False Spirit and False Word

I am a dog and, like a dog, I form near instant likes or dislikes of people. I suppose most of us are dogs if we would only stop trying to have an “open mind.” In any event, my nose did not like Marianne Edgar Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington who delivered a sermon at the Interfaith Prayer Service for President Trump's inaugural. Everything about her manner of walk, talk and gesture bespoke faux dulce, affecting meekness, humility, and caring while delivering an unmistakably and intendedly sharp message. Passive aggression at its finest. Humble people don't bite with teeth of steel.

False Spirit.

Everyone present, in the press and on social media instantly recognized Budde's “prayer” as a direct rebuke of Trumpian policies. But she concealed the dagger beneath a cloak of humility and pious entreaties.

She began by invoking humility in unity acknowledging that “we all have our blind spots.” She continued,

“[P]erhaps we are most dangerous to ourselves and others when we are persuaded that we are absolutely right and someone else is absolutely wrong. Because we are then just a few steps from labelling ourselves as the good people versus the bad people.”

True enough.

“... to be fair we don't always know where the truth lies and there's a lot working against the truth now, but when we do know, when we know what is true, it is incumbent on us to speak the truth...

Was there any doubt but that this time she was absolutely convinced that she was right and that it was incumbent on her to speak against those “working against the truth, now...” ?

She then implored Trump to have “mercy” on illegal immigrants and trans people; in other words, to reverse his policies and do things her way.

“May god grant us the strength and courage to honour the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love, to walk humbly with one another and our god, for the good of all people. Amen.”

It is the nature of hypocrisy that it stains its own garment. Let me quote Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the nature of Christian love.

“To the natural man, the very notion of loving his enemies is an intolerable offence and quite beyond his capacity: it cuts right across his idea of good and evil. ...

“The Christian [on the other hand] must treat his enemy as a brother, and requite his hostility with love...

“By our enemies Jesus means those who are quite intractable and utterly unresponsive to our love, who forgive us nothing when we forgive them all... Love asks nothing in return....

“Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy's hatred, the greater his need of love. Be his enmity political or religious he has nothing to expect from a follower of Jesus but unqualified love. ... For God allows his sun to shine upon the just and the unjust....”

“This is the quality whereby the 'better righteousness' exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees. ... [T]he fatal mistake of the false Protestant ethic [was that it] diluted Christian love into patriotism, loyalty to friends and industriousness which, in short, perverted the better righteousness into justitia civilis.”

Does this sound like the attitude Budde was adopting from her pulpit? Was she unconditionally and unqualifiedly embracing Trump in love for him despite his wrongs whatever they may be? Or was she perverting Christian righteousness into mere civil justice?

In other chapters Bonhoeffer discusses condemning the sin while loving the sinner; but one doesn't get to condemning the sin until one first loves the sinner, and there was no love in Budde's entreaty. On the contrary, she was reading Trump the riot act. She knew it, he knew, it the press knew and it was there for all the Democrat peanut gallery to cheer on.

“I was trying to counter the narrative that is so divisive and polarizing” she said afterward, offering a divisive narrative of her own.

(A disclaimer. I, for one, am not so sure that I don't believe that justice is doing good to one's friends and harm to one's enemies. I take stands on things all the time. What I do not do is pretend to be meek and mild and loving of my enemies.)

False Word.

No other Western country is as drunk on religion as the US. As a result, everything is looked at through a moral lens and political issues get distilled into personal homiletics. Nevertheless, up until the 1960's, U.S. political discourse remained mostly secular and practical. For example, the great battle between Republicans and FDR over the role of government in the economy, was fought with many references to the Constitution and to political ideologies...but ne’er once a quote from the Bible or by dragging Jesus into it. All that changed with the Civil Rights movement. It was then that the Negro Gospel seeped into politics, with all its now dog-eared refrains and metaphors.

Of course, the battle had to be waged and segregation had to be ended, but the unfortunate by-product was that “the left” got into habit of thinking that “all politics is personal.” Discussion of the public and common good, got sliced and diced into personal goods: women rights, gay rights, disabled rights, immigrant rights, and the whole litany of victimized personal grievances of “cognized groups.” Common unity got pixellated into a thousand complaints and gimmes. Even conceptions of right got bastardized into entitlements. The Bill of Rights being seen as just an incomplete “bunch” of rights which we can alter, abandon or add to au gout, its fundamental nature being lost in a sea of personal wants, identities and aspirations.

This suited the actual leadership of the Democrat party which are as much capitalist pigs as the Republicans. Far better (and certainly cheaper) to be seen to be making “incremental” progress on personal rights than to tackle structural socio-economic issues (which is sorta fancy way of saying “who gets how much of what pie.”) As I've said elsewhere : if it's not about bread and butter, it's bullshit.

