Religion, Nations, and Geopolitical Review: Saturday June 8

by A. Joseph Lynch and Dr. David Pence

THE WEEKLY BRIEF

IN MEMORIAM

DR. DAVID PENCE (1946-2019)

Today we mourn, remember, and celebrate the life of Dr. David Pence. All those reading this are welcome to join us today for his funeral Mass at St. Peter and St. Paul Catholic Church in Mankato, Minnesota at 1 PM (located at 105 N 5th St, Mankato, MN 56001).

This Religion, Nations, and Geopolitics Review post will be the last we write together and the first of many Weekly Briefs written by myself, A. Joseph Lynch. While these will continue to focus on the wider world news, I want to say a few things about my dear friend, brother, mentor, and father-figure, Dr. David Pence.

I first met Dr. Pence after a debate he had against Fr. Eckert at the Argument of the Month Club in South St. Paul, Minnesota. They debated the topic of Vatican II and I went in thinking I was with Fr. Eckert's traditional side. By the end, however, Dr. Pence had made many excellent points in favor of the council so I approached him for a brief conversation. Always looking for more brothers, the big-hearted Pence invited me for to eat with him and further our discussion. I had no idea these conversations would change my life.

I met him at a time of my life - my early twenties - when I was heavily engaged in reading, usually a book a day back then, and teaching the faith at a Catholic parish in Faribault, MN. I told him of my interest in history, geography, astronomy, and theology. I had discovered Peter Kreeft a couple years before this and was now engaging philosophy, too. Dr. Pence gave me a copy of the book Carnage and Culture and told me he wanted help putting together a series of presentations on world history that brought together military history, politics, and religion. I regret I have thus far failed to deliver on my promise to complete these presentations. Not finishing them before his death is regret I will carry to my dying day.

At the time, my reading was total absorption of the material. Pence, however, didn't just read a book. He had a "Pencian" way of seizing the gold nuggets in a text and discharging the rest. At the time I didn't know how to read like him. In addition to the many books he sent me over the years - and I will greatly miss receiving those book packages from him (one of which he inadvertently bought from a friend of mine online here in Kansas City) - he often sent out links to online article to men on his email chain. I would always read the articles, but at first not know how to interpret them with a "Pencian" lens. I would call him to ask him what I should take away from the reading, then after hearing tell him to send everyone his unique commentary. One day I had the idea for the Religion, Nations, and Geopolitics Review. Rather than email links with commentary, I asked him to put them together in this post, with his words, so that we could read the news of the week with him and get his take on things. Since then we've written and edited together, and I'm happy to say he's read some of my entries and thought he had written them himself.

Over the past year, Dr. Pence spoke more often of his coming death and insisted I continue on with this Saturday post and AoA as a whole - and I will do everything I can to continue bringing you his voice and his arguments. I wanted so much to more time with him and I write now with tears. But I am so thankful we had the time and endless hours of conversation together. We have become in many ways of one mind and I feel as though there are enough breadcrumbs for me to follow as I continue developing "his baby" - the Pence project. I told my wife that had he died five years ago it would have been a total disaster. With these five years, I feel I have learned his mind enough to continue in his footsteps. Knowing that is one thing, realizing it it in a way that is truly faithful to his thought is another. I cry in part for loss, and I cry in part for fear that I cannot do this visionary justice. I miss him dearly in so many ways.

I know most of you do not know me or have never met me. I hope you'll continue to keep reading nonetheless. There is more to come and I am happy to say that you have more to read from our departed friend. The two of us have spent years of discussion, and months in writing, a new book called The Catholic Palette. I don't know why, but I worked frantically last week to finish my portions along with giving it an overall edit. Dr. Pence finished editing what I gave him late last week and met with the printing house on Friday. At the time of his death, it was due out by the end of July. I fully plan on seeing it finished and available to you, dear reader. For the last several months it has been a labor of love and I convinced God gave him just enough time to get it finished before his death.

