Genocide Joe – About Things That Matter

So Far, The World Is Better Off with Trump!

I never thought I would find myself writing these words. But I think the world is far better off with Trump as our president than with Genocide Joe Biden.

There I said it. I do so under the threat of great personal detriment. I mean, I can hardly voice such opinion in polite progressive company. I can’t even say so in my own family.

So, at the risk of complete isolation, let me try to explain myself.

I think the world’s better off with Trump because a head of state should at least be sui compos mentis. Clearly, Joe Biden was not. By most accounts, Jake Sullivan has been running the country for the last four years. Secondly, Trump is better because he’s backing us off from nuclear war with the Russians. Joe wouldn’t even talk with them. Thirdly, whatever we might think of his words about real estate in Gaza, the Donald has introduced a cease fire there. It seems to be holding. Fourthly, President Trump shows promise of dismantling the CIA and FBI. That has no downside as far as I can see. And finally, and perhaps most surprisingly, he’s unifying the country around the issue of truth-telling. I mean it. Let me explain.

Trump’s Not Senile

I can hardly believe the Democrats knew Joe Biden was mentally over the hill from the first day of his administration. And yet after four years, they were willing to run him out there for a second term, when everybody knew he could scarcely tell up from down.

How cynical is that? How disrespectful to voters! How anti-democratic!

Thank God for the first presidential debate that showed the old man mired in an advanced condition of senility.

As such, his defining issues became:

Billions and billions and billions for Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. (Trump stopped that right quick.)
His inability to do anything about a ceasefire in Gaza. (Trump turned that around even before he was sworn in.)
Unstinting cooperation in the genocide of Palestinians. (We have yet to see Trump’s final policy here, though his words and supply of 2000 pound bombs are not promising.)
Maintaining U.S. hegemony at all costs.

Those are the issues that obsessed and defined Genocide Joe – Ukraine, Gaza, genocide itself, and refusal to recognize that we live in a multipolar world. Little else he did really counts.

Trump Talks Russian

In sharp contrast to Biden’s foolishness, Donald Trump has agreed to peace talks with our proxy adversary in Ukraine. That war could have been entirely avoided had Biden even acknowledged reading and had he responded to Mr. Putin’s peace proposal in December of 2021. However, preferring war to diplomacy, he chose not to.

Shortly afterwards, the war could have been stopped in its tracks had Biden not (through Boris Johnson’s nefarious graces) effectively voided the peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine initialed by both belligerents in March of 2022. Instead, the old man again chose war that so far has exacted more than a million casualties.

In other words, Biden’s version of diplomacy was refusal to even talk with Putin.

Donald Trump has reversed all of that. Simple man that he is, Trump evidently realizes what all of us teach our children – make up with those you’ve been fighting with. Talk with your “enemies.” Try to see things from their point of view. No good parent would instruct them otherwise.

Diplomacy is as simple as that. Its exercise under Donald Trump has made the world a safer place.

Ceasefire in Gaza

So far, Trump’s policy in Gaza has made Palestinians safer as well.

The whole sequence of events since Trump’s diplomatic intervention illustrates the point. Since then, the whole world has witnessed:

Thousands upon thousands of Palestinians returning “home.”
The Zionist-caused rubble of their homes, schools, hospitals, libraries, mosques, and churches.
The uncovering of untold numbers of friends, relatives, doctors, nurses, and teachers buried and uncounted under the rubble raising the number of Palestinians indiscriminately killed to well over 100.000 – more than half women, children, and the elderly.
The survival of Hamas fighters still proud, well-armed, and undefeated by Israel’s genocidal attacks.
The testimony of Hamas prisoners about humane treatment on the part of their captors.
The contrasting emaciated and evidently tortured bodies of Zionist prisoners released by the Zionists.

None of this has been good for Israel’s image in the world. Instead, it’s made the world aware of the justice of the Palestinian cause.

To repeat, all of that makes Palestinians safer. It has also shown President Trump’s policy in Israel to be better than Mr. Biden’s, at least so far.

