commentary: Brave New Dystopia

As A Nation, We Are Proceeding From Bad to Worse
John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 01-Jan-11; Sermon #1026c; 9 minutes

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Each of these commentaries touches on prophecies of the time of the end. They pertain to what we are living through, and what we may not understand is actually happening. I give them in the hope that your understanding might be a bit more full in a practical, day-to-day way.

Things are happening at a pretty advanced rate of speed right now. What is happening indicates that things are growing more and more ominous. For instance, gold topped $1400 an ounce this week. Silver topped $30 an ounce. They probably will not stay there; they'll fluctuate. But the overall trend, I can guarantee you, is going to go up. These are very strong indicators that a worldwide—get that, worldwide—economic collapse is not all that far away. People with money to invest are rushing to buy these precious metals in order to protect the wealth that they have already accumulated. They are looking for material safety and salvation. As they do, the price of these two commodities are pushed ever higher.

Now, we need to push our relationship with God closer and closer, because that's where spiritual salvation and safety reside. It is the only realistic hope. Gold is not forever. Love, faith in God, and hope, along with the eternal life, are.

But to me, the most thought-provoking article that passed through my computer this week was one that was titled "A Brave New Dystopia," written by one Chris Hedges. I had no idea what "dystopia" means, so I looked it up. It's a word that you and I would probably never use in our entire lifetime. It comes from the fields of medicine and pathology. It indicates a faulty placement of an organ or a [body] part. A far out example would be this: It would indicate a circumstance where one was born with with his heart, instead of being in the middle of his chest, was somewhere down near his hip. That's a dystopia. Or, a surgeon with mistakenly place a transplanted organ in the wrong spot. That would be a dystopia.

In this article, the body is the Western world, primarily Britain and the United States. The organ was two prophecies, or forecasts, both written by seriously imaginative English authors. The authors were George Orwell and Aldus Huxley. Orwell was the author of 1984, and Aldus Huxley of Brave New World.

1984 is the one that we are most familiar with. Orwell forecast that the world by that time—that is, 1984—would be one in which all lived in a semi-oppressive society in which Big Brother is constantly watching every move of its citizenry. Books are banned. Right is wrong. Truth is error. It's a world in which all natural and normal values are turned completely upside down. He foresaw people as victims of corporate totalitarianism, and subject to crude, violent forms of control.

Huxley's vision was entirely different. Huxley foresaw the citizenry of the future world seduced and manipulated through sensual gratification, boundless credit, with mass produced goods readily available. The citizens are dulled by political theater and entertainment amusements. Impoverishment is right on their heels.

Which one was right? Which one was wrong? The answer is both of them were right. Both saw the future quite accurately, the difference being that rather than both happening at the same time, they should be understood as one following the other. That's where the dystopia comes in, because people were putting them together.

Where are we now? Huxley's vision was the first to come to pass, and it is still operating, especially in the United States, because things did not begin to happen at the same time in both nations. They began first in Britain and therefore are more advanced there. But we are right on their heels and we are following fast.

Brave New World is the prelude; 1984 is the conclusion. Huxley understood the process by which we would give ourselves over to enslavement. Orwell understood the enslavement that resulted.

Where are we now? I believe that we are somewhere very close to the middle. But with us being several steps into Orwell's world and away from Huxley's, we are transitioning from one to the other.

Several years back, during one of those two sermons that I gave on the oil crisis, I said that I believed at that time that the United States already had the form, if not the name, of a fascist government, which is what Orwell forecast. One of the features of a fascist government is that it consists of an alliance of the political government with the financial power of the corporate world. Another feature is that as it gains strength, elections matter less and less as government authority gradually becomes dictatorial.

Brethren, the façade of America being a republic is fading. Bill Clinton, George Bush, and now President Obama in some ways are virtually ignoring Congress, almost like it is an appendage that is not really needed. They simply execute executive orders, taking Congress out of the action. They make decisions and follow through with that which they wish to do. Step by step, the citizens of Britain and the United States are being led into peasantry, and as Mr. Hedges stated in the article, the noose is tightening. Distraction by amusement is ending. Repression is growing. Big Brother is becoming ever bigger.

JWR/aws/dcg

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