And bullshit has been the Democrat playbook since LBJ ... The proof of this is very simple and incontestable. Whatever progress may have been made on personal civil rights, the fact is that the net worth of the working class of the country has declined and flatlined in real dollar terms while that of the upper 10% has soared. More and more people are making less and less. Oh but we got plenny o' rights.... and rights is plenny fo' me....

It is against this background that Budde's Word has to be gauged.

“Millions have put their trust in you... in the name of our God I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children ... who fear for their lives.”

She continued:

“The people who pick our crops, and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants, and work the night shifts in hospitals, they might not be citizens or have the proper documentation.  But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals... I ask you to have mercy on those who fear that their parents will be taken away."

Of course it is impossible to deny that we should “welcome the stranger” and that we should “suffer the little children” and so on. It would be blasphemous to gainsay the moral clichés of Christianity. But that is not what Budde meant. She was using those clichés as code for policies in the Democratic Party lexicon of distractions.

In the name of our God I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared...” How can one object to reassuring people who are scared? But she did not mean the people who are scared of eviction because they can't afford skyrocketing rents. She did not mean people who are scared because they can't afford a drug without which they will die. She did not mean people who are scared they can't afford to pay the fine for not having the insurance they couldn't afford.... No. Budde meant ... the fear of gay, lesbians and trans people, the latest pet cognized group of the Democrat party.

By welcoming “the stranger” she mean immigrants from LatinxAmerica. She did not mean Palestinians rendered strangers in their own lands by Israel's brutal ethnic cleansing and running “scared” of the next bunker blaster bomb. Why not. ? Because that would buck a major bi-partisan consensus in favour of aiding and abetting genocide and ethnic cleansing... Not a word about that. Not a word about political and economic issues that affect the country as whole over and beyond the Democrat bugaboos of race, gender, sexual identity. In short, Budde was just pushing the justitia civilis” of the Democrat Party.

If Budde really wanted to thump the bible, she might have thumped the social justice of Ezekiel,

“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.” Ezekiel 16:49-50

Not a word about that. Why not? Because she is just an operative for the Kumbaya Division of the Democrat party. Her own website describes her as “an advocate and organizer in support of justice concerns, including racial equity, gun violence prevention, immigration reform, the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons, and the care of creation”. Snore.

The basics are always general in nature whereas particulars are always non-essentials. Thus, Ezekiel's "poor and needy" encompasses all types of poverty and all types of needs whereas Budde's "trans people" encompasses less than one percent of the population and her "migrants" don't include the millions of non-immigrants who are in need of basic education, livable wages, affordable housing, healthcare and secure retirement.

Trump was right when he said “"She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way," "She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart. Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one.” My sole disagreement is with Trump's statement that Budde was “not very good at her job.” When it comes to false humility and passive aggression, Budde is sans pareil

She has managed to rouse the entire liberal-progressive-left into a chorus of “Go git 'm” while she herself says “won't apologize” for her sermon. So much for humility in unity.

The role of clerical religion in politics is an interesting topic. There are those who think religion should confine itself to the spiritual and those who thing that religion must be politically active...even Marxist. Throughout most of our history clerics have confined themselves to platitudes phrased in general terms. But increasingly this moderation and restraint is being cast aside. The rabbi's invocation at the inaugural was all but a battle cry for Israeli Lebensraum. And into this fray steps Budde's peddling Democrat social policies wrapped in the tissue of Christian charity. All I can say is that Budde did a better job of humble hypocrisy than the rabbi. One should be fooled by neither.

©2025, WCG

A Prayer for Aaron Bushnell

On Thursday night, I had this notion to pray “for” Aaron Bushnell; that is, to assist him in some way. However, I have never been comfortable with the idea of intercessional prayers. The idea comes laden with all sorts of unprovable assumptions: that Aaron still exists, to be helped; that anything I can do could help or initiate help for him; and last, but not least: if God knoweth all and loveth all what need has he of me tell him what his job should be? So then, who am I really helping here, Aaron or myself and my own disturbed feelings at his distressed feelings which led him to take his life on account of the beneath human putrifaction that rules in Jerusalem, Washington and the decrepit West.

So apart from this jumble of thought and intentions, how should I start my prayer? It seemed to me that I had to envision Aaron going up in flames and hear in my mind's ear his shouting “Free Palestine!” And that is what I did, but no sooner I did it than it seemed too “hot” to get too close too. And “hot” was the least of it... I don't want to say “darkness” but there was a kind a sacra off-limits about what was going on beneath those flames. So then, I thought: am I strong enough for this ... to carry on with this intention? Am I courageous enough to bring the inner essence of his suicide close to my own innermost self?

At this point I just gave up and started to intone silently: have mercy on him, have mercy on him. ... I did not mean have mercy on him for his having done some wrong. I meant “mercy” in the sense of “shower him with your loving kindness.” I had no idea whether what he did was right or wrong. All I knew was that it was an ultimate sacrifice which by nature is beyond ordinary limits and therefore in a place where most of us do not go to.