Today, Palestinians are better off under Trump.

Dismantling the CIA

And then there’s Mr. Trump’s appointment of Tulsi Gabbard to oversee the country’s 18 spy organizations. Those agencies spy on us! They engage in regime change operations. According to ex-CIA director, Mike Pompeo, they lie, they cheat, they steal all the time. They take entire courses on how to do so. Pompeo was proud of that. He thought it was a big joke.

But ask Julian Assange. Ask Chelsea Manning. Ask Edward Snowden. It’s not a joke.

Tulsi Gabbard realizes all of that. In Senate testimony, she refused to identify Snowden as a traitor.

Clearly, she has the “intelligence” establishment quaking in their boots.

That makes all of us better off.

Conclusion Bringing Us All Together

Recently, I saw a YouTube discussion between leftist comedian Jimmy Dore and progressive journalist Matt Taibbi. Dore raised a question about climate change. He confessed that in view of all the lies that have infected the scientific community (and American public life in general) he was for the first time having doubts about climate change. Was its threat being overblown?

In response, Taibbi admitted that the exposure of so many lies conveyed by politicians, clergymen, journalists, and university researchers had him wondering too. “I’m ashamed to say so,” he said in effect, “but all of that has me wondering about beliefs I’ve taken for granted over the last 30 years of my life.”

The exchange between Dore and Taibbi made me realize that even the falsehoods conveyed by the Liar in Chief currently manning the White House has important benefits.

On all segments of the political spectrum, it has us wondering about truth. We no longer trust those claiming to be truth tellers. We no longer trust the “fact checkers.” They’ve all been shown to be liars.

Regardless of where we stand on politics or climate change, that’s a hugely important point for Americans to realize and agree to. Thank you for bringing us together, Mr. Trump.

The Elections, the Assassination Attempt: Such a Joke!

As they say, if it weren’t so tragic, it would be laughable. I mean, they’re trying to make us believe that the upcoming election is (once again!) “the most important in our lifetime.”

What a joke! Yesterday morning New York Times editors wrote about how “centrism works,” and how important it is to avoid “radicalisms” of both the left and the right – as if in this country ANY politician represents left radicalism.

Truth is, they’re all either center right or extreme right. There is no “left” in this country.

None at all.

Face it: we’re governed by a Uni-Party. Everybody knows that. There’s hardly a sliver of daylight between Trump and (I guess) Harris. Certainly not between Biden and Trump. They’re all perpetrators of genocide. They’re all warmongers. All of them!

Oh, I suppose there’s some separation on the irrelevancies our system identifies as important: abortion, gay rights, immigration, and “wokeness” (whatever that means). Yes, in the face of genocide all those issues are trivial! Genocide eclipses everything else.

But the candidates won’t touch the real matter. Check out yesterday’s Times. They listed the issues facing Ms. Harris. Not a mention of the genocide in Gaza. Nothing about the war in Ukraine and why there are billions and billions and billions and billions and billions for that, but no money for what Americans really care about: higher wages, inflation reduction, universal healthcare, free college tuition, debt cancellation, climate change, low-cost public housing, or elimination of nuclear weapons. Not a word.

Neither does anyone explain why Joe Biden is not up to campaigning, but he’s still president. It seems the old man’s still somehow “in charge,” though everyone knows that’s never been the case. Obviously, they’ve been lying about his mental capacities for years. (They didn’t just discover it during the Trump debate.) But they continued to lie about it till a few days ago!

And now they expect us to believe they’re telling the truth. Don’t worry: they really do care about us. And Genocide Joe is really a nice grandfatherly humanitarian. And that Kamala. You go, girl!!

Of course Biden’s a liar; always has been. He’s a murderer straight up. And so is Harris. – and all those old white men who repeatedly jumped to applaud Benjamin Netanyahu when he addressed Congress last week. It’s all disgraceful.

I can’t vote for any perpetrators of genocide. Which means I can’t participate in the upcoming election.

