Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, July 30

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

I. PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS

HILLBILLY ELEGY - A TERRIFIC INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR: Understanding poor whites and Trump. This interview has received the most traffic in the history of the 'American Conservative' site.

ON PICKING A WHITE MALE INSTEAD OF FEMALE OR LATINO AS HER RUNNING MATE: Here is a quote from Hillary Clinton that sounds like she judges other ladies and the many black and Latino office holders filling the Democratic Party as not really ready for the top office. Our hypersensitive press will not wince when Hillary uses genetics to explain why she picked a white over those who might have diversified the ticket and made it look more like America and a lot more like the Democratic Party? If only Donald Trump had said it.

From the New York Times: "Ultimately, Mrs. Clinton, who told PBS that she was “afflicted with the responsibility gene,” avoided taking a chance with a less experienced vice-presidential candidate and declined to push the historic nature of her candidacy by adding another woman or a minority to the ticket.” That's the New York Times explaining.

A GLASS CEILING SHATTERS -- PRAY IT DOESN’T RAIN
Feminists Rejoice and Reflect.  No one has asked if there is any good reason all our presidents and war generals have been male. From the giddy Fox females to the serious elderly matrons of PBS, all agreed this is long overdue. Other views to follow once the wave has crested.

TIM KAINE FOR VP - RELIGION FACTS: Five quick facts.

COSMOPOLITANS VS. PATRIOTS; WORKINGMAN AND NEW ELITE: From Crisis magazine. Realignment of the Working class and Donald Trump by Stephen Young. The real alternatives in foreign policy - Is Bushism dead? Donald Trump by his ghostwriter - not a flattering tale. Trump interview on foreign policy - a different look at NATO, NAFTA, and Korea. The new class of risk adverse credentialed; immobility for the poor.

II. AROUND THE WORLD R&G ROUND UP

VIETNAM WAR DEAD: 58,000 men, 8 females.

SUDAN - TRIBES REEMERGE: The nations divided by religion and South Sudan now divides by ethnic group.

TURKEY - THE COUP THAT FAILED AND THE ERDOGAN COUP THAT CONTINUES: Erdogan consolidates Islamic but non-ISIS government.

CHINA: New nationalism.

GREECE-RUSSIA ORTHODOX ALLIANCE IS STRONGER THAN LEFT RIGHT PARADIGM: This writer thinks Europe should work against the strong alliance of Greece and Russia. The fact is that leftist Greece and nationalist Russia have deep ties and many personal ties now among leaders. The Russians helped the Greeks when they broke from the Ottoman Empire (Independence day is on the feast of the Annunciation Mar 25, 1821). Orthodox Russia helped the orthodox nation of Greece break from the Muslim Ottoman Empire. Greek nationalism pitted against the superstate of the EU once again finds the Russian nation as their ally against Empire.

SAUDIS AND A STRIKE AT WAHHABI PRACTICE: The story the Saudis may allow more reverence at holy sites will be resisted if true.

III. FAITH AND CULTURE R&G ROUND UP

GOD IS DEAD - THE ROLE OF BOENHOFFER - THE TRIUMPH OF GODLESS PROTESTANTISM: Rod Dreher on Matt Rose First Things article. I note especially that part of the death of God movement was to replace all that was authoritarian about the Christian Gospel with a service motif. Do not bring the authoritative message of God made man... just be like Jesus and serve man. We cannot deny that "servant leader" is a Christian term, but the notion that leadership can be reduced to service to the will of others is a trap of democratic thinking, which is a trap of autonomous thinking which is the essence of diabolical thinking.

