It's interesting (but hardly surprising) that some of the members of the incoming Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives are pushing for an end to U.S. aid to Ukraine as Ukraine fights to rid itself of Russian invaders. What is a bit more disappointing is the presence of supposed voices on the American "left" who are clamoring for the same thing, and who are pleading for a "negotiated settlement" to the war in Ukraine.
Wednesday, November 23, 2022
Why Russian Power Must Be Destroyed
Sunday, October 30, 2022
An Unsurprising Surprise (Coping With Nasty Weather)
- First, have the right world-view. According to the world-view which I hold, we live in a moral universe ruled by a righteous Creator who has promised that the soul that sins shall die (Ezekiel 18:4) , that everyone who exalts himself will be humbled (Matthew 23:12), that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), that whatever a man sows, this he will also reap (Galatians 6:7), that those who make themselves great by destroying or oppressing their fellow human beings will themselves ultimately be destroyed (James 5:1-6). This is why I am confident that those who violently push white supremacy will ultimately fail. Even now, I see the outworkings of damnation propagating through these people. Some signs of this propagation I cannot reveal now - although those who read sociological analyses of American society can spot the trends. Even secular sociologists and economists have lately noticed how those who pursue certain goals are frequently destroyed by the very means they use to pursue those goals.
- Second, focus on building your own internal power so that you may reduce your dependence on the dominant society. I am thinking of a passage from Recovering Nonviolent History by Maciej Bartkowski. (Disclaimer: I really like Dr. Bartkowski's book, but I don't anymore like the organization which Dr. Bartkowski belongs to, namely, the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict. If you want to know why, please check out some of the links in the sidebar of this blog.) Page 18 of his book contains the following quote: "...the guilt of falling into the predatory hands of [oppressors] lay in the oppressed society, and, thus, the solution and liberation need to come from that society transformed through its work, education, and civility. Victims and the seemingly disempowered are thus their own liberators as long as they pursue self-organization, self-attainment, and development of their communities."
- Third, and most important, maintain nonviolent discipline. The filthiness of the Right has been made abundantly plain over the last several years. This filthiness has become a powerful liability to them. In order to remove this handicap, they have tried to claim that both they and their intended victims are filthy. Do not give them any help in their attempt to blame both sides for a conflict which they themselves started. By all means, vote. However, no matter what happens afterward, do not answer the violence of the Right with your own violence. Beware of engaging in protest marches, as these can be easily infiltrated by violent agents provocateurs from the Right. Do not give these people any opening for casting blame on you. Please do me a favor and read the posts I wrote on strategic nonviolent resistance under the heading "From Dictatorship to Democracy."
Saturday, February 12, 2022
The Stories Prophets Tell
My apologies to anyone who may have been disappointed by the sparseness of my recent posting. I have come into a season in which once again, to use a favorite expression of mine, I am working like a dog. But I thought I'd take time tonight to write a few words about something that recently came to my attention. And I have some upcoming posts in the oven - soon, hopefully, they'll be "ready to eat."
In a previous post I mentioned that I have recently been enjoying some of the fiction of David Cornwell, who became famous under the pseudonym of John le Carre. (le Carre gave us a kind of spy fiction that is actually palatable. For a long time I had regarded the genre as simply about a bunch of guys in business suits trash talking each other while brandishing semiautomatic pistols. Boring after a while...) The most famous of his stories involve a character named George Smiley, through whom le Carre portrays the psychic cost of trying to achieve good ends by bad means. The same theme runs through many others of le Carre's stories, particularly A Small Town In Germany. Naturally I grew curious to learn more about Mr. le Carre, as I listened to BBC audio dramatizations of these stories, and later, as I watched the BBC video dramatizations of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People. What I discovered about le Carre was both intriguing and deeply refreshing - especially his political perspective.
For in describing the outcome of the Cold War, le Carre has often said that "the right side lost, but the wrong side won." By this he means that the totalitarianism and autocracy of the Soviet Empire had to fall apart. But in the West, there was nothing to replace it - no grand humanitarian vision that could have elevated all the peoples of the earth. The West certainly offered nothing that could fill the vacuum left in Russia by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Thus what happened was a shift from hyper-socialist economic and political control into hyper-capitalism. Russia became an illustration of the Scripture which says, "Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places, seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came'; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it goes, and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first..." For the best-positioned members of the Russian ruling class became the oligarchs and kleptocrats of the new order, and Putin became the chief kleptocrat.
