The Apostle Paul wrote “I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” He went on to tell us “I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

The spiritual idealism that can take an individual, an enterprise, or a nation from one level of attainment to another is sometimes described as a form of “constructive discontentment.” There are indeed times when we realize that being in “whatsoever state I am,” is simply not sufficient. When we are hungry, we go in search of food. When we are in need, we make necessary changes to insure sufficiency. If we truly believe Paul’s statement that “I can do all things through him who strengthens me,” we take that to mean we should do all things that must be done.

Most dictionaries define the word contentment as satisfaction, as well as ease of mind. Is it possible to have one without the other? Could Paul have been at ease knowing God will make provision and, at the same time, longing for positive change? Our Heavenly Father sent his son to a strife torn world so that we may have everlasting life. Was the Father or the Son somehow “satisfied” with leaving our place in the cosmos subject to the deceptions and the sophistries promoted by the forces of darkness and death? Absolutely not. And, for all of us that are willing to envision, accept, and strive for our highest and best destiny, the Prince of Darkness was effectively deposed in our individual experience by the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

During our brief time on this world, the most profitable thing we can do is study the life and teachings of Jesus for it will undoubtedly inform the way we can best make the most of our lives and the way we may be of service to others. There is a reason we are admonished to wash the inside of the bowl first. When the oxygen mask drops from overhead on an airplane, we should put ours on before helping others to put theirs on. We must be spiritually and materially healthy to be of any real and meaningful value to our omnipresent God as well as to the others around us.

We should never confuse a fleeting and subjective gratification with an enduring and supreme objective satisfaction. Jesus promised a spiritual helper to help us better differentiate between the two. Our Sovereign said The Spirit of Truth will lead us into all truth. And that truth exists at the nexus of facts, meanings, and values; the corollaries of which are science, philosophy, and religion. We depend upon this triad to achieve a balanced understanding of the whole of truth.

There are believers who are fond of saying “When the Lord returns, the world will be made right.” And yet, in his Parable of the Talents, Jesus made it clear that the servant that was industrious, the one who made the most of the resources entrusted to him, was praiseworthy. This example stands in stark contrast to the servant who failed to leverage the assets, who merely protected them and effectively buried them. That servant was described as indolent, slothful, and even wicked. The religion of the Spirit is not an opiate. It was not bestowed to make us contented.

In the Book of Genesis God is quoted as saying “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; and let them have dominion . . .” The verse, and of course the rest of the book, go on to describe the extent of our particular dominion. But here we need to understand just what is meant by the term dominion. Most modern dictionaries define it as the power or right of governing and controlling. And those of us that take our responsibilities seriously take this phrasing to mean God has delegated such authority in a way that confers upon us certain obligations. 

The written Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each, with minor variations, quote Jesus as having said: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel’s, the same shall save it.” There is a principle that Our Father put forth that governs his far-flung creation. It is that we must each provide something of value for the common good. The people that are just going along to get along within the world must learn to re-focus their energies and make a difference, to effect positive change.

Will the Master, upon his return describe our stewardship as faithful, or will he say: “You knew I would require an accounting with reasonable profit, such as your diligent fellow servants have this day rendered. I’m taking the one talent from you and giving it to the one who has the ten talents.”

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The “Build Back Better” initiatives are designed to benefit We the People. Conversely, they the few would find it far more difficult to sustain the last gasp of an outmoded economy by which they have been steadily and unjustly enriched. Consider what it would mean to Exxon Mobile if charging stations for electric cars are more available and easier to find. How would the financial services industry continue to profit from Medicare Advantage plans if vision services, dental services and hearing aids were to be provided through basic Medicare? And, what if the pharmaceutical industry were suddenly prevented from price gouging as Medicare renegotiates prescription drug prices?

Fleecing the people became common practice once the United States Supreme Court insured that the consent of the governed would never be an informed consent. The dark money that secures the justice’s nominations, confirmations, and accommodations constitutes a direct assault on the integrity of the Court. When Samuel Alito told a Notre Dame Law School audience that the court has been wrongly cast as “a dangerous cabal,” he was railing against what is now a common understanding by a citizenry that finally perceives the court for precisely what it is.

The hidden wealth, the dark money politics, and the coddling of kleptocrats defines the justices that have set aside the mission statement, the overarching principles, and the spirit of the law as embodied in the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States. While masquerading as originalists and textualists, certain counterfeit conservatives have now taken center stage as the most cowardly scofflaws. Alito’s effort to dumb-down the plain text understanding of a shadow docket and an unsigned order is not resonating with the demos.

