Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, December 30

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

THE WEEKLY BRIEF

MYANMAR (BURMA): WHERE  BUDDHIST  NATIONALISM  OSTRACIZES   ETHNIC MUSLIMS

Myanmar is a South Asian country of 53 million. (see Burma:Map on Monday at AOA profile)The largest ethnic group is the Bamar (70%). In 1989 the military government changed many English names (like Burma) to ethnic equivalents (Myanmar). 88% of the people are Theravada Buddhist. British colonization after the Anglo-Burmese wars (1824-85) brought many Hindus and Muslims from present day India and Bangladesh into Burma. (Best map explanations here). The Burmese nationalist movement in the 1920's saw the immigrants from the subcontinent as part of  British colonization. The newcomers dominated industries and the colonial government. They were never perceived as seeking a common Burmese citizenship with the locals. The Burmese nationalist movement  rooted their nationalism in indigenous precolonial ethnic identities and the Buddhist religion. A 1982 law defining Burmese citizenship deliberately excluded the Rohingya people( a Muslim ethnic group that settled in Burma during the colonization period) when defining the ethnic groups constituting the Burmese nation. They excluded as natives anyone who could not show ancestry before 1823. The 1 million members of the Northwest state of Rahkine (bordering Bangladesh) are thus considered stateless and were advised to return to their previous homeland. In the last two years close to 10,000 Rahkine Muslims have been killed and 400,000 to 900,000 have fled-- mostly to  Muslim Bangladesh. It is ethnic cleansing by exile fed by brutal whole village exterminations to threaten those who might wish to stay. It is mindful of the wholesale ethnic/religous slaughter and mass migrations of the Indian partition in 1947 (15 million displaced; 1.5 million dead). 

    The replacement of Burma's military government (ruled 1962-2011) by the NLD party led by female democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi has actually increased the ability of nationalist advocates to take to the streets and expel their Muslim neighbors. Like the Arab Spring, so called democracy movements often unleash deeper communal identities and hatreds which eventually shape the course of events. The American press has been fairly incoherent in explaining this story. The photo shots of Hillary Clinton toasting Aung Kyi attest to the poverty of the democracy plus female empowerment=progress narrative. In the 200 year struggle for Burmese nationhood, Aung San (1915-1947), the father of Aung Kyi and the Father of the Nation looms large. He was an organizer of the Burmese Independence Army(1941)  and sided with the Japanese initially in WWII as a fighting alternative to British colonialism. He was the founder of the Burmese Communist Party as well.  His assassination in 1947 left his daughter a symbolic figure of national identity. How that national identity will be formalized and who will lead the country is a work in progress. Here is one account that takes religion and history seriously in explaining the carnage and resettlement. 

     Religion, nations, and men--we must learn to speak the real grammar of history to understand these events so we might build brotherhood under God and fraternity among the nations.   

I. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

STAR WARS BETRAYED: Bishop Barron doesn't like the feminist rewrite.

THE PRIEST ANNOUNCES HE IS GAY, THE BISHOP ALLOWS HIM; THE CONGREGATION APPLAUDS: Any problem here? The campaign to make the Catholic Church more gay-friendly is not for confused teens but for well-entrenched homosexual clergy. Here is another highly popular  "gay priest " from Ohio who announced his proclivities in a slightly more dramatic way from a high hotel window in Chicago (the Midwest center for the American homosexual priest subculture).

THE POPE REFORMING THE CLIQUES OF THE CURIA: Seeking men with the universal mission of the Church over the cliques of careerists. Very well put.

II. AROUND THE WORLD R&G ROUND UP

IF CHINA ABANDONS NORTH KOREA: A Scenario.

WHAT GORBACHEV HEARD ABOUT THE EXPANSION OF NATO: After his multiple concessions, archives show he was promised no eastward expansion of NATO by multiple US leaders.

III. AMERICAN POLITICS AND FOREIGN POLICY

A QUICK ROUNDUP ON THE PLOT TO GET TRUMP: They were defending the country from a racist narcissist who was also a sexist idiot. What's a patriot to do?

GENERAL MCMASTER - HIS WORLD VIEW AND SOME SOURCES: A one hour talk from before he was National Security Advisor. The NSS document is quite faithful to his vision. He cites two major sources for his overall vision: 1) Margaret Macmillan's book and essay The Rhyme of History comparing today to pre-WWI.

Reading her essay there is nothing here other than boilerplate international order platitudes. She does have a favorable mention of General McMaster who has returned the favor. She quotes his insight that accomplishing military objectives in a situation without strategic objectives is a fools errand. The Oxford lady professor compares the US alone to the Concert of Powers pre-1914. That seems unhelpful. A real Concert of Powers would include Russia, China, and Iran. That's the idea of a concert of powers vs. a balancing act of regional allies against regional powers. Mrs. MacMillan treats religion as sectarianism and nationalism as atavistic. She does say a good leader must truly understand the "viewpoint of another nation"-either friend or foe. There is no evidence she shows of understanding the three great civilizational nations who have become the boogymen of international globalists: China, Iran and Russia.

2) The Unquiet Frontier by Jakub Grygiel and A. Wess Mitchell - Grygiel and Mitchell are the authors that introduce the language of the "revisionist nations" who are supposedly challenging the US as the keeper of the international order. Three challenged allies are Taiwan, Israel, and Poland against the regional revisionists China, Iran, and Russia. This is the three encirclements strategy (our term) at the heart of the NSS document and American foreign policy as understood by John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and George Bush. President Obama rejected the "surround Iran" part of the strategy.

Here is the blurb for The Unquiet Frontier - a synopsis of the globalist vision if there ever was one:

From the Baltic to the South China Sea, newly assertive authoritarian states sense an opportunity to resurrect old empires or build new ones at America's expense. Hoping that U.S. decline is real, nations such as Russia, Iran, and China are testing Washington's resolve by targeting vulnerable allies at the frontiers of American power. The Unquiet Frontier explains why the United States needs a new grand strategy that uses strong frontier alliance networks to raise the costs of military aggression in the new century.

Jakub Grygiel and Wess Mitchell describe the aggressive methods rival nations are using to test U.S. power in strategically critical regions throughout the world. They show how rising and revisionist powers are putting pressure on our frontier allies―countries like Poland, Israel, and Taiwan―to gauge our leaders' commitment to upholding the U.S.-led global order. To cope with these dangerous dynamics, nervous U.S. allies are diversifying their national-security "menu cards" by beefing up their militaries or even aligning with their aggressors. Grygiel and Mitchell reveal how numerous would-be great powers use an arsenal of asymmetric techniques to probe and sift American strength across several regions simultaneously, and how rivals and allies alike are learning from America's management of increasingly interlinked global crises to hone effective strategies of their own.

The Unquiet Frontier demonstrates why the United States must strengthen the international order that has provided greater benefits to the world than any in history.

BEST SUMMARY OF CHANGES IN THE TAX BILL - NOTHING BUT THE FACTS

• Increases the standard deduction to $12,000 for single filers, $18,000 for heads of household, and $24,000 for joint filers in 2018 (compared to $6,500, $9,550, and $13,000 respectively under current law).
• Eliminates the personal exemption.
• Retains the charitable contribution deduction, and limits the mortgage interest deduction to the first $750,000 in principal value. Limits the state and local tax deduction to a combined $10,000 for income, sales, and property taxes. Taxes paid or accrued in carrying on a trade or business are not limited.
• Expands the child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000, while increasing the phaseout from $110,000 in current law to $400,000 married couples. The first $1,400 would be refundable.
• Effectively repeals the individual mandate penalty, by lowering the penalty amount to $0, effective January 1, 2019.
• Raises the exemption on the alternative minimum tax from $86,200 to $109,400 for married filers, and increases the phaseout threshold to $1 million.
• Reduces corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, December 23

