Within each of us are two centers of thinking. They are referred to as the spirit and the soul. The thinking center of the spirit is called the heart. The thinking center of the soul is called the mind.
We are primarily familiar with the thought process of the soul's mind. It was created to provide self-awareness and calls itself "I am." Thus, it is introspective by nature and is susceptible to pride. When it does not understand the logic of the spirit, it can easily stage a coup and take over the management of a person's life in order to maintain what it sees as orderly truth.
The soul's mind attempts to understand all things in life by their contrasts. In other words, it is dualistic. It does not understand white except when it contrasts it with black. It does not understand good without contrasting it with evil. It cannot understand long without short. The mind employs its logical ability to polarize its perceptions.
In the kingdoms of men, the mind is the acknowledged master of the universe. But the mind was not created to be one's master, but only the servant of the spirit's heart. The spirit, along with its thinking center {the heart}, is our point of divine contact. It has a logic of its own that is incomprehensible to the mind. As long as the mind defers to the spirit, recognizing its subordinate role and purpose, it has a very good and useful function. The problem comes when the heart gives it signals {truth} that the mind cannot comprehend. The natural reaction of the mind is to think that it is being betrayed by the spirit. To the mind, irrationality is betrayal. It is then left with a choice, whether or not to defer to that which is beyond its capability to understand logically. If the mind's demand for order, structure, and logic is too strong, it will stage a revolt and usurp the authority of the spirit.
Paul discusses some of these things in the first two chapters of his first letter to the Corinthian Church. He says in 1 Cor. 1:17 and 18,
"For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel; not with wisdom of words [Greek: logos, "logic"], lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that are dying [mortal] foolishness [moronic]; but unto us which are being saved, it is the power of God."
Paul is showing his readers the difference between the wisdom of mental logic and the logic of "the cross," which is the logic of the spirit. He admits in verse 21 that the spirit's logic is "foolishness" to the mind-dominated world--especially the Greek world, which worshipped the mind and considered it to be divine. Paul had lived in that culture long enough to know that the true gospel is spirit-based and not soul-based. Verse 23 says that "we preach Christ crucified, which, to the Jews is a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness."
The Greek word for foolishness is moros, from which we get our English word "moron." In other words, in the view of the intellectual, mind-dominated Greek philosopher, the cross is illogical, irrational, and just plain stupid. It makes no soulish sense for God to leave His glory, power, and comfort of heaven and be born of a virgin in a body that they considered to be "evil." Worse yet, why would an immortal God come to earth to die, not only a normal death from old age, but the tortuous death of the cross?
The gnostics could not understand it either, and so they attempted to rebuild Christ's honor by removing Him from the cross. They said He survived. Some said it was not really Him on the cross at all. They attempted to explain events rationally, and when the truth was irrational, their minds simply dismissed it and explained it rationally. Today the remnants of gnostic thinking is seen in The DaVinci Code, which claims that Jesus did not die, but lived and married Mary Magdalene, and had children who became the Merovingian line of Frankish kings in Europe.
To them { and Phreadom} the gospel that Paul preached was foolishness, and Paul says to them,
"Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weak thing of God is stronger than men. . . But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty." (1 Cor. 1:25, 27)
The logic of the cross is seen in the days of Moses in Exodus 15:23-25,
"And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; therefore the name of it was called Marah [bitterness]. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, 'What shall we drink?' And he called to the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet."
God tested Moses to show Israel that Moses was not mind-dominated. He listened to the voice of his heart through which God spoke to him by the logic of the cross. The bitter waters represent the bitterness in man that is caused by sin and death.
The tree in question represented the cross, which was the solution to the problem. Though it made no mental sense to do this, Moses' mind was subject to the leading of the spirit when his heart told him to put a certain tree in the water. If we are led by the spirit, in which the Spirit of God dwells, we will live in and perceive a miraculous world.
An example from the prophets is found in the story of Elisha (1 Kings 6). He and the other prophet students went to the Jordan River to cut wood. One of them had borrowed an axe with an iron head--very valuable in those days. Unfortunately, the iron head flew off its handle, and it fell into the river. The man would have incurred a great debt and probably would have had to become a slave for a time to pay off the debt. But Elisha "cut down a stick, and cast it in thither; and the iron did swim."
The wooden "stick" (tree) again represents the cross, which, when applied to the problem, restores the iron to its owner and cancels the debt. Thus, we see the logic of the cross manifested in both the law and the prophets. Not that it makes any sense to the mind. But as we learn to live by the heart, rather than the mind, we are opened up to a whole new world where the miraculous is a way of life.