The eclipse of White Christians is a demographic fairly clueless piece at Atlantic Monthly. But if we couple this article with the above history of how "the God is dead" theologians morphed into the diversity human rights establishment, we begin to see what has really happened. White Protestant Christianity (WASPS) has morphed into the godless West gender ideologues who dominate our media, educational, and governmental institutions. They have hold of church bureaucracies even if their pews are emptying. That doesn’t matter - they are taking their spoiled kids to sports games on Sunday morning anyway. The godless white Protestants are represented by the Democratic party. Blacks and tribal Catholics accompany them. Their most important military arm is NATO, aimed against both Orthodox Christians to their east (Russia and Serbia) and various actors in the Muslim world. The Obama presidency and Sanders movement are rebellions against the smugness of the elite, but not a true revolution since both adopt the godless gender ideology at the heart of the death-of-God White Protestant movement.

The alternative to this is understanding multicolored global Christianity as the real Christendom and nations as their military arms.

VIRGINITY AND ITS MARTYR - WHY DOES MARIA GORETTI GET SO MANY PEOPLE MAD: What is it about virginity -- physical and spiritual -- that is such a dangerous sword?

CATHOLIC NUNCIO BLOCKS INVESTIGATION OF HOMOSEXUAL ARCHBISHOP: St. Paul-Minneapolis facts uncover the secret no one will touch at the heart of Catholic sex abuse scandal: the undercover homosexual subculture in Catholic clergy. They can pose as anti-gay and orthodox or pro-gay and progressive but there is no truth in them and they are covered by very high officials.  Archbishop Nienstedt, Nuncio Vigano and the bishops and lawyer priest who tried to tell the truth.

THEOCENTRIC WORSHIP AND EDUCATING THE SOUL: Liturgical reform - orienting man to God and truth.

PRIEST-MARTYR IN FRANCE: French Catholic priest killed during Mass in Normandy. May he RIP and may the nations respond. A report from France.

WHITE BOY PRIVILEGE AND BLACK MAN ANGER: Ladders and Bridges. Travis Smiley, black TV journalist, on listening to the killers. Gavin Long and Micah Xavier, black, male, military. Gavin Long, before black power gets your momma, gotta kill the cops.

BLACK PASTORS REJECT GAY ANALOGY: Gender ideology is not civil rights.
Sheriff Clarke and BLM and CNN.

Friday BookReview -- Robert Caro is the finest 20th century biographer

[first published June 25, 2013]



Robert Caro is close to 80 now, and working away at the fifth and final book in his biography of Lyndon Johnson.

                           

Having read the other volumes, I am several chapters into Master of the Senate, and my awe of Mr. Caro only increases. It took me a few years to fully appreciate him, but he is an eagle who soars higher than Catton or Tuchman, Shelby Foote or McCullough.

One facet that jumps out: even though the author is a thoroughly liberal New York intellectual, his commitment to truth runs deeper than his ideology. Each Caro book you pick up has devastating revelations about LBJ – as well as other chief executives who prided themselves as lions of progress: Franklin Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Woodrow Wilson.


A couple anecdotes from Mr. Caro about the political misuse of the IRS:

** In 1934 President Roosevelt asked his Treasury Secretary to examine the taxes of publisher William Randolph Hearst. So, Henry Morgenthau pored over the returns of Hearst and his Hollywood mistress, Marion Davies – and "advised FDR to mount a preemptive attack" on the pair.

** A decade later, congressman Lyndon Johnson was able to engage the String-Puller-in-Chief to keep his political goose from being cooked.
The first LBJ volume (The Path to Power, chapter 35) tells how he, with his longtime friend and lawyer Alvin Wirtz, had a private audience with President Roosevelt – and the next day the IRS investigation, that had been looking into the illegal money which poured into Johnson’s unsuccessful senatorial campaign, was quashed!

[Mr. Wirtz was at one point the #2 man at the Interior Department under Harold Ickes. Wirtz was a type of genial thief who, after hammering out a contractual deal, secretly "adjusts" some of the wording before the parties actually sign the document].


UPDATE: Check out this earlier post regarding the hatred between LBJ and Bobby Kennedy, covered by Mr. Caro in the fourth book.

                                       

Bravo for Latvia!