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch 

 THE WEEKLY BRIEF
The Practical Peace of Christian Realism vs the Perpetual War of Globalism 
In this season of Christmas, Christians assert with joy that the God of the Universe has become man and is calling all nations to live as brothers. As a Christian nation let us formulate a foreign policy consistent with our spiritual nature. Let us live among the nations. We support the nation of Israel in her present defensible borders and with her ancient capital of Jerusalem. We do not however accept the foreign policy of Israel advocating war and regime change in the Shia nation of Iran. Likewise in the season of peace we must reject the hateful anti Shia ideology of the Wahhabi state of Saudi Arabia.  We reject especially the aggressive war against Shia Muslims led by Crown Prince  Muhammed bin Salman in his own Kingdom and throughout the region. As religious men we must understand the war against religious freedom at the heart of the Saudi-Wahhabi kingdom. It is directed today most virulently at Shia populations which is strangely and fatally off the radar of "religious liberty activists". We must understand the  Christians in the Mideast have much more in common with Shia states fighting the salafist Sunni jihadists than with the present war policies of  Saudi Arabia and Israel. We must also remind our allies in  Israel  that a temporary alliance with the Wahhabis will never lead to the acceptance of a Jewish nation in the lands of Islam.  American nationalists must reject the shortsighted Saudi-Israeli alliance just as President Eisenhower rejected the French-Britain-Israel alliance against Egypt in the Suez Crisis of 1956.
 We reject the globalist insistence that the US as "a sole superpower" must deny regional powers their own natural spheres of influence. We Americans constitute one nation among many nations under one God. We do not share the exaltation of our own arms that seems the organizing principle of our 2017 NSS strategy (see below). Such military overreach apart from spiritual purposes is not a Christian nationalist foreign policy. A nationalist policy recognizes that dominant nations in various regions will organize relations in their own  regions. The US is not called to be  the keeper of global order and the suppressor of regional hegemony.  This has never been the America First vision of Donald Trump proposed in his speeches (see below).  The globalization vision of America as a suppressor of regional powers often calls itself  "realism." This atheistic worldview of Marco Rubio, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain was rejected in three Presidential elections by American voters who elected two very different foreign policy dissidents in  Barack Obama and Donald Trump. The rejected globalist policy (still very much alive in the 2017 NSS document) treats  Russia, Iran and China as "revisionist" regional powers to be opposed by the US and various "regional allies."  President Obama rejected this approach to Iran and President Trump hopes to reject this approach to Russia. We would add that the US should not contest China's preeminent role in the China Sea.  The globalist deep state, the huge military armaments industry,  Saudi Arabia and Israel are presently set against an emerging American nationalist policy in the Mideast. The largest Christian nation in the world can no longer leave American foreign policy to a toxic combo of careerists in the foreign policy establishment and the moneyed lobbyists of foreign nations. We suggest at Christmas a Christian alternative.   

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

CHRISTMAS COMES: The centrality of Christ - John Piper. To receive Christ, first humility.

A RABBI, A BISHOP, AN IMMAN, A BLACK LEADER, A HISPANIC ACTIVIST, A LUTHERAN, AN ANGLICAN AND AN ORTHODOX: Male and female He created them THEY ALL SAID TOGETHER.

II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST

SAUDI-IRAN RIVALRY AND DECISION TO RECOGNIZE JERUSALEM AS CAPITAL OF ISRAEL: The Iranians are looking like the defenders of Muslims and Arabs.

WAR DRUMS IN THE MIDEAST - A PIVOTAL MOMENT WAS THE 1996 NEOCONSERVATIVE "CLEAN BREAK" STRATEGY AIMED AT REGIME CHANGE IN IRAQ, SYRIA, AND IRAN: This explains things well.

AFTER BEING BOMBED FOR A YEAR, THE HOUTHIS SHOT A MISSILE AT SAUDI ARABIA: This is being touted as conclusive evidence that the Houthi defense from foreign aggression by the Muhammed bin Salman-led Saudis is really Iranian terrorism. The abysmal public and journalistic ignorance of recent international history allows these fabrications.

III. AMERICAN POLITICS AND FOREIGN POLICY

ISIS IS GONE AND ASSAD IS STILL HERE. TRUMP WAS RIGHT AND THE GREAT FOREIGN POLICY THINKERS WERE WRONG: The foreign policy establishment who were so spectacularly wrong about Assad are also wrong about Iran. Reading their old quotes is chilling.

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND - SENATOR FROM NEW YORK: Getting to know her.

ROY MOORE DEFEATED: Two takes. His white evangelical vote was lowest in two decades and is what beat him. Rusty Reno at First Things goes way too far in piling on Moore. He talks about Moore as a "transgressive" because he would not take down the Ten Commandments on Supreme Court grounds and he urged judges to disobey the federal imposition of marriage between same sex couples. Were the Maccabees transgressive? Reno has been one of the few writers at First Things who has been open to a more nationalistic view political loyalties in the Trump era. This article was not insight but piling on.

THE THREE ENCIRCLEMENTS. FOR MANY REALISTS THE FOREIGN POLICY OF A SUPERPOWER SHOULD BE ORGANIZING ALLIANCES AGAINST REGIONAL HEGEMONS - CHINA, IRAN AND RUSSIA:
1) Marco Rubio leads the way organizing the region against China.

2) Everybody against Iran in the Mideast is turning into Israel, the US, and Muhammed bin Salman against Iran. Our Secretary of Defense and UN ambassador are leading the charge. From DoD News-U.S. Defense Department:

"Everywhere you find turmoil [in the Middle East], you find Iran's hand in it," Defense Secretary James Mattis said Friday. Referring to U.S. UN Ambassador Nikki Haley's briefing Thursday which included physical evidence that Iran is providing ballistic missiles to the Houthis, Mattis said, "What we are doing in that region is standing by allies and partners, and we're, on one hand, exposing, on the other hand, helping them build their own capability to reject Iranian influence."

"We find Iran actively engaged in keeping [Syrian President] Assad in power, despite the murder of his own people on the industrial scale, including the use of chem ical weapons. We see what [Iran has] done with Lebanese Hizbullah in Lebanon and the threat to peace and the support they've given to Assad and the threat to Israel, for example." Mattis added, "The reason Ambassador Haley was there, and not one of our generals, is this is a diplomatically-led effort to expose to the world what Iran is up to."

3) The failed post Cold War policy of isolating Russia continues in the hysterical anti-Trump resistance movement trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.

CHINA - DEVELOPING CREDIT AND SOCIAL RANK: Another revolution by the most dynamic economic society on earth.

FOR MANY CONSERVATIVES THEIR PRINCIPAL PROBLEM IS THEY ADOPT THE STRAUSIAN ERROR THAT THE MODERN/CLASSIC DIVIDE IS THE FUNDAMENTAL AXIS MUNDI: It isn't - the Coming of Christ is the axis mundi. That is a major theme at AOA and is alluded to in this article at Public Discourse by Paul DeHart. His article becomes a long discussion of the natural law. DeHart is on to something much more fundamental. We have argued that the fall of the Modern West is not to be grieved. Christianity lives! At Crisis magazine an English writer speaks of the ethnic origins of nations and the possibility of stateless Europeans. He is missing the fundamental insight of Christopher Dawson that Christianity is the core cult of the European nations. The discussion among most of the neoconservative Catholic world on global Christianity and the nations is pretty thin gruel. This writer is stabbing at the right questions.

AMONG CONSERVATIVES YUVAL LEVIN OR VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: A good review of two positions among conservatives.

NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY - A NATIONALIST PRESIDENT AND HIS GLOBALIZED MILITARY: A new President but this seems the old strategy. Regional analysis from the National Security Strategy of the United States of America 2017 (below):

ON CHINA: A geopolitical competition between free and repressive visions of world order is taking place in the Indo-Pacific region. China’s infrastructure investments and trade strategies reinforce its geopolitical aspirations. Its efforts to build and militarize outposts in the South China Sea endanger the free flow of trade, threaten the sovereignty of other nations, and undermine regional stability. China has mounted a rapid military modernization campaign designed to limit U.S. access to the region and provide China a freer hand there. China presents its ambitions as mutually beneficial, but Chinese dominance risks diminishing the sovereignty of many states in the Indo- Pacific. States throughout the region are calling for sustained U.S. leadership in a collective response that upholds a regional order respectful of sovereignty and independence. China is gaining a strategic foothold in Europe by expanding its unfair trade practices and investing in key industries, sensitive technologies, and infrastructure.

ON KOREA: In Northeast Asia, the North Korean regime is rapidly accelerating its cyber, nuclear, and ballistic missile programs. North Korea’s pursuit of these weapons poses a global threat that requires a global response. Continued provocations by North Korea will prompt neighboring countries and the United States to further strengthen security bonds and take additional measures to protect themselves. North Korea seeks the capability to kill millions of Americans with nuclear weapons. Iran supports terrorist groups and openly calls for our destruction.

ON RUSSIA: Although the menace of Soviet communism is gone, new threats test our will. Russia is using subversive measures to weaken the credibility of America’s commitment to Europe, undermine transatlantic unity, and weaken European institutions and governments. With its invasions of Georgia and Ukraine, Russia demonstrated its willingness to violate the sovereignty of states in the region. Russia continues to intimidate its neighbors with threatening behavior, such as nuclear posturing and the forward deployment of offensive capabilities.

ON NATO AND THE WILLINGNESS TO GO TO WAR FOR ANY MEMBER: The NATO alliance of free and sovereign states is one of our great advantages over our competitors, and the United States remains committed to Article V of the Treaty.

