Oh! No One's Listening! What a Surprise!
Harry Markopolos has a new book out, the one you’d think: “Bernie and Me.” Well, that’s not the title, but that is essentially what it’s about. If you don’t remember who in blazes Harry Markopolos is, he’s the mid-level high-finance seer who eagerly wondered how investment genius Bernard Madoff made bazillions in the markets when he really shouldn’t have. Markopolos then tried like crazy to duplicate Madoff’s success and discovered that it was not only impossible but certifiably criminal. He blew the whistle a number of times only to find he was blowing a dog whistle, you know the kind, completely inaudible to human beings fully immersed in keeping their human sacrifice humming along smoothly.
Thus, the real title of the book: “No One Would Listen.” Sure Markopolos is making the key point that incessantly screeching about bad things and shoving gobs of veritable numbers in the faces of those humming “Camptown Races” with their eyes closed and ears plugged by fingers makes a compelling narrative that’ll earn bazillions in royalties.
But the truth is this.
It is nothing new that no one listens to the loudest evidences of unrighteous behavior all around them in the highest levels of governance, in every institution—political, financial, commercial, ecclesiastical.
Not new at all.
It is really not new that it is not limited to those fancy schnazzy people. Human sacrificers in the ivory towers just make the rules and then spin them so they benefit the most. Crafting the words and images about it all is designed to elicit the most heaving shrug that we’re not like that, that it’s some other cretin to ferociously revile, that we shouldn’t worry that our piddly little human sacrifices are of any matter.
That everyone is deliberately kept in a state of abject reprobation is a key facet of Markopolos’ expose. We like to sneer at Bernard Madoff but the duplicity happens everywhere. Markopolos was himself a Jesuit-educated quant sworn to hunt down the worst of them, he should certainly know. He was all about figuring out what these investment wonks were doing to, as he writes, “make the numbers dance.” Much of the book is a grand but perversely indifferent citation of all the ways value extractors do their job. Madoff just happened to be the stupidest about it. If you look around it is just not hard to find many other fabulous examples.
Here's a good one. Just recently it was reported that film actor John Malkovich is seeking to recover his $2 million Madoff investment. Malkovich includes in this sum what he was told he should be getting. Guh? Where exactly is that amount of money going to come from? It never went anywhere to begin with. And if Malkovich gets any money at all, it will be from sales of Madoff’s assets, but then that means other bilked clients will not be getting their money back—why is Malkovich so special? Or could he be getting it from taxpayers who have handed gobs of money to Caesar only to have it wind its way through the tortuous maze of federal bailout codependency eventually landing in Malkovich’s favorable judgment?
What kind of observer are you? Are you enraged at Malkovich’s gall, or are you doing precisely the same thing? The key is: What’s the difference? The former means you’d like to kick his ass, the latter means you’re, well, kicking someone’s ass somewhere.
Is anyone out there any different than these two very typical kinds of persons?
Does no one listen?
Jesus knew. He knew that no one listened. He quoted Isaiah, from the sixth chapter, right there in the 13th chapter of Matthew:
“They hear but don’t listen. They see but don’t understand.”
He was the only one who knew this. He just knew.
What is phenomenal is that He asked those who’d want to know like He does to follow Him and find out.
And listen and understand.
They’d listen and understand that World inhabitants do human sacrifice, it’s what they do. Christ listeners would understand that they should just be left alone to do it, with maybe a mention about The Way out of it. A follower of Christ loves just enough to share Jesus’ words with them, the ones about the narrow gate. Some may just actually listen. They really may.
A beaucoup number won’t. They just won’t.
Those who really won’t are all the Roman priests dissembling up the gazotch about the most horrific sexual abuses, all the Obamaesque bureaucrats feverishly pounding out more piddly entitlements, and all the slobbering Wall Street vampires who valiantly work to keep the markets a fresh bloodbath.
They're supposed to not-listen. It’s what they do.
Don’t like it?
Are you someone who’s listening? Really listening? Then act on your understanding and get out of the World. Don't challenge it, don't question it, don't make demands of it, don't have a rally holding up big mean-spirited signs, don't run for office in it, don't do anything but acknowledge as Christ did that "because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold," but that with Him you may still love them but do it from the Kingdom.
