21st Century Progressivism

Author: Sheila Marler

  • Prayers for a Divided Land

    Reading Time: 7 minutes
    Salvation

    There is grave disorder in the halls of our government. It is a kind of disorder that can’t be set right by judgement, scolding and condemnation. It can only be addressed with blessings and prayers. This is a desperate call for blessings and prayers for a disputed land. Nothing less will do. But first we must describe the problem.

    In 2016, progressives presented a new direction for the United States. It was based on the reality of climate change, diminishing farmland, pollution of water resources, and a growing population. We proclaimed that instead of addressing these things, our government was building weapons with which to destroy far-away people. In the process, they were dropping white phosphorus, which destroys anything it touches–buildings, human bodies and land. This they continue to do.

    Describing the ailment

    We face two intractable cases: Russia/Ukraine and Palestine/Israel. Here we are describing the ailment. The administration has obviously gone the opposite direction from what we had hoped. The political establishment cleverly side-stepped progressive demands and defeated our presidential candidate. Now, they apparently think they have silenced us. It’s as if they think an electoral cycle was the only obstacle to their plans, or as if reality is the ideology of the winning candidate.

    But I don’t intend to scold. I’m describing the ailment. The administration knows all of the details that will be described here. What they don’t know is that we know the details too, and we fear and pity the administration.

    Diagnoses and recommendations

    To the Biden administration, considering the inappropriate response to Israel’s destruction of Gaza and the suffering of the Palestinians, possible diagnoses follow. The first is collective mental illness. Another possibility is moral immaturity. A third possibility is a wholesale capitulation to greed and hubris. A fourth could be childish defiance. A fifth possibility is demonic possession.

    Whatever the diagnosis, the whole world can see what is happening to us. The administration alone can’t see it. Still, I think it is important that we are all on the same page, so, please read the following and feel free to correct any material errors.

    The crisis in Israel and Palestine is the climax of decades of dereliction of duty by Great Britain, the United States, and their allies. This dereliction of duty has allowed a vicious, racist cabal to take control of the Israeli government, the Israeli military, the United States Congress, and the European Union. Today, as the rest of us bemoan the killing of Palestinians, it is important to be aware of the momentum behind this massacre.

    It is not as simple as demanding that the killing stop, although that has become the most urgent problem since October 7. But going forward, the dereliction of duty must be explained in political terms. Then we need to call our government and its allies to change its ways. In religious terms, we should call them to repent. The following is taken from an article I found on the website of the Institute for Palestinian Studies. Please see the full article for further details and footnotes.

    The rot

    The Trump administration moved American foreign policy on Israel and Palestine to the far right. But Trump’s policies have not moved back to the left since the end of his administration. Why? Because Trump was only accelerating a long-standing policy, or lack thereof, toward Israel. For decades, US politicians in both parties have courted the Jewish far right. Trump’s administration was different in degree but not in the general direction.

    Trump chose Jared Kushner as special advisor, and David Friedman as ambassador to Israel. Because of their ties to Rabbi Meir Kahane, this encouraged Benjamin Netanyahu to put a terrorist movement in the Israeli parliament. Previously this movement had had no visible ties to Netanyahu, although ties certainly existed. This meant that Netanyahu could deny responsibility when the Kahanist movement, as the terrorist movement is still called, violently expanded Israeli settlements. Thanks to Trump the connection no longer has to remain hidden.

    What are these ties? Both Kushner and Friedman had been donating money to groups associated with the followers of Kahane. They funneled money through a think tank associated with Kahane and headed by Rabbi Dov Lior. Dov Lior often praises famous mass murderers in Israeli history, such as Baruch Goldstein.

    Benjamin Netanyahu: inheritor of Rabbi Kahane’s patrons

    Rabbi Meir Kahane was assassinated in 1990, after which his wealthy patrons decided to fund Benjamin Netanyahu. These patrons include Manfred Lehmann, Reuben and Rose Mattus, Irving Muskowitz, Kenneth Abramowitz, Simon Falic and Sam Domb, among others. Organizations associated with Meir Kahane and Israel’s Kahanist prime minister continue to have Kushner’s and Friedman’s loyalty.

    During Netanyahu’s last premiership, he personally oversaw the installation of more illegal settlement infrastructure in occupied Palestine territories than had been built in the previous 25 years. Kahanist groups showed their appreciation of Trump’s support for Israeli expansion by minting a coin with his face and gifting him with a silver Torah crown.

    Kahanist Jewish Power party leader Itamar Ben Gvir was elected to the Knesset in 2021, and two months later he organized anti-Palestinian pogroms across the country. Unfortunately but predictably, Israeli media treated this activity with approval. In addition, Ben Gvir was given more screen time than any other Knesset member. He placed third in the November 2022 elections and Kahanists won fourteen of 120 seats in the Knesset.

    In his present term, Netanyahu has gone so far as to install Ben Gvir as his national security minister with power over Israel’s security forces. Ben Gvir’s injustices are too many to list here. Please see the article.

    A brief history of the rot

    This is a brief history of the rot. Corruption has been present at least since Israel signed the Oslo Accord with the PLO in 1993. Immediately after it was signed, the Kahanist community of New York City waged a war against the Accord. They also waged a hate campaign against Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin. At a rally led by Anthony Weiner in Times Square in 1993, they publicly called Rabin a murderer and warned that he was leading Israel to ‘national suicide’. The Village Voice quoted a rally attendee who said, “Rabin is worse than Hitler…Rabin should be killed.’

    In 1995, Labor Party Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a disciple of Baruch Goldstein. Six months later, Benjamin Netanyahu became prime minister of Israel with the help of Kahanists.

    Ongoing opposition to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority

    A continuing aim of the Kahanists seems to be to discredit the Palestinian Authority. In 2004, Rabbi Moshe Tendler slurred Yasser Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas at a dinner of the far-right Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). Then Anthony Weiner, the Democratic candidate for new York city mayor, took the microphone and called for an end to all US aid to the Palestinian Authority.

    Kahanists not only slur the PA’s leaders, they advocate legislation to reduce or eliminate its funding. For example, a Kahane-related fund raising organization influenced Senator D’Amato to introduce a bill in Congress hobbling US aid to the PA.

    Republican infamy

    Republican infamy and support for the Kahanist organization and its sister organizations is not surprising. Democratic support, on the other hand, is disturbing. First I’ll report a few items of Republican infamy. In March 2022 Mike Pence assured the Kahanists of American support when he visited Hebron. While touring the Ibrahimi Mosque, he said to Ben Gvir, ‘Stay strong, and we’ll stand with you’. The Ibrahimi Mosque is the place where Goldstein committed his massacre, accompanied by Ben Gvir. Goldstein murdered twenty-nine Palestinians during prayers in 1994 while wounding another 120.