And then, “have mercy on him” became “have mercy on me.” As for whether any or this helped Aaron... I have no idea. I hope so. I wish him well.

----

On further consideration, I have concluded that Aaron Bushnell did the right and noble thing. I am disgusted to the core at MediaControl's attempt to diminish his sacrifice by calling into question his mental stability. At least Madame Gnu was honest enough to forthrightly display her repulsiveness by calling self-immolating monks, “human babacue.”

I get to my conclusion rather simply and by analogy. During the Great War, young men on both sides of the death-strip went “over the top” for God, King and Country. They did so knowing full well that there was an 87.3625% chance that they wouldn't make it

Eine Kugel kam geflogen
Gilt sie mir oder gilt sie dir?

I would not be the first to say that, over those trenches, Christian Civilization committed suicide. Or as Marine Corp sergeant Daniel Daly put it, rather less poetically, "Come on, you sons-o'-bitches, do you want to live forever?"

Either way, we honour the men who chose not to live forever; and we do so, if we are sensible, regardless of which side they were on because what matters is that they chose to give their all. Soldiers understand this. Unfortunately, civilians “bawling allegiance to the state” do not.

I personally agree with the cause for which Aaron Bushnell immolated himself. It is too early to tell if it was a futile act or if it will let loose a chain of consequences that will alter things. But in either case you cannot ask more of a man than that he give his all; and for having given it, he deserves God's rewarding mercy.

©

Inner Emigration

During the World War a number of German intellectuals, writers, pastors, professors and even army officers practiced what was later described as inner emigration -- an interior withholding of consent to the policies and actions of the regime.

Inner emigration is not the same as underground resistance. The latter is affirmative action against a regime by stealth, surprise or subversion. Inner emigration, by contrast, is simply a private posture, a kind of “I'm here but not here” thing. Resistance presupposes hope; inner emigration, hopelessness.

Inner emigration was not limited to “good Germans.” In the 1960's large portions of American youth emigrated inwardly -- they were known as “Hippies.” Giving the maximum possible credit where credit is due, hippies realized not only that the system was evil and corrupt but, worse yet, impermeable. Confessing their political powerlessness, they tuned in and dropped out.

The occasional justification for this posturing was that by dropping out they were creating an “alternative” culture and society. But this was a mirage. The evil system quickly found ways to commodify and subsume the alternative; so that, in the end, hippies ended up perusing NiftyStuff Catalogues, buying Volvo's and “sensibly” investing in real estate, all the while assuring themselves that, unlike their square parents, they had (somehow) protested the war.

I don't want to come down too hard on the hippies; for, it has to be said in the 1970's a wave of religiosity also swept over the the United States. The two phenomena were related, but the religious one gave up all pretence of being, or forming or leading to an alernative society. It was simply the Big Drop into Self, most perfectly exemplified by the mindless Hare Krishna chanters on Powell and Market or in airports. Be that as it was, from chanting, to Zen, to Pentecostalism, to the New Jesus Movement, to TM and EST and a hundred obscure spiritual sects people gave up on politics and fell to micro managing their inner selves. The war makers, financiers and mass marketters could not have been happier.

“What is that?” my mother asked. “It's a zafu,” I replied. “What's a zaahfoo?” “It's a meditation cushion.” “You don't need a cushion to meditate,” she scathingly replied. But I'm not meditating! I protested; and, in truth I have never been able to meditate for more than 30 seconds. I just wanted to decorate the house a la japonnaise. But no one should doubt the ability of “the system” to merchandize and hence emasculate anything.

Not surprisingly, in the late 1970's various French historians began to wonder if this all had not happened before; and, of course it had, the result being a series of books on the “interiorization” of “political” life, known as the rise of Christianity and the fall of the Ancient world -- one chapter being dedicated in all seriousness, to the “advent” of private toilets in lieu of public ones.

In Europe, the rise of private toilets did actually lead to the evolution of an alternative civitas, known as Visigothic, Ostro- Gallo- or Germano-Roman depending on one's preference of labels. But in the 1970's the American Empire was far from collapsing and, instead, the forces that be found ways to evolve a totally kitsch politics -- an activism based on symptomatic issues (organic food, smoking and smog) and personal entitlements, sub nom “civil rights.” At the same time, the rulers of the country liberalized the market, exempting corporations from all sense of civic responsibility and enacted an all-volunteer military, thereby exempting individuals from the otherwise minimum obligations of citizenship. The result: individuals could pursue their “entitlements;” business could pursue its profits, and the government could pursue its wars without there ever again being any push-back.

