This is a prophetic warning. It’s useful only for those who feel led by the Lord to pay attention.
Just a quick review first of the wider context. We’ve explained often enough what Biblical Law demands of us in terms of social and political structure, and that it ain’t likely to go that way in this world. We are not surprised to see the West tearing itself apart because it is wrong-headed on just about everything possible. You’ve seen how it starts with the fundamental assumptions about reality itself.
One of the most obvious false assumptions is about the nature of human sexual identity, for example. You could propound a workable theory that everything wrong with the West comes from the false conflict between male and female that characterizes our civilization. This has nothing to do with whether individuals can wade through the mechanics of relationships; it’s the fundamental false view about what it means to be male and female. Nor is it a matter of which of the two conflicting views are correct; they are both wrong. It’s a false masculinity against a false feminism.
This sets up a false conflict that pervades every issue that arises in the West. Every debate and conflict theoretically aligns between the false male versus female imagery, never mind whether it includes actual males and females. Forget the theory; in broad practical terms, you can see the flavor of every dispute falling into the false female versus male conflict. Examples: globalism, socialism/communism, progressive leftism — it’s all feminist. Imperialism, social and political conservatism, libertarians, rightie stuff in general — it’s all masculine. And on both sides, it’s all wrong in the higher moral sense.
However, the prophetic warning here is: God is going to crush the lefties in America. Not because they are somehow more wrong in theory, but because their position excludes the political majority. That is, the slice of American population most likely to act on a political and social inclination is majority conservative in sympathy. There is one primary reason for that: Only the political right is willing to embrace nationalism, and human instinct as created by God is inherently nationalist. When things come apart, those who have any idea at all how to handle emergencies and survive are inevitably nationalist. They may vary in their sense of who is part of their “nation,” but the basic instinct never changes.
The wrath of God is on America. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Our US government has been judged and God is going to destroy it. Not the country and the people so much as He is going to destroy the system of government, and that almost surely means breaking the union into smaller regional states. My point here is that the breakup itself will be catastrophic in the sense that almost no one sees it coming. Sure, there is some awareness that California wants to secede from a US where Trump is president, and I suspect the Left Coast could easily become one of those resulting regional states, but that misses the point. The breakup won’t be a clean political procedure; first must come a civil war.
Regardless how it appears to any of us at first, this civil war will be largely a right-wing backlash. It doesn’t work well to think of the lefties as having one big coordinated plot to take over the US. It’s more the matter of an instinct and orientation; to be a lefty excludes live-and-let-live. So while some of them do coordinate and plan, it’s not a conscious monolith. It’s just the nature of being lefty.
I can tell you, for example, that the teacher walkout here in Oklahoma is a manifestation of that broad general lefty instinct to seek moments to exploit for political coercion. An actual strike is flatly illegal, but as long as the school boards are supporting this, that language won’t be used. Would anyone be surprised that most Oklahoma school boards are leftist? Perhaps not all the individual board members, but the inherent structure and nature of what school boards do is leftist. It never has represented the will of the people; it cannot. The reason there is a conflict is that in broad terms, the state legislature does more closely reflect the will of the people of Oklahoma, at least in terms of a conservative orientation.
So this could be made out as a Democrat versus Republican thing, but that misses the point. There are tons of lefty Republicans and very conservative Democrats. The real issue is that Oklahoma’s educators are generally out of touch with the population. I know this for a fact because I was one of those educators for several years. I worked inside the system and it is designed to isolate teachers from reality, and hide the internal reality from the population at large. Oklahoma’s education system is frankly an invasive enemy, and everyone pretends otherwise. It has never served the people’s interests because it cannot. And while there are plenty of serious problems with our state legislature, the underlying conflict that resulted in this walkout has nothing to do with the propaganda. It’s a fresh leftist attempt to take over a right-wing state.
Again, I’m not promoting the conservative agenda here and suggesting that the teachers are evil. I’m simply observing the dynamics and warning that, whether the education system gets what it says it wants won’t make any difference. What’s going to make a difference is how this sets up the path that future conflicts will take. If this thing is crushed, the education profession will be bitter and seek other ways to destroy the conservative grip. Don’t forget that our public education system is hostile to the wishes of the population at large, but educators are going to blame those who wear the titles of authority. We can expect a long future of sniping and spiteful resentment if they lose. They will remain a hostile force within the state (unless they quit and leave).
