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Wednesday Update

What we want to continue doing in some of these Wednesday Updates is begin to look at major events in the news in their larger historical context.... And maybe even how some things will be viewed in 50 years, 100 years or even 500 or 1000 years...

Subject: End times, false messianic leaders, "strong delusion"

(Wed., July 8, 2009)

(approx. 1776 words, 4 pp.)

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The year was 1968; there was great social unrest and riots at the Democrat National Convention in Chicago. Seems like yesterday? Not really, but all very relevant to today’s politics, and to what I see to be President Obama’s very fragile Democrat coalition.

I still remember all those people... chopping sugar cane...

I can still remember some Democrats from the 1960s I knew going to Cuba (by way of Canada) to help Fidel chop sugar cane for the workers’ state. Fidel was short of willing manpower, and his "Revolution" needed every able-bodied man and woman it could find! The Democrat Party has always been a big-tent Party, and there were in those days some pretty whacked out people in the Democrat Party, but they were the rare exceptions, let’s be honest. These fringe folks truly considered Fidel and Che to be heroes and "the good guys" and their American opponents JFK and LBJ to be "the bad guys," and eventually this culminates in the infamous 1968 Chicago riots.

This was the time of the SDS and of blowing up government buildings, and so forth. I used to hang out with some of these folks; the theory was America was a powder keg on the verge of "the workers’ revolution" and a riot or blown up building could spark massive upheaval and an overthrowing of the US government by the proletariat, etc., etc. etc. Looking back on it now I think they just liked blowing up buildings and rioting and used Marxist theory as an excuse? Any excuse will serve a tyrant (as Aesop said?) and a revolutionary as well?

In any case, the two great heroes, role models, and "good guys" of those days for the far Left were Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, but, again, in my opinion, 90, 95, 98, probably even 99% of the Democrat Party was not into this nonsense. Still, this marked the birth of "liberation theology" in Latin America, as part of this larger Marxist movement, and ultimately came "black liberation theology," whose most famous exponent in the American public today is Jeremiah Wright, or arguably Barack Obama, given his rhetoric and his stated analysis of things...

The history of the West and of the modern world is, supposedly, the story of the economic and racial exploitation of the colored peoples of the world, and our new President says these days of the past 500 years for the West are over now that he, as a person of color, is leading a great Western power, indeed, the greatest current Western power, the United States of America, into a new day for the West and man on earth, etc. etc.

Does President Obama really believe all this nonsense (or claptrap, as it is better known)? I have no idea. I lived some years in the inner city south side of Chicago, no less, and this is pretty typical black/ inner city bravado, in my opinion. But, in my opinion, former President Bill Clinton and the current Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, do not believe any of it, which of course brings us to our current international crisis, namely, Honduras.

Obama argued that he could go to Latin America and buddy up to leftist dictators there, and it in no way threatened the US, and these philosophical followers indeed philosophical descendants of Fidel and Che might come to love the US especially if the President showed himself, personally, to be friends with them. I personally found this all to be a bit bizarre myself, but all I know is what I read in the newspapers! The problem here is Obama’s personal friends do, in fact, threaten US interests in that region and threaten America’s friends in that region.

This puts Obama, as President of the United States, in something of an awkward position, you might say? And it puts Hillary in something of an awkward position as well, as a pro-US interests Secretary of State serving under an, apparently, anti-US interests President. But as the Chinese say, famously these days, every crisis is an opportunity! (I think Bill must be hip to this, even if Hillary isn’t?)

Hillary can serve her country well and her long-term career by standing up to the President and his seeming pacts with anti-American leftist dictators? Who will back down? I would think the President. Truman may have fired MacArthur, rightly or wrongly, over insubordination on international policy issues, but Obama is not strong enough to fire Hillary, in my opinion, and he is way wrong on this issue besides?

If Obama were to fire Hillary over this issue, she would be in a very strong position to take the nomination in 2012, by violating the old adage about Lincoln which says he kept his friends close and his adversaries even closer! But if Obama backs down and forsakes his personal Latin America leftist dictator friends, who will look like the great patriot and will assume the mantle of American international leadership? Hillary, obviously?

Hillary backs Honduras from the State Department and talks like JFK and LBJ, and Obama backs Chavez from the White House and talks like Che and Fidel. Any bets on who is going to learn to sing a new song? This is an almost no win situation for the President and an almost no lose situation for Hillary, no matter what the immediate outcome, that is, if she still has her consuming desire to be President?