By this, I do not mean to imply that GREAT miracles take place daily, for that implies that such miracles are aberrations. Rather, I am saying that the heart perceives the miraculous in all things, and therefore comes to be a way of life. Only occasionally do such miracles occur in such a way that they smack the soul's mind on the side of the head. Most miracles are quiet and unobtrusive.
The mind, however, tends to ignore reality in favor of a perception that it considers to be logical and orderly. Paul says in 1 Cor. 2:14, "But the soulish man does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."
If reality is cluttered, the inner "soulish man" {that is, the mind} will not see or remember the clutter. It will see what it wants to see. It demands structured orderliness and feels betrayed by anything beyond its capability. Christians are admonished to be led by the spirit within {in which is housed the Holy Spirit}. Christians do not receive this spiritual perception the moment they are justified by faith {Passover}. It comes through the learning process called sanctification--the function of Pentecost.
The human mind demands structure. It takes at least 2 points to make structure, because a single point has no size or structure. Thus, the human mind is limited to the dualistic way of thinking and cannot understand the things of spirit.
Paul makes it clear in 2 Corinthians 1 and 2 that the source of divine knowledge is neither the body's sensory perception nor the carnal mind's perception of the world. It is rather a third source called the spirit and its heart-mind.
Few have a clear understanding of this. Paul says at the end of his great "Love Chapter" in 1 Corinthians 13 that there are three great things in earth: Faith, Hope, and Love. He says that the greatest of these three is Love. Why? Because both faith and hope end with "sight." When you get what you "hoped for," hope ends. When you receive that which you had faith for, faith ends. Only love continues without end.
Some are being led to experience all three of these great principles as they grow up into the full stature (maturity) of Christ. There are denominations who give men the message of hope. They give believers hope in a future life of immortality.
That is nearly their entire focus and message, and it is certainly acceptable to God. It is the message of Passover and the true Lamb of God who is our Passover. This message is enough to bring us out of the house of bondage with the hope of going to the Promised Land.
There are other denominations who bring believers beyond hope into faith. In fact, there is even a movement called "Word of Faith." As one might expect, it is more Pentecostal, or Charismatic, in its character. It tells people to go beyond the hope of Passover and enter into the world of faith. Faith comes by hearing (Rom. 10:17), and thus, it is dependent upon hearing God's voice, as opposed to the idols of the carnal mind. To distinguish between the two is the difficulty.
Hope is acceptable, and faith is good. But faith is still not the perfect will of God. Faith is applicable only until the object of faith is achieved or obtained. It then must give way to the greater experience of Love, by which we live and move and have our being. It is not that hope and faith are devoid of love. It is rather that the quality of love in those phases of spiritual development are imperfect, being restricted by the rigid structures imposed upon it by the carnal mind.
Love seeks its full expression through the feast of Tabernacles, even as hope is obtained through Passover and faith through Pentecost. Those who are justified through Passover are being prepared for Pentecost--the leading of the Spirit. Those who are being sanctified through Pentecost are being prepared for Tabernacles. A true Pentecostal is one who is learning to distinguish between the carnal mind and the spiritual heart, so that he may be divinely led toward Love.
The carnal mind has an Adamic perception of the world, and it thus creates god in its own finite image. This mental creation forms an idol, or image--a structured representation of the infinite God--that always falls short of the glory of God. But the mind of the Spirit sees and knows all things. It alone is capable of knowing God as He truly is and is therefore the source of all true divine knowledge.
The soul and its mind ought properly to be the servant of the spirit. When the soul's mind does not understand the things of the spirit, it tends to stage a revolt and take over control. It restructures the revelation of the spirit to fit its own mold {understanding}. Some leave and define religion some stay and refine religion.
This has been recognized by many in the past, particularly in the Pentecostal movement of a century ago. In fact, they became so fearful of the mind that they downplayed education in order to keep it ignorant. Sermon after sermon told the people to "shut down the mind," rather than to subject the mind to the spirit. For a long time they refused to set up Bible schools, because they feared learning.
Some went so far as to discourage reading the scriptures, as if it were harmful and even evil. "Just pray and get your own revelation," they said. "Don't eat yesterday's manna." In so doing, they cut themselves off from the true education that the soul desperately needs in order to defer to the mind of the spirit. The spirit will not subject the soul; the soul must submit to the spirit.
The soul is a servant. A strong servant is more useful than a weak servant, or employee. An educated servant is more useful than an ignorant servant. Proper education is good for the soul. Truth is not harmful. What is harmful are the "commandments and traditions of men," which are the soul's limited perception, beliefs, and understandings of the word, which, when not subject to the spirit, torture the word into arriving at a preconceived conclusion {a man-made belief system = religion}.