If they win, it’s just one more thing to tear down or simply gut during a right-wing backlash. The problem here is that this whole mess is a false dichotomy. The education system was designed as a means of stealthy infiltration and take-over, but it was based on entirely false theories about reality. Though it appears to have gained ground recently, creating a generation of snowflakes easily offended into throwing tantrums, it cannot win in the long run. It can only destroy; nothing can be built from the inherent lies. The result is a flaccid mass of whiners with no coherent agenda.
God’s Word says it’s easier to grasp moral and spiritual dynamics by parable. The proper image here of His wrath is that Satan has been set loose to harvest a crop of human misery. The Devil’s only real interest is keeping us from shalom by keeping us from embracing Biblical Law. The whole foundation of Western Civilization was to exclude Biblical Law from human consideration, and it has worked beautifully. Not because the Devil is fighting God, but it’s his job to deceive, kill and destroy shalom for those stupid enough to listen to his lies. God says it’s not completely tilted against us, and that He is in no way hindered by whatever Satan can do. God can still break through if we but take the offer of redemption, so there’s nothing unfair about letting Satan weave together something like the West. But such systems have a distinct life-span and then they die. The resulting human suffering is a delight to Satan.
As a part of the decline of the West, the US as a system of government was first unleashed to take over most of the world. In the process, the US has sinned mightily against all God has commanded. Satan used America to make life insufferable to much of the world. So America, as the pinnacle of what it means to be Western, will be crushed first. We shall be rendered powerless. Think about what that means; consider the implications. To prevent that power rising again, there will be some upheaval, some fundamental changes to our way of life. What will prevent us reuniting for another run at taking over the world? The fractures must create new, implacable differences between the resulting smaller countries. That means there has to be unforgivable acts of violence and destruction. This requires a lot of demonic work provoking such harsh divisions as to make it impossible to negotiate, a lasting visceral hatred for each opposing side (rather like Turks versus Greeks).
The set-up for this kind of conflict will be a very harsh economic collapse. You can bet the powers that be will try to harness that misery for external warfare, but that will also fail. The result will be to make things worse. No, this is not an apocalypse coming, but there will be tribulation for sure.
Today’s second visit to Arcadia includes a few shots of Lake Arcadia. The lake has a couple of free entrances off Route 66 (edit: only one free entrance at the far northeast corner), where it receives state and federal subsidies. If you go around to the 
Then I trudged down one of the many trails to the waterline. Strong winds from the west meant there wasn’t that much water movement against the shore. I stood on a rocky ledge and shot back west. Then I walked back around the cove and out onto the point that I had just shot.
From there I homed in on a rocky outcropping just offshore farther west from where I stood. I would love to come back and hike around out here, but I had more driving to do this trip.
This is a famous landmark. The giant sculpture of the pop bottle is the trademark of Pop’s, where there are dozens of niche brands of soda pop. None of them have any high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners, just plain old cane sugar. That includes the fountain drinks. The other claim to fame is bison on the menu.
All along the old Route 66 you can find places where the highway was moved to a newer and presumably better track across the countryside. Here we have a section of the original roadbed, now a residential side-street off the highway.
However, the actual original pavement has been covered with asphalt. This next shot is the original concrete surfacing. My understanding is that this what it looked like all the way across Oklahoma.
The entire Deep Fork Valley is rimmed in dramatic hills cut through by deep tributaries. Just east of Arcadia is this view where Choctaw Road heads north away from Old Highway 66.
Out here, the legendary Route 66 is almost a fetish. Lots of signs commemorate it, such as on this barn. Also, anything that stood in those old days is likely preserved as a landmark of some kind.
This little stone building was once some kind of store, maybe even a gas station from the old days. I had trouble getting a good angle because of impediments on the roadside and high-speed traffic.
The Deep Fork River itself has some dramatic features now and then. This view upriver from Choctaw Road sports banks carved from red sandstone. There were lots of little trails from both sides and ends of the bridge, and I spotted the remains of abandoned fishing gear down there.
The downstream view is more placid, but you can still see how it got its name. It’s a deep cut into the surrounding terrain.
