Article Contributed on: 1/18/2009 10:54:30 AM
This has implications for world politics, in an arcane way.
What if there were a people who did not believe they had any individual power of their own. What if they'd been taught that they were oppressed by conditions beyond their control, and that they needed help to get along? What if they were looking for some answer to their prayers to help them feel better about life--not so helpless, not so deprived and stressed?
Cut to another scene. What if there were a world crisis going on, due to conditions beyond anyone's control, and anything that could have gone bad, did go bad? National leaders were all meeting, scratching their heads, looking for a way to fix it, and fast, lest the constituents suffer? The leaders of Europe and Asia and the New West stood in front of maps and stuck pins in them to show where people wereout of work, and they thought if they only had the money, they could go beyond governing, to becoming employers of people.
Cut to a church. The church leaders have a variety of subjects to lead on, but this time they choose the theme "Jesus is coming. The end is near." They say, this world is wicked and there's no hope. Here come the End Times, the Antichrist, the Tribulation. Wait for the battle cry, wait for the Rapture! They figure, most people have given up on the noble causes and the moon has turned as red as blood. Palestine is threatening to drive Israel into the sea. OH WELL, we tried to warn you....
In a scientific lab somewhere, funding has been cut for only the most important-sounding programs. Well, there are temperature data we could use to extrapolate an impending environmental disaster. Why not ramp up the descriptive terms? Our lab will be funded for another year and I can keep my salary, a professor says.
But there is hope. Someone different and unknown comes along. Surely new thinking will provide new answers.
Quickly the scientists find him and tell him of their concerns. This man is not a scientist, but he does hold considerable purse strings, so maybe they will be able to enlist him.
World politicians see that this man actually doesn't have a whole lot of political experience. He is relying on advisors of whom the world knows very well from past interactions. The world will turn to him. What, in their experience, is the best tactic for working with someone like this? Those of much acumen know how to play him.
Churches adore this new leader because he is handsome, clean cut, and speaks well just like their favorite ministers. They are troubled, looking, and have formed a ready audience.
Ordinary people at home see how they lack savings and other assets. Many lose jobs and don't have many ideas on how to correct their problem. They don't know how to make the most of their money. They just want what feels right. The new leader says the greatest things!
And then it turns out that the world carries on, day after day, requiring the same amount of effort to get through. The jobs that were created ran out of funding because the money being used to pay for it came from a source that dried up, because it wasn't really being generated, it was just being recirculated. The climate changed but it required people to adapt to slightly altered conditions, which took money but there wasn't any because much of the wealth had been an illusion. And Jesus never arrived.
It's only a story.