CUTURES AND CIVILIZATIONS

 For a culture or a civilization to survive and flourish, one thing that seems quite indispensable to me is for that culture or civilization to have fairly lively ways of criticizing itself. Let's be honest here: human beings do not have it in themselves to perfect either one. That can only be done by working under divine direction which can, at least to some extent, be discerned by how any society treats those on its bottom and on its periphery. That's how this writer perceives God working. He starts at the bottom and the outer edges and works upward and inward. And God knows the quality of the human material with which He works, better than we ourselves know.
But to the point. As we look across the globe at cultures and civilizations, what do we see? Not sure about primitive, pre-civilizational cultures. On the one hand, when civilization touches them that very often breaks the 'tribe'. But, if the tribe knows and can stay close to its life-sources, it can often adapt and reconstitute itself quickly. Being small and close to the ground has its uses. Maybe that's why the ancient Israelites were, and the state of Israel and Am Yisrael worldwide today are, 'the smallest of nations' or at least among them. Collapsed civilizations, being larger and more artificial, tend to stay collapsed for longer.
What sort of self-critical mechanisms did Japan have before the West introduced first newspapers and then electronic media to them? Indeed, what did any Far Eastern culture have in that respect, including that civilizational Ancient Of Days, China? Ricardo, I may be asking you further about this. Tibet?
What about the ancient cultures of India? As Islam is still--again, on the edges and maybe on the bottom--feebly trying to recover from its intellectual suicide committed eight centuries ago, it tends to stifle self-critical mechanisms and as long as that continues, the Arab/Muslim world will stay at or near the bottom of healthy and prosperous societies, it's hardly worth mentioning here. Islamism will keep these societies at or near the bottom as it is extremely hostile to any kind of questioning. And that high hostility is something Red and Green have in common. All foolosophies which have an 'elect' or 'historical vanguard' or 'superior race' are hostile to questions and criticism.
Sub-Saharan Africa? Ubuntu is probably great at cultivating fellow-feeling and related connections, but, again, where are the self-critical traditions and mechanisms? And the native cultures and civilizations of the Western Hemisphere and Oceania? What do they have in that respect?
I look forward to what I hope and believe will be some intense and varied reactions to what I now write: the one civilization with the most vigorous self-critical mechanisms, stemming from two societies with lively self-critical traditions along with the creative tension between the two in which Western civilization was gestated and born, is indeed the remarkably adaptable conglomerate of cultures we know as Western civilization.
The two cultures I mean above are that of ancient Greece (Athens) and ancient Israel (Jerusalem). Both were fed by Egypt and Mesopotamia but they were differently shaped. Athens put a premium on accurate empirical observation; Jerusalem emphasized fidelity to divine revelation. In a way, Jerusalem had a bit more with which to work in the also-creative tension between the letter of the Law and the Spirit of that Law proclaimed by the Prophets. And both had highly vital self-critical traditions. Both of which were absorbed by the nations of Christendom. Here, too, becoming an arm of state power generally stifles the heart of both religion and science. But the state mandating items science tells us are necessary for the health (including the ecological health) of that society is quite opposite from the state trying to use science and/or religion for its own ends.
No, Western civilization wasn't born knowing it all in terms of human liberty. No culture or civilization is. Finding out more and changing society with the new knowledge is what progress is all about, right?
Yes, we also made mistakes inasmuch as we could have learned more from the cultures we conquered. And had we done so, we would've been REALLY different from all the other civilizations on the globe!
But look around the globe: is any civilization, has any civilization been, as self-critical as are the cultures of the West? And does any cultural conglomeration have the same capacity for expansion and bringing in new cultures with minimal damage to those cultures, at least initially? Think about that.
So, sons and daughters of the West of every skin color, know you are heirs to something truly uniquely beneficial--and be proud of it! It was only three centuries before enough Christian consciences caught up with human greed! Islam seems to have no such mechanism; the fourteen-centuries-old trans-Sahara slave trade continues even now under the law's radar! Would India or China have a like understanding of human dignity that could also end the slave trade and chattel slavery? If anyone knows, please let us know!
And in upholding our self-critical traditions, let your criticisms be truthfully informed! Watch out for those who have few or no facts backing up their attempts to tug your heart-strings!
As long as we remain a vigorously self-critical civilization we will be a growing and vital group of cultures. Never forget that!