When God created Adam a living soul (Gen. 2:7). He was part of the material and mental creation that God pronounced "very good." The scriptualal account of creation forms the foundation of all Hebrew philosophy. It runs contrary to Greek philosophy, which claimed that matter was evil and that it was created by the "demiurge," a lesser god that was evil {i.e., Satan}. Thus, the Greeks were always trying to escape from the body and return to the purely spiritual form in the heavens.
But the scriptures say no such thing. Matter was created good, because a good God created it--not the devil. Secondly, He did not create it out of nothing; He created it out of spirit and out of Himself. Matter is only disguised spirit. If you think of spirit as water, matter is ice--frozen spirit that has been given structure. Matter is not merely a form of spirit; it is spirit with form. Thus, in Gen. 2:7 Adam was "formed"--like all of creation, shaped by the Master's hand. God used spirit as the building blocks of creation, gave them form, and called each thing by its appropriate name.
But sin distorted it and caused the body and soul to revolt against the spirit. The purpose of history and the goal of the Kingdom of God is to bring all things back into subjection to God, who is spirit. This is accomplished in three phases depicted by the three feasts of Israel: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.
Passover justifies us; Pentecost sanctifies us, and Tabernacles glorifies us by giving us an immortal, glorified body. It does not eradicate matter as evil; it glorifies matter, bringing heaven back into the earth, so that His will can be done in earth as it is in heaven. The great example is Jesus in His brief transfiguration in Matt. 17 and in His permanent condition after His resurrection.
The good purpose of matter and also the soul {mind} is to provide structure for the things of the spirit. Think of the spirit as water. In order to make it useful, it needs something to give it structure, whether we turn it to ice or give it form by putting it into a glass, or channeling it within the banks of a river.
Structure is not evil--it is useful for spiritual purposes. When it ceases to be useful--that is, when it begins to limit and cramp the spirit's purpose--it ought to be discarded in favor of a different structure.
So also is the case with a denominational structure. If it is subject to the spirit, it is useful for the Kingdom of God. But when the spirit becomes cramped and hampered by that structure {the definition of churchianity}, it ought to be discarded in favor of something else. Consider Israel in the wilderness. They were forbidden to build houses in the wilderness. Instead, they lived in tents, which were flexible and movable. It is not that God wanted them to sleep under the stars, but rather that they would not build permanent structures that prevented their progression toward the Promised Land.
A denominational structure is good if it remains a tent, rather than a permanent house. It must change with the progressive revelation of God. But normally, they set forth creeds, file IRS papers, and construct granite buildings out of fear that their current revelation might be distorted by future generations.
They assume it will degenerate--with good reason, no doubt. But the motive is still fear, rather than faith. The very structure that is supposed to protect the denomination from heresy also becomes its prison, preventing the spirit from revealing anything further. They have heard all that they need, and now their ears are closed. It is the equivalent of Israelites building a house by an oasis in the wilderness, where the water is good, and then refusing to leave when the cloud moves on.
There was an ancient Greek philosopher who lived three centuries before Christ named Epicurus. He postulated that all matter and the soul itself was built of tiny particles that could not be reduced or split into anything smaller. He called them atoms (Greek word: atomos). The Apostle Paul refers to him extensively in his writings, but never mentions his name, lest he promote Epicureanism.
Epicurus was correct in his assertion that all things were created from irreducible particles, but he did not believe in spirit. To him, all things were material. He was a classical materialist. He did not understand that matter is spirit that has been given form.
Modern scientists proved the existence of small particles of matter, which they called "atoms," using Epicurus' word. The problem is, what they called "atoms" were not really atoms at all, because they were too big. When scientists split the atom into smaller particles, it proved that atoms were not really atoms at all. But now we are stuck with calling these reducible particles "atoms."
In fact, divine atoms are particles of spirit, and they are formed into matter by the power of love. Love shapes spirit and forms creation. Therefore, you are a combination of spirit and love.
Many try to do love or act loving, when in reality, love is our being. Many covet the gifts of the spirit in order to do spiritual things, when in reality, we are spirit. Only when our structured actions flow naturally and unrestricted from our being can we manifest divine love and spirit.
How does one come to this place of being? It cannot be done by doing, but by the soul's submission to the spirit. In this way the restriction is removed and you are allowed to be what you are--as God formed you and purposed you to be. When we are filled with all the fullness of God and know how to speak the truth in love, then we will have the power to do the things that Jesus did while He was on earth.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Troubled
In the eighteenth year of Saul’s reign, when David was just a boy of about eight, God told Samuel to go to Bethlehem to the house of Jesse and anoint one of his sons to be the next king. There the prophet found David and anointed him. 1 Sam. 16:13-16,
13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brethren; and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel rose up, and went to Ramah. 14 But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. 15 And Saul’s servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee. 16 Let our lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man who is a cunning player on an harp; and it shall come to pass, when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well.
