David Solway at PJ Media has a piece today that is not the sunniest of reading, but is nonetheless important for us to digest. It's a big-picture take on the flatlining of Western civilization - an overarching theme here at LITD - in which he examines five fronts on which that process is most readily apparent: language, the media, the arts, education and gender.
A taste from the section on education:
The curriculum in place is one that validates programmatic stupefaction: the serial failures of socialism are glossed over, capitalism is denounced as an unmitigated scourge, America is castigated as “uniquely evil,” Islam is uniformly extolled and terrorists are excused as merely misguided. In addition, standards have been debased all across the board in admission, hiring and graduation policies. Intellectual debate has been shut down as conservative speakers are routinely ostracized or disinvited. Students are coddled in “safe spaces” where they are spared unfamiliar or disturbing ideas. When the object of the educational institution is to dumb down and indoctrinate, then it has nothing in common what we once understood as education: the acquisition of knowledge and fostering the ability to think.From the section on the arts:
Art in the widest sense of the term—painting, sculpture, drama, poetry, fiction—has betrayed its fundamental mandate of producing meaning and beauty. It has become increasingly ugly, trivial, self-referential and devoid of both aesthetic value and authentic content, a vacuous parody of its ancestral vitality.A lot of good commentary out there on Trump's major gaffe at the Navajo Code Talkers ceremony yesterday. As with so many of his cringe-inducing blurtings, there is layer upon layer of consideration at play here. Warren did indeed make possible this train wreck by lying about being Cherokee in order to qualify for an affirmative-action spot when Harvard was hiring folks for a position teaching her specialty. The proper way to mock her for this would be to call her "Fauxcahontas," as has been done numerous times. By using "Pocahontas," the real name of a venerated historical figure, Trump gave the identity-politics hornet's next a sound thwacking and even brought out the race-card brigade. But all this is beside the main point, which Jim Jamitis at Red State describes quite tidily:
Trump is still out of line. It’s not because of racial insensitivity or slurs, but because he took an event that was intended to honor American veterans and heroes and used it as a platform for his poo-flinging monkey routine. He dishonored men who made a critical and unique contribution to the defeat of the Axis Powers during World War Two. These men fought for a country that historically didn’t treat them very well and they deserve recognition. They didn’t deserve to have their moment crapped upon by our classless lout of a president.Erdogan is said to be pleased with how last weekend's phone call with Trump went, and Jazz Shaw at Hot Air says that that should be cause for concern:
Project Veritas, which did such stellar work exposing ACORN and Planned Parenthood as agents of civilizational rot, has without question jumped the shark with the attempt to fool the Washington Post into thinking it had someone making false allegations against Roy Moore on its hands. The double agent who approached the paper was exposed as lying about lying and she and O'Keefe now have egg on their faces that probably can't be wiped off.Keep in mind that Erdogan is keeping a large number of balls in the air right now. He’s still in the midst of a spat with Germany that’s threatened to break out into a full-blown diplomatic crisis. While Turkey dances around the idea of EU membership and their position in NATO, Erdogan is forging stronger alliances with Russia, Iran and Venezuela.Erdogan is still holding Americans hostage, including Pastor Andrew Brunson (who has been held for more than a year now), and is crushing opposition to his regime brutally inside his country. If our own president is going to be “on the same wavelength” with him, we really should be getting something out of this deal. To date, there’s no sign of that.
Re: Solway. A Zionist English prof from an exclusive private college in Montreal shall lead us, huh?
ReplyDeleteI am reading and reflecting on Solway's theses however. Lots of big words, none of which have sent me to the dictionary yet. Do you know if he was a popular prof?
ReplyDeleteThat's encouraging.
ReplyDeleteI have always dug his stuff. He understands that it is very late in the day.
Solway is an elitist for sure, nothing wrong with that, but that is what rubs me raw about most Jews I have come across, but one of my best buds is one, and he says he doesn't even like em.