With most friendships, death leads to the thankful remembrance of good times past. Dr. Pence and I, however, rarely spent time making small talk or going to fun activities. We prayed, worked, studies, and struggled together. It was always fun, but it was never just for fun. And this means that the fun will continue as I continue to converse with him at least through his ideas. So I hope I can help bring Dr. Pence in some way to you each Saturday. We'll also continue to Keep Catholic and Civic Time. I also plan to continue writing the missing articles in our sectional table of contents pages. It might be slow, but there will be progress. I have a wife, a twenty-one month old daughter, and hopes to begin working on a theology doctorate. In true Pencian fashion, the planned dissertation will focus on Holy Orders as a sacrament of fraternity. I pray my friend will help me in some way as I write. He was especially adept at finding my wordy "Lynchisms" - through I was quite surprised to learn from him over the weekend that he had left some of them in the book. I should have known he wasn't feeling well.

I tell you I have never experienced so much grief and so many tears - and this comes from one who lost a six year old nephew to drowning last July and then lost a childhood mentor a few weeks later. I knew my time with Dr. Pence was coming to an end, but I had prayed the Lord would give me one more time to see him in a planned visit next month. Ours was the kind of friendship good men should have with each other - deeply personal but, unlike marriage, aimed at prayer, work, study, and battle rather than intimacy. We had had a very real communio together - and when that kind of bond is there the death of one takes much of the other with him. He has passed into the mystery of Christ and for now I will seek out our fraternal communio in that mysterious communio of the Blessed Sacrament. He is taken with Christ and now hidden yet present with Him through the hands of the Apostolic priesthood. It is fitting he left between Ascension Thursday and Pentecost Sunday.

I would love to meet you at the funeral or burial in Minneapolis on Monday, but please forgive me if I am teary eyed. I know Dr. Pence would give me the hardest time for this and I will do my utmost to show some manly strength. If I fail at this, I will not fail in keeping my promises to the best mentor, friend, brother, and father-figure a young man can have. I wouldn't be the man I am without him. The work continues, and I invite you to join us in it. For now read on for the rest of Dr. Pence's final posting. I also invite you to listen to our inaugural podcast of Religion, Sex, and Politics. As a fellow listener, hearing his voice again has brought me a great deal of peace. I leave you know with the words Dr. Pence always told me when we hung up the phone: "God love you!"

-A. Joseph Lynch

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

"Some may imagine Cardinal Bernardin applauding, or at least tolerating, Joe Biden’s flip on the Hyde Amendment. To do so, however, is to dishonor the cardinal’s memory, while continuing to let self-seeking politicians distort the meaning of “Catholicism” in American public life."  George Weigel doing his standard  anti Democratic "analysis" but he implies (as he has in the past)  that Cardinal Bernadine is maybe mistaken but surely to be honored. This is a colossal error in judgement about Bernadine  much more relevant to the state of Catholicism than Joe Biden's tired campaign.

JUDAEO-CHRISTIAN - A DEFENSE OF THE TERM: We have always resisted the term Judaeo Christian values  because it seems a way to praise good guys and nice people without worshipping the Living God. These authors (an Orthodox rabbi and an evangelical Christian) however make a serious case for the Judaeo-Christian tradition that begins  with the sovereignty of God. They deserve a serious hearing.

II. PRESIDENT TRUMP AND AMERICA

JD VANCE TALKS AT AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DINNER: He argued for a pro-family, pro-worker, pro-nation Conservatism.

THE ROOTS OF NATURAL RIGHTS AND AMERICAN LAW: Canon Law and Roman Law precede the Enlightenment.

PRESIDENT TRUMP'S IMPROBABLE ROLE IN HISTORY: “History is at once aristocratic and revolutionary. It allows the whole world situation to be suddenly transformed by the action of a single individual.” It is this dynamic historical process that is fatal to a secular understanding of religious approaches to history. In the words of Edmund Burke that Dawson quoted with approval, at times a “common soldier, a child, a girl at the door of an inn have changed the face of the future and almost of Nature.” To the Christian, this understanding of historical development permits interpretation of past events in the light of divine will and spiritual forces that may be unknown even to the actors themselves."  CHRISTOPHER DAWSON, CATHOLIC HISTORIAN

CHRISTIANITY, THE ENLIGHTENMENT, RELIGIOUS LIBERTY: From Robert Louis Wilken.

