Small Bits: On Israel

I’ve been writing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for a number of years now. I’ve been going back and reading what I wrote back in the 90’s. Everything I’ve ever said about this is still true today. I just never thought I’d ever see an American president stick a fork and knife into Israel and hand her over to her tormentors.

Some say we'd have gotten along just fine without Israel. As one who writes, I know that we are a product of the Judea-Christian tradition. Virtually every one of our literary references and metaphors can be traced back to the Bible. It is so engrained in us – so much a part of us – most of us are quite unaware of it (it’s like the eye not being able to see itself). Knock all that foundation out from under us – and we become nothing.

What we hold now to be so terribly important would simply blow away, like topsoil blowing away with the wind. Don’t say Israel is unimportant – when, in fact, Israel is us. Why would you think this tiny sliver of a country is so hard fought?

Many of us take the family to a movie on Sunday afternoons. Try being compelled by law to attend public hangings in the market square on Saturdays instead. That seems to be the idea of civic duty in some quarters. (Though, these days, it seems to work out to virtually the same thing.)

“It’s not one world,” the late, great Paul Harvey used to say.
-----------------------------------------------
President Obama attempting to dismantle the very basis of our legitimacy as essential actors on the world stage. This has very little to do with the terms we use to describe things. Terms are often interchangeable. It has become clear to me that two distinct narratives have emerged within our nation that are not necessarily compatible. In effect, we are at war with ourselves.

The things discussed in the Bible are often dismissed as no longer relevant because it was written at a different time and spoke to those people in terms that only they could fully understand. We no longer use the same terms or concepts to describe things. (Even today, we run into endless problems when attempting simple translation.)

Today, we often use metaphors we learned in 9th grade science class. Throughout the long and arduous evolution of language, reality has remained essentially the same. Even, despite knowing that the world is round, our maps remain flat. It matters not how we express it. What I’m trying to say is that language is but a thin veneer, and time-sensitive to boot. The cultural heritage of any given people runs much deeper.

Unfortunately, Muslim aggression - and Western aggression (or influence) - is and has been a historical fact. The bone of contention right now is Israel. If there were no Israel, we would have to invent it. We must deal with the aggression, not curse the bone.

As for throwing everything into the pot, to see which one will sink or swim, quite apart from what may or may not be in our own self interest - this too will not work. There is no such thing as peace at ground level or above. Peace is only possible six feet under.

As long as we live, we must always be prepared to fight. If we succeed in keeping the fallout confined to foreign shores, so much the better for us. Nations know instinctively that they must protect themselves. Some make the strategic decision to ride on the coattails of others who might possess the means to protect them. In doing so, they give up a bit of their sovereignty. Others build great armies. It still is not clear to me which of these Israel aspires to.

Time is roughly divided into two-thirds peace and one-third war. Peace is merely the absence of war. War can sometimes be held at bay by fear. Either way, the illusion of power plays a role. This is why great nations build great armies that stand idle two-thirds of the time. It is hardly a waste.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Massacre At Mazar-i-Sharif: It’s A U.S. Pastor’s Fault

In order to bring back any semblance of sanity to our public and private affairs, our people have to be re-educated, all the way from basic math to an understanding of right and wrong. In the absence of any standard - which is where we are now - who is to pass judgment? For far too long we’ve been drifting. Every issue has become existential; a tug of war, pulling our nation apart. We have yet to learn that our near paralysis in responding to events stems from being so utterly disorganized; that the most organized – not the most powerful, not the most tolerant, not the kindest – invariably win the day. The storming of the UN (do-gooder) compound in the Afghan town of Mazar-i-Sharif earlier today drives this thought.

It’s hard to imagine any outrage building in the West over the burning of a Bible or an American flag. In fact, this would likely be applauded by untold numbers of our own. We even tolerate the daily shredding of our own Constitution. We tolerate gross incompetence in leadership. We tolerate insult. We tolerate the erosion of our living standards. We tolerate decline. We even tolerate the intolerant.