    Christian American far right, Jewish American far right, and AIPAC

    The Christian American far right embraces the most extreme Zionist Kahanist terrorists, while the Jewish American far right, which dominates the American Zionist lobby, embraces the most extreme Christian nationalists. They include US Senate, House, and gubernatorial candidates who supported the January 6 insurrection. Last, but not least, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has issued public statements of support for more than a hundred supporters of the Trump-led January 6 riots.

    The Democratic Party is right behind the Republicans

    As mentioned above, the Democratic Party is right behind the Republicans. For decades, AIPAC and its sister PACs have been taking millions of dollars from supporters of Kahanist causes and giving them to Democratic primaries. Particularly in New York, politicians in both parties are aware that the city’s rabbis wield political influence.

    Rabbis and racist elected officials

    Rabbi Moshe Tendler, who died in 2021, was spiritual advisor to top Democratic Party politicians. He also played a pivotal role in the election campaigns of Rockland county District Attorney Kenneth Gribetz. Gribetz was DA for twenty years with, Tendler’s help.

    Democratic state representative, Dov Hikind, was a racist Democratic state representative. He was able to deliver the votes of his constituents for thirty-five years because his Brooklyn district of Borough Park contains the largest concentration of Orthodix and ultra-Orthodox Jews in the United States. Hikind admits this was a block vote. In other words, conservative communities obey their religious leaders when they cast their votes.

    Most Jews are Democrats. But even Orthodox Jews were initially lukewarm about the Zionist project. Unfortunately, when they saw that Israel was able to beat multiple Arab armies in the 1967 war, they decided Israel must have inaugurated a pre-messianic era. According to this interpretation, it followed that the Israeli government should dominate the surrounding nations rather than coexist with them.

    Democratic grandstanders and hangers-on

    To continue the saga of Democratic grandstanders and hangers-on, Hikind also helped elect Republicans such as US Senator Al D’Amato, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and New York Governor George Pataki.

    Sam Domb, a patron of Benjamin Netanyahu, foots the bill for New York’s annual Salute to Israel Parade down Fifth Avenue in return for certain perks. The event now includes a concert in Central Park, featuring speeches from racist figures in the Jewish community. New York City politicians have attended, including Former Congressman Anthony Weiner, former State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and State Assemblyman David Wepriin.

    In 2020, Domb helped fund Democrat Bill de Blasio’s run for the US presidency. He also told Haaretz in 2003 he had funded Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign.

    Here is a list of additional Democrats beholden to Kahanist related figures: Chuck Schumer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Lois Frankel and Ted Deutch, US Representative Josh Gottheimer, US Senator Bob Menendez and US Representative Juan Vargas.

    Sadly, Joe Biden is also implicated. In May 2022, just after Israel’s thirty-sixth government lost its majority, and early polling pointed to its impending demise, the US State Department announced that it no longer considered the Kahanist group Kahane Chai to be a terrorist organization. ‘The move sent a clear signal to Netanyahu that US President Joe Biden did not object to his including the Kahanists in any future government’.

    And if this information isn’t damning enough for the Democratic Party, ‘Robert Kennedy Jr. made a public pilgrimage to the home of Dov Hikind and received his endorsement.’

    To the governments of the US and her allies: Repent and ask God for mercy

    To individual officials in our Democratic administration and allied governments: Stop what you are doing. It will be difficult. Those who are paying you will object. So will your colleagues who are on the take. But you have no choice if you care about your eternal rewards. You must confess and forsake your evil ways. Why? Because there will be eternal consequences for your behavior. Repent and ask God for mercy.

  • Begging Benjamin Netanyahu

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Most of the world is cringing and cowering and begging Benjamin Netanyahu to stop killing the Palestinians. He seems to have either closed his ears to us, or he enjoys tormenting us. Meanwhile, his Zionist allies are not at all embarrassed about ignoring our pleas. And we wait for someone to do something.

    Unfortunately, it seems as though the Israel/Palestine conflict has become a familiar category. Although we feel distress, disgust and outrage at what is happening, it’s a very old problem and we are not sufficiently alarmed. In my opinion, we should be. World leaders know they are dealing with a problem that is impossible to solve. All of the madness stems from this impossibility. But, to be clear, it is only impossible to solve if they have to treat the Palestinians with dignity.

    Question: Will Israel, with the approval of its allies, wipe out the Palestinians while we watch in horror? Frankly, that’s how it’s beginning to look. And that is the logic of modern Israel. Now, if we think Israel will wipe them out, what can we do? If we were to protest what would we demand? This is where the impossibility of Zionism raises its ugly head.

    Theoretically, we could begin by assuring that the Palestinians can control their own food, water, electricity and travel. But then the problem of boundaries would come up. Palestine’s boundaries are too tight. Ideally, Israel would be required to withdraw from its illegal settlements. Of course, Israel would object and the Palestinians would still be unhappy. Why? Israel is just repeating what the United States and Australia have done to their indigenous people.

    The reason the Palestinians have been so tightly controlled is they have been robbed, and everyone knows it. And Israel does not intend to undo the theft. The end of imprisonment for Palestine would be the end of Israel’s Shangri-La. So we have probably been begging Benjamin Netanyahu in vain.

    I’m not saying the situation is acceptable. It is not. I’m saying this is Zionism. The only reason it still shocks us is the world has been lulled to sleep. Zionism wasn’t just theft. It was also layers and layers of lullabies and lies.

  • The Trap of Zionism

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    Zionism was premised on anti-Semitism

    Zionism has ruined the Jewish people. Today, the world blames Israel for what has happened to the Palestinians. However, the inhabitants of Israel are pawns. Zionism is based on the belief that the Jews are part of a cohesive race of people who want nothing more than to live in Palestine. Ironically, this belief is basic anti-Semitism. A united Jewish ‘race’ was a phantom when Zionism was invented, yet this belief has resulted in the people of Israel proclaiming they own Palestine. What a terrible transformation.

    In this context it makes sense that concerned citizens of the world demand a Palestinian state. But they make this demand in spite of the fact that a Palestinian state has been rejected for more than 70 years by everyone in a position to make it happen. This is the trap of Zionism.

    A history of meaningless destruction

    This history is long and tragic, and it’s been written many times. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to educate ourselves about the causes of the current conflict in Israel. But for those who are aware of the history, it is clear that military solutions are no solutions at all. Yet, in Israel, the horror of October 7 and everything that followed it seems normal. This military regime has no memory of civilization.

