#TheTruthMatters Power and Authority

August 17, 2016 — congress, corruption, history, politics, violence

LBJ

I have been watching the HBO  John Adams series about the American Revolution and the first American continental congress in Philly. It helps me see that our politicians are not in the worst situation in our history. Neither are they less favorably aligned than in the nation’s past. This congress we have today is about the same as all ruling bodies have always been, since the Roman Senate.  The use of power by humans on earth has been punctuated with misery and cruelty.  Conquest, political or military, has been imposed on nations, colonies, and entire continents.  War and Peace have hung in the balance more times than we know, but always for the same reasons.  War is an archetypal situation that repeats itself.

When we say history repeats itself we mean that archetypal events continue to occur.  In the arch of recorded history we have seen the pendulum of power swing from feudalism to anarchy.  Leaders have been both born and created in the struggle to survive.  We think of those leaders as the representatives of the entire culture, but they may merely be the most famous.  We know less about how the common person lived than we do about the fancy and well born.  I know this very well from my study of my own ancestry.  I learn more all the time about America by studying my ancestors’ lives.  None of my forefathers was famous during the American Revolution, but many did fight in it.  Power does flow through the events of man, but my religious ancestors would all say that fate is sealed by divine providence.  Man is just a player on the eternal stage.