Challenging the Great Baseball Mammon Deceit

I've shared before that my favorite baseball team is the San Francisco Giants. I grew up with them and went to dozens of games at Candlestick (and a few at their newer Mission Bay ballpark). I also do enjoy the game of baseball yet absolutely revile what the Major Leagues have done with it.

One of the main wretched things is free agency, which has merely been a tool for the powers-that-be, whom I've called the "MLBers," to ensure substantial advantages are afforded the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers. Yes, those two teams, no others. All of the major league baseball people know this is happening, implicitly but very practically. It is simple, these two teams must win every year for the entire enterprise to survive. I've already gone into detail about that in my last post -- indeed for years I've been sharing this truth in other web places but ones that get little attention. It would be nice if people knew and truly wanted something done about it, but sadly there just aren't enough of them.

As long as the Dodgers and Yankees are winning, with a few upsets every once in a while to keep up appearances, everything is fine.

My friend just today even sent me a photograph of a banner behind a plane that I assume was flying over some major league baseball stadium featuring some scheduled game that said, "The Dodgers have ruined baseball." Yes, they have to some extent, but it is more the competitive duplicity sustained by the MLBers that ruined it years ago, much because of the destructive principle of free agency.

Again, I'm not going to get into the veritable whys and wherefores here in this blog post. What I did want to do is just riff a bit on what the Giants can do short of the main thing, which again is joining with whoever is principled enough to end the Dodgers and Yankees-favoring duplicity and restore genuine competitive integrity throughout the sport. In some ways that really is the main thing.

Otherwise, what else? 

The pretext for all of this now regarding my Giants, is that for one they have presently been agonizing through a miserable season. They have played far below their abilities and right now wallow close to last place in their division, holding one of the worst records in the entire league. The other day was the trade deadline when all major league teams must make the trades it must to have acquired players eligible to play in the postseason.

The Giants made a number of moves, essentially selling off several of their better players to acquire younger players who would be more likely able to help them compete in the future.

So then, here is what we can do. In fact, this is what we must do if we care about succeeding in this daunting challenge.

One, let Buster Posey make the decisions he needs to make to get us back into contention over the next few years. Posey was our excellent World Series champion catcher from 2010 and beyond, and he is a ferocious competitor and a very smart baseball man. From what we've seen so far, he means business, and his strong leadership and deep commitment to excellence should get us where we need to go.

Two, if our field manager Tony Vitello is as good a rah-rah guy as they hired him to be, and he does indeed have something of an instinctual, intuitive sense of how to get the most from his players and win, I think it would be good to give him time to gain major league experience. It seems like he's on that steep learning curve right now, and if he valiantly keeps at it we should be really good in a couple years.

Three, do the "Moneyball" thing with the Giants team makeup. It blows my mind that just about every team just has guys swinging for the fences and striking out way too much. Yay home runs! Lots and lots of home runs puts people in the seats! Yay for that!

Ahem. The winning philosophy is this:

(1) Not really a Moneyball thing directly, but still the most important item of the three: Draft gobs of pitchers. Gobs and gobs. Every year. Buster kind of did that this year when of his 21 picks in the June draft he took 12 pitchers, including the very best rated one of all. Very nice.

The idea is simple. Who cares if all your minor league teams are stocked with pitchers playing and batting wherever. For the big club: Find and develop six or seven studs every three or four years, and lock on to them. If every year your staff has six or seven lockdown guys for mound work, you'll be unstoppable. Drafting lots and lots of pitchers gives you a better chance to find those gems.

(2) One of the key Moneyball things: Get batters who get on base. They either make contact or they walk. Excellent. They just don't strike out. They actually hit the baseball, make the other team work. The more guys get on base, the more likely runs will be scored. This is just not rocket science. 

(3) Get excellent fielders. You can save gobs of runs if your fielders are making outs. 

After you've drafted mostly pitchers and you're stuck with filling your lineup with contact hitters and fine fielders, you really should be able to pick up any number of them from other team's rejects. Find contact hitters you can teach to field -- one of the best Giants players traded away the other day was Luis Arraez, an outstanding contact hitter who actually improved his 2nd baseman play. Wonderful! Likewise find excellent fielders you can teach to make more contact at the plate. 

If they can't be taught, get rid of them. Get others who can. Unless of course any given player is truly exceptional and winning games for you with what he can do. This is why I like Rafael Devers. He's an excellent power hitter who, yeah, may be underperforming, but he's had a good attitude with a losing team, and it'll be nice when we can put some solid contact hitters around him.

Yes, I know it is best to have these guys if they are good enough. True, I get that. But why not increase your chances to succeed by doing these things? They've been done, they've been successful -- in fact look at the two teams playing in the 2014 World Series. The worst thing that happened to major league baseball was the nobody-cares-about-the-Giants facing the even-fewer-care-about-the-Royals. They were not in any way the Dodgers or the Yankees.

However, both the Giants and Royals did those things that made them uniquely successful. They had guys who could get on base. They had exceptional defenses. And they had terrific pitching staffs -- the Giants had a once-in-a-lifetime manager (Bruce Bochy) who was a genius with how and when to use his arms, and the Royals had a once-in-a-lifetime bullpen that essentially turned sixth-inning leads into automatic wins.

Then, really (4) another critical Moneyball thing: Since you don't have a break-the-bank approach like the Dodgers and Yankees are allowed to have, find the 20 or so guys you just know are going to produce, and sign them to long-term deals now. Wrap them up for the next seven or eight years, at least. And just go crazy treating them like the very best you think they are and teach them and coach them and teach them and coach them and make sure they know being a Giant is the best thing ever.

Part of that is, if after three years or so, any one of them starts regularly hitting 50 home runs a year or consistently sporting a WHIP of 0.50, then change his contract and pay him. If he was making a million dollars a year, now pay him 20, 30. Reward him for his hard work, prove that you value his exceptional production, and in doing so -- ta-da!...

Make free agency meaningless.

All of this would be utopia for Giants fans... and a return to baseball respectability and certainly a string of postseason runs.

Thing is, I hear major league baseball is about to shoot itself in the foot, and arm and head and chest for that matter, and they are regurgitating the old things they thought they needed to fix the "competitive balance" problem. Oh my. They say there will be a lockout in the spring if there isn't a salary cap imposed. Oh my oh my.

Utter folly.

Once again, and why I can comfortably put this blog post here in Reality Salon because it is indeed, about a grave deceit. 

The contemptible folly once again, for review:

(1) We need to make more competitive balance.

(2) To do that we must have a salary cap.

Both ideas are flat-out stupid. Sorry, excuse me. Disrespectful? To employ the word stupid? Yeah, probably, but it fits, and please, the MLBers have done things to the game that are beyond stupid anyway. Why can't I speak stark truths here? I see so few others openly sharing them, sadly.

Here's why.