                 
                       

Archbishop Vanags (second from right)

A leading player in the tiny nation of Latvia (pop. 2 million) is pushing back against modernity's 'gender ideology.’ The Lutheran archbishop leads Latvia’s largest Christian group: Lutherans (33 percent). They are part of the Nordic Reformation tradition; while 25 percent of Latvians are Catholics, more influenced by Poland. Most Orthodox in Latvia are Russian-speaking and associate with the Russian Orthodox Church.

[This article from a decade ago gives some of the background].

                         

                                                                            

"Poland [to the southwest] conquered Latvia's territory in the mid-16th century, and occupied it until Sweden took over the land in 1629, ruling for a century. The land then passed to Russia for two hundred years. 

The Russian Revolution of 1917 gave Latvia the opportunity for freedom, and the Latvian republic was proclaimed the following year. The republic lasted for twenty years. 

The country was occupied by Russian troops in 1939. German armies occupied the nation from 1941 to 1944 -- when Russia again took control. 

In 1991, Latvia declared its independence."

                                             

Dark Rye Bread -- rupjmaize

"Latvian meals are always served with bread of some type -- usually dark bread -- it's the national staple. People eat it with potatoes, soups, jams, butter, cheese, salad... Actually with almost everything. Latvians treat food, especially bread, with great respect -- because we know it's not something that can be taken for granted and if the slice of bread falls on a floor, a Latvian will kiss it when picking it up."


                     

Here is a statue of beloved artist Voldemars Irbe ("Irbite"), who for most of the year would stroll the Latvian capital barefoot.

He was killed by shrapnel on the last day of the Battle for Riga in 1944, when the Soviets captured the city from the Germans.

                       

                                                                       

In Latvia and Estonia, roughly a quarter of the population is ethnic Russian -- while Lithuania, to the south, has less than 5 percent Russians.

("Russians make up almost a half of the population of Latvia's capital, Riga. In the second largest city Daugavpils [down by Belarus], Russians now make up the majority") !




UPDATE: 'Touchstone' magazine interviewed Archbishop Vanags at length in 1999.

Map on Monday: THE TURKIC PEOPLES

LINGUISTIC AND COMMUNAL LOYALTIES OF THE MIDEAST AND CENTRAL ASIA: A THREE PART SERIES ON THE ARABS, PERSIANS, AND TURKS

PART III: THE TURKIC PEOPLES

by A. Joseph Lynch

To many people, the word 'Turk' refers to the old Ottoman Turkic Empire and its ambitions to conquer eastern Europe and control the Mediterranean. Its more modern connotation places it with the NATO-member state of secular Turkey. While Turkey is of course a Turkic state, it stands at the far western edge of the broader Turkic steppe peoples that share a common language and generally share (with the exception of Shia Azerbaijan) a common Sunni Islamic faith. Despite their Sunni background, Sunni Arab states view them generally as outsiders due to their ethnic and linguistic differences.

Geography was also no help to the integration of Turks within the broader Islamic world as the Turks of central Asia are separated from the Sunni Arab states by the Caspian Sea and Shia Iran dominating the Iranian Plateau. Landlocked, these nations fell under the rule of Soviet communism, and are to this day drawn between Russian, Chinese, and the greater Islamic orbits. At its farthest east reaches, Turks find themselves directly under Chinese rule in Xinjang Province where Turks make up 45% of the population. China invests heavily in central Asia, in large part to keep Chinese Turks from finding an ally in its brother nations of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

The most important Turkic player in the Mideast core is, of course, Turkey. Since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, Turkey maintained a European orientation, joining NATO and hoping to join the EU. As the War on Terror intensified and EU membership slipped out of Turkey's grasp, Turkey's renewed Islamic faith reoriented the nation to the Mideast. At first an outsider, Turkey won renewed favor among its brethren by supporting the Palestinians and working to resolve tensions with Tehran. Having played a vital role in Islamic leadership since defeating the Byzantines at Manzikert in 1071 through the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, Turkey has returned from its roughly hundred-year European orientation to seek leadership in the broader Islamic world once more.

