3-29-22 The Apocalypse Journal: Volume II

The Apocalypse Journal: Volume II – Pete Garcia - https://www.rev310.net/post/the-apocalpyse-journal-volume-ii Every empire at one point had some beauty and/or uniqueness that made it stand apart from all the rest. At one point in their being, each empire/kingdom/nation had signs of their distinctive existence dotting their landscape and was reflected by the vibrant towns and cities teeming with their people and customs. However, just as with the laws of thermodynamics regarding entropy, every empire returns to the common ground of absolute zero after they are collapsed. “When we look back through the remnants of the once-great kingdoms, we repeatedly see man’s attempt to thwart the ravages of time. Great structures, towering to the heavens. Vast expanses of granite columns, ziggurats, and other megalithic structures—mankind’s attempt to live beyond his generation. Ironically, we want those archaic reminders to be set far off, into the distant past, often farther than they really were. We want them to be older because we are instinctively uncomfortable with the sight and rapidity of entropy and urban decay. It reminds us of our own mortality. It reminds us of the raw and unrelenting power of entropy. It reinforces the biblical concept that things will ultimately worsen. It reminds us, that when left to our own devices, we default to wickedness, and things fall apart rather quickly. Like the abandoned nineteenth-century coal and steel towns that blight this nation’s landscape, these serve as a reminder of the ravages of time and consequence. Abandoned towns, often overgrown with weeds and vines, mold, and decay, present a dystopian picture of something gone amiss. Once-thriving communities now lie hollowed out, haunted, and home to the creeping things. Playgrounds where children once played now sit rusting under an uncaring sky. Crumbling buildings. Streets and sidewalks cracked and weed-ridden. Their neglect serves as a lingering reminder that human civilization is not so far removed from the cold, dark, woods, that once haunted our ancestors. Moreover, it wasn’t so long ago that mankind became so spiritually decayed that God decided to start again.” Pete Garcia, The New Old Ways (Chapter 10) I wrote the above chapter as a contribution to Terry James’ book, Lawless, in which I describe in more detail the two distinct themes common to human history- the pursuit of forbidden knowledge, and the ruin it causes by recycling said pursuit. When nation's yield to the pursuit of this forbidden knowledge, they do so only by first sacrificing their God-ordained rights to exist. Once said kingdom buckles, these once-vibrant hubs of humanity, now become wastelands of empty towns, empty streets, and hollowed-out buildings. The built-up places are given back over to nature, where rust and vine reclaim their rightful ownership. Their highways and byways, now devoid of life or movement, yield all right-of-ways back to the creatures of the forest. Where there once were sounds of children and commerce, are now replaced with the lonely sounds of the wild. You’d think, given the bleakness of this particular topic, it would be about as popular as shingles or the Bubonic plague. However, I don't suppose I'm alone in this particular fascination of societal collapse. Apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, and dystopian movies, books, and television shows are now so popular, that they have each become their own genres. Given said popularity, I suppose the end of the world has a paradoxical way of both captivating and disturbing most normal people. It reminds me of the famous work of secular literature regarding the temporary and fleeting idea of man's glory and societal collapse; Percy Bysshe Shelley’s (1817) work, Ozymandias. I met a traveler from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.” One would think this fascination would have waned a bit since the onset of the recent dynamic global events of the past couple of years. It would seem the reality of societal collapse is now becoming less and less of an abstract academic or entertainment-based curiosity, and more of a pragmatic one. The threat of societal collapse comes from the intentional and relentless promotion of globalism, open borders, mass migration of displaced peoples, and the erosion of the rule of law. And all these are on top of an already strained global economy saddled with a pandemic. If anything, 2020-21 has given western civilization a small taste of the pending destruction that is on the horizon. I suspect even this emerging reality both scares and fascinates people with equal enthusiasms. Part of it is the fascination we have with wrapping our minds around such visuals as a vacant New York City or Washington D.C. The more appealing aspect of it I suspect is the end of normalcy, particularly, if your version of normal is insufferably mundane or monotonous. Still, while everyone wants to watch the end of the world from a distance, no one actually wants to live through it. Assessment And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. 