summer patriot, winter soldier

the devil under your bed .... is he to be leashed? ....

the following passage is taken from "living with the devil: a meditation on good and evil" by stephen batchelor.  his narrative at this point discusses the old view of the "devil" as an action agent of "evil," as a person or entity of g_d like stature, most epitomized in milton’s "paradise lost," and then transformed into modernity's view of it being internalized fault rather than, in batchelor's words, "... a feature of reality itself."  in short, the modern's view of evil is a function of psychological analysis.

but, says batchelor,

[a]n impersonal sense of evil nonetheless persists.  in his poem 'destruction," baudelaire writes:

ceaselessly the demon races at my side;

he swims around me as an impalpable breeze;

which i inhale—i feel the burn in my lungs

and fill them with eternally guilty desire.

 

the poet suspects that the source of this disturbing but irresistible feeling is something dynamic but insubstantial existing apart from himself (“an impalpable breeze”), over which he has no control but which he cannot help breathing.  although “guilty desire” seems irredeemably “mine,”  i do not choose to feel such an emotion.  it  happens to me, breaks into consciousness, as though it came from elsewhere.  being prone to such random attacks on the privacy of my soul, i become subject to the destructive potential of the demonic.  “when we breath,” says baudelaire, “death’s invisible river/pours into our lungs with faint moans.”  in capitalizing “death,” baudelaire links it to “devil” and “demon,” recalling the theological identification of death with satan and anticipating the freudian struggle between eros (desire) and thanatos (death.)

the european enlightenment of the seventeenth century inaugurated a period in which the demonic lost its identify, leaving us unsure of what, if anything, it stands for.  the soul of early modern man found itself split in two: detached cartesian reason at oddls with exuberant worsworthian emotion.  since the rationalists believed in systematic human progress and the establishment of an ordered world, they demonized chaotic outbursts of unbridled emotion that threatened their goals.  the romantics, however, asserted the primacy of feeling and regarded any attempt to impose abstract rules, controls, or measurements onto the spontaneous fluidity of life as a form of demonic inhibition.  nietzsche regarded the moribund state of european civilization as the legacy of a stifling apollonian tradition of repression that needed to be revitalized by a resurgence of dionysian energy and passion.

 over the past hundred years, management of this conflict within individual human minds has largely fallen to psychologists and psychotherapists.  freud understood our anxious sense of self (ego) to be forged of two opposed and irreconcilable forces: the blind drives of biology (the largely unconscious id) and the moral constraints of society (the superego.).  both these forces are characteristic of mara: the tempestuous longings and fears that assail us, as well as the views and opinions that confine us.  whether we talk of succumbing to irresistible urges and addictions or being paralyzed by neurotic obsessions, both are psychological ways of articulating our current cohabitation with the devil.

by identifying boredom as a primary evil, baudelaire understands the demonic more as oppression and inhibition than as violent or erotic abandon.  for when we do transgress, we do so guiltily.*  “we steal a secret pleasure on the side,” he says, “that we squeeze hard like an old orange.”  this disturbing awareness of being psychologically and morally ensnared by forces we scarcely comprehend reappears in the novels of franz kafka.  “someone must have been telling lies about joseph k.,” opens the trial, “for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.”  poor k. never finds out why he was arrested, fails to penetrate very far into the labyrinth of the judicial system, and finally is executed.   the devil as “a liar” and “a murderer from the beginning” who blocks our path (arrests us) has assumed the guise of sinister, invisible powers that without apparent reason invade and destroy an ordinary person’s life.  this acutely secular entrapment is captured, by the spare, halting prose of samuel beckett: “suddenly, no, at last, long last, I couldn’t anymore, i couldn’t go on.  someone said, you can’t stay here.  i couldn’t stay there and i couldn’t go on.”

in confronting the demonic with little prospect of redemption, these writers practice a curiously civilized kind of nihilism.  while appearing to shun any hope of religious salvation, they achieve, at least momentarily, a secular salvation in the transformative workings of their art.  their despair is redeemed by becoming a beautiful despair.  baudelaire admits as much in one of his projected prefaces to les fleurs du mal: “it seemed to me pleasant, and all the more agreeable as the task was difficult, to extract the beauty of evil.”  (baudelaire’s italics.)**

the poet enjoys an aesthetic pleasure in the very act of coming to terms with the demons that torment him.***  just as knowing mara frees buddha from mara’s grip [does it?:jj.  did knowing al fatah free the radical from the grip of evil?  does knowing hamas free the french intellectual from the grip of evil?], reimagining the devil loosens the bonds with which the demonic binds the poet.  [or does it merely lend the poet this delusion?:jj.****]  the stifling desperation evoked in the poems contrasts with the effortless and fluid rhythms of each verse.  describing his plight as the hands of the demon, baudelaire seems to be borne away on the “impalpable breeze” that envelops him:

so, he leads me, far from god’s sight,

gasping and broken with fatigue, in the midst

of boredom’s profound deserted plains

 

and throws in my bewildered eyes

soiled cloths, open wounds

and the bleeding apparatus of destruction.

 

this “apparatus of destruction” is the systemic violence that permeates and infects the totality of contingent events.  for created things are subject to breakdown, corruption, deception, and extinction.  they are ultimately unreliable.  no matter how well we care for this organism of flesh and nerves and blood, it will one day fail us.  “the undependable lord of death,” remarks shantideva, “waits not for things to be done or undone.  whether sick or healthy, this fleeting life cannot be trusted.”  the stuff of which were are made, that allows the possibility of consciousness, love, and freedom, will also destroy us, wiping out that poignant identity of a sensitive creature with an unrepeatable history, who has become a question for itself.

 

disease, ageing, and death are forms of an internal violence that afflicts all creatures; whereas natural disasters, viral infections, and terrorist attacks are examples of an external violence that threatens to break out everywhere.  the globalized, interconnected world has become a body that is prone to these outbursts without warning.  in a way that Baudelaire could not have imagined, we are capable of feeling the instability and vulnerability of the living system of which we are a part and on which we depend.  Whether it be the appearance of a virus, a hole in the ozone layer, or a hijacked plane, such events are rapidly and vividly made known through the electronic media.  they do not have to impinge on our personal existence or occur very often to frighten us.  mara’s most effective weapon is sustaining a climate of fear.