    The Ottoman Empire

    The last real civilization that was known in this region was the Ottoman empire. Unfortunately, the reforms of the Young Turks introduced a spirit of Turkish nationalism, and their handling of foreign affairs resulted in the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

    There were other factions working against the Empire besides the Young Turks. These included provincial governors, Palace officials and the Freemasons. According to Hanioglü, M. Şükrü, the activism of the Freemasons in the Ottoman Empire can be traced back to the 1870s.1 All things considered, it’s hard to imagine how the current regime in Israel could be an improvement over Ottoman ‘absolutism’.

    But we still need to explain how the Jewish people became entangled in Palestine. The Young Turks, Turkish Jöntürkler, was a coalition of various reform groups that led a revolutionary movement against Sultan Abdulhamid II between 1889 and 1908. During the British Mandate in the Ottoman Empire, there were rumors that the Jews were involved with the Young Turks and Freemasons.2 The British overseers apparently believed the rumors about Jewish involvement, and later this belief rendered Britain defenseless against the idea of Zionism. Then, World War II and the Holocaust made Palestine seem like an attractive refuge from the world’s hatred. Today, modern Israel is evidence that the fear of being hated, was never dealt with.

    Plans for a Palestinian State are based on the wrong premise

    In the face of Israel’s brittle militarism, it is clear that any solution would have to heal the effects of ostracism and persecution on its victims. However, that kind of thoughtfulness is unheard of in this world. Victims are expected to figure everything out on their own. This blindspot has allow Zionism to ruin the Jewish people. All we can say is that if we had had our wish this would have been the first step to a solution. Instead, we have the present horror.

    Considering that a Jewish state was not the solution to the real problem of anti-Semitism, it follows that even our best utopian plans for a Palestinian state are based on the wrong premise.

    Since we insist on ignoring the step of healing, the only other solution would require the ability to go back in time and tell the Freemasons and Young Turks to appreciate what they have. This is obviously ridiculous, but what do you call the belief that Israel will some day give the Palestinians a state?

    Meanwhile, the Palestinians are dying and all the grownups in the world have gone mad. And they’ve had plenty of assistance in their madness from contemporary Zionists. So, what can be done? It may seem like wishful thinking, but the first solution remains a possibility.

    This might seem like the biggest fantasy of all. Hatred pretends to erase the possibility of healing. However, hatred is not all-powerful. Love is the most powerful force on this planet, and it is always a possibility. Furthermore, the hope for love never dies in the hearts and minds of the most despised among us.

    Can God see the Palestinians through our eyes?

    When there seems to be no earthly help for the helpless, it’s natural for believers to petition God. What can he do, you ask? After all, the existence of modern Israel is based on religious ‘history’ and defended by the United States and its allies. Who would petition God on the side of Israel’s enemy? The answer depends on your understanding of God.

    I saw a video on YouTube. There were several Palestinians standing in line. They had no baggage of any kind– just the clothes on their backs. One man was looking at the camera as it recorded his defeat. His eyes were not asking for anything, or even hoping for anything. I saw this and understood it, and it took my breath away.

    I don’t think God sees everything with his own eyes. Sometimes he sees through our eyes. It occurred to me that God saw those people like I did, and he had compassion for them.

    I’m not suggesting God is choosing sides. I think he he saw those Palestinians and their need, and he is going to help them.

    Empires and States

    1. Hanioglü, M. “Notes on the Young Turks and the Freemasons, 1875-1908.” Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 25, no. 2, 1989, pp. 186–97. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4283298. Accessed 17 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
    2. Kedourie, Elie. “Young Turks, Freemasons and Jews.” Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 7, no. 1, 1971, pp. 89–104. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4282360. Accessed 19 Oct. 2023. ↩︎

  • Immigration has Become the Norm

    Reading Time: 5 minutes
    Immigration has become the norm
    International Migration

    Immigration has become the norm. What are we going to do about it? For immigrants, immigration is not a choice. It’s life and death. It’s always been that way in the United States. However, as war, climate change and natural disasters continue to destroy living conditions for millions of people, even those in favor of accepting immigrants may fear that it requires a bigger commitment than they are prepared to make. If a public figure adds to that fear by lying about the dangers posed by immigrants, these same people might change their minds about immigration. They might even vote for that public figure, hoping he will protect them from this great danger. I want to challenge the notion that they have to depend on self-serving politicians for information about immigration.

    Get the truth from experts in the community

    The United States has always taken in immigrants. By this time, we should be willing to fact-check what we are told about them. That’s true, even if we are pro-immigration. But due to the partisan nature of this issue, sources should include experts in the community. Reliable sources would include immigration officials, politicians, immigrant support organizations, and immigrant communities.

    Why is this research important? If we believe the things nefarious characters tell us about people we have never seen or talked to without checking to see if they are true, we are completely responsible for those beliefs. We will also be responsible for any actions we take, or fail to take, as a result of those beliefs. And the consequences won’t only affect immigrants. In the case of an election, the consequences to ourselves, our community, and the country may be more serious than we bargained for.

    Americans get a lot of things wrong about immigration

    That said, some online articles can prepare the way for this kind of research by providing perspective. For example, according to a New York Times article, Americans get a lot of things wrong about immigration. First, there are different definitions of ‘assimilation’.

    What do we mean by assimilation?

    Does America really work like a melting pot? If we are a nation of various races, religions, and customs, who can say if an outsider fits in? Is fluency in the dominant language the deciding factor? Is it educational or economic success, or knowledge of this country’s history and culture? Or is the deciding factor whether an immigrant gives up all ties to the old country?

    Or is assimilation the wrong model? Maybe we should be talking about integration. Integration is more like a salad bowl than a melting pot. All the ingredients are mixed up together but they each keep their distinctive flavor.

    Is assimilation about national principles?

    Another point of confusion is the question of whether assimilation means agreement with national principles, or national identity. Those who believe assimilation is about national principles stress belief in the Constitution, the rule of law and a strong work ethic, among other principles. They also support legislation to deter any ‘adverse’ cultural customs.

    Or is it about identity?

    Those who believe assimilation is about identity, like many on the far right, insist that immigrants must abandon all traces of their heritage. A major example would be the hijab. They also pass anti-Shariah measures, even though Muslims only represent one percent of the population in the U.S. and would not be able to impose Shariah law even if they wanted to.

    And then there’s undocumented immigration

    And those are not the only distinctions that must be made in the immigration debate. Undocumented immigration is often mixed up with the problem of assimilation but it represents different concerns. Concerns about undocumented immigration usually center on competition for jobs or the use of public resources. Concerns about assimilation, on the other hand, are mostly about identity. An example is given in the New York Times article of a man who was worried because immigrant children studied two languages, or their store signs were in an unfamiliar alphabet. Clothing, music and diet are additional assimilation/identity complaints.

    Or is assimilation primarily about power?

