FELLOW BOOMERS, OUR RECKONING IS UPON US!

This post is especially for all my fellow-Boomers so enduringly proud at calling out the sins of our elders in the days of our youth. Payback time for us is now here. It started to take shape in the wake of the Parkland shooting when students at the Stoneman Douglas High School roared, “Enough!” and started to organize for an actual state of sanity where firearms are concerned. They are still organizing to that end and this aging Boomer cannot shower enough cheers, blessings and other aid on them rapidly enough.
Then Greta Thunberg came along and, while it’s a bit early to state this for certain, at least started to put the capstone on our time to stump up for our payback!
After being (let’s be honest here; we really didn’t do much of the heavy civil-rights lifting) a minor player in that mighty struggle for equal rights, some of us were more central players when the struggle expanded (or re-incorporated, depending on historical opinion) the fight to end discrimination based on sex and, for the first time, based on sexual orientation as well. And nearly all of us except the New Victorians (many thanks, Rene) and incels who mostly hid behind hollowly religious virtuous talk, were enthusiastic participants in the Sexual Quasi-Revolution.
And many of us were honestly opposed to the war in Indochina because some of us saw whence this had come and where it could lead. But I won’t give up on brutal honesty here, so let’s admit that many opponents of that war really only wanted to save their precious skins. I’m looking straight at you, P.J.!
And some of the war’s opponents also ‘greened’ into the Earth Day/Ecology movement, now needed more than ever by all of us. Then, three years later, in the wake of the Yom Kippur war, came Energy Crisis I.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall that crisis giving the great push to the ‘Greens’ then that might have been expected. When I look back, I sort of wonder why not and I have to shake my head over what might be a large lost opportunity.
Mind y’all, I was only a high school senior then even if I was one of my school’s current events/political wonks. Apart from the fossil fuel companies already knowing what was going on and their part in it, I don’t know a whole lot about how much was scientifically known then that we know now. I remember Watergate was also in full swing and ol’ Milhous actually tried to take that ball and run with it! Anyone remember his speech on ‘energy independence by 1980’? Carter tried to push that program forward and was greeted mostly by Congressional snores, as I recall. At least until Energy Crisis II which came in the wake of the Iranian revolution. And there was much more ‘grab the oil!’ talk among those who would become the ‘neocons’. As a neocon and a Boomer I do blame Elliott Abrams for his part in this, not to mention a bloodthirsty trench-dodger. Bad back, Elliott? Yeah, right!
While I can’t blame the rest of us for that mess, what I can and do blame most of us for is: when, the next year, we were faced with a choice between 1) politics as usual, which Carter was not making look very good, 2) a truth-teller in the person of John Anderson who said honestly that this would be a long, possibly hard, slog but it would prove worth the effort and 3) a Grade B actor essentially selling us Dr. Feelgood’s narcotic, most of us chose the third choice. And with that choice the chance to catch climate change while it was still early on evaporated for the most part.

I will never forget my dismay when, on the night of November 4. 1980, I saw which way the country was going. A TV had been set up in what was then the main room of the Christian Association on Penn campus.
And so much for what I thought about how informed a citizenry we had. I had actually believed that we Boomers might have a longer-term view and choose a way other than the GOP’s lying promise to take us to, yea that we could all live in….Disneyland!

The current usurper of the Oval Office is (I certainly hope so, anyhow) the culmination of that lie with the added virtue (I’m serious here; bear with me) of not lying about who will be allowed to live in that Disneyland. In the end, no one is welcome there aside from straight and propertied white males and all their slaves and helpers — but only as slaves and help! And we Boomers owe that to ourselves.
I admit that part of the climate change problem is the vastness of it and the difficulty of ‘getting a handle’ on it, but I can’t get away from that, when faced with the choice between something difficult and fruitful and something which allowed our adolescence to continue, most of us opted for the latter. And now our children and, in some cases, our grandchildren, are present and telling us where and how we’ve fallen short. So be prepared for it, and let us not be ‘wise in our own eyes’, to use a Scriptural admonition.