ON THE MIDEAST: The United States seeks a Middle East that is not a safe haven or breeding ground for jihadist terrorists, not dominated by any power hostile to the United States, and that contributes to a stable global energy market. For years, the interconnected problems of Iranian expansion, state collapse, jihadist ideology, socio-economic stagnation, and regional rivalries have convulsed the Middle East. Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, has taken advantage of instability to expand its influence through partners and proxies, weapon proliferation, and funding. Iran continues to perpetuate the cycle of violence in the region, causing grievous harm to civilian populations. Today,the threats from jihadist terrorist organizations and the threat from Iran are creating the realization that Israel is not the cause of the region’s problems. States have increasingly found common interests with Israel in confronting common threats.

ON SOUTH ASIA: We will deepen our strategic partnership with India and support its leadership role in Indian Ocean security and throughout the broader region. We will press Pakistan to intensify its counterterrorism efforts, since no partnership can survive a country’s support for militants and terrorists who target a partner’s own service members and officials. The United States will also encourage Pakistan to continue demonstrating that it is a responsible steward of its nuclear assets. We will continue to partner with Afghanistan to promote peace and securi in the region. We will continue to promote anti-corruption reform in Afghanistan to increase the legitimacy of its government and reduce the appeal of violent extremist organizations. We will help South Asian nations maintain their sovereign as China increases its influence in the region. We will insist that Pakistan take decisive action against militant and terrorist groups operating from its soil.

Pursue Threats to Their Source
Defeat Jihadist Terrorists

Jihadist terrorist organizations present the most dangerous terrorist threat to the Nation. America, alongside our allies and partners, is fighting a long war against these fanatics who advance a totalitarian vision for a global Islamist caliphate that justifies murder and slavery, promotes repression, and seeks to undermine the American way of life. Jihadist terrorists use virtual and physical networks around the world to radicalize isolated individuals, exploit vulnerable populations, and inspire and direct plots. The United States also works with allies and partners to deter and disrupt other foreign terrorist groups that threaten the homeland—including Iranian-backed groups such as Lebanese Hizballah. Jihadist terrorist organizations such as ISIS and al-Qa’ida are determined to Attack the United States and radicalize Americans with their hateful ideology. Non-state actors undermine social order through drug and human trafficking networks, which they use to commit violent crimes and kill thousands of American each year.

ON REGIONAL STRATEGIES: The United States must marshal the will and capabilities to compete and prevent unfavorable shifts in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East. Sustaining favorable balances of power will require a strong commitment and close cooperation with allies and partners because allies and partners magnify U.S. power and extend U.S. influence.

PRESIDENT TRUMP'S SPEECH INTRODUCED BY VP PENCE TO MILITARY AND SECRETARIES TILLERSON AND MATTIS: The speech. ISIS caliphate has crumbled. America First. A Wall and closing lottery and chain migration. In his speech, he called Russia and China "competitive rivals" who we could cooperate with. As an example he told of recent US warning Russia of terror attack in Russia which was foiled because of our information sharing. His speech opened many more paths than the written strategy which is a repetition of the triple encirclements of China, Iran, and Russia to prevent regional hegemony. This posing of America as a rival to regional powers in Europe, the Far East, and the Mideast is the globalist strategy which needs to be countered with an American nationalist and Christian realist approach that allows other large powers to dominate their own regional relations. The hate Trump movement is stopping a sharper discussion with the President about the contradictions in his policy. Again his speech was much less bellicose and more encouraging that a truly different approach is being considered. A major problem is certain personnel like his UN ambassador are deeply entrenched in the globalist four war paradigm (stalemate in Afghanistan, organize balancing coalitions vs. Iran, vs. China, vs. Russia).

IV. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

CARDINAL LAW IS DEAD: The former Archbishop of Boston resigned in 2002 following the discovery that he had participated in shielding predator homosexual priests in Boston since 1984. It was soon discovered that this was not an isolated practice. Read AoA's argument for the masculine anthropology and punitive approach needed to  restore the Catholic priesthood.

AUSTRALIAN SEXUAL ABUSE: 90% of the victims in the Catholic institutions were male. Certain orders of brothers were the worst perpetrators. 30% of the abusers were priests. 1 of every 14 priests was an abuser. The Royal Commission had two particular suggestions for the Catholics. 1) Get rid of celibacy laws and 2) disallow the seal of Confession. The deep infiltration of the priesthood and religious orders by active homosexuals deeply opposed to traditional Catholic codes of purity and fraternity was not mentioned as a possible source of the scandal. The final report of the Commission deals with many more institutions than the Catholic Church and the specifically homosexual preponderance in catholic institutions was present in the larger report but not as striking. The desertion of the flock by shepherds and the absence of a functioning fatherhood is a consequence of a brotherhood fatally compromised by a homosexual subculture.  .

POLITICS CRIME AND ESTABLISHING ORDER: A look at crime and punishment in pre-revolutionary Russia. Many insights from this book by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, an emeritus professor of history at the University of California. There is something about this analysis of lawlessness in Petrograd that evokes CHICAGO.

"Hasegawa draws on the founder of sociology, Emile Durkheim, to explain these changes. Petrograd was in a condition of anomie, or normlessness, that arises from a breakdown in what Durkheim called organic solidarity. Organic solidarity are the systems of belief held in common by people of complex, modern societies characterized by the division of labor and social differentiation. It enables interdependence in an increasingly individualized world. The political and economic crises that fed the crime wave caused a breakdown in norms and significantly altered the body of conventions that had previously governed social relations. The meta rules of living together that had previously allowed for peaceful coexistence were no longer relevant. The revolution swept all of that away."

Refueling above the clouds

An F-22 Raptor over Iraq

Ever wonder what's involved in refueling a military jet while in flight? Check this out.

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, December 16

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

THE WEEKLY BRIEF
STOP SEXUAL HARASSMENT.  REPEAL THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION. 
RESTORE PATRIARCHY AND BROTHERHOOD. 

     It started with overthrowing patriarchy. The rule of the father is of course grounded in the deeply Christian understanding that the Trinitarian God is Father--a loving Protector and Authority who should be worshipped, thanked and obeyed. What His Son did, we should do as well--obey the Father; submit to the patriarchy. This is how we reverse the atomization of original sin and restore our interpersonal communal nature.  "Original sin" said Pope John Paul II attempted "to abolish Fatherhood." The bumper sticker said, "Well behaved women don't make history" so the modern Eves rejected the two petitions of the Our Father saying God's will and rule should be extended on earth as it is in heaven.  Overthrow the patriarchy! Hundreds of male theologians joined the revolution  saying God has no gender. 

     Step Two was abolishing all male institutions from seminary education to the military officer schools to civic service clubs, to fire stations,  to the Boy Scouts. The all male group was seen as a social evil to be destroyed. The male female singular character of marriage could not be assailed until the all male corporate character of civic, religious and workplace brotherhoods were undermined. Patriarchy and Fraternity are the Christian forms of love that turn boys into men and teach them to be protectors of women and reserve conjugal relations with a woman only after a formal ceremony of  giving consent called a wedding. The Marian ideal of virgin, mother, and Queen evoked from Christian men the chivalry of knighthood codes, courtship rituals, and the ethos of the gentleman. Let us return to our Christian roots.

   The leadership of the Chinese Communist Party in 1978  repealed the disastrous ten year social experiment called the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). It had been led by teenage rebels, Mao Tse tung and his ambitious careerist wife, Jiang Qing. The adult men led by Deng Xiaoping returned to power in 1978 after the death of Mao Tse Tung in 1976 to arrest Madame Mao and reestablish legitimate authority.

     We need an American repeal of our own peculiar era of sexual chaos that so desacralized our interpersonal relationships. The Sixties Sexual Revolution was not the completion of the Christian civil rights movement but its betrayal. We have our own Madame Mao. We must learn from the Chinese. We cannot go half way. It was a disaster. It hasn't worked-especially in our clergy, military, policing, and political institutions. We must not be overwhelmed. Let us restore first in our own language, our prayer lives and our own imaginations, the sacral order underlying sexual harmony. Drugs confuse the intellect. Prayer orders the soul.  Patriarchy, fraternity, marriage, motherhood, and virginity. Remove the feminist implant and the atheist cataract! Celebrate the fundamental categories of religious and sexual order.  No stammering and apologizing allowed.  


THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION HAD AN ALTERNATIVE TO MALE SOCIALIZATION UNDER THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD INTO THE BROTHERHOOD OF MALE CITIZENS

                                                                

                 

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

THE REFORMATION THE CHURCH AND THE EUCHARIST: Abandon the Mass and Unitarianism is right around the corner. The Eucharist is the real locus in the battle about the Incarnation.

KEEPING THE LORD'S DAY IN POLAND: A bill to limit Sunday commerce.

THE POPE: and the Our Father.

FIGHTING SATAN: Fr. Barron on the Devil.

HOMOSEXUALITY IS A SIN AND SHOULD BE OUTLAWED: Did Roy Moore say that - Yes indeed.  A messenger compromised so the message didn't quite resonate. When will a southern black Democrat like Charles Barkley make a manly Christian case for care of the poor and racial integration  without a blurring of sexual differences or a repeal of sexual morality? How did the rich urban homosexuals and college feminists  hijack the real civil rights movement for interracial brotherhood and marriage born in the Baptist Bible Belt.

