Greta Thunberg and her fellow climate activists testified September 18, 2019 before the U.S. Congress. It’s painful to watch, but please watch the whole thing. There were many interesting observations but the one that stands out for me is that when the conservatives talk about the good of the economy, they mean the corporations and those who profit from them. They most certainly do not mean you and me.
Our Season of Creation
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Isaiah was encouraging in chapter 58. He addresses the same people in chapter 59, but with a marked difference.
Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
But your iniquites have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.
None calleth for justice, nor any pledeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.
They hatch cockatrice’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper.
Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are words of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.
Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.
The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.
Therefore is judgement far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.
We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.
We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.
For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them;
In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
And judgement is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.
Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the Lord saw it and it displeased him that there was no judgment.
And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.
For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloke.
According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompence.
So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.
And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord.
As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord; my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and forever. (Isaiah 59)
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Roe v Wade has been a gift to the Republican Party. A candidate can be a war monger, a corporate puppet, and eat puppies and kittens for breakfast, but if he or she is pro-life none of that will matter to conservative voters. Another candidate can have a great plan for the economy and a sterling political record, but if she is pro-choice a large portion of the American electorate will never vote for her. What would the Republicans do without Roe v Wade?
They use abortion to get votes the same way they use the bad behavior of foreign leaders to justify military intervention. Their rhetoric implies that pro-choice voters are baby-hating monsters while it promotes suspicion of every woman of child-bearing age. And votes are just one part of the story. The abortion issue allows them to co-opt the conversation with constant threats, horror stories, and authoritarian legislation. As a result, reasonable people find themselves fighting for the rights of women they don’t know, as if abortion is some kind of prize.
Some judges have said they will not enforce Alabama’s law, and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) is on record saying the legislation is so severe he is concerned that it won’t be effective in overturning Roe v Wade. Maybe that is the purpose of Alabama’s extreme approach. Republicans don’t want to reverse Roe v Wade.
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I’m pretty sure that when you chose your vocation you were an idealist. How long was it, I wonder, before you realized they had groomed you to keep their wealthy donors happy? And that’s not even the worst of it. They expect you to make nice with a bunch of silver-tongued dingbats who are doing the same thing you’re doing but without your scruples. Unless I’m terribly mistaken about you, your association with one such dingbat must be excruciating. I’m talking about the guy who refuses to say if he believes in God and then while he’s dancing around the question it gradually becomes clear that he’s congratulating himself for being more moral than people who profess their beliefs–like you. What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?
He argues that it’s audacious to say one believes in God because one must live a perfect life in order to make such a claim. (I would like to hear you address that claim by the way, but you’re not free to do so, are you.) He references Nietzsche and Slavoj Zizek and Jesus on the cross as justification for his prevarication and then he expounds on what it really means to believe–according to him.
I assume you see through him; that you would like to tell him that he’s got it wrong, that humans are not supermen. I really think you know he’s got it backwards–that part of believing is acknowledging one’s weakness. But then it must also have occurred to you that he doesn’t necessarily mean what he says. He just wants to keep the money rolling in. So he frames his hollow cynicism as existential anguish and you keep your thoughts to yourself.
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realism versus liberal internationalism
The traditions of American foreign policy that most people are familiar with are realism and liberal internationalism. Realists are usually conservatives or Republicans, for example Eisenhower and Ford, while liberal internationalists are usually liberals or Democrats, for example Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter. But these divisions broke down during the Reagan administration. This led to the rise of conservative internationalism. However, conservative internationalism existed before the breakdown of these divisions. This explains the Conservative Internationalism of Neo-Conservatives.
Conservative Internationalism versus Embassy Protectors
According to one author, this school of foreign policy has been a constant presence in American politics. The arrest of the embassy protectors at the Venezuelan embassy in Washington DC seems to be straight from the playbook of Conservative Internationalism. So where have the Conservative internationalists been hiding?
Reagan is one of the heroes of conservative internationalists. He opposed both the realist containment strategy of Richard Nixon and the liberal internationalist human rights campaign of Jimmy Carter. Instead, he adopted a strategy that used force or the threat of force assertively, as realists recommended, but aimed at the demise of communism and the spread of democracy, as liberal internationalists advocated. Reagan’s policies didn’t adhere to either of these foreign policy traditions, but he was not unique among American presidents. According to a Hoover Institution article, conservative internationalism draws historical validation from Thomas Jefferson, James K. Polk, and Harry Truman.
