SPQR Today

My Great Good Friends,

The essay exploring the genesis of the phrase ‘Judaeo – Christian’ was particularly well received.

The concluding rhetorical; “How can a concept which was unknown to the Founders, was politically contrived to avert a domestic pogrom, and is ontologically ridiculous, be any part of our definition of America?” has provoked a number of interesting questions.

Specifically, the reference to a divine warrant for violent proselytizing and ethnic cleansing raised the question; ‘is that a historic or contemporary reference?’.

Sadly, the answer is contemporary. And the proponents may surprise you.

For example within the last six months Pope Francis’ direction of the Holy See’s diplomatic position on Palestine ignited a fury among senior mullahs who convened a court in Teheran condemning the Pontiff, President Obama, and the European Union in absentia for denying their claim for “exclusive patrimony” over historic Palestine.

More disconcerting was the statements by mullah ababa sobini who stated that according to the Islamic sage Sedinomiam, Muslims are commanded to kill non-Muslims who do not agree to be governed by Sharia law.

The mullah went on to explain ‘what is peace’ under the Koran: “You ask; do you follow the seven Noahide Laws? If so, we will allow you to live. If not, we kill all of the males by sword, we keep only the women.” He went on to say “If they raise the flag of surrender from then on there is no more Christianity, no more Judaism, the Temples and Christian spires come down and they will follow the seven Noahide Laws.

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OK, OK, OK, enough of this fun. The more astute readers will ave noticed the clues; the seven Noahide Laws are obviously from the Old Testament, and the great sage Sedinomiam is Maimonides spelled backwards.

AnyHowitzer, for those of you so lulled by the American media that you can’t recognize a genocidal apartheid state, the actual names which I substituted with the names in bold typeface are, in order:

Mullah for – Rabbi
Teheran for – Jerusalem
Mullah Ababa Sobini for – Rabbi Yisrael Ariel
Muslims for – Jews
non-Muslims for – non-Jews
Sharia for – Jewish
Koran for – Torah
Judaism for – Islam
Temples for – Mosques

If you doubt this sick fuck Rabbi Yisrael Ariel called for the killing of the Pope and our President and genocide to all non-Jews who won’t convert or submit, you can watch his September 9, 2015 rant at electronicintafada.net

And lest you claim he is an outlier kook of no consequence know he is formerly rabbi of the Jewish Seminary at Yamit, second on the electoral list for the political party Kach, and currently leader of “nascent sanhedrin rabbis”. He has called Baruch Goldstein (convicted of killing 29 Palestinians at prayer in a Hebron Mosque) “a martyr, and martyrs are above saints and righteous men”.

So, other than promising Baruch 79 virgins, how are these psycho rabbis and their all too current hatred any different from the mullahs also citing Bronze Age myths to get people to kill other peoples kids?

-ATN

My Great Good Friends,

I walked into a room where a houseguest was watching coverage of the Dallas massacre on NBC. While it would never occur to me to turn to the Brian Williams fantasy network for objective news on anything, the broadcast (I’m sure inadvertently) did provide a powerful insight.

On screen was the articulate anchor Lester Holt (black) questioning a local affiliate’s field reporter (black). Subsequent segments included interviews with the police chief (black), the former mayor (black), the trauma surgeon who treated the wounded cops (black), the attorney general of California (black), the attorney general of the United States (black), a congressman (black), etc.

All while waiting for a statement from the most powerful man in the world (black).

I did not support President Obama in 2008, however I did think a silver lining to his victory would be to put ‘paid’ to the whining about American racism I have been hearing my whole life.

After one trillion dollars (yeah, with a ‘t’) spent on Great Society programs over the last 50 years the vast majority of black Americans have, thankfully, been afforded the opportunity to attain the most prestigious positions in our society.

So what of the dregs? The militants, the multigenerational dependent, the anarchists the nihilists?

I am beginning to think skin color is no longer the barrier to elected office or a multi million dollar network contract.

I am beginning to think the barrier is self immersion in ghetto culture, violence, misogyny, the rejection of education, and emulating gang appearance and speech.

The important word in the previous paragraph is SELF.

The happenstance of one’s skin color is not something we can control, hence virtue in the blood and treasure spent in the last half century to stop the waste of human potential. That is not what is happening today.

Its pretty evident when there are white faces among the unhinged rioters, and stoic black faces among police lines, that race in America is no longer the issue.