FITNESS FOR THE SENATE: The Kennedy-Moore axis.

FEASTS THIS WEEK:  Hannukah :the eight day remembrance and thanksgiving for the restoration of the sacred by fighting fathers and sons after a great desecration. It certainly is not the Jewish Christmas and it really isn't mostly about the oil miracle. For North American Catholics, this is becoming a major celebration.     Our Lady of Guadalupe: Queen of Mexico and Our Lady of the Americas.

II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST

SAUDIS, ISRAEL, AND PALESTINE A CONVERSATION WITH JARED KUSHNER AND ANOTHER WITH REIDEL AND FRIEDMAN: The "Trump team" trying to make the deal between Palestine and Israel is three Orthodox Jews and a Coptic Christian. Interesting conversation. Bruce Reidel and Tom Friedman on Saudi Arabia.

Bruce Reidel on the Saudis after his recent book. He says the legislative and judicial branches of American government are turning against the Sauds. Muhammed bin Salman is deeply unpopular in the royal family. There is high probability that he would be assassinated if the King died today. MbS foreign policy is a disaster. Yemen is Mbs signature policy. It is a military quagmire and the greatest humanitarian disaster in the present world. GCC is dead because of Qatar blockade. Saudi foreign policy is much more sectarian than anything since second Saudi kingdom in 19th century. Removing the experienced Muhammed bin Nayef as Crown Prince for a 30 year old relative substituted kin for a legitimate anti terrorist hero. The sectarian part of the Wahhabi code is being pushed harder now than ever. Parts of the Eastern provinces with Shiite opposition are being plowed under. King Salman rebuilt Riyadh from 200,000 to 7 million people as the "most Wahhabi city" in the world. The Salmans have broken all rules inside the royal family. So where is their support? Reidel hints the obvious. The religious establishment will be the young ruler's base not his enemies. Reidel understands this at a much deeper level than the NYTimes reporter Tom Friedman. When MbS told Friedman that he wasn't trying to reform Islam but return to its original moderation, that didn't strike the religiously tone deaf Friedman as the standard definition of salafism. The Friedman article calling MbS an Arab Spring reformer has made the reporter the odds on favorite for this year's Walter Duranty Pulitzer Prize Award.    

Why no Saudigate? A good historical replay of collusion with the Saudi royal family from the Bushes through Clintons to President Trump.

THE UAE AND THE SAUDIS (AND ISRAEL?): A greatly reduced Gulf State alliance. A very dangerous new ally for MbS. The US should not be pulled into this bizarre trap of the young ambitious and doomed MbS with the Iran hating Netanyahu party in Israel.

EGYPT, THE SAUDIS AND ISRAEL - WILL THE GAZA BECOME THE REAL CENTER OF A SECOND STATE? An island swap that cements Israel and the Saudis. Is Jordan becoming the odd man out?

SAUDI CROWN PRINCE BUYS SALVATOR MUNDI: It is difficult to see how this will work out for the increasingly bizarre Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. MbS is waging bloody war against Shiites to hold support of Wahhabi clerics while he does window dressing reforms to keep NYTimes columnists in the reform column. But dropping 450 million for Christian art when he has arrested a portion of the royal family for corruption can't help his case. Before MbS isolated Qatar, the Saudi Wahhabi clerics denounced the regime as not Wahhabi enough. This picture purchase is important. What it means is not clear. The museum where it will be held is in Abu Dhabi, one of the emirates not ruled by the Hanbali school of jurisprudence. The other is Dubai. MbS is becoming the most isolated Muslim in the Mideast. His increasingly public alliance with Israel won't help.

ORGANIZING SUNNI AGAINST THE SAUDIS: More on the 2016 Conference to isolate the Salafists.

ISIS ERADICATED ON THE GROUND. ISN'T THIS BIG NEWS? It is in Iraq as a national holiday declared. A month ago it happened in Syria. Could this have something to do with Mattis and Trump? The new US military strategy was important. Iran and Russia were even more important to the defeat of ISIS.

A REAL JOURNALIST - THE MOSUL EYE: The man who documented ISIS.

III. AROUND THE WORLD AND AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

A PROFILE OF A POSSIBLE ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER: He says stop the immigrants. He is Catholic and believes in God but doesn't go to Mass and confess his sins as often as he should.

INDIA: How India sees its role in the world.

IT IS HARD TO GET CHINA TO HELP US WITH NORTH KOREA IF THEY THINK THEY ARE THE ULTIMATE TARGETS OF THE US TILT TO ASIA: John Pilger film - The Coming War on China.

THE US ADVENTURES ON THE BORDERS OF RUSSIA: Remember John McCain saying "we are all Georgians now"?

NADIA SCHADLOW KEY WRITER OF NATIONAL SECURITY DOCUMENT TO BE PUBLISHED SOON: Her connections for future references. The women at NSC under Trump. This is dated but it gives more information than more recent "profiles". The "gender doesn't matter" National Security professionals are doing quite well in the NSC. There are several documents required by law to help plot overall American foreign policy. The Worldwide Threat assessment by the US Intelligence Community put out by our intelligence agencies. Here is May 2017 report. The National Security Strategy is a document to be prepared by the executive branch to outline overall strategy. The Bush administration in 2002 put out such a strategy. The Obama administration outlined their very different strategic approach in 2010 and 2015. The Trump administration will release a NSS document in the next few weeks.

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, December 9

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

THE WEEKLY BRIEF
JERUSALEM
The Lord shall write in the book of the nations:
  “Here is their birthplace.”
They will sing as in joyful processions:
  “All my being springs from you.”
So writes the Psalmist of Jerusalem. At the heart of a nationalist foreign policy for America is dealing honestly with other nations as nations. Israel is a real nation with borders that it won in several wars against enemies trying to eradicate their existence as a nation state. To carve out of of Israel a "second state" called Palestine as a real state with its own military and foreign policy would be to eliminate the physical ability of Israel to defend itself. One honest look at a topographic map shows that fantasy is a death wish. It is true that Israel could wreck havoc on its enemies in a war, but it could not defend itself as a territorial entity. It is one of the great ironies of the surreal world of globalists that the one nation they will defend and lionize is the one that doesn't exist and never has: Palestine. America should not join Israel in their adventure with Muhammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia against Iran, but as a Christian nation ourselves we must defend the miraculous return of God's chosen people to the Holy Land. (See below on President Trump's speech, Russian recognition and the European approach. To help think more clearly about "the two State solution" see this excellent 15-minute  CBN documentary: Who are the Palestinian people?)

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

ADVENT BEGINS - SEEK GOD FIRST AND ALL THINGS WILL BE ORDERED: The Pope on putting God first. The Three Comings of Christ from AoA.

PRIESTLY FRATERNITY VS. CARBON MONOXIDE CLERICALISM: A young priest writes: "For the Year for Priests in 2009, Pope Benedict issued a letter that I believe was prophetic but under-appreciated. He wrote that 'the ordained ministry has a radical "communitarian form" and can be exercised only in the communion of priests with their bishop.' "

ETHIOPIA - A BASTION OF ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY: The amazing resilience of Africa's oldest Christian nation. The longstanding churches in Africa are the Egyptian Copts and Ethiopian Orthodox. In this old Orthodox country, however, there is a remarkable Protestant presence as well. The Lutherans went to the least Orthodox of regions, and set up health and educational institutions allowed by the Orthodox king. Today, only Germany has more Lutherans. (The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus now has 8 million members. In 2013 they broke communion fellowship with the ELCA over the North American endorsement of homosexuality.)

II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST

TILLERSON, KUSHNER, IRAN, ISRAEL, AND SAUDI ARABIA: Is the US preparing a war cabinet?

SAUDIS, YEMEN, AND IRAN: How MUHAMMED BIN SALMAN (MbS) helped Iran in his war against the Houthis. Analysis of Muhammed bin Salman the reformer.

SAUDI ARABIA STREET LIFE MORE RELAXED: The veteran Saudi women’s rights activist did not know whether to laugh or cry. “Everything is so much more relaxed now,” she said. “You can feel it on the streets.” Then she paused, and added: “Except for the men. They are in prison.” From the Times of London.

IRAN, SYRIA, RUSSIA, AND TURKEY: Discussing their different goals in Syria.

YEMEN: DEATH OF SALEH: He has played every side. In the last week he turned against the Houthis and opened to the Saudis. He was killed days after his betrayal.

III. PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS

TRUMP RECOGNIZES JERUSALEM AS ISRAEL'S CAPITAL: President Trump formally announced US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Read the speech. The first country to recognize (West) Jerusalem as Israel's capital was Russia (eight months ago). The European Union agreed that Jerusalem should be a capital - the capital of Palestine.