At this point we lose. We declare ourselves ‘good people’. Why? Because we are tolerant, of course. At the same time, we have no idea that ‘good’ actually means standing for something. Without any discernable standards to go by, who is to say? We are fruit, ripe for the picking. We will not defend ourselves because we have nothing to defend. A man robs us on the street and we say, “He probably needs it more than us.” And, once again, we fall for the ruse of equating tolerance with virtue.

Our enemies have noticed. They are advancing without feeling the need even to disguise themselves. The drama of vultures feasting on a corpse is unfolding right before our eyes. Despite our considerable arsenal of bombs - which is larger than all the bombs in the world combined - no one respects us.

It’s open season. Libya is not the arena to demonstrate our roar – like Iraq was, and (to a lesser extent) Afghanistan. In Libya we lose no matter who wins. Our immediate focus should be on Iran. Instead we ignore it.

The world wonders and waits, vying for position for the privilege of driving the final stake through America’s heart. At this point, it’s no contest. Anyone can do it. Buried up to our necks in our own justifications for our limitless tolerance, anyone can throw the stone that will put out the lights.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Leaders And Jailers

Leadership should not be difficult. The Bible says that people should obey their leaders as to make their leadership not a burden to them. A leader is in essence a tube through which a higher power speaks. The people will be proud to serve for they know that he serves them as well. They will be confident that he has their best interests in mind.

Leadership is a gift - an inborn skill, like that of ‘boys who can hit a bird with a stone at thirty paces. They have not learned it; they can simply do it; it did not come by effort, but by magic or grace. The stone in their hand flies off by itself; the stone wants to hit the bird and the bird wants to be hit.’*

How far we have fallen!

Leaders who complain about how hard it is to lead are not leaders; they are jailers who must constantly watch their backs. They preside over chaos and discontent. Indeed, they make use of these in order to promote the fiction of their leadership. It renders them ever more isolated, like planets spinning out of their orbits.

‘There must seem to be a center in the vast network of associations. If one were at that center, one would know everything, could see all that had been and all there is yet to come. Knowledge must pour upon the one who stands at that center as water runs to the valley and the hare to the cabbage. His word would strike sharply and infallibly as the stone in the sharpshooter’s hand.’*

I used to admire Jerry Brown. I had read somewhere that he studied Buddhism and practices Zen. As such, I thought of him as possessing some measure of wisdom. Now I see him (and others) as just another in a long line of political hacks.
------------------------------------------------------
*excerpts taken from Hermann Hesse’s ’The Glass Bead Game’ and translated roughly from the German to fit the context of this writing.

It's Only Words, And Words Is All I Have...

Words can be beautiful or ugly. No doubt, they bear great significance. The Bible tells us, in the beginning was the word. ॐ (Om) is said to be the first sound from which all else began. After a baby is born, it perceives all it sees as a part of itself. Only by naming something does it become separate. So too, we need only to give a name to something to make it go away, or to be able to grasp it, handle and shape it.

We've been reluctant to name the Islamic threat from the beginning. Bush was roundly criticized for his "axis of evil" remarks. Now Barack Hussein Obama seems to have jettisoned his own burden and given it a name: War on Far-Reaching Network of Violence and Hatred (WFNVH).

By abandoning Bush era rhetoric to identify the problem, he has made it his own. Meanwhile, the problem remains unaltered, demanding serious alteration. We will soon find out if Obama has a plan, a strategy, a Plan B. Obviously, we can strike 'appeasement' from the short list of remedies. There are also some things the American people will no longer tolerate.

If in two to three years' time, we find that we're still stuck in the Middle East mud, we will definitely change horses. On the other hand, if we should have solved this conundrum by then, our current president - Marxist or not - will deserve another term. And we will not hesitate to let him have it.

Has anybody noticed that WNVH is broad enough to cover talk show hosts?