Monday, August 19, 2024

Predictions

Contrary to popular opinion, the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures didn't predict future events (that kind of prediction was considered blasphemy and anathema, and practiced by godless Gentiles who were just fooling somebody). They told the truth about the times and situations they lived in. Quite often they fulfilled Harry Truman's aphorism: "I didn't give 'em hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell." It was Matthew's gospel that turned the writings of Isaiah, words of hope for a people suffering the Exile, into predictions about Jesus of Nazareth. Not really an abuse of scripture, but not necessarily the only purpose Isaiah had in mind. Julie Green wants to be Isaiah. She's the kind of charlatan Ezekiel decried. As I've said before, the problem with the future is that no one lives there. The Hebrew prophets spoke of the future only to indicate God was already there, and hope was already present; in a very grim present for their audience. They offered succor for the present, not focus on the future and ignore the injustices of the present. It was injustice, they argued, that put Israel behind the 8 ball. Fight that in the present, and you will create a better future. Always up to you, not some cosmic Daddy who cleans up after you.

Not too unlike what Harris and Walz are offering.
"The Radical Left protesters in Chicago are going after the Democrat Party because the know they are weak and ready to break into a full blown party of Socialism or, if they really do their job, and with a little bit of luck, the Communist Party of the United States of America," Trump wrote. "They are already very close and, having a Marxist trained and believing President whose father is a Marxist professor, Comrade Kamala Harris, stranger things have happened!"

Last time I heard talk like this from the top of the GOP ticket, it was Barry Goldwater going down in a landslide defeat to LBJ, a landslide exceeded only by Nixon's re-election over McGovern eight years later. 

I remember a Michael Jackson video on MTV (yes, I'm old!), where Jackson was "morphed" (such was the term of art then) into a black panther; and back again. It was all the rage because it hadn't been seen before. Pretty sure nobody even then thought Jackson was actually transformed into a panther; or today, that dragons are real, or people in costume are actually changing into other people and they are all rock musicians. I mean, if this is all you've got, Elmo, maybe you need to read some more books. (And no, I don't really worry about the nefarious impact of AI. Lindell and Trump are stupid without it, and their powers of persuasion have worn off. "A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest." AI won't improve that, or make it any worse. Even television finally lost its power to mesmerize. Every new tool eventually becomes dull and commonplace. Onward, thru the fog.) Behold the power of prediction.
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