http://www.afr.com/business/agriculture/billionaires-beef-up-in-bush-20150710-gi8qlk
The more I read about the shrinking of the middle class through debt and gross consumerism, as well as unemployment, and the more I read about the fast growing underclass completely dependent on the government, the more I am reminded of the old story The Time Machine.
Those with gobs of money seem to be buying up land in many areas, They will control the food supplies.
I predict, and I have thought this for a long time, that in the end, after financial chaos, there will be two classes-the mega-wealthy privileged, who belong to Bilderberg et al, and a slave class.
What I saw in Europe was the sadness of the middle class, from which most of us online have come, as they see their rights and status slipping into the ocean of big interests. In America, people pretend they have money by using credit, and have slipped into la-la land regarding their personal financial futures.
The American Dream was never a reality, but a progressive fallacy based on the isms of Americanism, materialism, consumerism. My intelligent wealthy friends are not in debt, have sold their investments, and are buying land. Why? They know the value of land, and the not-so-future need for access to food supplies. They can see the take-over of a few multi-national companies and they are nervous about this government's ability to control OWG interests.
Big is in, small is out.
The easiest examples to see must be the almost total lack of Ma and Pa shops of any kind. Yesterday, a friend of mine and I had to go through my old neighborhood on our way to a restaurant. He is much younger than I am and we had worked on moving my books in the afternoon.
Time for dinner at a new Middle Eastern place brought us through the streets which in the 1950s and 1960s were choc-a-bloc with all the shops necessary for baby-boomer parents-small independent shops and businesses, now all gone--all but one barbershop.
In two generations, small entrepreneurs, once the backbone of America business, have disappeared.
More than that, the good, old work ethic has been swept away as well.
Up and down those blocks were large houses of large families of children of Catholic and Lutheran parents, playing ball, swimming in the local pool, now gone, going in and out of each others' houses and walking to school.
That middle class and lower middle class groupings have contracepted themselves into extinction.
Churches have been decimated and at most daily Masses, I am one of the youngest in the pews, at 66!
The frenetic seeking for comfort has destroyed the middle and lower middle class ability to wait until one has the money to buy something, to put children before goods, to be content with small.
Catholics wanted to be Americans first and Catholics second--this lack of family life and the lack of a cohesive communities are results.
Bargain hunting is now the main entertainment for many people....and garage sales sell things people have bought in knee-jerk compulsive buying. When I speak to people about frugality or simplicity of life, except for the few, most do not understand the language of temperance.
Less is more. But, the middle class has forgotten this. This class will be forgotten in the future, as a failed experiment growing out of the prosperity and new trade, family banking systems and businesses of the great boom of the birth of the bourgeoisie.
This demographic change will affect the Catholic Church, which historically in America, was made up of the lower middle class and the lower upper classes, not the middle class until the 20th century.
We were a Church of the poor and the wealthy who knew what noblesse oblige was all about. That concept went the way of gross greed and gross capitalism based on gross individualism.
Result: an underclass stuck dependent on the socialist system the Founding Fathers never dreamed of and would decry; and the institutionalized greed of the mega-wealthy.
I shall not see this future of master and slaves, as the process will escalate only after many other changes, which will give power to the few who have been planning this destruction of Christian lifestyles, but this cultural scenario has all happened before in pagan times. Now, that we are in the great time of the Neo-Pagans, one cannot expect either a work ethic or noblesse oblige.
The Church keeps us from the worst errors a civilization can endure and still continue. Without the Church, no family is protected, children are not protected, women are not protected, and the general communal spirit which brings people to work together in simplicity and sharing falls away, decays, and dies.
"See how they love one another" cannot merely be a dream but a reality in the face of the shock of the future, to make a pun out of a famous book.
God will allow us all to be purged of sins, all sins, and purified. Thanks be to God for these times in which we live, but saints are more necessary than ever.
My view of the future of the Church is that God will raise us mighty saints in these times-men like Bernard, Dominic, and Benedict, and women like Etheldreda, Mechthild, Catherine.
I may not see these great saints, but for the Church to survive in the future, families could be these great souls for the benefit of the universal Church.
Exciting but trying times ahead. From today's Lauds:
Habakkuk 3
The Lord will appear in judgement
In spite of your anger, Lord, have compassion.
Lord, I heard what you gave me to hear,
and I was struck with awe of your work.
In the midst of the years, bring it to life;
in the midst of the years you will make it known.
When you are angry, you will remember your mercy.
God will come from Theman,
the holy one from the mountain of Pharan.
His glory has covered the heavens
and the earth is full of his praise.
His brightness shall be like light itself,
rays shining from his hands –
there is his strength hidden.
You went forth for the salvation of the people,
for salvation with your anointed one.
You made a way through the sea for your horses,
in the silt of many waters.
I have heard you, Lord,
and my stomach churns within me;
at the sound of your voice my lips tremble.
My bones rot away, my steps stumble.
I will rest and be quiet on the day of tribulation
and let it overtake those who have invaded us.
For the fig will not flower,
the vines will not fruit,
the work of the olive will be lost.
The fields will yield no food,
the flocks will be cut off from the sheepfold,
there will be no cattle in the stalls.
But I will rejoice in the Lord, take joy in God my saviour.
The Lord God is my strength.
He will make me as sure-footed as the deer.
He will lead me up to the heights.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.
In spite of your anger, Lord, have compassion.
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