols of nature religion on the National Mall and call it good—we need genuine understanding. Again, that takes time and patience. Besides, history has shown that Pagan symbols can coexist very well with inequality and oppression.

    In addition to the current lack of a free press, the continuing furor over the roles and interactions between men and women represent a threat to any discussion about the future. I have tried to avoid getting bogged down by this debate—it just seems shameful to admit that women still must prove good will and positive contributions even though their worth is self-evident. I assume the political use of gender roles is at the heart of the problem because certain tactics that started at the Patriarchy article are continuing.

    For my part I don’t know whether these attitudes and tactics are more widely accepted than I realized, or if they represent the attempt by one group to change the consensus. In other words, am I talking to people who want to get it right, or am I talking to people who want their own way regardless of what is right? Considering that the sources already cited have argued many of these things and have been ignored, I would have to say it is a concerted effort to promote ideology and it won’t stop any time soon. This is a huge problem when it comes to a conversation about where the nation is headed. This specific disagreement is particularly dangerous because the role given to the male and female principles in nature and custom is at the heart of culture.

    Maybe the politicians won’t be able to perform miracles in the short term, although the continuing effort is a source of pride, for example, “The People’s Budget” introduced in April by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. As for the long-term solutions promised by the principles of ancient religion, we might despair if we assume they were originally developed in an idyllic era and suffered no resistance or conflict of any kind. I doubt if that is the case. Human culture is far more ancient than our history books indicate.  Ancient people may have faced many of the same obstacles that we face. Anything is possible.

  • Is Rape a Tactic of War in Libya?

    A case is being made that rape is a regime a tactic in Libya. According to an NPR story the physical evidence includes Viagra, condoms, and women’s underwear. A Libyan doctor says he has found these things in the belongings of dead soldiers and that other doctors have found them as well. Unfortunately, he could not produce the Viagra because he ‘disposed’ of it. Also, the reporter did not say whether she was shown the underwear and condoms. When the doctor was asked if he was sure these things were intended for rape, he said there would be no other reason for a Libyan to have Viagra.

    As for the lack of victims, it was explained that women didn’t normally report rape because they would be condemned if it were known. Eman al-Obeidy’s family is from the rebel-held part of eastern Libya and they are standing by her.

    I agree that Gaddafi should go. I’m aware that rape is often used as a tactic in war, and it may have been used on Eman al-Obeidy. But this particular interview is not news; it is an argument, based on a collection of circumstantial evidence, that Libyan soldiers are rapists.

    Here is the link to the interview.

    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyID=135011836

  • Bill Maher on Egypt’s Million Woman March

    I saw Bill Maher on The Arena tonight. He thought it was an ominous sign for democracy in Egypt that a thousand women attended the Million Woman March only to have the men deride them. It was obviously humiliating for the organizers, but I had a different take on it.

    No one said how many men were there, but the ones I saw were very young and there were not very many of them. I thought it was interesting that although the mobs that attacked the political demonstrators were revealed to be hired thugs, everyone assumed these boys were legitimate.  Women can be discredited so easily. I know this, although I’ve never been to Egypt. I learned it in America.

    I could say that Maher grew up with a different crowd, but I don’t think it’s that easy to explain. It seems we all have an official picture of ourselves as Americans. I’ve often believed the official picture, although I’ve seen countless situations similar to what happened in Egypt. And yet we have democracy.

    If the Egyptians are willing to fight and die for democracy, they must be ready for it. We can’t really say. People tend to be more conservative in conditions of political and economic hardship, and the Egyptians were having a difficult time even before the revolution. That, combined with religious attitudes about women could explain what those boys did, if they did act on their own.

    However, if Maher was trying to say there is a correlation between respect for women and free societies, I think he’s right.

  • Peter King and Radical Islam in America

    Representative Peter King, is talking about the radicalization of American Muslims. Apparently he plans hearings in the Homeland Security Committee. I would argue that the radicalization of ordinary Muslims, or Arabs of any persuasion, shouldn’t be so easily assumed; the affinity between Arab culture and al Qaeda is not a natural one.