And as for assassination attempt on Donald Trump? Do you see the hypocrisy as the whole thing is swept under the rug?

I mean, Imagine if a major political opponent of Vladimir Putin were shot and wounded while campaigning on stage. There is no doubt that the IMMEDIATE conclusion of “our” MSM would be PUTIN DID IT.

No wait and see. No waiting for an independent investigation. Just ridicule of any call for an inquiry especially if it were carried out under the aegis of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB).

Such inquiry would be dismissed as a joke, since like its predecessor, the KGB, the FSB could never be trusted to reach truthful conclusions.

You KNOW that’s true, don’t you?

In fact, that’s what happened when a minor Russian political figure called Alexy Navalny (who in no way threatened Putin’s continued presidency) died in prison last February. No sooner was his death announced than a firm conclusion was drawn, Putin did it.

The same thing happened last August, when another of Putin’s opponents, Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a helicopter crash. The wreckage was still smoldering when the press identified President Putin as the one responsible.

But why do I bring that up?

It’s because over here, any public expressions of suspicions involving the Biden administration around the Trump shooting are automatically dismissed as conspiratorial – if they’re even mentioned.

Yes, we’re told, there were inexplicable lapses on the part of the Secret Service surrounding Mr. Trump. But virtually no one even hints that the Biden administration, the CIA, the FBI, or the Secret Service was behind it.

Do you think those agencies are somehow above and beyond such assassination attempts? Do you think we can trust them to investigate themselves? Remember what ex-CIA chief Mike Pompeo confessed (and laughed about it): “We lie; we cheat; we steal; we take entire courses about how to do it.”

But no, after every assassination attempt (John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, George Wallace, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King . . .) it’s the same story. No conspiracy or government involvement. Nothing to see here. Just a lone wolf and all kinds of unanswered questions in documents that won’t be released for another 50 years.

“But trust us: our three-letter agencies will get to the bottom of it. Just don’t worry your pretty little head about that.”

It’s all so corrupt. Such a joke. I just can’t take it seriously.

My Homilist’s Writer’s Block in the Face of Genocide

This is the 5^th Sunday of Lent. I’ve read the liturgical selections as found on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website. Anticipating Easter in just two weeks, the first reading is about Ezekiel’s 6^th century BCE promise of resurrection to a Jewish people in their Babylonian Exile. The day’s selection from the Gospel of John describes Jesus’ raising of his friend Lazarus from his moldering grave.

In in the face of what the odious Benjamin Netanyahu doing in Gaza (with 95% support from his constituents) it all nearly turns my stomach. It has shut down my ability (and desire) to write anything sympathetic to any tradition about “God’s People” returning home.

Think of the ironies contained in today’s readings!

In the selection from Ezekiel, the prophet writes about the sixth century BCE Babylonian Exile. Exile, he laments, has meant death for his people.

So, to encourage them, he writes of a future when graves will be opened, where the dead will rise, and return to Israel, their home. More than that, the prophet promises that the returnees will embody God’s own Holy Spirit.

Then the liturgical response drawn from Psalm 130 acknowledges God as the liberator of the oppressed. It sings of a God whose mercy responds to the prayers of captives by expressing forgiveness and kindness.

Who among us can read such sentiments without throwing up?

I mean, the Zionist Jews with their people’s lamentable history of exiles and occupations by foreigners and with their experience of pogroms, and Holocaust at the hands of Christians have suddenly been revealed as the monsters they’ve always been. Absolute monsters!

Yes, it’s true: the Jewish people have more than once risen from the dead and returned “home” just as Ezekiel promised. But this time since 1948 and especially since October 7^th, 2023, contemporary Zionists have completely assumed the identity of their oppressors. They’ve become Nazis! Yes, Nazis!

And the hell of is: so have we Americans. With “Genocide Joe” Biden leading the way, virtually all the U.S. senators and members of Congress have enthusiastically supported Israel’s ethnic cleansing, collective punishment, infanticide, femicide, and starvation tactics. They (and we who fail to protest) are just as guilty of genocide as the Nazi apartheid Zionists.

