The Outlook For The New Year

       I know that lots of good folks find it hard to believe their friends and relatives.  I have lots of friends and relatives who have a hard time believing me.  And come to think of it, I have a hard time believing them.  So let's just call it a wash.

       But would you take a few moments to follow this link to Paul Craig Roberts' post?

       Thirty years ago, Dr. Roberts was active in government.  In fact, he was a respected Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration.  His professional credentials (as a political economist) and his love for America are beyond any reasonable dispute.

       If you seriously disagree with what he has to say, I welcome your making a credible case for your viewpoint.  And always, comments are most welcome:  pro, con, funny, serious, or just plain otherwise.

The Resurrection Of The Constitution

       I write this for my Christian libertarian friends.

       In an essay published in 2002 Joseph Sobran wrote:   "In short, the U.S. Constitution is a dead letter. It was mortally wounded in 1865. The corpse can’t be revived. This remained hard for me to admit, and even now it pains me to say it."

       To me, Joe Sobran has the stature of a political prophet, and I take his words to heart.  He knows whereof he speaks:  "The corpse can't be revived."

       Nevertheless, I wish to offer two encouraging words about the Constitution's future.  But I begin, instead, with a meditation on Holy Scripture.

       It is written that the following words were spoken by the Lord of All Worlds, of whom it is also written that His words shall never pass away:

An evil and adulterous generation 

seeketh after a sign; 

and there shall no sign be given to it, 

but the sign of the prophet Jonas: 

For as Jonas was 

three days and three nights in the whale's belly; 

so shall the Son of man be 

three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

The men of Nineveh 

shall rise in judgment with this generation, 

and shall condemn it: 

because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; 

and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. 

The queen of the south 

shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, 

and shall condemn it: 

for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth 

to hear the wisdom of Solomon; 

and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.

       The Lord of All Worlds here demonstrates His ability to bring all manner of disparate things together in one speech, in His one consciousness:  an Evil and Adulterous Generation (then living but now dead these past two thousand years); a disobedient but beloved Prophet; a remarkable Whale; Himself; the Heart of the Earth; the Men of Nineveh; the Queen of the South; the Judgment; the Wisdom of Solomon; and a Greater Than Solomon.

       He seems to be indicating that by some means known to Himself, He will bend Time and Space in such a way that at the Judgment, people of one generation will be able to confront the people of another. All of Reality, it would seem, will be able to perceive Itself with a remarkable clarity.  Interesting.

       May I suggest a further word of my own, which might, by some logic, follow from the previous words.

The Founding Fathers 

will rise in judgment with this generation, 

and shall condemn it:  

because they ordained a Constitution 

to protect, guide, and inspire you.  

They thought to restrain you 

from your lust for power and control over others, 

and guard your own liberties 

by defending the equal liberties of your neighbor; 

and you would not be restrained, 

and you would not be guarded.

       And to this I add a second word:  

The Constitution will have its day.  

       I truly believe this.

       The day of judgment is already upon us in the United States, as it is written:  Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision.  May the judgment fall first and hardest upon the usurpers of power and the deadly wolves; may the foolish sheeple learn from their circumstances and be spared the worst.  But come what may, if the precious rights and the holy vision remain in the hearts of a few, the spirit is preserved and the resurrection may come.

       Do I speak merely as a wishful thinker?  I do not.

       At the commencement of the Nineteenth Century, Napoleon Bonaparte was quoted as having said,  "All religions have been made by men."  And in the arrogance of his own self-anointing, he brought the scourge of war and death to all of Europe.  Nevertheless, he is also quoted as saying, "The Bible is no mere book, but a Living Creature, with a power that conquers all that oppose it."  Did he actually say this?  How would I know?  But if he didn't say it, he should have; because it came literally true upon his own head.

       In the middle of the Twentieth Century, in my father's day, Joseph Stalin said sarcastically of the Pope, "The Pope! How many divisions has he got?"  I'm not sure Stalin or anyone else ever got around to counting them, however few or many there were; but forty years later, in my own lifetime, they were enough to dismantle his entire Soviet empire.

       Courage, friends.  Napoleon's god was War, and the Bible defeated him.  Stalin's god was the Monster, and the Church defeated him.