 

cancer cells and suicide bombers share the capacity to occupy the space of one’s body without one’s consent.  every act of violence is a violation of the integrity of my enfleshed being.  whether it be the breaching of my skin, my immune system, or my right under law to live unmolested, a violent act is an intrusion into the intimate space i cherish as my own.  whoever or whatever deprives me of the right to that space violates me.  that violence is a form of rape is implied by the french le viol (rape) and violer (to rape).  whenever humans resort to violence, men are murdered and women raped.  that inviolable space they regard as their own is penetrated against their will by a bullet or a penis.

 

acts of genocide, child abuse, and terrorism are perpetrated by educated, civilized and religious people.  the willingness to violate others furtively behind closed doors or defiantly in the name of a higher good (the survival of a nation or the truth of a religion) is readily concealed behind a smiling or pious exterior.   when these evildoers are exposed, the world heaps scorn and hatred upon them, apparently unaware of the violent impulses from which its own reactions stem.

 

“it is more difficult to love g_d than to believe in him,” said baudelaire elsewhere in his abandoned preface.

 

by contrast, it is more difficult for people of this century to believe in the devil than to love him.  everybody serves him, but no one believes in him.  the sublime subtlety of the devil.

 

i may sincerely believe in doing good and renouncing evil, but my thoughts and actions often suggest that i wholeheartedly do neither.  in the quiet and lonely solitude of the soul, inadmissible urges co-exist with yearnings to act justly and kindly.  both exert an equal claim on my attention.  i oscillate between them, one moment consumed by self-loathing only in the next to be granted access to a rapture of compassion.  it is here, in the heart of this inner space, that we first face the challenge of living with the devil.” ******

 

 

stephen batchelor, “living with the devil: a meditation on good and evil.”  riverhead books, penguin group, new york, 2004, isbn 1-57322-276-3.

 

john jay @ 10.31.2010

 

*boredom seems the cause of most depravity, does it not, in the sense that boredom cries for stimulus to relieve its stultification, and hence we see the spectacle of social elites engaging in fist fucking at club 54, violating more than several social inhibitions, as they displayed their carnal natures in public.  it is the triumph over sensation over emptiness, something which seems to me to “animate” craigthorpe’s photography of gay men engaged in the search for the ultimate fetish, as though it were truth itself.  how will they ever recognize it, how does the truth of sensation announce its presence?  is it the “holy grail” of the “perfect” penis?

and, this notion also gives us insight into another evil of terrorism.  it is one thing that the terrorist perpetrates an evil, such as blowing up a bus load of individuals we would see as innocents in regard to the conflict the terrorist celebrates.  it is quite another that we, as witnesses, seem to possess an almost insatiable appetite to view these matters, and that we take a perverse sense of being entertained by seeing such things, that we are complicit in the evil which is perpetrated by another on innocents because we take pleasure in witnessing it.

this is, in fact, evil.

and, it may explain why we as witnesses feel a kinship with the terrorist, because he has fed our insatiable desires to be free of boredom.  we become a macabre audience to the obscene.  and, in this, we are no different than the crowds at studio 54 who cheered the fist fucking.

this complicity is evil.

and, we sense it.  we know we are being evil.  i have refused, for instance, to watch the films of daniel pearl having his head cut off in the banal theatricality of his execution.  i will not be an audience to that evil, and i will not share in it. 

i want no tingle up my leg, watching such horror.

**do we not do the same precise thing by the transformation of evil into the mundane, such as in the works of quentin tarantino, when evil in made mundane and banal by its repetition.

this is the trouble faced by the terrorist, as seen very precisely by ayn rand in his works on aesthetics, when she recognized the need for the terrorists, as street vaudevillians and political thespians, to keep the attention of the audience rapt and fixed on terrorist activities, by making them ever more brutal and horrific, so that the audience does not become habituated and bored with it.

and, yes, complicity in this is as evil as the acts of perpetrating such evil upon innocents.

***this is the very definition of complicity in evil acts, for its transforms the evil act into a sort of aesthetic, and an act to be perceived, understood and conceived as an aesthetic.  this explains, in a single deft sentence by batchelor, the european intellectuals rapt absorption in the act of palestinians who blow innocents into vapors and smithereens with bombs that are indifferent as fate to the destruction they wreak.

****i find revealing insight in batchelor’s observation here, but to a limited degree, because i believe he has missed a fundamental point here.  in capturing evil in the midst of the artists creative impulse, in transforming evil into something of an aesthetic to be regarded and in taking artistic joy in the process of this transformation, the artist has also done something else, I believe, which in the context of our understanding of terrorism is also an evil complicity with such terrorism.  and, that is, by this transformation, the artist, the intellectual, the historian, the journalist, has also relieved himself, absolved himself, removed himself from any personal responsibility from dealing with or preventing that evil.

have you ever wondered after the photographer who films the planting and explosion and the destruction and death of an i.e.d., and yet does nothing to prevent the death caused by the explosion or the terrorists who made the device?  or, over the american woman photographer who took a picture of an iraqi sniper about to fire on american troops, and did nothing to warm those troops, and who exhibited that picture to rave reviews as “art?”  or, photographers who record all manner of evil and do nothing to stop it, even while it is committed in their presence, and even while they are complicit in perpetrating it because they glamorize it?

what gives the new york times photographer the moral standing to take a picture of my murder without acting to stop it, what gives such a person the right to remove himself from the course and path of humanity, in the name of an aesthetic.

this act of removal of one’s self from evil, to distant one’s self from the commission of a known evil, is, in my view, evil in and of itself, because it denies the responsibility that we each have one to the other.