FOR OR AGAINST CONSCIENCE?

"The Jews inflicted two great wounds on humanity: circumcision and conscience." Adolf Hitler

 There is a war going on.       .
When you look below the surface, you may discern that this war has been going on for millennia. It is a war between those who have come to understand that conscience, the awareness of having done wrong, is a gift from God and those who, very often violently, reject that idea and make it as clear as they can that they want no part of conscience but they want freedom--almost always only their freedom--without accountability. And for the past century and quarter this planet has been haunted by those con artists who promise to remove conscience from the minds of their marks. Movements have arisen largely powered by that desire to be free of conscience and the false promises of those who purport to fulfill that evil desire!
Bolshevism is the oldest one. It looks as if it didn't start out that way but that's where it went. Fascism and Nazism begin and end there and make no bones about it. So, too, do Islamism, White 'Christian' Nationalism and MAGAtry as well. Not to mention MAGAtry is the heart of White 'Christian' Nationalism. The most recent outgrowths use the language of religion to mask what they're really after.
And not all their devotees know this by any means. Some actually believe they want to bring back either the Donna Reed show and related 1950s programs, or when 'Myrka was great Just For Them or the purported glory days of the Caliphate--days largely fueled by slave labor as was the antebellum American South.
And as agents against conscience, they all have a common enemy: the Jews. And, today, the state of Israel which is the Jewish state and the refuge and shield for all Jews worldwide whenever that refuge and shield might be required. Which in turn renders Jewish solidarity all the more necessary.
But Israel and the Diaspora are also beset from within. One of the greatest gifts of the Jews is the tradition of speaking out against power when it goes against justice--at least justice as the speaker sees it.
The intifadas, especially the second one, have largely expended any moral capital Fatah might be seen to have among Israelis. Most Israelis still believe they have no partner for peace but only those who desire to finish the Shoah. But Israel is still mandated to pursue justice, at least to those who believe in the God of Israel.
The foes of conscience also seek to use consciences as a weapon against those who have them. Hamas's using the civilians of Gaza as a shield is the current #1 example of this.
I must ask myself: do most Islamists, and the remaining 'Christian' supersessionists, believe that, without Jews, conscience and history will be their handmaidens? I wonder. Islam seems to make an attempt to sanctify the most evil human desires as does White 'Christian' Nationalism.
While there is precious little difference between those two, between the main body of Christianity and that of Islam, there seems to be a small but important difference, Yes, Christianity once did bless and sanction conquest of other peoples and countries ostensibly for Christ. But so far as I can tell, such conquest has never been as integral to Christianity as it seems to be to Islam. If I am mistaken in this, let me be shown how and why. And be warned in advance: I can tell when I'm being given a lot of empty verbiage.
The struggle is between those who honestly seek to do justice and understand that conscience is a gift from God and those who only want their most evil deeds and desires to be no longer seen as evil, if not actually sanctioned. As I write, they want freedom with no accountability and the greatest obstacle for them having that is the Jews, both in Israel and in the Diaspora. And remember: asking the question, Cui bono?--who benefits by A, B and/or C?--is a vital part of pursuing justice!
So, my readers, choose. Will you understand conscience as a gift, or will it be simply a bother as you seek to grab all you can, however you can?

SEX IS A BIG FAT BUST FOR (SOME) MEN TOO

 I hope this post is yet another broadside against the (mostly rich) White Male Patriarchy.
Two things no one tells you about; indeed, many of those who feel them may deny feeling them. Or deny such feelings exist. But they do. And if you want to be a real man and not simply an Adult Male Hominid, or, worse still, a Standard Male S**t, you must be honest about them.
Before I articulate the feelings, let me just say this: for me, three qualities make a man out of an Adult Male Hominid, to be written henceforth as an AMH. They are:first, integrity. You tell the truth and, with God's Help (available on request, sometimes called prayer) are honest about yourself and who and what you are, while also acknowledging what you may not yet know about yourself.
Second, responsibility. You acknowledge your mistakes and at least express the hope that you've changed since making them. And you do what you can for those close to you. Ask them what they need from you; unless you need serious work on anger issues it will almost never be your absence. Maybe not even then.