The race hustlers and profiteers from Sharpton and Jackson to the NBA and the music media conglomerates have no motivation to change the status quo. And, they certainly have been successful in broadening their consumers beyond the inner city.

Dr. Williams, the trauma surgeon mentioned above, has a darker complexion than I, and he is welcome in my home.

Eminem, the rapper, has a lighter complexion than I, and I wouldn’t piss on him if he were on fire.

We owed support to the civil rights movement because no one chooses their skin color and therefor black’s exclusion from society could be, had to be, fixed by society.

We owe zero, nothing, to the punks, rioters, snipers – white or black, urban or suburban – who are choosing to self exclude from society.

In the 1950s we could not tell someone to ‘just change your skin color’. But today we can tell these folks ‘just drop the ghetto / gang speech, clothes and attitude’.

Study like the doctor or attorneys above, serve bravely like the police chief above, get elected like the representatives above, become as articulate as the President, and get those stupid preppie glasses Lester Holt wears.

So; we don’t choose our skin color, but we can choose how we present ourselves to society and it’s enforcers.

And all the evidence suggests America has evolved to the point where an individuals’ choices, not the happenstance of race, will determine his fate.

AnyHowitzer, lets hope the current situation defuses before the self segregating thugs learn the locks on our front doors are for their protection, not ours.

-ATN

My Great Good Friends,

What a confusing week: Sunday had a presidential candidate celebrating the Communist International’s May Day, yesterday someone wished me a ‘May the 4th be with you’, and today I’m torn between Cinco de Mayo and Holocaust Remembrance Day.

AnyHowitzer once I worked out my wardrobe (shawl over poncho, yarmulke under sombrero) things went smoothly.

It is interesting (as the media jammers on about our Judeo-Christian country and the 6 MM dead) to note each anniversary decade official government archives are sequentially opened and scholarly analysis is revised, incorporating objective original source material, versus the recollections of traumatized survivors or self serving Nuremberg defendants.

The community of academic historians take note and reflect the refined insights. But apparently the media talking heads don’t. For example; for decades the brass plaque at the Auschwitz gate stating the number of Jews executed there was 4 MM, has been replaced with one stating 1.5 MM. And still the 6MM.

More confounding is the incessant repetition of the phrase ‘Judeo-Christian’.

Obviously the epistemology of the competing theologies is above my pay grade, however the socio-political effect of what we used to call the three Abrahamic mono-theisms is knowable.

I wondered why was it, and when was it, that this phrase became accepted a’priori in our civil discourse to describe American values? Certainly it’s ahistorical. Judaism and it’s plagiarized lineal descendant Islam share the common eastern tenants of secular and religious authority simultaneously residing in a priestly / political / judicial class, requisite religious professions for civil participation, a divine warrant for violent proselytizing, ethnic cleansing, etc. All of which are anathema to professed Christian values.

If historically ‘Judeo-Islamic’ makes more sense than ‘Judeo-Christian’ how and when did the latter work it’s way into the American lexicon?

Using the New York Times’ content analysis algorithm (chronicle.nytlabs.com) to search every article published in ‘The Great Grey Lady’ since 1860 it appears the term entered common parlance when first used publicly by Senator Goldwater and President Eisenhower. The 1950s were a period of emerging anti-Communist / anti-semitisim and the term (originally formulated by the National Conference of Christians and Jews) became part of a prophylactic campaign to keep American’s hostility for the Soviet Union’s Jewish founders and their domestic spies from tainting the view of patriotic Jewish Americans.

Frequency of usage spiked again post 9-11. I suspect this time to parse Islam from the cultural gravitas of ‘the three Abrahamic mono-theisims’ terminology dominant for the prior 50 years.

So, a well intended and successfully orchestrated social construct, but is it theologically valid?

| Theologian Arthur A. Cohen; “The Myth of the Judeo-Christian Tradition” (Commentary Magazine 1969) vis the “theological impossibility of a Judeo-Christian tradition …. the Jews expected a redeemer to come out of Zion; Christianity had affirmed that a redeemer had come out of Zion, but that he had come for all mankind not just the Jews. Judaism denies that claim.”

| Israeli Orthodox Theologian Eliezer Berkovitz; “Judaism is Judaism because it rejects Christianity, and Christianity is Christianity because it rejects Judaism.”

| And the Big Man of Jewish theology himself ….. Maimonides, for whom there was no overlapping magisterium between christian and Jew, although there was between Islamist and Jew; “The Christian peoples, in all of their varied sects, are worshiping idols forbidden to us. While Islam, although ‘mistaken’, is monotheistic and thus can not be constructed as idolatrous.”

| Finally, lest you think Maimonides’ 12th century dogma has undergone some sort of Reformation, current Jewish serious theology (versus the: we’re like you just funnier sitcom image) Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook who, 900 years after Maimonides, is respected by most Orthodox Jews and revered by religious Zionists has written; “With Christianity and it’s concepts one should share nothing, not even what seems good or beneficial … it is only by distancing ourselves from Christian concepts, and by implementing the absolute refusal to gain any benefit from their ideas that our own intellects and sense of self will become pure.”

