The state, which has never been a fan of federalism, has decided to embark on a new action to buck Washington. Their new idea? The South Carolinian Doubloon.
“If folks lose faith in the dollar, we need to have some kind of backup”, Tea Party Republican and State Senator Lee Bright explained. It is his proposal for the legislature to create a joint committee from the Assembly and State Senate to study the “feasibility” of an alternative currency.
Bright’s legislation states that the U.S. monetary system is headed for full-scale collapse. “Many widely recognized experts predict the inevitable destruction of the Federal Reserve System’s currency through hyperinflation in the foreseeable future.”
Bright’s effort is all in part of his larger plan to crate an independent South Carolina Republic. He was recently quoted by a local paper, “If at first you don’t secede, try again.”
Others in the state, however, believe it is a waste of time. Phil Bailey of the Senate Democratic Caucus wondered how the study will be funded, “Will they be paid in actual dollars or gold doubloons?”
Although gold doubloons would be pretty cool to collect, we here at D+T would like to see South Carolina stay in the Union. Mainly for the reason that we just finished our state quarter collection, and we have become pretty attached to collector’s map.
Kyle Daley, Death & Taxes
So there is a call for freedom in the land of the free man. I believe we're getting serious reverberations here from the upcoming Age of Aquarius. Why? Well, if we look at how the ages affect religion, for the last two thousand years, we have been in the Age of Pisces. Religiously, this means it's about veneration, self-sacrifice and looking for the answer above, leading to a parental construction of God. This is what we have in Christianity and Islam, the dominating religions of the past twenty centuries. The Age of Aquarius, however, is about the collective. It is no longer about a relation to God and to others that is mutually exclusive, but a relation that considers God and others and oneself as all being one.
We are seeing these themes manifest in other growing areas, such as environmentalism and nutritional holism. These philosophies advocate looking at the Earth and our environment as part of one giant collective self. The film Avatar shows this in a much more literal sense, but it's a good example of what I'm talking about: we have this collectivity represented by the being Eywa. I'll explore the movie in a future post, relating it to Aquarian themes.
This all ties together with the revolutions in the Arab world. This is something that hasn't been limited to Tunisia and Egypt only, it is happening in many, many countries (Morocco, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Djibouti, possibly others). We are seeing here the power of the collective again. The Egyptians and Tunisians have shown the world that the collective will ALWAYS be stronger than the individual, so long as the collective does not become an individual in and of itself.
In the Age of Pisces, we looked to the skies for the answers and for paradise. Now, in the Age of Aquarius, we will realise that heaven is down here on Earth, and that God is not an abstract figure in the skies, but the sum of the collectivity here on Earth: the people, the environment, the planet.
p.s.: as an interesting note...in the film 2012, there is a massive polar shift, and the new South Pole ends up in Wisconsin. Hmm, change in polarity, massive disruption, Wisconsin...Guess that's another movie to add to the list.
A few points:
ReplyDelete(a) an "astrological age", if it does exist, can only determine the background conditions of human events, it can only be a material cause. Ultimately those who determine a history are the individual conscious actors. And I say "a" history, because there is no common subject to all human stories, therefore no universal story embracing all people.
(Olavo de Carvalho has fantastic remarks on what count as an agent in history: http://www.olavodecarvalho.org/textos/terraqueo.html (search for "atomismo" to get there and read on))
(b) The strong distinction between the heavens and the stars on the one hand and terrestrial life on the other is principally a mark of cosmological religions which preceded Christianity. Judaism already put a dent into it by the equality of all creation before the creator and Christianity is not at all about seeking the answers "above" with an "abstract figure" but is about the miraculous incarnation of God here below. God became man so that man might become God, as St. Athanasius put it.
(c) Knowledge is always individual. If something is known somebody knows it. A collectivity in itself is ignorant. What does "the collective will ALWAYS be stronger than the individual, so long as the collective does not become an individual in and of itself." mean? Did not the arab uprisings occur because internet media allowed the protesters to organize themselves, i.e., form a unity? Are they not, in the best light, uprisings demanding democracy, i.e., the rights of the individual?
On the inidivual vs. the collective see Olavo de Carvalho's essays on his website, for example: http://www.olavodecarvalho.org/livros/nefinais.htm
(d) that God includes all of reality is a traditional monotheistic teaching: nothing exists outside of God, all things exist in him. To make him the aggregate of psycho-physical reality is it make him not be the supreme cause of all things, but be dependent on his "constitutive parts". To eliminate the transcendence of God is to subject man to the transcendence of Chance and Fate.
(e) on Eywa, I don't think we should be misled by the images of Avatar: what is most like the Mother Tree, the treasure trove of memories, this living organic computer is not the organic nature we know at all, but our cultures and traditions. This has implications for "what is Eywa".
Hey Teege, thanks for your input.
ReplyDeletea) I believe we will not agree here due to differing viewpoints, although I perfectly understand and accept yours. I do not believe that history is defined by individual, conscious actors, or at least I do not see it that way. Individuals are a product of the times, even if they somehow consciously manifested themselves into such. I guess the difference between us is that I see material causes as being much less important.
b) I agree that the concept of God is inextricably tied to humanity itself, perhaps as a projection of sorts, but the fact is still that God is characterised as being above, as being somehow distinguished from mankind. The oneness of God and people underlies the central tenets of those religions, of course, but overtly it is not how the religions manifested themselves. This miraculous incarnation of God below is an Aquarian theme that many people did not really feel, or at least express. The churches themselves are a manifestation of this, for in a true God-is-us religion there is no need for an intermediate between man and God (this is the principle the transcendentalists evoked, and thus I see them as a harbinger of the mentality to come - they did in fact come quite late in the story).
c) To put it bluntly, I disagree. Perhaps it is simply a question of my believing in something you do not. I do indeed see the collective human spirit ('collective' here can manifest itself in different scales, of course) as being distinguished (not entirely, though) from an individual mind. They are irrevocably tied, of course, as are any two elements in diametric opposition, but they are still two edges of an array. My point here is that an individual, or a small collection of individuals, could not cause the change that is happening without tapping into something greater than their individualness. This democratisation is indeed for individual rights, but it cannot happen if not through the collective.
d) My point is that I see the figure of God as more of a Force (Star Wars) or a Holy Spirit than the image of the old bearded guy in the sky. This does not mean, however, subjecting people to chance and fate: the aggregate collective does have a will of its own, although it is inevitably tied to the individual components that make it up.
e) Erm, yes, I don't really disagree here...I think I fail to see your point
Anyway, I hope you understand where I'm coming from