The Supreme Court has, over the course of recent history, legalized the bribery of public officials. It has embraced the most sociopathic interpretation of corporate personhood whereby such legal fictions can have free speech rights while the executives running them can hide behind the corporate veil for harmful policies. This is true even when such policies are designed to deprive people of their most basic civil liberties up to and including life itself.

The Supreme Court is a product of political process. Senator Mitch McConnell, having blocked then-President Barack Obama’s 2016 nomination of Merrick Garland, said the presidential election year precluded Senate action on a Supreme Court nominee. Then, four years later, after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, McConnell ensured that Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed just days before the 2020 election. Barrett was introduced by McConnell, at the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center in early September of 2021. In what was her first major appearance since her confirmation, she had the gall to say the Supreme Court is ‘not a bunch of partisan hacks.’

It is big-oil, big-finance, and big-pharma that are actively corroding the democracy underpinnings of our constitutional republic. They have done this by corrupting our executives, our legislators, and our justices. The lack of intellectual rigor, the moral relativism, and the deceptive practices are what we get when we elect prevaricating politicians motivated by self-aggrandizement. They are beholden to big money because money can always sway public opinion.

The Supreme Court was, and is, the greatest enabler of deceptive practices. It is the entity most responsible for ushering in, what has been described as, the post-truth era. It has, through judicial ineptitude, effectively converted what Marshall McLuhan once described as a whirlpool of information, into a cesspool of disinformation. Today, this is evident through the way our elected representatives can deliberately mislead the public, with impunity, on initiatives that could finally produce a beneficial return on our taxpayer investments.

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. did not get the popular vote for President based upon his record as a United States Senator. People have not forgotten how he helped the credit card companies push usurious interest rates into the realm of political acceptability. He didn’t get the vote based upon any possible metanoia resulting from tragedy within his personal life. No, Biden got the popular vote because of the other guy’s self-serving antics and the way a “build back better” initiative might help recapture the country from control by foreign potentates. 

The current administration didn’t just represent the lesser of two evils. It offered hope for those who still cling to the vision of a more perfect Union, whereby equal justice under law could become a reality, and where domestic tranquility is possible. They voted for someone who would provide for the common defense against microscopic foes, someone who would promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

The United States has very real enemies both foreign and domestic. It is teetering on the precipice. And, the only thing that will restore our nation’s health and vitality is a full embrace of the principle whereby sunlight is the best disinfectant and where full transparency, in every transaction, is part of this country’s unique value proposition. When a coherent value proposition informs our strategic architecture, we will again become this world’s most competitive engine of true benevolence.

One of my all time favorite Far Side cartoons is the one where there’s a guy pushing a wheelbarrow full of rocks in a hell-fire and brimstone sweatshop. He’s in this whistle while you work mode as devilish figures are standing off to the side talking. The caption read something like: “You know, we’re really not getting through to this guy.”

A recent experience reminded me of that particular imagery. I have a very long driveway in a mountainous area. Parts of it are relatively stable on a bed of stone while a delivery of large rocks is blocking other parts. The construction has been going on for years and I usually enjoy living on the canvas with all its challenges.

This week started out with lots of rain in the forecast and, with a pile of rocks blocking part of the driveway, turning the car around can be a problem. At my place, when you’re not driving on stone, you’re driving on clay that’s really slippery when wet. I arrived home just as the rain was starting and got the car stuck in the mud. I thought to myself: “No problem, I’ll yank it out using the truck.”

The truck is four-wheel drive and, of course, one gets a certain sense of invincibility while driving it. I got partly deflated when I also got the truck stuck. But, as one never willing to admit defeat, I thought: “No problem, I have a winch!” It was one of those cool ones with a wireless remote control and I was dying to try it out. I chocked the wheels so the truck couldn’t roll or slide further down the hill, put it in neutral, and attached the winch cable to the straps I had wrapped around a huge tree.

I stood there with a big smile while using the remote control to pull the truck out of the mud and onto the gravely part of the driveway. My humility lesson came when the winch broke. The truck rolled down the hill, pushing the chocks through the mud as it crashed into the car. I looked to the sky and said: “Glad I could be of some entertainment value.” Actually, that’s not what I said. And I’m not going to share what I did say. I did however look at the sky. It was getting much rainier and the ground was getting slipperier so, knowing I was well past the point of diminishing returns, I decided to take a nap.

As I awoke I was already thinking about next steps, I did a food inventory. I also wondered if I had become a source of amusement for our angels. I thought about Jesus and his admonition to “Be of good cheer.” I’ve always thought he must have a great sense of humor. I also love being around those with a pioneering spirit. One popular statement was meant as an expression of encouragement for those taking on a wide variety of difficult tasks. I am certain Jesus appreciates the can-do attitude that moves those who rise to face any given challenge, and especially the line: “Well, if Jesus tarries and the creek don’t rise . . .” After Hurricane Fred, and the tropical storm that preceded it, any reference to a rising creek is especially resonant here in Western North Carolina.