Tenets of Conservative Internationalism
So how does this school of foreign policy explain the arrest of the embassy protectors contrary to international law and the Geneva Convention? The Hoover Institution lists eleven tenets of Conservative Internationalism. The first tenet, the goal of expanding freedom, asserts that free countries achieve legitimacy in foreign affairs by taking decisions independently or working together through decentralized institutions.
Thus, conservative internationalists give priority to liberty over equality and work to free countries from tyranny before they recognize these countries as equal partners in international diplomacy. Jefferson and Polk were unequivocal about expanding liberty, even if it involved imperialism, because they believed that liberty would eventually bring greater equality. By contrast liberal internationalists give priority to equality over liberty and grant all nations, whether free or not, equal status in international institutions, because they believe treating countries equally will eventually encourage liberty. For conservative internationalists, legitimacy in foreign affairs derives from free countries taking decisions independently or working together through decentralized institutions; for liberal internationalists, legitimacy derives from all countries, free or not, participating equally in universal international organizations.
The remaining tenets justify the tendency of conservative internationalists to use realism or liberal internationalism, or both, with unrestrained aggression. Take for example their statement that poverty and oppression are not enough to trigger intervention, that there must be a physical effect on the United States, such as the threat posed by terrorism or oil disruption. They get around this requirement by saying that preemptive and preventative actions will sometimes be necessary, due to the difficulty of predicting physical effects.
The Use of Force is Implied
Because their goals are more ambitious than liberal internationalism or realism, conservative internationalists expect to use more force. Consider their use of the accusation against leaders who use force against their own people that they can’t be expected to cooperate with the United States either. This has been used in the past to justify unilateral force. Liberal internationalists preferred to work with the League of Nations and the UN, whereas under conservative internationalism, diplomacy is just another word for reconstruction after the use of force.
The arrest of the embassy protectors can be explained by the fact that conservative internationalists dislike international institutions, especially if they are successful. They want small government, not centralized government.
Identifying the Neo-Conservative Presence
A review of this book in the American Conservative identifies this school of foreign policy as ‘old wine in new bottles’, or the re-baptism of neo-conservatism.
This review was refuted by Henry R. Nau, the author of the Hoover Institution article. One of Nau’s arguments against the identification with neo-conservatism is that the neo-conservatives started out as Democrats.
Many neocons, however, were liberals not conservatives, advocating social engineering at home and abroad; and some democratic realists were imperialists, seeking to gain or maintain American hegemony.
The problem with this distinction is that the neocons have not been straight with us about their history. There was a neocon presence in the German Conservative Revolution. The following summary is from a description of a History 330 course at Amherst.edu, German Conservative Revolution and the Roots of the Third Reich.
It is asserted that Germany’s right wing intellectuals, who identified themselves with a German “Conservative Revolution”, played a fateful role in the ideological formation of national socialism in the wake of the Great War. They ‘defied’ traditional divisions between the Left and Right, opposed parliamentary democracy and royalist reactionary ‘Wilhelminian’ conservatism, as well as Liberalism and Marxism. They attempted to reshape theology, legal thought, race biology, geography, and political philosophy.
Although many of its members criticized the Nazi Party, this had nothing to do with the Party’s anti-Semitism. Some of them collaborated with the Nazi state and shared its fate, but the dissenters were able to escape condemnation and wield a continuing influence.
If you’re uncomfortable with neo-conservative foreign policy but you can’t quite figure out how former Democrats became neo-cons, this might explain it. They were not Democrats; they were Conservative Internationalists.
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Paul Ryan told American women in a televised speech that they must bear more children. Because this speech closely followed the passage of the scandalous tax bill that reduces taxes for the rich and therefore endangers funding for social programs that help mothers, Ryan’s proposal demonstrates the connection between the seducer state and the free labor of mothers.
The following video from Chris Hedges’ On Contact discusses government policies, which are meant to increase the birthrate in the face of decreasing financial support for families.
