Would You Open the Door When Jihad Knocks?

I had a recent post about the Pope's speech and Mullah Nasr-ud-din. I will do what I never do: insult my audience by assuming them to be in need of an explanation. The rope was a parallel to jihad: is it a method of compulsion or is it something else of a more spiritual nature? There is a story of the Prophet and the early muslim community returning from a fight for their lives(their own neighbors and clans wanted to destroy them at the time) and the Prophet saying that they now return from the small Jihad to the big Jihad. The big Jihad is the everyday struggle to be good and moral and godly. It is by far more difficult than the small Jihad. Thus we see our understanding of Jihad is faulty, mostly due to the execrable nature of news media which delights in feeding us drivel. The concept of big Jihad, the struggle of the individual to be good is rather parallel to my notion of Faith as an ongoing struggle to maintain the word of God in the world - every day and every hour. How difficult is this struggle? I saw a magazine with a picture of Bill O'Reilly. It said he was a culture warrior and Christianity was under attack in the US of A. Jesus condemns divorce. The USA has a 50% divorce rate. There doesn't seem to be much of a struggle here. It is we ourselves who are attacking Christianity, not someone else. It is we ourselves. The struggle is even more difficult if you fear to admit your own adherence to evil.

Sin

I saw some children in a Christian compound in fear of their souls, all due to their sinfull nature. I thought that if innocents suffer so, their parents must be undergoing great torment. They must be going around like mediaeval penitentes, whipped from town to town for their sins. However, they were doing fine. Only the innocent suffered, which is - in this best of all worlds-the way it should be. It occurs to me that our understanding of sin is rather poor. Sin is not a singular event. It is a process of long duration. When we read: "...whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." we are not talking about standing around looking at the ladies. We are not talking about the sudden access of passion which occurs at the sight of something we would wish to love. The notion of looking on someone to lust after them is an expression which shows a resolve to set upon a course of action. The adultery is not done immediately. As I stand in rapt desire, the lady does not yield at once. I must set forth upon a campaign. I must also deceive those who already are within the ambit of my love. I must deceive my wife. I must become a faux-monnayeur des emotions ( sorry about that. the first person to whom I spoke these ideas was a Frenchy. also, apologies to Andre Gide.) I must become a counterfeiter of emotions. I must dissemble. I must deceive. I must plot. I need to lie to cover up the gaps of time spent in sinful pursuit. Then, after a time of preparation, my campaign is a success and then even greater are the calls upon deceit and lies and dissembling. This is not a single event. This is a commitment to a way of life at variance to godliness. This is a commitment to evil. The act of sin is merely an occurence of a measurable statistic; e.g., the adultery rate, the divorce rate, etc. Most of us dullards focus on the act of sin, ignoring the long history that preceeds it. A devotion to evil is still sin even though there has been no overt action which statisticians of morality may enter into their books of calculations. So Jesus is pointing to the sinfull nature of making up one's mind to pursue a course of action which is manifestly evil. You have sinned. The act may come about next year, but there's plenty of other evil to spread around until then. Do you feel the heat? (In this analysis, we see the importance of the personal history of the individual. Do we ascribe equal importance to the personal history of a society?)

E.Coli

I think it is time to be afraid when: the Food Industry has developed weapons grade E. Coli (not too hard to do) and developed a delivery system to effect 50% of the USA. I am waiting for an explanation. Perhaps we may have a War on Lousy Food. When is the last time you ate a tomato (non-heritage type) that tasted like anything? I do not recall being a consumer demanding tasteless food. I try to remember, but I can't. I believe this is Exploitative Capitalism, the Capitalism which wants quick returns, hang the cost, send the bill to the grandkids!

Dead Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan: The Well goes Dry

It has been said that good things should be done so that your left hand knows not what your right hand is doing; i.e., anonymously. I will tell you a true story of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, everything remains without names, however. The donor in this story has always insisted on remaining anonymous. This is a true story and if you read it, you are among a small group of people who have heard of it, for it is only known to families of dead soldiers and they have been asked to maintain the benefactor's anonymity. There is a Canadian man who early on wished to show his support for the Canadian and American troops fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq by putting his money where his heart was: he donated $2,500 Canadian to each family of a Canadian soldier killed in action and $2,000 US to each family of an American soldier killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. A volume comprising a number of the soldiers' families and their response to this philanthropy was published this year in a limited edition of 50. In July, I sat and read almost every page of this book and looked at each page where families had sent in thank you letters, family pictures, snap shots of their son or daughter from happier times. Almost all of them affirmed how proud the soldier had been to serve his/her country. It is impossible to read without tears coming to one's eyes. Just before my reading of the book, the program had come to an end, having been in place since 2001. It had become just too expensive to continue !

Brother Falwell and the Devil

Brother Falwell has identified another agent of Satan, to wit, Hilary Clinton.

Brother Falwell has an eye for seeing these lesser imps of the Devil, and has done himself proud to call our attention to this female demon aide of Old Harry. Brother Falwell does seem to blur the distinction between the Spiritual Realm and the Political Realm, but who doesn't these days? Brother John Hagee's vision is so blurry that he goes hither and yon, up and down the countryside, from Aqaba to Galilee, preaching that the future of Christians is dependent on the future of Zionists.

Well, we here have been to the Mill and gotten our grist, so to speak, and ain't no greenhorns!
I am sure Brother Falwell doesn't mean he has detected the odor of brimstone instead of Chanel No 5 when the Senator walks by. I think Brother Falwell means he is without sin. Therefore, the first place in the stone casting line goes to him!
I do believe the politics of the present and Christianity are not a good combination . You will worship at one or the other, not both. Upon what do I base this? If you've forgotten, I believe Brother Falwell is in favor of Intelligent Design theory being taught in the schools. I have made it clear that Intelligent Design is Idolatry. If not idolatry, then polytheism.

Who is this other God that proponents of Intelligent Design wish to foist upon us? Perhaps it is the god who will approve of divorce, thereby sanctifying the divorce rate! Ceterum censeo Creationem Consulto delendam esse! ( a paraphrase of Cato the Censor: "As for other matters, I believe that Intelligent Design must be destroyed!" translating ID as creatio consulto = creation [done] designedly)

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My Nephews and the Shadow of the Vampire

My nephews said the post "The Shadow of the Vampire" was too saccharine by far. They added a quote by George Ade: " A friend who is near and dear may in time become as useless as a relative. "

Come Back, Little Catacuracha

I miss Kattbanjo. Her mother has been ill. We pray for the best. Be strong,Catacuracha.

Faith Reconsidered

I have taken heat about how I talk about Faith. It appears there are many people who believe that we can accept Faith by a statement of Faith. Beyond that, they agree it is hard to live up to one's Faith. We stumble and fail and so on. With that I do disagree. I believe Faith requires hard work over the history called "one's life". I base this on the observation that within the relatively small confines of the New Testament, there are direct commands to action which my society totally ignores. It makes no sense to make a confession of Faith if one is to totally ignore the major portion of it. I may find it a blessing that a family member practices family law in a Christian country that has a 50% divorce rate, however, there is a clear injunction against divorce in the New Testament. Obviously, Faith itself is hard, not just the approach to Faith. THE ABSOLUTELY HARDEST PART of Faith is maintaining Faith. I find it very hard to maintain a belief in the verity that God would provide for my needs were I act out my life in a Godly way. And here we mean all needs of life. Yet, that is exactly what is said in the Gospel. It is hard to believe with all your heart when your common sense quails at the possibility. I cannot have Faith when my emotion of certainty is but an emotion of indeterminacy. This view suggests a view of Faith ( and Life ) as a process. This will be the next post.

Totenkopfkultur: 2

"It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times ??!! Stupid monkey !!" Montgomery Burns, I have arrived! If you were to Google the above title, Totenkopfkultur, I would be on page 1, number 3 of the Google Search results. My nephews point out that even if 1,000 monkeys were seated at 1,000 computers typing like mad, they would probably never write the word Totenkopfkultur even if they stayed at their work for 100,000 years.

Again, Pope Benedict's Speech

People have spoken. The words “holy war” and “crusade” have been uttered. These are ultimate methods of compulsion. There have been violent demonstrations. Perhaps the Indonesian Government promise to execute some Christians on death row who had received a stay of execution on a previous papal appeal is related to this uproar. Now, a story from the Sufi tradition. Mullah Nasr-ud-din is walking down a street accompanied by a scholar. Another Sufi approached them, stopped Nasr-ud-din and pointed at the sky, by which he meant “There is only one truth, which covers all.” But he spoke no word. The scholar said to himself, “This weird apparition is mad. Perhaps Nasr-ud-din will take precautions against him.” The Mullah rummaged through his backpack and brought forth a coil of rope. The scholar thought, “Excellent. He will seize and bind this madman.” Nasr-ud-din’s action had actually meant, ”Ordinary humanity tries to reach the ‘ sky ‘ by methods as unsuitable as this rope.” The second Sufi, the “madman”, laughed and walked away. “Well done,” said the scholar; “you saved us from him.” Now, you , my audience; is the rope a method of compulsion or is it a symbolic pointing to some truth beyond words? Are we as blind as the scholar who fancies himself learned? Shall we find out by arguing and fighting? I myself seek to exit from this generation of compulsion. “There is no compulsion in religion.”