******i have not finished reading this book.

but, to this point, i have not found any “meditation” on “good” as promised in the book’s title.

and, while i have found much of interest and insight in it, i am greatly disquieted by portions of it, as well.  there is a resignation to evil here that puzzles me, almost the suggestion in the closing remarks of the quoted portion above, that if we simply put a studded collar on the devil at the end of a sturdy leash we can keep tabs on him, and minimize the mischief he might otherwise bring about if we were stranger to his capacities.

now, there is some logic to this position, especially if we recognize in evil coequal status to what we conceive as “good.”  we can no more defeat “good” as a force “in and of itself” and “of its own reality” any more than we can stop the motion of the waves at the shore.  and, if we conceptualize evil as coequal, we can see the impossibility of defeating it.

but, to me those observations hardly confirm the wisdom of sleeping with the devil under the bed, or thinking that familiarity with him on the end of the leash is going to make us any less susceptible to his blandishments, or the temptations he offers, or the undermining of our intent, or the stumbling blocks he puts in the way of our paths in life, and toward righteousness.

i think, like jesus with john the baptist, or in his conversation with satan before he submits to arrest by the soldiers, we must fight the devil at every turn and with every device we have at our disposal, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually.

i am, therefore, against accommodating the bastards, and against accommodating the bastards who serve him.

i think no good comes from sleeping with the bastards under the bed.

those oregon ducks ... football, my friends, is still a field position and ball possession game ... and, the oregon ducks prove it ...

my friends, the game of football is still a field position and ball possession game.  and, as unlikely a proposition as it may be, given the oregon ducks propensity for lightning quick scoring drives from any place on the field, my oregon ducks prove it.

you just have to be watching carefully, and paying attention.

now, back in my day as a lad, it was often said that if you could drive the ball each time you had it, and you had a good punter and a good punt coverage team, that you would seldom be out of any football game.  and, to pin another team deep within its territory, and limit it to few plays, was seen almost as tantamount to scoring.

the game then was not so much scoring, but as scoring and then working towards scoring again by making the field you had to drive in order to score again, shorter and shorter and shorter.  and, some teams play this game even today, though they do not achieve the notoriety that teams like oregon and boise state and tcu are receiving because of their ability to light up the score board against quality opposition.

and, it goes with saying, that as long as you possess the ball, the other team cannot score much, ... , 2 points on a play where you do not give up possession is the max.  of course, if a team throws an interception of fumbles the ball away, and is scored upon, it does not possess the ball, does it?

my oregon ducks have had two very signature victories against good sold teams, one against the stanford cardinals, who belong ranked in the top 10, and another just recently against the usc trojans.

lets look at the trojan game, because it most clearly evidenced what i am saying about the new fangled ducks proving yet again an "old fangled" proposition, mainly that field position and possession win footballs games.--

against the trojans, the ducks took a 29-17 lead into the locker room at half time, after scoring the last 21 points of the first half.  the trojans came out, and within the space of 2 1/2 minutes scored 15 points against oregon to take a 32-29 lead, with about 11 minutes left in the third quarter.  i have seen a couple articles in which trojan players said that they thought the football game was theirs to win at that point.

the trojans would not score another point in the game.  that is because oregon retained the ball, and exercised ball control and field position football.  and, the oregon ducks were able to do so because of a hall mark of possession teams, and that is superior conditioning and the exercise of simple brute strength.

in successive drives the oregon ducks came "the length" of the football field in lengthy drives featuring the run, chewing up yardage spectacularly in a classic example of ball control football.  while you can, go to espn, and review the "drive charts" for the 3rd and 4th quarters of that game, and what you will see is the ducks simply taking possession of the ball in their end of the field, and driving the remaining length of the field against the trojans to score.  the ducks scored 24 unanswered points against the men of troy on the next 4 or 5 possessions, by simply running and passing the ball down their throats.

oh, the plays are subtle, but the concept is brutally simple.  overpower the other fellow, run the ball until he brings people up on the line in desperation to prevent the run, and then finish him off by throwing the ball over his head to your receivers.

that's what oregon did to the usc trojans.

and, that's what oregon did to the stanford cardinal to beat them earlier in the year.

the score of that earlier game is deceptive, oregon 52 vs. stanford 31 --, and with time's passage gives no hint that with just a little bit of luck stanford could have won that game.

but, deep into the second half stanford was close.  and, on two successive possessions, drove deep into oregon territory past the duck's 10 yard line.  and, then gave the ball up by turnovers.

the first time, oregon took possession of the ball inside its 10 yard line, and drove the ball 40 or 50 yards, and gave it up by punting on downs.  stanford roared back, and drove the ball into oregon territory and almost to oregon's goal line again, this time to give up the ball by an interception right at the goal line.

oregon again took possession of the ball, and drove the length of the field to score, utilizing the run and short passes.  stanford had the ball, gave it up, and oregon took possession deep within its own territory again, and drove the ball the length of the field to score, putting the game out of reach.

in three long drives, using the same simple strategy as used against the usc trojans, oregon used its superior brute strength and physical conditioning to simply beat the ball down the opposition's throat and to score.  oh, the plays are subtle, but the concept is brutally simple.--  overpower the other fellow, wear him down until he still has his hands on his knees sucking for precious air when the offensive line trots to scrimmage, and run the ball until he brings people up on the line in desperation to prevent the run, ... , sort of an upgraded 6.8 yards a rush and a cloud of dust and a pile of exhausted opposition players, ... , and then finish him off by throwing the ball over his head to your receivers.

in the two victories against stanford and usc, teams that could walk onto any field and give the opposition a very tough time, oregon has won the games by resorting to classic "old fangled" football.  possess the ball.  possess the field and a superior position upon it.  beat the other fellow senseless until he can no longer physically oppose you.

i did not say beat him until he gives up.  there was no give in either stanford and usc, and both teams fought valiantly to the end.  but, they were beaten physically to a point where their resistance to oregon's designs and schemes and execution had simply become ineffectual.

oregon simply wore them down.

now, most of you focus on the "skill position" players because they do their most spectacular work in the open field, where it can be readily observed.

but, that is not where the real "action" takes place.  the reality of the game is forged in the trenches, what ruggers call the "scrum," where the behemoths fight it out for dominance physical and psychologically.  and, where oregon has won its games has been in its line play, both on the offensive and defensive lines.  so far this year they may have face "stronger" and bigger lines, but they have faced no lines which have been "stronger longer" than their own indefatigable and unflinching effort.