    The barbarian invasion of the Roman Empire and its influence on the Christian tradition didn’t culminate with the Emperor Constantine. Islam was brought to the Arab people in a later period, but by the same means. However, it’s missionaries held beliefs condemned as heretical by the Catholic Church. The end result for the Arab people was the imposition of a culture that differed in fundamental ways from Arab culture. It seems that originally, slavery was part of the culture of the Islamic ruling class. Slavery has always been part of Anglo-Saxon culture. In America, the Union was established with slavery in mind, and Thomas Jefferson was not the only influential American who owned slaves. Muslim slave-traders provided many of America’s slaves.  It seems likely that the leaders of radical Islam have more in common with America’s ruling class than with the Arab culture.  Their hostility is simply a result of rivalry for the sympathies of the people. 

    The failure to understand these relationships may be responsible for a comment made on a network news program, illustrating that racism against blacks thrives on a similar misunderstanding. In a discussion between a conservative woman and a black man, the conservative said she would never understand a culture who sells its own people as slaves, obviously assuming that every black person represents the same culture. In other words, he has no one to blame but his own people. In this way, she dismissed whatever point he was trying to make. This has to be the most viciously racist thing I have ever observed. It was probably all the more damaging because it was so insidious.

    When American Muslims condemn the violence of radical Islam, there are good reasons to believe them.  They should be taken at their word.

  • Libya’s non-effect on U.S. Oil Prices

    Libya, Gas Prices, and the Big Payday at Your Expense
    Submitted by Michael Collins, for “The Economic Populist” on Mon, 03/07/2011 – 00:23

    Another Triumph for The Money Party

    The average price for a gallon of gas rose 30% from $2.69 in July 2010 to $3.49 as of March 6. Most of that 30% has come in just the last few days.

    We’re about to embark on another period of let the markets take care of it. The Money Party manipulators are again jerking citizens around in the old bottom-up wealth redistribution program. Their imagineers are writing the storyline right now.

    The conflict in Libya is causing the spike in oil prices over the past ten days or so according to the media script. Take a look at the chart to the right. Can you find Libya among the top fifteen nations supplying the United States with crude oil?

    Why the Current Panic Over Gas Prices?

    The general explanation points to the crisis in Libya as the proximate cause. The anti Gaddafi regime revolution began in earnest on February 17. But if the Libyan revolution were the cause, we’d have to attribute a 50% drop in a 2% share of the world’s oil supply as the cause of the panic. We would also have to attribute the increase in US gas prices to a nation that doesn’t impact the US crude oil supply and, as a result, should not impact the price of gas here.

    The speculators have an answer. The Libyan situation entails fears of broader unrest in oil and non-oil producing nations in North Africa and the Middle East. There is unrest, without any doubt. Citizens are insisting that their kleptocratic rulers cease and desist from looting their nation’s treasuries and resources. The demonstrations across the region, revolution in Egypt, and war in Libya are all being fought under the banner of broader participation in government, greater access to essentials like food, jobs, and hope for future improvements. Notably lacking is anti-US rhetoric or religious fanaticism. (Image)

    Somehow, the opportunity for secular, democratic regimes equals a crisis for US energy prices. The embedded assumption is that the conflicts leading to new regimes will cause a disruption in the flow of oil. With the exception of Libya, none of these countries have reduced their oil production, including oil producing Egypt. In fact, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates increased oil production to compensate for the short fall due to the military conflict in Libya.

    If we don’t believe that Libya is the cause, then we get the excuse of emerging democracies. If emerging democracies fail to catch on as the scapegoat, there will be other excuses.

    The Money Party bottom line is apparent. It’s time to take some more money from citizens. Any plausible reason will do. When you own the media, you have no worries. Who’s going to bust you?

