Apocalyptic Jubilee

"Build it bloodless and they will come"

Perhaps "revival" may be a better word for what we now-a-days like to call "revolution". Revolution has taken such a negative connotation as violent means are almost always associated with it. Revival, on the other hand, has little to no negative connotations and can effect societies the same if not better.

To put bloodless into context, let me remind you of some of Malcolm X's words in 1964,

"America is the only country in history in a position to bring about a revolution without violence and bloodshed. But America is not morally equipped to do so." 

A little later he concludes The Black Revolution with,

"Revolutions are fought to get control of land, to remove the absentee landlord and gain control of the land and the institutions that flow from that land. The black man has been in a very low condition because he has had no control whatsoever over any land. He has been a beggar economically, a beggar politically, a beggar socially, a beggar even when it comes to trying to get some education. In the past type of mentality, that was developed in this colonial system among our people, that today is being overcome. And as the young ones come up, they know what they want. And as they listen to your beautiful preaching about democracy and all those other flowery words, they know what they’re supposed to have.

So you got a people today who not only know what they want, but also know what they are supposed to have. And they themselves are creating another generation that is coming up that not only will know what it wants and know what it should have, but also will be ready and willing to do whatever is necessary to see that what they should have materializes immediately. Thank you."

The plight of the civil rights movement has been largely assuaged at the ballot box. Experience has revealed socioeconomic inequality as an even deeper threat to modern civilization than racial/cultural motives. The hubris of financial persuasion has directly subverted the election process, in America of all places, with Citizens United, recognizing First Amendment rights to corporations even those solely created for "electioneering". Indirectly, the media is awry with irrational bias suited to any demographic with advertising seemingly contradictory to the virtuous precepts of any respectable philosophy or religion of the world.

Now, revival as I mean it here is the growth of something or an increase in the activity of something after a long period of no growth or activity. That something, actually two somethings, and I get back to my title, are apocalypse and jubilee. I mean the Greek etymological root of apocalypse as in to uncover or reveal and the Abramic tradition of Jubilee specifically the ideas of forgiveness of debts and the leaving of the earth fallow. The second reason for observance of Jubilee found at http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/ states,

"The physico-economic and socialistic theories are that rest from labor is an absolute necessity both for animal and for vegetable life; that continuous cultivation will eventually ruin the land. The law of the Sabbatical year acts also as a statute of limitation or a bankruptcy law for the poor debtor, in discharging his liability for debts contracted, and in enabling him to start life anew on an equal footing with his neighbor, without the fear that his future earnings will be seized by his former creditors. The jubilee year was the year of liberation of servants whose poverty had forced them into employment by others. Similarly all property alienated for a money consideration to relieve poverty, was to be returned to the original owners without restoration of the amount which had been advanced."

Presently the observance of Jubilee is associated merely with an annual carnival with games, rides, and attractions and apocalypse is a synonym for WW3. There has been a long period with no growth or activity of what these ideas originally mean from the context of the people who created them. A revival of these ideas are pertinent to humanity of the 21st century as a public health concern to the species as a whole and the socioeconomic, spiritual, and psychological well-being of the individual. 

Dyer consequences can be nonviolently averted and a "bloodless" revival can happen with a sense of Apocalyptic Jubilee where misconceptions, misgivings, and debts are vanquished not the people that hold them, where value and common sense are commonplace in commerce, where forgiveness can balance with revenge on the scale of Justice, and where money's detrimental forces are kept from poisoning the well.

"T'is not a holiday if it is not kept holy"

This is the time of year I hearken back to the words proclaimed by men much greater than me. I write not in some vain interest but to keep this occasion "holy", if you will, and to draw attention to the future we project onto ourselves, the innocent, and the unborn. As my fellows plan alcohol parties and fireworks displays, I contemplate the implications of those declarations and the designs of Tyranny they go at length to redress. And I contemplate if the train of abuses and usurpations that describe Despotism have merely morphed and are still present in America today one way or the other.

"He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. 

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. 

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: 

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. 

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions."

I contemplate the words given in Rochester, New York July 5, 1852 by a man born a slave, Frederick Douglass.

"We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. But now is the time, the important time. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. You live and must die, and you must do your work. You have no right to enjoy a child's share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. Sydney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogize the wisdom and virtues of their fathers, but to excuse some folly or wickedness of their own. This truth is not a doubtful one. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. It was fashionable, hundreds of years ago, for the children of Jacob to boast, we have "Abraham to our father," when they had long lost Abraham's faith and spirit. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abraham's great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchers of the righteous? Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men shout-"We have Washington to our father."-Alas! that it should be so; yet it is."

And

"At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced."

I contemplate the vassalage of contemporary America by financial instruments foreign to the Constitution written by men who steadfastly opposed such financing and wonder if we are not in yet another form of slavery. A slavery that is perpetrated by consent and evinced by social and economic factors contrary to our technical capabilities. A slavery where men are born, not as slaves, but as human capital and governed by a bureaucracy, again, foreign to the Constitution but made familiar by the precedents of consent. 

I'm not trying to be all "doom and gloom" or even to accuse although I have in past. I'm a father of four! I want to be hopeful for the future! I have no right to enjoy a child's share in the labor of my fathers, unless my children are to be blest by my labors. 

A new train of thought has been introduced that, this Independence Day, I am now laboring for independence from a status quo that I, for one, am not so sure will do proper justice for all our children. The Zeitgeist Movement Defined outlines this train of thought which is available for all to see at no cost. 

I'll close with it's mission statement

"Founded in 2008, The Zeitgeist Movement is a sustainability advocacy organization, which conducts community based activism and awareness actions through a network of global/regional chapters, project teams, annual events, media and charity work.

The movement's principle focus includes the recognition that the majority of the social problems that plague the human species at this time are not the sole result of some institutional corruption, absolute scarcity, a political policy, a flaw of "human nature" or other commonly held assumptions of causality. Rather, the movement recognizes that issues such as poverty, corruption, pollution, homelessness, war, starvation and the like appear to be "symptoms" born out of an outdated social structure.

While intermediate reform steps and temporal community support are of interest to the movement, the defining goal is the installation of a new socioeconomic model based upon technically responsible resource management, allocation and design through what would be considered the scientific method of reasoning problems and finding optimized solutions.

This “Natural Law/Resource-Based Economy" (NLRBE) is about taking a direct technical approach to social management as opposed to a monetary or even political one. It is about updating the workings of society to the most advanced and proven methods known, leaving behind the damaging consequences and limiting inhibitions which are generated by our current system of monetary exchange, profit, business and other structural and motivational issues.

The movement is loyal to a train of thought, not figures or institutions. The view held is that through the use of socially targeted research and tested understandings in science and technology, we are now able to logically arrive at societal applications that could be profoundly more effective in meeting the needs of the human population, increasing public health. There is little reason to assume war, poverty, most crime and many other monetarily-based scarcity effects common in our current model cannot be resolved over time. The range of the movement's activism and awareness campaigns extend from short to long term, with methods based explicitly on non-violent methods of communication.

The Zeitgeist Movement has no allegiance to any country or traditional political platforms. It views the world as a single system and the human species as a single family and recognizes that all countries must disarm and learn to share resources and ideas if we expect to survive in the long run. Hence, the solutions arrived at and promoted are in the interest to help everyone on Earth, not a select group."