ReplyDeleteI don't get your application of the "elitist" label. I think "having high standards" is more accurate.
ReplyDeleteNo, it's more like an attitude, something akin to holier than thou. What is a Zionist, but a chosen Jew who lays claim to God's special favor. That attitude trickles down to the mostly now secular. Anyhow, the college he taught out is essentially a junior college. Wonder why he left? They call him a notable though on their website. I read some of his poetry and lyrics and would not call them spellbinding art by any means. Zionists worry me.
ReplyDeleteI know they do, but I've honestly never figured out why.
ReplyDeleteBecause Zionism has caused our current dire condition of terrorism and there will be no peace and they don't believe the Prince of Peace has risen.
ReplyDeleteAs of 2010, there were nearly 14 million Jews around the world. In 2050, the Jewish population is expected to number about 16 million. The share of the world’s population that is Jewish – 0.2% – is expected to remain about the same in 2050 as it was in 2010.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/jews/
And I've run this argument many times--that to have the US drawn into a war for Zionism is a recipe for world wide conflagration and I just can't brook a Yahweh that would sanction that for any peoples on the planet. You don't respect my views anyhow and of course I know it. I can't even hate Trump for the right reasons.
ReplyDeleteAnd as I’ve explained many times, Israel is the only Western nation in the Middle East. It has an explicitly Jewish identity but Arabs can and do serve in the Knesset. It has a thriving economy and is a world leader in technology. But it is a tiny sliver of land surrounded by much larger nations that regard it with wariness at best but mostly hostility. On the day of the birth of its modern iteration it had to fight a war against all of its neighbors. The “Palestinians” are quite upfront about wanting to drive the Jews into the sea, and have led several intifadas as well as rocket attacks.
ReplyDeleteBut most importantly, Judaism has the second-most accurate understanding of God’s nature of any religion. Jesus often referred to Old Testament scripture and in fact was visited by venerable Hebrew prophets at the Transfiguration.
How one regards Western civilization generally can be inferred from one’s view of Israel an Judaism.
Even some, if not all of the President's men, including his generals, believe Israeli apartheid is unsustainable. You will blow the world over all our dead bodies.
ReplyDeleteWe know where Zionism has taken Israel. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 led the way. In that imperial and colonial document, the British promised the World Zionist Organization a “Jewish National Home” in Palestine. They did so, as Edward Said put it, in “flat disregard of both the presence and wishes of the native majority residents in that territory.”
ReplyDeletehttps://www.counterpunch.org/2017/11/28/the-inevitable-apartheid-nation-where-is-zionism-taking-us/
You cannot introduce one people, in this case a large number of Europeans who happen to be Jewish, into a territory populated by hundreds of thousands of non-Europeans, without negative consequences. And, if the incoming Europeans have the goal of creating a state exclusively for their group alone, those consequences are going to be dire indeed. Surrounded by “the other,” the only way you can achieve your exclusive state is through discriminatory practices and laws ultimately producing an apartheid nation. And that is what happened.
ReplyDeleteWhile this has meant, and continues to mean, segregation, ethnic cleansing and Bantustans for the Palestinians, for the Jews it means that their religion is tied to a racist political ideology. There is no instance of Israeli prejudice exercised against the Palestinians, no act of violence committed against them, that does not simultaneously dishonor and debase the Jewish religion and people.
Ibid
Zionism can be seen as a strange twist on the Spanish philosopher George Santayana’s warning that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The Zionists certainly remember the persecutions suffered by European Jews. But they forget that this mistreatment was most often organized by racist states that sought to ethnically cleanse the Jews. Having forgotten about this state-based aspect of their own past, the Zionist state now commits this same offense against the Palestinians. It also needs the rest of us to forget the sins of past racism if it is to carry on its effort to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians. Our response should be to embrace the motto, “Never Again!” It is time to direct this demand to the shameful behavior of Israel and the Zionists.