Thus the ruling elite of Russia became very much like the wealthiest and most powerful denizens of the West - especially the wealthiest and most powerful Americans. For the United States had long been in the process of losing its soul. And so we come to an interview of Mr. le Carre which was conducted for the Fresh Air show on NPR in 2017. In that interview, John le Carre said the following:
"Let's look, first of all, at the operation influence, if you like, and how that's exerted, what we suspect the Russians are doing, not only in the United States, what they did in Britain for the referendum, maybe in Britain for the election. They certainly interfered in Macron's election in France. So who are these forces? And what is really spooky, I think, and profoundly disturbing is they come from the West as well as the East - that there are oligarchs in the West who are so far to the right that they make a kind of natural cause with those on the other side of the world. Both of them have in common a great contempt for the ordinary conduct of democracy.
"They want to diminish it. They see it as their enemy. They see - they've made a dirty word of liberalism - one of the most inviting words in politics. They've - and so they're closing in on the same target from different points of view..." [Emphasis added]
Note le Carre's assertion - that the oligarchs of both the East and the West have begun to come together in common cause to destroy freedom throughout the world. This was blindingly obvious during the reign of Donald Trump. It has become even more blindingly obvious within the last two months. For Fox News attack dog/talking head Tucker Carlson has boldly spoken in support of Vladimir Putin and against the independent sovereignty of Ukraine. And a number of Republican politicians - who were historically well-known for their anti-communist and anti-Soviet stands - have suddenly gone quite soft (if not actually silent) on the crisis of Russian aggression against Ukraine and against the West.
This has some rather interesting implications. I would suspect that pro-Putin sentiment is quite high just now among many members of far-Right or white supremacist groups in the United States, as pro-Putin spokespersons managed to make significant headway among many white American evangelicals before and during the reign of Donald Trump. These people should perhaps learn a lesson from the experiences of the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine who got what they were asking for in 2015, and have had to live with the consequences ever since. Their initial support for Putin has soured, as they have discovered that Putin has not led them to the Promised Land. They have discovered instead that they have been enslaved by means of sophistry. (Isn't that frequently how slavery begins?) The supporters of Putin in the United States will find the same experience waiting for them in due time. For "the wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears it down with her own hands."
But a more interesting complication awaits those who support this unholy joining of oligarchs. For China and Russia have published a joint statement of intent to remake the world according to an image of their liking. And that will very soon pose problems for those rank-and-file working-class rubes in the United States who hitched their wagon to the the Republican Party, to Donald Trump, and to the Global Far Right. Under Trump, they were taught to hate China. But under the coalescing leadership of the emerging league of global oligarchs, they will be forced to love China - not the rank-and-file people of China, mind you, but the autocratic leadership of China. That is bound to induce some serious whiplash in the souls of many white supremacists and racists in the United States. Ambulances should be standing by.
Sunday, March 14, 2021
Солнечный свет
- Support of the emerging fascist government of Italy
- Support of General Franco's successful overthrow of the Spanish government
- A series of relatively bloodless military victories against militarily inferior neighbors. These military moves were made under the pretext of answering the call for help made by supposedly oppressed German minorities and sympathetic partisans in these countries.
- From page 306 of Liddell-Hart: "To prepare the way for his offensive, he [Hitler] sought to find influential adherents in the other country who would undermine its resistance, make trouble in his interest, and be ready to form a new government compliant to his aims. Bribery was unnecessary - he counted on self-seeking ambition, authoritarian inclination, and party-spirit to provide him with willing and unwitting agents among the ruling classes." (Emphasis added.)
And in his place a despicable person will arise, on whom the honor of kingship has not been conferred, but he will come in a time of tranquility and seize the kingdom by intrigue...And after an alliance is made with him he will practice deception, and he will go up and gain power with a small people... (Daniel 11:21, 23; see also Daniel 8:23-25)
Could Putin then be "da man"? может быть; кто знаете?
- The Revanchism of the Third Rome (Part 1)
- The Revanchism of the Third Rome (Part 2): The Role of Russian Orthodoxy
- The Revanchism of the Third Rome: Symphony's Chords
- The Revanchism Of The Third Rome, Part 4: Caesar's 21st Century
- The Black Hole At The Imperial Center
- No Strangers to Самовлюбленность
- The Tearing of the Fig Leaf Dress
Sunday, January 10, 2021
Cleaning Up A Week of Broken Glass
Thursday, November 26, 2020
A Bad Place To Lie
Sunday, November 22, 2020
From D to D, Chapter 3 (Continued): The Social Movement Organization
Today's post continues our discussion of Chapter 3 of the book From Dictatorship to Democracy by Dr. Gene Sharp. This will be the last post that deals with Chapter 3. The next post in this series will begin to cover Chapter 4. The book From Dictatorship to Democracy (shortened in these posts to From D to D) teaches how oppressed peoples can use strategic nonviolent resistance to shatter the power of their oppressors. This knowledge is especially appropriate for these days, in which a number of racist, White supremacist and Global Far Right leaders have in the last decade come to power in many nations, including the United States, where Donald Trump was illegally helped into his seat of power by Vladimir Putin and the Russian government. (The Russians helped many of the other authoritarian strongmen come to power as well.) Mr. Trump has clearly and legally lost the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, yet he is refusing to concede his loss and he is resisting being ejected from the seat of power which he has occupied (a seat which he has been soiling) for the last four years. Therefore, it is quite possible that oppressed people in the United States will have to use the methods of strategic nonviolent resistance in order to achieve regime change right here in the U.S.A.