And in the face of it all, where in the collective west are Christian voices united in protest and calling genocide what it is? Why is Pope Francis not unambiguously joining Jesus portrayed in today’s Gospel selection as railing against death and promising resurrection? Why are he and other Christian leaders not publicly weeping before the mountains of dead bodies who (unlike Jesus’ friend) can’t even claim the dignity of proper burial?

It’s all too much for me.

And so, I’m sorry. In the face of the Zionists’ current genocide against Palestine’s indigenous people, in the face of the apartheid Jews’ utter arrogance and cruelty, I find it impossible to write anything sympathetic to their religious tradition. I find it impossible to comment on “God’s word” that has been invoked so cynically to justify the sadistic slaughter of far more than 31,200 innocents, more than half of them children and their mothers.

My stomach is sickened. I can think of almost nothing else. My heart is broken. My faith is challenged. I can write no more.

Alexy Navalny Vs. Julian Assange, and Gonzalo Lira

Vladimir Putin has done it again. Just as he did with Yevgeny Prigozhin, he’s murdered another political adversary. This time it’s his “most prominent political opponent,” Alexy Navalny.

That’s the IMMEDIATE conclusion UNIVERSALLY drawn and promulgated by the political establishment and mainstream media in the collective west.

Such unanimity especially in the United States with its record of political assassinations and brutal political imprisonments raises suspicions that we might not be getting the full story.

That’s especially true when one contrasts western handwringing over Navalny’s fate with its indifference to the torture of imprisoned Australian citizen Julian Assange and to the State Department’s lack of concern about the behind bars death of American citizen Gonzalo Lira in Kiev.

So, before we join in premature conclusions, let’s look at the other side of Navalny’s death especially in the light of what we know about Assange and Lira.

Rush to Judgment

First, consider the immediate response to news that Navalny had died. Virtually EVERYONE from Genocide Joe Biden to Hillary Clinton and the Secretary General of Amnesty International claimed certainty that the man had been murdered “by Putin.”

This was even the general thrust of a “Democracy Now” interview with Russia expert Masha Gessen. The latter had authored an article in The New Yorker article entitled “The Death of Alexy Navalny Putin’s Most Formidable Political Opponent.” For Gessen there is “no doubt” Navalny was killed – again “by Putin.”

One wonders where such certainty can possibly come from simply on the report of Navalny’s death. After all, people die in U.S. prisons and migrant detention cells all the time. Such rush to judgment seems to fly in the face of the foundational legal principle that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. Nevertheless, before ANY examination of evidence, before any autopsy, before any independent investigation, the case is already closed.

The message to Americans: we too should have “no doubt.” Just as we were getting to know a more humanized Vladimir Putin (thanks to Tucker Carlson’s recent interview) the cruel autocrat has struck again. Whatever “official” autopsies might conclude, Putin is surely guilty and can never be proven innocent. (After all, who could ever believe Russian investigators?)

Moreover, Alexy Navalny is universally portrayed as a heroic advocate of democracy who has always opposed the “autocracy” of Vladimir Putin. He was a “freedom fighter” in the face of anti-democratic oppression.

True, Gessen admits that Navalny had previously been an ultra-nationalist often photographed with Nazi paraphernalia. And yes, he had also been anti-immigrant and Islamophobic. He was a guns-right advocate too who at one point called for the execution of Muslims and for the extermination of “cockroaches” like Russians living in Georgia.

But according to Gessen all of that was in the distant past. Since his arrest and apparently while behind bars, he had undergone a conversion. In fact, like many jailhouse converts, the imprisoned Navalny had become a student of religions. He had even transformed into an advocate of Muslims and their right to access to The Holy Koran while serving their time.

However, even if we grant the man’s conversion, the question remains why would Putin do such a thing? Navalny was already in prison serving a 19- year sentence. He was out of the public eye. He represented no political threat to the Russian leader who by all accounts enjoys high popularity with Russians and will easily win next month’s presidential elections.