Here is found the first mention of the evil spirit from God coming upon Saul. This was not merely the opinion of Saul’s servants. Verse 14 makes it clear that this really was true. More than that, one would think that if Saul recognized this was an evil spirit from God, surely he would pray for its removal. Surely he would repent. Surely he would want to know why this had come upon him. But Saul’s priority was not to know the will of God; his priority was to rule Israel, corral as many servants as he could, and take of their wealth as taxes (tithes), even as God had said at the beginning (8:11-18).
This is the Denominational Spirit even today. It is a poor substitute for the Holy Spirit. Yet in all of this, God was merely giving Saul the flesh that he desired. The problem was that Saul could not distinguish the Holy Spirit from “the evil spirit from God.” Both were from God, but they were based upon different foundations. The Holy Spirit’s job is to lead us into all Truth; the job of the evil spirit from God is to give us the flesh that we desire. Or, to put it in Ezekiel’s terms, the evil spirit will give the people and the prophets the word that suits the idol of their heart. As Micaiah would say, it was a “lying spirit” sent by God as a judgment against the people that would cause them to fall.
It is no coincidence that in the story of King Saul, the evil spirit from God is mentioned just seven times (1 Sam. 16:14, 15, 16, 23 [twice]; 18:10; 19:9). I believe this has reference to the seven Churches of Revelation, which are prophetic of the seven Church ages within the era of Pentecost. In each of the Seven Churches and the Seven Church Ages, the Church has had to contend with this evil spirit from God. This evil spirit created a demand for music to keep Saul from going totally insane. Is it just a coincidence that the Church today has perfected music, and that God has sent into its midst many great artists? David loved music; but Saul needed it. Is this what is happening again?
The evil spirit from God caused Saul to take up a javelin and throw it at David. The Holy Spirit does not act so, but the evil spirit from God does. One can almost hear Saul justifying his actions on the grounds that David was trying to overthrow him in direct defiance of Samuel who had anointed Saul to be king. The more David tried to be a good servant, the more Saul became fearful and jealous of him. So it is today. Nothing has changed.
In 1 Sam. 18:10 we find the most astounding and profoundly prophetic statement in the entire story—and perhaps in the entire Bible.
10 And it came to pass on the morrow that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house . . .
Here we find Saul prophesying under the power of this evil spirit from God. Under this influence, he cast a javelin at David. It is doubtful if Saul could ever discern the difference between the Holy Spirit and the evil spirit from God. In the Church of the twentieth century and perhaps for the past 2000 years, many spiritual gifts have been manifested. But perhaps the most crucial one has been lacking—the discerning of spirits (1 Cor. 12:10).
The Church today does not have a critical shortage of miracles, or of tongues, or of the word of knowledge or wisdom. All of these can be found if one searches. But the Church has seldom been able to discern whether the spirit that comes upon them is really the Holy Spirit, or a spirit that the flesh has desired. For this reason, the Holy Spirit has not yet led us into all truth, as Jesus prophesied in John 16:13. The denominational spirit thinks and claims to have all truth, but in reality, it is an evil spirit masquerading as the Holy Spirit, and the people do not know the difference.
The difference will be seen only as we yield to God and seek to come into full agreement with Him, rather than seek our own carnal desires. The tenth and final commandment is the key to being led by the Holy Spirit into all truth. God saved it for last on His list of commandments. Thou shalt not covet is a call to put away the desires and lusts of the flesh, which prevent us from hearing the voice of God as we should.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Really Starting Over
My retirement papers came back yesterday. I have been approved for a medical retirement. I thought I would jumping and screaming for joy, but that phase must have already passed unnoticed. There will probably be two planes full of people, embarking one of these days on holiday or business, who will arrive safely because a younger, faster, better trained {but less experienced} controller is there being little brother.
I've been thinking about a party. Years ago I had planned to bring my alarm clock and a sledge hammer and get "medivial" as my boys used to say. I had hoped to be able to burn my mortgage papers at the same time, but that will have to wait.
I really wanted to make it for my full twenty years, but I guess twenty months short ain't so bad. Those seven and a half years at the academy don't count for squak {not a typo, some people will get it}. I think now I will work on getting my health back, do some more reading and maybe a little writing, and make it up to mimi for all the time I was gone, and she was sitting home alone.
I've been thinking about a party. Years ago I had planned to bring my alarm clock and a sledge hammer and get "medivial" as my boys used to say. I had hoped to be able to burn my mortgage papers at the same time, but that will have to wait.