now, people like to dismiss the oregon team's success to the "gimmick" of its offense.  and, they say that when oregon runs into a more physically dominant team, its "lights out" for oregon.

i don't think so, not with the example of stanford and usc.  stanford is regarded in football circles as one of the more physical and brutal (i don't mean they play dirty, they just play the damn game very close to the bone, as it is meant to be played, and that is a very hard contest from every man on the field every play of the game) teams in all of college football.

and, oregon beat them physically.

in all of college football, i think perhaps a limited number of teams can sustain the effort necessary to beat oregon on a good day, and that would be arizona, auburn, boise state, ohio state, nebraska, alabama, iowa and perhaps utah.  friends, if you are not in the top 7 or 8 programs in the country, oregon is simply too much for you to contend with physically.  each of the above teams could beat oregon in a given game, but, on balance i think oregon better, day in and day out.  it would all depend on who could stay with oregon physically the deepest into the 3rd quarter, when oregon's strength and conditioning begins to take clear control of the game against almost all opposition.

and, oh yes, their remains the oregon state beavers who stand between the oregon ducks and the national championship game.  friends, i grew up in oregon and i can remember oregon and oregon state games going back nearly 55 years.

the team records in a given year count for nothing when those two teams walk on the field.  out here we call the game "the civil war."  friends, there is absolutely nothing "civil" about it.

it will be a ball possession and field position game.  it will be won or lost in the trenches.  that much i can say.

in all of this, there is absolutely no solace to any team that thinks it can beat the ducks by solving the "gimmick" or the "secret" of the oregon offensive scheme.  there is none.  there is only at core a team that executes its plays well, and that beats you into physical exhaustion and surrender, and that just never gives up.  any team that beats the oregon ducks will have to beat them physically and mentally and spiritually.  and, it will not be easy.  and, it will not be without a little blood being left on the field.

they play a splendid game, those ducks.

john jay @ 10.31.2010 

 

what is the point?

if israeli's do not conceive of themselves as israel any longer, do not think of israel as israel, then what is the point of it all?

john jay @ 10.27.2010

the fundamental obligation of israel's leaders is to preserve the jewish state ...

the fundamental obligation of israel's leaders is to preserve the jewish state.

not to be popular or acceptable in the world.  not to attain peace.  but, to preserve the state of israel at all costs, even if it means war to do so.

israel.

the name g_d gave to the man who would procreate and lead the people.

the name of the people chosen by g_d.

the name of the state, and the people, as a whole.

the home of the jews.

israel.

in my view, israel has failed miserably to understand what it is, who it is, and to understand and undertake those measures necessary to preserve itself.

it is a failure of israel's leadership, it is a failure of the israeli's as a people, and it will lead to the destruction of the state because the leaders and the people have forgotten who they are, and because they do not adhere to the undertakings entered into by themselves, and with their g_d.

scoff if you will.  but israel exists no more, for lack of israeli's.

john jay @ 10.27.2010

on tin horns and tin pots ...

it is not so much that the left has expressed solidarity with the third world.

it is that the left wants to transform us into the third world, and proceeds apace.

the economy is so robust that it valiantly resists efforts to emasculate it, and the dynamo that is the free market economy is yet stilled, though in need of repair and deregulation.

but, in our politics we have attained 3rd world stature.

we have our very own tin horn dictator, who will transform us yet into a tin pot dictatorship if only he can outlast our efforts to dethrone him, to depose him, to dispossess him of the trappings of power to which he so vainly clings.

his stupidity, his extravagance, his ostentation, his wastrel and lazy attributes rival any tin pot south american despot who ever reigned over chaos, degradation, despair and decay and i expect at any time now he will be seen in the resplendent finery of the most glorious generalissimo, putting even his muslim cousin maumar khadafi to shame in feathers, boas, eyeshadow and medals across the chest.

i speak of course, of b. insane obama.

look at this little peacock, and the retinue he takes to india. this utter little worm travels like a roman emperor at our expense.  he and his teleprompters have become the laughing stock of the world, and this vainglorious little impostor hasn't a clue.  and, he makes us laughing stock.

this is intolerable, to be ruled by this idiot.

impeach his now, rid this country of this tin pot, before he brings us to ruin and we haven't a tin pot to piss in.

john jay @ 10.26.2010

this day israel ceased to exist ...

this day iranian and russian technicians began loading nuclear fuel into iran's reactor near bushehr in southern iran, reported at msnbc and other sources.

were israel to have destroyed or severely damaged iran's nuclear weapons ambitions when they were empty buildings, that would have been one thing: world condemnation would have erupted, but, for the most part those wailing the loudest would have been crying crocodile tears.  saudi arabia would have gnashed its teeth in public, but privately would have thanked israel for defanging a regional threat to its power and security.  the russians would have torn their hair out in large clumps, but breathed a sigh of relief that moscow was no longer in danger of nuclear attack from a nation just crazy enough to do it.

and so on, and so forth.

now if israel attacks iran's nuclear facilities in order to preempt attack by iran with nuclear weapons, it will be quite another matter: a firestorm of vilification will fall upon israel, like sodom and gomorrah, and the rationale for preemptive attack fall on deaf and very hostile ears.  israel's critics, ever eager to criticize her, will quite rightly say, if you were going to do it, why didn't you do it at a time when you could have avoided spreading nuclear fallout over the whole of western europe and the mediterranean.

and, for a change, israel's critics will be right: at that point, it will avail israel nothing to complain, "why didn't you tell me?"

israel will deserve the universal condemnation it will face for its dithering, for its failure to act when it should have.  never mind that in almost all other things diplomatic reaction to israeli actions to defend itself have been largely a sham, except for the continuing arab/muslim attempts to destroy israel.  in this case, if israel spreads nuclear fall out and waste over europe and its mediterrannan neighbors the condemnation shall be real, and those who advocate israel's destruction shall have carte blanche.

on this day israel ceased to exist as a nation state, the home of the jewish people.