At least until this past October. The announced and blatantly executed genocide carried out by the Trio from Hell was so grotesque that it provoked universal condemnation from the ordinary people and lesser states of the world. Unfortunately, the situation has only served to illustrate how actually powerless the people of democratic societies actually are and how completely entrenched the neo-liberal and neo-con rulership is. Over the past 50 years they have so totally atomized the substance of “civic society” and so completely dominated the levers and avenues of political and cultural power that the protests for all their anger and moral force are but a drizzle over the landscape. The impunity with which Western leaders insult the protestors, blatantly lie to the public and, in Israel's case, say things that would make a Nazi blush (oh yes; oh yes) indicate that they are not in the least worried that their nefarious designs will be interrupted. Even the Yellow Vests provoked a more serious response from the state.

So...we are once again faced with the German question: what to do when one is powerless to do anything? It is a moral dilemma to which I do not have an answer.

I trust it will not sound too effete when I say that there can be no doubt that “exposing” one's self to the horrible images of Israel's brutality in Gaza produces a form of PTSD. It is not as acute as the trauma of actually being there, but it is also a trauma that is not compensated for with adrenaline. The result is a kind of masturbatory fetish where one goes back for more thinking that knowing is at least “being responsible” when in fact knowing does nothing but underscore the impossibility of accomplishing anything. On the other hand, “tuning out” and ignoring the inhuman savagery while one goes about one's life unhindered and unimpeded, traipsing through strawberry fields, is form of indifference that is itself inhumane and criminal... all excuses aside.

So ... 1970's redux. I will only say that if anyone thinks private toilets or chanting mantras on street corners will make an “unseen” difference, I can only say that that is an illusion. Whether one is up to it or not, if one is honest, there is no emigrating from this fight.

©

With Burning Regret

"Hezbollah is making mistakes, and the citizens of Lebanon will be the ones to pay the price," Israeli defence minister Galant said. "What we do in Gaza we can do in Beirut."

Well now... what exactly IS Israel doing Gaza? Let us not ask Antonio Guterres. Let us not ask millions of protestors around the world. Let us not even ask Manuel Macron. No. Let us ask the Israeli government.

According to them they are "targeting" Hamas leaders and fighters.

Target v. "to select as an object of attention or attack."

In other words, they are taking their 155mm artillery shells and MK80-JDAM guided 2000lb bombs and "aiming" them at coordinates where a Hamas leader or unit is supposedly located.

WE ARE NOT "AIMING" AT CIVILIANS!!!! WE WOULD NEVER DO SUCH A OUTRAGEOUS, INHUMANE THING.

Certainly the Israeli High Command know that the precisely targeted 2000lb bunker-buster-bombs cause tremendous collateral damage; but that, they argue, is immaterial because they do not "INTEND" to target civilians and, absent intent, there is no crime.

The same is said with respect to the use of white phosphorous which, the Israelis claim, is only intended to light up the battle-scene not to burn anyone to the bone.

They insist hotly, earnestly, adamantly and to the point of outrage and anger they they do not INTEND to cause civilian casualties, although they admit, with deep regret, that collateral civilian casualties are caused.

That's their argument.

 

Okee dokee; so cometh now Gallant and says: "What we DO in Gaza we can DO in Beirut."

Does anyone catch the difference between "what we INTEND" and "what we DO;" between "what we are trying to do" and what we are doing" ?

Gallant knows perfectly well that what Israel DOES in Gaza is (to date) kill 10,000 civilians, and reduce a city to rubble. In so saying he admits to his real intent.

Let us bend over backwards and suppose that when it began the bombing of Gaza Israel had no idea what the collateral damage of its "targeted" missiles and bombs would be. My golly!!! We wish the Amis had warned us how destructive these things were. We had no idea!

Okay... but they know now, and it threatening to DO to Beirut what they did DO to Gaza, Gallant is threatening mass civilian deaths. And he does so without any qualms.

He takes pride in his threat. What I can DO, I will DO!!! It has a godlike ring to it, does it not?

And lest there be any doubt; whereas Gaza is located in Gaza, Beirut is 60 miles from the border with Israel and 60 miles from the Hezbollah units firing on the border.

Out of their own mouths, by the very words they used, they have admitted to DOing war crimes in Gaza.

©

A Letter to the Pope: Deus non vult!

21 October 2023

Your Holiness:

Yourself, Patriarch Bartholomew, Patriarch Kirill, Archbishop Justin Welby, all bishops of the Church and all leaders of Christian Denominations must unanimously and unequivocally condemn the State of Israel's disproportionate and genocidal response to the Hamas act of terror on October 7th.

If you fail to do so, then never again presume to criticise his Holiness Pope Pius XII.

I am an insignificant nobody without the least influence over my corrupt and corrupted leaders or the swill of our mainstream media. But it is intolerable to sit at my computer and watch the mass destruction and slaughter of a ghetto on live-stream. "Never again" Really?

