Blair, the Roman Beast, and The Mark (I)

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-64729442

Published in early 2023, this is a disturbing story on many levels. William Hague and Tony Blair are certainly evil men and their arguments and justifications for biometric identification are not to be trusted. The truth is after witnessing the events of the past decade or so, and given the growing instability within society, coupled with the sheer massiveness of modern populations, those sitting atop the state are nervous and fearing the spectre of chaos and the threat of pandemonium. They want mechanisms in place that allow them to exert and maintain control.

Chiliasm, Totalitarian Cults, and The Pursuit of the Millennium

After many years I finally found the time to read Norman Cohn's The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages first published in 1957. For all the attention this book has received I was quite disappointed.

Cohn's thesis rests on a cobbled together narrative that confuses popular impulse and superstition with religious conviction. He tries to argue that various utopian and chiliastic movements of the medieval period were the cultural and ideological precursors of twentieth century Nazism and Communism.

The Dark Side of Covid – The Establishment's Reordering of Society (III)

Are these concepts surrounding social credit, access, and economics harbingers of the Mark of the Beast?

The Dark Side of Covid – The Establishment's Reordering of Society (II)

What are some areas that are of genuine concern – areas being exploited by people in power to bring about great and sweeping changes to society?

The Blind Facilitators

https://www.aomin.org/aoblog/christian-worldview/where-we-stand-how-church-history-can-help-but-only-so-far/

Though he's a bit late to the discussion I'm glad to see some other Christian leaders come to the realisation that persecution and state oppression are going to look different in the 21^st century. The technological leaps are such that old methods of underground life are going to be quite different in this new age. I think the biggest struggle for White and all those who run in his circles will be the end of middle class life and affluence.

The TSA, Bureaucracy and Permanent War

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/30/633980912/tsas-quiet-skies-program-tracks-observes-travelers-in-the-air

Undoubtedly some will have noticed this story which broke a few weeks ago regarding the TSA programme of passenger surveillance.

The TSA or Transportation Security Administration is largely a joke but there's nothing funny about it. Implemented in the wake of 9/11 the organisation has been repeatedly defeated by inter-agency tests. It harasses and humiliates the public and yet is unable to stop weapons from getting on to airplanes.

Embracing Dystopia: Reflections on the Ascendancy of Amazon and the Signs of the Times (Part 2 of 2)

Every state contains what might be described as the Bestial Impulse, the temptation of ultimacy. We can also refer to this as the Babel Impulse, the temptation to conflate the state project with divine presence or deity itself. Essentially what this means is that the state sees itself in the role of a god and a manifestation of heavenly presence or prerogative.

Embracing Dystopia: Reflections on the Ascendancy of Amazon and the Signs of the Times (Part 1 of 2)

I was reading a story from a few months ago about Amazon handing over large amounts of data to law enforcement and it prompted me to wrestle with the question of Amazon, Bezos and what it all represents. Immediately I thought of my past wranglings with Wal-Mart.

Considering the Panopticon Beast

http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-42248056/in-your-face-china-s-all-seeing-state

Facial recognition software, biometric data, high-speed processing and lower-order or Narrow Artificial Intelligence are being wed to authoritarian political structures. It is the Panopticon for a new age.*

I must admit, I found this video to be deeply troubling. I found myself wondering about the future of the Chinese Underground Church. The tools of totalitarianism are becoming so pervasive that nonconformists (of any stripe) are literally going to be forced back into the mountains and forests... as in the old days.

And yet in the old days, the state apparatus did not possess drones with thermal imaging and the easy means to access remote places.