instead of forthrightly choosing to defend itself by preemptive strike upon the iranian nuclear facilities, israel has chosen the snare and delusion and pit of wishful thinking.  israel has chosen the course of "seeing" whether iran will follow the peaceful path of other civilized nations with nuclear capability, and with nuclear weapons programs, ... , indeed, israel has chosen the course of believing and "seeing if" iran will behave just as israel has with its own nuclear weapons, and will use them "only" as "deterrents" to attack.

in short, israel has chosen to believe that iran will use the "threat of nuclear weapons" without exercising the use of nuclear weapons.

in this, israel has not chosen ... wisely, ... , to borrow the line from the old knight's templar in the indiana jones movie.

in choosing what i view, what i esteem, as the path of delusion israel has abandoned a fundamental tenet of existence as a nation state, and that is the faith and belief in not only its right to exist as a state, but even more fundamentally, an abandonment of its faith and belief in existing as a religious state and homeland of the jews.

those of a religious bent, and faith in the torah and talmud, will view this as yet another abandonment of the strictures and edicts of jacob, moses, and of g_d.  those who view these matters politically and historically will view this as an abandonment of israel's will to exist, and an abandonment of the will to do those things necessary to secure and preserve ones existence.  in addition to adhering to those views, i also believe that the israeli discipline and will to fight has been sapped by material comforts and economic well being, and, quite frankly, sheer lassitude and a desire to see if the lazy way will be sufficient to guarantee the existence of the jewish faith.

israel has not chosen ... wisely.

iran and islam have no crisis of confidence, nor any lack of the courage of their conviction that islam has the right to exist and conquer, and that islam and the arab states will fulfill their conviction, faith and vision and will destroy the israeli state.

iran will develop nuclear weapons, and they will either use them to destroy israel by outright attack, or will threaten and cudgel israel into abandoning israel as a religious and political state, and will force israeli's into exile or dhimmitude.

is it fixed in stone that the scenario will play out this way?  no, of course not.  well, let me put it this way.  i do not believe in determinism, and believe that human events are shaped by human decisions and human will, and that historical "process" is a lot surer mechanism at the tail end of things than it is as a tool of forecasting things.

but, approach the matter this way.--

if the israelis did not have the mettle to attack iran's nuclear facilities when by so doing they would not spread nuclear fallout over the region, when are they ever going to develop the stomach for doing so when the prospect for doing so is there.  and, let us factor in another thing.  let us assume that iran in fact develops nuclear weapons and a delivery system that in all probability can put a weapon over a target with relative accuracy and make it go boom with some certitude: not easy things to do, even yet.  well, if israel does not have the cajones to attack iran when in fact iran has neither present capability, when are they going to develop the stomach for carrying on such an attack when iran is armed with nuclear weapons and a capable delivery system.

in short, israel has dithered itself into a situation in which it can do little except wait, watch and hope for the best.  in short, it has chosen passivity over aggressive defense.

this has never proved a very good model for continued existence in a hostile world.

israel has submitted itself to the kindness and forbearance of its arab/persian neighbors, and to islam.  and, this friends, has never proved itself a very good model for continued existence among arab/persian neighbors, and to islamic neighbors.

the price of existence is eternal vigilance, and the capacity to defend ones self.

israel has shown itself unwilling to pay that price, either by stupidity or cowardice or both.  not paying the price for existence, the consequence for israel is either annihilation or dispersal and diaspora from its homeland.

when g_d finally brought the house of israel to the shores of the jordan he gave israel through moses explicit instructions on how to secure and preserve the land of "milk and honey" for their eternal possession, and how to secure and preserve israel's relationship with g_d.

being stupid and delusional to the bone was not part of the deal.  and, making ones way in the world by bluff and bluster, and not having even the basic resolution to preserve ones self and ones nation wasn't part of the deal, either.

and finally, not having sufficient faith in ones place in the world, nor in ones relation with g_d, nor not having sufficient wit to realize the relation of those two concepts, was not part of the deal, either.

in short, israel has lost faith in itself, and in the concept of israel as the home of the jews, and the lack of this belief and faith is the death knell of the state of israel.  israel has defrauded israel, and lost its birthright, and lost it right to exist as a nation, simply because it will assert as a matter of faith, neither.

israel no longer believes.  this day, israel ceased to exist.

it is a simple matter.  either one believes in ones right to exist, and defends it, or one doesn't and won't.  in this world, the consequences are clear, and quite predictable.  confirmation of this view will occur: if you will not a state, you will not be a state, ... , soon enough.

john jay @ 10.26.2010

elisabeth wolff ... a person of conviction and rare courage ... she needs your support ...

elisabeth sabaditsch-wolff needs your help.  who is elisabeth wolff?  will, read on, gentle reader, and find out.

elisabeth wolff opposes the islamizaton of europe, and fights to retain europe's heritage and the rights of europeans to associate with whom they choose.  she opposes schemes to increase islamic immigration into europe, and she speaks against europeans being inundated by a demographic tide of muslim population.  she thinks the idea of a multi-culturalist or "plurality" society with muslims is a snare and a delusion, and plainly ignores the history of islamic domination of societies in which they are sizable presence.

for a fuller expiation of her views, and for a view of the calm and rational way in which she forwards them (as would be expected from the daughter of an austrian diplomat), please see her interview at "europe news," here.

for the public expression of these views she has been charged with a criminal indictment under austrian "hate speech" laws, much as geert wilders faces prosecution in holland for his expression of similar views.  and, she hasn't the backing of an entire political party to help her wage her battles in defense of liberty, and against oppression by the euro union.

the irony of her prosecution is that she merely expresses her concerns, in order to raise the alarm with her fellow europeans over islamic immigration and its influence on european culture, over that which islam openly talks about, brags about, and uses to exhort its faithful towards what it views as its "conquest of europe."

i cannot explain it any better than ms. wolff has at "europe news":

what bothers you about the Islamic way of life?

islamic doctrine discriminates against women and non-muslims. islamic law, or shariah, cannot be reconciled with democratic principles and universal human rights.

do you see the need for that?

