WEEKLY BRIEF
TRUMP AND PUTIN IN HELSINKI: TWO NATIONALISTS BEGIN A NEW ERA
They had a long talk with only an interpreter. President Trump has now met a nationalist who has a deeper sense of history and a more profound understanding of the geopolitical map than any member of his cabinet or the US Congress. President Trump is a good judge of men and a willing student to those who know more about a subject than he does. Vladimir Putin is a man Trump can learn from. (That is how President Trump saw eventual Secretary of State and worldly wise Exon oil executive Rex Tillerson when they first met.) President Trump believes America as a nation will do better in negotiating nation to nation relations rather than multilateral defensive coalitions. He believes with George Washington that those entangling alliances can allow a pretext for small countries to engage us in war with their larger traditional enemies. He is more in the "bandwagon" tradition than the "balancers" in facing large competitive regional powers. President Trump prefers dealing with the large adversary face to face rather than organizing alliances of smaller foes.
Trump faces an hysterical media, an obstructionist Democratic Party and Republican allies who do not understand his nationalist vision. In fact what makes his work most difficult is that his conservative and Christian supporters do not have a nationalist and Christian worldview of relations among the nations. The alliance at the heart of the modern Republican Party left "social issues" to the Christians and foreign policy to the atheist globalists. Many of Trump's most faithful Republican allies are globalist interventionists who were raised to hate "Putin as the KGB thug". Listen to any unscripted remarks by Mike Pence, Nicki Haley or John Bolton from the last decade.
To really support the President's new strategic vision, Republican hardliners and Christians especially have to rethink their whole perspective on the relations of nations. Their metanoia (conversion-a turning of the heart) must be as radical as Pat Buchanan's rethinking free trade or Tucker Carlson's reevaluation of neoconservative foreign policy.
President Trump's new strategy has a paradoxical affinity with leftist non interventionists like Barack Obama. But Democrats in Congress who should be embracing his radical peace initiative are chanting "USA! USA!" while trying to demonize the elected Presidents of the two greatest nuclear powers in Christendom.
President Trump has very little in common with the ex-student council presidents who want to run for President by showing they are war leaders... like Marco Rubio. Mr. Rubio is similar to most female candidates for president. They have to show how tough they are by railing against some foreign country to show themselves as potential war leaders. Mr Trump needs no such constructed enemy to show he is a leader of men. The baby boomer Presidents from Clinton to Bush to Obama did not know what to do with the post Cold War world given them by their elders. They had little sense of world history or geography. They knew precinct counting, fundraising and the inevitability of feminism. Protestant New Yorker President Trump is the first nationalist leader to reach out to Russia as a nation necessary for peacemaking. The last president who thought that way was Ronald Reagan. He called the Soviets an evil empire but he called the Russians a Christian people. Is it possible the unsustainable and bankrupt US empire of the three encirclements (of Russia, of China and of Iran) is about to give way to a new American nationalist foreign policy of peace among the great powers? Is it possible this new era will be initiated by the last and most unlikely of the baby boomer presidents? Let that be our prayer.
(See section below for articles on Russia, the US and a new strategy in American foreign policy.)
1. Pope Francis and The Catholic Church
2001 DISPROPORTIONATE PRIEST DEATHS FROM AIDS
The bishops were quiet; the friends of the priests dying from AIDS saw them as modern martyrs
NYTIMES EXCELLENT REPORT ON McCARRICK--CARDINAL OMALLEY AMONG OTHERS SHOULD RESIGN
The cardinal groomed young seminarians and rose to the top of the American hierarchy: a well known predator but no specific canon law was broken
GET RELIGION ANALYSIS
of NYTimes piece---why did the media wait so long to tell a story so many have known for so long/
THE MOST ELOQUENT ARTICLES ABOUT THE NARCISSISM OF HOMOSEXUALITY AND THEIR UNFITNESS FOR THE PRIESTHOOD CAME FROM FRENCH MSGR TONY ANATRELLA
Now we see why he understood "them" so well.
A GREAT DEFICIT IN CANON LAW AND SACRAMENTAL UNDERSTANDING
After his "gay marriage" the Italian headline proclaims he is still a priest.
MORE ON CARDINAL TED MCCARRICK
from Rod Dreyer-July 18
SEMINARIAN ON MCCARRICK
We all knew
THE MONSTER SMILED
A short horrific new tale of America's powerful Cardinal McCormick
ANTHONY ESOLEN-THE RARE CATHOLIC WRITER WHO UNDERSTANDS SODOMY IS NOT A SIN AGAINST MARRIAGE BUT AGAINST FATHERHOOD, FILIATION AND FRATERNITY--THE NORMAL FORMS OF MASCULINE LOVE
Esolen on McCarrick and what he was perverting.