III. THE NATIONS

ARGENTINA: At the annual Te Deum Mass, the Argentine Cardinal and the civil heads of the national government agree on a "Great National Pact"-what  Cardinal Poli  called a "Great Covenant of Honor" with a preferential option for the poor. "Unity is more important than division and reality over ideas" the cardinal said in emphasizing two favorite themes of Pope Francis.  We are going to see the Pope and those who think about politics with him are going to be much more open to Christian nationalism than many think.  Don't look at his Vatican "magic circle" making  statements about immigration and Europe. Look back at the Cardinal in his homeland.  That is where the Pope's language and categories are been deepened.

ITALY AND THE POPE: Be a brother - engage with elected Italian officials from the populist nationalists says Cardinal Mueller to Pope Francis. Mueller criticized the "magic circle" around Pope Francis including Jesuit Fr  Antonio Spadaro of Civilta Cattolica  and Cardinal Gaultiero Bassetti head of there italian Bishops Conference.  The conversation is getting a lot clearer.

CANADA: In the second largest geographic nation, something new is blowing in the wind. A Canadian University professor must use a pseudonym to report. “This is the world of those without a mystique. . . .Let there be no mistake, and no one rejoice in it, on either side. The de-republicanization of France is essentially the same movement as the de-christianization of France. . . It is one and the same movement which makes people no longer believe in the Republic and no longer believe in God, no longer want to lead a republican life and no longer want to lead a Christian life. One and the same sterility withers the city and Christendom.” CHARLES PEGUY

EGYPT AND SAUDI ARABIA: A good review.

ROMANIA: Orthodox for sure. How religious?

IV. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

JUDGE CLARENCE THOMAS AND JUDGE RUTH GINSBERG: EXCERPTS FROM RECENT ABORTION CASE: THOMAS - "The use of abortion to achieve eugenic goals is not merely hypothetical. The foundations for legalizing abortion in America were laid during the early 20th-century birth control movement.  That movement developed alongside the American eugenics movement.  And significantly, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger recognized the eugenic potential of her cause. . .

 "Eight decades after Sanger's 'Negro Project,' abortion in the United States is also marked by a considerable racial disparity. . .  there are areas of New York City in which black children are more likely to be aborted than they are to be born alive—and are up to eight times more likely to be aborted than white children in the same area. . .

"Enshrining a constitutional right to an abortion based solely on the race, sex, or disability of an unborn child, as Planned Parenthood advocates, would constitutionalize the views of the 20th-century eugenics movement. . .  Although the Court declines to wade into these issues today, we cannot avoid them forever."

GINSBURG: ". . . a woman who exercises her constitutionally protected right to terminate a pregnancy is not a 'mother.'"

CARDINAL ROBERT SARA ON GOD, FATHERHOOD AND THE ATHEIST PROJECT OF THE WEST: "People in the West are guilty of rejecting God. They have not only rejected God. Friedrich Nietzsche, who may be considered the spokesman of the West, has claimed: “God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him…” We have murdered God. In view of God’s death among men, Nietzsche would replace him with a prophetic “Superman.”

The spiritual collapse thus has a very Western character. In particular, I would like to emphasize the rejection of fatherhood. Our contemporaries are convinced that, in order to be free, one must not depend on anybody. There is a tragic error in this. Western people are convinced that receiving is contrary to the dignity of human persons. But civilized man is fundamentally an heir, he receives a history, a culture, a language, a name, a family. This is what distinguishes him from the barbarian. To refuse to be inscribed within a network of dependence, heritage, and filiation condemns us to go back naked into the jungle of a competitive economy left to its own devices. Because he refuses to acknowledge himself as an heir, man is condemned to the hell of liberal globalization in which individual interests confront one another without any law to govern them besides profit at any price.