there are powerful groups who are working towards the islamization of europe. that is a fact. what can we gain from closing our eyes and ignoring this? even libyan leader muammar ghadafi says: “there are signs that allah will grant victory to islam in europe without swords, without guns, without conquest. we don't need terrorists, we don't need homicide bombers. the 50+ million muslims [in europe] will turn it into a muslim continent within a few decades.” a head of state confirms what our politicians deny. what else has to happen until we finally get it?   http://europenews.dk/en/node/28145 

for this forthright expression of her convictions elisabeth sabaditsch-wolff faces fine and incarceration.

rarely do we see persons of great conviction and physical courage place their lives and livelihoods so squarely on the line because they will express their intellectual conviction.  this woman speaks for her countrymen, and she speaks for a religious, intellectual and political heritage which she hold dear, dearer than life itself given the danger she is exposed to for her voice, ... , and, indeed, she stands in the path of a design and ambition of conquest to destroy western civilization itself.

in this, and i do not think myself guilty of hyperbole, she is joan of arc and audie murphy all wrapped up into one very courageous woman.

she needs you to stand with her.  she needs you to lend your courage to hers.  she needs you to stand as a warrior with her, quite literally to defend europe from an attack which is at the "gates of vienna."

friends, you face the same peril as every man who responded to the challenge faced when he stood waiting behind the gates of his landing craft approaching the shores of europe in 1944 to defend western civilization and values from hitler's onslaught.  as every marine who clambered over the side of a higgins boat going ashore at iwo jima , who climbed down the side of the transports in those rope ladders and hopped aboard the higgins boats in the tossing surf.

you & i face the same peril.  but, as of yet, you & i have not shown the commitment of either geert wilders, or of elisabeth wolff, nor have we been asked to show the same resolve and courage.  they stand as mighty warriors in our stead.

i would like to think that when we are asked, we will serve our heritage and civilization as they.

but, in the meantime, is it so much for us to contribute to elisabeth sabaditsch-wolff's legal fund?  she is married and has a family, and this is a hardship for her.  she does not complain, and she does not flinch nor shrink from those duties imposed upon her by intellectual conviction and belief, and a sure & rational appreciation for the dangers posed by islam to europe.

she will speak, and she will fight without our support.

but, pray consider how much it will mean to her to know that her fellows stand behind her, ... , hell, that we stand with her, and that we step off into the surf to do combat in the name of our beliefs, our heritage, our civilization and our own, separate, religious convictions.  understand how this will buoy her spirits, and make firm her resolve, and lend that secret smile that the happy warrior possesses when he or she marches off to do battle in the name of her fellows.

please, contribute to her defense fund.  show her, in a way supremely painless in comparison to the service she does unstintingly and without hesitation to the costs to her person and family, that you care, ... , by whatever contribution you can make to her struggle and fight, and to our struggle and fight, in resisting encroaching islam.

thank you for your consideration, and thank you for your contribution, to her legal defense fund.  it doesn't have to be large in sum, to be magnificent in effect.  contribute here.  http://english.savefreespeech.org/ 

john jay @ 10.25.2010

update: see also, http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2010/10/elisabeths-voice-is-growing.html , for a further explanation of what is being done over the blogosphere to support elisabeth sabaditsch-wolff in her struggles against the repression of her free speech by the euro union and her native austria.  and,

update:  see also, http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/017671.html , for some writing on the sabaditsch-wolff matter that doesn't simply parrot the press releases.  the article, by lawrence auster actually quotes some of language that the austrian government finds objectionable and which it attributes to ms. wolff (some of which she denies having expressed, oddly enough), and which it seeks to suppress: it seems the world is seized by adolescent stupidity & cupidity, and it would be funny, were it not the operation of tyranny.  yes, it is the tyranny of stupidity, and of the stupid, but it is the operation of the full weight of the state apparatus on ms. sabaditsch-wolff, and it is tyranny.  it is way more banal than "animal farm," and perhaps the only work of art that adequately describes the "reality" of the complete moral inversion of austrian "law" is "a clockwork orange," the movie.   nietzsche would appreciate the rule of force and will over reason, something which kubrick condemned, but nietzsche would recognize it.  perhaps only kafka could portray its mind-numbing stupidity, the arrogance of commonly held ignorance and attitude, and its disorienting disconnect from rational process.  i don't know, it begs description.

i liked this letter so well, pimping my post on obama and kindergarten, that i am just gonna publish it, too ...

friends:
 
new up at wintersoldier2008.
 
here we are, almost two years into the "obama era," ... , and there is no obama era, there is no obama "doctrine," there is no "mr. gorbachev, tear this wall down!!" ringing definition of the epoch, that obama was supposed to define.  all things considered, it is a pretty lame performance by one called in print, by presumed adults making a gainful employment as journalists, the "messiah."  (he maintained a website to that effect, did you know that?)  he made chris matthew's leg, and g_d alone knows what else tingle, and tiny joel what'shis face made a public idiot of himself any number of times writing in time magazine, such was his adulation, and such was his reduction to shill status.  and, g_d only knows what his leg was doing.
 
and, to this day, we know nothing of what he is, or what he thinks.
 
i think it is because he is an empty vessel, and none too smart an empty vessel at that.
 
i think the only thing he has ever trafficked in, or ever done, or ever accomplished was being born black.  period.  he has learned nothing since, except to cop an attitude when his picture is being taken.  he has acquired no other virtue.  period. 
 
hence, the below observations.--
 
you tell me.  he has, btw, some monumental failures along the way, in diplomacy, e.g., the missile "reduction" agreement with the ruski's, abandoning poland and the ukraine's missile defense, fucking up things beyond belief with china and with israel, no mean feat, and pissing off the french and the english, ... , and, he absolutely fell on his face when he was looking to be crowned king of the world in helsinki at the "climate accord" which never received much accord.
 
and, oh, yes, ... , the little matter of the economy.  and, the corrupt sale of his senate seat to as big a collection of buffoons seen in our politics in a century.
 
he is, i think, a narcissistic idiot.  you can quote me.
 
john jay

all barack obama really ever needed to know, he really did learn in kindergarten ...

all barack obama really ever needed to know, he really did learn in kindergarten, ... , at least there is no evidence to the contrary, by way of transcripts, for instance.

he learned, however, as is evident.--

be black, and never give anything back.