One cannot fully understand the events in the Islamic world without understanding the underlying communal loyalties of Arab, Persian, and Turkic Muslims in their Sunni and Shia faiths.

This third and final part of our series was preceded by posts on the Sunni Arab States and Persia-Shia Islam.

[This article first appeared on Anthropology of Accord on May 11, 2015]

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, July 23

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

SORTING OUT THE MINNESOTA SHOOTING OF PHILANDO CASTILE
A profile of the policeman.

Many traffic stops for Mr. Castile.

BATON ROUGE AND ALTON STERLING
More details.

A damning video.

BLACK LIVES AND POLICE VIOLENCE
Giuliani on saving black lives.

The Hands Up, Don’t Shoot Hoax -- a liberal black reporter admits he got it wrong.

The two gun cultures by Cain Pence.

Policeman at home kills bipolar intruder after email exchange on BLM: white shooter and black victim.

President Obama at memorial of five slain officers.

President Bush at memorial.

Radical Islam Black Lives Matter and leftist transformation.

A popular black writer sees tit for tat in execution of Dallas police officers.

AFRICAN CARDINALS CHASTISE US CATHOLICS ON SEXUAL IMMORALITY
Two cardinals from Africa mince no words.

A brief history of cardinals from Taylor Marshall.

Putting God at the center of worship -- a Catholic debate.
Speaking of Catholic debates, Dr Pence and Fr John Echert debate on You Tube: on Pope Francis and marriage.
                                                                               
PAN-ORTHODOX COUNCIL IN CRETE
Blessedly unpredictable.

From same author: good description of religious actors in Ukraine.

RUSSIA IS NOT OUR ENEMY
Reevaluating the hysteria about Russia and Vladimir Putin.

US and Russia pledge more cooperation in Syria against ISIS. This is a very positive development which should not be met with an oppositional partisan reflex.

OPPOSITION TO IRAN
The murky world of Congressional endorsements, speaker fees, and Saudi lobbying.

TURKEY: THE COUP
Turkey and President Erdogan have the potential to play a very good or very bad role in the reformation of Sunni Islam. It is very important to have an accurate view of the Gulen movement. Toward that goal -- some different views. Is it a moderate front or a more malignant form of Islam?  or the "moderate Islam" so many of the West are seeking.

Global civics and Islam.

Are Erdogan foreign policy mishaps a possible cause of coup?

Best analysis post coup from War on Rocks.

CHINA CLAIM TO THE SEA -- INTERNATIONAL COURT CLAIM TO AUTHORITY
The court rules as expected.

Watch that map: South China Sea and competing claims.

China joins US in ignoring a law the US refused to agree with.

NEW ALLIANCES IN MIDEAST STRESS ESTABLISHED NATION STATES
Turkey/Russia/Israel.

ISIS not the major security concern of Israel.

ISRAEL IS ONE STATE THAT DOESN’T NEED TO BE DIVIDED
A new Sunni state may be needed in the Mideast but it shouldn’t be cut out of Israel. It is highly likely that a Trump candidacy will reject the two-state solution which has so paralyzed American foreign policy in the Mideast. Here is a highly negative view of this development, but an accurate view of what may be coming. It would be a change of policy, indeed.  

How Trump changed Republican platform.

AOA ON MEN AND RACE IN AMERICA
We have not written about the Dallas shootings and the police shootings of two black men (in Minnesota and Louisiana) which triggered the Black Lives Matter rally and then the Black Power sniper. This breakdown of civic brotherhood is at the core of our concerns here at AOA. We are still taking in what happened. Here are some previous writings:

 The betrayal of Selma and black men.

 The Benedict Option: Christian Fraternity.

 Joshua or Barak: Betraying the Promise.

 Heather McDonald on stopping the demonizing of the police. The amplification of the exception in order to obfuscate the obvious.

MIKE PENCE (TRUMP'S RUNNING MATE) IS A CATHOLIC-TURNED-EVANGELICAL
One profile.