I have another good friend that helped me free my truck. As for the car, it’s covered with the mud that was thrown on it by the spinning wheels of the truck. I’m content with letting the rain wash off the mud. And now I’m also content with just waiting for the rain to end and for the ground to dry. It is that feeling of contentment that freed me from impatience. Another friend, after reading about my experience with the car and the truck wrote: “There’s a parable in there somewhere.”

Indeed. The experience reminded me of a statement by the Apostle Paul. For he said: “I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” And there was more to Paul’s statement for he went on to say: “I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Sometimes the secret to facing our challenges is just a prayer or phone call away. Those who live on the canvas, in rugged terrain, help each other out as needed. I could have gotten a ride to the grocery store at any time through the power of friendship. Sometimes our angels stand back, and let those who refuse to act on their light of truth learn lessons the hard way. In my case the comedy show resulted in minor cosmetic damage to material possessions. From a spiritual perspective, I also knew, in advance, that the rain would stop, the ground would dry out, and I would regain traction in the near future.

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The full faith and credit of the United States is only held to be of value by those who are actually loyal to these United States. Foreign potentates, that want to retard our progress, don’t care about this country’s future viability. True conservatives know how to invest wisely while, to the penny-wise – pound foolish faux conservative, ‘investment’ is a dirty word. Those masquerading in conservative garb are redefining conservatism in ways that are thoroughly selfish. If, for example, the United States were to default, even for a short time, the money lenders would have an excuse to raise interest rates in perpetuity. The gamesmanship, with respect to the debt limit, is clearly designed to further enrich the grifters that effectively own and operate about half of the U.S. legislature.

Such dampers on our entrepreneurial enthusiasm operate through the Senate filibuster, the debt ceiling, and subservient politicians. Feigning concern for the family farm is just one recent example of the way the unrepresentative head fake the electorate. Consider the grain embargo upon the Soviet Union in January of 1980. American farmers were the ones that felt the brunt of the sanctions, while it had a much lesser effect on the USSR. While that embargo may have yielded unforeseen and unintended consequences as the Soviets sourced grain from Brazil, the 2019 trade war represents a failure to learn from history. Customers can always find another willing supplier and, considering the decades of work American farmers put into cultivating relationships with Chinese consumers, it is heartbreaking to see the fruits of such labor go up in smoke.

We would do well to remember that sometimes, when the Amazon is on fire, the American farmer is toast! On August 19, 2019, the MODIS instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite captured a natural-color image that revealed fires burning in the vicinity of Novo Progresso in the Brazilian state of Pará. The town is located along BR-163, a straight north-south running highway that connects farmers in the southern Amazon with a port for ocean-going vessels located on the Amazon river in Santarém. Pasture and croplands are clustered around the highway in ordered, rectangular plots.

Douglas Morton, chief of the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, described the snapshot in this way: “Fire activity in the Amazon varies considerably from year-to-year and month-to-month, driven by changes in economic conditions and climate. August 2019 stands out because it has brought a noticeable increase in large, intense, and persistent fires burning along major roads in the central Brazilian Amazon. While drought has played a large role in exacerbating fires in the past, the timing and location of fire detections early in the 2019 dry season are more consistent with land clearing than with regional drought.”

The oligarchy is motivated by only one thing and that is profit margin. The closer they can get to the cost of slave labor in producing whatever they sell, the happier they are. I once attended a party that was hosted by someone who enjoyed a position of prominence at the commanding heights of the world’s economy. I was enjoying a glass of fine wine and, as I was setting my glass down, I happened to notice the advice on the napkin. It read: “Remember, first you pillage then you plunder.”

In what American business leaders once referred to as “Corporate Japan,” there is a deeply held tradition that could be of value, informing people of good will as we move forward to rebuild our economy. Although Japan’s businesses are known for being fiercely competitive, there is an undergirding question that explains a certain cohesiveness. In addition to the profit motivation, Japanese corporations all operate within the context of one common question, “What is good for the country?”

That particular country also has its fair share of lobbyists and special interest groups including guilds, clubs, economic federations, industry and trade associations, and professional societies. These too lead with a value proposition wherein all deliberations are conditioned by the national interests and those of their countrymen. Self-sacrifice is viewed as unnatural in light of Japan’s Confucian tradition. Even so, self-interest must dovetail within the nation’s commonly held framework of values as conditioned by its needs, goals, and aspirations.