In other words, Navalny’s “murder” could do nothing but make Putin look bad, expose him to criticism from his opponents, and hurt him at the ballot box. As ex-CIA officer, Ray McGovern puts it: Navalny “was of no consequence in terms of Putin’s reelection prospects. He had no real following there (i.e. in Russia) except among a certain group of folks that didn’t amount to much.”

The Other Navalny

But who really was Alexy Navalny? According to Scott Ritter, Navalny was a CIA agent “straight up.” He came to political awareness during the Boris Yeltsin years (1991-1999) before Putin’s reforms when Russia was extremely corrupt. Like so many young Russians of that era, he shared a strong admiration of the West that even bordered on rejection of his own Russian identity.

As such, Navalny was recognized by the CIA as a “future leader.” They sent him to the World Fellows Program at Yale University whose connections to the CIA (according to Ritter) are well known. There they groomed the man as a CIA-funded political opponent of Vladimir Putin.

In other words, Navalny was a player in a process that routinely funds so-called non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Russia and elsewhere for purposes of bringing about regime change. Put still otherwise, the NGOs in question were fronts for U.S. and British intelligence agencies who after the advent of Vladimir Putin took on the task of bringing down the Russian president.

This made Navalny in the eyes of Russian law a traitor guilty of treason. As everywhere else, there are laws in Russia against such things.

Assange & Lira

Ray McGovern, an ex-CIA analyst, goes further still. He contrasts the hand wringing about the Navalny affair with the lack of such distress over Julian Assange, the Australian founder and editor of Wikileaks. McGovern’s concern is relevant because this week, the 20^th and 21^st of February, a final hearing will be held in London to determine Assange’s fate.

Julian Assange, of course, faces extradition to the United States to face a 175-year prison sentence for releasing to the public evidence of U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. For five years, he has been held without charge in a 6’X12’ cell in London’s infamous Belmarsh Prison with Great Britain’s worst rapists, murderers, and terrorists. Before that he spent seven years as an asylum seeker in London’s Ecuadorian embassy.

And this despite appeals for his release by the Australian Parliament itself, and despite the CIA’s breach of basic client-lawyer privilege by listening in and recording confidential conferences between Assange and his legal representatives – a fact that alone should disqualify any further legal processes against this Australian citizen.

Where’s the outcry, McGovern says about Assange’s imprisonment and torture? And doesn’t that prominent foreign journalist’s mistreatment deprive the U.S. of any moral authority to criticize, let alone issue demands about the Navalny case?

And then there’s the issue of the apparent murder of American citizen Gonzalo Lira in one of Kiev’s prisons. Lira was charged with suspicion of expressing subversive opinions about Ukraine’s war with Russia. According to Tucker Carlson, “the Biden administration clearly supported his imprisonment and torture. Several weeks ago, we spoke to his father, who predicted his son would be killed.”

I ask my readers: Have you even heard of Gonzalo Lira? If not, don’t worry, you’re in good company. Genocide Joe’s administration acts as if it never heard of him either.

Conclusion

The conclusion here is not that Vladimir Putin was not ultimately responsible for the death of Alexy Navalny. That remains to be seen. Instead, the proper conclusions include the following:

It is far too premature to conclude anything.
Such prejudice flies in the face of basic legal assumptions about innocence and guilt.
Alexy Navalny was probably not a freedom fighter.
In fact, there is clear indication that he was a white supremacist and anti-immigrant ultra-nationalist.
He also seems to have been an Islamophobe, an agent of the CIA, and a traitor to his country.
Like all countries, Russia has laws about such matters.
In the light of its treatment of Julian Assange and Gonzalo Lira, the United States has zero moral authority to posture as a champion of prisoners’ rights, freedom of speech, rule of law, prosecutorial rectitude, or extra-judicial assassinations.

O yes, and then there’s all that business about Jeffrey Epstein‘s death in prison . ..