... I want to suggest to Western people that the real cause of this refusal to claim their inheritance and this refusal of fatherhood is the rejection of God. From Him we receive our nature as man and woman. This is intolerable to modern minds. Gender ideology is a Luciferian refusal to receive a sexual nature from God. Thus some rebel against God and pointlessly mutilate themselves in order to change their sex. But in reality they do not fundamentally change anything of their structure as man or woman. The West refuses to receive, and will accept only what it constructs for itself. Transhumanism is the ultimate avatar of this movement. Because it is a gift from God, human nature itself becomes unbearable for western man. This revolt is spiritual at root. It is the revolt of Satan against the gift of grace."

The Prayers of D-Day: June 6,1944

I am honored to say I knew the man pictured at center above Eisenhower's thumb, Private Sherman Oiler from Kansas. When I knew him in the late 90s, he could still fit into the uniform from this picture. -AJL

In remembrance of the men who fought and died during the D-Day invasion of Nazi-controlled France, we remember the words and prayers of our civic and military leaders, President FDR and General Eisenhower, as the invasion was underway. (Here is transcript of Eisenhower order of the day. You will see that the movie-audio version we link to strangely leaves out the last line which made it a prayer.) Listening to Walter Cronkite interview with Eisenhower 20 years later at Normandy is another good way to remember this day.

"Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity." FDR D-Day Prayer. 

June 6, 2019 Update: These above words were quoted by President Donald Trump during his trip to England on June 5, 2019 - on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the invasion (AJL). Read President Trump's incredible anniversary speech from June 6, 2019 here.

Dr. David Pence (1946-2019)

In the early hours of this morning we lost a friend, a teacher, and a visionary thinker. Dr. David Pence, our brother in Christ, has been called home by the Father.

He leaves us in between the great holy days of Ascension Thursday and Pentecost Sunday, precisely half way through what was a ten-day retreat by the Apostles and the Virgin Mother of God. If now is the time the Father calls, we know Dr. Pence would rejoice that the timing of his departure was anchored between our Lord's Ascension and the great pillars of Marian femininity and Apostolic fraternity. Even in death, Dr. Pence knew how to Keep Catholic Time.

We mourn the loss and give thanks to Almighty God that He gave us such a man as Dr. Pence. The world will never see another like him. We know here at Anthropology of Accord that we can never totally recapture his voice, or replicate his unique - "Pencian" - way of analyzing religion and politics. We do know, however, that the way he would like his memory and work to be honored is by the men he knew to continue the project he began. This is not the end - neither for the man we lost in the flesh nor for his visionary contribution to the Catholic worldview.

Let us now mourn and give thanks. Let us rejoice that our dear friend and brother in Christ has arrived in time to celebrate with the saints the birthday of the Church and the beginning of the Apostolic mission to the nations. The mission continues. Much work remains ahead. Dr. Pence would often talk about "advancing the football." Let us honor Dr. Pence, as brothers in Christ and men of the nation, by moving the football downfield. He wouldn't want it any other way.

Dr. David Pence, rest in peace.

Teacher, Visionary, Friend, Mentor, Father, and Brother in Christ.