THE LOGAN ACT: A clear narrative on how the Obama administration got after the Trump transition team.

IS THERE A MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX? Does it run through the think tanks?

IV. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

RUSSIA - CHRISTIANITY VS GODLESS FEMINIZED WEST: The deeper conflict.

KENYA - A MICROCOSM OF AFRICA, CHRISTIANITY, AND TRIBAL ANIMOSITIES: John Allen reports. The failure of Catholics to propose an armed national civic strategy of protection leaves the people trapped by those loyalty systems willing to use guns - the ancient tribes and Islam.

MEXICO - BEHEADINGS BY CARTELS: This is a Catholic country in need of an armed Catholic civic response to the rule of violent predators. The poor are paying the price for the pacifist public formulations of European and North American prelates comfortable with their wealth and oblivious of their duty as shepherds at war with wolves. The bishops should not wield the sword, but they should readily encourage nationalist Catholics who will fulfill the protective punitive duties of governance. Otherwise in places of violence, only the pagans will govern.

AUSTRALIA - LIVE WITH CHINA OR ALLY WITH US IN NEW INDO-PACIFIC AXIS: Should the East and South Pacific be dominated by China or should China be encircled by an alliance organized by the United States? An Australia government white paper makes a choice.

RESTORING THE SACRED AND THE NATIONS IN THE WEST: By David Goldman. Illuminating writing about both Catalonia and Germany. It is long, but worth reading. Goldman understands the need for the sacred.  His definition is divorced from the reality of the supernatural. Thin gruel indeed! Another Jewish intellectual who cannot bow to the Living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is a great writer but he should bow his head in prayer and learn from Eliade the meaning of the sacred.

THE CHRISTIAN LEADER IS OFTEN NOT A POLITICIAN PASTOR BUT A HERO-SINNER WHO WILL FIGHT THE EVIL FORCES: An excerpt from Goldman (above):

Our “America First” President stands squarely in the mainstream of American culture. Donald Trump, I argued on the day of his Inauguration, “is instantly recognisable as the protagonist in a Christian drama: the lone avenger who stands up to the wicked powers of the world and calls them out for combat. Ted Cruz, though an engaged and enthusiastic evangelical Christian, failed to understand the religious impulse of the American electorate. They did not want a politician-pastor to preach to them what they already knew. They wanted a hero, sinner though he be, to give battle to the forces of evil — a Jephtha or a Saul.” No matter how far it strays from conventional religion, American culture remains stamped delibly with the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity. It does not look for saints who live exemplary lives but for sinners in search of redemption.

THE CHRISTIAN RES PUBLICA IS BUILT ON MEN SHARING A LOVE OF THE SACRED - NOT A CONTRACT OF SHARED SELF INTERESTS: Another excerpt:

"Augustine (in City of God XXIV) famously took issue with Cicero’s definition of a res publica as an association founded on common interest, arguing instead that it was founded on a common love. It might be more accurate to say that it is founded on a common sense of the sacred, for the sacred embodies not only love but also awe and fear, specifically the fear that by violating the elements of tradition that define us we will lose ourselves."

ON THE GERMAN NATION: From Goldman essay above:

"All of this was said before and better by the earliest German Romantics in the immediate aftermath of the French Revolution. It was Germany’s bad luck to fight its way to nationhood in response to the Napoleonic conquests, at a time when its intellectuals largely had abandoned religion in favor of philosophy. The modern notion of self-invention erupts into history through the Cult of Reason. Its prophets were Rousseau and Kant, who were armed by the French Revolution. In Germany, the first salvo against the Cult of Reason came from J. G. Fichte, who argued that Kant’s transcendental reason could only exist in human consciousness, and that this consciousness must arise from nationality. Fichte’s young student Novalis inquired rather how national consciousness might be formed in the first place. Consciousness, he argued long before Heidegger, is time-consciousness, and our sense of ourselves in the present moment was an ecstatic unity of memory and anticipation. But upon what memory might the Germans draw? In his 1799 essay “Christianity or Europe,” Novalis proposed a return to the Christianity of the early Middle Ages, but a Christianity that would ennoble the tales (Märchen) of the past. The disenchanted world which Schiller bemoaned in his poem “The Gods of Greece” would thus become reenchanted (wiederverzaubert) through the fairytale world that underlay medieval Christianity.

That in summary was the Romantic programme, and a very bad idea it turned out to be. Where Schiller and Hölderlin hoped to re-enchant the world with Hellenism, the Romantics succeeded only in dredging up the raw material for a revived paganism. Heinrich Heine warned in 1834 that “if ever the Cross — the taming talisman — were to fracture, then the wildness of the old warriors will clatter to the surface, their mad berserkers’ rage . . . and the old stone gods will raise themselves up out of the forgotten dust and rub the dust of a millennium from their eyes, and Thor with his giant hammer will at last rise up and smash the Gothic domes.” In the hands of Richard Wagner, the Nibelungenlied became an anti-Christian manifesto. In the 19th century Germany brought forth a peerless high culture in literature, music and the sciences, but its national sense of the sacred lost its way in the land of Märchen and was bewitched by the pagan past.

Germans continued to look to their high culture as a wellspring of identity until the end of the First World War. Most of its leading intellectuals, including a dozen Nobel laureates, signed the Manifesto of the Ninety-Three of 1914, alleging that the war was an attack on German culture. Thomas Mann famously contrasted German Kultur with the mere commercial civilisation of France and Britain. Max Weber supported the war wholeheartedly and, after the defeat, looked forward to Germany’s victory in a future war. The identification of war aims with Kulturdiscredited high culture among the defeated German people. That is why Nazi playwright Hans Johst has a character say that when he hears the word “culture,” he releases the safety catch on his pistol."

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, December 2

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

THE WEEKLY BRIEF
                               A POST COLD WAR NATIONALIST FOREIGN POLICY:                                                         BANDWAGON REGIONAL POWERS; DON'T ENCIRCLE THEM WITH NEIGHBORS
The elitist rebellion against the legitimacy of the Trump presidency has poisoned our ability
 to focus our national attention on America at the brink of war with nations in Asia and the Mideast. If love is blind, hatred is both blind and drunk. President Trump's policy of an emerging nationalism against the atheist globalism of a decaying western elite is very much a work in progress. He needs Democrats and Republicans acting as American statesmen as well as religious men with a sense of world history to help him see anew the post Cold War landscape. There is a lot to sort out and a lot of well entrenched hatreds that must not be allowed to substitute for strategy in foreign policy.
The two nations in the Mideast who most need their borders and governments to be secure from foreign attack are Shiite Iran and Jewish Israel. Unlike the Palestinian fantasy, they are both real nations who won their boundaries the old fashioned way-they fought for them. It was the singular achievement of the Obama-Kerry Diplomacy initiative to pull back from US foreign policy of incoherent support for Saudi Arabia: the spiritual home of  anti Shiite salafists. Their attempt to reintegrate Iran as a sovereign nation in the diplomacy of the region was a realistic necessary move in sorting out the real religious sources of 9/11 and worldwide salafist terrorism. President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry carried out a policy that none of their presidential opponents could have imagined-not Hillary Clinton, not John McCain and not George Bush. Foreign governments came to the halls of Congress to undermine them. None dared whisper collusion. The Democratic leadership is so busy hating Donald Trump that they are not mounting a defense of the singular greatest act of Democratic Party diplomacy since the end of the Cold War. Just when our country needs the eloquent public policy criticism of Minnesota's Eugene McCarthy, we look to that venerable Senate seat and find a coarse pornographic comedian doing his thing.  Articulate non hating anti war Democrats are needed to prevent our country from being drawn into war by a 32 year old Saudi Prince. President Trump has a blind spot toward one of the great nations of history. This is fed by his military advisors and the Prime Minister of Israel. He and his advisors need their fellow countrymen to remind them that a nationalist foreign policy includes respect for the civilizational bulwark that is Persian Iran.
In Asia the antidote to war with North Korea will pass through China and South Korea. We must accept that region is going to dominated by China.  This of course is anathema to "China hawks" one of whom is Steve Bannon. The US cannot expect China to play its stabilizing regional role with North Korea if our overall strategic policy is to organize an alliance of India, Australia, and Japan to contain China. Our foreign policy is still trapped by the three great encirclements of the post Cold War era. We have organized alliances against Russia, against China and against Iran. We actually need all three of those major regional powers to build world peace--one region at a time. But we will have to accept that they too are nations with their own spheres of influence and relations. We must bandwagon with the regional powers not organize the little guys in a balance of power encirclement. This is the difference between a big man  policy made by executives Donald Trump and  Rex Tillerson and a recipe for perpetual war stirred up by the likes of little Marco Rubio and wee Willie Kristol.             

