Saturday, July 23, 2016

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.


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