Discuss amongst yourselves: How can a concept which was unknown to The Founders, was politically contrived to avert a domestic pogrom, and is ontologicaly ridiculous, be any part of our definition of America?

-ATN

My Great Good Friends,

Some have suggested my quite since last summer’s Pink Floyd dust-up is down to a lull in the ground war. In fact it is the opposite; there has been so much action on the BDS front that I have been hoping for an interim culmination of some sort to assess the state of play.

Happily the pace and rate of activity show no signs of deceleration so we may as well re-engage the conversation now. Some of the whirlwind has been hysterically funny, some heart breakingly sad. But, on balance, directionally positive for the movement globally.

First the fun stuff. Worthy of Robert Smigel’s “Triumph the Insult Comic Dog” ambushing idiot interviewees, a young woman approached attendees waiting on line to enter the AIPAC conference. Soliciting their views on “Donald Trump’s racist and homophobic statements” such as; “migrants being like a cancer”, “building a wall is to protect us from wild beasts”, etc., the cringe inducing reversals from how disgusting attendees said the statements were (when they thought they had been made by “that Nazi Trump”), to their convoluted rationalizations of the same statements when they were shown to have in fact been made by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, are fucking hysterical.

Even professional funny-men are getting in on the act. To hear Danny DeVito question why Sen. Clinton: “In NYC – where the Israeli lobby is big – and everybody talks about Israel, Bernie stood up for the Palestinians. (She) couldn’t even just say there was excessive force in the Gaza attacks. No. She couldn’t. It’s getting sticky because you don’t want the same thing to happen there that happened in South Africa. You don’t want that.”

An actor / producer channeling Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu almost restores my faith in the old Hollywood of Bob Mitchum and Steve McQueen.

AnyHowitzer, in the more serious hues of the cultural spectrum there have been numerous declarations of support by artists from Alice Walker and Brian Eno, to Russell Banks and Sting.

As was the case in the BDS anti-aparthide South African campaign, long term change comes from a shift in the cultural zeitgeist, which at the tenth anniversary of the BDS Israel campaign, is well under way.

Progress is also being marked by political impact. Quoting Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni; “BDS is moving and advancing exponentially.” And, Israeli Parliament Member Ayelet Shaked described BDS as “the greatest threat faced by our country.”

With appreciation to cultural giants like Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello and Carlos Santana for their support, a political effect has more immediate impact than the cultural ones.
And politically the BDS anti-aparthide Israel campaign is driving high profile zionists bat shit crazy:

Netanyahu: “declaring war on BDS.”
Sheldon Adelson / Haim Saban: “pledging $10MM for anti-BDS action on college campuses.”
And my personal favorite, Yair Lapid (ex Finance Minister): “the people behind BDS ‘did’ 9/11.”

Finally; economic impact. As you might imagine it’s tough to get honest government figures on BDS’s economic impact from officials who are frothing at the mouth, so I’ll rely on a Rand Corporation study as reported in the Financial Times illustrating how powerful the nonviolent BDS movement is becoming:

“…. there are signs that Israel’s disquiet over BDS is genuine. This week an Israeli financial newspaper exposed a leaked government report estimating that BDS could cost Israel’s economy $1.4B per year. The Rand Corporation, the US think-tank, says the costs could be more than three times higher: $47B 0ver ten years, inclusive of lower exports from the nascent EU labeling policy for goods produced on occupied land.”

And so it goes. The Stoic’s virtues of Wisdom, Courage, Justice and Moderation can apply to a movement as well as an individual, and are prevailing over Likud’s oppression, violence, hatred and zealotry in spite of their American enablers.

-ATN

My Great Good Friends,

Always curious about the intersection between politics, culture and media manipulation, my interest was peaked when a friend explained Hannukah as a “Festival of Lights”. Sounding more like a GE bulb commercial than a religious raison d’être, a bit of research was in order.

