The Glue That Holds Chaos Together

Once again we are faced with a very real war of semantics. Conservatism becomes liberalism, civil rights become gay rights, invaders are liberators, regression is what passes for progress, and *the lamb lies down on Broadway. (*THX Genessis)

jonabark

Israel has engaged in many criminal acts and this latest attack is one more, but Hamas's tactics in the face of Israel's power are self destructive. Why are they insisting on their right to attack across the border? They are offering themselves to slaughter for a right that is immoral and strategically insane. Even if the Arabs and Iranians united to war with Israel they would be destroyed, even if they managed to destroy or do bad damage to Israel. What is the point of that?Will something be accomplished besides injury, poison, and death? Will some God's point finally be proven once and for all? I sympathize with the Palestinians, but they should throw Hamas out of power or at least insist on an absolute cessation of rocket attacks. Right now they are feeding Israel's posture of self defense and empowering their worst enemies. They are firing rockets at their own children, as is Israel. Being bullied does not make one heroic or wise, only wronged. Nonviolence, democratic unity, disruptive civil protest and dialogue are the most powerful tactics available in this conflict. Such leadership would be far more of a threat to the current Israeli position than anything else.

The climate in America for sympathy to the Palestinians is still bad despite J Carter and others who have tried to open the dialogue. There has never been a mass movement for a peaceful settlement of this issue and those who call for peace are still called anti-semitic even if they are Jewish, and a great many are. Still, the tide of public opinion is slowly turning, partly thanks to reporters like Fisk. But penetrating the mythologies that surround these issues is slow going. Perhaps the new Israeli film, Dancing with Bashir will help.

As for Israel, if they continue to take what is not theirs I believe they will be visited by nuclear devastation. When we have Armageddon and no God rides in to the rescue, and the earth is not filled with peace, and the earth is not filled with the knowledge of God and the earth is only filled with more poison and more stench and more weeping and more bitter anger, then what? Can we stop then? Will we never stop? Will we figure out the culprits and have a war against them? Yo, ho, ho, take that, former family members, now turned evildoers. Merry Christmas, Palestine; Happy new year Israel.

In my quaker meeting I pray and organize for peace , but politically, I thank God for the godless outpost of Northern Europe.

"NYCartist December 27th, 2008 11:16 pm

Mordechai Shiblikov: I am reminded of that good book, James Carroll's "Constantine's Sword", on the history of the Church's hatred of Jews. ... The hatred of Jews is based in "not accepting Christ"..."

That's the apparent reason for the hatred, and perhaps it's only apparent. The RCC was very politicized, strategically, and through errors in judgement, I guess also, turned into a very political instruments under the Roman Empire; but while many of the high-ranking clergy allowed themselves to be corrupted, and while many, for some considerable amount of time (decades, centuries, I'm not sure) were appointed to the highest positions by the elites of the Roman Empire, rich, ... families appointing sons, nephews, etc., and they extremely corrupted the church, they nevertheless were not representative of all members of the church; neither the laity nor the clergy, nor other religious orders.

While some, perhaps many, stayed true to their devotion to Jesus and God, they were often or usually found to be quite silent in terms of not opposing, except perhaps little, the corruptors of the church; but this was not due to agreement with the corruption. They realised that, well, like Jesus said about human institutions, that all will fail, these true members of the church lived with this sad reality and continued their missions, individual and group, to serve faithfully, and as best as they could within the context of a flawed human institution, which all human institutions are; flawed.

Anyway, those who were really true in faith did not hate Jews; nor did they hate anyone else. And those who were the corruptors of the church may have apparently hated Jews and persecuted them with this apparence of hatred for reason, but the whole of this may have only been about church-state or state-church political conquest and power-gain. The Roman Empire had made the RCC the sole accepted representative of religious faith in the empire and this was by Roman leaders who weren't christians, but who saw or realised that the Christians had become numerous and needed to be strategically turned into useful allies and "servants", i.e., slaves of state. So they worked on "massaging" corruption into the church, including by exempting clergy from military conscription, and then used the church to help oppress, etc., the population that did not yet, at the time, partake in the religion taught by the church. It would provide the state greater control of the whole population.

NYCartist continued:

"It culminates in the Holocaust in Europe, with the Germans/Nazis. He starts the book with the arguing over putting something at Auschwitz, by the Catholics and protest by Jews."

The church did not conduct the Holocaust, and while Hitler had become a Roman Catholic, in official terms, he certainly was not a true Christian. From what I've read, he tore out and trashed or burned parts of the New Testament that provided good teachings and descriptions of Jesus; and his mother, I once heard or read, was Jewish. I've also read that many of the RCC's high-ranking clergy were very against what Hitler's regime had been becoming, and certainly once it launched WWII, but there was nothing the church could really do about this. After all, the RCC doesn't have military and police forces.

Not only Jews suffered in the Nazi concentration camps. Certainly some Franciscans did, and likely also other RCs, as well as Christians of other churches, and people of wholly other religious faiths.

NYCartist:

"Carroll himself was in seminary and left. His father was a General in the US Military."

That has nothing to do with the Church and Jews; nothing explicit anyway. I was in the seminary during 1984-85 and left, and this was only a personal choice, for personal reasons. Another who was at the seminary, also in first year when I was there, left due to being angry over the church refusing to permit women to be ordained. Etc. People leave for different reasons, and the same applies to those who stay. No two are absolutely identical.