It’s Time to Reframe the Migrant Problem

Apartheid Israel’s war in Gaza along with “Genocide Joe’s” unconditional support for the holocaust there have set me thinking not only about Israel’s settler colonialism, but about colonialism in general and resistance to its depredations. The rebellion is unfolding before our eyes without most of us even noticing it in those terms.

I mean, not only Gazans have risen against continued European and American control of their destinies. In practice, the insurrectionist impulse is shared by colonized people across the planet. They’re moving from empire’s periphery to imperial centers everywhere. It’s what our politicians call “the immigration crisis.”

Consequently, I think it’s time to rethink and reframe what’s happening at our southern border. More than that, it’s time to reframe the question of immigration worldwide.

Let me try.

The Gazan rebellion has made me realize that planet-wide migration is not primarily a question of law, immigration reform, sacrosanct borders, and preventing the entrance “illegals” by walls and militarization of crossing points. Instead, it’s an issue of recognizing global population shifts from the Global South (Latin America, Africa, and South Asia) to the developed West for what they are:

A human rights movement (literally!) against artificial borders imposed by government’s representing the world’s white minority that comprises only about 12% of the global population, and yet insists on controlling the entire planet. (For instance, during the 19^th century and afterwards, white Europeans arbitrarily created entire countries as part of their “divide and rule” policies in Africa, the Mideast, and elsewhere.)
An unprecedented rebellion against such exercise of white supremacy, control, and border determination.
A consequent reparations movement for restorative justice
A largely intuitive demand by workers that they be given the same rights as capital to move freely across borders
A kind of reconquista (reconquering) of geographical space stolen from ancestral peoples.

And even though few participants in the movement are aware of its historical significance and scale, the movement cannot be stopped. No matter what the white European and “American” elites might do, the migrants will keep coming.

That’s because the immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers are implicitly operating from a largely unconscious grasp of the fact that the white European-American order is the root of the problem. The whole system has no moral ground to stand on. It conflicts with fundamental values that transcend and invalidate national borders.

Here my primary reference is to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

In 1948, that Declaration recognized that human beings simply by virtue of having been born have inherent entitlements (yes entitlements!) that include rights to food, shelter, clothing, health care, education, meaningful work, a living wage, and to insured retirement at the end of their lives. That’s what The Declaration says.

And yet, the experience of the colonized is that whenever their governments have tried to implement policies to secure such rights for their people, the former colonizing powers [who btw form the core of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)] under the leadership of the United States identify such governments as “communist.” They subject the offending authorities to regime change and to sanctions that work directly against the guarantees of the UN Declaration. The result is poverty, misery, hunger, unemployment, prison, torture, and death for millions of peasants, teachers, social workers, union organizers, and religious leaders.

Moreover, the white colonial elite have arrogated to themselves the supposed authority to unilaterally declare that the UDHR is only “aspirational.” For them it’s an abstract ideal that lacks the enforcement apparatus required for its implementation. [The U.S. has insured that the document will remain unenforceable by refusing to ratify the protocols guaranteeing its social provisions. In fact, it has withheld its ratification of the UDHR in general. Remember, it is a tiny minority of the world’s population (the whites) who impose such interpretation.]

Well, the current worldwide population shifts show that the globe’s non-white majority is no longer willing to recognize the authority of those who claim to be their betters. For the “invaders,” their human rights transcend the jurisdictional barriers erected on the whims of the white elite robber barons, bankers, lawyers, Wall Street tycoons, and their political appointees.

Again, nothing can stop the momentum of this drive — of this literal movement — for human rights. It’s a question of the world’s majority voting with their feet.

As for what to do about problems at our southern border . . .. The answer is relatively simple.

Sign off on the Declaration, including its “socialist” protocols.
Respect and promote the UDHR to enable and encourage Latin Americans to live free from want and fear without leaving their beloved homelands.
Accordingly, remove all sanctions from countries (like Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela) that enact policies implementing the UDHR’s social justice protocols.
In general, stop interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.
Abandon regime-change aspirations.
Grant to labor the same rights that capital has to freely cross borders to where the money can be made. (Either that or restrict capital’s ability to cross borders with the same zeal applied to migrant workers.)
Divert the billions upon billions now spent at the border on walls and militarization of U.S. Customs and Border Protection to the rebuilding and repair of Latin American nations (such as Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras) for the catastrophic damages from “America’s” ruinous policies of the past and present.