Pope Benedict's Speech

In response to the overwhleming lack of a groundswell of people wanting my opinion on this matter, I will wade in as the noteable So-and-So who enters where angels fear to tread. First, since Emperor Manuel Paleologus was fighting against Muslim armies - in the speech text it says between 1394 and 1402 common era so it would appear that he was leading the fight against not Arab Muslims, rather Turkish Muslims - it is hard to see why anyone would expect him to say nice things about Islam. So why was he used? And since he was used, why does anyone object to it? For the greater the rancor expressed in such a situation implies the greater force of one's opponent. Second, the speech deals with God, man, and reason and the differences within western tradition over time and some differences between western and Islamic traditions. Something like: God is transcendent (and wholly beyond our comprehension) AND Jesus became incarnate to link man to God (so that God need not be totally beyond our comprehension) AND God as Logos is susceptible of being understood by human reason (and is not absolutely transcendent beyond reason) {Pope's characterization of western tradition} VERSUS God is absolutely transcendent {Islamic tradition} So - if you have stuck with it thus far - you ask why the violence? Within the speech we hear the emperor say: "Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul." Now to whom does this apply? Certainly not us, not our generations. Who would do well to learn this lesson? Not us. We're perfect. Finally, Iran's Supreme Leader says the speech was a crusade against Muslims. So he's saying that Christians are leading a jihad against Muslims???? So the Pope mentions something from 1,000 years ago about jihad... And Iran's Leader counters with a riposte from 1,000 years ago about a crusade... I guess this means I can go out and protest, since I believe a 1,000 year old slur against me is just as grievous as a 1,000 year old slur against you!! I have no answers for you about the speech. I think we are condemned to attend the picnic on the great carpet of violence spread out upon the face of the world by leaders of both sides who cannot lead. I do not side with the Pope nor oppose him. I respect him greatly. There are many religious leaders I respect. Make of it what you will.

The Game of Historical Parallels

Our President has begun to play the game of historical parallels, expressed in sentences like " X is fascism" or "Y is communism". He has usurped the label "Islamo-fascist" from the greedy fingers of Rush Limbaugh and feels that it makes sense, considering the source. That is fine. Let's us play the game. Let's play Pearl Harbor: historic parallel In this game, President Roosevelt asks and receives a declaration of war against Japan from the Senate and the House of Representatives. About 9 months into the war, just after the Battle of Midway, it turns out that all the intelligence and the communications were wrong: Pearl Harbor is just fine, thank you, and is unscathed except for some rain storms lately, forcing us in from the lanai to have our juleps in the club. Well, what would Roosevelt do? He could say that Hirohito is a really bad guy, a scoundrel actually, and say the world is better off with him off the throne of Japan. We would keep at the war, new goals, however. The people at home might see it differently since a great part of the Army and Navy were drafted. The people at home might not want their sons killed for a sham. So then we send home the draftees but continue the war with people who voluntarily enlist. This might not be as difficult as it sounds. Since Pearl Harbor hadn't been attacked, Japan itself might not be at war with the USA. Japan would have to do some mighty fancy footwork to maintain itself in the Pacific. Would Roosevelt run against Wendell Willkie with a platform saying we couldn't cut and run? And Willkie would say bring the rest of the boys home. And would Truman drop the bomb? Good stuff here. Thank you, Mr. President, for the new game.

President A. as Hitler

I can't remember how to spell Ahmadinejad so I just use the abbreviation A.
It's easier that way.

I broke a long standing rule against oral arguments against the present Administration.
A friend said President A. was Hitler.
I said no he wasn't, Hitler was dead.
And even if Hitler weren't dead, He'd be 120 years old or so.

And furthermore down this road to idiocy, Hitler himself wasn't Hitler. I mean, if you can go around saying Joe Mc Doakes is Benito Mussolini, then who was the original Benito Mussolini? Somebody else, apparently. Or he was enough like some other historical avatar such as to render his own self a non-entity...

O.K. Then Prez A. is a parallel to Hitler. He is a simulacrum. He is the next best (or next worst) thing to the real Mr. H. So I sez, you are referring to his Austrian birth? Everyone knows Prez A. was born in Austria. His early years in Vienna? Everyone knows Prez A. spent some early years as an art student in Vienna.

Now I was accused of being deliberately obtuse. I acknowledged my obtuseness. I am always so when in the presence of majestic blatherscat. It is Prez A.'s ideas that render him the spit and image of Hitler.

So, was Hitler a Holocaust denier, I asked.Hardly that...
Has Prez A. published an entire book about killing various peoples?
Well, he did say once that Israel should disappear from the map.
So I sez, O.K. then Mel Gibson is Hitler, too? And so on.

Prez A. is a fascist. Oh, sez I, like General Franco? We must help the peoples he would oppress. Oh, sez I, like we helped the Ethiopians resist the Italian fascists? I left the argument - if this discourse can be lauded with such a positive term - fearing that the Iran-American Bund might have me marked for even speaking about the whole thing.

Let President A. be evil or good on his own. It's rather like saying U.S. Grant is Idi Amin because the US Cavalry killed Native Americans during his tenure. The evil (or good) of the day (or the man) is sufficient thereto.

The Shame of Not-Knowing

Most of us hate to be in a discussion with ethical overtones and end up- as we usually do-dropping our heads, shaking them slowly from side to side, saying "I just don't know."
It is a terrible feeling.

This is one of the reason we have recourse to the Assembly Line of Knowledge: Cable TV. And being addicted to it, we are ALKies. I want to get into some problems of capitalism and I've finally been able to modify my concepts to be able to do so without making a complete fool of myself. So, if you have a point to make you feel strongly about, keep with it. This present time is NOT the fullness of wisdom. And 99% of what you've already learned in this society is pure and unadulterated crap anyway.
Keep at it.

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Satan Sells Us the Brooklyn Bridge

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." - Dick Cheney, August 26 2002 

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons." - George W. Bush, September 12 2002 

"If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world." - Ari Fleischer, December 2 2002 

"We know for a fact that there are weapons there." - Ari Fleischer, January 9 2003 

"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." - George W. Bush, State of the Union address, January 28 2003

When did Politicians and Government Appointees receive a pass on even trying to tell the Truth? When did this country decide to no longer demand something resembling Truth from its leaders? When did we sell our souls to the Lie?

Totenkopfkultur

This means "Death's Head Culture". If you do not know what it refers to, look around you. There are many people who speak of Culture War (Kulturkrieg) who are on the payroll of the Totenkopfkultur Group.

Check it out. See the things that seek a better life versus those that degrade life. The Grammy for Best Group goes to......Totenkopfkultur !!!

Blog is Golb Spelled Backwards

I read a number of blogs, ones I 've read for awhile and trying new ones. What a variety of people I see. Sometimes it can be unsettling, such as when old friends you've kept in view experience pain and suffering. Sometimes you may share their joy. Sometimes I feel as if I were playing God and looking down upon my creation and watching the myriad and varied lives being played out upon the Earth. I wish I could do a miracle or two to help mankind with their suffering. I wonder now whether God feels frustration and pain from just not being able to do enough? The concept of God as being all powerful leads us to expect Him to do things. The concept of God being all knowing leads us to believe He's aware of the most minute detail of our lives - in the same sense of knowledge that we know things. So it seems to us sometimes He's remote and we do not understand why good people suffer. The obstacles which cause our suffering are an integral part of life. A sheer cliff is an obstacle on a road if we are on walk about. However, perhaps we are not on walk about; perhaps we are confronting the cliff - the ribbon of road stretching behind us is merely an accident. Jesus suffered. God suffers. What is different is how They react to the pain. We react as humans. How They react is a mystery.

Come Back Tsuneichi Miyamoto !

Where is Tsuneichi Miyamoto? Where are the wonderful photographs of Mr. Miyamoto? Quick glimpses of long ago... If you turn your head, it's gone! A dark cloud approaches... A flock of geese!

The Danger of Parallels to Fascism

Sometimes I'm actually glad that no one reads my blog. I especially feel that way when I am compelled to say things I find hurtful. Well, here goes... The present administration has seen parallels or equivalencies between certain Islamic groups today and fascists of the past. ( Actually, the President said "...fascists...and communists..." in his speech the other day so...it's like a multiple choice apparently). Now today I read: "The _____ authorities seized a large number of Hamas MPs and officials after militants linked to Hamas captured a soldier and killed two others. " This is from the BBC. I blanked out the name of the country. It is a very unfortunate fact of the reality of WW II that certain fascists believed that one of their soldiers was worth multiples of other groups of people. If one of their soldiers was killed, then 12 of the "others" were to be killed or whatever the golden ratio was at the time. Apologies all around.

Ontology of Desire

(In this post, everything good came from people specified or from Avivah Zornberg. Everything else, including punctuation, comes from me.)

All things have Needs and Aversions.
Even the basic Carbon atom experiences the Need to share electrons in the outer shell with their Hydrogen compadres.

Certain things are averse from others, such as those which are repelled from water.
Conscious things convert some or all of their Needs to Desires and likewise Aversions to Fears.

DESIRE is Need transformed by consciousness. FEAR is Aversion transformed by consciousness. In a child, the Need for food changes over time until at the ages two or three the child begins to pick and choose which foods he wants to eat. Thus, the Need for food transforms into the Desire for ice cream.
Likewise, the Aversion to Being-Startled may transform into a Fear of loud noises which itself may have a subset called Fear of fireworks. Desire and Fear fill out the DETAILS of the SELF. This entity has needs and aversions.

Over time, these needs and aversions are detailed and become the desires and fears of the entity who now has a name and a sense of self. We define ourselves by our desires and fears: that which we want and that which we do not. Therefore, the self is defined by desires and fears.
Since we have previously said that Humility is the virtue by which we redefine the conscious being from being the center of all things, this means we must radically affect desires and fears. At this point, we remember the Lord Buddha speaking of Dharma:

 "Thus, desire, having a strong will to live as its basis, seeks that which it feels desirable, even if it is sometimes death. This is called the Truth of the Cause of Suffering. If these thirsts and illusions are traced to their source, they are found to be rooted in the intense desires of physical instincts." 

This brings to mind our statement that those who are not humble are sometimes so arrogant that they must be the center of everything, even the end of time.

At this point, we should recall that religious statements and statements of taste are not to be assigned truth values. There is, then, a similarity between them and religious statements might well indeed be called "matters of taste" if we mean that Taste implies Desire.