    The author, Leila Lalami, concludes that assimilation is primarily about power. The Moroccan Parliament, for example, never complains if French immigrants eat pork, drink wine or have extramarital sex. And if French people adhere to Moroccan customs, the Moroccans do not call them ‘assimilated’. They say they have ‘gone native’. By contrast, politicians in France complain about identity markers such as food choices and head scarves. Lalami says this makes assimilation more difficult in France.

    But contrary to Europe, America has always managed to integrate its immigrants. So why are we arguing about immigration? This article argues that the drama surrounding immigration in the U.S. is largely due to the fact that there is no objective measure of assimilation.

    Factors that challenge assimilation and suggestions for helping immigrants

    An article by Nhi Huynh, continues on the theme of factors that challenge assimilation and offers suggestions for helping immigrants in this process. At the least, Americans should understand that integration does not happen quickly, although that is often the assumption. And many people are not aware that in order to even get here in the first place, immigrants must wait an unbelievably long time for a visa. The visa wait period itself can last up to 20 years.

    Although immigrants come here hoping to be embraced and protected, their values are often ‘despised’ by the majority of American society, especially by the government. And additional hardships stand in the way of assimilation. These included the naturalization procedure, the pressure of adjusting to the new culture, and constant discrimination. On top of these factors, many refugees and migrants are dealing with trauma they experienced in their home country. For these reasons, Nhi Huynh calls for mental health resources and the establishment of open policies.

    Nhi Huynh ends the article with an ‘essential question’. “How [can] the U.S. government and we, as a community… help immigrants integrate into a new society by protecting and welcoming them?” Suggestions are provided in the remainder of the article.

    We are an individualistic society. Many of us don’t feel like an important part of our own community.

    The question of how we can help immigrants is an important but unusual question. Our immigration debates are never about what we can do. At best, they are about government policy and statistics. At worst, they are false narratives promoting fear. The question of a community’s or individual’s responsibility might bring up questions about who and what our communities are, or more importantly, what our communities look like to immigrants. We are an individualistic society. Many of us don’t feel like an important part of our own community. So it goes without saying that we don’t have traditions for how to welcome newcomers. The hospitality traditions of ancient nomadic people discussed in a previous article are a wonderful ideal, but how to they relate to us? The more we think about it, the more questions we might have. For example, don’t immigrants establish communities of their own? What do they need us for? Again, the first step would be to go to people who will tell us the truth about immigration and the needs of immigrants in our area.

    The progressive platform includes immigration reform

    You might be thinking we have plenty of community organizers and organizations that help immigrants. But the articles cited here suggest there is work that needs to be done by each of us. If the progressive platform includes immigration reform, which it does, and if the government is paying attention to our platform, it stands to reason we are going to get what we asked for. We are going to have more immigrants in our communities. Immigration has become the norm. What are we going to do about it?

    What happened to our country? Sweden has been transformed by multiculturalism – Lars Åberg

    Contribute to a new editorial project covering migration issues by La Croix International: Bakhita Stories; Read the latest stories here.

  • Bolsonaro Challenges God to Oust Him

    Reading Time: 2 minutesJair Bolsonaro of Brazil is one of the men who have stepped up to bristle and bar their teeth at the new sane direction the world is heading. If saying outrageous things and playing the media were enough to make things go his way he would have already won, but now he feels his hold on power slipping away. To drive his point home (his point of being the boss) he doesn’t hesitate to do real harm by stirring his followers into a frenzy. He will happily damage democratic institutions beyond repair if that’s what it takes. He will even try to destroy the land. As president of Brazil, he has satisfied his ego by destroying the Amazon, the very thing needed for the survival of the human race. He does this I suppose, because he thinks it helps him win reelection. And now, in order to convince voters to support him, Bolsonaro challenges God to “oust” him. To be specific, he challenged God by saying that only God could oust him.

    Bolsonaro Challenges God to Oust Him
    Amazon Rainforest, Brazil

    Maybe he was caught up in some kind of diabolical frenzy when he performed this latest stunt.  Because, considering the worldwide effects of his policies in the Amazon, his presidency has demonstrated sheer evil. Does he think he is waging war against the left, or that he’s making a political statement?  Does he think God approves of such cruelty in the name of right-wing hubris? If Bolsonaro had any self-understanding at all, if he knew God at all, he never would have uttered those words.

  • Justice of the Rupture

    Reading Time: 6 minutesLately I’ve been thinking about the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness.  He fasted for 40 days and was hungry. During this time in the wilderness the devil tempted him three times.  The first temptation had to do with Jesus’s hunger. The second temptation, as I understand it, was connected with the human need for validation in the eyes of other people.  But the third temptation was something else altogether.  Matthew chapter 4, verses 8 and 9 imply that the ‘devil’ has the power to bestow ‘the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them,’ if we will only worship him.  Jesus’s resistance to these temptations represents the justice of the rupture.

    And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

    But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

    Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,

    And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

    Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

    Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them:

    And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

    Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. (Matthew 4: 1-10) 

    The Cosmic Tyranny

    In recent years I’ve begun to think of the earth as surrounded by a closed system and ruled by a sort of cosmic tyranny. I imagine at the head of this cosmic order sits the ‘prince of this world.’  You can call him whatever you want–Matthew called him ‘the devil’.  So, when Jesus resisted the devil’s temptations, he was waging a cosmic resistance.  According to the article cited below, this cosmic resistance represents the justice of the rupture.  If I understand it correctly, this remains the central drama of mortal life.  It is the fundamental necessity of the entire human race–the only path to freedom.

    This Identifies the Christian God as the Same God Worshipped by the Jews

    I believe that this is what the Christians mean when they say their God is the same God worshipped by the Jews.  There is a cosmic order that wields power over the Earth and her inhabitants. But there is another power directly opposed to the cosmic order.  (Hopefully it is obvious that I am not talking about Jewish or Christian esotericism and the loosely related secret societies that capitulate to the cosmic order.)

    Unfortunately, the major religions of our day have taken on much of the lore of the cosmic order.  This happened quite early in Christianity’s journey through history.  Also unfortunate is the fact that the so-called Christian ‘reformers’ failed to recognize this problem.  This is doubly unfortunate because it is not only the central problem of religion.  Again, it is the central problem of mortal existence.  The failure to recognize this fact taints everything, including the current political environment.

    The Cosmic Resistance

    J. Leavitt Pearl sees this cosmic resistance in the scripture that tells of Jesus’s baptism.

    John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.  Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals.  I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy spirit.”  In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.  And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:4-11, as quoted by J. Leavitt Pearl)

    For Pearl the key phrase is, “He saw the heavens torn apart.”  It is too easy to pass over this phrase. This may be due to what followed it. It is followed by the dramatic description of the Spirit descending like a dove and a voice coming from heaven and saying to Jesus, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  But according to Pearl, “The tearing open of the cosmic order is the descent of the True Justice of God, waged against the empires of this world who rule under the banner of ‘order and justice,’ but whose ‘justice’ is always only violence and oppression.”

