Value Extractors Even More Stunned
I'd like to humbly recommend a new word for placement in the English lexicon, if I may.
The word is dismendacity.
Please, allow me. Mendacity is the practice of willfully furthering falsehood, and the prefix dis- always means to go against, to reduce, to take apart.
With the new word in place, one may be a bit more edified when analyzing today's World events. Let's look, shall we?
By a narrow margin the House of Representatives voted down the infamous $700 billion "bailout package." Even as they tarried the stock market was beginning its record plunge, ending up 777 points down on the day, a precipitous 7% drop. (What's with all the 7's? Must be something biblical. Well, that in a minute.)
Enough members of Congress refused to bless it simply because they saw that they were about to compel their consituents to hand over gobs of money to enable rank irresponsibility. Financiers and Wall Street gurus of all stripes lent (whoa, lent, how are they doing lending? I dunno. But I digress...) --they lent their two cents worth (a princely sum these days. Oop, I can't help myself...) and it was all fine rigmarole about just what they think about how things will shake out.
Splendidly erudite economese, I must say.
But you won't hear squat from any of them about what's really happening.
At about 4:30 today on the local all-news-all-the-time radio station here in the Los Angeles area, USC prof Raphael Bostic was prattling on about the "crisis," and he said something very interesting. He said that the question that is being asked in some form is, "How much are we going to demand from these banking institutions up front?"
Think about that.
What exactly must that thing be, pray tell?
How meaningful will it be for the VAUNTED BANKING INSTITUTION to say, "We're going to pledge our carpeting, by golly. There it is, all 800 square feet of it, a good $57 at least. And hey, we've got toasters we haven't given away yet. Still in the boxes!"
Excuse us, Mr. Banking Institution Guy, but what about your assets, you know, that stuff of value reflected in what your clients have entrusted to you and your stockholders own?
"Guh? What's that?"
Precisely.
This is where the word comes in. Remember it? I'll remind you.
Dismendacity.
It is nothing other than the practice of not lying. Active real practical actual incessant vigorous not-lying, especially about the value of yourself or of others to the extent you would hold no intention whatsoever of carving out chunks of their value. Because in the end, at its core, all of this economic turmoil--all of it--is the result of plain mendacity.
In my last post I asked the question, essentially, "If all of this stuff that is going on is true, then doesn't it follow that people are worthless?" This may chafe some, but really, I'm just asking the question. I'm not saying they are. I'm not saying they're not.
What is the truth, however?
Sure people do awesomely wonderful marvelous things. They make neat buildings. They write boffo books. They dance spiffy mambos. Please, I'm not making fun. I love those things.
But really.
If you're dead, what difference does it make.
Right now the World is going crazy trying to come up with some solution to the mendacity problem. Look at Congress and the Bushies the past few days. You can almost see the lumps on their heads from banging their heads against the wall, that same wall from which Humpty fell, and they are just not getting how to put him back together again. People have done the exact same thing every twenty years or so for eons and eons and eons.
Lots of banging heads. Bang, bang, bang. What--are--we going--to do--about--this financial--collapse...
"Hey guys! How about this? How about practicing some dismendacity?"
Huh?
Oh, and they're not getting it just because it's a new word--ahem, thank you, thank you very much--but they're not getting it for one simple reason.
They're out of the Kingdom. In fact they're miles and miles and miles from the Kingdom. Not only that, but they like mendacity. All the head-banging is happening only because they've got to find more novel ways to continue doing value extraction. World inhabitants don't approach the mendacity problem to get rid of it, but to make the lie look different. As their heads hit the wall you can hear them slobber--listen close now: How do we do more mendacity but just make it better?
It is only in the Kingdom where you can unashamedly practice dismendacity.
Only by Christ and His love can you know what it means to be genuinely dismendacious.
Actually being transparent about who you are, what your value is (in Christ that's actually a lot, really!) how much you revel in using His gifts to build community and be sure everyone is cared for with all they need to be perfectly content. That, by the way, is a hundred times what the World offers. A hundred times. Jesus said as much, there it is in Mark 10. Look!
These pipsqueaks couldn't even spring for a piddly $700 billion.
Christ would give you the universe and every single thing that is beautiful, wonderful, and glorious in it. He is all over value enhancement, by the galaxy-load.
All it takes is some dismendacity. A breeze with Him.