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The Desert Isle Game: Gitmo vs. Abu Ghraib

At the risk of getting something I'm not really asking for, I set forth the following: "If you absolutely had to be interred in a prison, would you rather be interred in Gitmo or Abu Ghraib?" Or, making the choice more realistic: "If you had to be marooned on a desert island and there were two desert islands next to each other (??!) , on one of which was Gitmo and on the other was Abu Ghraib, which island would you prefer to inhabit?" We could add things like "undisclosed CIA holding areas" in various places. Which band would you like to have blared at you 24/7 ? I saw Bill O'Reilly the other night doing an inspired bit on the Red Hot Chili Peppers as a torture device. It was quite good. I think I may have misunderstood Mr. O'Reilly. He may be better than Jon Stewart. I think I would like Kay Keyser's band. I could imagine some of the mad-cap B movies Mr. Keyser was in in the good old days. What about Sinatra? How come the CIA doesn't use Sinatra's songs as an instrument of torture? Would it be considered blasphemous? How would Bill O'reilly handle that one? I mean to say, Mr. Bill couldn't really sit up there and chortle and chuckle about the Chairman of the Board, could he? Interesting... Kate Smith comes to mind...she was too motherly and patriotic. Leadfoot? Bearbreath? Too Fat for Lotta? All great music. O.K. New game: "Which singer's songs would be considered an instrument of torture if delivered at your cranium 24/7?" Or, "If you marooned on a desert island with a sound system that had an inexhaustible source of power and could not be switched off and was playing music, whose music would be the most pernicious?" I think the winning singer would be the one with the least recordings, variety in this case being truly the spice of life.

9/11 is Nonsense if...

Late September 9, 2006 my daughter had another panic attack and went to the local hospital in D.C. She had had an appointment at WTC at 9:30 A.M. on September 11, 2001 and had slept in that morning, rescheduling her day to stop in at end of day when she had returned from far Long Island. The fear is that she will be caught in another catastrophe and she will not have her medicine with her. Perhaps our leaders in D.C. will see the large bold font above and do something for the people of this country, something for those not in the top 2% of wealth-holders.

My Profile

My daughter has suggested I render a more complete profile. My nephews scoff at the idea. Both sides are in agreement that a personal photo is definitely out of the question-unless its one from about 30 years ago when people still wore top hats and had mutton chop sideburns. All of my present day photos look like DMV photos or Costco photos or any photo taken by contrarian paparazzi who seek out the most unflattering angle and use it. Perhaps I am coming out of my Winston Smith period. Perhaps it is time to be O'Brien. I like the Celtic flavor of the name. I fancy I am the ancient Celtic civilization, torn by storms of nature and empire and barbarians, my back against the wind swept sea, a bulwark for an exotic faith standing in the face of paganism. Cool. However, I have wanted to be Montag for a long time also, ever since Fahrenheit 451. I couldn't get it at e-bay for the longest time. I could not get Sonntag either, since Susan Sonntag already had dibs on it. That left Dienstag, Thorstag, Freitag, and Samtag, none of which appealed to me. Oh, Mittwoch was also available. Obviously out of the running. My nephews liked Mittwoch. They suggested Mittwoch von Blatherstein as a possibility.

Cheerleaders in The Charnel House: 1

My brother (my other brother if you've read recent posts and are wondering) told me that Pat Robertson has a new book entitled Death of America. Something about America and Death. It all boils down to the Hispanic Flood.

I interpret this as a thinly veiled anti-Catholic tirade. My brother says that it seems to be centered on the disinclination to learn English. I guess I'll never know because I shall never read the rag. I suppose I may pick it up after they've interred me in Gitmo for 4 or 5 years.
Anyhow, so I tell him that Mr. Robertson is a prime example of the Christiano-celebrities who have a Culture of Death: they are unwittingly (or wittingly) viewing events through their filter of Death, Destruction, Armageddon, or whatever extra-Scriptural enthusiasm is in possession of them.

My brother is totally unaware of this Death's Head Culture (Totenkopfkultur) and thinks I'm daft. So I sent him a copy of the Christian leaders of the Middle East statement on Christian Zionism http://www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=94029 and he will immediately see the ideas I espouse are, alas, hardly original to myself. excerpt:

The Christian Zionist program provides a worldview where the Gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism. In its extreme form, it places an emphasis on apocalyptic events leading to the end of history rather than living Christ's love and justice today.  

Sounds just as if I have plagiarized my entire blog from these fellows. In fact, it is beginnning to sound like Lord of the Rings. Perhaps all of recent history may be and will be seen as the fight against the Lord of Death.
All of us within the deepest recesses of our being dimly perceive this battle. When we return to the surface world, we try to speak of what we've experienced and we use the ideas we are already comfortable with, so some people see Rapture, some see Armageddon, some see the positive side, others see only the horrid. Similarly, if we read of near death experiences, we find some are inspiring, some are terriffying. Which color filter do you use to view Reality?
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The Real World

http://www.btselem.org/English/ is the website of the Israeli Human Rights Group B'Tselem.

You may read how, since the abduction of Cpl. Shalit, 76 Palestinians have been killed. This is a policy we are supporting. Huzzah!

The Medium is the Morality

I was talking with a moral absolutist.
I asked for an unchanging moral or ethical proposition.
"Do not kill." was suggested.
I asked about his position on execution by the state. He was for it.
I asked about war. He dodged into just war.

Since he was Catholic, I pointed out that the Iraq War did not met the Catholic Church's definition of a Just War. And so on.
If there is actually a position to be described as Moral Absolutist, it must be maintained with mirrors and reflections.
If there is actually a position of Moral Relativism, it must be maintained by those of arrogant spirit. I have never read a paper or book on Moral Relativism-either pro or con-that did not strike me as utter nonsense. In both cases, the true Morality was subsumed within the argumentation, the message. In effect, the Medium was the Morality and Morality was the medium: it was no more than the arguments themselves.

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What is the Love of God?

" ...more like a man Flying from something that he dreads than one who sought the thing he loved." William Wordsworth, "TINTERN ABBEY"

Fear and Panic: the Flight response come quickly to us.
Flight is an autonomous response. We have learned to play with it as we watch films of horror, gore, and violence; as we watch news reports of atrocities committed by others and by our own government. When people wonder why there is so much bad news, this is the reason: we are thrilled by the bad news for it titillates our inborn Flight response. This Fear & Flight response occurs universally across a wide range of human behavior.

Is there an autonomous and inborn response that attracts? Instead of causing us to flee and become a fugitive, does it bring us together? Is it universal across the range of human activity? Sexual attraction may come to mind, but it is limited to sexual behavior. It is not universal across human behavior.
The Love of God is the universal autonomous response of drawing-together. It is autonomous as it comes into being on its own. It is universal as it occurs across the range of all our behaviors. It draws the soul to God. I think some people experience when they imagine themselves to be in the proximity of a lovely sunset and thereupon say some tidbit like "Ah, Such Beauty! Thus do I affirm God's existence!" Thus they imagine themselves to have Faith.
That's fine. Faith uses the Love of God to create the structure of Faith. It is not a quid-pro-quo, but it does need the two participants-God and myself-to be fully serious about what we are doing and to be fully committed to it.

When I say it is not quid-pro-quo, I realize that I am disagreeing with those that believe that God rewards with carrots and punishes with sticks according as we obey or disobey. Faith comes into being as the Love of God pulls creation together. As two hands draw together in prayer, the hands create a structure- the "praying hands" of Durer's woodcuts, for example- and there is the space outside the hands and the space enclosed within the hands. We have a three dimensional structure.
When the hands draw apart, the structure dissipates. Each hand returns to solitude.

We are back at Dawn Consciousness of childhood. Love of God creates Faith. It is corrupted soon into the give-and-take, obey and reward, disobey and punish of the family life, of the economic life of mankind. That faith becomes the Universal Abacus of a miserly God. Faith is a structure that emerges into existence at our birth and requires absolutely no particular effort of anyone's part: it is essential to creation. Just as our tendency to flight is inborn-thus preserving our well being-so is our tendency to draw together-thus advancing our growth and progress.

Faith: 1

As I was depositing my brother in a cheap motel across from the legal offices to which he will go Tuesday morning after Labor Day in order to be accompanied by his lawyer as he surrenders himself to the local constabulary...

[...]

... I talked to him about Faith, Humility, and Charity. His own grasp of the Holy is rather tenuous and reflects much of the childish notions which clutter up our consciousness.

When St. Paul told us to put away the things of a child, he didn't mean dredels; he meant childishly improper notions of the Holy.
What is Faith?
We have already discussed statements of Faith and Truth and Falsity elsewhere, so we will not repeat it here.

What, then, is Faith?
I have heard people in bad situations say one must have faith in God. This seems to imply that God will ride to your rescue like the cavalry in the last reel of an old film thriller. Since this doesn't seem to happen too very often nowadays, it is wide of the mark.
Faith is a two-way street. A person of Faith must adhere to the ideals of Faith set forth by God. Then God will maintain His end of the bargain. Faith is not merely relying on God; it is absolutely relying on God given that you have demonstrated your firm reliance by an exhausting attempt to maintain the standards set forth by God.

If you do not visit the sick, it is problematic whether you should rely too much on divine favor. Similarly if you take oaths, if you do not honor your parents, if you remain stiff-necked and arrogant, if you do not minister to those in prison..all of which MUST be done so that your left hand is sublimely ignorant of what your right hand is doing. (It must be done quietly and without fanfare.), then it is not clear that God will provide. (As soon as I write this, I am aware that I subtly propagandize my efforts for my brother. I never said I was perfect.)

FAITH requires firm effort to maintain the standards set out by God. Before you ask God, He has already asked you. How difficult is it? You probably say, I always do what God wants: I go to church on Sunday, I tithe, I contribute to zakah, I observe the high holydays, etc. etc. etc. There are many stumbling blocks.