    An Apocalyptic Text

    Pearl calls the gospel of Mark an apocalyptic text and describes John as an apocalyptic figure, but his focus is on what happened in the heavens.  “…the tearing apart of the heavens is a locus classicus of apocalyptic imagery, found in both…Isaiah 64:1, and…Revelation 6:14.”  (To risk belaboring the point, the heavens of the cosmic order are not exactly friendly to this tearing apart.)

    The heavens of the Biblical world were not only a spiritual domain and the home of God and other spiritual beings. “…they were equally the heavens above–the skies, the vault across which the stars moved in their predictable patterns.  Thus, the heavens were the domain of order and regularity. And despite their extreme complexity, their interpretation could be mastered by a skilled astrologist.” But apparently, cosmic order and regularity can be challenged.

    When this domain is torn open with Jesus’s baptism, it indicates a “rupture, a radical inbreaking of something genuinely new.  But, this arrival of the new necessarily takes the form of a disruption of the delicate harmony of the cosmos, epitomized by the heavens.”

    Pearl goes on to explain that these two opposing forces–the cosmic order and the order represented by Jesus–represent two kinds of justice: the Justice of the whole and the Justice of the rupture.  To further explain his argument, he cites Slavoj Zizek’s book, The Fragile Absolute, and Zizek’s description of the cosmic order represented by paganism:

    Against the ‘pagan notions of cosmic Justice and Balance,’ wherein ‘an individual is ‘good’ when he acts in accordance with his special place in the social edifice…and Evil occurs when some particular strata or individuals are no longer satisfied with this place, ‘Zizek contrasts Christianity, which ‘asserts as the highest act precisely what pagan wisdom condemns as the source of evil: the gesture of separation, of drawing the line, of clinging to an element that disturbs the balance of the All’ (118-121, as quoted by Pearl)

    Comparing the Capitol Insurrectionists

    Those who supported the recent insurrection at the Capitol, would like to tell us that theirs is a worthy cause. But what exactly were they fighting for? What were they fighting against? Wasn’t their leader supporting the status quo disguised as a rebel? They were fighting against the justice of the rupture.

    This may not be obvious on the surface, because their type of conservatism is not American. The American system doesn’t belong to European  conservatism. In contrast to Europe, it is the prototype of a rebel. The American system was enabled by a rebellion. So, the insurrectionists were fighting against a phenomenon that was perfectly legal under the American constitution. They were fighting against the results of a free election.

    Pearl tells us that the pagan as described by Zizek is no different from (conservative) Edmund Burke in his Reflection on the Revolution in France, or white moderates who condemned Martin Luther King Jr.’s tactics as ‘extremist’. This type of character is also no different from Fox News pundits who bemoaned the ‘disruption’ of Black Lives Matter protests.  They call these revolutionary tactics ‘evil’ because they disrupt a stable order.

    The Conservative Path of Supposed Safety

    Pearl admits that the rupture represents a risk but, alternatively, the path of supposed safety leads to the Justice of the whole, as exemplified by the philosopher Martin Heidegger who interprets ‘justice’ as ‘Compliance–that is harmonization.’  In fact, Heidegger elevates compliance and harmony to ontological principles.  The writings of Heidegger were influential in the rise of Nazism.

    Pearl contrasts Heidegger’s justice with an alternative account of justice, a justice of the rupture.  For this he cites Jacques Derrida, for whom justice is the domain of the future.

    Justice emerges as a call or a demand for responsibility to the Other.  It cannot be calculated or anticipated, because justice, if there is such a thing, is always a risk, as Derrida notes in, “The Force of Law.” (947)

    The prophet Isaiah, (64:1-2), and the Book of Revelation (6:12-15) each describe a similar view of justice as that of Derrida.  It is a justice that casts down the powerful, the oppressors.  It is a justice that destroys the class and caste boundaries that order our world, so that ‘everyone, slave and free’ find themselves on an equal footing.  For John, any social, political, or economic order that is built on oppression, built on the backs of ‘slaves–and human lives’ (Revelation 18:13) is an order that must be torn open.

    Conclusion and Caution

    (I don’t want to end this article without mentioning Pearl’s examples of the risks involved in the justice of the rupture.  These include the Terror of the French Revolution and the Stalinism that resulted from the October Revolution.  I don’t think any of us are willing to risk such things if we can avoid them, and there are things that must be understood if we want to make these kinds of failure less likely.  The challenge to the cosmic order represented by Jesus’s response to his temptations in the wilderness are central to this understanding.  We must know which order we serve and which order we fight.  Otherwise, failure is almost certain.  The cosmic order stands ever ready to creep in and take over from those who remain unaware.)

  • American Religion and the Iraq War

    Reading Time: 5 minutes

    Considering the un-peaceful tendencies in the Christian religion is it logical for a Christian to work for a peaceful future? The belief in the apocalyptic end of the world seems to work in the other direction. Many American Christians supported the Iraq War and justified their support by citing the Book of Revelation. Were they obeying the internal logic of the Christian religion, or were they mistaken? Considering the fact that Christians outside of the United States were not so supportive it’s likely they were mistaken. But we can’t say for sure until we study it further. The following Gallup survey might explain the relationship between American religion and the Iraq War.

    You might think this question has already been answered. After all, the Iraq War was a disaster, and therefore a mistake. But the morality of Christian support for the war should not hinge on whether the war was a success. It should hinge on whether Christian support for the war was consistent with Christian teachings. 

    In the process of writing this article I’ve learned that Christian teachings are not really central to the problem. If the problem were Christian error we might be able to blame it on believers’ mistaken interpretations of scripture. The Book of Revelation comes to mind. If scripture is the problem, it would make sense to study it and try to root out the error. But now I think the problem is worse than that. To illustrate, I’ll use surveys of Christian attitudes about the war.

    The first study is a combination of Gallup surveys conducted in 2005 and early 2006, written up by Frank Newport. It was published in March of 2006 on Gallup.com. The second study is written by Joseph L. Cumming. It was Based on a 2003 Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (This article is no longer available on the Internet).

    The Statistics

    There are four categories in the first analysis of American religion: Protestant, other Christian, Catholic, other religion, and no religion.  The initial results indicate a difference between denominations in support for the war. The least supportive was the category of other religion and no religion (42% and 38% respectively). At the top of the scale were Protestants and other Christian (55% and 53% respectively). Catholics were less likely than protestants and other Christians to support the war, but only slightly (48%). (Please see the results in graph-form on the Gallup website. Keep in mind that Gallup measured the ‘war is a mistake’ question, so higher numbers on the graphs indicate less support for the war and lower numbers indicate more support for the war.)