CHAPTER ONE

At last. An impeachment inquiry is beginning. The crucial ‘straws’ appear to be Trump’s attempt to strong-arm a phony scandal our of the Ukrainian president concerning Joe Biden, generally conducting foreign policy like a racketeer — and, perhaps, that Biden is a figure venerated among the establishment. He represents those who either actually believe (God help them!) all was well before Trump and if we can only get back there, all will be well again, or those who know that all was not well for most of us, but since they were doing so well, want those days back again.
But a possible phony scandal involving such a Respected Figure such as Biden and the blatant quality of Trump’s misfeasance seem to be the two factors which seem to have tipped the fence-sitters and Blue Dogs over the line with Speaker Pelosi leading from the rear. Some of us think that it’s the coverup that was the last straw (and to paraphrase Billy Joel, they may be right). After all, that’s what brought ol’ Milhous down. When I mull that over, it seems to me that the coverup is the maraschino on this toxic sundae, true, but I’m not sure if the sundae itself, if it was less toxic to this particular aspect of government and person long involved in it, would have had the crashing weight of the actual scandal to those who now see the need to impeach.
Make no mistake here: for the sake of any future for the rule of law, democracy and our Constitution as a living document, Trump’s impeachment is (and has been almost since day one) an absolute necessity! It must be made crystal clear that no one, not even a sitting POTUS, is ever above the law!

But the above is only chapter one. I do not expect the formerly ‘Republican’ party to purge itself of the probably (and, to me, hopefully) terminal degree to which Trump has brought corruption already long festering in that particular party.
Trump is not the bringer of corruption; he is the culmination of such corruption which is bigoted against just about anyone who is not a property-owning white, straight, nominally Christian (and, probably, the more nominal his Christianity is, the better they like it!) male with plenty of money with which to buy political slaves who offer themselves with sickening eagerness. This disease is present in the Democrats too but, praise be, nowhere near terminal as the Democrats have antigens to such corruption. They are known as progressives.
So much for the former GOP. The Executive Branch, if not the whole federal government (not to mention many a state government) will also need a thorough cleansing. And that will be up to you and I to see to. It’s our government, folks; it’s up to us to give it the cleaning-out it badly needs. That will be chapter two. Subsequent chapters will deal with the necessity of making an ‘eco-nomy’ that works for as close to everyone as we can get on this planet and for as many species as we may still have with us once the great Anthropocene extinction is over. Such a system is will be far less consumption-driven than is currently the case.

But those chapters are for another time. While we press forward with impeachment as the absolutely necessary first chapter, let’s just remember that it is only that. Other chapters must and will follow.

AM YISRAEL CHAI!!

I hope the title hasn’t already turned anyone off, because I’m using that beautiful battle cry in a rather different way here. It begins with mulling over the meaning of the name ‘Israel’ as described in Genesis.

When Yaakov (Jacob), which means ‘the supplanter’, came to the ford of the Jabbok river, the story says he wrestled with an angel through the night until shortly before the sun rose. And the last thing this ‘angel’ told him was, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.” (Genesis 33:28, NIV)
Full stop right here, everybody.
The name ‘Yisro-el’, or Israel, apparently means ‘s/he who has struggled with God and other humans, and has prevailed.
Say what?! Someone has striven with God…and prevailed??!!
Anyone can say that the idea of ‘prevailing’ in a struggle with God is like a little boy who imagines he really has knocked down and bested his father in one of those mock-fights good fathers give their sons when they’re small — and they’d be right to say so.
But let those same parties answer this question: how secure does a man’s sense of being a man need to be to let his small son(s) think that he has, or they have, bested Dad in such a fun tussle? Could an adult male insecure in his manhood do that? Allow me to doubt that, and deeply too.
Another aspect of this story is: nowhere in the ancient Middle East, or around the eastern Mediterranean, is there such a god that allows a human being to even imagine that s/he has prevailed in a struggle with the god.
By way of contrast, look at ancient Greece’s stories of the gods: Zeus was so outraged at Prometheus giving fire to humans that he chained him on Mt. Caucasus and had a vulture eat his liver daily. And then the liver grew back to be eaten again the next day. And this happened for a few hundred years, until Prometheus told Zeus something which secured his throne.

