Do We Really Want to "Flash Forward?"

Tonight is that witchy ABC drama about "Flashing Forward". I've wondered, though about other flash forward programs. Sometimes knowing the future isn't at all reassuring. There is one Next Generation Star Trek episode where there are two Captain Piccards and one of them is from six hours in the future after some horrible event and he has been thrown back in time. But trying to talk to him about it is another matter. He is uncommunacative and a little obsessive - as if driven by some force or belief. There really aren't that many things I would genuinely like to "take back" in this life- - that I wish I could go back and undo things. But a couple of them involve prophecy. In late October of 1966 I "prophesied" in my writings that Ronald Reagan would be elected governor of California and that the republicans would gain 46 seats in congress. My dad read this and thought I was a little nuts. But in the end that's just what happened. It was the birth of the conservative wave as we know it. On a tape recording I wish I still had made April 8th. 1967 my Uncle and grandmother were over visiting and my Dad was remarking about the new "Pausticity" of government. I'm not sure if that's a word but it means being a pauper. There was this new "hard up" quality about government where you have to scratch and peck for every cent that's allocated. And we've never gotten over this. So today people are still obsessed about money and we're all "short of cash" and have to "cut back". Another prophecy I'd love to take back is about my brother's divorce, which occurred around February of 1976. I predicted the demise of his marriage at least three different times. In the form of "Biblical" style writings in early August of 1971, in the form of prose in March of 1972 and in the form of song lyrics (to the tune of "So this is Christmas") in early April of 1974. Had I this to do over I would have had nothing but positive things to say about my brother's first marriage. At times one is haunted by the axiom "What you wish on others will come back on you". But I didn't WISH it, I just Prophisied it - - and there is a difference. I would have kept in closser touch. But some of you readers may say to me "But didn't you say you were in prison from mid August of 1974 to late May of 1975?" County jail, actually- - but for purposes of argumentation with this blog just forget I said that for the moment. Assuming that I were available to check up regularly on them in their apartment and see how their marriage was fairing- - I would have asked the right questions and hopefully spotted problems early. But by the summer of 1975 their marriage was already showing marked signs of deterioration. My brother was more interested in the unborn child of another woman than he was concerned about the affairs of his own wife. Now we jump to September of 1979 when I was in a state of psychological as well as financial depression - -and I wrote about a time when I would be consigned to a mental institution - - "and suddenly I found the aging process accelerated". And there came a time when people came to check on me- - but they wouldn't locate where I was. Of course with the medication I'm on I've aged ten or more years overnight being in here. Now we go to the first Sunday night in January of 1992. On this night I had a dream that left me freaked out. That Sunday evening I was recording rare David Bowie songs off the radio, probably off KROQ. I dreamed that I woke up in the morning and it was already after eight, in the old house where I grew up. The weather was warm. It was a different season of the year. I theorized it was in April at a time before they changed Daylight Saving Time laws. I felt like I had this sword of damacles hanging over my head for some reason. Was I in some kind of trouble? Had I committed a crime? Had I killed someone? My brother we'll call Don came over with a young woman who claimed to be my wife named Debbie, but my brother informed me "You wern't living together". Of course I had amnesia in this dream and I couldn't remember anything that had recently happened, even the previous day. Debbie was an attractive brunette with brown eyes. In retrospect she bore a startling resemblence to Denise Brown, except she was just a little thinner. She said, "Remember when we were in school back at El Toro High School?" Of course I didn't. My brother Don was also married in this dream and I was curious who his wife was and why she was unable to make it here today. - - - In another scene and it's early afternoon now- - my other brother, Phil, and some friends- - were going to take a nice little drive down to the South County by Laguna Canyon and perhaps to the Ocean. I thought "This will help relax me" because I was so tense and I also hadn't eaten, for various reasons. But this drive never materialized. - - In a later scene and it's mid afternoon now - - I'm at the Bosc house, and there is a giant hundred foot cliff just south of the house- - that drops off to the Pacific Ocean. Also the house had been dramatically remodeled, and the tenants had used a green and orange decore. My Dad was cleaning out the furnice, vaccuming it, etcetra. He took a big box of my writings and dumps them on the floor and says to me "You decide which ones you want to get rid of". I didn't feel like doing this. In the final scene of the movie it's about 6:15 and the sun is setting. I'm at Brookhurst Jr. High on the grassy area west of the cafeteria and south of the gymnasium. You all know where that is. I'm walking tword a croud of people congragated in the covered area. There is some sort of dinner happening. It's old ladies from my old church (where "The asshole from El Paso is pastor) I'm feeling a little more normal now. I make my way inside the cafeteria and a bunch of old ladies, some of which I knew- - were looking at me- - and one of them turns and says "That man has a Decision to make". It wasn't just the words but the rather stern, condemnatory tone of voice she said it in that alarmed me. Here the dream ends. I left out only a couple small portions. I felt as though the dream were some kind of Warning, but I had no idea "of what". So this is with future flash forwards, sometimew we don't know just what exactly it is they are trying to tell us. - -And now some stuff from Word from yesterday.

This is after dinner at a quarter to six. They kept ringing the dinner bell early and I went down at ten after four after watching a C-Span station. We had baked chicken for dinner that was well done, and sliced potatoes and vegetables, with bread pudding for desert. I went to the bakery for two cold Cokes. Then I watched a bit of the other two C-Span stations plus more of the first one, all of which seemed to be discussing the Max Bacchus health care bill. I’m going to look for the text

At Democracy Now I watched a 47 minute video interview of Max Blumenthal and his book. A new key figure he introduced was Francis Schaefer, who walks on water in the eyes of all the Calvary Chapel people. He was an old dude born 1917 or something and he died in May of 1984. He started some commune in Switzerland that was kind of patterned after Chuck Smith, or visa versa. Jimmy Page attended there a few times. He is said to have “snapped” when Roe verses Wade came out, and sat about to organizing the right wing, including Randall Terry. One of his states on theology was the must utterly nutty statement I’ve come across. He said that is the “unbeliever” were consistent he would have absolutely no morals and live like an animal or something. I would respond to him that if I were really true to my own inner moral principles I never would have touched it or trusted it as far as I can throw a bowling ball. Of all the theological beliefs, his seem the most easily disproven and discredited. Other statements in my postings are consistent with what he said in this interview. The book apparently came out in stores on Tuesday September 8^th , so the book hasn’t been out long at all. It is one of the best treaties on the Christ Right I have come across, and I believe this book will have a major impact on people’s thinking about these voices they hear on the radio. He talked about the Dobson – Sarah Palin connection, and how Dobson actually has no theological credentials. There are other shadowy figures discussed by Blumenthal that were instrumental in forming the right wing many decades ago during the time of President Eisenhower. Eisenhower in addition to warning about the military – industrial complex, also sounded warnings in 1952 about extremist movements in his own party, that would destroy the Republican party if they ever got in control. Blumenthal maintains that this is just what has happened as of last year when Mc Cain – having attacked the Christian Right in the past, now had to make amends by nominating Sarah Palin, someone whom James Dobson already knew of. Apparently something I only darkly suspected is actually a present reality. That this new generation that was raised on “Dare to Discipline” and its corporal punishment, this younger generation is even more radicalized than their progenitors. This is a scarey prospect because it means that we are going to be stuck with them for decades to come, just like we are with Justice John Roberts.