I sometimes think of possibly returning, while realizing that it's a flawed institution, instead of living in denial about this. It'd again be a personal matter or reason that would draw me to get on with returning to become a minister, and being very independent in character, the corruption in the church would not corrupt me as if I was blind to or in denial of it.

NYCartist:

"Most Jews have never heard of the grand plan via the End Times. The irony for me, is the Orthodox Jews, of certain groups, who will accept the Christian Zionists support while ignoring what they know is the End Times scenario of the Fundamentalist Christians."

I think NYCartist's off-base with respect to 'Orthodox Jews', for if they're like the True Torah Jews, aka Jews Against Zionism, then they're certainly not who NYCartist means to be speaking of; not from what I've read from them anyway. F.e., Naturei Karta, which is international, but which has a branch in the U.S., http://www.nkusa.org .

Another long winded diatribe by this undoubtedly brave journalist....

I visited the website of Turkish Airlines and found the very same edition that contained the article on Harput featured an article on the airlines' latest flight destination - Birmingham. One of the largest cities in Mr Fisk's home country.

If course Mr Fisk would not mention that Turkish Airlines was trying to promote his home country. Or the fact that some two and a half million odd Turks perished during the First World War under some horrific circumstances - many themselves massacred by the Armenian revolt.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/12/5792?page=1

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1122-01.htm

Mordechai-I can't imagine most do. I also can't imagine that Jews staunchly support Israel as much as we are led to believe. In fact, I recall an article which I think was posted here on CD in the past year or so that showed that the Zionists are pretty out of touch with most Jews.

Speaking of Pat Robber's Son, with friends like him, the Jews don't need Nazis or radical Muslims. He even won a State of Israel Friendship Award about 6 years ago! Look it up. :O

Let's see... While Israel is using American made planes to fire rockets and strafe Gaza in an air raid designed to terrorize an entire population, comes news that there was a massive power outage in Hawaii including where the President-elect is vacationing. Where is his Chief of Staff, ole Rahm Rahm Rahm Iran? Is this the "test" of which Biden the self-appointed Zionist spoke?

Once again Robert Fisk puts in the larger context the egos (isn't that a Greek word?) of the likes of "Sir" Tony Blair. Killing innocents seems to be a rite of passage; in this case it is slow-motion Genocide. As was said on the evening news, Israel has an election coming up and nobody wants to seem soft on terism. Eyeless in Gaza, eh Huxley? An eyeless for an eyeless. Cain't see no evil.

Ever notice how everybody in the Middle East plays the Underdog? But in the case of Israel this is a legacy strategy. Two Underdogs walk into a bar and the bartender asks, "What'l it be?"

-30-

This one's easy. We're FUCKING IGNORANT AND AMORAL ! We "love" to attack attack attack and break the heart and lives of the poor souls in the Middle East ! We gotta have our FUCKIN' OIL and we're gonna get it even if we gotta bomb them countries out ! Plus, we're gonna keep lying to those poor civilians and bully them with threats such as "We're gonna give ya' some fuckin' democracy whether you like it or not and we're gonna give you a Toby Keith kick up your heads if ya' object !" Yeah, that's FUCKIN' "progress" ! NOT !

This American is ashamed !

And Americans are still wondering why 9/11 happened? Our government has learned absolutely nothing since Sept. 11, 2001. We still have a biased policy in the Middle East in favor of Israel against Palestine, and we are still supporting Arab dictators.

Let us not forget that our esteemed vice president elect, Joe Biden, is a self-declared Zionist. Does this bode well for anyone concerned?

-- ekaton aka d.k.shaw

Dear Robert is right. The Israelis massacred over two hundred people in Gaza today with American F-16s. Condi Rice blamed the Palestinians. What we are seeing is apartheid in Israel, a pogrom in the West Bank and Gaza that could be considered genocide. Obama supported the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and bombing of civilian Beirut. Perhaps Barack see today's massacre as some form of progress, too. Certainly, Obama was told of the bombings beforehand as a courtesy. There is no reason to think he will be revolted by what happened today. Strange, I read a comment the other day on this blog or one like it, that the planets would soon be unusually aligned such that violence like this was very likely. I was thinking of this when I saw TV reports last night of Indian troops amassing along the Pakistani border. Now this! I am frightened. The USA has surely made a mess of things. Hold on, I think we are in for a bumpy ride.

The Jews need another homeland, if they even need one. Israel's existence only creates more turmoil in the Arab world and forces Arab and Jew alike to victimize each other. They are both just pawns on the chessboard. Zionism imo is ultimately anti-semitic for the simple fact that it creates anti-semitism and stokes its fires.

If I were a Jew, the last place in the world I would want to live is Israel. The trauma of the Holocaust is used to instill Jews (many other people) with a "survival at all costs" mentality. You have a people who have been through hell visiting hell upon another people, and neither groups really benefits. Israel is made out to be this shining oasis of Westernization in the middle of a hostile desert that needs to be protected from swarthy madmen. You're never shown the entire story. You're never shown just much money is pumped into Israel. You're never shown just how many Palestinians are disenfranchised and killed by Israel. No one ever asks why. You're just shown "Schindler's List" and told "Never Again." All the while, Zionists like Pat Robertson, people who recieve awards for their support of Jewry, believe that in the End Times, Jews will perish for not accepting Christ as their savior.

How Can Anyone Believe There Is 'Progress' in the Middle East?

Because George Wanker Bush and Consolidated Rice-A-Roni said so. You don't believe them?