Chapter 3 of From D to D explains how an oppressed population can shatter the power of a dictator or oppressor by the mass withdrawal of political and economic cooperation from the oppressor's regime. But that noncooperation works best when it is exercised as a coordinated effort by the independent institutions and groups of the oppressed society. Note that by "independent" we mean those groups and institutions that are not controlled by the dictator or his administration. Sharp listed a number of normally independent groups and institutions which are also normally apolitical, such as families, gardening clubs, sports clubs, musical groups, and the like. As noted in an earlier post in this series, in order for such normally apolitical groups to become part of a strategic nonviolent resistance movement, they must be politicized or co-opted by movement organizers.
According to Sidney Tarrow, this collective action must be sustained collective action in order to be considered the basis of a social movement. To quote Saru again, "So, according to Tarrow, a social movement occurs when people with limited resources - in our world, we call that the people most affected - are able to sustain - that word is important - contentious actions in conflict with powerful opponents." (Emphasis mine.) Social movement organizations are the basis of social movements; therefore, social movement organizing is much more than just organizing a march or a petition drive or a mouse click campaign. For a social movement organization is a collection of people who are willing to work together collectively in a sustained manner in order to shift the balance of power between themselves and powerful opponents.
Now the work of a social movement organization is not just to engage in sustained collective action as an organization, but to create an environment in which, according to Saru, "something else happens and gives way to a much broader, much wider movement in which many more people...who are not affiliated with any organization...are suddenly across a very wide swath of society engaging in contentions actions over a long period of time." When the social movement organizations trigger this kind of sustained societal shift in behavior, that's when a social movement is born. These movements, are, however, built on the ongoing, patient work of social movement organizations. It is a series of patiently accumulated small steps and small victories which lead to the big breakthrough movement moments.
The necessary initial work of a social movement organization must first be to teach the people most affected to begin to reclaim agency over their lives. This is done by building structures of self-reliance. As Gene Sharp says in Chapter 1 of From D to D, "A liberation struggle is a time for self-reliance and internal strengthening of the struggle group." Therefore, the movement organization must begin to build its own means of taking care of the needs of its members. To illustrate this, let's look at some of the demands of some of the Black Lives Matter chapters in the United States. One of those demands is the demand for equal access to quality education for Black and Brown children. But the people who have set up inequitable systems of education did so for a reason. Therefore, what makes BLM think that these people will respond to the demand of the people most affected to change these systems? Instead of demanding decency and humanity from people who don't have any, why doesn't BLM organize its own education system as a necessary prerequisite to organizing a crippling mass boycott of the system set up by the dominant culture? When racist teachers who are part of punitive schools face empty classrooms, they learn quickly that their jobs are in danger! Similarly, the low-wage workers who are employed by exploitative employers must begin to build the self-reliance they need in order to go without work for a while in the event of a strike. Building self-reliance of this kind is not easy when you're being exploited, yet it has been done time after time by people who successfully liberated themselves. The United Farm Workers did this very thing when they built the structures which enabled them to use strikes and boycotts against large California farms in the 1960's.
The building of structures of self-reliance is also the means by which social movement organizers chip away at the legitimacy of the structures of the dominant culture. For if the structures built by the powerless actually work better than the structures built by the powerful, people will start to notice! Thus Asef Bayat, in his book Life as Politics, says "I envision a strategy whereby every social group generates change in society through active citizenship in their immediate domains: children at home and at schools, students in colleges, teachers in classrooms, workers in factories, the poor in their neighborhoods, athletes in stadiums, artists through their art, intellectuals through media, women at home and as public actors. Not only are they to voice their claims, broadcast violations done unto them, and make themselves heard, but also to take responsibility for excelling at what they do. An authoritarian regime should not be a reason for not producing excellent novels, brilliant handicrafts, math champions, world- class athletes, dedicated teachers, or a global film industry. Excellence is power; it is identity." (Emphasis added.)