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

POPE SAYS GENDER IDEOLOGY IS IDEOLOGICAL COLONIZATION: Preaching on the Maccabean defense of the sacred against colonizers, Pope Francis treats gender ideology and abortion as a foreign oppression imposed on the traditional communities of the globe. The Jews were mistreated in the same way two centuries before Christ by the desacralizing oppression of the Greeks. This is the brilliant reformulation by which the Pope opposes the sexual revolution. The conservative Catholic press should take his lead and treat the sexual left as white rich kids oppressing the Southern poor. The Maccabeean tale of fathers and sons defending the sacred is a model for our times. This is a very different strategy than building battle ramparts against contraception and abortion. The sexual left in the Catholic universities, chanceries and religious orders will not oppose the Pope's analysis. They will bury his arguments with deliberate neglect. Sooner or later he will say a sentence they can clip out and hoist as a flag to wave for the whole world to see he is "their pope."

BISHOP BARRON - MUST THE NEW EVANGELIZATION BE NEUTER? In a new book interview with Bishop Barron and John Allen, Bishop Barron says the sexual culture war is like the WWI British attack at Gallipoli. It is a battle already lost which has consumed too many resources with no gain.  Thus we should mobilize our troops and attack  on different fronts. From the review:

In a similar way, Barron claims that the Church has been fruitlessly pouring resources into promoting the Church’s teaching on sexuality in the past generation. The campaign, no matter how well-intentioned, has not yielded the hoped-for results and it is time to deploy our resources elsewhere. This diversion of resources does not amount to abandoning the Church’s demanding sexual ethic, he said. Rather, it involves employing a new strategy in evangelization and trying to find more favorable terrain on which to engage in the evangelical enterprise. It is better to divert our resources into more winnable battles. After all, says Barron, who in the world would put down the Gospel of Saint Matthew after having read it and conclude that the first thing that he needs to do is get his sexual life in order?

At AOA we have argued for a deeper engagement with the sexual anarchy of the modern West with the Catholic Symphony of Fatherhood, Brotherhood Marriage and the Virgin Mother. Bishop Barron was formed in one of the most homosexually besot diocese in America--Chicago. In the face of such deep perversion and confusion, many orthodox good-hearted men became neutered proponents of orthodoxy. That really will not do. A culture of life is a culture of protection and the Christian strategy of protection has a;ways ben based on sex roles.  Gallipoli could have been won says Churchill if larger resources would have been applied. The way Churchill describes Gallipoli it was a failure of nerve by his superiors to commit the full resources needed to win on the new front.  The culture war has never seen the full Catholic arsenal of patriarchy(the rule of the Father), the male priesthood as a fraternity of fathers, male-female monogamy as a sign of sacral unity (not modernist equality)  and virginity and motherhood as the highest expressions of feminine maturity. Bishop Barron is a true son of cowardly Chicago clerics. His failure to find a way to capture Gallipoli is like the spies who came back to Moses and said we are grasshoppers and our foes are giants. We cannot take the city. For their lack of trust in God, the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years.

PROVIDENCE AND THANKSGIVING: John Horvat II is a clear thinker and eloquent pen arguing for a return to order needed in this era of chaos. He never omits the author of all order in his reflections and prescriptions.

II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST

FIRST THEY KILLED THE SHIITES, THEN THEY KILL THE SUFIS: THE ONGOING TAKFIR: This is a religious war. The Salafist Sunni jihadists are state-based in the Wahabbi clerics of Saudi Arabia. They have control of Mecca and Medina. When 235 Sufi Muslims were killed in the Sinai, was Iran a suspect? Of course not! The Cromwellian Muslims who wish to return to the ancestors and purify Islam are trying first to eliminate the homegrown apostates (Accusing a fellow Muslim of not really being a Muslim is called takfir). The group to be condemned and slaughtered is first and foremost Shiites, especially Shiites who form states to protect themselves. This is why the new Saudi strategy aimed at Shiites in Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen was willing to make an alliance with Jews (Israel) and Christians (America) to purify the region. We must think clearly. We must think religiously or we will continue to be played by those who swim in deeper waters.

KILLING SHIITES IN YEMEN: It is not enough to call this a humanitarian disaster - though it certainly is. To face what is happening in Yemen, we will have to pull out of the war against Iran. We will have to unhook our arsenal and support from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

DEOBANDIS MEET IN VIRGINIA: The Deobandi of South Asia are a faction in Sunni Islam like the Wahabbis of the Mideast, They are the Salafist brand of Islam in Pakistan as the Wahabbis are in Saudi Arabia. A report on a meeting.

TILLERSON, KUSHNER, AND THE SAUDIS: Interesting speculations.

THE TARGET OF SAUDIS AND ISRAELIS IN LEBANON IS HEZBOLLAH BUT THE VICTIMS WILL BE CHRISTIANS: and the traditional Lebanese solution of a multi confessional state.

III. R&G ROUND UP

JONATHAN HAIDT ON OUTRAGE: Powerline's Scott Johnson recommends a video of Haidt talk.

CHARLES MANSON AND THE CHICAGO LEFTISTS WHO LIONIZED HIM: by Paul Kengor.

CHINA AND RELIGION: Worship God but don't threaten national security. China needs a spiritual core but it can never allow another Taiping Rebellion. Religion in China must present itself in the name of a proper communal duty, not individual autonomy. Getting this right will be measured in thousands of lives - millions of souls.

Literary lions and their cheap-grace "mercy"

In 1962 -- five years after the disappearance of a high-school cheerleader in New Jersey -- William Buckley began corresponding with the inmate who had been convicted of her murder in the first degree. Through the influence of the famous conservative writer, Edgar Smith (who had always insisted on his innocence) was released from prison in late 1971.

Several years later Smith abducted a 33-year-old woman at knife-point; she escaped, and he was captured. He soon admitted that he had, indeed, killed the New Jersey teenager.

William Buckley hosting prison parolee Smith on his "Firing Line" show

Norman Mailer began his own correspondence with a prison inmate in 1977: Jack Henry Abbott. His crimes included forgery, escaping from prison, bank robbery, and killing a fellow inmate. But Mailer pushed and cajoled for Abbott to be paroled early, and he was soon walking the streets of New York as the toast of the literati. (Jack Henry Abbott -- just like Edgar Smith -- had written a book or two).

A couple months later Abbott got in an argument with a 22-year-old waiter/actor, and stabbed him to death.

Norman Mailer making his way to a parole hearing for Mr. Abbott,
accompanied by actors Susan Sarandon and Christopher Walken

One hopes that Messrs Buckley and Mailer were jolted into genuine contrition for the victims; and that each man sat down at his writing desk, and sent off a short note to the families -- along with a large check.

UPDATE: The words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who died before turning forty (he was executed at Flossenburg concentration camp in April 1945):

"Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again... 

"Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'ye were bought at a price,' and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, November 25

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch 

THE WEEKLY BRIEF

"...with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience...we fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and union."  
Abraham Lincoln establishing Thanksgiving as a national day of repentance and prayer.

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

PRIEST, JESUIT, LATIN AMERICAN: Understanding Pope Francis. It helps to read Spanish.

THE PERSON - WHERE THE WORD CAME FROM: Christians recruited the word "person" to describe the interpersonal nature of a Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That made the word much richer describing a much richer reality.  This divine vocabulary now helps us describe the phenomenon of man. Human persons are like the eukaryotic cells that make up multicellular organisms. We are like the three persons in the Trinitarian God. We are meant to live in a deep web of interlocking relations. At the deepest is the Mystical Body of Christ. The Nation and Marriage are two other sacred interpersonal covenants which demonstrate the communal nature of the person.

Roger Scruton is severely limited as a thinker because he cannot humble his mighty intellect to worship and submit to God. But he is intellectually honest enough to always lead his readers very close to the truth. From Roger Scruton's book On Human Nature:

The term persona comes to us from the Roman and Etruscan theater, where it denoted the mask worn by the actor and therefore the character whom the actor portrayed. The term was borrowed by Roman law to describe any entity that has judiciable rights and duties, including corporate entities and other more abstract constructions. It was borrowed again by early Christian theologians in order to explain the doctrine of the Trinity, by distinguishing the three persons of God. Discussions of the Trinity led to the view that personhood belongs to the essence of whatever possesses it, and the sixth-century philosopher Boethius took this as his cue in defining the essential nature of the human being.

CATHOLIC INTELLECTUALS AS NEOCONS: There is a certain kind of Catholic intellectual well tenured at secular universities who portrays himself as the "prophet" but does not really contend with the atheistic anti sexual anti culture of the Academy. A brutal takedown and rigorous analysis by Bruce Frohnen of the intellectual paucity of Princeton's Robert George.

THE REFORMATION 500 YEARS AGO: Luther split apart Christendom. He desacralized the Mass, the Monasteries and Mary.  The sacred liturgy, the priesthood and human nature were all deformed after the rebellion. Five Books reviewed by Frederick Blonigen tell this tale.