In Germany,a so called conservative government has insured that no one is without health insurance. The country has one of the best public transportation systems in the world. The Constitution requires all citizens live with dignity and this includes government action to ensure all citizens have a home, food, clothing, toiletries, furniture, transportation, and enough money to cover the minimal expenses of life. They have a basic allowance to helps all poor people to meet their most basic needs. And, to insure their competitiveness throughout future time, the country provides free education up to the PHD and MD level.

In the USA there are certain “leaders” who take great pride in the avoidance of any tax while being the first to complain when their shiny new car hits a pothole on a poorly maintained road.

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Ours is an entrepreneurial country. It has attracted a diverse complement of people, from around the world, some of whom possessed little more than a dream and some pocket change. They sought what matters most, that unique form of spiritual idealism that can move a great humanity from one level of attainment to the next. Once here, they often encountered retardant forces that held them back due to a penny wise, pound foolish, counterfeit conservatism that lacks any serviceable vision for the future.

Democracy by itself is definitely not a panacea, for without the constitutional overlay, an unbridled democracy may be accurately portrayed as three wolves and a sheep deciding on dinner. Even so, democracy done right, dovetailed with a properly crafted constitution, has tremendous implications for the good of humanity. If we believe, as the Declaration of Independence states, that we are each endowed with certain “unalienable rights” and a spiritual status that is truly “equal,” then just how can we go about making it real for everyone?

To create a more equitable community engagement, we must begin with situational awareness, by contrasting and comparing the aspirational statements contained in our country’s founding documents, with our actual conduct as a nation. Accordingly, the first thing we should realize is that we’re currently situated on a rudderless ship of state. We can certainly build a new rudder. But, once we regain control of the ship, just where are we to be headed? Will it be to a fathomless orgy of darkness and death, or ever upward into an era of light and life?

Our ship of state needs what poet laureate John Masefield called “a star to steer her by.” And this is best seen through eyes of sincerity. We each have powers of discernment that could be greatly enhanced through a real appreciation for the enduring value of individual advancement. That rising tide that lifts all boats has the potential to either submerge human-kind or benefit a great humanity. Much of the outcome depends upon how we power the so-called ship of state. Will we continue to row in such an uncoordinated way, to pull in opposite directions? Or, will we finally leverage the volitional horsepower of a unified nation to build a truly authentic culture of benevolence?

Dwight David Eisenhower, during his Farewell Address in January of 1961, gave a prophetic glimpse into our challenges as they will persist well into the future: (INSERT AUDIO) “Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society’s future, we – you and I, and our government-must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.”

In the commencement address at American University in June of 1963, John Fitzgerald Kennedy said: (INSERT AUDIO) “So, let us not be blind to our differences – but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”

Conservative columnist George Will, in his book Statecraft as Soulcraft examined how the power of the state can create conditions that either foster the growth of blessed souls or the imprisonment of seriously stunted intellects and tortured souls. He admits that his vision may appear to share some traits with totalitarianism. However, like Edmond Burke, Will places great emphasis on the voluntary associations and values that are seen as essential to an informed consent of the governed and a functioning free society.

Burke, in his 1775 speech on Conciliation with the Colonies, described our countrymen as “able to snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.” He said “. . . here they anticipate the evil, and judge the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle.” In his book The Soul of America, biographer John Meacham wrote: “in the battle between the impulses of good and of evil in the American soul, what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature” have prevailed just often enough to keep the national enterprise alive.” 

The founders of these United States were, like the rest of us, greatly flawed individuals. Because of this they understood that moral depravity was a factor to be considered while framing our Constitution. Today, we find ourselves immersed in a world of competing ideas and we need to understand it if we are ever to be truly free. Unlike the self-interested politician, a strategist is always focused upon the over-riding principle as derived from the Unique Value Proposition.

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Incentivizing innovation involves risk. Entrepreneurs typically set up corporations or limited liability companies to insure they are not personally liable for debts should the venture fail. In 2019, the failure rate for startups was about 90%. At that time research indicated that 21.5% of startups fail within the first year, 50% fail before they are five years old, and a whopping 70% fail by their 10th year.

If the company is unable to pay its creditors, unpaid creditors can seek payment by a variety of means. Under certain circumstances, a court can ignore the form of a company and hold executives, directors, shareholders and members personally liable for fraudulent conduct. When courts lift or pierce what is referred to as the corporate veil, individuals within the company can be held criminally liable for its debt.

It should be noted that the corporate veil is seldom lifted in the absence of fraud. And such fraud is almost always limited to questions about money. In June of 2020, the Wall Street Journal reported how PG&E Corporation became one of the few U.S. corporations to be convicted of homicide-related charges. In the Superior Court of California’s Butte County, where the 2018 Camp Fire razed the town of Paradise. The utility plead guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter.

The deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history claimed more than 18,800 structures, including 13,696 single-family homes and 528 businesses. Judge Michael Deems did not lift the corporate veil to incarcerate executives or officers of the company for what was widely held to be criminal negligence. The hearing, which was streamed across the Internet, was meant to serve as public chastisement of a company derided for its greed and stockholder-first corporate culture.

A grand jury report berated PG&E accusing it of a “callous disregard” for public safety, failure to heed warnings about its aging power lines and refusal to learn from previous mistakes. The 92-page report also said, and I quote: “Through a corporate culture of elevating profits over safety by taking shortcuts in the safe delivery of an extremely dangerous product – high-voltage electricity – PG&E certainly led otherwise good people down an ultimately destructive path,”

Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said at a news conference that he hoped the guilty pleas would send a message to other companies in the United States. Unfortunately, the message it sends reinforces the United States Supreme Court’s sociopathic notion of corporate personhood, one in which the actual persons making life and death decisions with depraved indifference, are shielded from the kind of criminal penalties non-privileged citizens often face. While Ramsey described the culture of negligence that included badly overlooking maintenance and training, he said that during the investigation “it became clear that profit was a driving force.”

This was nothing new. In 2010, a high-pressure PG&E natural gas transmission pipeline segment in San Bruno ruptured. The explosion, in a residential neighborhood called Crestmoor, claimed eight lives while an entire block was destroyed. Authorities blamed the explosion on the company’s failure to properly maintain its gas lines. California regulators determined that in the years before that fire, PG&E had taken in revenue of hundreds of millions more dollars than what was authorized by the state while it had significantly underspent on maintenance and infrastructure needs.

According to Subsidy Tracker, PG&E Corporation also received state and local subsidies of $1,513,416 since 2012. It has received federal grants and allocated tax credits of $216,946,462 since fiscal year 2000. Notably, PG&E spent $5.3 million on state and local political campaigns in 2017 and 2018.

The recent Perdue Pharma opioid case demonstrates that individual corporate policy makers are routinely shielded from the consequence for their reckless indifference to the plight of those adversely affected. The Constitution of the United States, in its Preamble, requires our legislators, executives and judges to “provide for the common defense.” By any reasonable interpretation, this should include protections from the criminally insane, the deaths and injuries that are the result and due to the fault of the person wielding the knife, shooting the gun, driving the car, or implementing the policy.

Shielding an individual bad actor behind the corporate veil is routine in American jurisprudence. Certain Justices, masquerading as originalists and textualists, are fond of saying that the authorities of the government are limited to the powers enumerated in Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. Such pretenders give themselves a pass on the obligations conferred by the Overarching Principles, the Mission Statement, and the Cardinal Precepts as articulated and delineated in the constitution’s Preamble. The contempt they have habitually shown for the most fundamental rights of We the People, is hard to ignore.

There is an engraving over the doors to the Supreme Court building. It reads: Equal Justice Under Law. When the justices began their flirtation with a corporate personhood, they conferred superior rights upon corporate executives. Most of the distortions within our constitutionally grounded democratic republic are directly traceable to the Court’s consistent failure to hold the man behind the curtain accountable.

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In Doha, Qatar on February the 29^th in 2020, the United States entered into an agreement with the Taliban. The four part “comprehensive peace agreement included the following two provisions concerning the security of the United States and its allies:

1. [It] Guarantees and enforcement mechanisms that will prevent the use of the soil of Afghanistan by any group or individual against the security of the United States and its allies.
2. [It] Guarantees, enforcement mechanisms, and announcement of a timeline for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan.

Just above the signing declaration at the conclusion of the agreement is one final operative paragraph that states:

The United States will seek economic cooperation for reconstruction with the new post-settlement Afghan Islamic government as determined by the intra-Afghan dialogue and negotiations, and will not intervene in its internal affairs.

Now if, despite all the ambiguity, the guarantees concerning the security of the United States and its allies somehow covered the withdrawal operations, why did they not commence immediately upon the execution of the agreement, in February of 2020? At that time, if indeed the withdrawal was covered, special squads could have moved throughout the countryside with minimal risk. They could have moved vulnerable individuals allied with the “freedom forces” to evacuation points where the aircraft could have also operated with minimal risk. 

Stephen Miller, then a top adviser to President Donald Trump, was incredulous during a fall Cabinet meeting in 2018. According to one person in the room Miller asked: “What do you guys want? A bunch of Iraqs and ‘Stans across the country?” According to CNN, several sources claimed the Trump administration was purposefully slow-walking the entry of all refugees – including allies who aided American soldiers in Afghanistan.