Sunday June 2-see Ascension Thursday

Religion, Nations, and Geopolitical Review: Saturday June 1

  by A. Joseph Lynch and Dr. David Pence

THE WEEKLY BRIEF
EUROPE AND CHRIST
None of the resurgent European nations want to "leave Europe."  Europe's great strength is that she is a  consort of Christian nations.  She is not meant to be  a post modern bureaucracy built on "shared Judaeo-Christian values" which cannot mention the Living God much less pray to Him. She is meant for a wider and deeper alliance as the continental nations.   Christianity like each of the nations is a living organism. Christianity embraces Africa also as  a new home of Christian nations. How these states are going to take shape is not clear. But the problem of organizing productive and protective states is their political problem and it will not be solved by their people migrating to Europe.  When Christians see mass migration, we should stop blaming stable countries for protecting their hard won and precarious social order. We should look to the lands that are failing their people. They are  in need of religious renewal, political reform or, in some cases, outside intervention to establish public order.  ( In the Americas we have a similar problem as Europe and Africa. Catholic countries of Central America with degenerate church leadership like  Cardinal Maradiaga of Honduras  are blaming  Protestant America for not taking in their refugees.  Homosexual influenced  US bishops  like Pates, Kikanas and Cupich lead the American episcopacy into blaming the North American Father figure.  The corrupt Church leadership in  Honduras (9 million)led by the embezzling Maradiaga is  failing their people.  Not a word from his fellow clerics.  Blame Trump and border walls!!  Get a quote from the Pope!! The Catholic bishops should stop playing blame the gringo with the lives of the poor. They should speak truth to power  and assign responsibility to the corrupt and self centered political and ecclesial leadership of the Central American countries.)
  The Pope and the populist nations of Europe  are in a similar deadlocked conversation blaming  stable European nations for not receiving the victims of  an unhinged Muslim South(especially Libya). The conversation is not helping the nations or the refugees. It is certainly not helping a reemergence of a Christian alternative to the atheism of the globalist West. It is  not fostering the political order of stable Muslim nations. It is not addressing  the  jihad driven failed states of the Muslim South.  We need Mary, the Untied of Knots, to help each side from pulling harder and harder against his brother.
 The era of Anglo American dominance in Europe through NATO is coming to an end. Britain will leave the EU and then England, Scotland and Ireland will determine which alliances will best serve their nations in the coming century. THE BRITISH  EMPIRE HAS NEVER BEEN A PART OF THE EUROPEAN LAND NATIONS. THEY HAVE BEEN THE FOIL OF WHATEVER NATION ROSE ON THE CONTINENT. The sleeping giant of Germany will soon  awaken as a Christian nation. What that happy return to the Father's house will look like is a glorious Easter surprise still to come. Christianity is not only the cement that holds together the nations of Europe. It is their Way to peace with Russia, Serbia, and the Eastern nations. Christianity is the guide to  new postcolonial relations with the emerging peoples of Africa. The Pope says we should let ourselves "be surprised by God". The surprise is that those wall building nationalists are bringing Christ back to Europe.

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

THE LOCAL CHURCH UNDER ARCHBISHOP SCICLUNA: Laymen of Malta ask Archbishop Scicluna to discipline high-ranking Malta priest defending homosexuality as a positive created good. Scicluna is a pivotal enforcer in the Vatican strategy against clergy sex abuse. Pope Francis has centered clergy reform on local bishops and reform of  bishops on metropolitans. How Scicluna as a local bishop dealing with tolerance and practice of homosexuality among priests is not a peripheral issue.

LYING FOR GOD - POPE FRANCIS, ARCHBISHOP VIGANO, MR. MCCARRICK: Rod Dreher has his summary of the latest Vatican documents  about Cardinal McCarrick. The documents are real. They seem to implicate McCarrick and Cardinal Wuerl much more than Pope Francis. The letters  clearly show that McCarrick was rebuked and forbidden to do several public actions including traveling to Rome and living with seminarians. The documents  showed that while McCarrick changed his residence (with help from Wuerl) he never abided with any other restrictions. Thus the idea that Francis "lifted restrictions" or in any way "restored McCarrick" is false. You can't lift restrictions that were never enacted. In fact Wuerl lived in a parish house associated again with his favorites-- young male seminarians-the IVE seminarians. He went from a house with mostly white guys to a house with mostly brown guy-not quite prayer and fasting. As the Pope Francis Vatican tightened the rope on McCarrick,  Italian newspapers starting asking questions about the failed oversight  of Pope Benedict and his papa nuncio Vigano. Those damning questions united with evidence that American papa nuncio Vigano had stymied the investigation of homosexual seminarian loving Archbishop John Nienstedt  needed to be squashed. Vigano and the  rich American Francis hating press did a good job of smearing the pope in English. They had a friend in a Francis hating Italian journalist. The story is not playing as  well in other languages.