ReplyDeleteIbid (author Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University in West Chester, PA.)
I was about halfway through a detailed takedown of each of the points you present in the above quotes, when I realized it is all based on the worldview of the vile Edward Said, whose 1978 book Orientalism disparages Western civilization as a concept cooked up by hegemonists to justify looking at "the other" as inferior. His basic premise is that the Western outlook is predicated on domination and control of the non-West.
ReplyDeleteAnybody who is not being willfully ignorant can see at a glance what a unique blessing Western civilization is to humankind. All notions of representative democracy, all philosophical arguments against slavery, all the development of the free market, all the greatest literature and art and scientific achievement have happened in the West. But most importantly, as I say above, the West gave the world Judeo-Christian morality and the revelation that it is authored by the one true living God.
But just a word about this "apartheid" business: As I say above, Arabs - Muslims - participate fully in Israeli society: politics, business, and even defense. That is not reciprocated in the West Bank, Gaza, or any Arab nation-state.
And particularly vomit-worthy is the use of the term "ethnic cleansing." Tell that to the residents of any community in southern Israel that has been subjected to steady rocket barrages from Gaza over the past several years. tell it to the survivors of the pizza-parlor and bus-stop bombings during the intifada.
This is scary stuff, John. You have really signed on to something dark and toxic here.
I'll be praying for you.
Not sure my views are inconsistent with those of my denomination, but thanks, I'll take all the prayers for the wisdom and understanding of God's will in my life and His plan for ultimate Peace that his Son is said to be the Prince of.
ReplyDeleteThat's good, because you're dabbling in real sewer-level stuff here.
ReplyDeleteI simply googled an article written by a history professor. There is and will be lively debate about whether there should be a 2 state solution. Many Christians reject the idea that there has been any chosen race since Christ rose again. What is sewer level about that? We do not want Israel annihilated. We do not want to see the world annihilated to protect 6 million Jews in Israel, and the other 8 million, half of whom are in New York, 3/4s of whom are reported to be essentially agnostic, if not atheist. A race of materialists, for sure.
ReplyDeleteI guess you don't really get the thrill of battle unless you're there, but war has been reported to be better than any super drug. Does that drug come from the Prince of Peace or the destroyer? Ask Philip Caputo who had to come to terms with the attraction of mayhem when he wrote A Rumor of War about Nam, which, terrible as it can seem 2nd hand in writing or on video, still got him high. Very high. If that's the case, well, it ought to be illegal. Can't have too much fun on this planet. Goddie don't like dat. Or does He?
ReplyDeleteThe military occupation of Palestine undermines the residents’ daily lives, through settlement, road-building, Israeli construction on Palestinians’ private land, but also military incursion, assassination, arbitrary arrest, collective punishment, confiscation of land, and destruction of houses. Checkpoints limit their freedom of movement, which hinders economic development and family reunification.
ReplyDelete“In both societies, Israeli and Palestinian, the life of the Palestinians is far from normal and acting as if things were normal ignores the violation of fundamental human rights.” Palestinian citizens need Israeli permits and approval for many parts of life, such as visiting holy sites and Palestinian parishes, schools and hospitals in Israeli-occupied Jerusalem. Similarly, they need Israeli permits to build homes and businesses in Israeli-controlled areas. The Church, too, must apply to Israeli authorities for these permits and visas.
While daily life in Palestine requires some relations with Israeli authorities, the commission said, everyone involved should be aware that there is something “abnormal” that must be set right. There are over 300,000 Christian citizens of Israel, including Arab citizens, Hebrew-speaking citizens, and long-term migrant laborers and asylum seekers.
“Citizens and long term residents are law abiding yet they have the right and the moral obligation to use all available legal and non-violent means to promote full rights and complete equality for all citizens,” the commission said. To ignore this duty is to collaborate with “structures of discrimination, the permanence of injustice and the lack of peace.” The commission stressed the Church’s effort to work with everyone who shares her values, Palestinian or Israeli.