The Special Immigrant Visa program was created in 2008 It issues visas that are sometimes referred to as SIVs. The program was later expanded to offer visas to any Afghan who was able to demonstrate “at least one year of faithful and valuable service” to or on behalf of the U.S. government. Military interpreters – whose lives were in danger because of their work for U.S. forces in Afghanistan have sometimes had to wait years to obtain a visa through the SIV program.

According to data from the U.S. State Department, from the beginning of Fiscal Year 2008 through June of 2021, more than 76,000 Afghans, including visa recipients and their families, have been allowed into the country under the SIV program. The U.S. Congress amends the legislation every year, to make sure enough visas are available. It wasn’t until July of 2021, that lawmakers authorized an additional 8,000 visa slots and more than $1 billion to fund the Afghanistan evacuation.

The quarterly reports that are published on the State Department website show that between March and June of 2020, only 3 SIVs were approved. Between July and September of 2020, an additional 283 were approved.. And, from October to December of 2020, only 237 additional visas were approved. In all three of the quarterly reports, the number of people interviewed for the visas in Kabul was listed as zero. The reports do show that two Afghans were scheduled to be interviewed during the July to September period and nine were scheduled to be interviewed from October through December. According to the reports these interviews were to be conducted outside of Afghanistan.

According to the International Rescue Committee, “Only 16,000 Afghan SIVs have been issued since 2014 despite the availability of 26,500 total authorized visas during that time.” They said “There are more than 18,000 applications in the current pipeline, impacting a potential total of 53,000 individuals including family members.” The Congressional Research Service reported that 2,134 Afghan interpreters and family members were admitted in 2017. Then, in 2018, the number dropped to 524. In 2019 we saw that number cut by more than half to 248. And in 2020 it dropped to 98. Although some point to the Pandemic as one cause for the decline, the downward trend was well underway prior to the time CoVid even became a factor.

At this juncture we must consider the extent to which the outgoing administration was engaging in deliberate obfuscation during the 2020-2021 transition. The State Department’s slowdown, with respect to visa processing, didn’t became clearly evident until Biden took office and Antony Blinken was sworn-in as the new Secretary of State.

The desperation and bottle-necked evacuation we witnessed at the airport in Kabul, indicates a failure on the part of prevaricating politicians that refused to act on a timely basis in accordance with their prior agreements. No amount of blame shifting is going to resonate with those citizens that are cognizant of the agreement together with the timeline.

It should also be noted that the willingness of the Afghan Army to lay down their weapons was clearly foreseeable in light of the failure to adopt a coherent strategy going into the country twenty years ago. Ask yourself, why would any army stand and fight when their leadership had already fled. 

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Whenever we are in need of a humility lesson we would do well to remember that, with one trifling exception, the entire universe is composed of others. When Galileo tried to make the case that, likewise, neither our planet or its sun is the center of the universe, he was forced, under the penalty of death, to deny theory he floated. The abjuration of Galileo in 1633 is another thing we would do well to remember. For it read:

“I, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei of Florence, being 70 years old, swear that I have always believed, believe now and, with God’s help, will in the future believe all that the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church doth hold, preach and teach. But since, after having been admonished by this Holy Office entirely to abandon the false opinion that the sun is the centre of the Universe and immovable, and that the Earth is not the centre of the same and that it moves, and that I was neither to hold, defend, nor teach in any manner whatsoever, either orally or in writing, the said false doctrine; and after having received a notification that the said doctrine is contrary to Holy Writ, I wrote and published a book in which I treat this condemned doctrine and bring forward very persuasive arguments in its favour without answering them: I have been judged vehemently suspected of heresy, that is of having held and believed that the Sun is at the centre of the Universe and immovable, and that the Earth is not at the centre and that it moves. Therefore, wishing to remove from the minds of your Eminences and all faithful Christians this vehement suspicion reasonably conceived against me, I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith these errors and heresies, and I curse and detest them as well as any other error, heresy or sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church. And I swear that for the future I shall neither say nor assert orally or in writing such things as may bring upon me similar suspicions; and if I know any heretic, or one suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor or Ordinary of the place in which I may be.”

Of course, neither the Earth or its sun is the center of the universe, but the Galileo experience underscores a much bigger concern. The man was not even free to advance a theory and was forced to deny his highest conception of truth and fact or lose his mortal life. He did this at the hand of a corrupt authority, a morally bankrupt and spiritually insecure church. Where Our Heavenly Father gave each of us the right to accept or reject the divine plan, the church engaged in intimidation and coercion. Turn or Burn was, in the long run, a vein attempt to usurp the authority of the Spirit of Truth. 