We don't really want competitive balance, we want competitive integrity. There is a huge difference. Competitive balance is just more manipulating the game to try to get some artificially arranged result -- even if it is every team finishing 81-81. No, sorry, that's stupid.

No, you want competitive integrity. Just give every team the fair and equal chance to build the winner it wants to. Summarily remove the advantages the Dodgers and Yankees have, period. But again, the MLBers are so reluctant to do that because yet again those teams' winning means more for everyone.

So then, how about a salary cap, yeah? No, that's stupid too. That too keeps teams from being able to pay the players they want to keep what they are worth. 

Come on, I'll be honest, I want my Giants to draft and develop a team of All-Star Future Hall-of-Famers to go win World Series after World Series after World Series. Why do I want anything to keep that from happening? Free agency, salary caps, competitive "balance" manipulations, all the other idiotic revenue sharing and luxury tax requirements and whatever else -- all of them mess with any team's ability to do fairly and equitably do what they may do with their skills and talents to make a genuinely good baseball team. All of that takes away what makes the game authentic baseball in a healthy environment of competitive integrity.

And really, even if the Giants can't do it, then it is just as good that any other team does no matter how large or small their fan base is, just as long as it is all on the up-and-up.

So yeah, this blog effort is about this question: What is keeping people willfully deceived, and is there anything that can happen so truth prevails?

I know this is just baseball, and I haven't even touched on all the other insane things like how much they have to wrestle with the woke mafia telling them about having "Pride" nights and things like that. A couple months ago the Giants even got in the mainstream regular news when some principled players made very truthful but very gracious expressions related to their refusal to acquiesce to those things. I was going to get into that in this post, but it is already full -- just to share some truthful things about this game I kind of like.

And add this one simply note.

Check out The Kingdom. The Place where Christ reigns.

There is where The Grace and The Truth prevail.

That is truly what gets me through the times when I shake my head off my shoulders with these baseball things, and all the other deceitful destructive things out there.

Might want to find the Real Sanctuary in Him.

Good call.

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Here is a recent post at my Kansas City Chiefs blog that gets into this even a bit more. I also can't neglect to add the following images. The first is that banner that when clipping it from the web I see it was flown over Wrigley Field in Chicago. The second is a screenshot of renowned baseball broadcaster Bob Costas in an interview conceding that some teams -- you know which ones and they do too -- do have advantages they should not have.

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A Great Mammon Deceit

Many wickedly institutionalized deceits are ravaging everything out there, and I sometimes write about them when I have time. Because there are so many I just can't get to all of them, and besides, some I don't know as much about and others are mostly just trolls -- stupid things people say or do to get a response in the cybersphere or even in mass media. I don't want to be an ill-informed, manipulated trollee.

(You may check out more of my takes at my other blog, Wonderful Matters.)

This one, however, is one I must write some things about, and indeed I have touched on this quite often before though not in this particular blog effort. I share the disclaimer because it doesn't seem like it is a bad as others, and I agree, it isn't, but I do like the subject and it is quite symptomatic of all the other more lethal deceits all around.

I'm writing this because I like baseball, and I like a favorite team in baseball. I also like competitive sports kinds of things, both to watch and to play.

A day or two ago the Los Angeles Dodgers professional baseball team garnered a lot of attention because they once again signed a major baseball star to a massively massive contract. They had already signed a number of free agents over the years, the very best players available so they could have a team that has indeed gone on to win the last two World Series titles in Major League Baseball.

I also recently noted there is a bit of attention to this perceived inequity, and some are seeking ways to keep this from happening. The idea is that it is simply too unfair that one team should have so many of the best ballplayers and dominate the game like this. I've seen some attention to the idea of a lockout, the owners putting a pause on baseball until this can be rectified. Then there is the inevitable cry for an imposed salary cap and other rules to keep these teams from doing this.

All of this is terribly misguided, and it isn't because the situation isn't horrifically unfair. It is unfair. But the answer is not a lockout or salary cap or any of those ineffective even debilitating things people think is the answer.

The answer is ending free agency altogether.

Yes, the answer is to restore an environment where the teams could draft and develop players and be able to keep the best ones for as long as they want so their team has a genuine chance to compete for however long those players contribute to that team's success. If a team wants to trade a player, they could. If a team wants to release a player they could, and then another team could sign that player -- they could sign that player for a bazillion dollars if they wanted to.

Yes, I know, it is very unlikely that will happen because this idea, the idea of the evil "Reserve Clause" has been made so objectionable, much because it is considered to keep player salaries artificially low and that just flies in the face of the beloved capitalist ideal that must be upheld no matter what.

The problem is it doesn't impede any players ability to make excellent money, and a professional sports league by its very nature must be managed differently than the wild-west market out in the outside-world streets.

This is because of the value of competitive integrity.

This just means every team has a fair and somewhat equal chance to win any given game merely based on the hard work they've done and the talent they cultivated. Everyone is now starting to see that competitive integrity in Major League Baseball has been shattered. The reason is simple.

Mammon.

The Major Leagues and all its players (and owners and other stakeholders too!) simply want to make as much money as they can, and they've shot competitive integrity in the head to achieve that. This is not to say making as much money as you can is bad, no, the position of this blogger is that anyone should be able to make whatever money they've honestly earned paid them by people who do so because they've received some honest benefit from that payment.

Serving Mammon though is different. It is taking money when profound institutionalized deceit is involved. It is exactly the same as selling an item to someone the seller knows is defective, or simply not what they say it is.

The issue here is the MLBers, we'll call them all MLBers for short, all realize that for that to happen, teams like the Dodgers and Yankees (who play in New York, the one market larger than Los Angeles) -- and yes, those two teams in particular -- must be winning on a regular basis for the money to come in. If they aren't, the money dries up. For years, indeed for decades when you look at it, the Dodgers and Yankees have been given advantages that enable them to regularly win, advantages other teams are not afforded.

The deceit is that they try to convey the idea that competitive integrity is still in place.

It isn't, and it hasn't been for most of Major League Baseball's history. (I'd love to detail that history, but you can look at it yourself. This one blog effort, though, simply doesn't have the size for that now.)

The simple truth is the way it is now, you can either have players (and owners, yes) making inordinate amounts of money, particularly for teams like the Dodgers or Yankees, or you can have competitive integrity.

You cannot have both.

Now there is one single caveat to this reality, and that is if there are indeed enough fans who appreciate a Major Leagues where the Dodgers and Yankees may very well suck for long periods of time, and teams like the Pirates and Rays frequently appear in the World Series. Really, if the Pirates and Rays -- just as examples of teams that are in much smaller markets than the Dodgers and Yankees -- are successful at drafting and developing players so they are genuinely the very best teams in the Majors, then great! Everyone even making lots of money, great! More power to them.

But can you see the problem with this from a Mammon standpoint?

The money vanishes because 28 teams simply do not have the fan-base size that the Dodgers and Yankees have.