We are called upon to turn the other cheek. Do we? We are told not to ask what we shall eat, what we shall drink, where shall we sleep, for our Father will provide. Do we? The demands of Faith cannot all be met at the same time. Within the personal history of the individual there is a progress along the way from darkness to light.

We must maintain our intention to fulfill the demands of Faith as best we can within our lives. This is why we are given our three score and ten; it takes time to fulfill our commitment to God. God does not demand this. It is the nature of the relationship between God and Man that it is two-way. If God reaches out to me, I need to reach toward him. If God offers me and I refuse, do I ever experience that blessing?

Intelligent Design: 4

My nephews say that perhaps I should say ID is polytheism, not idolatry.

I think they're right. However, one Greek word is as good and as impenetrable as another, so idolatry stands. (If you were an ID supporter, you would say "Idolatry Rulz!" in the inner sanctum of your boys' club of spiritual depravity.)

In 1975, David Foster had a book call The Intelligent Universe. It was published by G.P.Putnam's Sons, New York, 1975. Mr. Foster was a scientist. Mr. Foster was postulating a universal intelligence based on data and information. This all hung on the analysis of the term intelligence. I quote:

"There is a classic argument for the existence of intelligence on a fairly universal scale based on the thought that a human design can only be created through intelligent human means, and therefore if we witness pattern or design in nature, it is highly suggestive that this is the result of intelligence. The idea is that you cannot have design without a designer..."

"But such views...are really beliefs of a quasi-religious nature, and while I do not dispute the possibility of their validity, nevertheless, they are hardly capable of proof in a scientific sense. The postulates are too simple and to inferential to be satisfactorily convincing, and even suggest that ' God is made in the image of Man. ' " 

There is a subtle point in all this ID that 30 years ago Mr. Foster got and we in our benighted generation cannot; that if you mix God and Science, you will either get bad Science or monstrous Religion or both.
In a era of scientific achievement, God will be reduced to a human scale: a heavenly draftsman.
In an era of religious achievement ( few and far between, alas) , science will be reduced to Scholasticism.

I mean, just how comfortable do you feel with a scientists who says, I've come across a situation I can't understand fully. I could either experiment and investigate, or I could retreat into some obscure idolatry. Suppose this scientist was your medical doctor. How comfortable would you feel? I don't understand your symptoms. I could run more tests, or I could sacrifice a chicken.

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Lassitude

I have not posted for a while. I suppose this undermines blog status. One can't really have a blog-web log- if one doesn't actually log things in.

SO maybe I have an Intermittent Blog. It is not due to the exquisite languor of unemployment in which I find myself. It is not due to my slothful nature. I have started a novel. It's coming along. If you've never done this, you won't understand what its like, so I'm not going to waste your time. What good is a blog so brief?

People find my blog like a summer rain storm over Espanola being watched from the heights of Chimayo: it is brief and even in its brevity there is little solace since the heat evaporates the rain drops before they reach the valley.

Son of Fascism

Please inform Major Embarassment that WWII is over. Tom Brokaw's Greatest Generation won it. I'm sure they don't begrudge us having our own little wars to make the world safe for democracy, but the big one ended in 1945. The expresssion "Islamo-fascism" does not make sense; it does not make sense immediately when it is spoken nor when it is heard; it does not make sense after a period of reflection. It does not make sense on a beach, it makes no sense in a speech. (The only thing that seems to come close to Fascism was the Christian Phalange Party in Lebanon, founded in the 1930's. The time is right. The nomenclature is correct; recall General Franco was a Falangist supporter. The political views accord. Everything sort of points to a fascist group.) The fact that certain people make statements like: "Herr Hitler was right! Such and such and so-and-so..." is in itself NOT proof of a fascist philosophy. Do you have any idea how embarrasing it is to have a government that has not yet learned that policy should not be based on fantasy? What important link to reality is missing from that group? What I mean is, I may as well go out an make a speech and accuse Muslim terrorists of being "Islamo-White Supremacists" or "Islamo-Aryan Brothers" and it would make as much sense as what Major Embarassment says. The important distinction is that I am not the leader of the most powerful nation in the history of the world!!! For heaven sake, what is the matter with this country?

Intelligent Design: 3

I find it time to repeat the initial message of this blog: the theory of Intelligent Design is idolatry. You will notice that most sites for or against ID go into great detail. I do not think it necessary, since the very logic in the manner it is argued implies more than one God. Intelligent Design: 1

Advertisments?

My nephews say that I should place ads, adverts, or advertisments on my blog so that, in their words, "some good may come of it." Well, given the Name of the Blog ( do I hear an Eco of some other writer?) I don't think that would be a good idea. Oh, I know organized religion does everything but grab the worshippers by the heels, turn them upside down, and collect the currency that falls from their pockets. I just don't think I have enough familiarity with you-know-who to go about collecting money in His name. In the first place, there's this business of tithing. Well, who gets the tithe? If I give it back to myself, is it really tithing? In the second, what the the advertisers don't like what I write? Do I treat them as if they were Midianites? Finally, in my own household we are considering seriously letting the Cable TV umbilical cord be disconnected. There are way too many commercials. I have been with people who have spent 2 hours looking at TV, during which there was about 1.2 hours of programming and 1.6 hours of complaining about the commercials. It has gotten so bad that I now only schedule TV watching of commercials that are superb. I watch Chrysler's Dr.Z at 6,6:20,6:45, and 8:00. Then there's the cellular telephone commercials that present various objects construed as the strength of signal display - 5 boats on a river, 5 combines in a field, etc. - which I TiVo. Am seriously considering making a TV Guide-type thing for commercials since they are the wave of the future.

Humility: 2

Many people have called saying they have found those loose screws I seem to have been leaving as I walk about.

My definition of Humility is not well received. Well, if it isn't the way I told it, what is it? By stopping the recycling of everything around the self, you are not left alone; you are left in the presence of God. Q.E.D.
The loss of self where the Holy immediately picks up the baton - as it were - is a blessing.  

"It's a gift to be simple, it's a gift to be free."

I point out that I am not talking here about those people who have been beaten so greatly and so often that they lose their sense of selfhood. I'm not sure what the therapy is here. Let's see how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict plays out over the next 60 years and check back.

Let's Play CONELRAD

CONELRAD was the name for a system of civil defense communications which was in place to assist our sorry souls in case of a nuclear war and to provide information as to aid and assitance after the lethal strike. There used to be a website called CONELRAD. Check it out and see the wonders of the threat of nuclear annihilation.

My favorite memory of Armageddon: The TV Series was a cute little ad that started with the mournful wailing of a civil defense siren. It wailed like a banshee through the commercial: Oh, cry for mankind. The day of wrath has come! It frightened then and the memory frightens me now. This was all caused by a notice I picked up in Terra Daily in the sub-heading Space War .
 http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Makes_Nuclear_Missile_Data_Secret_Again_999.html

 "The administration of US President George W. Bush has begun reclassifying information about the numbers of US strategic weapons during the Cold War, even though it had been once provided to the Soviet Union, The Washington Post reported Monday."
And so on. Well. Where's Matthew Broderick when we need him? In War Games didn't he choose to play Thermonuclear War? I have said before that the USA and the world has already played MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction, put out by Nuclear Armageddon Gamers Inc.tm I do not believe that it is a good idea to play it again. I mean, why would any sane society decide to sit down on a rainy day with nothing else to do and decide to play Nuclear Jumanji ? Talking heads and Pro and Con, talking heads and Pro and Con... What it comes down to is that when the USSR fell apart, the unique opportunity of total nuclear disarmament presented itself. It is now being buried. There once was a brief springtime when the threat of Atomic War seemed to stop. People came out of their fall-out shelters and blinked.

 It was a new day. We are entering the darkness once more.

The Emotion of Certainty

There has been criticism of my title "The Emotion of Truth". Surely, Truth is not an emotion, it has been pointed out. No, I suppose not. I should have said the emotion of certainty based upon one's perception of what the Truth is. Or not. Too late now. Most of our life is a ship on the sea of emotions, waves of hormones, winds of neuro-chemistry. Our concepts are wolves who have lost their parents and we adopt them and raise them in a Christian home in a middle-class neighborhood, they learn to play soccer and not snap at the opposing team, go to college, get a job, marry, reproduce,and die. I was reading a column by David Limbaugh. He uses the term "Islamo-fascist" so I had to pretend to understand what he was up to here. I don't understand the tag "Islamo-fascist" unless it applies to Benito Mussolini's Syrian nanny, Fatima. However, the column was of interesting construction: a bite of fear, a bite of indignation, a bite of defiance, a bite of outrage...all assembled in a feast. A switch thrown here, a switch thrown there. No particular substance to the column, just incredible sailing of the neuro-chemical sea. I believe that Jesus' injunction to Humility was advice to turn off these switches. You will point out, then, that a truly humble person would be totally withdrawn from society and exist in a remote anchoritic existence. No. The great command to Charity must prevent us from falling into solipsism. Charity is what binds us to others and creates a centrality of performing good acts for others., whereas Humility turns our understanding from the confused fury of an emotional storm to the eye of the hurricane, which is God.

Presidential Respect and Respect for Others

I was reading the Daily Mail when I stumbled across the following:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=401414&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source
Blair 'feels betrayed by Bush on Lebanon 
By SIMON WALTERS 22:57pm 19th August 2006

The alliance between George Bush and Tony Blair is in danger after it was revealed that the Prime Minister believes the President has 'let him down badly' over the Middle East crisis. A senior Downing Street source said that,privately, Mr Blair broadly agrees with John Prescott, who said Mr Bush's record on the issue was 'crap'. The source said: "We all feel badly let down by Bush. We thought we had persuaded him to take the Israel-Palestine situation seriously, but we were wrong. How can anyone have faith in a man of such low intellect?"