Third and last, courtesy. Unless someone is being an a**hole before your very eyes, treat them with the courtesy and civility with which you'd want to be treated. Be civil with both judge and janitor alike.

 And now for these feelings. The first is not a good feeling. When you enter a woman and your body seems to ask you, 'What am I doing here?' it's time to pull out and tuck it in. I speak from hard experience. I didn't and I learned later that my partner was ill for some days after. I admit I've no empirical evidence for a connection there; only my own hunch.
The second is this: a time may come when you feel that sex is simply not worth everything that comes with it anymore. I suspect you won't feel this way while you're young; it 'll probably be mostly middle-aged and old men like me who feel this way. Yes. There comes a time when you may feel that sex just isn't worth all that comes with it. When it comes, if you'll pardon the pun. Such a time is here for me.
For me, sex is just not worth all the hysterical drama that, at least in my case, comes with it. And that doesn't only apply to my wife; I feel I've no reason to believe it'd be much different with any other woman of any legal age.
When this happens, you realize something: you have no major reason to consider other men as your rivals or competitors. Some will ask, why don't I ditch my wife? A number of reasons. First, she says she still loves me. Second, I'm not into breaking anyone's heart, especially one that breaks as easily as does hers. Even when a woman has her own livelihood, Malachi's dictum to the ancient Jews can still apply: 'Don't you know that, when a man divorces his wife, he overwhelms her with cruelty?'
My late first wife told me of her divorce from her first husband and boy, did it ever sound like what Malachi was talking about! We promised, at least implicitly, that we wouldn't visit that on anyone. And I silently promised God and myself I would never visit such a thing on anyone. And for me, a big part of being a man is to keep such promises. So there are two good reasons not to part, I'd say.

In D.H. Lawrence's work titled We Need One Another, he also had harsh things to say about what he termed  'men and women smashing each other to bits', and he continued, 'All I ask is that they pause and consider.' I guess those lines sank pretty deeply into what was then my young man's brain.
I'll go further and say, when men find themselves feeling this way about sex, that doesn't mean, by any stretch, that they are 'lesser men'. If anything, I suggest it may be indicative of growing into deeper adulthood. Such freedom from sexual compulsion can give men a chance to be better brothers to one another and truer protectors of those humans smaller, weaker and not yet as knowledgeable as they.
And, thus, to do their part in tearing down the patriarchy that shields evildoers who are rich, white and male. And under NO circumstances will I term them 'men'!
A growing number of women have been increasingly vocal about being fed up with males in general and wanting nothing from them but to be let alone. Well and good. Now, I'm speaking up as a man who now feels much the same about females and perhaps speaking for other men who feel the same way. I can clean according to my liking, I enjoy cooking for myself. And at my time of life, it's very unlikely I'll have children. There were times when I wanted that but I never had enough money on which to have a family. 
So, with sex not worth the effort anymore, I can be content in my life with my current spouse and our pets.