Cornel West and God’s Love for Mr. Netanyahu and “Genocide Joe”

Readings for Epiphany Sunday: Is. 60:1-6; Ps. 72: 1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13; Eph. 3:2-3a, 5-6; Mt. 2: 1-12

Just last night, I found myself in a ZOOM conversation with colleagues at OpEdNews, where I’m a senior editor. The name of Cornel West came up. His discussion with Norman Finkelstein was referenced.

West, of course, is the great theologian and former Harvard professor who is running this year as an independent candidate to replace Joe Biden as president of the United States. Finkelstein is a widely published social scientist and descendent of Holocaust victims.

In their conversation, both men condemned Israel’s ongoing genocidal attacks on Palestinians in Gaza. Finkelstein found them unforgivable. In the latter’s opinion, Benjamin Netanyahu and by extension, Joe Biden are beyond any absolution for their crimes. Calling them and their supporters “brother” or “sister” is an abomination.

For his part however, West refused to give up even on Netanyahu. While the latter, he said, deserved removal from office and a lengthy prison sentence for his obvious war crimes, West still considered Israel’s prime minister a “brother” loved by God.

As a theologian myself, I found myself agreeing with both men. Netanyahu’s cynical religious pretensions are despicable. His invocations of the Bible to justify his slaughter of innocents represents the worst and most blasphemous form of religion I can imagine.

I must confess that in my heart, I wish upon him the pain that Gazan babies and their mothers must endure as their limbs are amputated without anesthesia, because of the prime minister’s refusal to allow medical supplies into the concentration camp he’s mercilessly carpet-bombing. I have the same feelings towards Netanyahu’s sponsor, Joe Biden. He fully deserves the epithet “Genocide Joe.”

And yet, biblical readings for this Epiphany Sunday tell me that Cornel West is right. Despite shockingly primitive and cruel understandings of God found in the books of Genesis and Exodus, the Divine One of the Judeo-Christian tradition ultimately reveals God’s Self as the loving Mother/Father of EVERYONE regardless of our crimes, and especially (in today’s particular readings) – regardless of ethnic identification. To all of them, Yeshua’s final words apply. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

More specifically, the Divine One’s universal and unfailing love is the very theme of today’s readings.

Epiphany Sunday

Remember: the word “epiphany” means the appearance or manifestation of God – a revelation of who God really is.

On this Epiphany Sunday, Christians recall the tale of astrologers from “the East” who followed a miraculous star leading to the birthplace of Yeshua of Nazareth.

Epiphany recalls the time when such seekers recognized in Yeshua the long-awaited manifestation of the Universal God announced in today’s selection from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah and today’s responsorial Psalm 72 tell us clearly that God is not what ethnocentric believers expected or even wanted. S/he loves everyone equally, not just Jews, much less Americans.

That’s part of why Herod “and all Jerusalem with him” were “troubled” when they unexpectedly met the travelers who were seeking the world-centric and cosmic-centered manifestation of God that Isaiah had foreseen.

The God Herod and the Jerusalem establishment knew was like the one worshipped by Jewish Zionists today. He exclusively loved and favored Jews, the Hebrew language, and the Holy Land. He was pleased by Jewish customs and worship marked by animal sacrifice and lots of blood.

So, Herod and Jerusalem were “troubled” when the foreigners came seeking the Palestinian address of a newborn divine avatar. The astrologers claimed that the very cosmos (the Star!) had revealed God’s Self to them even though they were not Jews. Evidently, the wise men possessed (or were possessed by) cosmic consciousness. They realized Life’s Great Source not only transcended themselves and their countries, but planet earth itself. All creation somehow spoke of its divine Source.