What is crazy President Obama’s story, anyway? Well, get his book? He says he is driven by his demons or "ghosts" or "spirits" (whether you take them as literal or figurative, it matters little?) that he cannot get out of his mind and that they push him to right (for "justice") what he sees to be centuries of racial, social, and economic "injustice" by the West generally and by America in particular, and this is, presumably, why he is always talking about yet another trillion dollar "stimulus package" domestically, and about America’s "imperialism" and Europe’s "colonialism" over the past centuries, which he has finally arrived on the scene to put a stop to, etc., etc., etc.

In this scenario America is not "the world’s last, best hope," as Lincoln said, but, essentially, America is what has been wrong with the world and world history over the last three or four hundred years! Furthermore, to take these things from the merely surreal to an outright nightmare, Obama and his administration with the (far Left) Democrat leadership in Congress come up with the most outrageous of plans and legislation which are clearly destructive to America, the economy, the dollar, etc., and he and they think these destructive plans and legislation are brilliant, no less, and so do, seemingly, a majority of the American people? But why? And how could this happen?

I, personally, do not think Obama has a "death wish" for America or the economy, but I think his demons do, which (he says) drive him, but he thinks, as the radical "professor," as does the Democrat Left more generally, that their highly destructive ideas to America are actually truly "brilliant," and that he and they have figured things out, so much so that Obama will tell clear whoppers of lies to implement his thought-to-be "brilliant" programs. This is right out of Plato! Lie to the people when you think it is for their own good, no matter how crazy or destructive your programs are!

This stuff is all truly bizarre, and millions of people and the press seem to think nothing of it. However, what is truly baffling about all of this is that to another 50 to 100 million Americans (and to the alternative press) the question is how does all of this truly outrageous, destructive, and even nutty stuff (domestically and internationally) play so well with so many Americans, so much so that Obama can be elected to the Presidency, our nation’s highest and most revered office, and then with succeed with his radical and clearly destructive agenda?

The answer to the mystery of Obama’s amazing success and why what he does, no matter how destructive or outrageous, seems so wonderful to so many people may be found in the Bible? The Bible (2 Thessalonians 2) says when the last great false messianic leader comes (whether Obama is actually this particular figure, or not), he will present himself before the people as a "god," of sorts, a cult-like figure, I think we would say today, and that he will deceive people with "lying wonders" and because the people have "pleasure in unrighteousness" God sends upon many of the people a "strong delusion" to think this cult-like figure is not only honest but brilliant, no matter how outrageous and even dishonest and clearly self-serving what he says and does is.

And so here we are... Whether President Obama is this particular final cult-like figure or not, clearly there are millions upon millions who see him to be honest, inspirational, brilliant, and so forth, no matter how clearly destructive his policies and disconnected his thoughts? It is really bizarre? Downright weird? And it does not matter if the issue is Chavez on a Che-and-Fidel foreign policy, or a cap-and-trade utter nonsense, or the phony "Stimulus Package" that wasn’t, or a whacked out Supreme Court nominee, whom many feel is a pretty straightforward racist ideologue, while others think (under "strong delusion"?) she is as wonderful as the President, our great leader, who can do no wrong, no matter how outrageous and destructive his policies may seem? 

This whole thing is taking on elements of historical and Biblical proportions? I may be entirely wrong, but I have been convinced for months that Bill and Hillary are going to strike at the opportune moment in order to seize the mantle of Democrat Party leadership, and that moment may be upon us, already, no less? A lot sooner than I thought! Still, during the campaign Vice President Biden predicted something like this early on in an Obama administration, let us not forget. But, in truth, how this is all going to play out, in its details, no one knows, nor can predict...

Are these times of Romans 1 & 2 and of 2 Timothy 3 the last hours before a great tribulation? In reality, this is very hard to say, of course, but such a time is entirely possible, that is, if one buys into the Biblical story and its larger cosmology. But what did Jesus say of such a time? "Pray that you are counted worthy to escape... these things that are to come (on earth)"! (Luke 21:36) I have probably read or heard tens of thousands of sermons over the last 50 years, but I am not sure I have ever read or heard one on that passage, but then again, it may never have been relevant before?