WHY NOT? THINK ABOUT IT

 Who do we want, who do we need to lead the snowballing movement to preserve, strengthen and, aye, extend democracy?
What sort of experience does such a person need?
Certainly we want one who will know what we're supposed to be about as a country. For myself, that means the above. And that means putting on the gas for 1) strengthening and extending the safety net for all of us 2) adding all adults to the voting rolls 3) the 'greening' of our economy, pushing renewable energies and regenerative agriculture forward 4) an abject apology to our traditional allies, reopening USAID and behavior abroad much more in line with what we profess and/or aspire to be.
We DON'T want anyone with connections to interests tied largely to the obscenely rich. This last will probably exclude most white male politicians and officeholders, so we may have a problem with getting the group I call doughfaced dinkyjohnnies on board. But will we need them? Unsure about that.
And how much 'political experience' would such a leader need? If we're holding out for officeholder experience, it may have to be either a woman or a man of color.
But allow me to ask a question: at any game, who actually sees the most of what's actually happening? The participants or the spectators? Think about it.
What about someone who has watched politics since a young age (twelve, in my case) but didn't dive in because they already saw the amount of actual public service time diminishing and the time spent raising campaign funds mushrooming, and said 'no' to that?
Again, think about it.
For myself, I would LOVE to see Jasmine Crockett, on whom I have a positively tremendous (political?) crush and whom I call 'Queen of the Texas frontier', win a presidential election! Question is, is that possible yet? We Democrats ran women twice and narrowly lost both times, thanks largely, imo, to the group I call 'doughfaced dinkyjohnnies' which, again imo, explains why they just couldn't bring themselves to vote for a woman!
In any case, I have NO connections to ANY billionaires or other power brokers. I have watched politics since I was almost twelve and I hope I've 'loined' a thing or two about them. I would do all I could for the four urgencies I've listed above. While it's not a job I really want (I have history I want to write at some point and I ain't no spring chicken, as the saying goes) I feel duty-bound to at least put myself forward as willing to serve our country if called to this. And I am an aging pale male with an impeccably English family name. And religiously Protestant into the bargain.
Feel free to ask any questions and please share this post widely.

AN INSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATION

                This morning, about 8:15, I was musing on the idea of, rather than execute a large number of MAGAts after the coming American Nuremberg, lifetime public humiliations for them. I think I heard some advice within my mind.
 

GOD: You may be a bit too fond of seeing others 'get their just deserts'. You need to watch out for that. It, too, like hate, can eat at you from within.
ME: But, Father, what else is there other than mass public executions? Don't we almost have to make examples, that such an assault on democracy not be repeated? Where and what is the justice?
GOD: My justice is restorative. I have only employed, or permitted people to employ, retributive 'justice' only when it is plain they understand justice in no other way.

Silence for a while as I muse on this. Then something else occurs to me.

ME: Restorative. Of what? Trust?

GOD: Certainly. That would be the 'floor' Individual and collective. But there's more. Restore what's within each person as well.

ME: But, Father, too many of them have eaten themselves inside with hate--and they've gulped it down with sickening eagerness! Yes. they gulped it down because they had no healthy relationship with You or, for that matter, with themselves or, probably, anyone or anything else except maybe their guns--but how can something that was never there be 'restored'?

GOD: One step at a time, my son. That process is a bit too complex for you to digest as yet, although that may change. But in any case, whatever you do, with My help, avoid schadenfreude. It's unhealthy for you and, really, all humans too. See, schadenfreude is, although milder and, thus, slower-acting and, sometimes, less perceivable, like killing another human. Including in war. Such acts either throw up or build up barriers between humans and I. While these barriers are not insurmountable, they do usually require considerable effort to bring down. That's one thing My Son Joshua, when He's called on, does a lot of. It comes back to not losing sight of your enemies' humanity. Yes, I know they don't see you as human either. And allied with this, drop the dangerous notion that your enemies' hate, and their desire to kill all of you, negates their humanity. That's something that can be too easily flipped on its head and used against you. Their are many battles in which My Spirit had much work to do to keep the soldiers' internal lines to Us at least fairly open. Many of them have felt this inside.

ME: Those who felt Your presence: many of them thought it was because You approved of their actions, am I right?

GOD: True enough, but I was able to set them right once they came home to Me.

ME: So, then, those soldiers who felt Your presence, You were protecting the connection between You and them, not approving of their actions?

GOD: Just so, my son, just so. I never have approved of humans killing humans. And if Scripture records Me as ordering that, it was only because, first, that's how I was heard and second, in some instances, there was nothing else for it given the humans with whom I had to work.
And when you write that history of your times, lean into, as you say in your times, the restorative understanding of justice over the retributive.

