End times are good times

I want to respond to comments made by my friend Audie concerning his reaction to my predictions of the end days of the American Imperium, which I think he may have gotten confused with a more momentous END TIME that I don't actually see coming. His email to Steve and myself:

Always a delight to hear from Mr. Dobell. Are you swept up in the Super Bowl mania, Steve?

I haven't read the article referred to below (but I have read Dave's response to that email). Though I, like Dave, am aghast at some of the things our country is doing, I'm not as prone to declare these the "end days." I think people have been doing (saying) that in every era -- and always with very good reason! -- but we just keep on going -- after the Great Depression, after Pearl Harbor, after 9/11. A "civil war,"two world wars," presidents assassinated, natural disasters, epidemics, dust bowl days, etc. People died, and people *will* die (perhaps by the thousands again, in one fell swoop). The government has always been corrupt, and always*will* be. "These are the end times." It's been said before. Maybe Dave will be right this time. But, I'm not too worried, really.

But I'm still aghast.

aud

P.S. Oh, and we and the roosters appreciate ya, Steve.

My response:

Don't get me wrong, I'm only predicting the demise of the current regime, not the end of the world. I think the Book of Revelation is about the coming end of Roman rule and is misunderstood if it is interpreted as an "end of the world" dirge. I like Revelation because the issues being confronted in its pages also pertain to today. Imperial hubris and brutality hasn't changed much in 2000 years. I truly believe that this final book of the King James Bible is a happy joyous promise of redemption following the fall of human derived death and oppressive domestic domination.

Indeed Rome fell swiftly after Revelation appeared in print, for exactly the same reasons that the U.S. is now crumbling and why the even more brutal U.S.S.R. and Nazi Germany fell before it. All I'm trying to accomplish is to get each of us to recognize our own part in the tyranny. You can't be saved until you repent. Pardon me if it bugs ya'll but I feel the need to keep exclaiming NOT IN MY NAME! I want the rest of ya'll to come to this same perspective, if you can, because I feel in my heart of hearts that this is one sure way to destroy its grip on our collective souls.

As a kid I was told we "had no choice" but to incinerate millions of totally innocent civilians in WW2. I readily went along with the public school version of these "patriotic acts" and from that moment onward I was indoctrinated into the acceptance of state imposed death as a means to purposeful and virtuous ends. At age 45 I'm just now coming out from under this spell of the warlords or as Ike called them the "military-industrial complex", and like any new religious convert want to raise my voice up loudly, with a newly saved soul, and bark again to the rafters NOT IN MY NAME! Lawd a mighty that feels good.

I remember, as a kid, watching in public school, b&w movies of German civilians that lived near Nazi death camps, being marched through the liberated compounds by American and Russian soldiers, to be exposed to the horror and nasty filth of state sponsored death and tyranny. The lesson of the victors was to expose this scene of barbarity to the ordinary citizenry who had supported this slaughter of innocents and whose sons had fought to the death to defend. I wish the same thing could happen to ordinary Americans by sending them to see the ruins, death and destruction of Fallujah (the size of Cincinnati) or the many secret and not so secret torture prisons the CIA runs around the world. If John Q. Public could only smell and taste the fetid stench of Guantanamo Bay's gulag and see the torture and death dealing depravity going on there I think that the whole shoddy collection of fiddle sticks would collapse quickly into one big messy pile. That is at least my optimistic hope.

Every other government that has maintained power by such means has already fallen. The U.S. is the last of a dinosaur breed of the much heralded 20th-century ideal of a "super state". When it finally does disintegrate I look forward to visiting Steve in the northwestern Republic of Cascadia. You will live in the Puget Sound autonomous region known for its strong pungent smelling pot, fresh seafood and air of sophisticated caffeine calibrated high-tech optimism. You Audie will live in Frontrangia, a territory stretching from Pueblo to Cheyenne. This sprawling collection of mountains and prairie, vegetarians and rednecks will include the Peoples Republic of Boulder and the Principality of LoDo embedded in the very heart of your republic. Go Broncos!

Don't misunderstand me, I'm happy the U.S. military is being soundly defeated in the quicksands of an Iraqi quagmire. No one has ever successfully occupied, much less dominated, Afghanistan since it became an independent piece of Asian geography some 1000 years ago. Persia after hundreds of years under the thumb of the Ottoman Turks is now ready to reassert its entrepreneurial and oil derived muscle as an integral and vital civilization of west Asia and the Middle East.

Islam itself has bided its time for the last 1200 years but guess what kids, THEY'RE BAAACK!! China has bided its time for some 300 years but guess what kids, THEY'RE BAAACK!! It won't be much longer before we feel the full cultural and economic impact of these global demographic shifts. On our own continent we are increasingly Latinizing and this is something I welcome with open arms. VIVA ESPANOL! It's all so exciting to watch. White bread culture has been soooo boring dudes.

I'm full of hope. Read your history kids, it'll keep you young and full of hope and spiritual vigor!

Long Live Hamas and the Persian Empire! China and Wal-Mart rule! Long live the independent Republic of Vermont! HOY HOY HOY!

"Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues!" - Revelation 18:4