And note further the story of Arachne, in which Arachne thinks she can weave at least as well as the goddess Athene — who, of course, is there in no time to prove herself. Athene weaves a tapestry showing all the mightay-mightay deeds of the gods, while Arachne weaves a pattern showing all the gods’ abuses of power over mortals. The story relates that Athene ‘could not forbear to admire, yet her indignation over Arachne’s insult mastered her’ and she destroyed Arachne’s tapestry and, in a manner of speaking, turned Arachne into the first spider.
And gods like that were what prevailed all over the ancient eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, except for the God of Israel, who did not (and still does not) destroy those who struggled, and who struggle yet, with Him, but Who, rather, acknowledges those who strive with Him and with other humans by renaming them according to that very struggle!
Again — everybody stop…and just let the implications of this sink in!

Most scholars of the Tanakh (which most of my fellow Christians call the Old Testament) will agree that the children of Israel as led by Moshe were almost anything but the best material for making and building a nation. Hence they roamed for forty years, until a generation with no memory of Egyptian slavery came of age.
And most of them will (at least the ones I appreciate) follow that observation up with, their being almost anything but ideal material is an important point of the whole story. But there were enough among them willing to first trust, and then to struggle, with YHWH to keep the ball rolling. Sometimes, Scripture tells us, it was only one person as in the time of Elijah.
The only other place I remember hearing about such a god was in a Native American story where humans were endeavoring to climb into Heaven and the Great Spirit was pleased by their spirit. If anyone knows more details (including which nation or nations tell it) about this story, please share them with me.
The basic point here is, such struggling is not only normal but what God Himself wants us to do with Him! He does ask us to trust him, yes, but trust can be conditional and/or wary and God can and does deal with that in such people.

But He doesn’t ask, indeed might well refuse, the absolute submission which too many faux-spiritual megaphones claim He requires. Not so; it is they who demand absolute submission from their ‘sheep’ who they first fleece and too often, sooner or later, send to slaughter while being quite safely behind the battle lines themselves!! This goes for any label, be it ‘Christian’ or ‘Muslim’ or anything else!

I know this firsthand: many was the time I asked God what I should do and heard no answer. It took me years to see that I was being asked to develop my own judgment with God’s help. Can there be a way to incorporate all of any nation who struggle so with God into Israel? Were, or are, Christianity and Islam supposed to be such a way or ways? Think about this and let’s see some serious feedback on that question and others which I hope this post raises.

Finally, only God can say when all the purposes of His pilot group (aka Am Yisrael, aka the Jews and other Hebrews) are fulfilled. For Christians, Muslims or any other mortals to make such a pronouncement is both ridiculous and sacrilegious — yes, you read that second word quite rightly!

We can speculate on what God might have in mind for them, but that’s as far as it should go. I personally believe Israel has such glory ahead of it beside which the ancient kingdom of Solomon will be like a flickering single candle beside a thousand-watt floodlight!
So yes, indeed, and in more ways than occur to us at the moment — AM YISRAEL CHAI!

MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL

I'm pretty sure I haven't mentioned this before, but I have a Youtube channel with the name of Proudscalawag and a growing number of songs written and sung by your obedient servant. I hope before y'all cringe, you'll visit it and check out some songs. Here are some links to some in particular. This first one is dedicated to ammosexuals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np5KQWQ_uDk&t=2s
And this next one is dedicated to the avatar of ammosexuals and their allies,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fcywnO89zE&t=2s
This is a cheerier tune. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSO3yXSEbAU
And two songs with more spiritual material:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbiRSBLZvHc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2FypUx5IXc

Hope you enjoy at least some of what's here and others on my channel. If you do, please share them round.