I came across the video record of a lengthy round table discussion between Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris where the first cause is nailed by the recently deceased polemicist Christopher Hitchens as: “The moment in history when everything went wrong. Where the human race took its worst turn.”

To quote Hitch at length:

“If one could nominate one absolute tragic day in human history, it would be the occasion that is commemorated by the vapid holiday now known as ‘Hannukah’. In the pathetic hope of a celebration that coincides with Christmas, here is the terminus to which banal “multiculturalism” has brought us. But there was nothing remotely multicultural that induced Judah Maccabeus to re-consecrate the Temple in Jerusalem in 165 BC, and to establish the date which the soft celebrants of Hannukah now so emptily commemorate. The Maccabees, who founded the Hasmonean dynasty, were forcibly restoring Mosaic fundamentalism against the many Jews in Palestine and elsewhere who had become attracted by Hellenism. These true multiculturalists had become bored with ‘the Mosaic law’, offended by forced circumcision, interested by Greek literature, drawn by the physical and intellectual exercises of the gymnasium, and rather adept at philosophy. They could feel the pull exerted by Athens, even if only by way of Rome and the memory of Alexander’s time, and were impatient with the stark fear and superstition mandated by the Pentateuch. They obviously seemed to cosmopolitan to the votaries of the old Temple – and it must have been easy to accuse them of “dual loyalty” when they agreed to have a temple of Zeus on the site where smoky and bloody alters used to propitiate their unsmiling deity of yore. At any rate, when the father of Judah Maccabeus saw a Jew making a Hellenic offering on the old alter, he murdered him. Over the next few years of the Maccabean “revolt” the assimilated Jews were slain, forcibly circumcised, or both, and the women who had participated in the Hellenic liberating dispensations suffered even worse. Since the Romans preferred the violent and dogmatic Maccabees to the less militarized and less fanatical Hellenized Jews who had shone in their white togas in the Mediterranean sun, the scene was set for an oppressive alliance between the old garb ultra-Orthodox and the imperial Roman governorate. This relationship was eventually to lead to Christianity and ineluctably to the birth of Islam…. We could have been spared the whole thing.”

An enlightened, Hellenized, assimilated Jewry, not tethered to the site of an already destroyed temple, without a dogma which repressed intellectual inquiry or a political governance controlled by religious leaders would have been a wonderful force for good. In contrast now we are burdened with an apartheid state where the dog of parliamentary rule is wagged by the tiny tail of fanatics in matters small (the weekly arrests of Jewish girls for attempting to pray at the Wailing Wall) and large (attempting to bring on Armageddon). Should this infinitesimal minority (less than 200,000) in the fanatical settler cult succeed in their stated goal of destroying the Al-Aqsa Mosque it is difficult to imagine an alternative to a nuclear exchange.

Ironic that a splinter fringe of fundamentalist Messianic Jews, who historically opposed the Zionist movement, (now aided and abetted by American Christian fundamentalists) manipulate the Israeli government to fulfill an apocalyptic prophesy to bring their Messiah. If Hitch was correct and this is where human history went wrong, to bad he’s not around to see if, in the process, he identified the cause of the end of human history as well.

So “Happy” Hannukah, I guess.

-ATN

My Great Good Friends,

Not likely The East Hampton Independent will publish my letter to the editor.

I thought you might enjoy it, anyway…

-ATN

Editorial Board The Independent,

I thoroughly enjoyed your editorial ‘A Lesson in Democracy‘, (11-04-15).

Your focus on Roger Waters at the Bay St., and the protests his support of the BDS (Boycott Divest Sanction) Israel movement drew, was even handed and an appropriate illumination of our local perspective. ‘Local’ to include your statement “our Jewish community that has done so much for local charitable causes”. However, to broaden our view beyond the Hampton’s micro demographic to a national perspective may be helpful.

For example a number of the protester’s signs stated “Israel is not an apartheid state”. Unfortunately the concept is a bit to complicated to be employed correctly on a placard. Specifically in international law, the meaning was defined by the International Conference on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1973 ratified by the full body and applied continually to illuminate religious restrictions on civil participation within Israel proper as well as racial restrictions imposed in the occupied territories.

So, when Secretary of State Kerry stated Israel risked becoming “an apartheid state” he was merely and gently suggesting to an American audience what the world already accepts.