       The tyranny of today is Mammon.  You cannot serve God and Mammon.  Against Mammon is the Spirit of the Lord.  And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty.

       I believe that the Spirit of the Constitution will prevail.  In time.

*       *       *

       I first drafted this post a year ago, in December 2010, but never published it.  It seems appropriate to do so now, what with the latest kicking of the corpse by the Congress, the President, the Republicans, the Democrats, the Christians, the Jews, and the others.

       There is a famous essay by Albert Jay Nock, published in 1936 during another dark time for the people and their liberties.  Read  Isaiah's Job, and discover "The Remnant."

       And if you would like to form your own opinion of the validity of the Vision of George Washington, you can do so.

Old Cherokee Grandmother

       My maternal grandmother once told me that she had a maternal grandmother (you can throw a "great" or two in there for more accuracy) who was a Cherokee.  I take my grandmother's word for it -- Nana was a sharp little lady under five feet tall who lived an active, caring, giving, and totally unpretentious life for eighty-six years.  I don't think she was ever out to fool me.  But who knows?

      I haven't done enough genealogical research to know the specifics, like names and dates.  But come to think of it, would the old woman have had a birth certificate anywhere?  Was it a common Cherokee custom in the very early 1800's for the father and mother to make a pilgrimage to the county courthouse somewhere in Tennessee (or wherever) to register a birth -- and thus prove to the powers-that-were that the child was a true American?

       Maybe there are baptismal records in some old church somewhere, if the Cherokees were members of an established Church or a pious sect that recorded such things (admittedly important)  -- and then carefully kept and protected those records against all hazards, such as their forcible uprooting and removal to the newly-minted civilized "Indian Nation" about five hundred miles west on the Trail of Tears.

       Come to think of it, did the young woman and her husband have a marriage license?  If they did, would it have been signed by a justice of the peace or a priest, or more likely some old country preacher?  Or was it simply that they got the ceremonial approval of the old chief, and the (hopefully happy) pair headed for the tent, after the manner of Isaac and Rebekah, and did what folks do, Cherokee or white?

       And what kind of man was my old great-something-grandfather, to "take up" with an Indian woman?  Wasn't that a betrayal of his heritage?  Didn't he care that, to the respectable community, his children would be considered b-, b-, well, half-breeds?  Maybe he just didn't know what Chief Justice Roger Taney would later claim to know -- that the American political system was for whites-only -- or maybe he simply knew otherwise.  Or maybe again he just didn't give a tinker's dam.

       Well, they had kids, and they both got old and died, and they've been gone about a hundred and fifty years now.  Where did the Good Lord take them?  Did they end up in a white heaven, or in a happy hunting ground?  I don't know.

       So here I sit, thinking and writing.  Why do I think the way I do?

       Given the continuity of things, I wonder how many of my thoughts are the thoughts of my ancestors before me.  (And of course, it is the nature of ancestry that, if you have one Cherokee ancestor, you have hundreds.  So if I have one Cherokee thought in my body, I might have many.)

       For instance -- I basically like Andrew Jackson.   For one thing, he stood up for some important things.  For another, he stood up against some bad things.   And after all, like everybody else, I'm sure he's something like my twelfth cousin five times removed, and family counts for a lot.

       But still -- how many of great-grandma's people got packed off to Oklahoma, and how many didn't make it, courtesy of President Jackson's federal government and the United States Army?

       Great-grandma, is the US government and the US military all about defending our freedoms?

       To ask the question, honey, is to answer it.

       Now where did that thought come from?

*       *       *

Comments always most welcome.

A Bold New Policy for the Zionists

       I'd like to suggest several positive improvements in policy for the Zionist movement, and the government of the State of Israel.

       But I'll restrict myself to only one.  This one is really simple, easy to implement, and will have positive effects immediately.

       Change your national anthem.  "Hatikvah" ("The Hope") is fine, but really, you can do much better.

       Switch to the one posted here: it's a natural upgrade.  (It's what "The Hope" is all about, anyway.)  Music and lyrics have been tested by time.  You can translate it into Hebrew, Yiddish, and Arabic.  Sing it in your synagogues, mosques, and churches.  Sing it on your streets, in your coffee houses, on your hills.  Sing it in Galilee, in Jerusalem, in the Negev.  It's great with full orchestra.  It's great with just guitars.  Even little kids can manage it.