The owner and major stakeholder of every other team not the Dodgers or Yankees do definitely want their team to win. That's great. They do what they can to be that one team to upend the dominant major market success apple cart -- and indeed some teams do! Woo-hoo! Royals in 2015. Nationals in 2019. Rangers in 2023. Every once in a while it happens and the MLBers are great with that because it keeps the deceit alive and well.

But everyone knows if the Dodgers and Yankees are not regularly winning and at least making the playoffs, and yes, doing so every single year, then the money dries up for everyone.

In other words, you do want your team to win, but if it doesn't, you definitely want the Dodgers and Yankees winning.

This destroys competitive integrity. Sorry, it does. Competitive integrity is simply not there. It isn't.

What is happening now is that because the Dodgers have been so brazen about their exploitation of free agency, the MLBers have overplayed this reality and there may be a critical mass of people seeing through it all.

It is interesting that people will squawk about the massive television contract the Dodgers have and that is how they can afford those players, interesting because it is assumed this is the thing. The television deal certainly generates the money, but the main thing is why? It is simple: The Dodgers have a gargantuan fan base and with it all the money those in it will spend on Dodger winning -- but only Dodger winning.

Again, the most important point here is that this is not just good for the Dodgers, but good for everyone.

Excccept the fans of the teams not the Dodgers and Yankees... whooo are spending their hard-earned dollars on the institutionalized deceit with the idea everything is on the up-and-up.

Back in the 1990s when there was some squawking about the wild Yankees success, the MLBers implemented something they call a luxury tax. The Dodgers and Yankees, largely because they generate the most money and can afford to buy the best players, were and still are expected to shell out gobs of that money to other teams so they have a chance to buy players too. It sounds really good, but it does nothing to uphold competitive integrity, and much of that is simply because the Dodgers and Yankees still must be afforded those advantages to be regularly winning in order for the other teams to be subsidized!

Once again, there is one single solution to this problem.

End free agency.

This doesn't mean a team can't do all they can to be the best and generate the most revenue they could! Go work very very very hard in the front office, in the dugout, on the field, at the ball park, and be a winning team that fans like! And if you have players that deserve to get $60 million a year, then pay them that! Wonderful! Go for it, make a small market team into a juggernaut, winning World Series after World Series -- that's great if they've worked hard and put good players on the field fairly and squarely!

And everyone would genuinely appreciate it!

But the MLBers right now feel that can't happen because no team has the fan base and commensurate money generation for everyone that the Dodgers do. The very reasonable fear is that the Major Leagues would collapse economically if the Pirates or Rays put together a dynasty and the Dodgers had the same empty stadium half the Major League teams have every night of the regular season.

I don't know if what has happened recently with the Dodgers will get people to truly, seriously, actually face the reality of what is shared here in this post. I do think many have, but they have been irrevocably mesmerized by the trope that you can't touch free agency -- it is kind of the third-rail of professional baseball.

But maybe that's just it.

Maybe most fans just don't want it touched. Maybe they're fine with things this way. They don't really want competitive integrity, maybe they are just okay with the Dodgers and Yankees always made to win, and that is because they know the MLBers know it would look bad if the Dodgers or Yankees won every single year, the MLBers do bless us with those few times another team will win and we'll all be just fine for my team to have that one little chance to win that one time. Maybe my team this year can be that 2015 Royals or 2019 Nationals or 2023 Rangers that'd just be great just for right now! Next year the Dodgers and Yankees will win again, but for now I get my thrill from my team winning WOO-HOO!

How sad. Really, how sad. That so many are just so taken by this grave deceit.

Again, maybe the MLBers have gone too far. Maybe right now the jig is up.

We'll see. 

It hasn't changed for many decades. There has been a lot of window-dressing to make it seem like they really want competitive integrity, but they don't. They'll just try some other imaginative ruse to keep the Mammon happy. Again, as I have for 30, 40 years now, I'm always hoping enough fans see through it, finally. I don't know, will things actually change now?

We'll see.

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I was taken by writing this piece some because of this piece written in the Kansas City Star. I wrote about all this often in the late 1990s, early 2000s, and one such piece was included in my good friend's San Francisco Giants blog EEEEEE! titled "What's Good for the Yankees is Good for Alex Rodriguez." It was in March of 2001, three years before Rodriguez was actually traded to the Yankees for essentially a box of Fig Newtons. See how this works?... Anyway, you'll have to find it at my friend's site archived, hope you can. Whupp, well guess what, I found it for you, it is here. Hope it is edifying.

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Metastasized, Addendum

A few days ago I wrote a bit about the virulently metastasized deceit out there related to the Charlie Kirk murder and much about what is going on with what people are thinking and saying about him and what happened.

I felt I needed to share some things I left unsaid which are critically important, I firmly believe.

First, the particular deceit about which I wrote, namely the things many people are saying about Mr. Kirk in this example, "He hates black and brown people," is just part of the institutionalized deceit that people like this radio show host is expected to spew. It isn't original, and it isn't new. This radio guy is just one of the thousands of more visible and propped up players in the game. He and all those others are just World System blowholes. Doesn't mean he is blameless, or his producer, or the network execs, or the patrons who support the radio show, or whoever is in the ivory tower pulling everyone's strings -- but they are doing the bidding of someone, or something.

Second, that this guy bellows the racialist trope "Too many whites are bad because they hate blacks and browns," or that it is indeed true that some whites do indeed hate blacks and browns, or that it is just as true that some blacks and browns hate whites, or any of that, pales in comparison to the standard wickedness that is in the hearts of each and every human being. Being a raging racist is part of it, indeed, but so is being a vicious racialist. Worse is refusing to see this as part of one's own lethal wickedness, and yes, a huge part of the institutionalized enabling deceit.

Look at much of what has been happening since the Kirk murder. This violent spewdom and that violent spewdom and this other violent spewdom... much of it loud belligerent talk even if quite justified, it is still spiritual and emotional violence. Some of the violence is how violent we must be to protect freedom of speech, but then how much violence must you exercise to keep those who don't want freedom of speech from impeding your freedom of speech?

Third, the only way out and away from this insanity -- insanity that has been vomiting up in heaving cycles for some six to ten millennia now, yeah, really, that means for all of humankind's history -- the only way out is Jesus Christ. And again, for the 57th time in this webzine and blog ministry, He isn't one of the hundreds of fake Jesuses the Authoritative Institutional Ecclesiocratic Hegemony has gotten hundreds of millions to embrace.

In the 14th chapter of John, we find Jesus' closest friends and confidants are still not getting it -- that He is God come in human flesh to give His life for the world full of sinful people He actually loves -- wow -- He says this:

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you."

You can't get any closer to what the truth is about anything and everything than that. But yeah, frighteningly sobering -- that so many would just - not - get-it, no - matter - what. "The World cannot... know Him." They don't want to. "They love the darkness rather than the light." 

