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Bush And The
Bible
by Alan Marston
Back in the 1970's and 80's the
Western economies and with them millions of people's livelihoods
were being crushed by inflation, enemy #1. We tend to think today
that the enemy was defeated - a fatally flawed assumption, inflation
doesn't go away, it is re-born in the heads of every generation,
there is a severe case in the head of George W Bush and the Western
Way he represents.
Let me explain. Inflation means something
overblown, growing too big too fast. The experience of inflation
is unsustainable and ultimately kills that which it aflicts if
it is not deflated. Currency inflation, the erosion of confidence
in the value of money causing exponential price increases has
been shortened to the single word inflation, which gives a very
mistaken impression that inflation is a money thing. I contend
that inflation is a universal quality that is part of every system.
The universe is a product of inflation according to astro-physics
and right now `the situation' in the global political-economy
is also a product of inflation, inflation of the human psyche,
inflation of biblical proportions, the King Nebuchadnezar condition.
Far fetched, off the track? Definately not.
King Nebuchadnezar is a biblical story of how not to respond to
an inflated ego while the story of Job is a biblical story of
how we can positively respond. All of us humans, who aren't hermits
or recluses can learn from the negative message of King Nebuchadnezar
and the positive message of Job. We all have an ego, we couldn't
live in a social context without it, it is what we identify as
`I am'. While an ego is important, it has to be put in its place,
and that is done during life as we encounter criticism, sanctions,
disasters, crises... in short, the ego's limits are defined by
painful experiences which give us the opportunity of learning
boundaries, limits, proportions and balance. For most, infancy
is the period when the ego has the best opportunity to learn.
Initially ego identifies with mother and mother with universe.
If mother, then father, then siblings then teacher then friends,
then work etc don't cause some painful experiences of separation,
the ego never gets the message that it is a small thing in a big
world, on the contary, it retains that child-like identification
of ego with world. Crudely put, the infant ego thinks it is the
world, it is god-like, ie., the ego is inflated at birth.
What goes up, must come down. The inflated ego, be it in an individual
psyche or that of a whole social group, will eventually meet its
match and the bigger they are, the harder they fall, often to
their death. Nebuchadnezar was too high, the fall destroyed his
mind and the people around him. Job survived the fall, his previous
life went with his ego, evaporated, but people didn't die. George
W Bush can be a King Nebuchadnezar or a Job, and this time billions
of people's lives will be affected by which way he goes. The policies
for which G W Bush is the spokesman are not just about innocent
lives in Afghanistan, not just about geo-political manoeuvres
over oil supply and price, not just about capitalism's future,
they're about how you and me think inside our own heads and act
in our day to day lives and don't sit around helpless, hoping
that Armageddon won't happen this year.
All people are products of their environment and all environments
are changing things influenced by consciousness, especially human
social environments. On the one hand George W Nebuchadnezar could
stay inflated and throw us into the fire as the orginal King Nebuchadnezar
did or George W Job could be influenced by an upswelling of public
awareness of the pivotal point in world politics, he could fall
to earth. It would hurt, but not terminally, and the pain would
re-position not only the ego of GWB but of the whole `American
Way'. And that would be the greatest step forward in politics
since the Annunciation.
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