“The Church seeks and encourages dialogue with all people, including Israelis, individuals and organizations, who recognize the need to end occupation and eliminate discrimination,” the commission said. “The Church is committed to identifying these individuals and organizations, all those who do not perpetuate the situation by presuming that dialogue or cooperation can ignore the struggle to achieve justice.”
http://www.catholicworldreport.com/2017/05/19/on-israel-palestine-conflict-the-church-cannot-stay-quiet-bishops-say/
I was talking to a semi-devout American Jewish princess from Boston, via Detroit, who is now retired in St. Augustine. She had recently visited Israel and found it a wonderful country which she did not want to leave. But, when she spoke of her visit to the so-called occupied territories, a concerned look appeared on her face and she said she truly felt it was not right and that this situation is, as Mattis and others currently in high places within this current clown's administration, unsustainable.
ReplyDeleteMattis has been criticized for remarks he made in 2013, when he seemed to suggest that Israel bore blame for the region’s anti-American hostility, and which warned that Israeli “settlements” could lead to the country becoming an “apartheid” state.
St. Lawrence, pray for us....
So, since I have been blogging here for 11 full years now and you still say you have never figured out why I say I don't trust the Zionists, well, as I know, this forum is just a place to argue and practice my typing, away from the madding crowd on facebook. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteThe Israeli army has to have a presence in Judea and Samaria because the populace there has a history of fomenting attacks against Israel. As I say, textbooks and classroom maps there do not even recognize the nation-state of Israel. Children's television programming is the rankest sort of propaganda. In particular, there is a cute-mouse character that speaks of how dirty and bloodthirsty the Jews are. Town squares there are named for "martyred" terrorists.
ReplyDeletePalestinians have been offered their own nation-state many times, including the mid-to-late 1940s, when the UN was looking at how to create a modern Israel. They've given every proposal a thumbs-down. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak offered Arafat 90 percent of what he was negotiating for and he turned it down.
Mahmoud Abbas will not publicly recognize Israel as a sovereign state with a Jewish identity.
The Palestinians can have their own country any time, if they will forthrightly say that Israel has a right to exist, with Jerusalem as its eternal capital.
And this business of "I just quoted a history professor" is pretty weal tea. A simple Google search would have shown you he was a sewer rat.
ReplyDeleteWhat about the Bishops I cited? Anyway, you have your views and I have mine. The chosen people stuff went out with the resurrection, if you believe in that. You're chosen, I'm chosen by a simple act of knocking on the door.
ReplyDeleteYou again wondered why I mistrusted Zionism and I answered. You turned one link into crimes against God by an obscure author and a history professor. You did not respond to any other source cited, including the anecdotal observations of an American Boomer Jewess.
ReplyDeleteWell, that makes us even, doesn’t it, given your having no response to what I said about the 1947, 1967 and 1963 wars, the intifada, Arafat’s thumbs-down to the Clinton-Barack offer, the propaganda aimed at Palestinian children and the incessant Hamas rocket barrage aimed at southern Israel
ReplyDelete1973
ReplyDeleteThey took land by force, displacing many people so they can't expect everybody on the planet to recognize how great they are and to honor ancient claims that their God supposedly give them this land l, especially since all who profess the name of Jesus Christ are now the chosen and they are not. I'm not gonna argue about why they now feel so vulnerable and under attack when they attacked first in this the 20th Century like my other sources for why I don't trust Zionism which you chose to ignore in favor of attacking an alleged source for a piece written by an American history professor and Jew, I might add. So I don't have an answer for the whys or wherefores of Israel's present travails. I don't boo Hoo at all for them. I just help finance them with hard earned money seized at gun point by my government who throws plenty of coinage their way, yet they still cry out for more more more. Anything less is anti-Semitic
ReplyDeleteAs I say, I’ll pray that God can find a way to transform your hardnes of heart
ReplyDelete