Impossible with the World.
The word is dismendacity.
Please, allow me. Mendacity is the practice of willfully furthering falsehood, and the prefix dis- always means to go against, to reduce, to take apart.
With the new word in place, one may be a bit more edified when analyzing today's World events. Let's look, shall we?
By a narrow margin the House of Representatives voted down the infamous $700 billion "bailout package." Even as they tarried the stock market was beginning its record plunge, ending up 777 points down on the day, a precipitous 7% drop. (What's with all the 7's? Must be something biblical. Well, that in a minute.)
Enough members of Congress refused to bless it simply because they saw that they were about to compel their consituents to hand over gobs of money to enable rank irresponsibility. Financiers and Wall Street gurus of all stripes lent (whoa, lent, how are they doing lending? I dunno. But I digress...) --they lent their two cents worth (a princely sum these days. Oop, I can't help myself...) and it was all fine rigmarole about just what they think about how things will shake out.
Splendidly erudite economese, I must say.
But you won't hear squat from any of them about what's really happening.
At about 4:30 today on the local all-news-all-the-time radio station here in the Los Angeles area, USC prof Raphael Bostic was prattling on about the "crisis," and he said something very interesting. He said that the question that is being asked in some form is, "How much are we going to demand from these banking institutions up front?"
Think about that.
What exactly must that thing be, pray tell?
How meaningful will it be for the VAUNTED BANKING INSTITUTION to say, "We're going to pledge our carpeting, by golly. There it is, all 800 square feet of it, a good $57 at least. And hey, we've got toasters we haven't given away yet. Still in the boxes!"
Excuse us, Mr. Banking Institution Guy, but what about your assets, you know, that stuff of value reflected in what your clients have entrusted to you and your stockholders own?
"Guh? What's that?"
Precisely.
This is where the word comes in. Remember it? I'll remind you.
Dismendacity.
It is nothing other than the practice of not lying. Active real practical actual incessant vigorous not-lying, especially about the value of yourself or of others to the extent you would hold no intention whatsoever of carving out chunks of their value. Because in the end, at its core, all of this economic turmoil--all of it--is the result of plain mendacity.
In my last post I asked the question, essentially, "If all of this stuff that is going on is true, then doesn't it follow that people are worthless?" This may chafe some, but really, I'm just asking the question. I'm not saying they are. I'm not saying they're not.
What is the truth, however?
Sure people do awesomely wonderful marvelous things. They make neat buildings. They write boffo books. They dance spiffy mambos. Please, I'm not making fun. I love those things.
But really.
If you're dead, what difference does it make.
Right now the World is going crazy trying to come up with some solution to the mendacity problem. Look at Congress and the Bushies the past few days. You can almost see the lumps on their heads from banging their heads against the wall, that same wall from which Humpty fell, and they are just not getting how to put him back together again. People have done the exact same thing every twenty years or so for eons and eons and eons.
Lots of banging heads. Bang, bang, bang. What--are--we going--to do--about--this financial--collapse...
"Hey guys! How about this? How about practicing some dismendacity?"
Huh?
Oh, and they're not getting it just because it's a new word--ahem, thank you, thank you very much--but they're not getting it for one simple reason.
They're out of the Kingdom. In fact they're miles and miles and miles from the Kingdom. Not only that, but they like mendacity. All the head-banging is happening only because they've got to find more novel ways to continue doing value extraction. World inhabitants don't approach the mendacity problem to get rid of it, but to make the lie look different. As their heads hit the wall you can hear them slobber--listen close now: How do we do more mendacity but just make it better?
It is only in the Kingdom where you can unashamedly practice dismendacity.
Only by Christ and His love can you know what it means to be genuinely dismendacious.
Actually being transparent about who you are, what your value is (in Christ that's actually a lot, really!) how much you revel in using His gifts to build community and be sure everyone is cared for with all they need to be perfectly content. That, by the way, is a hundred times what the World offers. A hundred times. Jesus said as much, there it is in Mark 10. Look!
These pipsqueaks couldn't even spring for a piddly $700 billion.
Christ would give you the universe and every single thing that is beautiful, wonderful, and glorious in it. He is all over value enhancement, by the galaxy-load.
All it takes is some dismendacity. A breeze with Him.
Impossible with the World.
Comments
Post a Comment