Spiritual unity should never be confused with uniformity. Where God bestowed a questioning mind through which we may discover, prayerfully consider, and freely embrace the divine attributes, the institutional church actually retarded progress through its own control freakery nature, its threats, and the demand for lockstep conformity. The Church was never supposed to be a Mechanical Bride.

Marshall McLuhan authored a book by that title. He was concerned by the size and the intentions of the North American culture industry. He wrote: “Ours is the first age in which many thousands of the best-trained individual minds have made it a full-time business to get inside the collective public mind. . .” Are today’s academic institutions, with their own entrenched priesthood, better equipped to free us from certain habits of thought? Or are they, like the church of the dark ages, top heavy with dead intellectualism? It is not a question of being an educated fool versus a religious one, for ignorance concerning the true role of religion is pervasive. We, the earth bound, should be asking if lockstep conformity with the fleeting standards of either theological or political correctness is somehow superior to such conformity with any other dogma? At some point we must ask; “Where is the freedom in either case?”

The Book of Matthew describes a pivotal exchange between Simon Peter and Jesus wherein Peter exclaimed: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied: “. . . flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church . . .”

The pivotal moment consists of how some would interpret “this rock” to mean Peter while others see the Spirit giving rise to the revelatory experience. The “Get thee behind me Satan” rebuke Peter experienced just moments later betray any notion that the true church would be built upon anything other than the direct connection we can each enjoy with Our Heavenly Father who dwells simultaneously within our minds and at the Center of the Universe.

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In the United States, during 1933, there was a conspiracy to violently overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and install a dictator. In the so-called Business Plot, the oligarchy had attempted to recruit a popular Marine General, Smedley Butler, to orchestrate a march of five-hundred thousand men with the goal of capturing, kidnapping, and killing Roosevelt. Butler testified under oath in 1934, before the United States House of Representatives Special Committee on Un-American Activities, also known as the McCormack–Dickstein Committee. He said that wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans’ organization with Butler as its leader.

There is little agreement among historians as to whether the coup was actually close to execution. However, most do agree that a “wild scheme” was very much in the works. Butler had supported FDR in the 1932 US presidential election, he started denouncing capitalism and bankers in 1934. He said that, for 33 years, he had been a “high-class muscle man” for Wall Street, the bankers and big business. He labeled himself as a “racketeer for capitalism.” The bankers labeled Roosevelt as a socialist out to destroy private enterprise, by sapping the gold backing of wealth in order to subsidize the poor.

Butler supported Roosevelt in the election and became a strong critic of capitalism. Even so, the plotters felt his popularity and his good reputation would attract wide support. Butler said that, according to the plan, he would have held near-absolute power in the newly created position as “Secretary of General Affairs. “Those implicated in the plot by Butler all denied any involvement and no one was ever prosecuted.

At the close of the committee hearings in January of 1935, John L. Spivak published two articles in the communist magazine New Masses. The articles included portions of testimony to the committee that had been redacted as hearsay. Spivak held that the plot was part of a plan by J.P. Morgan and other financiers who were coordinating with fascist groups to overthrow Roosevelt.

The struggle between We the People and they the few has always been centered on the highest and best interests of the masses as opposed to the unmitigated selfishness of those with an exaggerated sense of self-importance. The inheritors, skimmers, and hoarders of wealth have long held a cynical view of the electorate while the politicians prostituting positions of honor and trust have had to pay no significant penalty with a constituency they regard as having the attention span of a fruit fly.

The economic royalists of our day have not only bought the politician, the opposition, and the watchdog; they have accumulated such vast wealth as to insure their outsized influence will effectively govern well in to the future. The only thing that will convert the vicious cycle into a virtuous cycle is a wide spread awakening on the scale of what took place during the 17^th and 18^th century Age of Enlightenment.

The illogical extremes, of those that cater to every whim of the most parasitic financiers, can be exposed for precisely what it is. However, our media is caught up in a faddish “advocacy journalism” that is not journalism any more than agenda science is somehow science. Even our churches have become bifurcated along Jesusonian versus Luciferian lines. And, a reckless indifference to the truth, has only served to eclipse “the way, the truth, and the life.”

Our politicians often put a wet finger to any political wind to determine which way it is blowing, to know where they must run so they can appear to be leading. To these prevaricators, actual statesmanship is an arcane, banished idea. Meanwhile, their addled constituencies amplify political talking points with no particular depth of understanding and no real interest in developing one. For every hour of each and every day they prove the axiom that a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek.