    What Do the Statistics Say About American Religion Versus Party Affiliation?

    At first glance this might seem to imply something negative about religion in general and about Protestantism in particular. But it’s more complicated than that. The results indicate that we’ve been giving religion far too much credit. This suspicion first arises with the significant relationship between religious identification and party identification. Protestants were most likely to be Republicans and Republicans were most likely to support the war. Likewise, we can explain the tendency for Catholics to be less supportive of the war by the fact that a higher percentage of Catholics are Democrats. And finally, those with no religion were significantly less likely to be Republican and more likely to be independents than the general American population. In short, Democrats in each group were highly likely to believe the war was a mistake, Republicans were the least likely, and independents were in the middle.

    Frequency of Attendance

    Frequency of church attendance was also a significant factor. Here, the biggest difference was between those who attend church seldom or never and those who attend monthly or more often (38% and 56% respectively). Other Christians who attend church more often were less supportive of the war however.

    Still, when you consider that those who attend church more often are more likely to be Republican, party affiliation remains the most influential factor. In a graph of the three major partisan groups: Republican, Independent and Democrat, according to church attendance and the belief that the war was a mistake, Democrats are highly likely to say the war was a mistake regardless of church attendance, Republicans are highly unlikely to say the war was a mistake, and independents are somewhere in the middle. A modest relationship remains within Republican and independent groups between church attendance and views on the war, but no strong pattern appears related to attendance among Democrats.

    The Influence of Christianity on Moral Decision-Making

    This survey was conducted March 13-16, 2003, by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: Joseph L. Cumming, The Iraq War and Christian Faith, April 20, 2004, Based on a 2003 Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

    The facts did not support the guiding premise of this study. The premise was that decisions about war are profoundly moral decisions. Given Christianity’s ‘just war’ theory which limits the circumstances under which a country is justified in going to war, Christian decision-making about war should be shaped by Christian faith. The results again indicate that secular influences predominate. Political convictions seem to be changing Christian beliefs rather than the other way around.

    Christianity Was Not Very Influential in Support for the Iraq War

    In the week before the U.S. commenced hostilities in Iraq, only 10% of Americans considered their religious beliefs to be the most important influence in shaping their attitudes about the war. Only one third reported that religious leaders had had at least some influence on their views, and only 11% considered religious leaders to have been highly influential. However 53% said friends and family influenced their views on the war and 43% said political commentators influenced them.  Just before the war Americans favored military action by a nearly 2:1 ratio, despite the fact that high-ranking Christian religious leaders had spoken out publicly about the moral implications of the proposed war. So what happened?

    The Responsibility of the Clergy Versus American Cultural Isolation

    One response might be to hold the local clergy responsible. Only 14% of them took an anti-war position, seven per cent were publicly in favor of the war, and 75% took no position or did not speak about the war at all. But appearances may be deceiving. Researcher Ralph Premdas attributes the problem to ‘inter-communal antipathies’ present in society at large and reflected in the attitudes of churches and their adherents. He argues that clergy and believers are trapped within the ‘claims of their own ethnic or cultural community’, and he draws the conclusion that American isolation has robbed Christian decision-makers of the full benefit of their faith in making important decisions.

    “…it is only through a multinational, multiethnic universal church that the many-colored wisdom of God can be adequately known, and it is only together with all the saints (from all nations and all ages) that we may fully grasp the multidimensional love of Christ. That is, if we wish to consider these questions in an authentically Christian way, then we must listen to the voices of believers in Christ from other nations—especially believers in the Middle East and in other Islamic nations.”

    Premdas provides a hopeful ending to a disturbing study. Unfortunately American Christianity has always been conjoined with American politics. However I have found an encouraging answer for my question about whether it makes sense for a Christian believer to promote peace. Christian support for the Iraq War had very little to do with the Christian religion.  The bad news would be that the United States is a ship without a rudder.

    See Also: Ecological Conversion: Think in a New Way

  • Agribusiness Meets Reality

    Reading Time: 6 minutesI recently said that the words of those who criticize Laudato Si’ have no substance. Now I’ll try to be more specific.  Laudato Si’ is a rebuke of current practices, including agribusiness, but it is not the only warning voice. In this post, agribusiness meets reality.

    The human population will reach 9 billion people by 2050, even if we manage to slow the birthrate. The world has never had this many people before. We have to plan according to the facts we have. I will argue that if our goal is to support the projected number of people, our first priority should be food and water.  But so far, agricultural policies are not moving in that direction.

    Arable land is decreasing

    Currently, we don’t have enough farm land to feed 9 billion people. It is estimated that we need to increase agricultural land by 65-85 million hectares over the next decade. At 160-210 million acres, this is equivalent to approximately 50% of all U.S. cropland. It may not seem like much compared to the total area being farmed globally, (1,410 million hectares) but arable land is decreasing. We are losing 10-12 million hectares each year to urbanization and desertification. Much of this loss is due to agricultural policies.

    Agribusiness as Economic Warfare

    The United States is operating on an agribusiness model for agriculture. How did this happen? After World War II, Secretary of Agriculture and Mormon apostle, Ezra Benson, wanted to drive young men off of farms and into low-paying industrial jobs in the North. His plan was for the business of agriculture to be carried out by a few big players. In other words, policy-makers used agribusiness as economic warfare. To accomplish these changes, Benson’s faction tore down FDR’s New Deal protections for farmers. One result of their efforts was the disappearance of parity, which assured farmers a living wage.

    What is Parity?

    Under the policy of parity, the U.S. government bought excess crops for a fair price and waited for a shortage, or higher prices. Then the government would sell the excess. This provided a living wage to farmers and also resulted in a profit for the taxpayer. Today, instead of parity we have subsidies, courtesy of the taxpayer. We also have shortages.[mfn]Hauter, Wenonah, Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America, The New Press, 2012.[/mfn]

    According to AEW Capital Management, from 1975 to 2005 major agricultural commodity prices were stable, based on the marginal cost of production. In the event of a poor crop in a particular commodity, buffer inventories could meet demand. In that event a year or two of average crops would replenish inventories. This changed in 2005.

    “In the face of rapid demand growth, global stocks of key crops have been depleted to the point where there is no longer any practical buffer. Globally, stocks of coarse grains and oilseeds have been at historically low levels for the past five to six years. After 2005, if there was a poor crop (or even just an average one), someone somewhere in the world simply did not obtain that commodity. In short, in order to balance supply and demand, demand has to be rationed, and the only way this occurs is through pricing.”