Your condemnations must not be equivocal or hedged with false balance. The Israeli defence minister called the Palestinians "animals." Indeed, a cornered animal will act irrationally. But who did the cornering? A disproportionate response to a criminal act is itself a war crime and when that disproportionality destroys, displaces and degrades an entire population with willfully indiscriminate intent that is genocide.

Those of you who presume to speak in Christ's name, must speak out now. Only your united veto can put a stop to the barbarism of our secular leaders.

Respectfully,

©

Biden Anchors America to Israel.

The United States is run by insane imbeciles.

Biden flies to Israel and like a dog to its master does huggies and kissie poo's with the most thuggish, corrupt and polarizing figure in the region. Bibi is even loathed by one half of his own country. Huggies from POTUS should be doled out like mana. But, I guess punks have an instinctive affinity for one another.

As if the optics weren't bad enough, the sonics were even worse. "As long as the United States stands -- and it will stand forever -- we will not let you ever be alone" intoned Biden. And to wrap up: "...the United States stands with you. We'll walk beside you in those dark days, we'll walk beside you in those good days to come."

The United States will stand forever? Really? To a people who have outlasted the Egyptian, Babylonian, Roman and Holy Roman empires, that must have sounded like a childish brag. It is certainly hubristic. It is one thing to say that, with God's help, may we last forever. It is quite another to announce point blank that we will. Compared to Biden's "forever," Hitler's One Thousand Year Reich almost sounds humble. At any rate, hubris is a form of insanity and when our leaders give the slip that they have lost grip on reality, we ought to at least take note.

But back to the point, has an American president ever given an unconditional commitment to stand by a foreign nation forever? For that was the unmistakable import of Biden's foolish palaver.

There are some, who thinking they are savy realists will cynically say that Biden's commitment was "just rhetoric." Actually... diplomacy is the art of evasion. The whole point of diplomacy is NOT to commit one's nation to any one course of action and certainly not to another nation. The last time that rule was flaunted with lock-step commitments, the result was a Great War.

If Biden was playing to a home-grown audience, he was downright derelict in his duty to represent the country to the audience of other nations.

In fact, Biden proved himself to be nothing but a minion. It was nauseating to watch him regurgitate the Likud's narrative.

What is fundamentally at issue here is the implementation of a "two-state solution." That was the basis for the original partition of Palestine in 1948. That basis was reaffirmed in 1974 by UN Resolution 194. That is official United States policy. So what did Biden say?

Speaking of a "resolution" to the crisis, he said, "for me that means a two state solution."

For me????? For me????? He speaks for the fucking United States, not for himself. He couldn't even manage to read the riot act to a state that is dependent on U.S. financial largesse and military assistance.

Other than stating his personal preference, the only thing he called for was (a) the destruction of Hamas (which was duly elected) and (b) for Palestinians to live in conditions of peace and dignity. Say what?

The issue is statehood. In calling for conditions of peace and dignity, Biden was in fact accepting Israel's current apratheid policy of denying statehood to Palestinians. Biden just prefers that the conditions in the apartheid enclaves be secure, peaceable and provide enough goodies to the inhabitants as will keep them quiescent.

That is not going to work; and that means that the only other solutions are: (a) continued repressive occupation or (b) forcible relocation (aka ethnic cleansing). At best, if we are all lucky, that will only push another generation of Palestinians into unquenchable rage and push Israeli's into a war-induced state of permanent psychosis.

I do not place all the blame on Israel for the impasse. The Palestinians have been equally intransigent. But in 1982 and then in 2017 the PLO and then Hamas accepted in principle the idea of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders. THAT is the goal of U.S. policy and THAT is what Biden should have seized the occasion to insist upon.

Instead Biden seized the occasion to let out more of his inner punk. Oh yes. Democrats might want to ignore it, but his constant snaps and snarls are there for all to see. As when during a 2020 town meeting he called a questioner a "damned liar" and challenged him to a push-up contest. Or when, denouncing the defund-the-police movement, he shouted into the mic, "there's NO PLACE!! in this country NO PLACE!!! for endangering the lives of law enforcement NO PLACE, NONE, NEVER, PERIOD!!!!! This supposedly avuncular Joe has a pronounced tendency to punch his message through. This punctuated yelling at you, is a form of threat and intimidation. So, when it came to Hezbollah, it was hardly surprising that Biden's message was a pounding "DON'T!... DON'T... DON'T."

Biden may get away badgering Anita Hill, challening overweight blue collar workers and shouting down reporters, but if he thinks this display of gerontological toughness impresses Hezbollah, he is gerontologically deranged.

But perhaps this too was just another rhetorical display designed to make Lindsay Graham happy. Alas, we are not on Capitol Hill but rather in a region that is on the edge of a possible conflagration.

Having just announced that two carriers groups were heading to the region, Biden was clearly threatening Hezbollah with American military retaliation. In other words, he was committing the United States to involvement if and when Hezbollah should decide to do whatever Biden didn't want it to do.