This could easily be read, "They love the deceit rather than the truth."

Make that Truth, with a capital "T."

"The Law came through Moses, Grace and Truth came in Jesus Christ," this from the first chapter of that book written by John.

And for the bazillionth time in the history of humankind, from yet another evangelist here in this modest blog effort online to you, the reader: seriously consider repenting and believing on Christ the Truth for any real deliverance from the darkness and deceit.

Dwell in the Kingdom where He reigns and wants to give you everything.

But you absolutely must let Him get you to see the deceit for what it is.

Blessings to you.

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Metastasized

This post isn't about anything I think I know about what happened to Charlie Kirk. I have my thoughts, and some of what I write here may have a little to do with it. I think it does, but that's not what this is about. It is about the theme of this blog, and I write here mostly just to put down some thoughts related to that theme. I know most people won't visit this blog or see this post, that's okay. I only post here a few times, at least once a year. Most of my work is at my webzine, and yes, I invite you to go there and see a few more of my thoughts. I do think they have merit, but hey, just blogging here to say some things.

The theme of this particular blog, Reality Salon?

Deceit.

And not just any old deceit.

Metastasized deceit. Deceit that not only massively infects a society, institutionally authorized, but deceit that destroys. Lethal. Invasive. Expected for the requisite ecclesiocratic practices. Officially registered as such.

And metastasized simply because people want it, and the more and more they want it the more wickedly virulent it becomes. 

Here's my example, and even though I know so well about it and hear it spewed all the time, I still get gobsmacked every time I hear it. It still wrenches my heart hearing how so many people can be so lavishly stupid and even brazenly blap so much of the deceit.

This past Sunday afternoon, a few days after Kirk was murdered, I was doing a bit of radio channel surfing in the car, and came across some radio show host on NPR. He was going to chime in on the Charlie Kirk thing but before he did he boasted about his longevity on NPR or wherever he could blither across the airwaves. I did not know who this guy was, I just missed his name and introduction. I still don't know who he was. But again, he claimed he was somebody -- being on the radio show (taxpayer-funded by the way, if you don't know about NPR) he considered himself something of an influencer.

He blapped the standard line about how no one should be murdered for what they say, and then -- the deceit -- he rattled off about a dozen of the evil and hateful things Charlie Kirk believed and said. They were all those typical leftist tropes that twist the righteous truth about what people like Kirk stand for into leftist talking points.

Here's just one for the purpose of this post.

He said, "Charlie Kirk hated black and brown people." Now, all kinds of things can be said about this, I know. Not going to get into most of them. But I am going to ask a simple question, answer it factually and truthfully, and expose the abjectly insidious lie in what Mr. Radio Show Guy said -- again something tens of millions of people have been browbeat to also believe with all their guts.

The question: What exactly did Charlie Kirk say that makes this guy and his listeners think he hates black and brown people?

The answer: (And I'm pretty sure it is some variation of this, so please, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm great with that, but I can say with some certainty that at more than a few of Kirk's "Prove Me Wrong" type events wherever, he said this.) "Diversity Equity Inclusion programs, or attempts to give black and brown people a special lift in life by affording them advantages for employment and college admissions, is a blatant form of discrimination and should be done away with. The idea they hold dear is that in order to make up for past injustices, or to alleviate the effects of some kind of 'white supremacy' or 'systemic racism,' black and brown people should by law or by adjudication of some kind be given advantages that others do not have, and really those others (whites) should not have them because of their 'privilege.' 

"This idea itself is racist and is wrong. People should advance in any kind of livelihood because of their character and their merit, how well they behave, learn at school, and produce things at their jobs. It should have nothing to do with their skin color."

Now, what Kirk shared there, as I've done my best to express it here, is a truthful, righteous, wise, and proper thing for a society to believe, share, and support. In this it is pretty clear, Charlie Kirk actually cared about and respected black and brown people. Now, to be fair, could Charlie Kirk be lying? Could he say one thing and actually hate black and brown people? Sure. But if I'm wrong about Kirk's true sentiments, how does Mr. Radio Show Guy know what is right about them? If we take Kirk by his own words, as they are, does he really hate black and brown people? Shouldn't we give him the benefit of the doubt? And if we aren't sure, maybe we shouldn't be blapping anything about it at all, especially across mass media platforms.

Why do leftists loudly rage about such a thing? Furthermore, why do they lie about it as this radio host did, echoing those tens of millions who think the same thing, many of whom are convinced they must revile a Charlie Kirk for being so openly demonstrative about those truths?

Beyond other certainly legitimate considerations, one of the most significant reasons is leftists like to virtue-signal. They live their lives so insecure that their only identity is in how much they can show people how wholesomely good they are in their tikkum olam ("repair the world") crusade. And one of the very best ways they can show that is by blasting their "anti-racist" virtue anywhere they can. "Look at all that I'm doing to help out the black and brown person! Look at me! I give money and I volunteer and I vote for the wholesomely good politicians and I support this and that group doing things to make sure black and brown people are no longer poor and downtrodden and oppressed and victimized especially by the white person bad-thing-or-another! And if you don't help black and brown people in the way I am then you must hate them." Thing is, to go crazy laboring to help poor downtrodden black and brown people, whole organizations have been formed making millions of dollars either in donations (mostly from guilt-ridden dread-filled rich white people) or flat-out government grants and subsidies -- of course to keep the gravy train flowing they need enough people to be interminably poor and downtrodden so the very wholesomely good leftist organizations may be there to "help" them.

This is the thinking. If I am inaccurate with this assessment about the basics of leftist thought, forgive me. But I think I'm pretty close. I know there is so much more to it related to the materialist, humanist, Epicurean perspective woven into all of it, as well as any number of other social, political, even religious and economic factors involved.

There are certainly black and brown people who do need help from others, but so do some white and Asian people. To assume it is only black and brown people who need codependent attention is not only racist but it is disrespectful and patronizing. That the leftist feels he or she is the only thing that can be the noble valiant rescuer of any given black or brown person, or that any given black or brown person cannot accomplish great things just as any other white or Asian or any other ethnic group can, is wretched at its core.

Who are the ones who really hate black and brown people? Who is hurt the most by the metastasized institutionalized codependent enabling relying largely on the most widespread and pronounced deceit?

And again, this deceit is not only evil, it is lethally evil. 

Not saying I know one way or another what caused what -- yes I do have my thoughts, but here for this blogging effort I am saying nothing.

Except that, look what happened to Charlie Kirk when he said righteous and truthful things the powerfully reigning leftists did not like because they've got a whole ugly plausibility structure erected in their hearts and minds that just soaks up the deceit. Again I'm not indicting anyone or any group or any mentality in any incident whether it involved Charlie Kirk or anyone else. But we do know one truth for sure.

Lies like these are lethal.