Now I believe Mr. John "Bloody" Prescott is a deputy Prime Minister or some such thing. Where does he get off criticizing our President? I have half a mind to cease reading English language newspapers. I mean, I know I criticize the poor, daft Prez, but that's my right as a citizen. He is actually a charming man. And that's why we elected him.

The quaint charm of rich Texans. In re: respect for others, I see that a Muslim doctor from Canada was kicked off an airplane in Denver ( rather like Mr. Gandhi being kicked off the train in South Africa, eh?) on the accusation of a fellow passenger that he was acting suspicious. The doctor was performing evening prayers. That was suspicious. Could be. Now I'm sure you have all seen pictures and videos of Muslims praying in a mosque. They stand, they kneel, they perform numerous prostrations.

But, you ask, how do they pray when they are not in a mosque? Indeed, how do they pray when find themselves in a sardine can with wings, nowadays referred to as an airplane, and there is no room to rest both elbows at the same time, much less room for prostrations and such? Well, they pray sitting. Some may use bottled water to perform a rudimentary ablution. Some will bow their heads instead of kneeling.

In fact, in such situations, the prayer resembles greatly Jewish prayer which involves a rhythmical bowing of the head. Everyone is different. The story adds that the accusing passenger appeared drunk and he had threatened the doctor previously during their trip. The doctor may have been trying to get back at the drunk by praying him down.

Perhaps the drunk was also praying and they were competing to see whose God is greater. I like this last explanation. It just seems more real.

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Festung Europa and Fortress America

I apologize for the recycled terminology of Hitler, but Festung Europa is not original with me. It originally was applied by Hitler to Europe under Nazi control being a bulwark against the arms of Britain and the USA. Mellila and Ceuta, Spanish enclaves in Morocco in North Africa, have been attacked recently by hundreds of immigrants from Western Africa seeking to get to Europe and escape the desert of poverty in their homelands. Spain is doubling the height of the fence to repel future attacks. However, there are other ways. There are smugglers. You can go by boat or inflatable raft for less than 1,000 euros, dig a tunnel for a price, and the cheapest is to have a local Moroccan contractor/smuggler cut a hole in the fence. Does this sound familiar? Of course it does. This is what happens when there is a great disparity of wealth between regions and peoples: it is the tropical low pressure system creating a whirlwind. The problem is exacerbated if you constantly propagandize the situation. By emphasizing how great it is here - even if it isn't always - and how terrible it is in your wretched, little, scruffy back yard, I guarantee that my grass will seem greener to you and you will no longer make an effort to tend to your patch of earth. Festung Europa and Fortress America are known as El Dorado, the golden. As we devour more and more resources and accumulate more and more wealth, this problem will increase. What we see happening between Festung Europa and its illegal aliens and Fortress America and its aliens is also happening within Europe and America as the lion’s share of wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few. And just what does an elite do when it has accumulated 99% of the wealth of a country or of the world? Why, the elite rules over an enormous plantation of the poor, kept separate by fences and armed patrols. We are all Zanj then, and the Zanj rebellion will again be whispered on the wind.

Humility: 1

Every generation thinks itself to be the hub of the Universe. All great truths and issues are circulated through the lungs of me, mine, us, and they come out enriched by the oxygen of our self-centeredness and self-awareness.
I first came across Nostradamus in the 50’s. Most of the quatrains were interpreted as referring to mediaeval events or World War II or the Cold War. Indeed, so great was the impulse to interpret Nostradamus through the eyes of the present that I have often come across people who interpret the word “Hister” as “Hitler”. Since “Hister” was an old Latin word for the Danube River, the new interpretation was pretty much impossible before the 1930’s, at which time it became clear that the simple, uncomplicated, facile name of a river “Hister” was actually something else and old Nostradamus suffered from myopic far-seeing and prophecy.

Over the years, the interpretations of Nostradamus have changed to keep up with the times, the interpretations ascribed to events of WW II being changed into events of the Cold War or Vietnam War or whatever was in the mind of the translator/interpreter. Similarly the Book of Revelations, or Apocalypse, has been read and understood to apply to the reader and his or her generation and the end was coming soon. It is understandable since the language in the New Testament itself leads one to envisage a Second Coming not far off. How many generations have thought they will witness the end? Just about every one, I should think. Consider the concept of the Anti-Christ. At the present day, many have beliefs formed by scenarios of the Rapture and being left behind and the regime of the Anti-Christ. This would lead one to believe that the coming of the Anti-Christ is in the future. However, in 1552 Michael Servetus writes in his Christianismi Restitutio,

" With the heavenly kingdom restored to us, the wicked captivity of Babylon has been ended, and the Anti-Christ with his hosts destroyed.”

This may remind us that for a long time it was held by protesting Christians that the Pope was the Anti-Christ and the Church the whore of Babylon. If the Anti-Christ was destroyed 460 years ago, we should not be awaiting his coming. But we have to. We cannot control our self-centeredness. Humility is the opposite of self-centeredness.  

Humility is not other-centeredness. Humility is the silencing of the processes of the mind that see everything as centering about itself, the hub of the Universe. We have spoken before about a generation which believes in its own destruction. This belief is based on their own self-love and self-centrality. This belief is not based on the word of Jesus. It is not a revelation from God. It is their own self-love not able to let go of anything, even something as horrible as destruction. These are the arrogant; those who cannot let loose of anything. In the Magnificat we read that God will cast the mighty from their thrones and raise the lowly. The lowly, who could not hold anything, will inherit the Earth.

Emeril of Ideas

We all like having people speak well of us. I, however, find it troubling when they choose to punctuate their remarks with guffaws. Of course, I am writing of my nephews.

They started out lunch with things like, "Read your blog today. Good point on wiseguys." Guffaw. You get the idea. To them, I am "The Emeril of Ideas" -guffaw-and I should "kick it up a notch"-guffaw. Sometimes they say something nice, then "I don't think." This is similar to saying "Not", such as, "Your remarks were insightful...not!", but the expression they use comes from Laurel and Hardy's Chumps at Oxford. They prefer the original.
They also say " 9 day wonder " instead of Warhol's "15 minutes of fame". Same reason.

 On another blithering topic, for my birthday we went to a Japanese restaurant. I picked up my brother and his wife in front of their high rise, took a left, went 600 feet, took a left at a cul-de-sac ( or, what appeared to me to be so ), then straight into a parking garage. There were towers and brownstones and parking garages and culs-de-sac everywhere.
It was like driving in Alphaville. And I was Eddie Constantin. And my VW was a Ford. And a mechanical voice ( a voice filled with the sadness of the transmission shop ) repeated endlessly...

There was a large atrium being landscaped with trees and flora and rocks looking out on the real world through Buckminster Fuller compound-fly-eye panes of glass. I felt a great responsibility on my shoulders, looking bleakly and very much like Bruce Dern at the last trees of an Earth destroyed by whatever it was in Silent Running. I wondered if people could spend their lives within, never going outside. I thought Logan's Run. I asked if there were a cinema. The answers came in the past tense: was, were, used to be. The people could not support one. They had to go outside and drive a mile to the Cinema Paradiso. A guy in the elevator told us a joke about Adam and Eve. So I said that women were like ribs, can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em! My wife became nervous that I had found my doppelganger and when the two of us unite our jejune stories, it would be like joining the Key Master and the Gate Keeper and Zool would be unleashed.

Get Pat

There is a great juxtaposition of events sometimes. At the present, I am reading Elmore Leonard's books and about the ceasefire in Lebanon. So, why does Pat Robertson come across like a wiseguy? Why does Pat Robertson think the war in Lebanon ended too soon? Not enough kill? The right guys weren't whacked? So, I'm sittin' with Pat Roberston in Scarelli's, the little pasta joint down by the docks, ya know? And Joey the Gimp comes up and sez, hey, Sticky Thumbs! Like, ya know, they call Pat Sticky Thumbs from when he used to count the collection money after services. He would throw the collection money in the air and say, What stays up, Lord, is yours. What falls is mine! So Pat sez, You talkin' to me?. Right from Taxi Driver, this Robert de Niro thing. So the Gimp gets legs, quick. And there's Sticky glaring at him. So he sits down. It's a shame, he sez. It's a shame. No respect. Like in the Middle East. A bunch of schmarters and towelheads and they can't even get Armageddon right. So I nod like I know what the hell he's talking about. The pasta's good, so what the hey? Now me, he sez, I'd nuke 'em all, get J-Town ( what Sticky calls Jerusalem ) and kick all the bastards out, Arab and Israeli both. They're both Semites, he sez. He sits backs in his chair, smilin'. He beamin' like a lightbulb. Then he points at me with his fork and gets all serious, like, and sez, We gotta go to the mattresses! Show 'em what war is! So I sez, what's my vig?, figurin' that if we go to the mattresses, what's in it for us? So Sticky's eyes sort of glaze over and he goes all quiet. The biggest pay-off ever, you small minded schmuck! The Second Coming! O.K. So I'm thinkin' who's backing Pat on this? The guys in Chicago? Or New York? Maybe the D.C. mob. When did Christiano-celebrities start being Wiseguys ?

The Sturmabteilung's Place in Modern History

This headline is a pretentious display of pseudo-knowledge, creating the impression that something weighty will be discussed and all that will happen is that I will trot out my trained dog entourage of opinions.

My nephews say that my display of opinions and comments resembles old TV clips from the old Ed Sullivan Show of the acts of acrobats from China balancing dinnerware on sticks.
I am not clear whether this is pro-me or contra-me. I had not the heart to ask for clarification, fearing some further analogies, perhaps to Floyd the Barber this time.