Brilliant! Hand the trigger to Hezbollah which now gets to call the shot on whether U.S. troops get involved. That is the stupidest thing a nation can do. Should Hezbollah act against Israel then the U.S. can (a) humiliatingly retreat from Biden's "DON'T DON'T DON'T" or (b) venture into the maelstrom.

Biden's DON'Ts would have better been directed against Israel, which only hours before his arrival had bombed an airport and Syria and various border locations in Lebanon. Why is Israel poking a hornets nest? Hezbolla had nothing to do with the massacre on Oct 5th. Biden might recall, that contrary to MSM's propaganda, the last time the IDF took on Hezbollah, the IDF got creamed.

As it will if it undertakes a ground assault into Gaza. There are 300 miles of tunnels in Gaza. Let's do a Biden. 300!!! 300!!!! 300!!! So we'are talking about a two-tiered Stalingrad. Urban warfare on the surface and urban warfare in 300 miles of underground tunnels.

That is one bloody clusterfuck waiting to happen. Israel's only "solution" is to create a desert of rubble and call it victory. Suppose that "works" and that it works without provoking Hezbolah. Then what?

Assuming that the approximately 1 million youth of Gaza accept occupation quiescently, Israel has NO plans for administering, controlling, feeding, and taking care of the 2.5 million huddled into half the space. No plans for preventing starvation, or controlling outbreaks of disease or insuring that the sewage system works.

Genocide is not limited to the drama of gas chambers. Engineering conditions that will result in mass deaths qualifies just as well.

So the most the "Most Powerful Country on Urth" can wrangle out of Israel is an agreement not to prevent humanitarian assistance (paid for and provided by others) from crossing into Gaza from a single point on the Egyptian border?

Whatever side one wants to take in this matter, Israel's retaliatory rage is not a winning policy. It avenges an appalling act of murderous terror but it fails to address the underlying problem which being underlying will perist. And so, Israel's policy ends up being no more than murderous madness. And it is to this madness that our punk-imbecile president has committed the United States "forever."

As Israel cuts the electricity to Gaza, so the U.S. mass media apparatus cuts the light of information to the dumbed down American public. Gaza is not a separate country. Israel has prevented it from becoming a sovereign state. So then, what is Gaza's status? It is occupied territory and under long established international law Israel and Israel alone is responsible for the welfare of the inhabitants of the occupied territory. Allowing truckloads of water bottles, band-aids, and powdered milk to cross the border does not qualify as insuring the welfare of the population. And yet the craven American press treats Biden's "gaining" this pathetic "concession" as some great diplomatic feat on our part and humanitarian gesture by Israel. Shameful.

Equally nauseating was Biden's blather about a "pathway" and "framework" for peace. The one offer the Likud can't bear to accept is the peace of a two-state solution. They have resorted to every artifice to avoid building on Hamas' acceptance of 1967 borders. It is a gross distortion say that Biden is "standing by" Israel. He is supporting an extremist party within Israel -- a party that calls Palestinians "animals."

What is truly dismal, is that U.S. political class is so utterly brainwashed by the narrative of an extremist party in Israel that no one in any position of authority thinks of dancing to other than Bibi's tune. Oh, I am sure there are some wonky people in the State Department or in think tanks that will point out how diastrous all this is, but they have no influence. Unfortunately, mainstream Jewish organizations in the United States are not using their influence to read some sanity into U.S. policy.

It will be a bloody miracle if this does not blow up in our faces, at which point the U.S., which has already lost its proxy war in the Ukraine will be faced with another unwinnable war in the Middle East. Oh joy.

©

In Defence of the Court

 

There is circulating a meme picture of the Supreme Court that depicts six of its conservative members in KKK hoods. This is obviously part of the Democrat Party's ongoing attempt to delegitimize the Court. The KKK was a vicious, sadistic organization that lynched Negroes and burned them alive or dragged them to their death while terrorizing whole neighbourhoods. The picture is a slur too far.

But even apart from such demagogic excesses, the Democrat assault on the Supreme Court is a greater threat to our system of government than any, assumedly bad, decision of the Court. It is time for the Demorats to stop it.

I would never deny that politics is not involved in Supreme Court decisions; of course it is. But it is a kind of politics that is restrained by precedent; that is to to say by the fair meaning of words within custom and usage. A judge or justice can get to the result he wants but he has to rationalize it in a certain manner. That manner does not include advertising, electoral hoopla, dramatic rhetoric snatched of out thin air or riding on some popular meme. It is rhetoric and reasoning according to the manner judicial decisions have been arrived at.

To give an example. The Fifth Amendment provides “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” Implicit in that provision is the recognized power of government to take property. Two conditions are imposed: (1) compensation and (2) “public use.” But what does “public use” mean? Does it include a municipality taking your property in order to allow Walmart to build a Super Store in your town?