       Lyrics here.  Music at the links below.

Come, Thou long-expected Jesus

Born to set Thy people free

From our fears and sins release us

Let us find our rest in Thee.

Israel's strength and consolation

Hope of all the earth Thou art

Dear desire of every nation

Joy of every longing heart.

Born Thy people to deliver

Born a Child and yet a King

Born to reign in us forever

Now Thy gracious Kingdom bring.

By Thine own Eternal Spirit

Rule in all our hearts alone

By Thine all-sufficient merit

Raise us to Thy glorious Throne.

      Let the New Anthem be adopted immediately.  Sing it on all the Feast Days -- Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Purim, Passover, and the rest.  All of them.  It's always great.

      Also great for Ramadan.  Or let it begin at the Feast of the Holy Nativity.  Or today.

      Feel the change!

*       *       *

       A choral version with lyrics is here.

       A children's version with some variations and inclusions is here.

       Purely instrumental versions here.      

You can find many great adaptations on You Tube. Here, for one.

As always, comments welcome.  

American History Is Historical Fiction

“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”   -- Mark Twain

       To my American friends, and to readers of this site from around the world, I shall make two statements that may help to clarify much that seems murky about American political behavior:

       (1)  The history of America that most Americans believe to be true is not history at all:  it is historical fiction.

       (2)  Most Americans have no idea that statement (1) above is true.  They absolutely, honestly believe that what they believe to be true is true.  If they came to believe in statement (1) above, it would completely rock their lives, personal and political.

       One of the central differences between what I would call "real" history and historical fiction is that real history attempts to refer to records (either official or unofficial), documents, testimonies of real people, and other evidentiary material, explaining some of the how's and why's of "what happened"; whereas historical fiction only refers to "real" history as a basis for overlaying an engaging story of whatever interests the author and is calculated to interest the reader.

       Of course, historical fiction can be not only entertaining, but informative.  It is often quite well done.  However, it can do a serious disservice--its fictions can displace or substitute for true knowledge.  A writer of popular novels can turn to historical fiction and create characters more fascinating and inspiring (or more virtuous, or evil, or colorful) than the real people themselves.  And a Hollywood motion picture about an historical event or person has a remarkable ability to influence a receptive and inquisitive mind into believing that "that's the way it really was." This is accomplished by (intentionally or unintentionally) drawing distorted perceptions into the receivers' minds, where they may be permanently labeled as truth -- because they saw it (or read it) with their own eyes.

       Understand that all Americans -- and I do mean all Americans, from schoolchildren to presidents -- when they learn history, first learn it as a "subject," in a school, from a textbook:  this means that there are facts to be memorized; there are also "right answers," just as there are in science and mathematics; and there will be a test, to see how well those "right answers" have been memorized.  If you score well on the test, then you have "done well in history" -- and what is more, you "understand" it "correctly".

       This is not a new phenomenon in America.  I have read old high school history texts as far back as the 1880's, and the same pattern of instruction is used:  there is a highly selective presentation of facts designed to create a coherent and pleasing narrative about the history of America.  It is how we know that we are always basically the "good guys." (Especially our presidents, who are all men with good intentions, even if they made a few mistakes.)   Some scholars have called this "the Whig interpretation of history," and that is probably a useful label to give it.   But let us call it simply "the Received Interpretation."

       I don't know how you do it in your country, but this is really how we do it here, all the way up to introductory history courses in colleges and universities.  It is of great importance in history departments in America that you demonstrate that you have accepted the "correct" point of view and reflect it in your writing  (some variations are approved, of course).  But if you espouse the "discredited" point of view?  No "advancement."

       See the problem?

       I have not studied abroad (so I can't be sure of my ground here), but I gather that there is a similar situation in many countries.  It goes without saying that it would be an overwhelming problem in any country that has a totalitarian or single-party rule, such as Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or the like; but sometimes the problem seems to be very similar, and just about as bad, in countries that think of themselves as the most free-thinking and cosmopolitan, such as Britain with its world-wide empire, or Israel with its sense of exceptionality and vocation as a "light to the nations."  My research into these countries suggests that their "versions of history" are as tendentious and provincial and blinkered as America's.  So I am guessing that this is more or less the case everywhere in the world.  I hope there are glorious exceptions.