I was reading The Nation again, this time:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060828/buchanan
which is an article entitled Locked and Loaded
written by Susy Buchanan and David Holthouse

It deals with a Mr. Simcox who apparently was the guiding force behind the founding of the Minutemen, a quasi-vigilante group who patrolled the borders in the absence of government patrols.
The article ends:

 Yet these days, what really fires up Simcox is something other than nativist paranoia. Delivering his spiel at Wild Bill's on that Saturday night in June, Simcox looked and sounded almost bored by his own message--until he started extemporizing about Arizona Senator John McCain, that is, and how McCain's immigration reform plan amounts to a "shamnesty." "We need to keep that man away from the White House!" Simcox boomed. The Georgia Republicans cheered and hooted. And when Simcox got carried away enough to declare, "I may just run for his seat in the Senate," their adulation became a roar.  

The points of interest for me are:
1) paramilitary groups take over when and where governments cannot function. This may be totally unbelievable for present day US of A, the most powerful country in history, yet there it is. Parallel: Germany post World War I.

2)even though our President refers constantly to Islamo-fascism, it is not clear to me what that concept means. I gather he means to point a finger at Bin Laden and say something like " He and his ilk !" but that does not seem to be what is being said. "Fascism" appears to be a term meaning "Really, really, really bad guy." and could be applied to Hitler and Saddam Hussein.
However, then we would have to apply it to General Franco also, and there would be a difference of opinion on that score. Fascism, whatever it is, requires the ARMY for external violence, the RICH and LARGE BUSINESS CLASS for economic activity, and ORGANIZATION for internal violence.
The Internal Violence group will bully and beat up internal dissent. This is a job the Army has no taste for, nor do the politicians wish the Army ( possibly with its own ideas) operating within national borders. Parallel: the Sturmabteilung in Germany.

 3) The populace must be compliant. They do not have to be insane. They merely have to be operating at the usual insanity level most of us operate at.

4) Fascism requires a propaganda of fear and violence to justify the workings of the group performing the internal violence.

Now this we already have. The histrionics of various right-wing ideo-poltroons seems to be a reality show entitled "Who Wants to be Julius Streicher?" We have mentioned the phenomenon of Coulter and outrageous comments that seem to incite to violent acts, specializing in the language of violence and discord, catering to the fears of her auditors, relishing the dismay in the faces of the damned as she pricks them with her sulfurous trident. Perhaps she wishes to be a theoretician; the Alfred Rosenberg of the neo-cons.
Note that in the New York Times diatribes, there was a comparison to the other Rosenbergs. I always had trouble with Jewish names beginning with the letter "R". For all I can recall, Arnold Rothstein lost the plans for the atomic bomb to Uncle Joe Stalin in a poker game. Parallel: Alfred Rosenberg, Uncle Joe Goebbels All interesting developments.

I do not mean to imply that Mr. Simcox has any such intentions. I would firmly expect that his organization - if it were to form the nexus of a Sturmabteilung - would be stripped from his control and he would disappear in a "Night of the Long Knives".

--

Henry Ford : 2

Reading an essay in The Nation about Natural Capitalism. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060717/cubelic I believe this is what Henry Ford had in mind with his vision of town and "cottage" industry. It has been ignored because the Return on Investment isn't rapid enough. We need that Return; not our grandchildren ! ( That's why we pass along the increasing debt to them.)

Henry Ford

I am reading a paper by Nicholas Humphrey and this act is a great pleasure. He reminds me of Voltaire. ( Having said this, I immediately flash on Talladega Nights, having seen it recently, and laugh at the satire on our deprecation of Frenchy things.)
He repeats an apocryphal story about Henry Ford ( there is only 1 Henry Ford, so I do not require roman numerals or other indicators as to which person I refer) wherein Mr. Ford sent fellows around the country to scrap yards looking for remnants of his Model T to determine whether any parts were still serviceable. They discovered that the kingpins of the vast majority of Model T junkers they found were still in extrememly good condition. Mr. Ford immediately wrote a memo stating that all parts used in their cars be of lesser quality and not last for such a long time.

This is a tale of the present age, not of Henry Ford and his time. It is not only apocryphal of Mr. Ford, it is a complete fabrication and misrepresentation. The present day auto companies would do this in a second. Not so Henry Ford.

We make a grave mistake when we try to re-draft the history of the past in the misguided lineaments of this, our present day. My wife and I just read the memoirs of Mr. Ford's chef at Fair Lane. The man's son is a neighbor of my parents. He attended elementary school in Greenfield Village, if you can imagine such a wonderful Tom Sawyer type of existence. Mr. Ford was interested in food and health, expending efforts of soy products with Dr. G.W.Carver. Mr. Ford's insistence that his workers not smoke and not drink used to be considered quaint and intrusive. Now it appears to be enlightened and a fringe benefit.

We want to take a one or two day trip in the area of the Huron River in Michigan where Henry Ford dreamed of small village industry: a factory to make certain auto components located in one village, power being supplied by hydroelectric dams across the rivers and creeks. Not factory towns. Towns with a small factory, on a human scale, with clean and renewable energy.
Some of the dams still exist. Portions of some of the factories exist in truncated form. It is a vision of America which is enchanting and just too much like our memories of Twilight Zone's Willoughby or Ray Bradbury's Rocket Summer to be real.

If you visit Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum, the trip would be complete with a visit to Mr. Ford's vision of American industrialism, an industrialism which would have attempted to avoid the worst of the evils of the industrial systems up to his time. Henry Ford built his cars to last. It is attested by many that Model Ts were notoriously long lived.

Hence,the apochryphal story above is nonsense. Henry Ford's memory has been corrupted by the present day which recalls only what it wants to recall: that is, a picture of itself seen within the soul of a truly great individual. The Ford Company of the present bears no semblance to Henry Ford's vision.

The Battle of Algiers

While in Toronto recently, I saw the film "The Battle of Algiers". This is a great film and has a great history, being the fight of colonial France to hang onto power in Algeria. This is a chapter of history most of us would greet with blank stares, knowing little and caring less about such historical bunkum.

I also saw Jean-Luc Godard's "Contempt" which title must explain the director's attitude to the audience, for it took the concept of boredom to new heights. Even the presence of Brigitte Bardot could not save it. Even the presence of Fritz Lang could not save it. It was evocative of Fellini's "8 1/2" . But it was "8 1/2" done by a monk suffering from accidie or terminal ennuie.
Jack Palance was in it. Get the picture?
Fritz Lang seemed to do nothing except say wise old sayings. But we must remember that Lang was a great director, not an actor. This was Godard's homage to Lang, get the old guy out of retirement, slap him into a poorly written film that had no plot, shoot the damn thing and slip out of town. Now, what does the film "The Battle of Algiers", dealing with the confrontation between a western society and a militant society of predominantly Muslim people, have to offer us today by way of insight? I suppose you'll just have to see it.

A Christian Jihad

I have learned how to write headlines that mean nothing but have an incredible amount of traction and pure got'cha-ness.

What could be the meaning of Christian Jihad, you wonder, especially since the founder of Christianity said something or other about warfare. (Or, did He?) Perhaps Jesus said all wars are bad except just wars, just wars being those you clear with God first, just as our own leaders cleared Iraq with their outrageous golden calf or barrel of oil.
I'm sure we would prefer Queequeg's little idol to the God who winked at the start of the Iraqi Attacki. So, the headline doesn't mean anything. It is outrageous and eye-catching. I pulled a Coulter on you! Or a Krauthammer, or whatever oddball intellect is in fashion today.

What we do have is an interesting discussion on race, Green vs. Connally in 1971, and the birth of the religious right: http://www.ird-renew.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=fvKVLfMVIsG&b=470197&ct=2868677

I do not take this article as an indictment of the religious right. The overarching desire for power expressed by their own lips is an adequate self-condemnation of those who set their own intemperate desires up on the altar and worship them.

My Friend and Ally

I saw my friend and ally on the TV last night.
Imagine my surprise. I had been his friend for most of my life...still am for that matter, but I have other friends, too, not to mention that I am more friendly to the Truth than I am to any one particular friend.

Anyhow, my friend and ally had bombed a refugee camp, killing a couple of people.
He defended his act by saying he was after a really bad guy ( not, however, Saddam Hussein this time) who had a house there. It was also said he had bombed a number of families' houses because they had rather large missiles concealed under their breakfast table.

Residential buildings have been destroyed by this madcap rascal because (and you'd laugh if you could hear him tell it) because another really bad guy (no, not Saddam Hussein) - a really, really bad guy was visiting his aunt in the building. Actually this bad egg was lobbing bombs at my friend and ally and it was all about something so long ago you'd think they would have forgotten about it.
He was at least as bad a guy as my friend and ally.

What do I think about how this will all come out? We have not had the vision, charity, nor determination in 60 years to amend this situation. In that time we had moral leaders, so... No way today.

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The Emotion of Truth: 3

People ask me how can I hold that religious statements cannot be true nor false.

Well, I do not think you can prove them to be true or false. Truth needs a process of verifying whatever it is you're talking about.
I have Faith. I hold things to my heart and feel a sense of certainty. I do not have a set of beliefs that I can post upon a church door. I have Faith. Since my Faith is not dependent upon some arbitrary process of proof or argument, it cannot be undermined by someone else's poor opinion of it.

I can speak the name of Jesus without feeling like a wimp, nor feeling some overwhelming divine epiphany which makes me speak in tongues. I am tolerant not because it is the fashion, but because that I know that everyone else has the same sense of certainty about their Faith as I do about mine.

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Lebanon on August 5, 2006

I have lost track of the days of the Unpleasantness in Lebanon, so I'll just go by dates.

I'm not trying to be supercilious by calling it an Unpleasantness, because I must resist the temptation to add my voice to the chorus of outrage. The perpetrators of such horrors will not amend themselves by angry confrontation. In such confrontation, they find support for their own anger and destruction.

Remember General Dyer and the massacre at Jallianwalla Bagh, or Amritsar. " How shall the dying children apply for aid, General Dyer?"