1 John 2:17 Speaking not from a religious or spiritual standpoint, but simply as a mortal being, we are all (we’re we being totally honest with ourselves) morbidly curious about how everything ends, because deep down, we know it must. How could we not? I mean, everything in our world, to the present, has had an expiration date. To that end, the world is littered with empires, kingdoms, and nations, which have all come and gone. Whatever ruins they have left behind, are only ever hollowed-out shells of what used to be. What remains is nothing more than a shadow of its former greatness. The only purpose they have now is to serve as reminders that this world and the things in it are passing away. I suppose, given my fondness for the topic of geopolitical entropy, people of all stripes have asked me, what I thought happens to the United States in the end? I usually respond with a counter-question akin to something like- what makes us any different than any other empire of old? Kingdoms like ancient Egypt, Babylon, or Rome were all great superpowers of their respective days, and yet, they have all come and gone. I respond this way primarily because it taps into a familiar, historical narrative of what is known. It should (in most cases) remind them that the way things are now, is not how they will always be. True, we moderns can gaze upon the ruins of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome and see when man was once ancient. However, ancient is a matter of perspective. To the ‘ancient Greeks,’ the Chaldeans were ancient. To the young millennials, the 1980s were ancient. The truth is, I do think America was special and divinely chosen to fulfill a particular role/mission here in the last days. What I was referring to in my counter-question was not regarding our purpose for existence, but our longevity. To date, every nation has followed Alexander Tytler’s Cycle of Nations model, or one very similar to it, and we are no exception to that. "Eight Stages of a Democracy." 1) Bondage to Spiritual Faith 2) Spiritual Faith to Great Courage 3) Great Courage to Liberty 4) Liberty to Abundance 5) Abundance to Selfishness 6) Selfishness to Apathy 7) Apathy to Dependence 8) Dependence back to Bondage Furthermore, if what President John Adams had this to say regarding our way of life is true, then I presume we are doomed. He once said…Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Since we have long abandoned any pretenses of being a moral people, what we are now witnessing is the final stages of the demise of our own empire. The truth is, the Bible purposefully making no mention of the world’s greatest superpower in its description of the last days seems overtly obvious. It might be considered an argument from silence, but it is a deafening and unsettling silence. A similar argument could be made in support of this by the unnatural silence found in nature. Normally, when you walk through the woods, you hear all manner of sounds. That is because the woods are teeming with life (birds, insects, squirrels, bears, deer, frogs, etc.) and as such, make noise analogous to life. However, if you were to walk through the woods and hear nothing- no insects, no birds, no animals, and perhaps, not even any wind or rustling of leaves, you know something is amiss. This is the same type of silence regarding the fate of the United States in the Bible. The intentional silence of our nation can only be due to our non-existence. We are far too clamorsome and intrusive to not warrant a mention. In fact, so great is the silence of our existence in Scripture that to think otherwise is too great an oversight for any reasonable person to accept. The fact that we are not mentioned means either we never existed (which can't be true), or rather, are not in existence at the time of the events being described. Obviously, the world without the United States is a significant change to the world order of today. The usual response I get from those who don’t see the US going anywhere is that the US didn’t exist back then, so it was only natural as to why it’s not accounted for in an ancient document like the Bible. However, the Bible does mention other future nations who had not yet come to power by the time of its writing, especially in the Old Testament books like Daniel and Ezekiel. Nations like Persia, Russia, Greece, Libya, the Romans, and a future revived Roman Empire were all future to the time of those prophetic writings, so our exclusion is not without precedent. Is it safe to assume that there were "patriots" in the Roman Empire (circa 4th century AD) who longed to see the revival of the greatness of Rome? How is that any different than our own MAGA and Tea Party movements today? That is not to say it's wrong to want to make your country better or return to more, moral, chivalrous, and honor-bound times. It's not wrong, it's just misguided. We are far too divided as a nation to really ever recover. Think