Saturday, November 18, 2017

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 BISHOPSThe 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 WINSThe 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 ARABIAThe factions at warA good summaryAnother 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 LEBANONProbably 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.

RAQQALetting 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 HUBRISVictor 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.

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