To venture slightly beyond Sag Harbor; the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church voted to divest itself of equity holdings in corporations whose products are used by Israel in the occupied territories. Joining the Friends Fiduciary Corp. (U.S. Quakers) and the Mennonite Central Fund Committee, the Presbyterians are expanding upon their 2012 biannial Assembly decision to boycott products made in the Palestinian territories. Other main-line religious institutions are at various stages of participation in the BDS movement. For example the United Methodist Church has announced it’s divestment of G4S Corp which provides security systems and holds operating contracts in Israeli prisons.

Lest anyone think this is merely a concern of the religious and academic communities, there are times the breadth of support for the BDS movement is actually humorous. I recall a week when Lauryn Hill (nee:The Fugees) announced her tour boycott and Barclays announced the completion of it’s Elbit Systems holdings divestiture. Hip-hop Divas to Merchant Banks define a fairly large tent.

Other times the announcements are incredibly serious. The September 7th press briefing by F. Mogherini, EU Foreign Policy Director, at the annual meeting of the 28 EU Foreign Ministers in Luxembourg announced the requirement imports now obfuscatingly labeled “Made in Israel” will be changed to “Origin of Goods from the Territories Occupied by Israel since June 1967”, effective this week. Thus the full EU will join Britain, Denmark and Belgium in the clear identification. And, given the EU is Israel’s largest trading partner ($32 B in 2014), no small thing. As well as following on the EU’s ban on the European Investment Bank making loans to Israeli banks (Leumi, Hapoalim and M Tefahot among others) which do business in the occupied territories.

Finally, to illustrate a context in which to evaluate the Bay St. protesters; Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu opined at the Russell Tribunal that Israeli apartheid is worse than the horrors visited upon South Africans by the white supremacist regimes. The Archbishop speaks with the authority of having acceded to Nelson Mandela’s position of moral leadership of the BDS Israel movement founded on their shared memory of Israel being the largest supplier and often the sole nation willing to ignore sanctions to sell military and police weapons to the pre1994 South African apartheid government.

Keep up the excellent reporting,

Anthony Niosi

My Great Good Friends,

Gentlemen – Honor bright – hand to God – “If I’m lyin’ I’m dyin'” no BS, the following is 100% true.

Sunday I joined good buddies Steve Vaccaro and John McHugh on the outdoor pistol range at the Maidstone Gun Club. John excused himself shortly after I arrived and I invited an elderly gentleman, who had been watching John and Steve, to shoot with Steve and I in the next round.

The ‘game’ was five holster drawn shots, individually timed, with one point for each of the five quickest awarded, however only shots on target (8 1/2″ by 11″, at 21′ included in the tallying for points).

I lent the elderly gentleman a .45. He slowly made his way to the shooting position, set his arm-braced cane aside adjusted his position in an attempt to hear the shot timer’s buzzer, cleaned off his glasses, mentioned that he was 82 years old and his youngest daughter was older than Steve, asked what would be considered a decent time, and proceeded to kick the living shit out of Vaccaro.

Photos to follow…

-ATN

My Great Good Friends,

I would commend to your attention the artistry of JB Brown whose Penguin Grips creates, bespoke for any 1911 model, from exotic wood beautiful hand made grips.

My WC full frame is now sporting Arizona Ironwood Burl and my WC compact has California Buckeye Burl.

Without a doubt the finest I have ever seen.

-ATN

My Great Good Friends,

Big election tomorrow, and, lest anyone think the opinions of 47 Republican Senators, recycled neo-cons, evangelical Christians, Likud lunatics, or messianic Orthodox settlers (which we are inundated with daily by Fox News) are representative of the wider view of civilized nations, note this cartoon which appeared in The Times of London:

The Sunday Times Netanyahu cartoon may illustrate the barbarity in a way even Sean Hannity’s viewers can comprehend. Although possibly not, inasmuch as they seem to think ‘Israeli – American’ ( as in: I-A security, I-A interests, etc.) is one word.

Consider; as of the signing of the Oslo Accords there were less than 200,000 illegal ( as adjudicated by the Israeli Supreme Court ) settlers, today there are over 500,000.

You should care because these zealots live (die?) to bring on Armageddon which for them means their Messiah, their rapture, and an end to this miserable existence. However we, who scoff at their Bronze Age myths, will still be caught up in the nuclear exchange they avow to precipitate following Deuteronomy’s injunction to cleanse ‘their’ land of all Gentiles. Which will have the unfortunate concomitant effect of no more Kobe steaks, vodka martinis, Ferraris, Yankee games, or sex on the beach for those of us enjoying this life, versus praying for the next one.

-ATN