ME: I think of Trump and his MAGAts were offeed this, they'd probably call it a scam.

GOD: Then that might be a place where you need to offer them a choice between having their psyches rebuilt according to My specs or a remaining lifetime of humiliation. That would at least be better than executing them.

ME: Heavy stuff, but I'm honored You think me ready to hear and digest this.

GOD: I appreciate that. Don't forget to share it.

ME: No indeed! With Your help, I won't.

A TRY TO FRY A BIG LIE

 "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him someone to look down on and he'll empty his pockets for you."

LBJ said those words in a limo along what was then the new I-40 interstate to the young Bill Moyers. The year was 1964.
It is also possible to substitute 'Arab or other Muslim' for 'white man' and 'Jew' for 'colored man' with at least as much truth. Before 1948, most Muslims regarded Jews about the same way as 'common n***ers' were looked on in the Jim Crow South and, indeed, much more of our country as well.
And I have no idea whether or not the legal abolition of 'untouchability' in India in 1950 caused adverse reactions from higher-caste individuals in any economic class, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.
The great W. E. B. DuBois wrote at much greater length and in much greater detail about what he named 'the psychological wages of whiteness' than I ever have and, probably, ever will. In any case, my mind works better the other way: distilling the essence of whatever I write about. That is, what does it boil down to?
Right now, right here, methinks what I name the illusion of automatic or unearned superiority boils down to two things: first, it can, among those who have little and many, if not most, of whom, barely scrape by each day living paycheck to paycheck, drain plenty of what might be righteous rebellion against those who already have more than what's good for them--as seen by their continual and bottomless greed! I suspect their real greed, though, is for power rather than for money per se.
This happens because, once a hairless biped hath a group on which s/he is not only allowed but encouraged to look down, they can, at least to a point, shrug their shoulders and mutter, 'At least I'm still better than [fill in the blank}' and not rebel against those who have much more wealth and, thereby, actual coercive power. At least not after saying or thinking that, anyhow.
We cannot say often enough that such 'superiority' is illusory, counterfeit and only helps to keep the other 'rackets' (I think of such 'superiority' as a racket in and of itself) of the greedy going.
And now I turn unsympathetic eyes on that group. Let me be clear that I certainly don't mean that to be wealthy is to automatically be viciously greedy; I know some (at least) moderately wealthy folks who are quite generous. Some made it on their own and some inherited wealth, but suffice it to say none seek to be Supreme Rulers of the World.
And this is the second function of such fake and divisive 'superiority': as long as a ruling class, as a group, can keep those below them fighting each other, they can usually be sure of holding onto all the wealth and power which they enjoy and do not want to share with anyone else; be sure of that!
This is why, when those divisions appear to be weakening and the working classes are unifying themselves, the forces of the greedy and, usually, a government which listens to those greedies throw the kitchen sink at the efforts of the unifiers of the 'little people'. Read what that vicious old queen J. Edgar Hoover did against attempts to build a trans-racial coalition of working people. That was an unmentioned but large part of his COINTELPRO operations!
And look at what Rupert the Gnome and all his networks and publications are doing right now. Without Rupert the Gnome and Roger(Ailes) the Groper, no president Trump!
We cannot urge each other to 'follow the money' often enough. Not so much the campaign contributions (although keeping tabs on them is important) as who benefits from X, Y or Z. To put it classically, cui bono? It seems we can keep saying this ad nauseam before it sticks in the minds of enough of us but maybe these times, with Orange Julius Caesar hankering to be a real Caesar, are pressing that phrase into the minds and hearts of more, maybe many more, of us. Let us hope so!
Let's see if we can make LBJ to be mistaken this time and strengthen and extend democracy. We ain't finished yet, brothers and sisters!