    The Big Payday at Your Expense

    The gas price shock and awe is not evenly distributed. The Western states, New York, Illinois, and Nebraska are taking the biggest hits. There’s some explanation for this but not a very good one. All that matters is taking as much in extra profits as possible while the extraordinary events in Libya and the rest of the region allow a plausible storyline. This time, democracy is the villain.

    These gas prices will have a direct impact on those least able to afford it. It will cost more to go to work or look for jobs. Commodities will go up even more than they are now. Transportation for the distribution of all products will have an impact on prices. Tourism will fall off. The feeble increases in hiring may be at risk and there will be more gloomy news about how this all impacts the prospects for any sort of economic recovery.

    What’s Really Driving Gas Prices?

    In a recent Business Insider column, David Moenning noted:

    “At least part of the reason behind crude’s rude rise is the price action itself. Hedge funds and other fast-money types have begun to pile into what appears to be a burgeoning uptrend in the oil charts (take a peek at a weekly chart of USO and you’ll see what we mean). Then when you couple the price action with the news backdrop, this appears to be the new place to be for the ‘hot money.’” David Moenning, Business Insider Mar 6

    We have the usual suspects looking for hot money. The fast-money types, as Moenning calls them, smell another victory in the air. Their market activity is driving prices in a self-reinforcing cycle of increases that are highly profitable when you get in and out at the right time (and if you pull the strings for the market, that’s easy). (Image: Fuel Gauge Report)

    Who is looking out for our interests?

    No one. Have you heard of any congressional investigation? The oversight committees for the Departments of Energy and Commerce are two likely starting points. Nothing. President Obama is threatening to tap the US strategic oil reserve to use market forces to push crude oil and gas prices down. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke sees commodity price increases, including crude oil, as a temporary phenomenon. They may create a problem, however.

    “Rises in the prices of oil or other commodities would represent a threat both to economic growth and to overall price stability, particularly if they were to cause inflation expectations to become less well anchored,” Bernanke said before Congress last week. Ben Bernanke, March 1

    Doing nothing, like Congress, and trying to manipulate market forces, as the president says he might, are not the heavy-hitters needed to stop this latest rip off. They both buy into the belief that there is some sort of occult mystery to why prices are going up. Everyone who benefits will raise prices because they can. They have no concept of enough and there is nobody standing in their way.

    What would JFK do?

    There was a time when the president of the United States stood up to big business. President John F. Kennedy put his prestige and word on the line when he helped the steel industry and labor unions negotiate a contract that the president thought was fair to all, a deal he hailed as “non inflationary.” Just days after the settlement, US Steel turned around and issued a major price increase. This would have hurt the economy due to the central role of steel at the time.

    Kennedy felt betrayed by US Steel and the others that raised prices. He wasted no time in his response. The Department of defense said it would buy steel from the lowest bidder. This would have excluded US Steel and their fellow price gougers. The Justice Department began investigations and issued antitrust indictments by the big steel producers. Kennedy also went to the public to gain support for his efforts.

    Big steel backed down. The broader business community complained. The Kennedy administration and others reminded everyone that the government acts in the public interest when business threatens the interests of the people. What a novel concept.

    Collins, Michael. “Libya, gas prices and the Big Payday at Your Expense.” The Economic Populist. Available: 

    http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/libya-gas-prices-and-big-payday-your-expense

  • American Empire and Political Insanity

    The fear that America’s founders were really only interested in empire is not new. What is not clear is whether Americans believe the rise of empire is merely something that might happen in the future. I think this must be the case. There are a lot of Americans who still believe their vote counts, or they did before the last couple of elections. There are countless people on television and the Internet acting as though political candidates matter, elections matter, betrayals of the people’s trust matter.  It seems that these two concepts, American Empire and political insanity, are interchangeable.