James Freeman Clarke got it exactly right one hundred and fifty years ago when he said: “A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation.” A politician that is more concerned about a primary challenge than the health of our nation is not just putting party over country. That common type of cowardly vacillator is governed exclusively by self-interest, and they have no plausible deniability on that.

The threat of a violent overthrow was very real during the Business Plot of 1933. It was real on January 6^th in 2021. And it will be real during the election cycle of 2022. There are people who are addicted to Luciferian sophistry and they have been mainlining deception. They represent a system of values that sentient beings find abhorrent. And, because of this fact, the only way they can win elections is by cheating.

To pretend you care about our constitutionally grounded democratic republic while tolerating voter suppression, voter intimidation, election subversion, and dark money politics, is to perpetrate a fraud on your friends, your family, your countrymen, and your God. There are, however, people of good will among us. And, their religion is not a fashion statement.

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We each have faithful companions that sometimes go unrecognized. One is the Promised Helper that sojourns with the human soul. Jesus referred to this Spirit of the Son as The Spirit of Truth that will guide us into all truth if we are sincerely willing to be led. He was also referring to his personal spiritual presence when he said: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and if any man will open, I will come in.” If you sincerely desire to reach your highest and best destiny, then this divine Spirit will gently and lovingly lead you along the pathway of sonship and spiritual progress. Every step must be in accordance with our own thoughtful free will. It will be one of many steps taken as we embark on a journey through intelligent and cheerful co-operation.

Jesus said: “I will be with you, and my spirit shall go before you into all the world.” Clearly the Spirit of the Son is empowered to do precisely what Jesus promised. Throughout our history, humanity has encountered and been told of many spirit influences, both “clean and unclean.” And, once the Spirit of Truth was “poured out upon all flesh” at Pentecost, it became the faithful guide while coordinating the full spirit complement that indwells and envelopes us. Even so, true Spirit leading is never tainted with coercion, nor is it in any way compromised by compulsion.

There is also the Holy Spirit. This is Our Creator Son’s Spiritual Consort that has been conceived of, throughout history, as the Creative Daughter. In addition, there is the direct presence of Our Heavenly Father, nested within the minds of humankind. It is an integral part of that endowment resting gently upon the electrochemical mechanism we think of as the physical brain. We have something from The Father himself which actually dwells within us while our minds and bodies serve as temples.

When Paul wrote: “in Him we all live and move and have our being,” he was cognizant of Our Father’s all pervasive nature. God is omnipresent in addition to being omniscient and omnipotent. The knowledge of the Spirit is profound in addition to being complete. That part of God, that indwells our minds, is able to reveal things to us as needed in service of the Kingdom. 

Ours is not merely an elemental, fundamental, or even an intellectual religion. It does not stem from the religions of arbitrarily assumed authority but is rather a truly experiential religion of the Spirit. Likewise the Sovereignty of Christ is not one of arbitrary assumption. Jesus lived a bestowal life characterized by fatherly devotion and tender affection within the context of personal relationships. He faithfully submitted to the will of Our Father, not because of any unworthy motivator such as fear. He did so because they truly love one another just as Jesus admonished us to love one another.

Faithful submission also serves our highest and best interests within a vast universe of universes. Within this diverse creation, we each have the potential to be perfect even as the Heavenly Father is perfect. This can occur only within the context of Divinity, that characteristic unifying and coordinating quality of Deity.

The carpenter always has some important reference within the larger creation and uses visual clues to “true up” or align his own creation with that larger truth. For a painter, the quality of the work always depends upon the quality of light falling on the canvas. A musician must work with the components of sound to build a soul satisfying connection with the audience. The individual notes that comprise a chord are not unlike the color combinations used by the visual artist, and like the latter, the overall effect on any good work will be consonant, dissonant, diminished, augmented and ultimately resolving in ways that are pleasing to the listener. Without taking the time to tune however, the individual musician cannot contribute much to the creation of beauty or give what would be termed a good performance.

What the true Lover, Painter, Carpenter and Musician have in common is high motivation. Through their commitment to the high mission of art, they foreshadow a higher reality. When Jesus said “Love one another as I have loved you” he was underscoring the fact that his life was lived in accordance with an overarching commitment to that which is true, beautiful and good. The act, in accordance with the Golden Rule, yields good habits, the healthy conditioning we have been seeking. 

The Divine Son who admonished us to love as he loved had, in effect, redefined and upgraded the golden rule. For his love has always been expressed in accordance with the highest concepts of Truth, Beauty and Goodness comprehensible by us. While it is true that the prophets who walked before him always taught in accordance with the light of their day, Jesus is the whole light, the rule, the standard reference, the first violin, the perfect pitch, the Truth. And his Spirit of Truth is right now laboring to move us into a greater appreciation of that Truth.