If you have seen the film "Gandhi", you will recall that following this question, there was a close-up of Edward Fox as General Dyer and there was silence for about 8 seconds. 8 seconds of silence in a film of 24 frames per second makes even the most entranced come out of their involvement with the story and begin to ask "What's going on? Why has the movie stopped?"

When will we ask what is going on? When the WTC was attacked, we had Bin Laden to apprehend and capture. One man. Perhaps a few followers. Now we have created a disaster in Iraq which is a School for Terror. Now we have countenanced the bloody charade in Lebanon which will be a University of Terror. I feel much less safe than I did in late 2001.

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The Devil

Sometimes it is hard to know what to make of the Devil, whether the concept means an entity or some sort of metaphor.

I am usually brief, if nothing else, so I will give a brief answer. The Devil is ourselves.

There is no being that is more knowledgeable and intimate with what's going on in our minds than we ourselves. There is nothing capable of more harm to those we love than ourselves. The notion of Devil comes from our incessant attempts to deceive ourselves as to our intentions, motives, and actions.
We project our evil "somewhere out there" as Captain Kirk would say. So we end up searching for the Devil "out there" so we may defeat him.
Since he's not "out there", we never really discover his hide-out.

We have a similar, yet different problem with God. We do not try to conceal our so-called "godly" acts from ourselves, much less from others. We try to emphasize what we take to be our good acts. We create an entire stage-play of how tight we are with God and let it run for everyone to see. We hide from the Devil, who is us. We conceal God with posters and billboards proclaiming how great we are.

No wonder...

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The Pomposity of Colonel Blimp

My nephews doubt I shall be able to continue my blog much longer, since the end is approaching for OPEC.

For them, OPEC if the Organization of Pomposity Exporting Clowns ( or Countries if you like) and they find the deposits of Pretentiousness and I-know-better-than-you as deep and as vast as my own are sure to run dry. Ha!, I say to that. I say that I am the President G.W. - Global Warming Bush of Pomposity.

I got his insight and the ring-tailed nastiness of Cheney. I am the roughest gaucho of all the Pompous. They used the image of Colonel Blimp, which image brings the notion of pomposity and irrelevance and too many kippers for breakfast. It is an old image no one today is familiar with. I think that they are the pompous ones. They threaten to insert my likeness into their clip of Coulter being chased by Wesley Snipes. This is serious. I must find a stargate.

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Lebanon Day 18

I believe it has been 18 days. I may be off. The Lebanon operation is certainly looking as if it was planned to be very quick, clean, and effective. Since the enemy refuses to lay down, it is becoming down and dirty and drawn out. It begins to resemble Iraq.

How Long Will You Live?

I am going to briefly touch on quality of inner life issues. The most important thing to remember is you will have the same identity. And here the pertinent question is: Can you live with it? Life can be tricky. Every mistake you make may or may not be remembered. Can you look at yourself in the mirror every day until you’re 90? If you get rid of all the mirrors, what memories will disturb you in the dark of night? Just like the film Match Point…but few are so lucky. And even being lucky to escape the law does not mean lucky to escape the memory...as evidenced by the apparition of the dead women in the kitchen at the movie's end. Always act in a way that you’ll never regret…ever. Be loyal and truthful, be brave and courageous, be honorable and faithful. Respect life in all its forms. Respect the word of God.

My Nephews

I never really paid too much attention to my three nephews, nor did they to me, until that fated day when I sent them a note for a graduation party. We had had some light-hearted stationery made up and it featured the drawings of a man, under whom was my name, a woman, under which was my wife's name, and so on. You get the idea.
The last picture was a dog and under the dog was the name Carl. This was my idea of a joke. We did not own a dog. We were allergic to dogs. We had never owned a dog. When we visited people who did own dogs and the great brute mastiffs jumped up on us or did that leg thingey, we did not gleam with delight.
When the owners said, "Rover, come on. So-and-so doesn't want you jumping all over him.", we did not contradict this observation. Sometimes I gave one of those sickly smiles and said, "Indeed. Indeed, Rover."

When conversation turned to pets, I would say things like, "Ah, that's all right for you doggie-types to say.", or  "You probably do know more about mediaeval Europe, living with the animals in the house as you do...". And so on.
Well, I had the dog placed on the stationery because I liked comic books. When someone were to ask me ( they never did) why we had a dog on the stationery, I would say, " Carl barks." This meant the artist, Carl Barks.
My nephews did not ask. They saw the letter and drawings and went into gales of laughter. I mostly enjoy the way they watch Fox News and talk and laugh at the screen. Bill O'Reilly is a favorite target. They have compiled a file of Ann Coulter clips which they play with disturbing frequency. I ask if they think she is becoming insane. They answer they do not care. They think she bears an uncanny and humorous resemblance to the monster aliens of the first season of Stargate: Atlantis. So they play the recordings as sort of a monster-alien-armageddon-brave-new-world news broadcast.
Or, it is a preview of the futuristic Vampire news which they've intersperse with Blade cuts. Of course, they stole the idea for the Coulter destroying Tokyo sequences from South Park, at least I think so. Then Takashi Shimura and Raymond Burr versus Coulter-zilla... You get the notion of this. I would like to say they have too much time on their hands, but they actually have time for charity work on the sly..don't say I told you so.

La France: Les chats et les chiens

I was talking to a fine new lawyer who is domiciled south of the Mason-Dixon line. We spoke of our interesting friendship with the French. I believe Bill O'Reilly had made some penetrating remark. Well done, Mr. Bill! ( And where, oh, where is Mr. Sluggo when we need him?) Or perhaps it was Mr. Tucker Carlson who seems to be still searching for his lost bowtie. Since both of us have had some experience with cats and dogs, we decided to try to use animal metaphors to describe France and the USA. Well, that was just too simple. I mean, the French are cats and the Americans are dogs. You know how remote cats are. They are indeed inscrutable. They do not enter into our comraderies. They have their own secret sciences and religions. Whereas we might very much expect dogs to gleefully join our worship, cats obviously make pilgrimage to some secret fane and participate in rituals not meant for human eyes. We might expect dogs to study physics and give a high-five all around when they engineer a better water bowl, but cats - we think - would look at our knowledge and say something like: "This species is where we were 2,000 years ago...but for the Prime Directive, we might assist them." Dogs would watch sports on ESPN and debate sports topics. Cats would consider even PBS to be a bit too infra dig.

Politics at the Pseudo-End Times: 1

I do not like writing about politics. There are so many other people who do it. They speak about it, too. Endlessly. And the standards for entry into the field are so very low. I was at my parents place, painting the outdoor furniture, hurrying to beat the rains.At night they listen to Fox News. This evening, Bill O'Blabs-a-lot was talking to fellow media-monger Gretta Van Chatterbox. The very odd Alphonse-Gaston routine they were doing caused my father to yell at the TV, " Let him talk, for goodness sake!" I chortled to myself, secure in the knowledge that I would never descend to listen to Fox News, even when the TV volume was cranked up to the maximum. I sometimes think of my parents sitting in front of the TV with their hair blowing behind their heads, as if the audio were a wind machine blasting in their faces. I will restrict Politics to areas where it mixes with Religion; that witches' cauldron of Western Society from its beginning. From Cairo's Al-Ahram Cairo Review of Books:

Elsewhere in the same section, US historian William Polk, in a piece dated March 2003 ( Une sombre affaire / A Sombre Affair ), reviews the arguments given by the Bush Administration for the invasion of Iraq. Dismissing these as fantasies, he outlines the "hidden agenda determining American relations with Iraq: the new strategic conception of American world domination; the messianic faith in Christian fundamentalism; and the connection between Christian fundamentalism and Zionism."

This is a statement of enormous range.It is not my intent to argue about the truth or falsity of such a statement.

It is my interest how such statements come about.

I believe that a human being is so complex that all the above motives could exist without the individual having them all grouped together in a coherent belief system.

Words and Reason help us to create such a coherence. However, this coherent belief system is not absolutely necessary for an individual to act. The belief system expressed in words is more like a description of actions.

Actions and words, actions and words.

I disturbs me that a writer could discern the features of the face of our new neo-conservative Interregnum of 2000 to 2008 so early on. This is all a part of our Narrative of End of Times. We differ in the details, but almost all of us believe we are headed for destruction.

What happens when a majority of a society believes in inevitable doom?

We'll find out.

The Emotion of Truth: 2

Previously we said that two people may feel certainty about statements that appear to be inconsistent. The example was from my youth when I was taught that Protestants could not enter Heaven and my neighborhood chums, who were Protestant, were taught that they would have no such impediment merely because their beliefs were different from the Roman Catholic Church.

This is a good example. Both sides use the same Holy Book. We concluded that even though both sides feel certainty, this feeling cannot imply the truth of the statements made. We have a procedure of verifying statements which is heavily influenced by our history of scientific work over hundreds of years.
What was Aristotle's verification procedure? We do not really know. When Aristotle affirmed certain things about sea creatures, he made some howling mistakes. However, he must have thought them correct.
How did he go about verifying propositions about sharks, let's say? Did he walk down to the harbor, talk to the fishermen, who in turn winked at each other and proceeded to give the old professor an outrageous cock and bull story?
Perhaps.
We do not know. We know his Logic, but the basis for the truth of some of his statements about the world is a mystery. We have procedures for verification. We test, we re-test, we insist on third-party reproducibility of the tests, and so on.

I have heard it said recently that Science can prove anything.
Not really. Let us assume that you and I attend a Cure concert. Not the original Cure, the later Cure. I say it rocked, you say it sucked.
Consider the statement: " The Cure concert was great." There is nothing apparently odd or paradoxical about this statement, "The Cure concert was great." Is does not strike us as funny, unusual, nor a play on words. Yet if a scientist were to try to prove it true or false, he would run into problems. If a scientist said it was true, we would present your contrary opinion. If he said it was false, I would state my opinion.