LANCING A LIE & OTHER WEIGHTY MATTERS

 Not long ago, I read a post by someone I respect in which he seemed to think to have fallen for the lie that Israel is not only a 'white' country, but indeed 'ultra-white'. And that their Arab cousins are 'people of color'.
That doesn't make sense. Isaac and Ishmael were half-brothers, both sons of Abraham. Jacob, later known as Israel, was Ishmael's nephew.
How many people know that the Shoah happened because Nazis, many other Germans and their fellow-travellers from other European countries, hyped up on racial pseudo-science, decided that the Jews were essentially 'brown bastards' and that all their pathetic attempts to assimilate into Europe were actually a sinister plot to contaminate the Pure Aryan Blood of Blue-Eyed Nordics? 
And now Europe is faced with those same cousins, and their non-Arab fellow religionists who are apparently making far less of an attempt, if any, to assimilate to their new host cultures and some of whom have openly declared they mean to remake Europe into Eurabia! It's way above my pay grade to assert this, but I do at least wonder if having to deal with Muslim minorities is not a sort of judgment upon Europe, as if God has said: "OK, you didn't believe Israel really wanted to assimilate. Now, get a taste of these cousins of theirs, many of whom have no intent to assimilate! Like that better, do you?"
I know a woman, now in her nineties, who, when she was a wee lass starting school at P.S. 221 in Brooklyn in the 1930s, was not considered 'white' by many white so-called Christians right here on the North American continent. Canada, I'm looking at you too; I haven't forgotten what W.L. Mackenzie King had to say about Jews!
It is because of the 'civilized' nations of the world all shutting their doors to Jews frantically trying to escape certain death that too large of a segment of both Israel and the Diaspora can say, with too much truth, 'We have no real friends except our own people. It has always been this way and always will be this way, until Judgment. Almost all others hate us and they will hate us regardless of how much good or evil we do. So let us do whatever we need to protect ourselves, for no one else will.'
I think I should also point out that the Jews who have returned to Israel from elsewhere in the MENA region tend to vote Likud, and further right, more than do those Jews returning from Europe or the Americas. I must ask, what do they know about Arabs that the rest of us either don't know or refuse to acknowledge?
Even the liberal wing of both Israel and the Diaspora has somewhat switched gears in response to this. No longer do they speak of making friends among other peoples but they now ask (as I agree they should) what is right? Are not we as a people charged with pursuing justice? And how is it 'justice' to let little children starve, however bloodthirsty their parents might be against us? Remember Ezekiel 18:1-4. Tom Friedman does an excellent job of capsulizing this in his NYT column on July 30.
The right-wingers will say, with an unfortunate amount of truth, the minds of those children are already poisoned against us thanks to UNRWA and Hamas! And their mothers will tell them that we feed them because we're afraid of them. They will LIE to their children about us! Why should we help those who already want to murder us all?
So, what now? What shape can peace assume? I also want to forestall famine in Gaza and I frankly detest Bibi and his gang. I also want UNRWA disbanded and no more multigenerational refugee status (imagine if Germany had done that after WWII! I think it safe to say that all Four Powers--USA, UK, USSR and France--would not have allowed it!) and Hamas banished. 
Not sure about the PA; I think it might be a better deal if we put the dozen or so sheikhs of Judea, Samaria and Gaza in charge as a confederation as they are willing to recognize and work with Israel. Perhaps they might be under joint guidance from Israel, the UAE and maybe Jordan.
On a related matter, if the Druze of Syria are asking for Israeli protection, I say let them have it! The Druze have stood by Israel; let Israel reciprocate!
So much for what I think. I am not on the ground in Israel but far away across both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. But I stick to sources I know to care about the actual people--of all kinds--in that region.
If the 'civilized' world wants to show it's changed since 1940, one thing they can do is support those organizations which seek to build relationships between individuals of different communities and that seek to realize equal justice for all within Israel and Israeli jurisdiction. Maybe those Israelis on the no-friends-but-our-own side just might rethink their stance then. In any case, it's worth a try.


NB: for those unacquainted with Scripture, here is Ezekiel 18:1–4:
The word of the LORD came to me: ‘What do you mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel:
‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge’?
As I live, says the Sovereign LORD, you will no longer repeat this proverb in Israel. For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son — both alike belong to me. The soul that sins is the one who will die.