So where were the Evangelical church leader voices BEFORE the election, and last week and in-between?
@lovendures, I totally agree. While I am very thankful for the Christianity Today editor-in-chief’s candid remarks, where has he been for the past 4 years? Wasn’t T’s despicable conduct apparent even before he became President? Mr. Galli states "The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president’s moral deficiencies for all to see." He's GOT to be kidding. They’ve all been witnessing T's immorality and cruelty for the past three years, and have done and said nothing. NOTHING. Where was their "loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments" when children were taken from their parents and being housed in cages? As long as they got their judges, that’s all that mattered.
And I wonder as well – if Pence weren’t VP, would Mr. Galli be so willing to demand for T’s removal from office? They’ll still get everything they need if Pence becomes President.
Where has the editor of Christianity Today been all these years? He's been the editor of a right wing journal all these years. But now he's going to retire in two weeks, so it's likely he's wanted to take this stand all along. I found his explanation for why he was standing up to Trump now totally disingenuous. His response to the Muller Report -- that it was too confusing for him to understand -- was not believeable. He's the editor of a large national publication but he couldn't decipher the Mueller Report? The mainstream news and the Muller hearings contained dozens of summaries geared to the level of a sixth grader. What about the Access Hollywood tape? What about Trump's violent threats to people who protest? What about his response to Charlottsville? His obvious adoration of Putin and break with NATO?
I think that it takes courage to do what he did, even if he is retiring. Unless the tables really turn on Trump, he and his family will be targeted.
Wow @codyroo, that's fascinating! I never watched "The Sopranos" either, but I wondered about a mafia association with that vision. We all know that Rudy's early notoriety came from prosecuting Italian mob families in NY. This next bit is purely speculation, but I wondered whether he hadn't later become the target of a protection racket on the part of the Russians (perhaps not unlike his casino "kingpin" friend in the White House). Rudy would almost certainly have been marked by the Italians for retribution, no? And by creating a power vacuum in the NY organized underground the way he did, the Russians appear to have wedged themselves in quite nicely. (Hell, they practically own 5th Avenue now, thanks in no small part to our president.) Perhaps they even gave him that protection "for free," in order to ingratiate themselves. (Maybe the Parnas case will illuminate the matter.)
Let me be clear that I haven't read a mob history of NYC and don't know from Adam about mafia game theory there or anywhere else—Italian, Russian, or otherwise. So again, just speculating.
I'm a longtime sci-fi/fantasy lover myself, and of mythology generally, so I remembered the minotaur was the creature at the center of the Greek labyrinth, but I don't think I ever knew what he represented or that he had some association to Moloch and child sacrifice, etc. Nuts! There are other interpretations that paint the minotaur as a victim/slave. They say the beast was imprisoned by the power elite** and had no choice but to eat alive the young maidens he was sometimes thrown for sport, etc.
**So interesting about the Crete government building! I'm sure that was an amazing trip.
I was affected by your vision of Ivanka hiding from a monster behind cold metal shelving in the construction van, in dread of what was coming to get her. While it may be about Ivanka, especially with the real estate props, it is a dark nightmarish vision of the plight of many women in Trump's world which was also Epstein's world, and perhaps more women's worlds than I want to think about. Like a clip from a horror movie, it shows women as sex objects for men's lust, all levels of society, and cultures going back to the Greeks. She hides while a beast approaches. It creeped me out, yet, it is profound in the story it tells about that world, Ivanka's world.
But back to Ivanka, I wonder if you are picking up trauma she may have from her father. I'm not saying he ever did anything to her, but he did express publicly how he felt about her when she was only 16 -- "If she weren't my daughter, perhaps I'd date her."
It also brings up Epstein and what he knew and who had him killed. Finally, the fact that you are getting this vision now may have to do with the kind of revelations that may unfold in the coming months. I had a vision years back of more women coming forward who might be Trump's final undoing.
@jeanne-mayell, beautifully said. ❤️
Considering Carl Jung's theory of dreams, I'd say you've hit the minotaur on the head. Jung believed that dreams reveal more than they conceal; that they offer a potently symbolic mechanism for integrating the unconscious (both what's simply unknown, as much as what is actively hidden and suppressed) into the light of waking awareness; and that dreams with powerful mythical or archetypal symbols are as much about our collective integration as a culture, as they are a personal process for the dreamer.
In many ways, Ivanka is a cultural totem for the dying traditionalist/patriarchal epoch. She represents a demure, elegant, perfected feminine form who, although intelligent, remains willingly subservient to the desires and whims of her father—outwardly supporting him in everything he does, however dangerous—whether she personally condones his actions or not. She even converted to Modern Orthodox Judaism for her husband, no small thing.