about it this way- if the United States fought a bloody, four-year civil war in the 1800s over the issues of states' rights and slavery (two issues), how much more issues do we have today that are worthy of battle? I can think of a dozen off the top of my head that could split this nation six ways from Sunday. The truth is, as a nation, we have been pursuing our present course of materialism, secularism, and agnosticism since at least the 1960s. The corruption is far too systemic and embedded into every institution to change it now without some cataclysmic civil war or change to our way of life. If the election of Donald Trump in 2016, and the elections of 2020 proved anything, it is just how rotting and corrupt our form of governance has become. Any attempts to change or correct our current trajectory is met with the full force of the bureaucratic deep state, and its minions at nearly every federal and corporate institution. Barring any divine intervention (more on this in Volume III), is the fact this nation is headed for utter ruin. By ruin I mean, a total collapse of our federal, constitutional republic and replacing it with something else. Something lesser. Given the historical tendencies of human history, we are destined to either become or succumb to one or all of the following outcomes: tyrannical despotism anarchism imperial subjugation secession civil war None of these are preferable options to our present situation. Therefore, what would likely happen is as follows. Increased lawlessness until various parts of the country succumb to anarchy/lawlessness Government and corporate tyranny increases to curb said lawlessness (loss of liberty) The fracturing of the union by secession or civil war by states fighting against increased federal tyranny A declaration of absolute despotism when the rightful (in his or her mind) comes to power Societal collapse, and absorption into some other regional or transnational authority Volume II Conclusion It is not my intent to hammer out such a depressing topic on the first week of this new year but to simply and honestly chronicle where we are as a nation. It does no one any justice to lie and pretend we are on the cusp of some great spiritual and economic revival. We have been a collective and geographically isolated people now for 402 years. We have been a constitutional republic now for 246 years. We have been a nation in the throes of a cold civil war now for the better part of 70 years. The divine bill for our decadence and moral corruption has come due, and we (as a nation) must pay the price. The irony is not lost on me of the short-lived Cold War victory against the Evil Empire (USSR); I failed to realize just how short-lived that victory really was. While many were busily glad-handing each other over said victory, the institutions of this nation were drowning in corruption; neck-deep in the fight of our national life. There inside our own borders, was raging the existential clash of civilizations most Americans weren't even aware was happening until at least the 2010s. All that this finally-realized acknowledgment of the war really did, so late in the game, was to recognize that it was already too late. At best, all the Tea Party and MAGA movements did was delay the inevitable by a decade or less. The reason hardly anyone even knew we were in a war, is because this war was not flashy, nor represented in pop culture. It was not fought with bullets or bombs but by treachery and subversion. It was an ideological war of attrition, pitting two ways of life against each other and seeing who will outlast the other. The subversives had been so effective at hiding their true intentions, that to even question it, was to immediately be labeled a conspiracy theorist and shunned by the mainstream. On one side of the conflict, we have a coalition of determined leftists and progressives who have joined hands in an uneasy and unlikely alliance with Islamists, communists, socialists, anarchists, and corporate globalists. While they each have radically different views on how the world should run, they are of the same mind in regards to upending the current world order. On the other side, we have the average citizen, who, though, greatly outnumbering the former, have only recently awakened and are still operating more like a rabble, than a unified front. However, even if the rabble created a unified front, is no guarantee of outcome. The leftists hold all the key government, corporate, social media, academic, and entertainment positions of power. They control 99% of the messaging platforms. They control the propaganda machines. They control the bureaucracy. They are singularly committed to ending our reign as the world's global superpower. While we might have successfully brought down the Russian bear, what replaced it was the multi-headed hydra. You may cut off one head, but two arise to take its place. The only one who can defeat this new beastly foe is not the freedom-loving peoples of the world, but Jesus Christ Himself. to be continued