The source is Monsignor Anthony Figueiredo - a shady character if there ever was one. Rod Dreher sees here another vindication of Archbishop Vigano. It is a vindication of many of his statements about Curial figures and Wuerl. It actually diminishes his charges against Francis. Mr. Dreher thinks that Archbishop Vigano has much more credibility than Pope Francis. He says it is absurd to even ask the question comparing the credibility of the men. When  Archbishop Vigano released his accusatory testimony against Pope Francis (August, 2018) his actions as American papal nuncio and the effete rule of Pope Benedict were being exposed in Italy. Vigano's successful misdirection was buttressed by an eloquent exposure of the huge Vatican homosexual network which Vigano had observed for decades. Vigano's devastating and explicit account of high ranking clerics surrounding the last three popes remains a great service to the Church. However Vigano grossly misread the influence of McCarrick on the Pope. reading McCarrick's correspondence shows him to be self aggressing sycophant. he and Vigano attribute an importance of McCarrick  to international church relations that no-one else shares. Pope Francis ended the priesthood of McCarrick. Vigano and Pope Benedict gave him full rein. McCarrick's real institutional clout was with Catholic Relief Services and the American State Department. That wasn't restricted in the papacy of Benedict or embellished in the time of Francis. Vigano keeps calling the Pope a liar. We don't say Vigano is a lair only because it appears he is the last man on earth who really believes Cardinal McCarrick was a major player in the Francis papacy. Cardinals Wuerl and Maradiaga are significant deceivers  close to the throne. Isn't that enough?
Those of us who know the Archdiocese of Mpls-St Paul well are not as enamored with the credibility and rectitude of Vigano the truth-teller. Predator Homosexual Archbishop John Nienstedt owes his daily sacrilegious Mass to the Italian millionaire. Pope Francis has rendered McCarrick a Mister and the American conservative lynch mob trusts the high rolling Italian cleric in hiding. The misdirection of self-serving rich clerics and Wizard of Oz journalists once again turns our eyes from the searing poverty, nuclear confrontation, and Western atheism which the Church as a united body under our Holy Father should be transforming. A new interview with a Mexican journalist.  She pressed on Cardinal Maradiaga who Francis says is a victim of calumny. With evidence the pope has changed before on that defense. Let us hope the Maradiaga hoax is exposed next.  This story its not verified but it should not surprise us that the left will get at the pompous cardinal before the Church.

II. PRESIDENT TRUMP AND AMERICA

SAUDI ARABIA AND UAE GET ARMS: Congress gets bypassed - 8 billion dollar deal.

WHAT HAPPENED TO PRESIDENT TRUMP'S FOREIGN POLICY? An excellent historical analogy of the globalist characters and ideologies obscuring a Trumpian nationalist foreign policy. Pompeo, Cotten, and Claremont. The writer is from Catholic University and has offered several serious critiques of the American foreign policy blob (as President Obama and Ben Rhodes called it).

III. THE NATIONS

IN SYRIA, FALSE FLAGS AND COVER UPS FROM BUREAUCRATIC OFFICIALS, MEDIA: The Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons recently issued a report that pushes the narrative Assad air bombed his people with chemical weapons. We at AoA have always found it suspicious that Assad would do such a thing seemingly hours after President Trump announced the US was withdrawing. The chemical bombing led to a US-led retaliatory airstrike against Assad and forced the president to re-think his decision to withdraw. Assad and Russia have both insisted a "false flag" had taken place - that ISIS or some other actor planted the chemical canisters knowing Assad would be blamed. An unreleased portion of the OPCW report was recently leaked online. The portion, conveniently omitted from the official release, comes from those who went to the sites where the two canisters were found. The investigators tell us that there is “higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft”. So it appears after all that Assad didn't chemically bomb his own people. The OPCW has authenticated the leaked document and said they will not be answering any follow up questions about its contents. The war-mongering, anti-Assad, anti-Russia media are happy to keep their questions to themselves.

RUSSIA AND THE US: The role of Ambassador McFaul in making liberalism work in Russia. Trading Yeltsin for Putin was great for the nation of Russia. It was the end of the Clinton-Obama-Clinton dream for A liberal, western, pliable Russia. Another ideologue from the Academy runs into a nation-state and a male nation-man. This article is called political journalism.

INDIA, BRAZIL, CHINA, PHILLIPINES, JAPAN, HUNGARY, RUSSIA, USA: Conservative nationalists in India and Philippines show this movement is solidifying not waning. The globalist press weeps. Nationalism is not a move to isolation. It is an international movement-among nations. 