I really wanted to make it for my full twenty years, but I guess twenty months short ain't so bad. Those seven and a half years at the academy don't count for squak {not a typo, some people will get it}. I think now I will work on getting my health back, do some more reading and maybe a little writing, and make it up to mimi for all the time I was gone, and she was sitting home alone.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
The Ron Paul Breakthrough
Ron Paul is breaking through. His call to return to the vision of the Founders, and the principles embodied in the Constitution, is piercing the wall of silence that surrounds the conduct of our disgraceful foreign policy. Andrea Mitchell proclaims him the new Howard Dean, network television takes note of his fundraising prowess and the resonance of his message, and then we have this very favorable piece on CNN, not to mention this, this, and this – all of which points to the appearance – or, rather, reappearance – of a resurgent political movement on the horizon: an anti-interventionist wing of the GOP.
Commentators, including those who most definitely look on Paul's success with a very jaundiced eye, are baffled. Why is this happening? How could a mere blip on the electoral screen, a man nobody thought was worth even a footnote in the story of this presidential campaign, suddenly catapult into prominence?
The answer is illustrated in a recent poll, which shows that the majority of Iowa Republicans want us out of Iraq in six months – a far more radical proposition than any of the major Democrats has yet to offer. It's no accident that Paul's political breakthrough is occurring just as the dissatisfaction of the GOP rank and file over the Iraq war issue reaches the breaking point. As the sole antiwar candidate in the Republican field, it makes perfect political sense that Paul's campaign is in the ascendancy.
Yes, of course, there are other issues in this race: the sellout of the conservative agenda on fiscal policy, a wholesale and unrelenting assault on the Bill of Rights, the immigration mess, the spectacle of a "socially conservative" party with a putative presidential front-runner whose private life is neither private nor an example of Christian virtue. Paul has some appeal to GOPers who can't stomach one – or any – of these ideological anomalies.
Yet most of these issues would not be relevant without the single most important question in this election, the answer to which underlies the basic approach of all the presidential candidates, and that is the war – not just the war in Iraq, but the one to come in Iran, as well as the broader "war on terrorism" that has eaten up so much of our attention and resources since 9/11.
For surely Giuliani would have been considered a long shot for the GOP nomination in a world where 9/11 never happened. What would he have run on, without his status as the vaunted hero of 9/11 to constantly fall back on and refer to? His entire campaign is based on the synchronicity of his being in Gracie Mansion as the Twin Towers fell: without that, he'd be somewhere between Mike Huckabee and Tom Tancredo in the polls.
The massive erosion of our civil liberties, the fiscal crisis staring us in the face, and even the immigration quandary have all been either brought to the fore out of relative obscurity or else greatly exacerbated by the post-9/11 hysteria that has so deformed the national consciousness and, consequently, our politics. Underlying all these disparate issues is the foreign policy question, and only Ron Paul is giving Republican voters an answer quite different from, say, Giuliani's – to take a cartoonishly extreme example of the pro-war view.
The media-anointed "front-runner" has problems other than having to explain himself to social conservatives. After all, how many Americans, even including Republicans, really want to see Norman Podhoretz ensconced in the Department of State? Once they hear Poddy's plea to President Bush to please, pretty please start bombing Iran, I'd venture to say not many.
As for the other GOP hopefuls, McCain has run out of gas, with his campaign stalled and his fundraising in free-fall. Why? McCain has been dragged down by the albatross of his more-royalist-than-the-king position on the Iraq war, his signature issue and the one he – mistakenly – built his entire campaign around. Fred Thompson has proved a dud, even less inspiring than the Stepford candidate, with all of Reagan's vagueness and none of his charm or acumen. The second- and third-tier candidates display an alarming lack when it comes to having either a clear ideological message or any particular brand of charisma (except for Alan Keyes, whose brand of charisma, like his ideology, is so idiosyncratic that it cancels itself out). Huckabee should announce he's running for vice president and be done with it, and the others amount to little more than vanity campaigns. By means of a simple process of elimination, Republicans are left with Ron Paul as the only alternative to ideological bankruptcy and looming political disaster.
The approach the chattering classes have taken to the Ron Paul phenomenon has been classic, rather along the lines of Gandhi's famous aphorism: first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.
The "let's ignore him and maybe he'll go away" phase ended right after the contretemps with Giuliani over the theory of "blowback." Giuliani's verbal assault on Paul condensed the ridicule-fight-victory process into a single, signal incident. What Giuliani and his enablers in the media failed to realize is that Paul's calm, considered, and thoughtful answer resonated with many voters.