    Seeking Alpha

    The effects of harmful policies on U.S. farmers are now being felt by farmers around the world. This is a problem for many reasons. Small farms improve the land and protect the ecosystem. Agribusiness, on the other hand, depletes the land. And by establishing monocultures it invites new types of pests and diseases. It also destroys the jobs associated with small farms. Finally, agribusiness can be a violent business.

    IMF, World Bank, and Other Culprits in Ukraine

    The fight over agricultural land is acknowledged as a major motivation for the conflict in Ukraine. And the culprits aren’t limited to U.S. companies. Germany is in on it. So is Finland and China. And their questionable activities are promoted by the World Bank and the IMF. But there are those who argue that it’s the other way around; the conflict caused the dispute over farmland. A Reuter’s article implies that military turmoil dictates that governments open farmland to foreign investment:

    “Ukraine, known as Europe’s bread basket, has the eighth largest agricultural area in use globally and is the world’s third largest exporter of corn and sixth largest grain grower, potentially making it a prime target for foreign investment.

    “But the government has been wary of allowing foreign land sales, fearing rural unrest, and the value of its 32 million hectares (79 million acres) of farmland has been limited by its division into small plots with relatively low productivity.

    “However economic turmoil emanating from the conflict between pro-Russia rebels and government forces in the east has intensified the need for change, said Heinz Strubenhoff, agribusiness investment manager for the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation in Ukraine.

    “Opening the farm sector, a key driver of the economy, to outside investors has long been backed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Strubenhoff believes changes will now happen sooner rather than later.

    “’It’s time to think about privatization. They need to prepare everything to allow for farm land sales (to foreign and domestic investors) in three to four years,’ Strubenhoff told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

    “Currently, farm land cannot be bought or sold in Ukraine, but companies can sign onto long-term leases with small holders.”

    The Conflict in Ukraine is a smokescreen for the theft of farmland

    However, the corporate drive for foreign farmland is actually a motivation for conflict rather than an outcome of it. The Oakland Institute  recently reported that German lawmakers are calling the conflict in Ukraine a smokescreen for the seizure of high-quality cropland by foreign firms funded by the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Birgit Bock-Luna, who heads the office of Niema Movassat, told RIA Novosti (Sputnik News) that “a group of representatives had officially inquired with the German government on the actions of Germany’s state-run banking group Bankengruppe KfW. [It is believed that] this banking group is behind the seizure of Ukraine’s arable lands, some of the best in Europe.”

    Ukraine has a temporary ban prohibiting the sale of farmlands to foreign entities until January 2016. But German agricultural concerns – AGRARIUS AG, germanagrar CEE GmbH, KTG Agrar SE, Agroton and Alfred C. Toepfer International (ADM) – seize land using leasing schemes and generous loans from German and global money lenders.

    And according to Bock-Luna, the Ukrainian government that came to power in Kiev after the coup has been actively giving away farmland in return for loans from international creditors.

    “The previous Ukrainian administration was opposed to further relaxation of agricultural laws, but this changed after the coup, with the help of the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development,” she added.

    Governments Buy or Lease Farmland in Other Countries

    There is growing interest in farmland in other parts of the world as well. A 2011 Al Jazeera article cites a 2008 report by Grain, an international non-governmental organization working on behalf of small rural food producers. According to Grain, China, Egypt, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, India, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are all buying or leasing fertile land in other countries where food is not always abundant.

    “Cambodia, which receives aid from the World Food Program, has leased rice fields to Qatar and Kuwait, while Uganda has granted concessions on its wheat and maize fields to Egypt, and interested parties from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are making approaches to the Philippines.”

    In addition, some land purchases in Ukraine, Senegal, Nigeria, Russia, Brazil and Paraguay, by banks and financial institutions, are of a speculative nature.

    It is disturbing that instead of a discussion about the implications of these practices for the future, the critics of Laudato Si’ give us warmed-over economic theory. They would like us to believe they merely object to the degree of agricultural change that has been suggested. However, it’s obvious that their goal is to head off change completely.

    Agribusiness Meets Reality in the 2016 Election

    Animal husbandry is another part of the problem. Livestock competes with humans by consuming a large percentage of the crops humans produce. But the global consumption of meat is increasing due to higher standards of living in developing countries. This must be reversed. If everyone ate as much meat as Americans, we would need several earths to support everyone.

    President Obama was trying to decrease livestock farming recently when he suggested that Americans should eat less meat. This is the kind of change we need. However, the Republicans objected to Obama’s suggestion and the Democrats were not as supportive as they should have been. Hilary Clinton is considered the frontrunner in the upcoming presidential election. However, the Clintons have a poor record in the areas that will be the most sensitive in the future: Bill Clinton signed off on NAFTA and the WTO, and currently the relationship between Hilary Clinton and Monsanto is too close for comfort.

    The foreign agribusiness concerns that support the Clinton foundation are even more worrisome, largely because they are displacing African farmers.[mfn]Pearce, Fred, The Land Grabbers:The New Fight Over Who Owns the Earth, Beacon Press, Boston, 2012[/mfn] We can’t afford eight more years of these policies.

    Conclusion

    Agribusiness is so focused on profit it has created a self-serving loop of cheap commodities for processed food and animal feed. The result is that it produces crops overseas for its own use. The corporate model as we know it won’t solve these problems. It is inefficient, destructive, overindulged, irresponsible, disorganized and stupid. Corporate agriculture helps no one but itself.

    This farming model not only destroys jobs, communities and the land, it pollutes water. If the rivers and oceans are further degraded, we won’t be any better off regardless of the additional crops we are able to grow. Furthermore, putting increased acreage into crops will only increase the possibility of environment degradation. Finally, if the livelihood of millions of people disappears through agribusiness technology and automation, they will starve regardless of corporate schemes to increase yield.

    The next 30 years will demonstrate what the human race is made of. So far, the only course of action our business leaders can think of is to take us to war. Apparently their plan is to fight each other to the death for the last scrap of land. We need planning based on the facts and with the aim of finding a civilized way to cope with a serious problem.

    Gresham College: Food Oppression

  • Neocons Erased George Kennan

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    George Kennan tried but never succeeded in living down his famous ‘X Article’ in which he said ominous things about the Soviet Union. When he talked about containment, he thought he was recommending the political containment of a political threat, not some ‘doctrine’ of perpetual military containment. More importantly, he thought containment should apply to the Americans as well. Sadly, the neocons were able to use the words of George Kennan to achieve their aims. The neocons erased George Kennan.

    If certain people have their way there will be war with Russia. Americans have no business contemplating such a thing. For that matter, there was no excuse for the Cold War. It was concocted from Kennan’s recommendations. This is disturbing, considering that is not what he said. This concoction was done by a hysterical press and the ‘thinkers’ of RAND Corporation. Of course, neocons at RAND and their purportedly enormous brains are not working for Americans. They work their magic at the behest of the Air Force.

