Since we've been talking about power and its effects and the dangers it poses for the followers of Christ, I thought I would take second a comment on yet another news item.
Recently we learned that the Obama Defense Department wants to sell $60 billion dollars worth of arms to Saudi Arabia, one of the largest arms deals in history. How strange that the man who has escalated the war in Afghanistan, continued the Bush policies of Rendition, Drone Assassination, Secret Prisons and now turned Arms Dealer par excellence was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize! This man is a leftist? Strange behaviour for one who 'hates' America and is driven by post-colonialism as one propagandist recently claimed.
I spoke in another recent post of the triadic nature of American power and yet once again the financial-corporate sector seems to demonstrate its dominance. The private Defense Contractors who feed on tax dollars are not terribly happy at the moment. Despite a golden decade of unprecedented profits, the near future doesn't look as rosy. Budget cuts, the reductions in Iraq, and the probable near future reductions in Afghanistan have left them wanting, so they have turned to the Department of Defense who has happily negotiated this astonishing deal.
Never mind the fact that supposedly 15 of the 19 hijackers were of Saudi origin, and we'll ignore the atrocious human rights record of the House of Saud. Somehow we're to believe the United States is all about the altruistic propagation of democracy? There are still hordes of Americans who actually believe this. I heard Rush Limbaugh say today that America has only done good things, and only helped other people. Anyone who says differently is a liar.
I was waiting for lightning to fall from the sky and blast his studio into dust. It will happen, but the Lord is longsuffering. Perhaps someday even Rush Limbaugh will see the truth. Perhaps some of his listeners and admirers will. I used to be an ardent fan, that was before I was converted and started reading and studying the Bible. I used to listen to him when George HW Bush was president, and I thought Limbaugh so brilliant in his analysis of the incoming horror....Bill Clinton.
Well, let's just say I understand now why a lot of people couldn't stomach him, but in those days I was certain if you didn't like him...you had to be a raging fire-breathing communist sympathizer.
My world has grown a little bigger since then and though Rush Limbaugh still lives in a little sound booth, I've learned a lot in the past twenty years.
One thing I've learned is the United States is massive oligarchical plutocratic empire. Money is the god of this Babylon. Don't be fooled, this has been her story from almost the beginning.
We have Christians running around today trying to argue that the 1776 Rebellion was about religious freedom. It was about taxes, money, and power. Sure the colonials had legitimate grievances, but the rebellion was sinful and in no way accords with anything that could be found in the New Testament.
I recently heard a Theonomist suggest that the Northern Kingdom's lynching of the Rehoboam's tax collector was a pattern for America. When Rehoboam assembled his army to invade the northern kingdom but was stopped by the prophet…it was God's way of sanctioning the principle of tax revolt.
I'm not kidding. Welcome to the Sacralist world of tortured hermeneutics.
It is the same kind of hermeneutic that allows Christians to find militarism compatible with following Christ. Somehow their Christ looks very much like the Roman Mars. Somehow their Christian America looks very much like Pagan Rome.
Not even Constantinian Rome to which they aspire...just Pagan Rome.
It is in moments such as these that we see something of the real power behind the scenes. It's a bit of the chicken and egg conundrum, but somehow the Contractors, the Defense(?) Industry always come out on top. Some have referred to this as nothing more than subsidies for the rich. The poor are derided for living in a mindset of 'dependency,' while he have thousands of elites making fortunes completely derived from and dependent upon…the Federal Government. How many have 'earned' their fortunes by investing in Energy and Defense spit on the poor without ever reflecting on the way the circle works?
It's all the more disgusting when you look into many Christian organizations and Christian endorsed Conservative Think Tanks and find they are often funded by these same entities. And these are the same people who pontificate about the evils of Socialism, central planning, and dependency? Whatever you may think of those things, for these 'Christians' to speak thus is offensive....no, that's too weak a word.
The love of money translates into the love of power. Love is blind they say. It clouds the mind. Or does it create delusion? Perhaps strong delusion sent as judgment from the Hand of God.