2. US and Russia
IN RUSSIA, 75,000 RUSSIANS COMMEMORATE THE 100th ANNIVERSARY OF THE MURDER OF THE ROMANOV FAMILY. FROM ROBERT MOYNIHAN
The "Church on the Blood" is so-called because it is built on the site of the house where the Romanovs were held as prisoners during the last weeks of their lives, and it includes the area of the very basement room where they were executed at about 2 a.m. on July 17, 1918, hence "on the blood."
PRESIDENT TRUMP AND PRESIDENT PUTIN MET JULY 16, 2018. IT WAS 100 YEARS AFTER THE LAST DAY OF THE ROMANOVS
The hysteria of the godless in considering that Protestant America and Orthodox Russia may become allies again is understandable. Remembering the death of the Romanovs. (A 1928 article by Edmund Walsh in the Atlantic.)
CAN RUSSIA REMEMBER THE ROMANOVS?
Still unclear (from the Moscow Times)
TRUMP IS RIGHT ABOUT US RUSSIAN RELATIONS
David Goldman(Spengler) is no fan of Orthodox Russia but he is a student of history
PRESIDENT TRUMP IS CALLING OFF THE COLD WAR
Pat Buchanan explains why that is a very good idea
Trump stands his ground-Buchanan
RUSSIA IS NOT THE WEST: SHE IS A CHRISTIAN NATION UNIFYING EUROPE AND ASIA
From Yaroslav Trofimov WSJ article. He is critical but he is accurate about Russian identity under Vladimir Putin:
"Now Russia is increasingly looking East, toward an uneasy alliance with an illiberal and much more powerful China, and—in recognition of the country’s increasingly Muslim makeup—with nations such as Turkey and Iran. But even more pronounced is a sentiment that Russia, so unique in its vastness, must remain a world unto itself, a country that should expect kinship from no one—and that, in a motto coined by Czar Alexander III more than a century ago, can count on only two reliable allies: the Army and the Navy…
"Some Russian nationalists now herald this Mongol-Turkic state, governed by descendants of Genghis Khan’s oldest son, as the foundation of Russia’s own eternal empire. Long expunged from memory, the Horde is trending in Russia again, the subject of movies and a popular TV series. There is even a theme park at the site of the Horde’s razed 15th-century capital Sarai Batu—a former film set of faux palaces and mosques where visitors ride camels, practice archery skills and take photos in Mongol dress.
"Russia’s official historians and the Orthodox church long viewed the Horde’s rule over Moscow as a barbarian ‘yoke,’ responsible for Russia’s underdevelopment compared with the West; studying its history was banned by the Kremlin in 1944. But modern revisionists, inspired by the ‘Eurasianist’ ideology that sets Russia apart from the West, see the Russian state as the heir and beneficiary of that Mongol empire. They admire its ruthless centralism, its desire for conquest, its ability to maintain law and order—and its religious tolerance, which allowed Christianity and Islam to coexist.”
AOA ON EURASIAN RUSSIA--THEIR TRUE AND NECESSARY IDENTITY
Lev Gumilev and the Russian Soul
From three part series on Russia from AOA Map on Monday--this is on Communal loyalties and Russia
AOA ASKS WHO ARE WE: THE GODLESS GLOBALIST WEST OR CHRISTIANITY AND THE NATIONS
The strategic dilemma that President Trump is solving
RUSSIA ISRAEL AND THE US
Helsinki was good for Israel as a Syria-Iran-Israel compromise emerges.
NATO, RUSSIA AND AMERICA
Tucker Carlson asks if US sons should die for Montenegro--NATO's newest member.
WHO IS BILL BROWDER
Bill Browder puts himself forward as a defender of liberty against Vladimir Putin. He presents himself as willing to risk his life to speak truth to power. Besides being the grandson of USA Communist Party Chief, Earl Browder, the younger Browder (b1964) renounced US citizenship in 1988 as a tax dodge. He is now a British citizen. He is Jewish, white, and speaks English.
The multimillionaire has affected US policy toward Russia especially in his lobbying for the Mignitsky Act. Sergei Magnitsky was Browder's lawyer and died in a Russian prison. Both Magnitsky and Browder were convicted in Russian courts of massive tax fraud. (Be very open- minded that they were part of the great national robbery in the name of free markets that befell Russia as the Soviet Union collapsed and Boris Yeltsin "safe guarded" the national economy.)
