A Letter That Morphed Into An Apocalyptic Poem

Conservative Christianity, Armageddon As Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, And Return To The Neolithic

https://newsfrombarbaria.blogspot.com/2020/09/conservative-christianity-armageddon-as.html

Dear F,

Thanks for your email.

Remember.

We are primates.

At our best we are extraordinary!

But at regular intervals, we regress to the jungle and "monkey around."

Of course, we cannot "play rough" too long before somebody gets hurt.

Then retaliation.

And escalation.

If we're lucky, the atavism fizzles and we get to be extraordinary again.

But for the foreseeable future, we will be "lead" by an ape who never aspired higher than alpha male dominance-submission hierarchies.

"The men with the largest of earthly fortunes and the smallest of earthly aims. There are two other odd and rather important things to be said about them. The first is this: that with this aristocracy we do not have the chance of a lucky variety in types which belongs to larger and looser aristocracies. The moderately rich include all kinds of people even good people. Even priests are sometimes saints; and even soldiers are sometimes heroes. Some doctors have really grown wealthy by curing their patients and not by flattering them; some brewers have been known to sell beer. But among the Very Rich you will never find a really generous man, even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egoistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it." G. K. Chesterton  

The good news (perhaps) is that Donald is so evidently simian.

And many people want -- perhaps even need -- something more than pussy grabbing, animal posturing, and pretending bourgeoise religion is more than frightened-animal strategy to guarantee the essential self-centeredness of "personal salvation."

Of course, lunacy -- particularly in its collective forms -- has an unpredictable logic all its own.

Note this difference...

When individuals go crazy, it's the same tedious thing, day after day, year after year - often, decade after decade.

Personal madness is characterized by sameness, by repetition, by same old same old. 

But when societies go crazy, it's just friggin' weird.

Hundred year wars.

Nuclear wars.

Flying planes into sky scrapers.

Burning children with napalm, an incendiary glue that cannot be scraped off one's frying flesh.

Driving trucks into Christmas markets while little kids wait to see Santa.

Byzantine intrigue in the heart of the Vatican.

What's most bizarre is that - mostly - we can't even talk about it.

Polarized families hunker down in twin trenches on opposite sides of the concertina wire.

And The Holiday Host carves The Roast Beast when in his heart-of-hearts he would like to carve the people who are not like him and his kin. 

Fork their eyeballs as hors d'oeuvres.

Maybe Donald will do the forking for us! 

And then! The most splendid of all possible outcomes! 

Someone else does the dirty work -- stupid young bucks, testy with testosterone, undertake the drumbeat, the invasion, the carnage. 

The climax.

The release.

And slowly the return to normalcy.  

But no one really believes "the good Germans" didn't know.

Until we look back...

... and see...

that we...

were the good Germans.

Who?

Me?

I didn't know! 

On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 3:55 PM, FV wrote:

Dear A

There is a news tape on msnbc today with Francis saying he is meeting with severe resistance as he tries to reform the bureaucracy of the Vatican. Prelates who work for him must undergo a permanent purification to serve the Catholic Church since they are under the influence of the Devil.

Alan, what is going on? What happened to the vow of obedience? How can we expect world order when we can't even have Church order? I hope he can clean out and strip power from the possessed.

Love

F