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The Spirit of Truth

In spending time in John's writings I can't help but be overwhelmed by the emphatic way Jesus is Truth. If you look particularly at the sixth verse, fourth chapter of his first letter, you'll see a note about the "Spirit of Truth." It is so clear, if you don't have Christ, you can't know truth. Those without Christ are merely given over to falsehood. 

All the time, every time.

It doesn't matter if the World does its splashy thing, you know, shows you newer imaginative parts of the spectacle to keep you believing they have the truth. They do it all the time. They've done it for millennia. People continue to be stupid. It does hurt to watch, but it is what it is.

Yet it is so clear. Know Christ, and know truth. Scripture goes so far as to proclaim Jesus Himself is The Truth. Oh, many people have their Jesuses. All different concoctions that make them feel good -- with no real truth involved. It is extraordinarily sad that so many live their entire benighted lives devoted to the chronic deceit.

Well, sad too is the truth that what I'm sharing here isn't anything novel or revolutionary. At all. All I do with my webzine ministry and my blog writing is hope, and pray, that whoever comes across it will turn to The One Who Is Truth. Maybe something will click. That's all.

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The Ecclesiocracy Depends on the Lie

The more I see people rail against the evils they see metastasizing in our social and political institutions, the more, the more I see how much people allow themselves to be deceived. One of the most powerful deceits is the Official Lie -- and no matter how much people screech against its lethal effects, they deceive themselves in refusing to see the truth that it must be.

The ruling elite as servants of Cain and his legacy of the most ruthless law enforcement must utilize the Official Lie in doing their proper work. One critical element of that extraordinarily elaborate deceit is this quite substantive lie:

You have freedoms the government is expected to protect.

Now yes I do get that we like to have the "freedom" to live our lives, make our own decisions, care for our families and communities, and enjoy our work and livelihoods with as little outside interference as possible. "Freedom of Speech!" "Freedom of Religion!" "Freedom of Association!" and all the rest of it.

But they are lies if one is lost in the dissolution of his own evildoing.

This is Scripture.

The freedom things are nice things but let's face the truth, they mean nothing if we're out deceiving ourselves about our own desperate situation. Every one of us is destined for Hell if we don't come to terms with this reality and seek a very gracious, self-sacrificial redemption by a God who in His mercy provided that for us.

All kinds of things out there happening make this truth about the lie quite plain. I can't tell how many times I read people say things like, "I'm standing on my beliefs, and I have my freedoms" as if that really means squat to those in power who are actively eviscerating what you think you are able to do.

A simple example is the Covid thing. It was a total scam from day one. But instead of people insisting "It is the truth that lockdown anything must not be," we got "Others may do all the masking and vaxxing and all the rest of it -- it is just not for me, let me be free." 

Ahem.

The truth is the Covid lockdown protocol stuff was truthfully evil across the board, for everyone, everywhere. Sure people could have been free to do any of it, but the truth about it had nothing to do with anyone's freedom to do one thing or another. In fact the further truth is powerful forces put it in place specifically to achieve some public policy end, whatever that was or will be.

There are dozens of others.

One of the main reasons people are so afraid to stand on the truth is it has been established by World System mandarins that if you say something is categorically true, you are dangerously intolerant. What is so funny about that claim is that those who say "You can't say something is true or you're some kind of bigot" are making a truth claim!

No big deal to them, because they are indeed relying on the Main Lie, and you can find out about that in the third chapter of the book of Genesis. You can see it there plainly if you look.

"You can be just like God."

As much as anyone buys into this truth, they don't believe there is any real objective standard to which they must adhere -- after all, as their own god they can decide whatever standard they want. After all, they are free, right? It really is the linchpin of the main civil religion of the day, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. God's not around so I'll just show everyone I'm my own god and I can be really good and mentally healthy.

What a prison.

Again, there can only be freedom in Christ. He is the only Place it is offered, the only Place where anyone can truly have freedom -- from the evil that institutions do, from the wounds inflicted by other people, even from the nastiness deep within one's self.

Want truth?

Seek the Kingdom.

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The Big Lie Has a Big Purpose

I was perusing some of the images I've saved from the web, and I came across this one. It is a generally standard-issue meme with a "The Matrix" context, and it is among any number of them that are pretty telling about the way the World really works.

I wanted to post this one here because of a couple things. The World System must employ all facets of what could be called The Big Lie because the world is populated with so many liars itself. All those people in positions of authoritative power absolutely must behave in all those ways cited in the meme in order to proficiently govern by doing all the things they must do perpetuated among the populace. All too often I see that clip of George Carlin telling his audience, "It is one big club and you ain't in it." Well, in a way, you are.

Legitimate law enforcement cannot happen without its practitioners being really well-versed in those things so they know precisely what they must do to prosecute evil effectively. Does that involve the most imaginative ruses to ensure they may dutifully accomplish what they must? Of course. That also means they must still declare their authority through iconographic signatures and that their activity does proceed from what is essentially the official Legacy of Cain, the one sent from God's presence to do all this through the establishment of a city and the fulfillment of the proper administrative duties therein.

The meme was likely designed to get people riled up about those baaad government people so they'll do something to resist or rebel or remonstrate in a rage once they look through the lens of the computer that shows the digital footprint of those forces -- or more traditionally: they pull back the green curtain and see what kind of people are actually pulling the ropes and levers. You may sneer and snarl and screech at them even finding out who exactly they are, but they eat that stuff up.

Thing is, again, they are supposed to be doing that stuff. They do it on behalf of people who are just like they are, and sure enough, you get all the horrors afflicting the planet today. Do we need to list them all? The Ukraine war racketeering? The climate change alarmist destruction? The sodomist racialist wokeness mandates that absolutely wreck healthy sexualities, family integrity, and community vibrancy? And so much more?

Those things are going to metastasize and spitting against them may be thrilling, especially when you can join with so many to object. Or you may simply be someone who is really into those things in the name of the best virtue-signaling. How courageous! It may feel really good.

But it won't get you life.

Only Jesus Christ and accepting His invitation into the Kingdom will do that.

There you'll find Him, who is known as Grace and Truth.

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The Authorized Lying

There has been a bit of news coverage about the Alex Jones trial. I don't know a lot about it but from what I gather he's in trouble for using his InfoWars platform to lie and hurt people doing so. Specifically he said some things about the Sandy Hook school massacre that those related to the victims did not like. I do not know the details of what was said and what legitimate harms resulted, but it seems to me that Alex Jones is essentially being prosecuted because a lot of people consider him the most evil person on the planet.

"How could you say those things? And so forcefully too? For shame Alex Jones!"

Again, I myself really do not know the extent of what Jones said or did or the actual merits of those things. What is so striking is that if Alex Jones gets in such trouble for lying so egregiously through a modestly large broadcasting channel, why aren't half the mainstream media outlets undergoing the same prosecutorial treatment? How about a simple catalog of their incessantly bleated lies -- there is a pretty good one over at Edward Ring's latest piece.