be cute, and look down your snoot, at everybody.

don't share the air, and never work, because that's for the jerks.

that's what he learned, and it is hard to demonstrate that he really ever learned anything after.  at least, we've never seen the transcripts, have we?

john jay @ 10.24.2010

p.s.  we are nearly two years into the administration of this vaunted intellect, this paragon of brain power.  has he said or done anything of any original merit intellectually, or said or done any memorable, or truly accomplished anything, other than cozying up to dictators and murderous regimes, such as chavez and the iranian theocracy.  i mean, did i miss something?

he does strike a very good mussolini pose.  i suppose he learned that in kindergarten.

he remains stuck in perpetual & petulantchildhood, his mama's and his grandma's boy, prone to tantrums and grudges.  he throws like a girl.  he sits like a girl.  he will be remembered for sniffing his "uncle frank's" shorts, ... , and, since i have never read the book, and never will, i will die never knowing if "uncle frank" was in them or not.  life learned at the foot of his grandma, and his favorite pedophile.

any rebuttals?

filled out my oregon ballot, pulled the "republican" lever, ... , but, i "almost" voted for a "progressive" leftist for state treasurer ... "almost" ...

but, i did not vote the leftist.  (to the tune of, "i shot the sheriff, but i did not shot the deputy."  sort of a reggae lilt, as it were.)  i did take some humor from the use of the term "progressive," which i guess is a communist who doesn't shoot you behind the ear in the basement of the local headquarters, but is content with having an s.e.i.u. thug beat you to death at the tea party rallies.

he is an older man, this "progressive leftist," with a marbled face and jowls, kindly appearing, sort of.  he has one of those faces that smile engagingly under the nose with the lips and cheeks, but with the hard eyes of an operative flanking a "generous" nose.

educated at "usc," which could be university of southern california or university of south carolina, receiving a b.a. and a law degree,  he also served in the jag corps in the navy and as a county counsel & deputy prosecutor. 

and, he was the lone candidate in the voter's pamphlet i received to set forth concrete proposals he would attempt to implement while in the state treasurer's office. (this "program" was a party line, echoed by all "progressives" in the pamphlet.)  yes, i am aware that for all practical purposes, his bookkeeping & revenue garnering/managing duties as treasurer would be proscribed & tightly delineatedby state statute and administrative regulations.  and, yes, i am aware that state treasurers do not legislate nor do they establish state economic or social policies, ... , in short, they do not perform political functions, for the most part.

but, he had some superficially appealing ideas, and he did not appear to have the usual c.p.a.'s gaunt pallor:  he looks like he has had his elbow in a puddle of bourbon from time to time, sort of tip o'neal-ish.  and, his policies would look pretty good to someone: 1.) who did not understand those limitations certain to bar any attempt to ever implement them: hey, a thinking man, someone might be gulled into thinking to himself reading all this, and 2.)did not understand the code words for the message conveyed to party loyalists.  for, he has ideas, and policies, enunciated sort of like a kindly old populist of the midwestern strain, upper minnesota and the dakotas, who formed politics in oregon in the halcyon days of wayne morse and others, before tom mccall's elitist snobs from the northeast took over, ... , one might have thought, reading his "platform." 

and, hereby hangs the tale. 

none of those policies, nor any of those ideas, could ever be initiated or implemented from the state treasurer's office, no matter if they were great ideas or policies and withstood the rigor of disciplined legal and political analysis over time, and were they the old populism and not the new leftist radicalism which so permeates western oregon.  in short, no matter how well considered his "platform" for running for state treasurer, and for running the state of oregon, ... , they do not matter to a hill of beans, even given a little bit of populist twinge.  and, the veneer of populism is thin indeed, for what this fellow is, is an old line socialist, no matter what your definition of is "is."

so, why is a man who graduated from "usc" law school, whichever "usc" that might prove to be, and why is a man who served in the oregon state senate for 12 years from 1975 to 1987,  and who is a member of "physicians for national health plan," "amnesty international," and the "metanoia peace community" running for an office from which he cannot accomplish any of his stated purposes, or even initiate them as administrative policy, and why is he doing this knowing these things full well.  whatever he is, he is no dumb ass, having served as a commander in the jag corps, united states navy, and having practiced law for many years.  he knows his "policies" to improve the "oregon economy" are nothing but a sham past the first blush, and little more than delusion at best, and a deliberate attempt to mislead at worst. 

he knows that such "policies" are beyond his reach to accomplish as a state treasurer.

the "statement" of such "policies" friends, is a fan dance.  these statements are to create an illusion, a "virtual reality", to hide his true intent, and his true persona.  it is a chimera, or as we said in a less literary day, a smoke screen.  he is one of those socialists who espouse full employment and the "living wage," even as he does everything possible to destroy a business climate which might conceivably accomplish the employment aspect and pay for the social welfare schemes he support from a typically onerous taxation.

he runs for office, friends, because he is a leftist radical and his sole intent in occupying office as oregon state treasurer is to populate the oregon state government with like minded leftist radicals, possessed of similar political and social agendas.  he simply seeks to people government bureaus with leftist radicals from horizon to far horizon, the better to "inform" us, i suppose. 

uh huh.

the secret is hidden in those flinty little operatives eyes, which calculate and scheme behind the cover of that fat faced grandpa's smile, those eyes which peer unflinchingly above those fat little cheeks, and hide g_d only knows what radical schemes he would foment and impose upon an unsuspecting populace.  he is a schemer who presents the false front of "policy" to hide his true purpose, who hides his radical agenda behind platitudes regarding jobs and "sustainable wage," even if, presumably, such wages were ever to exceed sustainable costs.

walter f. (walt) brown didn't get my vote, friends, because no matter how much sense some of his ideas seem to possess on the surface, they are in fact mere rhetoric designed to hide his true intent and purpose.  he is revealed upon a close reading of his little article in the voter's pamphlet, to be a wolf in sheep's clothing.  he speaks in the populists jargon of jobs for workers, but he would design and impose a society upon oregonians which is hostile to any enterprise and industry, which seeks the socialist's agendas and controls, and which fosters oregon's further descent into economic and social stagnation.