The Iraq war has opened this entire question up as it relates to 9/11, a subject that was previously taboo, as Susan Sontag, Bill Maher, the Dixie Chicks, and any number of Andrew Sullivan's enemies, both real and imagined, learned to their sorrow. The war dramatized exactly what the critics of American foreign policy had been pointing out, to little effect, for years: that hostility toward America and the gathering terrorist threat were blowback from our actions overseas.
Rudy Giuliani is going around the country hectoring audiences with his Podhoretzian message of a civilizational war between the U.S. empire and international Islam: They hate us, he yells, they really hate us for who we are! Yes, but who are "we," exactly? If we're starting with the speaker of those words, then no wonder they hate us, but, aside from that, what's the problem? Is it our obsession with Britney Spears – or is it the bombs raining down on the Arab world, the propping up of killer regimes like Hosni Mubarak's in Egypt and the House of Saud, and our unconditional support for Israeli aggression (and not just against the Palestinians)?
Ron Paul has an answer quite different from the one usually given – or, I should say, the one allowed – by the self-appointed arbiters of political correctness: the debate "moderators," the pundits and television talkers, the "analysts" and "experts" who, like ancient seers examining the entrails of goats, interpret the meaning of political actors and events for us.
We have, however, outgrown such superstitions and no longer need or want the guidance of the gatekeepers, who have traditionally guarded the door to social and political "legitimacy" with jealous vigor. All their vigor and jealousy failed against a technology that simply outflanked them, took them by surprise, and laid siege to their journalistic fortress. These mandarins hid behind the Times-Select wall to the bitter end but couldn't keep it up indefinitely: there is no better symbol of the gatekeepers' fall. It was only a matter of time before that wall came down – and, with it, the whole concept of "mainstream" thought presided over by guardians of the permissible. The leveling of the playing field, made possible by the cybernetic revolution, has ended the intellectual and political monopoly of the elites. It's no wonder that the Paul campaign has such a massive online presence.
Furthermore, the existence of the Internet, far from destroying journalism, as predicted by some die-hard dead-tree'ers, has forced the "mainstream" media to be more responsive and flexible. That's why they're now paying attention to the Paul campaign: Ron is news, big-time political news. He's drawing thousands to his campaign rallies, a boast not many presidential candidates of either party can credibly make. And he's raking in the money. This quarter, he's brought in almost as much as McCain, and he's third – behind Giuliani and Romney – in the cash-on-hand sweepstakes. Money talks – and now they have to take him seriously.
The establishment has fallen back on their second line of defense: they ridicule him as a "kook," a "loon," and even a "bigot" – in short, they're trotting out the same attack strategy they used to target another rebel against the party establishment, true-blue conservative-slash libertarian Barry Goldwater.
Back in 1964, when the electorate was still in thrall to the gatekeepers' media machine, this tactic was quite effective. Today, however, this ploy has the effect of underscoring the depth of Paul's challenge to the political status quo, thereby enhancing his appeal. It works rather like the concept of blowback in the foreign policy realm: just as U.S. military intervention invites an equal and opposite reaction from its overseas victims, so the intervention of our political elites against the rising Paulian grassroots insurgency guarantees his base of support will expand.
Ignore, ridicule, attack – we're about into the third phase, and I expect that will commence shortly. Perhaps as shortly as the next GOP debate, and certainly right after. The neoconservatives have been the target of Paul's scorn on several occasions, and he is likely to receive it back in kind before long. Aside from Jonah Goldberg's ill-informed renunciation of Robert A. Taft and a few bouts of snickering at The Corner, National Review has so far kept its trap shut tight about the Texas troublemaker, even going so far as to exclude him from their daily compilation of stories about the GOP primary campaign. I have the feeling, however, that their silence is about to end, and Ron is about to join the ranks of the "unpatriotic conservatives." After all, the neocons have to somehow stop the erosion of their base at the hands of someone who so clearly understands the role of neoconservatism as a cancer eating away at the heart of the GOP and the conservative movement.
In their view, Paul is falling for the line of the "Left" that America is fighting a futile war against forces it neither understands nor has any hope of controlling, and yet if this was truly a "leftist" idea one would imagine that the Left would come to Paul's defense – but, no. The same "Ron is nuts" meme being spread by neocon snarkers on the right side of the blogosphere is being echoed by the "center" liberal-left. You see, anyone who opposes the system that makes imperialism possible – the mercantilist, state-capitalist system of corruption that enriches the few at the expense of the many – is "crazy."
Maybe he's just crazy enough to think our rulers will let him, or anyone with a major public platform, get away with exposing the full extent of their corruption – and thank God for that.