       I think this goes a long way in explaining why Americans behave politically in such bizarre and destructive ways.  We are operating from false perceptions that we have received from a falsified script.  From the youngest schoolchildren, all the way up through our elective leadership -- representatives, governors, and presidents -- we have been taught these fictions.  Collectively, we act as if we believe them.

       Only the underworld that actually controls our country, its economy, and its government knows otherwise.  And operates according to that knowledge.

       It may be that things are slightly changing.  I would guess that maybe 5% of the population of America is waking up to question the "Received Interpretation."  This has been forced upon us by our recent economic troubles, and our government's unexplainable response to them.  (Unexplained, that is, by the "Received Interpretation.")

       And this deeper questioning has been reinforced by the results of the disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as by Ron Paul's campaign for the presidency and the "Occupy" phenomenon.

       It is too early to say, but we may be about to experience an historic paradigm shift in the thinking of the American people.  It could be a shift for the better.  Or not.

*       *       *

       (If you would like to see how American Historical Fiction affects today's thinkers and writers, check out this bizarro-world posting by Jamie Weinstein.)

Comments most welcome.

The Sacred

       We know The Sacred.

       It has taken a form within us before we discover it, no matter how old or young we are when that discovery takes place.

       If we discover The Sacred first outside ourselves, we perceive it in some place, or event, or person, as a sort of discovery, often unexpected, and unexpectedly rapid; and we sense a correspondence in the outer to something that is prepared within our own self.

       We then turn inward with new eyes, to perceive what is being disclosed to our inner self.  And when that happens, a new formation occurs.

       If we discover it first within ourselves, then we perceive it as a small place, not too small, a private place where the spirit discloses itself; and it produces within us a certain inner attitude that we might call mindfulness, or reverence.  Inwardly, it is a sort of a bowing, an acknowledgment of something perceptible and significant, but elusive.

       As the holy moment becomes its own memory, we can return outward and find that we now look at the outer world with new eyes, seeing or seeking a correspondence of the same in the outer.  And when that happens, a new formation occurs.

       A trinity of correspondence arises:  between Spirit and Self and Outer, we find an unexpected agreement -- a greeting -- and we find that we have deepened and extended and remembered.

       This is The Sacred, and the knowledge of it.  It is at the heart of all true religion.

*       *       *

Comments always welcome.  (Surely I have not said everything about The Sacred, and our relationship to it, that ought to be said!)

December Fifteen - A Confession

by Justin Adams

  

Admittedly, most of what I know

and what I think I know

has come to me by books or through screens,

all of which have left a sense of should and ought 

which constrains experience 

to a set of desires and assumptions,

ways of seeing (and of not seeing) 

and of interpreting 

(and not interpreting) only useful

in reassuring myself that I do, in fact, know

by the tricks I have mastered.

And for a time it has seemed reasonable

that the recurring advent of seasons,

the cycles of nature, and observing

lives more dependent upon earthlier gods, 

might serve in my own life as foreshadowing elements, 

much like Romeo's speaking in persistently deathly imagery

or the etymology of the name Abel.

Too long have I pondered a sycamore tree

reaching over streams and bending

upward to fill its own gap in the canopy,

naively asking Why? How is it? What does it mean?

It means nothing. It is no sign, no prophesy

to brace me for any happiness or sorrow

yet to come. No more than a tree

and no less, it stands and lives

only as long as it happens to stand and live.

If in some way I divine sickness coming,

will I not, in its expectation, become sick

even when it does not come?

And will I not despair when forecasted peace

and peace upon peace never arrives

in its foreseen form? Certainly. And certainly,

joy and pain are coming, and are here now. 

But of departures and arrivals, who can say? 

Even the past is not fully known, 

for it was neither seen nor experienced in its entirety.

Sight being limited to its narrowness of focus,

a good man was killed for his unexpectedness.

Knowing the coming good, other men gladly 

and assuredly executed the present good,

citing the comfortable sufficiency of their own readings.

So, I will now go without such comfort,

letting go of other men's hopes.

And here still, weightier things remain despite past evils, 

regardless of future joys. Here is present.












Comments welcome.