and, he advocates a social agenda which some would see as implementing social ruin.  google the "metanoia peace community," if you will.  read the agenda of the progressive party, and understand, that at its most basic levels, it stands for the imposition of mandatory socialist economic and social policies upon a populous without very much say in the matter, unless they belong to a house organ of socialism.

he is a fraud.

he is a shrewd man hiding behind the fat cheeked facade of a kindly old gentleman, which he manifestly is not.

the magnitude of such fraud is perhaps exceeded only by the farce of miss american contestants appearing before bert parks, ... , oh, he has not yet been resurrected?, ... , well, o.k., ... , appearing before ersatz bert parks wannabe's and intoning without the slightest bit of comprehension what they will do to improve the lot of the world's starving and impoverished populations, as they stand there bravely with bare shoulders pulled back, slim tummies tucked in, and improbable breasts thrust perkily into the keg lights.  i do not understand why they do the interviews in gowns, when it would be far more appropriate were the interrogation for political correctness taken during the swim suit competition.

and, were the answer limited to a one word or fewer answer whilst the pose described above was performed in the "swim suit."

i can only imagine, in the sick and perverted imagination of mine, walter f. (walt) brown standing before us in a demure and tasteful one piece swim suit, his shoulders back, his breasts thrust perkily forward, perhaps even before his old sagging tummy, explaining just how he intends to lower health care costs, and increase employment, and impose regulations and tax structures upon oregon businesses to force them to export manufactured products rather than raw materials, ... , while dressed in his swim suit of ideas as the oregon state treasurer.

so, i took one last longing look at his kindly old leftists visage, and went to the part of the ballot that had the republican candidate for treasurer, and marked "r."  now, i would rather chug down shots of bourbon any day of the week with "walt" as opposed to the earnest appearing chris telfer, his republican opponent.  with walt, i would joyfully discuss "the god that failed," and "darkness at noon," and the records of the pogroms and liquidations of kulaks by the smolensk bureau of the communist party, and the activities of harry bridges and the wobblies on the west coast, and do so in high good humor whereas chris telfer would likely bore me to tears and absolute distraction talking about double or triple entry bookkeeping.  (you know, state treasurer stuff.)

walt and i could debate the wobblies descending on yakima, washington in the 30's, and being rounded up and incarcerated in a barbed wire stockade kept under guard by machine gun wielding national guardsmen called out to quell their riotous demeanor, and reputation, or the war sabotage at the longview/kelsoshipping docks during the wars, and reminisce about old times.  or, how about armed guards protected the loggers cutting spruce on the olympic peninsula during the wars so that war supply and production were not interrupted by leftist saboteurs when germany was allied with russia under the "nonaggression pact," or how that sabotage ended when germany attacked russia and the soviet party line changed in midstream.  

what fun, eh?

maybe even get into a friendly fist fight, and break a break bottle or two over tough old craniums.

but, that walt.  he's a ringer.  he's the look of an old line wobbly.  that steely eyed glint, that firm jaw of the zealot, that imposer of progress upon a dull nation.  oh, i know he isn't: not an "old" commie in the sense that his beliefs are a matter of his considerable antiquity.  no, he's come to his radicalism late in life, so he's an old guy of recent conversion: he wasn't a commie when he was commander of a j.a.g. unit in the navy, nor when he sat as a navy judge of courts martial.  but, he came to it, and has come to it,  with all the zeal of conversion and vision and enlightenment that only fresh immersion in "truth" can bring.  oh, yeah, he's pumped to spread the word.

and, he wants to propagate it. 

and, take power with it.  hint: the progressives changed their name to the "progressive party" in 2008, after obama seemingly swept away all opposition from the right.  and, in their ardor and enthusiasm, exposed themselves for what they are.  and, that is, old line marxist, selling a tired old line marxist party line, like an old whore with a fresh load of lip stick, rogue and powder and a gallon bottle of old perfume.  and, a bag of wool to pull over your eyes.

well, not with my vote.  because, he wishes to advance his cause by duplicity and lying and scheming, and i see right through it.  (actually, if he told the unvarnished truth about his radical "progressive" politics, i would vote against the bastard, anyway.  laughing, hey, there's a surprise.  but, i harbor a certain grievance that he covers & obscures his agenda from the ordinary man whose cause he asserts he espouses.  and, i love it that he is impelled to lie about his agenda's, because that is a clear admission that he realizes he can only get elected, can only push his socialist agenda, by covering it with evasion and falsehood, by keeping the truth of what he is about from the common man.  but, the indicators are there.)

so he hides behind that phony baloney ploy of being an "idea man."  his agenda is starkly revealed in the assertion that he will  "... [demand that the state] legislature implement 'state power development required by oregon'sconstitution to establish green public power saving oregonians millions each year," a very strong "hint" of his collectivist bent.  not to be ignored are the announced facts that he belongs to the aforementioned "amnesty international" and the "metanoia peace community."  now, i've nothing against peace and enlightenment, but i am not the least bit gulled into the position that to attain the same one must belong to radical socialist fronts in order to attain those ideals, and remain mindful that such "peace organizations" backed the soviet party line for decades, and back the russian agenda now, even as they support palestinian terror as they wage the "good fight for peace."

in my eyes, they are the ultimate hypocrites, liars and deceivers.

any notion to be gained here, about how he views the palestinian issues, or about how paramount this issue is to his world view?  well, check out the "progressive" position on such matters in the voter's pamphlet: they oppose the "occupation" of palestine.

no, he will not accomplish his agenda through me, not with my vote, he won't, the sly calculating old fox. 

no, he wants the office so badly that he will attain it by lying.  he wants the office to propagate his newly realized ideas, and ideals, and leftist agenda.  what have any of those things to which he adheres, have to do in the slightest with being a bookkeeper?  what do his socialist leanings have to do with being state treasurer?

what has anything to do, ever, with holding the money?  laughing.

scheming bastard.

whatever he once was when he served his country in the military service, he no longer remains.  put 60 or 70 pounds on him, and he would be a fair imitation of john murtha, i would suspect.

john jay, bar naphka @ 10.23.2010