Drama?

Actually this TNT commercial reinforces why i do not watch TNT or any cable station, but I imagine I am not their target audience anyway.

A Prophecy From 2002

If a person claiming divine revelations had made these predictions, we would have had to consider them as potential prophets. 

Obama is Naked

We all remember the story of the con artists that pretended to be haute couture clothing designers. The con was that only the most enlightened could see the clothes. One by one the Emperor’s courtiers pretended to see the magnificent clothes. They could not admit they were unenlightened. "Yes," the Emperor finally said, "The clothes are beautiful."

As the emperor took a stroll through his city, no one would admit that the emperor was naked. It was only when a little child declared, "That man has no clothes," that the people laughed.

In my daughter's iPad version the con artists were rewarded for teaching the Emperor a lesson—telling truth to the powerful I suppose. We know what their punishment would be in the real world.

Obama has no clothes. The only reason we think he does is that we can’t admit the possibility our own leader could be naked. No not for a moment. Do not misunderstand. Bush was naked too. They all are. Pick your favorite president. For me it would be Calvin Coolidge. He was naked too.

This was why God did not want Israel to have a king. We will idolize the leader, it is inevitable. But how will that king treat us? I Sam 8 tells us: 

^7-9 God answered Samuel, "Go ahead and do what they're asking. They are not rejecting you. They've rejected me as their King. From the day I brought them out of Egypt until this very day they've been behaving like this, leaving me for other gods. And now they're doing it to you. So let them have their own way. But warn them of what they're in for. Tell them the way kings operate, just what they're likely to get from a king."

 ^10-18 So Samuel told them, delivered God's warning to the people who were asking him to give them a king. He said, "This is the way the kind of king you're talking about operates. He'll take your sons and make soldiers of them—chariotry, cavalry, infantry, regimented in battalions and squadrons. He'll put some to forced labor on his farms, plowing and harvesting, and others to making either weapons of war or chariots in which he can ride in luxury. He'll put your daughters to work as beauticians and waitresses and cooks. He'll conscript your best fields, vineyards, and orchards and hand them over to his special friends. He'll tax your harvests and vintage to support his extensive bureaucracy. Your prize workers and best animals he'll take for his own use. He'll lay a tax on your flocks and you'll end up no better than slaves. The day will come when you will cry in desperation because of this king you so much want for yourselves. But don't expect God to answer."

 ^19-20 But the people wouldn't listen to Samuel. "No!" they said. "We will have a king to rule us! Then we'll be just like all the other nations. Our king will rule us and lead us and fight our battles."

Oh, for those good old days when the "king" only took 10%!

I thought about these things after watching the following video. I thought at first that it was too hard on us drones. But on reconsideration, it may be too kind. 

Why do bad things ultimately happen to a nation?  Why is America headed for a crisis? Why do we allow our leaders to do the evil that they do?

All we have to do to stop them is laugh.

With God On Our Side

 Is God on our side? 

Here are the lyrics:

Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.
Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.
Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.
Oh the First World War, boys
It closed out its fate
The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.
When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.
I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.
But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust 
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.
In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.
So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.

Ensign Flandry

I have always been a reader of Science Fiction. One of the series I read in my youth was by Poul Anderson, the Ensign Flandry series. Here is how Wikipedia describes it:

The illegitimate son of a minor nobleman, Flandry rises to considerable power within the decadent Empire by his own wits, and enjoys all the pleasures his position society gives him. Still he is painfully conscious of the impending fall of the Terran Empire and the subsequent "Long Night" of a galactic Dark Age. His career is dedicated to holding it off for as long as possible. In time, he passes the mantle to his daughter Diana, who is also illegitimate.

Flandry is willing to disregard conventional morality and use his foes' tactics against them. He can cheerfully deceive, seduce, and blackmail; grimly and regretfully, he mind-probes his son into a vegetable in A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, and in that same book, bombards Aycharaych's homeworld of Chereion into radioactive ruin to punish Aycharaych for his part in fostering trouble in the marches of the empire.

The idea is that since you can't beat them, the only option is to join them. The way to beat corruption is to become corrupt yourself. Am I the only one who wonders about the effectiveness of this? 

We watch our TV, eat our junk food, vote for one of the two prescribed candidates, and watch our porn on cable TV. "One more drink, bartender, please." We enjoy our decadence to the full, even as we rail against our situation. We, as a group, have caused our situation. As the cartoon character Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy and he is us." 

The only way to defeat evil is not to become evil yourself. It is much easier to drift downstream with the crowd. The roar of the approaching waterfall is just the wind. No need to worry. You ask your seat mate in the boat, "How about them Cowboys?" The fact that you must talk louder and louder to drown out the roar as the boat gets nearer to the falls is not a fit subject for civilized people. 

Get out of the boat. 

Rev 18 (The Message) tells us:

Get out, my people, as fast as you can, 

      so you don't get mixed up in her sins, 
      so you don't get caught in her doom.

Are you ready? Can you hear the roar of the waterfall as our community boat nears its doom?