This concludes our study of the necessary groundwork that must be laid by the people most affected by oppression in today's world, the people most threatened by White supremacy, the Global Far Right, and the collection of strongmen who want to Make Their People Great Again by trashing all the other peoples on earth. We will next begin a discussion of strategy. However, I may also decide to write a post describing the Global Far Right in terms of a religious cult, and describe in that post how we might use some of the resources created by cult researchers such as Steve Hassan to reach out to those who are trapped in that cult mindset.
Sunday, December 4, 2016
The Black Hole At The Imperial Center
Warning: This will be a blatantly spiritual post, so you can decide whether you are interested enough in that subject to keep reading. I will begin with an analogy from astronomy. Observations of stellar motion near galactic cores explain much about what holds galaxies together. Scientists who have observed such cores have gleaned a great deal of information about a thing that can be observed only indirectly, namely, the super-massive black hole that lies at the heart of a typical galaxy. Those observations have enabled them to estimate the probable mass of many black holes at galactic centers and the radius of their event horizons.
Here's a question: can observations of empire tell what lies at the center of earthly empires?
A clue came to me recently. For the last several months I've been listening to audio recordings of the Bible that I downloaded from the LibriVox website. For some reason, I found myself obsessively listening to various readings of the Book of Daniel for several days last month, and that led me to an effort to try to figure the book out. I am not going to give you some grand exposition today, but I will comment on a couple of things that I noticed.
First, the main theme of Daniel seems to be summarized in Daniel 4:17 - that God Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He will, and sets up over it the lowest of men - and that one day, all earthly kingdoms and their kings will be superseded by a King from Heaven whose reign will be over all, and will never end.
But before that everlasting Kingdom comes, there will be one last earthly empire. That empire will rule the earth for a time, and will be evil. One interesting observation is the power and motivation behind that last empire, whose ruler will "do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers' fathers." (Daniel 11:24) In other words, he will be an exceptional conqueror having an extraordinary degree of cunning. What will be the secret of his success? This: "He will not regard the gods of his fathers, or the desire of women, or regard any god, for he will magnify himself above all. But in his place he will honor a god of fortresses, a god whom his fathers did not know; with gold, silver and with precious stones and pleasant things. He will deal with the strongest fortresses by the help of a a foreign god; he will give great honor to those who acknowledge him and will cause them to rule over the many, and will parcel out land for a price." (Daniel 11:37-39, various translations)
To put it plainly, behind the empire of the final earthly king will be the worship of a "god of fortresses..." In other words, the power and foundation of this empire will be from an occult source. This is also indicated in Daniel 8:23-24, "And in the latter period of their kingdom, when the transgressors have finished, a king will arise strong of face and skilled in ambiguous speech (or intrigue, or enigmas). And his power will be mighty, but not by his power (emphasis added), and he will destroy (or corrupt) to an extraordinary degree and prosper and perform his will; he will destroy (or corrupt) mighty men and the people of the saints. And through his shrewdness he will cause deceit to succeed by his influence..."
Thinking of these passages led me to formulate a hypothetical question: what if the power and foundation of every earthly empire throughout history has come from an occult source? This seems especially likely if the empire was an extraordinarily violent and successful conqueror, and/or a severe and cruel oppressor. What if, moreover, every conspiracy to create an earthly empire has an occult inspiration? Where would one look for evidence to confirm or contradict such a hypothesis? Over the last few weeks, I have been looking at the last five hundred years of the history of the Global North (Europe, the Five Eyes, and Russia), and I came up with some very interesting findings. I will divide those findings into "historical imperial examples" and "present-day conspiratorial examples."
Under the heading of "historical imperial examples" were some obvious cases, such as Nazi Germany under the reign of Hitler. (See this, this, this, and this for instance. However, the author of the last source cited seems to hint that occult fascinations merely colored, and did not cause, certain aspects of National Socialism.) There is also the case of Italy under Benito Mussolini, whose reign was influenced to some degree by occultist Julius Evola, who was also virulently racist, According to one source, his writings have had a major impact on the development of the global far right. But I am getting ahead of myself.
There is also at least one questionable example, namely that of Napoleon Bonaparte of France. The limited investigation I have done has turned up no hard link to the occult in Napoleon's empire. However, he is an ambiguous character who proclaimed his allegiance to several religions in order to facilitate his rule over the diverse peoples he conquered.