Why don't those lethal deceptions qualify for a day in court, with the media personnel responsible made liable, made to be put on the stand for maximum ridicule, just like Alex Jones was? Much of the reason is simply because those lies are the authorized ones perpetuated by Cain's Legacy for the purpose of constraining the World faithful. They may be the most wicked lies, but if they work, then what of it?

I can't help but add a link to this piece, which really is the one that inspired me to put up this post. It is at Brownstone, Ramesh Thakur's "Tyranny of the Coronaphobia." There he makes one of the best cases about why these people should get the same treatment Alex Jones does, for the same presumed absurdities they're leveling against Jones -- here's a good one: 

I wonder, too, if we have set ourselves up to repeat the folly every year with annual outbreaks of flu, especially if it is a bad flu season. If not, why not? Perhaps someone will come up with the slogan ‘Flu Lives Matter’. Or governments could just pass laws making it illegal for anyone to fall sick and die.

But then, it is the truth that government entities (including the hegemonic corporate, financial, and ecclesiastical branches) must appear to be doing all kinds of splendiforous things for people so it may do its legitimate job, no matter how much those in it lie. So many people then bow to its deceitful dictates because they known nothing about Truth and Grace.

That Truth and Grace thing? That's Christ. He's over in the Kingdom, by the way.

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Why The Covid Lie Is What It Is

Just wanted to share this bit from Scott Morefield's latest. It lays out precisely why the mask and vax mandates are a murderous lie from Hell, and anyone who is in on it all are complicit in the destruction. It isn't about "conscientious objection" or "religious liberty." It is purely, wholly, absolutely about godlessness and the desire for those who see it for what it is to turn and enthusiastically abide in The Truth.

I'm seeing more and more people tell it like it is, and Mr. Morefield has for months now been pretty close to one of those people:

In truth, Jesus commanded us to love the Lord first with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, then to love our neighbors as ourselves. How then are we to love the Lord with our minds if we dismiss data and evidence on a topic that goes against our presuppositions or a prevailing narrative? How are we to ‘love’ our neighbors while at the same time bearing false witness to them? Is our duty to make them “feel better” or to tell them the truth? What would Jesus have done? In an age where masking has become a talisman, even an idol of sorts to people desperate to find something, anything that ‘controls’ something that is ultimately proving to be uncontrollable, would the Son of God have given people comfort by lying to them or by telling them the truth?

No, I don’t believe Jesus Christ would have put on a mask any more than I think he would have pretended a blood sacrifice to a graven image would have brought rain during a time of drought. And when at all possible, you shouldn’t either. 

I'd also like to share with you a link to this page. There you'll see the Legacy of Cain and its ruthless program of psy-op law enforcement all over the place. I weep when reading this because I've been crushed discovering how many of my own family members and very good friends, people we've broken bread with and had vibrant meaningful conversation with, indeed sowed much of one another into each others' lives -- are now such willing executioners. It breaks my heart.

Crazy that I read this now and remember how I posted in my webzine on this very thing a number of years ago. That these people believe with all their hearts they are doing so right and good and true, and they are only boastfully bleating their faux virtue just like Mr. Hoffmann. How many masked, vaxxed, and vicious Mr. Hoffmann's are there? 

Absolutely clueless about the reality of their destiny? No clue whatsoever about the condition of their soul, only that they look good feeling like they are being upright and wholesome and not-subject-to-glowers-by-their-fellow-uprighters-and-wholesomers?

Just a disclaimer, and forgive me, but a sincere one. I'm nothing much more. I'm a rank virtue-signaler too. I can sanctimoniously deny making lampshades from human flesh with the best of them. I work like a banshee to defend my pitiful excuse for honor with the greatest rhetorical skill I can muster.

Ughck.

No wonder Jesus called out the evil for what it was more than anyone on the planet -- so we could see how phenomenally in need we are of Him and His work out of the greatest love we can never fully fathom. 

But yeah, He was also quite unequivocal:

You've got to lose that self.

It's a choice. It is indeed either "Oh yeah I'm a proud mask-wearer and vax-pounder because I'm a good guy dammit!" or

"I'm nothing but dust, really, in the end, and all I want is what is True, and yeah, what is Gracious, for whatever it is I have to offer, that's all."

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The Mass Identity Formation of The Great Reset

When I was in junior high school, a teacher showed us the film Future Shock with Orson Welles as host to give gravitas to the expose of massive technological disruption. Right at the beginning of the film were a man and a woman walking through a beautiful wood wearing the ghastliest masks. Who knows why they had them wrapped around their faces, the image was harrowing and never left me. 

This widespread idea that everyone must wear a mask has captivated so many. I sometimes enjoy strolling through a park in a municipal area that is pandemically paranoid about government enforcement of draconian mask requirements. Everyone there is wearing a mask. Everyone, including the small children playing on the playground. They are simply choosing to heed to the dictates of their superiors deceitfully telling them they're listening to the the science rather than industriously looking at the actual science.

The prevailing meme now is "Kindness is everything..." until you are not being kind by virtue of their definition of kindness. 

Not wearing a mask? You are being unkind. Not joining with Joe Biden's technocrats demanding you give up your job so we can have perfectly clean air? Exceptionally unkind. Not celebrating the bold brave declarations of the nouveau sexually immoral? How terribly unkind.

I recently saw something that said if 25% of a population believes something, then that is the threshold of critical mass and that belief will be permanently entrenched in the mainstream. Hmm, seems 80 million are said to have voted for Joe Biden in this very recent presidential election, and 80 million really is pretty close to a quarter of 330 million in the US population. Even though it is definitely not 80 million without the 10-20 million fraudulent ballots in the mix, it certainly does give the powerful impression it is critical mass.

The Great Reset is a reality to anticipate, and all you need is to look at the New York Times calling fears about it yet another "conspiracy theory" to know how horrific that future will be. When the Davos power players get their way and fully commandeer all productive resources in the name of kindness -- socialism advances in no other way -- then steel yourselves.

Of course the only way that can happen in real actual reality is if you are covered in the saving blood of Christ. When the events of The Revelation start happening -- and The Great Reset is a splendid exposition of what will be in place to usher in those things -- you want The Deliverer on your side. Not only can you not prevent the lethal effects of the massive dissipation, but as it says in Scripture you will want the mountains to crush you quickly.

Otherwise, all those people in masks? Really no different than the Future Shock couple, proudly virtue-signaling to everyone that they are fully on board with The Great Reset program.

Oh that they'd instead be introduced to The One who loves them enough to seal them with His Name.

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The Legitimate Disinformation Campaign

It has been going on for millennia, and it won't stop any time soon.