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Recently, a video of an old debate between Cardinal George Pell and Richard Dawkins appeared in my YouTube news feed. (Please see the video below.) I had to watch it twice to be sure I understood what I was seeing, but you can guess my impression of the debate from the title of this post.
The Sadducees denied the resurrection of the dead, the existence of spirits, and the obligation of oral tradition, and emphasized acceptance of the written law alone. I call Dawkins a Sadducee because he denied the validity of metaphysical propositions, claiming that ‘life’ is sufficiently explained by Charles Darwin. In my opinion, this is very similar to the stance of the Sadducees. However, what I learned from this debate is that the Church addresses this line of thought with sympathy and compassion.
The statement that started me thinking about the Sadducees did not come from Richard Dawkins. It came from the moderator who asked Cardinal Pell whether atheists can go to heaven (Part 4). The context was a caller who stated that he was an atheist and wanted to know what the Cardinal thought would happen to him when he died. Cardinal Pell answered that of course Atheists can go to Heaven.
The more I thought about it, the more I saw the question as a trick question. As I understand it, the whole point of being an atheist is that you are not worried about whether you will go to Heaven. I concluded that the moderator must really be questioning the extent of Pell’s, and therefore the Church’s, good will and compassion. Until I watched this exchange a second time I had the impression that Pell felt pressured to answer the way he did. I no longer think so.
Jesus was asked trick questions during his ministry. According to an article entitled Four Questions: Four Questions: Matthew 22:15-46, they came from three distinct groups of people: Herodians, Sadducees and Pharisees. The Herodians asked a political question; the Sadducees asked a doctrinal question; and the Pharisees asked an ethical question.
The Sadducees were a wealthy, aristocratic party. They said when you’re dead, you’re dead, so don’t worry about it. They were very logical, and said since there’s no proof, they won’t believe it, and if the Bible isn’t logical in some point, they will always choose logic over the Bible. And many today say that where science disagrees with the Bible in some point they will choose science over it…
At least I was right about one thing. When the moderator asked Mr. Dawkins’ opinion on this matter, Dawkins said it all depends on whether you are cremated, buried, etc. When asked whether he thought there might be some part of his mind that would wonder if there wasn’t something more, Dawkins answered that since it’s the brain that wonders such things, that would be impossible. The brain rots after you die.
I will admit that I sort of expected the Cardinal to respond to Dawkins with more force. I partly blame the debate format and the audience responses but I see now that I wasn’t thinking like a pastor. It gradually became clear to me that Pell wasn’t trying to win a contest. He was a pastor and more than a pastor–he was a fisherman. He was inviting Richard Dawkins and everyone who was listening to think about other possibilities.
It may be true that the logic of atheism indicates indifference, or at least the claim of indifference, as to what happens to you after you die, but Pell was probably thinking of people he actually knows, including Richard Dawkins. He may also have been thinking about the family members of atheists who have already passed away. Cardinal Pell believes and hopes they will go to Heaven. And this is not just his personal belief.
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9)…
…we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness (2 Peter 3:13).
Cardinal Pell, who was in the process of cleaning up corruption at the Vatican Bank, has been convicted by a court in Australia of molesting two boys. He was recently sentenced to 6 years in prison.
See also: Progressives in the World
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A recent interview on YouTube reminds me that the main concern of Catholic Conservatives is not so much the sex abuse scandal but the Church’s teachings about marriage. I don’t have a stake in the marriage debate but this interview reminded me of certain realities that I have come across in my studies. And I have to say, the struggle between Catholic Conservatives and the Church’s leadership is getting old.
The interviewee is concerned that changes in the Church’s teachings make God look like a trickster who handed down a set of difficult rules only to change his mind two thousand years later. He is concerned that it might begin to look like the rules never really mattered. He is also concerned that a changing church makes it difficult to know how to behave.
I wonder about his reasons. Lately I get the impression that conservatives know better than the Pope how to behave. Perhaps the real problem is that they feel their own rewards are diminished if other people who don’t follow the rules are allowed to be members in good standing. That’s how the brother of the prodigal son felt (Luke 15:11-32). The moral of the story: the brother got it wrong.
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I’ve found more English language videos on the proceedings of the conference on the protection of minors, and I think I had the wrong impression. I was working off of a liturgy that was not in English.