SELF-VINDICATION v. TRUST

Today, two sentences in (Oswald) Chambers’s meditation strike me with exceptional strength: first, “No [person] ever receives a word from God without instantly being put to the test over it.” If my spiritual journey is anything to go by, I can testify to that from both firsthand experience and — well, I’m not sure how ‘secondhand’ it might be, since I’ve seen both my late first wife and my current wife tested that way. In any case, I’ve been so tested myself and have seen both my wives so tested.
The second sentence is, “The Spirit of God unearths the spirit of self-vindication; he makes us sensitive to things we never thought of before.”
Ye who deride the sensitivities of others (usually while nursing remarkably snowflaky sensitivities of your own!), beware of this; know ye have chastising judgment in store for you! It is to you I say, if you’re trained to be obedient, here is One to Whom you must be obedient above all, and if Jesus renders us sensitive to things of which we never thought before, maybe an expansion of your snowflake sensitivities toward others who don’t necessarily look or speak or worship as you do is in order! Maybe even an extension of your sensitivities towards other creatures as well!
I have a stern word or two also for those who are prepared to have their sensitivities so expanded or who have had them expanded already: I think this is a time for compassion, not for triumphant mockery. Believe me when I say I know how sorely tempting such mockery is now; I confess I’m not immune to that temptation by any means except Deo Gratias. It is you who seem to better understand what Chambers means in the next and final paragraph: “When Jesus brings a thing home by His word, don’t shirk it. If you do, you will become a religious humbug. Watch the things over which you shrug your shoulders, and you will know why you do not go on spiritually.”
Oh, how tempting it is to gloat over those words! Am I not right about that?
This is why standing at least 90 degrees from some things in the culture with which we grew up is so important. It is important because we all need to draw a line between our culture and God’s commands: it is far too easy, as we see today, to conclude that “The code of [fill in the blank] holds everywhere!” to borrow a phrase from an old TV show. It’s also too easy to conclude that God wants us to take out some anxiety (usually involving worries about masculinity) on the rest of the world. Expansion of feelings for other breathing creatures, I suggest, especially those who are less ‘like us’, is an important key to whether it is God or his rebel working on us in this and other ways. That is also an important way that our faith and trust in God expands. Think about it.

BE LIBERAL — LOOK AT BEHAVIOR PATTERNS, NOT (REAL OR IMAGINED) SKIN TONES!!

Our Mr. Brooks (David Brooks) has caught me by a large thought today. He muses on how many of my fellow ‘white’ liberals and progressives now wear ‘lenses’ through which they see many more things in this country in racial terms. I also see many things in this country through those lenses; those lenses are often necessary in this country. But in terms of looking at other places around this slowly-cooking globe, their utility can be and often is quite limited. In some other places, such as Latin America and the Arab/Muslim world, they are also necessary, all the more so since too many people in both regions will tell you that such lenses are Completely Unnecessary Here! Istagfarallah, we are Far Too Enlightened for that — as you pass a market where African men are being sold. That’s right, sold. The slave trade liveth yet in Libya and in other very carefully out-of-the-way spots in North Africa and the rest of the Muslim world. That slave trade has been going on for fourteen centuries and has been, to date, between eight and twelve times as lethal as the transatlantic slave trade!