ITALY: Meet Mateo Salvini.  Salvini entrusted Italy to Mary, raised up the rosary, and called on protection from Europe's six patrons. Italian bishops and Vatican officials were not happy. The US has MAGA, the Italians have Lega - Salvini's Italian League. Lega wins (areas colored green):

EUROPE: Saving Europe by returning to Christianity - Christian nationalists vs. the globalist West.

ISRAEL, JEWS, THE LEFT: The Left Against Zion - a great historical romp.

MILITIAS RETURN TO IRAN AND AFGHANISTAN FROM SYRIA: In Afghanistan the Shia Hazaras will have more weight as the country jockeys for the military regional control which will be the basis of governance. Afghanistan has 35 million people. 7-15% are Shia and one half million are ethnic Hazaras.

IV. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

THE THALES MODEL - TEACH CLASSICS AND THE CRAFTS: Rachel Lu's modest proposal.

CULT OF GRETA: The Greens have a young female icon - the young make a claim of special wisdom because they will be here for the coming catastrophe while the old irresponsible grown ups will have just died off. They have a generational case against the baby boomers. This cry for help is not quite an articulated closing argument.

MONKEYS AND VIOLENCE IN INDIA: Loosen the bonds and a killer emerges. A history of "political correctness" - excellent monograph on the strategy of cultural Marxists.

SEXUAL CHAOS IN THE US MILITARY: The Army asks, "How has serving impacted you?" and the responses were not so great. Many women report problems with sexual harassment and assault. VP Pence gave the West Point commencement address, using "ladies and gentlemen" language in addressing the 2019 class repeatedly as "men and women" while applauding the year's large number of Hispanic and black women graduates. He let the "men and women" know that: "It is a virtual certainty that you will fight on a battlefield for America at some point in your life. You will lead soldiers in combat. It will happen." Perhaps we should reconsider women in the military rather than continue putting their lives on the line in battle and risking them being sexually assaulted at home or abroad  Pence's severe case of gender confusion should lead us to hope Presdient Trump is never successfully impeached and removed from office.

CANDIDATE BUTTIGIEG: The Buttigieg Delusion - it takes one to know one. In the first link a homosexual Republican lets the world in on a very poorly kept secret - the black community is not all that into homosexuality as a civil rights cause. They see it more as an embarrassing dysfunction set against the morality of Biblical Christianity. Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg of South Bend has his own roots in cultural Marxism. His dad Joseph Buttigieg was an English prof at Notre Dame and founding member of the International Gramsci Society. Another glaring example of how the Catholic priesthood and our beautiful powerful Catholic male institutions which they controlled became the vanguard of the sexual left. The strategy at Notre Dame was to hire faculty with East Coast prestige instead of Catholic fidelity. The priest academic provost who helped remake Notre Dame from a backward Catholic football power into a modern University was a homosexual predator.

Joseph Buttigieg died Jan 27, 2019. From South Bend Obituary: Joseph Buttigieg was a professor emeritus of English and retired director of the Hesburgh-Yusko Scholars Program at Notre Dame. He joined the Notre Dame faculty in 1980, according to a news release from the university. He also was a fellow in Notre Dame's Nanovic Institute for European Studies and Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies and director of the university's Stamps Scholars Program. Joseph Buttigieg grew up on the Mediterranean island of Malta, earning bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Malta, a second bachelor's degree from Heythrop College in London and his doctorate from the State University of new York at Binghamton, according to Notre Dame. Joseph Buttigieg directed the Hesburgh-Yusko program from its first year in 2010 through 2017. The program is a merit-based scholarship and leadership development initiative. It is named for the late Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, Notre Dame's former longtime president.

Hillaire Belloc on Buttigieg:

Hilaire Belloc 1870-1953

“The Barbarian hopes — and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. In a word, the Barbarian... can befog and destroy but  he cannot sustain; and of every Barbarian in the decline or peril of every civilization exactly that has been true.

We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creed refreshes us; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.”

Pete Buttigieg and Chris Wallace at Town Hall in New Hampshire High School 2019