Babylonian fallacy
Twentieth Century Reflections
29/April/2009 10:20 Filed in: Weekly
Column
Today Americans celebrate the ascendancy to the
Presidency of Barack Obama, the anointed one. For
now the plurality believes strongly in his
messianic vision. Growing minorities however are
beginning to look at him as the other end of that
religious spectrum. My mission here today is not to
change anyone’s opinion, but to point out that our
forty-fourth president is just the latest and last
(re)incarnation of what has set the American agenda
for perhaps a century, at least from the end of the
Viet Nam war.
This operating paradigm focuses upon the role of bigness to solve all the hiccups of human problems. Where do we begin, big urban centers, big business, big labor, big special interests, big politics, big wealth evolving into big debt, big consumption, big bureaucracies, and big government. All of these and perhaps many more are now giving us a world in which the individual has to go it alone, because these big solutions, treat human beings, created in the image of God, as no more than other components of the material world.
When you put the Obama presidency in that light what you see, is not the light of a messiah, but rather the end of an era in which largeness for the sake of itself has run out of gas. The emperors of the paradigm have no clothes, but they still believe they can create them if we figure out some way to provide a method to finance the whole shebang.
George W. Bush played his role very well. Under his watch enterprise imperialism became the dominant force in the world, and we are not talking about the shooting wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the War on Terror. Thru the unregulated financial schemes began in the Clinton Administration; the enterprise imperialists brought the world’s wealth to American shores, and exported incomprehensible debt financial schemes to pull it off. The roots of this growth emphasis however, can be traced back through presidents for most of the century, for big things take time.
As the final player, this time as a true big government leader, the gifted Obama has completed his first one hundred days. By being very busy, he and his teleprompter make their rounds. So far there seems to be little substance, which was not really preexisting underlying economic strength. Really the economy was not that bad until late last year the unsustainable nature of enterprise imperialism became apparent as a drag on real wealth and wealth creation.
Read More...
This operating paradigm focuses upon the role of bigness to solve all the hiccups of human problems. Where do we begin, big urban centers, big business, big labor, big special interests, big politics, big wealth evolving into big debt, big consumption, big bureaucracies, and big government. All of these and perhaps many more are now giving us a world in which the individual has to go it alone, because these big solutions, treat human beings, created in the image of God, as no more than other components of the material world.
When you put the Obama presidency in that light what you see, is not the light of a messiah, but rather the end of an era in which largeness for the sake of itself has run out of gas. The emperors of the paradigm have no clothes, but they still believe they can create them if we figure out some way to provide a method to finance the whole shebang.
George W. Bush played his role very well. Under his watch enterprise imperialism became the dominant force in the world, and we are not talking about the shooting wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the War on Terror. Thru the unregulated financial schemes began in the Clinton Administration; the enterprise imperialists brought the world’s wealth to American shores, and exported incomprehensible debt financial schemes to pull it off. The roots of this growth emphasis however, can be traced back through presidents for most of the century, for big things take time.
As the final player, this time as a true big government leader, the gifted Obama has completed his first one hundred days. By being very busy, he and his teleprompter make their rounds. So far there seems to be little substance, which was not really preexisting underlying economic strength. Really the economy was not that bad until late last year the unsustainable nature of enterprise imperialism became apparent as a drag on real wealth and wealth creation.
Read More...