Go for it, get out of the World and into the Kingdom.
But you gotta take your fingers out of your ears first.
_
That verse Jesus said is in Matthew 24. Right after it He said, "He who stands firm to the end will be saved." For more on the contrast between the World and the Kingdom, look here.
Thus, the real title of the book: “No One Would Listen.” Sure Markopolos is making the key point that incessantly screeching about bad things and shoving gobs of veritable numbers in the faces of those humming “Camptown Races” with their eyes closed and ears plugged by fingers makes a compelling narrative that’ll earn bazillions in royalties.
But the truth is this.
It is nothing new that no one listens to the loudest evidences of unrighteous behavior all around them in the highest levels of governance, in every institution—political, financial, commercial, ecclesiastical.
Not new at all.
It is really not new that it is not limited to those fancy schnazzy people. Human sacrificers in the ivory towers just make the rules and then spin them so they benefit the most. Crafting the words and images about it all is designed to elicit the most heaving shrug that we’re not like that, that it’s some other cretin to ferociously revile, that we shouldn’t worry that our piddly little human sacrifices are of any matter.
That everyone is deliberately kept in a state of abject reprobation is a key facet of Markopolos’ expose. We like to sneer at Bernard Madoff but the duplicity happens everywhere. Markopolos was himself a Jesuit-educated quant sworn to hunt down the worst of them, he should certainly know. He was all about figuring out what these investment wonks were doing to, as he writes, “make the numbers dance.” Much of the book is a grand but perversely indifferent citation of all the ways value extractors do their job. Madoff just happened to be the stupidest about it. If you look around it is just not hard to find many other fabulous examples.
Here's a good one. Just recently it was reported that film actor John Malkovich is seeking to recover his $2 million Madoff investment. Malkovich includes in this sum what he was told he should be getting. Guh? Where exactly is that amount of money going to come from? It never went anywhere to begin with. And if Malkovich gets any money at all, it will be from sales of Madoff’s assets, but then that means other bilked clients will not be getting their money back—why is Malkovich so special? Or could he be getting it from taxpayers who have handed gobs of money to Caesar only to have it wind its way through the tortuous maze of federal bailout codependency eventually landing in Malkovich’s favorable judgment?
What kind of observer are you? Are you enraged at Malkovich’s gall, or are you doing precisely the same thing? The key is: What’s the difference? The former means you’d like to kick his ass, the latter means you’re, well, kicking someone’s ass somewhere.
Is anyone out there any different than these two very typical kinds of persons?
Does no one listen?
Jesus knew. He knew that no one listened. He quoted Isaiah, from the sixth chapter, right there in the 13th chapter of Matthew:
“They hear but don’t listen. They see but don’t understand.”
He was the only one who knew this. He just knew.
What is phenomenal is that He asked those who’d want to know like He does to follow Him and find out.
And listen and understand.
They’d listen and understand that World inhabitants do human sacrifice, it’s what they do. Christ listeners would understand that they should just be left alone to do it, with maybe a mention about The Way out of it. A follower of Christ loves just enough to share Jesus’ words with them, the ones about the narrow gate. Some may just actually listen. They really may.
A beaucoup number won’t. They just won’t.
Those who really won’t are all the Roman priests dissembling up the gazotch about the most horrific sexual abuses, all the Obamaesque bureaucrats feverishly pounding out more piddly entitlements, and all the slobbering Wall Street vampires who valiantly work to keep the markets a fresh bloodbath.
They're supposed to not-listen. It’s what they do.
Don’t like it?
Are you someone who’s listening? Really listening? Then act on your understanding and get out of the World. Don't challenge it, don't question it, don't make demands of it, don't have a rally holding up big mean-spirited signs, don't run for office in it, don't do anything but acknowledge as Christ did that "because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold," but that with Him you may still love them but do it from the Kingdom.
Go for it, get out of the World and into the Kingdom.
But you gotta take your fingers out of your ears first.
_
That verse Jesus said is in Matthew 24. Right after it He said, "He who stands firm to the end will be saved." For more on the contrast between the World and the Kingdom, look here.
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