The Anti-Rapture

May 21, 2011 came and went, and the world did not end. According to radio evangelist, Harold Camping, the end was supposed to begin at 6 PM, marked by a series of cataclysmic events, and the rapture, when 200 million faithful would ascend to heaven. That did not happen. Instead, we got jokes.

Of course, most sane people knew the world would not end - would not even begin to end. But you might be surprised at how many "sane" people hoped something would happen - not in their backyards, certainly, but on the other side of the world; perhaps on the other side of the country (as though the floods and tornadoes were not enough.)

These people hoped - not out of cruelty, nor out of schadenfreude (malicious glee), but out of a genuine hope that this world, this species called "man" would be shakened to a new consciousness of itself and what it is doing. It did not happen.

So, man's inhumanity against himself continues. As Sonny Corleone so famously put it: "They hit us, so we hit 'em back." Yes, Sonny, ad infinitum. And the ravaging goes on - the human rights abuses, war crimes, sexual assaults, missiles - missiles galore - retributions, and indifference. Nothing short of a cataclysm can end it, and even that is no certainty. Perhaps nothing less than the total destruction of the human species will end it, so that all remains is those simple earthlings we call "animals" - they who have shown they know how to co-exist for millions of years where we complex ones fail in a few thousand.

If man's rapture is seen as 200 million faithful ascending to heaven, Earth's rapture must be when all seven billion of us ascend at once, and forever. No other cataclysmic event necessary.

(Mr. Obama) You Kiss Babies Like You're Scared of Them

We are disillusioned, Mr. Obama, and I think our condition is permanent.

Yet, you seem to have deluded yourself into this false security: Democrats will support you because you are all that stands between them a Republican.

Do not be confused. Democrats may not like Republicans, but they do not fear them. (At least, Republicans do not lie to them.) Democrats know what Republicans have, and Democrats survive when Republicans gain office. You, on the hand, promise "change" then give Democrats much of the same. In that case, the quality of their survival is diminished.

The political pundits think the economy will sink you; I think differently. The economy is bad, but the Republicans can do no better, especially with their obsession with Reagan era economics which was not nearly so great as they remember.

No, you will fall because you chose bombs when we chose you to be different.

When you killed those nine Afghan boys who were gathering firewood outside of their village, you crossed over into a region from whence you can never wholly return. A bit of remorse might have helped, but you had none. Instead, you showed up at a media event that very same night and "yukked it up" with the high muck-a-mucks.

You do not see that act as murder because you did not pull the trigger - you sent others to do it for you. And they flew so high, they did not see the killings, themselves; they only knew there was dying below. And it is they - our young men - who merit the pains of conscience. At times, their conscience overwhelms them; but not yours. We are starting to wonder if you have one.

Can you imagine, Mr. Obama, what it is like to lie in bed at night as bombs fall all around. Imagine the terrified looks on your daughters' faces when they run to your bedroom with their screams. That would be your worst nightmare. Yet, you wreak this reality on children in Tripoli, Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, and you are immune to their cries.

With the money you have spent terrorizing civilian populations, you could have fed billions. You could be turning third world clinics into first-rate hospitals; desserts into oases. Instead, you ask for more bombs, and then go on a billion-dollar fundraising tour to insure four more years of your presidency.

We had hope you would be another Lincoln. Instead, you became the worst baby-kisser of all time.