    But then issues of trust would be important in an empire as well. There have been benevolent emperors with prosperous, peaceful reigns. The Emperorn Franz Josef of Austria was that kind of emperor. There is nothing in the definition of Empire that dictates injustice, economic collapse, and cynical profiteering. The question of whether we have a viable democracy is only important in this context.  Once an empire sinks so low, who can keep it from pillaging the countryside?  Yet, democracy is still a viable concept.  It is the only tool we have.

    Again it seems important to mention the confusion in analyses of the problem. Who and what are we?  Sociologist Wayne Baker observed that Americans hold traditional views similar to third world countries, although America is considered a developed nation similar to western European nations. But then he adds that these views are to be expected in third world countries because of their economic and political turmoil—the traditional, conservative outlook is a natural outcome of the overriding importance of survival in such conditions.  Sadly, this comparison makes sense on the surface. I suppose it brings to mind dictators who have been in the news, wars and revolutions in South America, etc. Of course America is nothing like that, is it? But America has had economic turmoil and war, even though lately the wars have been overseas.

    In American history, industrial interests have been guilty of third world tactics, shamelessly oppressing workers. In addition, big business interests have always had close associations with government. Americans have endured cycles where the loss of family farms was rampant. Recently, wealthy farmers who benefited from the loss of these family farms have dictated the country’s estate tax policy. Today, the current cycle of crisis is merely continuing the destruction of the economic prospects of American families, and is accompanied by political disappointment and disillusionment. Yet Baker associates Americans with Europeans rather than with the people of any of the third world countries, saying that the United States’ social and political values make her an ‘outlier’.

    Another example of confusion is Mike Stathis’ analysis in his book “America’s Healthcare Solution.” Stathis mentions the waste, fraud and bribery in the nation’s healthcare system, and then offers solutions. But one wonders how the same people who could create such problems, and even perpetuate them, would be willing or able to fix them. Profit has eroded even issues of life and death, finally corrupting the caregivers who have sworn an oath to protect life.

    If political power is to be measured by the degree of injustice rulers can inflict with impunity, then we are talking about something else entirely than the difference between democracy and empire. We are talking about criminal behavior. But I’ve just stated the obvious again. Everyone knows people should have gone to jail as a result of this recession, and that they never will.  Yet we judge these people by an American ideal–proof that the ideal still lives among us.

    Stefan Zweig called the fascists of early twentieth century Europe politically insane ((The World of Yesterday, Plunklett Lake Press, Sept. 2011)). Today writers and activists who try to address these problems may wonder if they are politically schizophrenic. Political schizophrenia seems to be as hereditary as the other kind—apparently we got it from our Judeo-Christian forefathers, who deliberately associated Astraea, pagan goddess of the Roman Empire, with the Virgin Mary.

     

  • Continued from America and the Constellation Virgo

    This brings to mind the fact that many British officers in the Revolutionary War were Freemasons who actually failed to carry out their orders during decisive battles. I’m also reminded that only a third of the Colonists were in favor of the War. A third were undecided, and the final third were loyalists. You could say it was the war of, by and for the new ruling class. Judging from their secret dreams of empire, they certainly had the most to gain.

    I wanted to talk about a new model for the future, but the time isn’t right for that yet. It seems it is important to first examine the old models and try to put American history in clearer perspective. The idea that America was the first new nation founded from scratch with ideas about liberty, etc. seems to have disguised the identifying characteristics of the new elite and the government they made. The elite weren’t born under Plymouth Rock. They have a history.

    I suppose there are a lot of Tea Partiers who would be up in arms about this—if they ever read it. I’m pretty sure there are liberals who would be just as peeved. The Tea Partiers need rescue. There they are on the conservative bandwagon and they don’t know who’s pulling it. A bunch of old groups who have been hovering around for decades saw their opportunity and swooped in. The aim is to keep everything the same, to protect the status quo and their own place in it.

    The liberals should know better than to cling to their dogma, but they don’t. Many of them disagree with union busting but defend the healthcare bill, for example. This makes no sense. The healthcare bill threatens the same people who are protected by unions.

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