One would think that “public use” meant precisely that: some publicly owned use, such an a highway, a dam, an airport, a municipal park. Indeed, long standing Supreme Court precedent had always interpreted “public use” to mean just that sort of thing. But in Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005), the Court held otherwise. Public use included taking your property and giving it to Walmart, sub nom “comprehensive development plan.” A better fascist marriage between government and corporations could hardly be imagined.

So the question in this case boiled down to: what to we mean by “use”? Does “use” include “indirect use” or “benefits” ? After all the land was not being given to the owners of Walmart et al. for their private residence but for shopping centers open to and used by the public. Plus (and this is the part to salivate over) the “redevelopment plan” would provide “tax revenues” to the city which is a public entity.

Arguably “use” includes “benefit” and, in the abstract the only “answer” is how many vote yes or no on the question. But the issue raised more than an abstraction or (in legal usage)more than an “issue of first impression.” There was precedent: how have the collective we (“the saints assembled”) interpreted “use” in the past? Well... their verdict was unequivocal: use meant “use by the public under government auspices.”

So what does “auspices” mean....? And so on.

But one gets the point. Judicial law is politics but one in which the results depend on grammar, the fair meaning of words, the soundness of reasoning, (with a dash of rhetoric), and ...in the end... what you can or cannot get away with... within reason. What one cannot do, is substitute one's own tabula raza ideas about things.

This is the distinction that Hamilton draws in Federalist Paper No. 78. The Legislature, he says, acts on the basis of WILL. The judiciary exercises JUDGEMENT. Congress can pass any law it pleases, whatever the bee that enters it bonnet. The Supreme Court is required to compare the fair meaning of words within our custom and usage. That is “politics” but one requiring a certain knowledge, training and above all, restraint.

So what about Kelo? The majority departed from previous understandings concerning the meaning of “public use” in order to expand the term according to their own notions of what it should mean. While it was not an illogical interpretation, it was not one that was restrained by prior usage.

According to the dissent: “Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms. ... Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's interpretation of the Constitution. Though citizens are safe from the government in their homes, the homes themselves are not”

Go RBG!!! Go Girl!!! Read those Federalist Society / Heritage Foundation justices the riot act!!!!

Uh.....Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer.

Justice O'Connor, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Thomas. dissented.

All of which brings me to my next point which is that the division of the Court between “conservatives” and “liberals” is so haphazrd and riddled with exceptions as to be meaningless... at least the way it is presented. There is a distinction in the reasoning processes judges follow in analyzing a question and working toward a conclusion, but even this is often nuanced. What I can say very broadly is that the difference is between those who espouse a sociologically infused “analysis” and those who espouse legal formalism; i.e. adhering to the text of what has been written.

I will return to the question of judicial methodology shortly. But first we might very well ask why have a Court at all? Isn't it just an oligachical device to thwart the will of the all knowing all beneficent democratic majority? You bet it is. And with good reason. The Court is our tribunicia potestas.

From history we will recall that, as a result of a plebian revolt, Rome established a college of five tribunes any one of which had the power to veto any act of the Senate or Assembly. The person of the tribune was sacred and his word was final.

Well, what sense did that make? Why have an Assembly at all, if some clown in a special toga can simply nullify whatever it does? How can you trust these “tribunes”? To which I ask: how can you trust the Assembly? Has the majority always ruled well and wisely? It was the majority in the Athenian assembly who voted to send ships out to slaughter every Melian man woman and child. Only when they sobered up the next morning did they realize what a vile thing it was and sent out ships to recall the ones they had sent the day before ... And row hard, by Jove, row!!! A tribune might have helped.

The simple and philosophical fact is that all society is always a balance between “the one and the many” and we have to trust both because we can trust neither. Can you prove in some sort of Cartesian way that the tribunician power is a good thing? Not really, but it served the Romans well enough for 700 years.

The thing that needs to be borne in mind is that the tribunician power is negative. It can stop but it cannot initiate. This distinction is what saves it from being tyrannical. As Voltaire wrote, “a tyrant is the sovereign who knows no law but his own caprice.” In our system the sovereign is Congress; and Congress, which has the power to make and unmake law, knows no law but its own caprice. The fact that our tyrant is democratically elected doesn't solve the problem of bad laws. We may, like the regretful Athenians, recall bad legislation by electing different representatives or parties to power; but sometimes it may be too late.

So this is Hamilton's argument: In America “We The People” are the true and only sovereign. But “We the People” spoke only once, and that was when we ordained the Constitution. So the Constitution (and by understood inclusion the Bill of Rights) is the one true expression of the will of truly direct popular sovereignty. Congress is only a derivitive sovereign. The Judiciary exists, then, to protect the original design of what “We the People” did ordain and establish.... Of course, the Court also interprets various laws and statutes, but it's main constitutional purpose is to excercise a negative judgement on laws or actions which transgress constitutional bounds.