The Good Doctor is not alone in prescribing a change – a radical change – in our stance toward the rest of the world. You're hearing it not only on the Washington cocktail party circuit, but around the office water cooler: it's time to start disengaging from the mess our interventionist policymakers have created, starting in the Middle East. In carrying this stance into the arena of GOP presidential politics, Ron is a libertarian-noninterventionist gladiator taking on several lions at once. The resulting knockdown drag-out battle, regardless of its outcome, is going to be fun to watch.
www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11723
Commentators, including those who most definitely look on Paul's success with a very jaundiced eye, are baffled. Why is this happening? How could a mere blip on the electoral screen, a man nobody thought was worth even a footnote in the story of this presidential campaign, suddenly catapult into prominence?
The answer is illustrated in a recent poll, which shows that the majority of Iowa Republicans want us out of Iraq in six months – a far more radical proposition than any of the major Democrats has yet to offer. It's no accident that Paul's political breakthrough is occurring just as the dissatisfaction of the GOP rank and file over the Iraq war issue reaches the breaking point. As the sole antiwar candidate in the Republican field, it makes perfect political sense that Paul's campaign is in the ascendancy.
Yes, of course, there are other issues in this race: the sellout of the conservative agenda on fiscal policy, a wholesale and unrelenting assault on the Bill of Rights, the immigration mess, the spectacle of a "socially conservative" party with a putative presidential front-runner whose private life is neither private nor an example of Christian virtue. Paul has some appeal to GOPers who can't stomach one – or any – of these ideological anomalies.
Yet most of these issues would not be relevant without the single most important question in this election, the answer to which underlies the basic approach of all the presidential candidates, and that is the war – not just the war in Iraq, but the one to come in Iran, as well as the broader "war on terrorism" that has eaten up so much of our attention and resources since 9/11.
For surely Giuliani would have been considered a long shot for the GOP nomination in a world where 9/11 never happened. What would he have run on, without his status as the vaunted hero of 9/11 to constantly fall back on and refer to? His entire campaign is based on the synchronicity of his being in Gracie Mansion as the Twin Towers fell: without that, he'd be somewhere between Mike Huckabee and Tom Tancredo in the polls.
The massive erosion of our civil liberties, the fiscal crisis staring us in the face, and even the immigration quandary have all been either brought to the fore out of relative obscurity or else greatly exacerbated by the post-9/11 hysteria that has so deformed the national consciousness and, consequently, our politics. Underlying all these disparate issues is the foreign policy question, and only Ron Paul is giving Republican voters an answer quite different from, say, Giuliani's – to take a cartoonishly extreme example of the pro-war view.
The media-anointed "front-runner" has problems other than having to explain himself to social conservatives. After all, how many Americans, even including Republicans, really want to see Norman Podhoretz ensconced in the Department of State? Once they hear Poddy's plea to President Bush to please, pretty please start bombing Iran, I'd venture to say not many.
As for the other GOP hopefuls, McCain has run out of gas, with his campaign stalled and his fundraising in free-fall. Why? McCain has been dragged down by the albatross of his more-royalist-than-the-king position on the Iraq war, his signature issue and the one he – mistakenly – built his entire campaign around. Fred Thompson has proved a dud, even less inspiring than the Stepford candidate, with all of Reagan's vagueness and none of his charm or acumen. The second- and third-tier candidates display an alarming lack when it comes to having either a clear ideological message or any particular brand of charisma (except for Alan Keyes, whose brand of charisma, like his ideology, is so idiosyncratic that it cancels itself out). Huckabee should announce he's running for vice president and be done with it, and the others amount to little more than vanity campaigns. By means of a simple process of elimination, Republicans are left with Ron Paul as the only alternative to ideological bankruptcy and looming political disaster.
The approach the chattering classes have taken to the Ron Paul phenomenon has been classic, rather along the lines of Gandhi's famous aphorism: first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.
The "let's ignore him and maybe he'll go away" phase ended right after the contretemps with Giuliani over the theory of "blowback." Giuliani's verbal assault on Paul condensed the ridicule-fight-victory process into a single, signal incident. What Giuliani and his enablers in the media failed to realize is that Paul's calm, considered, and thoughtful answer resonated with many voters.
The Iraq war has opened this entire question up as it relates to 9/11, a subject that was previously taboo, as Susan Sontag, Bill Maher, the Dixie Chicks, and any number of Andrew Sullivan's enemies, both real and imagined, learned to their sorrow. The war dramatized exactly what the critics of American foreign policy had been pointing out, to little effect, for years: that hostility toward America and the gathering terrorist threat were blowback from our actions overseas.
Rudy Giuliani is going around the country hectoring audiences with his Podhoretzian message of a civilizational war between the U.S. empire and international Islam: They hate us, he yells, they really hate us for who we are! Yes, but who are "we," exactly? If we're starting with the speaker of those words, then no wonder they hate us, but, aside from that, what's the problem? Is it our obsession with Britney Spears – or is it the bombs raining down on the Arab world, the propping up of killer regimes like Hosni Mubarak's in Egypt and the House of Saud, and our unconditional support for Israeli aggression (and not just against the Palestinians)?
