Saturday, March 10, 2018

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, March 10

By Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch


WEEKLY BRIEF
THE AMERICAN NATIONALISM OF DONALD TRUMP:
CITIZENS AS PROTECTORS AND PRODUCERS
This week, President Trump announced steel and aluminum tariffs. The cheers of citizens in the Rust Belt were almost drowned out by the wailing and gnashing of teeth by Republican lawmakers, Fox News pundits, European bureaucrats and globalists everywhere. Trump's chief economic advisor who loved deregulation and the slashing of corporate taxes found this workingman's policy a bridge too far and resigned. (Better now than when Trump starts the real bridge building.) President Trump is not an ideological free trader. He is an American nationalist who will let American consumers pay some higher prices if it means American workers are producing again. He thinks of us as a nation of workers who must be liberated to work again. Sometimes the government has to get out of the way. Sometimes the government has to be directly involved. How very American. How unlike the two parties.
President Trump has been willing to oppose the NRA on toughening gun access while keeping their overall support. He has seriously proposed "hardening the schools" not by arming every third grade teacher but by arming those citizens in each school who are "gun adept".   There are many such protectors especially men who are waiting to be called, trained, and armed. He thinks of us as a nation of protectors.
President Trump wants both the wall and a way to incorporate the DACA immigrants as citizens. The Democrats won't give him  a wall or the ability to limit chain migration.  Republican Christians like Gary Bauer and Ted Cruz oppose a path to citizenship. They call it Amnesty. That is exactly what it is and that is what a nation which has refused so many unborn babies a place at our table should offer to the families who have come here to pick our vegetables and roof our houses. President Trump is a nationalist and he will offer citizenship to many if he knows we can establish real borders. We must "build that wall"  and severely limit all forms of immigration until we integrate the poor of our country in work and shared citizenship. This includes addressing the other great citizen socialization  failure of feminist globalism -- our bloated dark skinned male prison population.  President Trump wants a real border and then true integration of the working poor into the citizen bond. He thinks of us as a nation of citizens.  
Look to the East beyond our borders. The last nation divided by the wars of the  20th century has been divided the longest. A true American nationalist foreign policy will seek the unification of Korea and our military departure from the South China Sea.  That is the long term goal of both Koreas and China. If such an American demilitarization is proposed, the "China hawks" will emerge as a significant  obstacle to a deal with North Korea.  There are few Americans who understand the implications of an America First foreign policy. It will mean an end to the massive global military network that encircles the three major regional powers of Russia, China and Iran. Negotiation with President Kim Jong-un is an incredible breakthrough that will confront us with the necessity of withdrawing our encircling military forces to get North Korea to drop their nuclear weapons. That can only be done if we concede that  China is the regional power in the area.  Our ally from WWII has a defensive claim on the seas from which she was attacked and lost over ten million people in the last century. That kind of appreciation for the history and concerns of other nations is part of America First as well. Let us pray for the emergence of a truly new paradigm.



I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

POPE FRANCIS: Romano Guardini and a new intellectual history of the Pope.
Mary, Mother of the Church - a new feast day declared by Pope for Monday after Pentecost.

THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH AND THE MARIAN CHURCH: A feast day for our Mother should be accompanied by a penitentiary for the homosexual bishops and priests who have fractured the patriarchal fraternity of the episcopacy and priesthood. They are legion. The presence of a huge homosexual subculture in the large American dioceses is a much more profound corruption of the Eucharist than debates about divorced mothers who limp in to Sunday Mass with their children trying to touch the hem of Christ amidst the crowd. It would be very helpful if  "American conservative orthodox" public intellectuals of Crisis, Catholic Thing, Big Pulpit and EWTN" would take on that living demonic  source of confusion and scandal.

MAKING WATER HOLY: We need the sacred goods in the work of renewing the face of the earth. Priests, Exorcism and Holy Water.

NT WRIGHT FINDS IT SIGNIFICANT THAT THE PAGAN PHILOSOPHER GALEN (d 210 AD ) NOTED TWO REMARKABLE TRAITS OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS:
1) They believed in bodily resurrection;
2) They exercised sexual restraint.


II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST

DECLARE WAR IN YEMEN OR GET OUTSenators assert their constitutional duty in trying to debate US support for Saudis in their attack on Shiite Houthis of Yemen. This debate will start with a defense of the constitutional rights of Congress but hopefully mature to clearing the smokescreen of Saudi interests crippling the US policy response to 9/11.

TROOPS AROUND THE GLOBEThe globalization of our conscience. America has 800 military bases in 70 countries around the world. A 2015 map and summary by David Vine author of Base Nation.

THE SAUDI LOBBY - YOU WANT FOREIGN COLLUSIONHere is the outline of the real story of two decades of collusion and confusion about terrorism and Islam.

SAUDI JOINT CHIEFS REPLACED EN MASSE: Muhammed bin Salman consolidates power and shrinks his base.

IN SYRIA US MEDIA REPORTS THE GOVERNMENT WAR AGAINST RESIDUAL REBELS AS THE GOVERNMENT  AGAINST THE CHILDRENChristian Patriarch disputes the uneven reporting that doesn't mention who the anti-government forces choose to target. The Saudi bombing of Yemen rarely receives this prominent visual outrage nor did the city/population bombings needed to clear ISIS from Iraq.