Hamilton's argument somewhat involves a slight of hand; one that ends up saying (with a certain amount of cheek) that an oligarchical mechanism exists to protect the popular will. The simple fact is that by establishing the Constitution, the sovereign people delegated their law-making power to Congress which thenceforth represents the sovereign will of the people. But this simple description does not take into account the difference between an axiom and a theorem.

Axioms establish absolute fundamentals without which and outside of which nothing is possible. Theorems are specific propositions existing under and operative only within that conceptual universe established by axioms. In 1789, We the People did not simply delegate our collective power to three branches of government. We certainly did not, as the English did in 1688, decree simply and without more that “Parliament was supreme.” We delegated our powers within a prescribed constitutional order of doing things and subject, most importantly, to the fundamentals of the Bill of Rights. That was an act of axiomatic legislation. From this constitutional perspective, Hamilton's argument is more than a trick. The Court exists to protect the axiomatic will of the People as against subsequent propositions ensuing, supposedly, thereunder.

This explains why the Court is essentially a conservative beast. It does not exist to initiate changes. It does not look forward but back; and, most importantly back to our axioms. This is why FDR complained that the Court was “taking us back to horse and buggy days.” Yeah, so perhaps we should give horses and buggies a second look.

And taking a second look, we can notice that our Constitution and Bill of Rights presuppose a Liberal political philosophy; that is, one that, in the balance between the One and the Many, inclines toward the individual and his freedom of action. This may sound nice, but it has to be remembered that “individual” includes Very Big Individuals who Have a Disportionate Amount of Political and Economic Power. For better and for worse in no other nation was the “liberal idea” given such free reign as in the United States.

I'm not saying that the Constitution prohibits government initiative or regulation, or that it demands unfettered capitalism. Although principles may be stated in pristine simplicity, in actual practice there is always a near infinite amount of variation. But given the essential role of the Court and given our foundational documents it is not surprising that the Court's rulings should have a “conservative” (i.e. Liberal) tilt.

It was precisely for this reason that beginning in the 20th century some jurists began a movement to revamp jurisprudence, so as to make it make amenable to achieving socio-economic change. Thus arose the division between formal (veto prone) jurisprudence and sociological jurisprudence, or as it is often called, “legal realism.” The Big Battle arose, of course, over FDR's New Deal.

Sniffed Justice Mc Reynolds “I readily and, I trust, feelingly acknowledge the duty incumbent on us all as men and citizens, and as among the highest and holiest of our duties, to provide for those who, in the mysterious order of Providence, are subject to want and to disease of body or mind; but I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States.”

Whatever might be said about the mysterious order of Providence, there is no authority in the Constitution for the government to run a Social Security Administration. And proof of that fact is that when the Court (under pressure) got around to approving Social Security it did so under the “general welfare” preamble of the Constitution. But if that is the logic to be used then “general welfare” becomes an infinitely malleable variable and we might as well have no restrictions at all on what Congress can do.

The most egregious example of “sociological” jurisprudence that I can think of is the Case of Wickard v. Filburn (1941) in which the Court held that a backwoods Ohio farmer who lived miles from anywhere and who grew his own wheat entirely for home consumption was “in” interstate commerce (and therefore could be regulated by the government) because by NOT buying bread produced in interstate commerce he affected interstate commerce as much as if he sold his wheat in interstate commerce.

Although I am very glad for Social Security and think we need more government regulation of private enterprise, the problem with this kind of Alice-in-Wonderland sophistry is that it basically destroys the very idea of law. If words and ideas can be abused in this way, we are left with brute will and that, imo, is not a good thing.

This is why, at least as much as the achieved result of any case, I am concerned about how the “ratio decidendi” -- how the case was reasoned to its conclusion. If the reasoning is honest and fair, then even if I would have reasoned otherwise, I feel I got as good as any of us can expect to get. Verbal thuggery, is another matter.

So... to summarize. In the ever ongoing balance between the One and the Many, or between the Settled and the Needed, the Supreme Court, as it is, serves a very necessary function. Its decisions have never been perfect, and since there are always at least two sides to any issue, they will always offend at least one party. From day to day, I find myself being delighted or outraged. But at the end of the day, I have to ask whether I would prefer an imperfect restraint on popular will or none at all.

No one who is even tepidly social democratic could possible support the Republican agenda, but what the Democrats are doing is reprehensible. Knowing that they will not be able to force court-packing legislation through Congress, they are attempting the next worser thing: witch-hunt conservative justices off the Court so that a Democratic administration can re-pack it with legal realists more amenable to their will. Oh, yes, they may get the rulings they want but they will have completely politicised the Court by making it a steppinfechit for the caprice of the majority. And once the Democrats succeed, the Republicans will follow suit. I would vote for any Republican in order to estop this destructive petulance.

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