I came across this fine piece examining what the System does to exploit one's refusal to allow Christ to be his or her discernment of truthful things. It is about the CrowdStrike conspiracy truth, and please know I don't favor or reject Donald Trump one way or the other. I'm not Republican, Democrat, or Independent. I have no animosity toward anyone, and God has taught me that fiercely propelling any kind of active objection to anything government does is a thoroughly futile effort that will mostly end up as some measure of fuel for the System's machinations.

I'm sharing this because the System will always use disinformation not only to rile up people into some form of rebellion, but to keep them from murdering one another by seeking their undying allegiance to System Ops. Human sacrifice will still be employed, indeed, but only as the victims allow themselves to be put on the altar.

The CrowdStrike incident? That is piddle compared to the much more significant ways the media/academia nexus employs disinformation to keep people hooked on the program. Christ uses it as His footstool for the purpose of drawing people to Him from their realization of the darkness of their own condition requiring such crushing legislation, enforcement, and adjudication against them.

In fact recently I saw a piece about how Ben Sharpiro's screeching about freedom of speech at Stanford University forced the provost there to double-down and issue an order of "inclusion," that they will do all they can to enforce gender identification requirements that are not only absurd but demonstrate how much these people, Shapiro, the provost, all the World devotees, are so consumed by the disinformation.

The culture war is so much fun.
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The Cursing Society

I'm inventing a new word, one which will fit perfectly with the new vibrantly interactive environment of social media today.

The word is defixionate. What does one do when he or she defixionates?

The word comes from a Latin word I just discovered, one that has been around for a couple millennia already. It was the practice of appealing to a particular Roman god to curse another individual, going so far as to drop off a "curse tablet" at the residence of the targeted person just so he or she knows how much revulsion is openly and actively directed at them.

Apparently it happened all the time.

Thing is, it happens all the time now, and social media makes it so much easier now.

People without a conception of God as described in Scripture, Someone who knows about defixionation in the worst way and is kind of ticked off about it, don't have a clue about how destructive the practice is. They also don't get that this same God is Someone Who Loves With His Life, and that mercy and grace and forgiveness and salvation is available out of the desire to curse others and allow that rank dissipation to fester in one's soul.

Please, I'm not exempt -- I too am convicted in His courts for my visceral desire to defixionate, there are loathsome people out there, justifiably so. But it is because of Christ that I may let it go, give it up, revel in His embrace and step out into that benighted World and love people with His love even if it means dying, or worse, relinquishing that desire to defixionate in whatever way seems available.

The World thrives on defixionation -- civic politics, institutionalized religion, expansive commercial activity is all over that -- and what with social media exploding right now? I mean, look at how rabidly everyone is screeching for Facebook etc. to monitor personal data better. They can't, and defixionaters love it in spite of their pathetic virtue signaling about how much they care.

But again, what do I have to say about it? I'm just seeing it, sharing it so maybe some may see this truth, turn to Him, think about things from the Kingdom and then speak meaningfully enough about these things so others will find that freedom too.
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Talk About Christ

Was listening to Patrick O'Hearn's "The Illusionist," and it is just such a captivating song. Just felt like blogging here, where reality is addressed, and sometimes I feel great sorrow when so many people stay in their benighted fantasy worlds.

While listening to the music was skimming through the transcendently powerful images at interfacelift.com, and came across this one. I really liked it a lot. The photographer who titled his image here referred to it as something about gingerbread. Yeah, I can see that.

But to me it is the place where Jesus is talked about.

Where Truth is talked about.

I like it because of the magnificent warmth that brings.

The World is the ice all around.

Jesus is also The Door.

So yeah, how about it.

Go through the doors.

And find Him there.
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What Exactly Is, "The Message"?

As much as the mass medium blabbers showcase all the latest oafery from Donald Trump, I've been noticing a great deal of attention to this thing, "The Message." As in,

"When will Trump get back on message?"

"Many notable Republicans are trying to persuade Trump to stay on message."

"Every week it seems Trump cannot stay on message."

This mantra has been pounded and pounded and pounded into the American psyche now for some time, and no one ever seems to ask the question.

What is it, exactly, that this "Message" is, that Donald Trump is supposed to be following?

It seems to me on the surface this Message is simply the things that Republicans typically say that Democrats and powerful mass medium apparatchiks are supposed to squash with their superior humanist devotion.

I think "The Message", though, is something much more, and quite insidious.

The Message really is to make sure people don't see what's actually going on in the deepest politics of World System hegemonic behavior. This isn't conspiracy theory talk, because System hegemonic behavior is quite normal. It is extraordinarily legitimate for the deep politics ops to accomplish their divinely authorized ends: keep a reprobate populace in check.

While indeed legitimate, it does involve an tremendous amount of disinformation. Still, after I see some dimwit talking head ask the same silly question about Trump being "off message", I'd love to watch the interrogator asked, "Excuse me, but what exactly is this 'Message' that Trump is supposed to be on?"

What exactly would they say?

What do you think?

Why Do So Many Say They Like Reality, But Do So Much To Run From It?

As the political "silly season" gets more and more revved up -- and my goodness, is this a silly season -- I see and hear more and more folly channelled through all sorts of social and mass media and all forms of communication in-between.

I do have a Facebook account, and frequent it occasionally to see if there's anything happening among friends. Thing is only about 1% of Facebook activity actually involves connections resulting from those efforts. About 80%, however, is comprised of the inane political blitherings of people I love tremendously, but who post things that tell me they aren't thinking very hard.

Some of them are very, very intelligent people, but just like anyone, they let their hearts get captivated by the hate speech bilge that emanates from the powerful institutions assigned the job of keeping them enslaved to Caesar.

Yes, the things those institutions do to try to make the world all better, mostly humanistic, materialistic, atheistic dreck, is indeed hate speech. I make a modest attempt to elaborate on that in my latest home page piece, but I do think much more needs to be said.

Much more needs to be done to introduce people to the Living Word.

Anyway, I have a batch of friends who are Trump supporters. They post all kinds of things about how wonderful he is. They do see him with rose-colored glasses, and it isn't hard to take them off and see what a boorish harrier he is. He talks the talk, but when he is president he won't do a thing he says he'll do. Or worse, he'll actually do some of the things he says he'll do.

Then there are the liberals. Damn. Very good, smart friends, who haven't a clue. Most of their vitriol is against Trump pointing out all those obviously idiotic things about him, as if this requires any genuine insight. Then they rail, and moan, and screech about how horrible the country would be with him as president. But yes, they don't grasp that we'll have a domineering autocrat in office whether it is Donald or Hillary.

Then there are those who rail and moan and screech that both are evil beyond belief. Yay! They got it right! What they don't get is that that's the way it is supposed to be. Hillary escaping certain prosecution for crimes that definitely jeopardized national security? She's perfect for the job!

Caesar must be fully acquainted with evil for him/her to do the job of governance.

Here's the question.