When we look at Israel and the local Arabs through an American racial lens, white liberals (along with too many people of color) tend to place those lenses upside down. They would do far better to ask themselves: from when Jews began returning to Eretz Israel in the 1880s (before modern Zionism was born), who has been more willing to share land and power — Jews or Arabs? The answer will always be, and still is, Jews.
Colonists do not want to share; they insist on all the power for themselves and crumbs for anyone else. This is the mindset of our unreconstructed peckerwoodies here (and probably in Australia) and it is also the mindset of the ‘Palestinians’ and their useful idiots. Who wants their state to be Judenrein? Israel is not, and never intends to be, Arab-rein. An indigenous population is, almost always, much readier to share than colonists ever have been, are, or ever will be.
Civil rights was, and still is, indicative of a desire to share power, not take it all away. It was, and still is, the White Power structure which insists on all for itself and virtually nothing for anyone else. Ditto for the ‘Pals’. Look at Israel’s situation through a lens of behavior patterns, my fellow libs and progs, and your outlook will change radically! And get rid of the preoccupation with your own Purity and Innocence! Our enemies on the Right share that obsession and, indeed, allow it to drive them mad! Thankfully, we’re not that far gone just yet, but, in seeking to do justice and right past and present wrongs, remember it’s what we do and its results that matters most, not some illusory Charlie-Brown’s-losing-baseball-team’s Sincerity, or Goodness, of ours! I don’t know about y’all but that is way down my list of what matters!
For people of color: read what brother Eldridge (Cleaver) had to say about Arab racism as opposed to any Israeli racism after living eight years in Algeria. Then think again in light of the above information. Also, remember that, before 1948, Jews were looked at by Arabs the way peckerwoodies, North and South, looked at those they called ‘common n***ers’. Then imagine how peckerwoodies feel when those ‘common n***ers’ prove themselves more than equal to to the ‘whites’! Need I write a jot or tittle more than that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjsLmv1N7i4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJhSejBDTPI&t=4s
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/opinion/white-liberal-democrats.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

OSWALD AND ME

Sixteen days ago, I recommenced reading Oswald Chambers’s book, My Utmost For His Highest. It seems to be one of those books that, while it may be tough reading the first time, improves considerably with subsequent ones. It’s one of those books you can have on the shelf for years and then, dipping back into it, discover many treasures in it which you didn’t see years before.
Today, the first sentence which really struck home with me was, “For instance, the Beatitudes seem merely mild and beautiful precepts for all unworldly and useless people, but of very little practical use in the stern workaday world in which we live.”
‘Unworldly and useless people’. Is there anyone reading this post who hasn’t, at least intermittently, felt that way about themselves? I know that’s how I feel about myself too often for comfort. How many of us feel like real worldly success stories, really? Then again, God seems to have a habit of picking up those who are seen and/or see themselves as worldly failures and teaching them to ‘aim’ for Him and His Heaven as opposed to earth. C.S. Lewis made the observation that, “Aim at Heaven and you’ll have Earth ‘thrown in’; aim at Earth and you will get neither.” He uses caring for one’s health as an analogy on page 104 of Mere Christianity, ISBN 0–02–086940–1.
Allow me to add a caveat here: we do need to stay focused on Heaven; there is always the danger of making the winning of Earth the end rather than a side matter.
Chambers’s devotion touches on this with the next sentences. “We soon find, however, that the Beatitudes contain the dynamite of the Holy Ghost. They explode….when the circumstances of our lives cause them to do so. When the Holy Spirit brings to our remembrance one of these Beatitudes…..we have to decide whether we will accept the tremendous spiritual upheaval that will be produced in our circumstances if we obey His words. That is how the Spirit of God works.”
For some reason, this passage reminds me that, for all of us, our spiritual lives — that is, what we believe in and act on — is both backdrop to, and the ultimate aspiration of, our lives. If anyone thinks otherwise, feel free to say so, but include the ‘why’ of your belief, always. According to St. John, Jesus said the same thing: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.”
This is what God does, always. He takes the washouts, the failures, the smallest and the most peripheral among us and infuses them with the dynamite of His Holy Spirit. Does not the very Statue of Liberty have a poem identifying all of us, or our ancestors, as having been just that once on a time? When peoples and countries who begin in that way forget such beginnings, they forget who they really are and they also forget God. Nothing I can think of testifies to how many of us have forgotten both God and our abject startings with more eloquence than what we are doing right now on our southern border. There are other such testimonies, to be sure, but that particular one sounds loudest in my ears right now.
To shut a door against genocidal killers is not the same as to bar the door against abject refuge-seekers, so no comparison of this to Israel’s wall is warranted. In this country, the latter is what we now permit our government to do and which we’d better change right smartly if we want to avoid the fate of forgetful and declining empires. Before a people, or peoples, who we see as inconsequential prove themselves very much otherwise.