But there is also an unexpected example, namely that of Elizabethan England, where the Queen had a court astrologer and advisor named John Dee who was also the inspiration and architect of the formation of the British Empire. Throughout his adult life he had a strong and increasing fascination with the occult (which is one thing actually that led to his eventual ruin). There is also the example of Cecil Rhodes, who, according to Carroll Quigley, was the mastermind behind attempts by certain wealthy British interests to reconquer some of the possessions lost by the British Empire. According to Quigley, one of the institutions arising from the activities of Mr. Rhodes is the Society for Psychical Research (The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 32).
There is also the example of the United States, if one cares to take the time to find reputable and scholarly articles concerning the faith of the Founding Fathers. (Hint: most of them were not fundamentalist Christians. See this also.) Note also the significant role played by secret societies in American history. (See this and this for instance.) Lastly, consider the hidden agenda and esotericism of certain examples of American-made religion, such as Mormonism and Dominionism. And there is the example of Federal funding for research into the use of psychic phenomena for military purposes!
Under the heading of "present-day conspiratorial examples", the biggest and most obvious case I found was Russia and its involvement with the burgeoning far-right, white supremacist movements now at work in the Global North. Those who are intimately familiar with Russian culture know of the prominent role of the occult in pre-revolutionary Russia, as well as the Soviet research in attempts to use psychic phenomena for Soviet governmental objectives. (See this, for instance.) But what is even more interesting is the place of the occult in the resurgence of post-collapse Russian society and of post-collapse Russian geopolitical strategy. Consider, for instance, Aleksandr Dugin, the chief architect of modern Russian geopolitical strategy. Consider the occult roots of his political philosophy, and of Dugin's fascism. (See this and this also.) Dugin, it seems, wants to build a global empire centered on and run by Russia. Indeed, he believes that Russia without empire would cease to exist.
And part of his strategy (a strategy we have seen implemented quite effectively over the last two years) involves the financing and political support of far-right groups in Europe and the United States. (For an example of involvement in Europe, see this.)
I would also say that the widespread evidence of occult involvement in the global far-right groups today transcends any individual country. It is truly an international phenomenon. (See this, this and this for instance.) There is evidence, moreover, that these far-right groups are actively creating a white supremacist youth culture. (See this, this and this also.)
So then, based on my initial findings, I think I can state that the answer to my initial hypothetical question is most likely "Yes, the foundation of earthly empires and imperialist conspiracies is occult." Therefore I submit that thus we who are members of those people groups who have been oppressed and exploited by the Global North for the last five centuries or so can begin to understand the power and motives behind the cruelty dealt to us by our oppressors. And we can begin to estimate the future trajectory of our oppressors, as well as understanding how we should respond to the oppression dealt to us.
As a Christian, I boldly state that our response must not be to attempt to wield the same power now wielded against us by our oppressors! For those who wield that kind of power run the risk of losing their souls "on singularly unfavorable terms" (to quote C.S. Lewis), regardless of the earthly results they achieve. Rather, for the Christian, it is much more relevant that, "...for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we for Him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we through Him." (1 Corinthians 8:6) And, "A glorious throne on high from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary. O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake Thee will be put to shame..." (Jeremiah 17:12-13).
My assessment also agrees with the words of Soong-Chan Rah in his book Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice In Troubled Times, where he says, "American Christians operate under the delusion that success and power provide the answer to the world's problems. In Scripture, we see that powers and principalities are not necessarily a positive expression. Moses stands against the powers and principalities of his time. The prophets boldly speak against the powers, including their own king. Jesus rejects the temptation of secular power. Ephesians 6 portrays powers and principalities as demonic forces. Should we seek the same type of power that the world seeks?"
Some readers may be curious as to the results which can be expected from the seeking of occult power by the far-right supremacist groups I have cited. Some may also be curious as to the timing of the final end of the trajectory of these supremacists. I will not comment on such matters today. (I think I have spent quite enough time behind a keyboard this weekend! And some of you who read today may be thinking, "He's really climbed far out onto the skinny branches with this post!") However, I will end with a sociological question.
The quest for empire is essentially a quest for power, and the bigger the imperial dream, the greater is the underlying thirst for power. The empires of the 19th and 20th centuries enjoyed exponentially greater power than any empires that preceded them, thanks to the Industrial Revolution and the resources - particularly, energy resources - that supplied that revolution. Now those resources are coming to an end, and their end signals a mortal threat to the narcissistic quest for imperial power by those who have long enjoyed the fruits of that power. Could it be that the surging interest in the occult in the Global North - especially among the supremacist elements - signifies a desperate search for another kind of (blatantly evil) power? And will the quest for that power intensify in the months ahead?