Ron Paul has an answer quite different from the one usually given – or, I should say, the one allowed – by the self-appointed arbiters of political correctness: the debate "moderators," the pundits and television talkers, the "analysts" and "experts" who, like ancient seers examining the entrails of goats, interpret the meaning of political actors and events for us.
We have, however, outgrown such superstitions and no longer need or want the guidance of the gatekeepers, who have traditionally guarded the door to social and political "legitimacy" with jealous vigor. All their vigor and jealousy failed against a technology that simply outflanked them, took them by surprise, and laid siege to their journalistic fortress. These mandarins hid behind the Times-Select wall to the bitter end but couldn't keep it up indefinitely: there is no better symbol of the gatekeepers' fall. It was only a matter of time before that wall came down – and, with it, the whole concept of "mainstream" thought presided over by guardians of the permissible. The leveling of the playing field, made possible by the cybernetic revolution, has ended the intellectual and political monopoly of the elites. It's no wonder that the Paul campaign has such a massive online presence.
Furthermore, the existence of the Internet, far from destroying journalism, as predicted by some die-hard dead-tree'ers, has forced the "mainstream" media to be more responsive and flexible. That's why they're now paying attention to the Paul campaign: Ron is news, big-time political news. He's drawing thousands to his campaign rallies, a boast not many presidential candidates of either party can credibly make. And he's raking in the money. This quarter, he's brought in almost as much as McCain, and he's third – behind Giuliani and Romney – in the cash-on-hand sweepstakes. Money talks – and now they have to take him seriously.
The establishment has fallen back on their second line of defense: they ridicule him as a "kook," a "loon," and even a "bigot" – in short, they're trotting out the same attack strategy they used to target another rebel against the party establishment, true-blue conservative-slash libertarian Barry Goldwater.
Back in 1964, when the electorate was still in thrall to the gatekeepers' media machine, this tactic was quite effective. Today, however, this ploy has the effect of underscoring the depth of Paul's challenge to the political status quo, thereby enhancing his appeal. It works rather like the concept of blowback in the foreign policy realm: just as U.S. military intervention invites an equal and opposite reaction from its overseas victims, so the intervention of our political elites against the rising Paulian grassroots insurgency guarantees his base of support will expand.
Ignore, ridicule, attack – we're about into the third phase, and I expect that will commence shortly. Perhaps as shortly as the next GOP debate, and certainly right after. The neoconservatives have been the target of Paul's scorn on several occasions, and he is likely to receive it back in kind before long. Aside from Jonah Goldberg's ill-informed renunciation of Robert A. Taft and a few bouts of snickering at The Corner, National Review has so far kept its trap shut tight about the Texas troublemaker, even going so far as to exclude him from their daily compilation of stories about the GOP primary campaign. I have the feeling, however, that their silence is about to end, and Ron is about to join the ranks of the "unpatriotic conservatives." After all, the neocons have to somehow stop the erosion of their base at the hands of someone who so clearly understands the role of neoconservatism as a cancer eating away at the heart of the GOP and the conservative movement.
In their view, Paul is falling for the line of the "Left" that America is fighting a futile war against forces it neither understands nor has any hope of controlling, and yet if this was truly a "leftist" idea one would imagine that the Left would come to Paul's defense – but, no. The same "Ron is nuts" meme being spread by neocon snarkers on the right side of the blogosphere is being echoed by the "center" liberal-left. You see, anyone who opposes the system that makes imperialism possible – the mercantilist, state-capitalist system of corruption that enriches the few at the expense of the many – is "crazy."
Maybe he's just crazy enough to think our rulers will let him, or anyone with a major public platform, get away with exposing the full extent of their corruption – and thank God for that.
The Good Doctor is not alone in prescribing a change – a radical change – in our stance toward the rest of the world. You're hearing it not only on the Washington cocktail party circuit, but around the office water cooler: it's time to start disengaging from the mess our interventionist policymakers have created, starting in the Middle East. In carrying this stance into the arena of GOP presidential politics, Ron is a libertarian-noninterventionist gladiator taking on several lions at once. The resulting knockdown drag-out battle, regardless of its outcome, is going to be fun to watch.
www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11723
Starting Over
Well it's been several months I have tried to access my old blog unsuccessfully. My email changed and I can't get to the account because they send it to your old email. So, sorry for the extra three letters in the title, maybe I can figure something out later. I'm going to try to post more often and hopefully get some dialog going here.
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