The scientist would have to formulate a new statement and a procedure to implement it. He would say, "Let us set up a survey and we shall ask the opinions of all who were at the concert." Then we would have a result such as "51% liked the show and 48% did not and 1% was getting high."
This has a great deal more information than did the original statement, "The Cure concert is great.", but it is not the original. It has been transformed out of recognition into a form which science can actually act upon.

So how do we verify my childhood quandary where the statement might have been "Protestants will not enter Heaven." I said the statement is true, my friend Christian Johann ( he was indeed my friend) said it is false. We cannot appeal to the Bible, for we already have done so. There is no verification procedure for such a statement. ( We could wait until Judgement Day, but then we probably won't be arguing such niceties.)

Well, after a long time of looking at Truth and how it is used, it finally dawned on me that statements such as "Protestants will not enter Heaven" cannot be given a truth-value. They cannot be judged to be true nor false. As paradoxical as this sounds, it also indicated to me the meaning of Faith.

In brief, faith is the way we deal with all statements which cannot be called true nor false, and FAITH is the way we deal with religious statements which cannot be called true nor false.
Notice that Faith or faith is not some garbage dump of the indecisive. Faith is not some second-best alternative for things that are perplexingly not proveable as true or false. Beyond our normal understanding of Faith, it is a concept which ties Logic to Emotion and Belief. As shown by our example, "The Cure concert was great.", the algorithmic nature of language allows us to spin out an infinity of such statements.

I can propound as many such statements as I want, using the template:  "The X is Y"  and  "I believe Y"  and "Someone else believes not-Y" and Y is based in our emotional life. In this instance, "believe" becomes close to "feel".
 And you say, of course, it is a matter of individual taste and everyone knows that all people differ in such things. However, people also differ from each other in much the same way in their religious outlooks.
Am I saying religion is a matter of taste?
No. I am saying that religious statements cannot be proven true or false. Since this is so, we have Faith, or not, as the case may be. If religious statements were proveable, the concept Faith would be totally unnecessary. So the Cure was great, for me. And this looks suspiciously like the language of Moral Relativism wherein we hear such oddities as, "If I indulge in certain actions, they are good...for me...even though most people find them appalling."

Before we go any further, let me remind you of where I am coming from. I worship the one God. I do not require an Intelligent Designer, which I hold to be Idolatry. I do not require proof of God's existence. At a certain point, I have learned to shut my mouth, be silent, and act according to my sense of the Holy; to visit the sick, those in jail, to honor one's parents... I need no diagrams of the prophecies of the End of Times. I want no visual aids. I want to be charitable, truthful, loving, and loyal. And if I never spoke about metaphysics again, it would not bother me in the slightest. I do not admire St. Francis for his metaphysics. I do not respect Abraham for his proofs of God's existence. I do not admire the Caliph Omar because he published theories of the Holy. These people reflect the Holy in their lives.
And actions are always true.
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The Emotion of Truth: 1

I heard from some friends about the King David Hotel story. I can only say that in my view, not all Israelis are good and not all Arabs are bad. That's the point. If it is beyond your comprehension, too bad. The simplicity of the view in the USA that all Israel: good; all Arab: bad; verges on being simple-minded. This results in today's story about the British Foreign Secretary protesting the US use of Prestwick Airport in western Scotland to transport bombs to Israel while the rest of the world is trying to limit the strife. Recently I spoke to some people who were discussing religion. They were of the opinion that Islam was too violent and possibly a bit infra dig for them. So was Christianity that had its history of religious wars to drag along like Marley's chains. They thought the best bet was a Far Eastern religion, such as Buddhism. They were obviously thinking of the Dalai Lama. I pointed out that our experience of Islam comes through the western media, our experience of Christianity is our own, so we intimately know all the dirt of the Christian churches, but our experience of Buddhism, say, is solely restricted to writings and speeches of university educated people to whom we are already sympathetic. I mean to say, we do not read the works of the Dalai Lama to prove that he is a scoundrel and his faith a sham, a process some of us indulge in when it comes to Islam. Not all Buddhists are smiling. The point of this is that when we have sought Truth, and we have diligently applied ourselves to a verification of Truth, and finally are convinced of Truth, we feel an emotional conviction and surety of that Truth. So the truth of X leads to a feeling of certainty associated with X. But the converse is not valid. A feeling of certainty of X does not imply that X is true. (note: I do not include propositions of Faith in this discussion. ) The process to which we are subject is a lifetime of propaganda from our elite and media used to train us to certain beliefs. Since there is not thoroughgoing verification of any of this, the aim is to instill a feeling of certainty. Once we feel the certainty, we conclude that the propositions must be true. By feeling certain that the USA and Israel are always correct, that Israel is God's nation and our country has a special relationship with the God of Israel, we accept these statements uncritically. I know this process is faulty and is a result of invalid emotional logic. As a child, my religious education included the propositions that everyone who is not a Roman Catholic is destined to Hell. I found this hard to accept, particularly since my neighborhood chums included Protestants, whom we referred to as "publics" , meaning they attended public schools. The earliest blessing of understanding I can remember was when I realized that my emotional state of truth and conviction and certainty in my own redemption by being a member of the RC Church must be duplicated, almost entirely, within the lives of my Protestant friends. In other words, if my certainty implies the truth of my beliefs, the certainty felt by Protestants must imply the truth of their beliefs. The logic of it all was overwhelming. The validity of this insight, or gift of understanding from God, was reaffirmed by the fact that the only source of verification was the Bible and both sides had recourse to it, so this was not an unambiguous verification procedure. So we firmly believe, then, statements which cannot be proven true nor false, and we do it based on the basis of previous beliefs. These previous beliefs bestow the feeling of certainty as they encompass unproveable statements into their emotional one-ness.

Bombing in Jerusalem!

On July 22, 1946, the Jewish “Underground” group Etzel planted a bomb and blew up the southern wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. 91 people were killed. The area was under the control of Britain in 1946 and of the 91 killed, 28 were British. The Israeli power elite resists any attempt to label Etzel as terrorists. Rather, they were an underground group, and “underground” has a positive connotation. On July 22, 2006, a new plaque was placed on the site commemorating this bombing as a great act. Perhaps understandably, Her Majesty’s government is demanding the removal of this plaque, saying that such an act of “Terrorism” cannot be so honored. I’m sure this was all covered in the evening news. I’m sure you all knew that there were Jewish terrorists 60 years ago, bombing and killing in the Holy Land. Or perhaps we must say Jewish “Underground” groups. If you actually wish to read about this, read it in Haaretz, one of the great Israeli newspapers: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/741434.html This way, you will not be reading some anti-Israel propaganda. To understand how this bombing is viewed, the ex-Prime Minister of Israel, Netanyahu, was present and addressing the crowd. When I was young, I would thrill to the exploits of the Israeli Army. I read Bernard Malamud and Isaac Singer, and saw “Milk and Honey” and “Fiddler on the Roof”. The 1967 war was a triumph in which we all felt we shared. Only later did I discover that I had been a dupe of a concerted effort to portray all Israelis as good, and all Arabs as bad. And this is still going on today. Read the article in Haaretz if you doubt it. I found it difficult to get over this deception when I was young. I heard a Mr. Rose, I believe, on Imus in the Morning today. He used to be an editor of the Jerusalem Post. He said that there was a great irony in the fact that the UN members were condemning Israel while Israel was actually trying to enforce a UN resolution calling for the disbanding of Hizbullah. It did not seem to this man unseemly that Israel is enforcing a UN resolution by indiscriminate slaughter in Lebanon. Does he actually believe the UN intended that the resolution be carried out by bombing Beirut, Tyre, and Sidon? He is a good man, but his vision is severely skewed and there is no empathy for the Arab Other who lapses into a sub-human level in his mind. We even have a group of Christians who feel it is the obligation of this country to support Israel with no questions asked. Religious Celebrities Falwell and Hagee believe this. " Pastor Hagee, the main organiser, said the event was the first of its kind. "For the first time in the history of Christianity in America, Christians will go to the Hill to support Israel as Christians," he said. " Wednesday, July 19, 2006 Evangelical Christians plead for Israel BBC News I do not pretend to understand Pastor Hagee. Notice that the event was very close to the King David Hotel anniversary. I have said that I consider such beliefs to be greatly mistaken. I believe these gentlemen are worshipping the products of their own minds, not God. This is one reason I am re-establishing relations with the Roman Catholic Church: I sense a religious battle approaching in the USA as we watch our home-grown religious celebrities try to establish their own fundamentalist idolatry. Pope Benedict has spoken against the fighting in Lebanon. Our home-grown celebrities applaud the destruction, the more killing the merrier. I have nothing to say about the people in the administration. I am not sure that we should actually consider the current state-of-affairs as a Presidency, rather an interregnum filled with the sleep of reason.

Lebanon as Jallianwalla Bagh

My nephews asked me what I thought of events in Gaza and Lebanon. I paraphrased a scene from the film "Gandhi" as best I could: "General Dyer, exactly how does a Lebanese child victim of a bombing raid apply for aid?" If this is unclear to the reader, I suspect that there is much that is unclear. I achieve a certain level of clarity and understanding if I believe that 60 years ago someone decided that genocide should change its target from Jews to Palestinians. Truly, the Narrative of Blood Sacrifice is a scenario from which we cannot seem to escape. Therefore, we struggle within its grasp and change it every possible way we can, but it is still the same destructive way of viewing the world. The victims change; the perpetrators change; the onlookers change; but the underlying process does not. The Intuition of future disaster - end of times or whatever - is an intuition that we cannot escape the Narrative of bloodletting, and Isaac or Ishmael must ceaselessly be sacrificed in an obsessively-compulsive ritual from which we find no exit. What dark god compels us?