Mr Browder, this freedom fighter for globalism, is a staunch foe of nationalism and the heads of state who enforce such oppressive measures as tax laws. There is a movie about him directed by an anti-Putin anti-Browder journalist. If Browder had not been so successful in suppressing the film, the reasons the Russian government wanted to bring this man and his lawyer to justice might be better understood. A few reports on "the rest of the story." Here and here.
AMERICAN NATIONALISTS BEWARE--JUST BECAUSE A MAN IS WHITE AND SPEAKS ENGLISH DOESN"T MEAN HE IS ON OUR SIDE.
The interests of the American nation and the "English speaking peoples" are not always the same. The English speaking peoples of the "white dominions" of the British Empire are not the same as the multi racial brotherhood that constitutes the American nation. The deep seated animosity of the British toward the Russians is part of their 500 year tradition of making war with Europe's dominant land power (France, Germany and now Russia). Conservative news media and those intellectuals who think America is "an idea not a place" are especially prone to mistake a white man in a suit with a British accent as an ally and an expert. The special irony that the "Russian dossier " to take down American nationalist Donald Trump was prepared by a foreign agent (a white English speaking Brit) has somehow escaped the journalists covering this story of foreign collusion. Beware of white men with British accents! They may not have the interests of us American country folk as their first priority.
3. A Culture of Protection is a Culture of Life
CULTURE WAR AS CLASS WAR
by Darel Paul from Willliams College
BALTIMORE CRIME SHOOTS UP AFTER POLICE ATTACKED BY PROSECUTERS
A spike in violence--police slowdown.
THE JEWISH NATIONALIST YORAM HAZONY ON JORDAN PETERSON AND THE DEFENSE OF ORDER
"Before Mr. Peterson, there was no solid evidence that a broad public would ever again be interested in an argument for political order. For more than a generation, Western political discourse has been roughly divided into two camps. Marxists are sharply aware of the status hierarchies that make up society, but they are ideologically committed to overthrowing them. Liberals (both the progressive and classical varieties) tend to be altogether oblivious to the hierarchical and tribal character of political life. They know they’re supposed to praise “civil society,” but the Enlightenment concepts they use to think about the individual and the state prevent them from recognizing the basic structures of the political order, what purposes they serve, and how they must be maintained.
In short, modern political discourse is noteworthy for the gaping hollow where there ought to be conservatives—institutions and public figures with something important to teach about political order and how to build it up for everyone’s benefit. Into this opening Mr. Peterson has ventured.
Perhaps without fully intending to do so, he has given the dynamic duo of Marxism and liberalism a hard shove, while shining a light on the devastation these utopian theories are wreaking in Western countries. He has demarcated a large area in which only conservative political and social thought can help. His efforts have provided reason to believe that a significant demand for conservative ideas still lives under the frozen wastes of our intellectual landscape.
If so, then Mr. Peterson’s appearance may be the harbinger of a broader rebirth. His book is a natural complement to important recent works such as Ryszard Legutko’s The Demon in Democracy, Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed and Amy Chua’s Political Tribes. Representing divergent political perspectives, these works nevertheless share Mr. Peterson’s project of getting past the Marxist and liberal frameworks and confronting our trained incapacity to see human beings and human societies for what they really are. As the long-awaited revival of conservative political thought finally gets under way, there may be much more of this to come."
4. Islam, Israel and the Mideast
ON ISLAM BY FR SCHALL
A philosophical declaration of war by Fr Schall reviews by William Kilpatrick who agrees with the author's broadside. We find this approach an intellectual's exercise in destructive polemic... here is the review. Fr Schall has always been a favorite among Catholic intellectuals. He is quite the "warrior" against Islam. He never played that role at Georgetown as secularists stripped the classrooms of crosses. Nor has he ever looked straight or written clearly at the moral corruption which has deformed his religious order. Like Calvinism, Islam is an easy target for intellectuals. But like Calvinists, Muslims are much more complicated as men and often much more righteous, more pious and more courageous than their theology. Piety and courage seem a mixture of character traits for which university intellectuals harbor a peculiar blindspot.
SYRIA: WHERE ISRAEL WANTS TO CONTROL WHICH FORCES ARE AT THE GOLAN BORDER
The tie between Assad of Syria and Iran is long and deep. The notion that a neighboring state(Israel) can tell its neighbor(Syria) to disavow an ally(Iran) that protected it in times of danger and war is (as Russia said) totally unrealistic.
ISRAEL'S GIFT OF WATER
Let There Be Water by Seth Siegel-an interview
MAKING DISTINCTIONS TO FIGHT THE REAL SOURCE OF ISLAMIC JIHAD
The necessity of a US realignment in the Mideast defining our friends and foes.