ISRAEL PREPARING TO FIGHT IRAN IN SYRIA? IS US SUPPOSED TO HELP?
RT news( A Russian outlet) shows the war vision of Lindsey Graham. Fight the Russians, Iranians and Syrians. Ally with Israelis and Saudis. "Never Trump" Lindsey Graham is a major voice of the failed Republican foreign policy that Donald Trump challenged in the Republican primary. He says nuclear war with North Korea is "worth it." The Lindsey Graham-John McCain wing of the Republican Party are a continual source of confusion and recklessness in our national debate. Senator Graham is one of the stranger creatures of the swamp and a peculiar favorite of the television media.

A SHORT HISTORY OF US STATE DEPARTMENT, ISRAEL AND THE PEACE PROCESS: The Middle East Forum is an Israeli advocacy group posturing as experts for America. Many of their essays however are very helpful reminding us of extremely important historical events, persons and policies. This is one.


III. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

MASS SHOOTERS AND FATHERS. THE WAR AGAINST MALES AS AN ASSAULT ON PROTECTION: Could the denigration of masculinity led to a breakdown of protection and a culture of violence.  The most stunning act against fathers is the religious war against Patriarchy as the fundamental truth of Christianity. The first "transgender movement" was the war of female theologians and minsters against the Fatherhood of God. This degenderfication of the Father(which also leads to depersonalization) was enforced by  inserting females in the Protestant male clergy and the  lavenderization of the Catholic priesthood. God cannot quit his Fatherhood and the masculine Apostolic  nature of Christian ministry cannot be discarded. Every gender bender after this religious revolution has been trickle down.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS - THE LOSS OF FAITH, THE ORGANIZATION OF HATREDS, THE RELAXING OF DISCIPLINE, THE BREAKDOWN OF PROTECTION: Anthony Esolen on schools as the target of rage. Paul Sperry on the decriminalization of school discipline in Broward County.

A NATION THAT OBEYS GOD AND PROTECTS THE SACRED:
 "If you hear my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a consecrated nation." Exodus 19. 
A "priestly people" is a nation that protects the sacred. This is not the same as promoting the autonomous individual. A nation is a sacred covenant between God and men - not a contract of individuals to protect each others interests. The first sacred good of a holy nation is to honor the name of God in Whose presence the covenant is sworn. Covenants and Oaths presume a transcendent Being or Order by which the oaths are taken.

PATRICK DENEEN'S WHY LIBERALISM FAILED: A searing analysis how democratic capitalism leads to a suicidal individualism. He is right that the liberal ideology of the West divorced from God and nation is a failure. But is he really describing the religious political covenant of our forefathers? This New Yorker article is good for its links to several better reviews.

IV. THE NATIONS OF EUROPE

CHRISTIANITY - THE HOPE OF EUROPE: Prime Minister Viktor Orban's State of the Nation speech in Hungary February 2018

POLAND: EU to The West, Russia to the East, Muslims to the South, Secularization from within - A reflection on the Polish nation.

ITALYThe leftist "Italian citizens" in the 5 Star Movement and the anti immigrant populists under Matteo Salvini emerge in a vote against the old ruling parties and the EU consensus. The European nationalist movements will have strong social welfare states at their core as well as opposition to unbridled immigration and the EU currency. A Europe of Nations is emerging. A Christian synthesis still awaits but the EU shell is molting.

MARION LE PEN OF FRANCE: "To open up to the outside, you must have a solid core. To welcome, you have to remain. To share, you must have something to offer. Without nation and without family, the limits of the common good, natural law, collective morality disappears as the reign of egoism continues."

PAT BUCHANAN AND FREDERICK LIST: ECONOMIC NATIONALISM
Buchanan on why the EU will revert to nations-from 10 years ago. Frederick List why Germany must adapt infrastructure and tariffs like the American System to become a nation. He was writing a hundred years ago before the development of the German State.  Get to know him and you get to know Hamilton and Clay and President Trump.



V. AMERICAN POLITICS

A TARIFF ON STEEL AND ALUMINUM - NOT THE END OF THE WORLD BUT THE BEGINNING OF A NEW COALITION OF REPUBLICANS THAT REPRESENT WORKING MEN WHO PRODUCE GOODS IN AMERICA: Pat Buchanan explains.

STEVE BANNON: A revealing interview.
What he understands - there is a movement against patriarchy (call it "The Time is Up") which is a protest against reality and 2-3-10,000 years of civilization. He is not part of that protest movement. He is part of a "protest" movement against the policies of the elite harming the working people and suppressing their populist grit and wisdom. Economic nationalism is one way of defining the power of the group he champions. He thinks in terms of civilizations and sees an alliance of Turkey, Iran and China forming against Christianity and some Muslim allies. He believes almost no news outlets deal seriously with the real movement of peoples and history.
What he doesn't understand and his interviewer never asked - Global Christianity and the multiple movements for nationalism which intersect with the Christian understanding of reality. Understanding the dynamism of global Christianity and the US as a Christian nation beyond the western paradigm is an insight that both Bannon and Samuel Huntington seem to overlook as ex-Christians.

HOW JUDGE BORK APPROACH TO ANTI-TRUST LAW PAVED A PATH FOR CITIZENS AS CONSUMERS: Reducing anti-trust law to questions of consumer benefit, the traditional anti-trust protection for small producers gave way to a consumer calculus. As we consider the Trump tariffs on aluminum and steel we hear from Senators like Ben Sasse who says he is a "civics advocate." But in the tradition of Robert Bork, Sasse ,the civics man ,becomes Sasse the consumer advocate. He reduces this policy to a calculus about lowering the prices for "the vast majority of Americans" who approach steel and aluminum as consumers. President Trump sees citizens as producers and protectors. Who is teaching whom the civics lesson?

TALKING WITH NORTH KOREA   
The biggest news of the week.


No comments:

Post a Comment