What in the world are those who say they have Christ's name on their lips doing giving their allegiance to any of these people? Why are they even protesting what they do or don't do, shoving their way into doing anything about their legitimate role to govern evildoers?

So, yeah, to those Facebook friends of mine who say Jesus is their Lord and Savior, to anyone reading this who are feeling the urge to rail and moan and screech about what Donald or Hillary or any of those people do or will do, re-read the 13th chapter of Romans and the 2nd chapter of Peter's first letter. Look. See what it says to do.

Essentially, leave Caesar alone, let him do his job as he must. In fact, pray for him! (Or her!) Make your tribute to him/her your debt of love you have for others. He/she will then commend you!

Then, wow, then build your ministry from the Kingdom.

From there is where you'll see the reality of the way things are. Yes, the World System tells you what they want you to think that is, but please.

Believe on Christ. Let Him make you the self-sacrificial individual who others will see and hear and know is someone who actually loves.

Then you'll see reality.

How Can You Tell Someone's Lying to You Without The Lie Detector?

I look around at the World-driven convulsions and see so many taken by what the Father of Lies is telling them. People believe they really know what's what out there, but they haven't a clue.

They don't have the mind of Christ.

Look at the explosion of terrorism protection paranoia. Lots of warnings about flying an airliner and attending arge public gatherings, lots of lockdowns and raids by quasi-paramilitary forces -- I think of that scene from the film V for Vendetta -- "The Dominoes Fall" -- when Inspector Finch shares some of the most profound words I've ever heard spoken.

Go ahead, watch the scene. And look at the images shown at the end. Is that not what is happening right now? What is the meaning of Finch's lucid observations? I wrote a bit about it here, take a read, let me know what you think. The main idea is without a simple understanding about why it happens, you're roasted. That's not just a metaphor, you're roasted on the altar of those who want to eat you -- you are their human sacrifice. The film gives you their idea of what they think it's about, sadly it just directs you away from The Truth.

No, it is about human sacrifice. Are you willing and able to see that?

How about all the convulsions going on in college campuses around the country? "Black Lives Matter" people storming college presidents' offices to demand the purging of any remote semblance of racism anywhere. What they really want is to exploit powerful people's codependent proclivities  in order to dominate others with impunity. What you get is more of the raging culture war arranged exclusively to destabilize society so Cain may soak up more human value through his authorized value extraction (re: human sacrifice) practices.

Can't see all the diabolical deceit and designed destruction in all that?

No wonder.

Christ hasn't healed your sight and your hearing so you can.

But you can ask Him to.

The Galaxy Quest Effect

One of the most delightful movies I've ever seen is Galaxy Quest, about a faux Star Trek cast thrust into a real life space adventure. The parody of the whole Star Trek schtick is what is most fun, but I just thought about how much it highlights the need for each of us to live out the adventure.

The distinction between what is real and what is make-believe is so pronounced, with a very generously positive nod to the make-believe as a vehicle for us to get in touch with those desires.

Stories have consequences. Someone once said -- forgive me I do remember who it was -- "Our imagination can enrich us or it can be our master." That's an extraordinarily rough paraphrase, but our imaginations can help us see and find the deepest meaning of that adventure... or sadly, can be used by powerful individuals to convince us that what's true and real is what they tell us it is.

Vanellope von Schweetz as Christ

Last night watched the video of Wreck-It Ralph with my daughter. We'd seen it in the theater a few months ago, but when I watched it again I was blown away by how much the story is an allegory of Christ.

I searched around a bit online for anyone else who'd seen the same thing, but only saw some web published sermon by a pastor who thought the film had a Christian message and thought the Christ character was Ralph.

Uggh. He completely missed it. Just like most thoroughly Catholicized pastors in this country, he utterly and abysmally missed it.

The Christ character is clearly Vanellope, the little girl who is truly queen of her video game world but is found living the dirty, lonely life of a common person. The more I think about the things in this film, the more I am profoundly captivated by how allegorical it is.

Among them, just for a taste, is that to realize her true royalty at the end of the story, she must cross the finish line, a checkered strip in the road that is colored not black and white but red and white. That's just one I recently thought about, and is just a very small example -- there are many more.

I'm not getting into them all now. Watch it again and see for yourself. Watch how Vanellope is limited as a glitch by her world, just like Jesus was as a human in His. Watch how Sugar Rush explodes in brightness when Vanellope is seen as the true monarch, just like the Kingdom is realized when people recognize the deity of Jesus and believe on Him. Watch how she really has an innate certainty about herself and who she is, and watch how evil forces are bent on keeping people from seeing who she really is.

And watch how she dies to herself to rescue others from themselves. Yes, at the end Ralph tries to give his life to save the day, but tragically flawed heroes do that. A lot of us may give that a good try.

Only God does it out of love and then rises from the grave to ensure He gets to hang out with the people He loves.

Yes, it is just a kid's movie, I know that. The point is I am saddened by how few people see what I saw, shrug it off as just that nothing kid's flick. That in and of itself is no big deal.

I'm much more saddened by the paucity of perceptive people who can speak about biblical things, indeed articulate rich truthful phenomenally gracious things that are the most meaningful to converse about.

Just have to write that here. With so many people putting stuff online I just can't see how there aren't some who see it and enjoy vibrantly engaging others about it.

But then maybe there are just too many who're so hypnotically entranced by the World that they can't help but say those terribly depressing words, "I just don't understand what you're saying nor do I care to."

Are There So Few Cassandras?

I've been getting into Willful Blindness a bit more, and while much of it has been frustrating -- maybe I may address the reasons in another post -- it has been getting good. The author mentions Cassandra, the woman from ancient classical legend who sees the truths that few others see.

On the one hand this makes me feel good, that I'm not the only one who asks penetrating questions about things while all those around go, "Guh?" But then, I feel very lonely. There simply cannot be that few who can see what's what.

Yeah, maybe that's why Cassandra is so renowned. How many are like her? So few that the ones who do reality checking so well stand out.

The Willful Blindness We Are All Too Blind To See

I picked up a brand-spankin' new book at the library today. I'm not even two pages into it, and I'm already going bananas about it.

It is called Willful Blindness by Margaret Heffernan. What this blog is about is all over that. And yes, the book is indeed precisely about what the title says.

I can't say much about it right now. Again, very much looking forward to diving into it.

But I'll bet there is one thing I can predict about the book that will be scintillatingly disappointing. And quite unsurprisingly so.

The last chapter is "See Better." I'm sure Heffernan suggests all kinds of ways we can be less willfully blind. Or she just resigns herself to the distress of people just never getting it nonetheless. Or both.

I can pretty much guarantee, however, that the chapter will not mention the One thing that would make us not-blind anymore, totally, completely, wonderfully. And that is if we allow the One Who Made Our Eyes to see once again like we should.

That we simply see with the eyes of Christ.

Will He show up in Chapter Twelve? Doubt it.

But it should be some fun until then.
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