But she also represents the pressures of a transitional period. She's incredibly driven and ambitious. Her father has never given any substantial stake in the shares of his organization to his children; they've had to work there in hopes of some day attaining it. (I'm not arguing here that they're not privileged.) DJT has forced his three oldest children to compete—sometimes ruthlessly—with one another for his favor, and from a very young age, Ivanka learned to use every in-born trait and acquired capacity at her disposal to ensure that she is most favored.
The price has been emotional incest, if not physical, as well as a kind of ongoing public exploitation of her at her father's whim. (Who wouldn't be humiliated to tap dance for him that way?) There is no getting around the fact that Ivanka is the adult child of a malignant narcissist (a symbol for necrotic patriarchy for sure!), so whatever her own failures or demons or even crimes, she's done what everyone in that parent-child relationship does: she's learned how to survive inside it. Maybe by evolutionary design, but we can't not love our parents, no matter who they are or how they behave toward us. Unless we willingly go no-contact, a relationship with a malignant narcissist—even if you're his "favorite"—is an abusive dynamic, full stop.
Just this morning I saw that more women are now coming out about Weinstein, and more is tumbling out about Epstein & Co. too. And you're right, Jeanne: this is all part of the dream symbolism, if we read it as a collective story. It's pointing to what's occurring, what's coming, and what we have to process in order to evolve our society. You can't move from one set of standard operating procedures, one prevailing order, to the next unless you fully and totally accept what has become pathological about the previous.
Happy Solstice everyone. May we hold one another well and lightly as we continue passing through this transition.
@vestralux. You really can write. You have said it all here, more than any news of the day; you've touched on essence of our age, an age that is coming to a close.
I agree. Something has shifted. Not as much as the feeling of being sucked into a parallel universe like 11/9/16, but it certainly feels like a way back to the normal timeline.
@jeanne-mayell, thank you so much for your kind words, dear one.
@lawrence and @sdj, I completely agree. I felt a significant energetic release in the field this weekend.
And beyond impeachment, more than a few interesting developments have happened on the ground. While there's still an overwhelming flank of evangelical holdouts, the ranks have broken—and the languaging is changing. The movement as a whole had basically accepted a devil's bargain, leveraging their souls against the temporary reward of "pro-life" judges and proximity to power. But the profligate sin of fundamentalist evangelism is hypocrisy. You lose any semblance of your imagined moral high ground against the blatant immorality of this president. And although CT's editor-in-chief isn't the first to stand up, his words went viral. When one of your own challenges 'all of them that buy and sell in the Temple,' well... I'd call it a turning point.
Another thing that went national was the news that a key group of conservative critics, including George Conway, have formed a PAC, the Lincoln Project, explaining, “As Americans, we must stem the damage [DJT] and his followers are doing to the rule of law, the Constitution and the American character.”
[Also, noteworthy: Conway dubbed our prez IMPOTUS, which takes all moniker prizes for me!]
And I continue discovering new conservative media, such as The Bulwark (and its podcast) which describes itself thus: "No shouting, grandstanding, or sloganeering. Conservative, conscientious, and civil." Elsewhere, it says, "Never tribal."
As a progressive who seeks to be conscientious and civil, rather than reactive or tribal, I believe healthy democracy will always need healthy debate across divergent ideological perspectives. So, I don't want to see conservatives or conservatism disappear. I want to see what is worthwhile or essential on the right survive and grow through its present apocalypse. Criticism impels growth. Tribalism compels devolution.
In 2016 I saw that the Republican party would fragment as a result of this president (I wasn't alone). Hell, Lindsey Graham himself predicted the party's destruction if they voted for T, and declared they'd deserve it. We've been seeing the steady rise of fascism and authoritarianism all over the world. And a dark breed of pseudo-intellectual White Supremacy is gaining power in this country. In the first quarter of this year, the GOP as it still is will have to choose. That's all the time they get. The excuse of Stockholm syndrome to this president (though funny) is weak. And Godwin's law be damned. We are literally and actually reliving events that mirror those which led to rise of the Nazi party in Germany and its horrific ends. We have been rewalking that ground already for too long, and every thinking person knows it.
If this president were to be reinstalled (I won't say "re-elected"), we'd see a future none of us could bear to write about here. We all know that deep down. But however dark it gets between now and November, I don't believe that will happen. Putin's puppet president (I said it) is sick. Soon enough, it will be impossible to mistake his symptoms for anything else.
With the Christianity Today article, there’s even more focus on the Evangelicals and the bargain they’ve made with the devil. Their hypocrisy can’t stand up under the bright light of inquiry and even closer scrutiny. Let’s face it, if you’re siding with the folks who put kids in cages, you’re not on the side of the angels.
Now the conservative National Review is calling for Trump’s removal, too. So the beat goes on and my mood is improving.