    Neocons Erased George Kennan and Containment
    Neocon Pretensions

    The neocons’ idealistic and pretentious lack of genuine foreign policy

    Kennan expressed concern about the ascendance in the United States of an ‘idealistic and pretentious lack of genuine foreign policy’ that focused on the American Dream. He thought the U.S. must put its own house in order first.

    He argued that the Soviets were part of an historical tradition of the Third Rome, which although it is a rival religion, is still Byzantine. Strangely, he could already see similar totalitarian tendencies at work in the United States. The Americans had taken up a form of existence that does not recognize limits, a result of unconditional acceptance of the logic of the marketplace. This had led to the loss of a sense of what should not be done.

    America’s monster: the indestructible myth

    So instead of a political containment lasting for 10-15 years the doctrine was transformed into an ‘indestructible myth’:

    “There emerged one of those great forbidding apparitions to the credence in which mass opinion is so easily swayed: a monster devoid of all humanity and of all rational motive, at once the embodiment and the caricature of evil, devoid of internal conflicts and problems of its own, intent only on bringing senseless destruction to the lives and hopes of others.”

    The symptoms of our decay go beyond politics. They include ‘overpopulation, urbanization, hyper-intensity of communication, and destruction of the environment’. However, for Kennan the nuclear arms race was the clearest indication of spiritual decline. It was a ‘spiritual and philosophical derangement of the last order’, a madness, a death wish, a lack of faith, ‘wrong in the good old-fashioned meaning of the word’.1 

    1. ROSSBACH, Stefan, Gnostic wars : the cold war in the context of a history of Western spirituality, Florence : European University Institute, 1997, EUI, SPS, PhD Thesis – https://hdl.handle.net/1814/5371 ↩︎

  • A Challenge to Politics As Usual

    Reading Time: 4 minutesOur choices are limited if we can only talk about what we can realistically do. But if we’re talking theory, anything is possible. Since I’m in charge of my own theoretical world, I’ll offer some solutions. This is a challenge to politics as usual.

    Start With the Environment and its Social Effects

    I’ll start with solutions to environmental problems. The particular environmental goal will guide any changes in politics and economics. After the environment, social effects will be the next criterion in decision-making.

    We have 50 years to do something about the oceans. Every continent contributes to the problem of pollution, much of it from industrial farming, so ideally every country would have to participate. I propose dividing industrial farms, which also contribute to global warming, into smaller, sustainable operations. Start with the farms that drain into major river systems. This would decrease the amount of chemical fertilizers flowing into the ocean and begin to address the problem of dead zones.

    A Double Benefit: Improve the Environment and Strengthen Communities

    It would also create the potential for using these sustainable farms as the nucleus of a different kind of community. Such communities would have to develop over time as the underlying political theory is discovered. They should be conceived as centers of a vibrant life—not oppressive sloughs of despair that the youth can’t wait to escape. They would have to offer opportunity; they would have to inspire and challenge all members.

    Make the Government More Accessible

    In the United States, we could consider creating another governing center in the middle of the country, specifically to serve this new type of grassroots community organization. This is not as a replacement for Washington—it could interact with Washington D.C. For example, it could facilitate the development of candidates for national office, as well as local delegates.

    Competition: Art, Industry, the Birth Rate, Agriculture, Ect.

    The critics might say that if one country breaks up commercial farms it would cease to be competitive with other countries. Or if everyone does, we couldn’t feed the world. First, we don’t feed the world now. Second, this isn’t necessarily true. First, consider the subject of competition. Pre-war France experienced a time of political and military turmoil. In this period, the French suddenly discovered that their birth rate was much lower than Germany and Great Britain. Then a series of European furniture exhibitions made them realize they were falling behind their neighbors in the decorative arts by limiting themselves to traditional French designs and methods. The French government created policies were to remedy this situation.[mfn] [/mfn][mfn]David Cottington, Cubism in the Shadow of War: The Avant-Garde and Politics in Paris 1905-1914, Yale University Press, 1998.[/mfn] The goal was to make France more competitive. But was competition with Germany and Great Britain good for the French people?

    Healthy Versus Unhealthy Competition

    We have to develop criteria for healthy versus unhealthy competition. For example, maybe challenging French furniture makers was healthy, while French leaders could have decided against the manipulation of the birth rate for ideological, political, economic, or military reasons. Agricultural policy also affects family life. Is it a good idea to base agricultural policy on competition with other countries? If small family farms are inefficient, what should replace them? Should agricultural policy serve the national economy or should it help to foster healthy communities?

    Limit Unhealthy Competition

    What if we put limits on unhealthy competition? I’m not talking isolationism. I’m talking about the kind of limits that make it possible to solve domestic problems like dead zones in the ocean. Because of its social and environmental implications, we could start by eliminating the pro-natalist nonsense, followed by trade agreements—at least the worst aspects of them. The medieval guilds limited competition among their own members and it was effective until some hotshot broke the rules and ruined it for everyone else. This is the same idea only on a global scale.

    If you are screaming ‘Nooo!’ then maybe you don’t understand how serious the world’s problems are. Or maybe these ideas threaten your own privilege. On the contrary, what we’re doing now is stupid and it threatens all of us. We are on a precipice. But ideologues who tell other people what to do and who have no intention of doing it themselves look down their noses and ask where all these needy people came from. In this way they prove they are unfit to wield authority of any kind, and yet there they remain.

    Global Awareness

    Iran has drained its lakes through climate change, dams, drought, and inefficient irrigation. In parts of India, half the population is homeless. Half of India’s population defecates on the ground. Worse, even the feces that ends up in the sewage system is untreated. India is awash in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Babies are born with these germs and they often can’t be cured. Further, the crowded conditions make it more likely they’ll pass on their infections. It should be no surprise that some of those germs are coming here. And of course, there is evidence of America’s contribution to the problem, both from oil spills and farming, in the Gulf of Mexico.

    Women should be able to control their own fertility. In fact, the relationship between mother and child should be understood as the essential human relationship, and therefore as the basis of all other relationships. This would guard against artificiality and indifference in a community’s social relations.

    I’m aware that my solutions are radical but in my opinion, they don’t have much competition at this time. First, we have the Democrats who can’t seem to come to terms with the demise of Marxism. It’s not clear what they’re doing in this election cycle—maybe pretending to be different from the Republicans for the sake of appearances. As for the Republicans, they are becoming famous for serving shady interest rather than the interests of their own people. Incredibly, they don’t even try to hide it any more. But it’s probably remarkable that either party can still come up with a coherent platform at all. Both are operating on old ideas that were never established on firm ground in the first place, so it shouldn’t be surprising that they function more like political religions than rational approaches to the world’s problems.