ON THE OTHER HAND: The translations of the Bible into German and English were followed centuries later by missionary movements translating the word of God for multiple cultures in their own tongue. How many men were brought closer to Christ because of these encounters with the Word? The great republican nations of the Netherlands and the United States are fruits of the preaching of the Reformation. So was much of the antislavery movement in the 19th century and the interracial Christian civil rights movement of the 20th century. The two great worldwide Christian movements of the 20th century are the very Catholic Second Vatican Council and the very Protestant Pentecostal outpouring. The price of the Reformation was paid most dearly in Germany. May a reformed Catholic Church and a repentant German nation find a way to redeem all the blood spilled in this ongoing conflict.

A SIGN OF THE SACRED: The black cassock of the priest.

LIVING AS A ZOMBIE: Why some men kill.

NOT LIVING AS A ZOMBIE: Fr. James Schall on sad songs.

II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST

YEMEN: The different interests in the war - good background and analysis.

IS THE SUNNI LEBANESE PRIME MINISTER: A hostage of the Saudis?  He is back in Lebanon but what really happened to the Sunni leader who was in a coalition with the Shiites of Hezbollah and the Maronite Christians of Lebanon.

ISRAEL DEFENSE CHIEF INTERVIEWED IN SAUDI PRESS: We will share info in battling Iran.
 The Israelis are trusting a foreign prince and his wealth not the Lord. That has never worked out before.

ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTER: We will not let Syria become a territory of Iran. The Palestinians are yesterday's sideshow. Today's question is: "Will the US join the Saudi war against Shiites and  Israel's war against Iran?

KILLING SUFIS AND SHIITES: MORE VICTIMS OF THE SALAFIST PURIFICATION 
The murder of 250 Sufi Muslims at prayer in the Sinai (Nov 24, 2017) is a bloody reminder of the religious nature of the war in the Mideast. We continue to argue for a major reformulation of our allies and foes against the Salafist Wahhabi movement that treats Shiites and the more mystical Sufi Sunnis as apostates. This branding of fellow Muslims as apostates (and therefore deserving of death) is called takfir.  This purification movement within Islam is advocated by the Wahhabi clergy whose control of Mecca and Medina is protected by the Saudi royal family. There is no-one who knows anything about religion and the Mideast that believed this bombing was orchestrated by the Shiites of Iran. The "greatest worldwide state sponsors of terrorism" are those states that foster the Hanbali legal tradition of the salafists.

III. R&G ROUND UP

A SHORT HISTORY OF UNITARIANS AND: The desacralizing of the American elite. This story is the backdrop of the ideology that fed the American public education system from its East Coast progenitors. Then as now the religious progressivism of Men who were fleeing orthodox Christianity was taught to America's children as the American way.

NO ONE LIKE REGIME CHANGE BUT IF IT MEANS GOODBYE TO GRACE MUGABE - BRING ON THE MILITARY COUP: Mao's actress wife was part of the gang of four which afflicted China with the cultural revolution. Grace Mugabe was plucked from the steno typing pool and made President Mugabe's Royal Queen. She is no Evita. The Clintonian tactic of getting the Presidential office into the hands of the ambitious wife is not going to work in Zimbwabe.  

IS CHINA MEANT TO BE OUR CIVILIZATIONAL ENEMY? Pat Buchanan is not ready to sign on for that long cold war. Steve Bannon doesn't want war with Russia but he sounds like a China hawk.

HOW TO THINK ABOUT PUTIN: By Christopher Caldwell. The best single essay on understanding Putin and the fate of Russia after the Cold War.

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, November 18

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

THE WEEKLY BRIEF
Proportion, Honor, and Outrage
An inversion ritual is a special event or time frame in which people are given license to violate normal customs of social order and propriety. Crowning the fool as king for a day or allowing the libations and license of Mardi Gras the day before the penitential season of Lent are inversion rituals.  The whole point of inversion rituals is that they are allowed and then discontinued as the social group returns to the customs necessary for communal living. From 1966-1976 Mao Tse Tung led the young people of China in an inversion ritual against elders, teachers and  authorities at every level of society.  The disastrous cultural revolution ended with the death of Mao, the jailing and suicide of his actress wife, the execution of the gang of four,  and the eventual "return of the adults." The  miraculous Chinese renewal of the last 40 years was the work of that noble maltreated generation.
  In America, we have not yet produced the religious or civic leaders who can rescind our own disastrous misadventure called the Sexual Revolution. An extended inversion ritual never gradually slides back into place. There are too many fools who have come to think they are kings. There must be a backflip-a complete reversal-a metanoia.  Those who held sway must be seen to quake. At first the words of restoration will sound jarring but the distortion of nature that took 50 years to disorient a people can be righted in five years as the forces of order assert their natural momentum.
God will not be mocked. The spiritual ecstasy and haze of drug taking cannot replace the shared attentive focus of people at prayer. Blowing one's  mind and taking a trip are disintegrating experiences. The integrating consciousness of honoring God's holy Name and submitting to the rule of His Fatherhood forms a spiritual foundation for community. Giving thanks to God for the sacred gift of life, men love one another by forming national bonds of protective brotherhood to guard the women and children within our territorial boundaries. Christian love among men forms a large disciplined body of brothers under the Father. This is how we overcome racism and social class by sharing a common identity as citizens-men who share a common duty toward a defined territory. Championing the public brotherhood of the nation is NOT racism. That is fake news. Disrespecting the nation and our flag is a residue of the inversion ritual. We honor our flag to declare our interracial covenant within well defined protected borders and we respect the flags and borders of others.  Public brotherhoods of men are always aided by women in special roles but all of our protective agencies have been  deeply disfigured by inserting women within the male ranks. Masculine love forms ordered public groups of shared duty. Male female love forms couples in the marriage covenant. To confuse the fundamental pattern of these relations is to undermine ordered love as the glue of social capital. The police and the military in a Christian republic have a fraternal relationship with the male citizens as fellow protectors. They are the officer corps of the male body politic of citizens. Young males recognize this clear masculine agreement as the group they must enter to become men. Male maturation is group socialization. Males are domesticated by marriage but that is not what perfects their masculine identity as a man among men. This socializing bond so necessary for our imprisoned, drug besot, unemployed and confused young males has been sacrificed to the sexual inversion ritual.
Motherhood is the protective duty of women. Just as baby boomer males like Bill Clinton said, "I won't be a soldier" so feminists like Hillary Clinton argued that women could treat a pregnancy as a career choice not a sacred gift and duty. That rejection of protective sex roles as the maturation of sexual identity was as much a part of the sexual revolution as divorcing sexual intercourse from the marriage act. In many ways the rejection of the link between protective duty and gender identity caused a more catastrophic sundering of social bonds than the sexual rutting.
What kind of culture has the 50 year inversion ritual left us? Taking God's name in vain is more common than public prayer. The created ecological order of masculine and feminine duties has been rejected. The domestic violence of mothers sacrificing their children is sanctioned by doctors and subsidized by government. The witchcraft of feminism still holds a spell over a whole people who have normalized what witches had always been burned for-the killing of children. Natural protective authorities in cities and states were emasculated in the name of civil rights. Elected State governments were prevented from penalizing sodomy as a crime against human nature. Soon they were mandated to recognize the abomination against brotherhood  as marriage. Tyranny never settles for tolerance. Nero made his horse a senator. The inversion ritual makes what is holy into the profane and what is an abomination into a requirement. If the outrage of the media and the mob toward past acts of heterosexual transgression or racial injustice seems excessive, it is a misdirected scream against far greater sins that have become commonplace. Burning the flag, paying women to strip in public, and desecrating God' name are all protected as acts of free speech from local and state communities who once used their legislative authority to outlaw such acts.  The emotional outrage of college age females and the attentive deficits of young males are fruits of living in a sustained inversion ritual. They have never known the calm that comes from complying with the sacred order and coming in contact with multiple interlocking institutions run by  beneficent authoritative adults.  Our public life is becoming emotionally unhinged because we have no hierarchy of goods. We have no tribal brotherhood of fathers to enforce the code that defines those goods.  We flattened the earth by evacuating the sacred. And now with no magnetic pole, the compass spins. We are outraged by sins of the past because we cannot articulate the present horror.          
We are so unhinged as a nation that while federal prosecutors are obsessing about "collusion with Russia"  the public and corporate officials who have colluded for decades with our true enemies in  Saudi Arabia are preparing to draw us into a war against Iran- the country that helped us defeat ISIS in Syria and helped protect the government we bled for in Iraq from its salafist enemies. A 32 year old Saudi prince is making his bid for power against his older more competent relatives by making war against Shiites throughout the Mideast (from Yemen to Bahrain to Lebanon to Iran) to win the favor of the Wahabbi clerics of his Kingdom. Killing Shiites is an acceptable form of religious genocide if you preface your victims' name with "Iranian backed." Even most Sunni governments  do not favor the brash course of Muhammed bin Salman. His goals do however coincide with Prime Minister Netanyahu's enmity against Iran and the resentment of US marines against Iran and Hezbollah for the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut 35 years ago.
We have to think clearly about religion and nations. The Saudis are the center of the worldwide Salafist terrorist movement, not Iran. The Bushes, Clintons and McCains for their separate reasons have always done the bidding of "our Saudi allies" even after 911.  We need true elder statesmen in the Senate to reevaluate our national interests as countrymen not party loyalists. Clarity in defining enemies in a religious war is very difficult. It is even harder in the midst of a domestic inversion ritual aimed at undermining the sexual protective roles of Christian culture.        

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

AMERICAN BISHOPS: The election by American bishops to decide who will lead their prolife committee was between Cardinal Cupich and Archbishop Naumann. The stakes were outlined in multiple pre election articles. It conjured the ghost of Joseph Bernadine. The victory of Archbishop Naumann should only remind us of the inadequacy of the "orthodox approach" vs the "seamless garment" approach. We must swim in deeper waters and speak much more fundamental truths.  A culture of life must be a culture of protection. Who will say we need to reassert our corporate Catholic identity by fostering the protective sex roles of civic military brotherhoods and baby protecting mothers. Who will say the brotherhood of fathers that is supposed to be the priesthood is deeply compromised by a blatantly homosexual subculture in alliance with the sexual revolutionaries of the urban Democratic Party. Both the Church and the party of the Catholic working man were betrayed by the careerist feminists, homosexuals and education/media lobby that became the new elite. A cultural renewal of mature Catholic character(masculine and feminine) is the necessary response to the confused personalities spawned by the sexual revolution. Properly ordered liturgy led by manly priests renewing their own sacred brotherhood of fathers to battle Satan will draw us into the bonds of love and communion. Before the Bishops can organize the laity into a true culture of life, they have to re-sacralize their own brotherhood. That would involve facing the horrific homosexual legacy of the Bernadine agenda. The Naumann-Cupich debate has not discussed that.

NAUMANN WINS: The split in the US Catholic Church is not between "Francis bishops" and old line culture warriors.

LITURGY AND PERSONALITY: A review of Hildebrand's masterpiece by Anthony Esolen.

CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES - LOSING THEIR MISSION: Anne Hendershott is one of Catholic America's best historical sociologists. Her article at City Journal.

II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST

THE NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES IN SAUDI ARABIA: The factions at war. A good summary. Another good review of what happened Nov 4, 2017, in Saudi Arabia. Video analysis from the Caspian Report. Here is another video from the Caspian Report from two years ago on the change in royal succession - the event that would lead to November's purge.

Muhammed bin Salman has played to hardline clerics in his willingness to declare war against the Shiites in Yemen, the state of Iran and local Shiites as epitomized by the decapitation of Shi’ite leader Sheikh Al-Nimr. His isolation of Qatar is because Qatar will not join in his war against Iran. His arrest of clerics is because of their opposition to his Qatar policy. He is now adding Hezbollah-the Shiites of Lebanon to his enemy list.

When King Salman came to power: “Power was shared between three main clans: King Salman (and his beloved son Prince Mohammed); the son of Prince Nayef (the other Prince Mohammed), and finally the son of the dead king (Prince Miteb, commander of the National Guard).

Former Crown Prince Nayef was extremely popular in DC due to his counter-terrorism activities. His arrest earlier this year angered the CIA and factions of the House of Saud. Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, born in 1953, headed the Saudi Arabian National Guard, an elite internal security force originally based on traditional tribal units that was run by his father for five decades. As the Sandhurst-trained preferred son of the late King Abdullah, he was once thought to be a leading contender for the throne.His arrest is considered the most consequential of the latest purge because it removed a military source of opposition.

Prominent clerics have been arrested as well. Most of these disagreed with the war against fellow Salafists in Qatar which has stood against the Saudi/Israeli/American coalition targeting the Shiite State of Iran.

CLEARING THE DECKS IN LEBANON - THE STRANGE RESIGNATION OF THE SUNNI PRIME MINISTER OF LEBANON: Probably not a coincidence he did it in Riyadh the night of many arrests and consolidation of power by bin Salman. An ethnic warning to Shiite Persian Iran - stop interfering in Arab affairs.

DON'T ATTACK IRAN UNLESS YOU ARE READY TO ATTACK HEZBOLLAH OF LEBANON (AND THEIR CHRISTIAN ALLIES, BUT THAT WILL NOT BE MENTIONED): The war drums begin against Lebanon. Will the next target of Saudi's bin Salman be in Lebanon? Maronite Patriarch's first visit to Saudi Arabia. Lebanese ask Saudis to give back their Prime Minister. Kushner, bin Salman, and Netanyahu - an anti-Iranian axis. Don't let a rogue prince lead our nation to war.

AFGHANISTAN - OPIUM PAYS FOR YOUNG MALE SOLDIERS AND THE AFGHAN-PAKISTAN PUSHTIN TRIBES REMAIN: The center of world opium trade funds the longest war in American history.

RAQQA: Letting some flee to end the battle.

TURKEY AND THE BREAK UP OF NATO: Some well told recent history by Stephen Kinzer about a military alliance that has lost its mission.

III. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

DOES IT MATTER THAT THESE SHOOTERS ARE ALL ATHEISTS? Does it matter? Devin Kelley was raised Christian but become rabidly anti Christian in the last year. His mother in law wasn't in the church but he hadn't exactly come with a single bullet for her. A local official said, "he came with a mission." A man who played dead and survived said Kelley's only words during the shooting were "Everybody die, motherf..er". The Columbine killer, Eric Harris, wore a natural selection t shirt to the school massacre after writing in journals that he would like to create a game in which the strong live and the weak die. Another entry observed humans are nothing but atoms. Atheism can be tied to a movement and ideology like Darwinism or Marxism. Other times it expresses itself as Sartre said, "Hell is other people." Atheism was once lionized as a way of life for honest intellectuals. It was the official ideology of the Communist states of the twentieth century. The best article on the shooting WAS WRITTEN  by Regis Nichol. The killer was a zombie.

LEE HARVEY OSWALD WAS A MILITANT ATHEIST AS WELL: The "lone gunman" was judged by liberal experts as an example of "violence in America"(especially in the South)" . Countless editorials about why "we" are so violent missed the point that a Catholic warrior president was shot by an atheist Marxist in the midst of the great spiritual battle of that age. Maybe all that conspiracy ink has been shed because we never really did properly explain which world movements collided that day in Dallas.

DOES IT MATTER THAT COMMUNISM IS AN ATHEIST MOVEMENT DRENCHED IN BLOOD WINKED AT BY MEDIA EXCUSED BY THE ACADEMY AND ENDORSED BY UNCLE BERNIE? "25% of Americans think more people died under George Bush than Joseph Stalin." The Crimes of Communism by Paul Kengor.

A MAN WITH A RIFLE AND A MAN WITH A PICKUP: The heroes in Texas.

HATING WOMEN - IT'S IN THE LEFTIST DNA: Elise Erhard explains at Crisis magazine. Reckoning with Bill Clinton - a feminist recants.

BABY BOOMERS AND HUBRIS: Victor Davis Hanson.

IV. R&G ROUND UP

A WOMAN WITH A SONG - HOW KATE SMITH INTRODUCED: Irving Berlin's God Bless America.

ARGENTINA: Mission - feed the world.

ROD DREHER AT AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE ON WHY LIBERALISM FAILED - BY PATRICK DEENAN OF NOTRE DAME: The heart of Deneen’s book is a chapter discussing liberalism as “anticulture.” Drawing a contrast between the political theory that emerged in classical culture, and that prevailed in some form in the West until the Renaissance ushered in the modern era, Deneen shows that liberalism depends on a fundamentally different anthropology. To put it crudely, premodern political thought was based on the belief that man could only be fully human if he learned how to restrain his base passions so that he could grow in virtue. Modern man — “modern” meaning from Machiavelli to the present day — believed, and believes, that man is fully human when he is free to make his own destiny, unencumbered by any unchosen obligations.

Deneen says that liberalism is a “comprehensive effort to displace cultural forms as the ground condition of liberal liberty.” He talks about how Tocqueville worried that people within liberal democracies would eventually be overcome by their individuality that they would forget that they had any obligations to the past or to the future. In time, liberalism might cause people to lose the capacity for self-governance, because they will have become cut off from a sense of being embedded within a culture, a tradition, a past, a future, or anything beyond themselves. In fact, they have to be, if they’re going to become a fully self-determined individual. This is why Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is the natural religion for an advanced liberal society. If you’re going to have a religion, it needs to be one that affirms the path one has chosen for oneself, and that buffers the anxieties of living without ultimate meaning and direction.