Today’s selections from the prophet Isaiah, Psalm 72, and Paul’s letter to the Ephesians agree with the Wise Men. All of them speak of a Divine Being who is universal, not belonging to a particular nation or religion. This God is recognizable and intelligible to everyone regardless of language or culture.

That Divine One brings light to the thick darkness which causes us to limit God to privileged nations, races, and classes. The universal God brings peace and justice and champions of the poor, oppressed, lowly and afflicted. The newly manifested deity leads the rich (like the three astronomers) to redistribute their wealth to the poor (like Jesus and his peasant parents). This God wants all to have their fair share.

Matthew’s story says that the Jewish Yeshua manifested such a God. Yeshua was the complete revelation of the God of peace and social justice – a world-centered, a cosmic-centered God who loves everyone.

Herod’s and Jerusalem’s response? Kill him!

A universal God like that threatened Jerusalem’s Temple and priesthood. The Epiphany meant that such a God was not to be found there exclusively. If this God could not be tied down to time or place, then what would become of priestly status, temple treasure, the Jerusalem tourism industry?

Epiphany also threatened Herod’s position. Recognizing a divinity who led the rich to transfer their treasure to the poor threatened class divisions. A God on the side of the poor would embolden the lazy and unclean to rebel against those who used religion to keep the under-classes in line and resigned to their lot in life.

No, there could only be one solution: ignore the Star’s cosmic message, present a friendly face to these stupid foreigners, derive the crucial information from them, and then kill off as many impoverished babies as possible hoping in the process to stop God’s threatening, unacceptable Self-disclosure.

Today’s Readings

All of this is expressed in this Sunday’s readings. What follows are my “translations.” The originals can be found here

Isaiah 60: 1-6: Yes, God’s revelation has enlightened you, Jerusalem! It has been like a bright sun piercing dark clouds. But also know that same light has graced other nations making their inhabitants your own brothers and sisters. Please, embrace that disclosure of God’s immensity! The resulting collapse of national barriers will enrich you beyond your wildest dreams as all the earth’s treasures are shared among members of a Single Human Family.

Psalm 72: 1-2, 7-8, 10-13: Thankfully (though very gradually) humanity is coming to realize that there is but a single God whose overriding concern is social justice as it affects the poor and oppressed. In fact, God’s will is the redistribution of wealth across geographical boundaries that are meaningless to Life’s Source.

Ephesians 3: 2-3a,5-6: Jesus himself taught that lesson as if for the first time: All of us, Jews and Gentiles are members of a single body. Living by that teaching (he said) will bring a New Order where God reigns instead of earth’s Caesars.

Matthew 2: 1-12: Recognizing God’s immensity manifested in the very cosmos, Arab astrologers accepted Yeshua’s universal revelation not only before his own people, but despite the plot of religious leaders to deny and annihilate its Messenger. Ironically, Arabs were more open to God’s Self disclosure than those who considered themselves God’s people! (Doesn’t the same seem true today?)

Conclusion

Regretfully, and despite my own theological pretensions, and even with these readings fresh on my mind, I could not bring myself to voice the scriptural insights I’ve just shared, nor my agreement with Dr. West in last night’s OpEdNews conversation. I remained silent. To my small mind, Finkelstein is right: Biden and Netanyahu are beyond absolution.

But today’s Good News is that God is bigger than that. As Ken Wilber would put it, “Everyone’s right and is doing the best they can.” That applies to Netanyahu and to Biden as well. They might deserve our opprobrium and jail time, but they’re still somehow our brothers and sisters.

Dr. West’s candidacy reminds us that only such largesse can save our degenerating country — our disintegrating world.

With King Herod and “all Jerusalem with him,” I still find that “troubling.” At the same time, it’s salvific, and encourages me to support Cornel West’s candidacy.

It’s an epiphany (revelation) of the Divine One’s true forgiving nature. Nothing less can save us now.

New Year’s Reflections

Happy New Year to everyone. The last four years (with COVID and all) have been rough.

Let’s hope that 2024 will be better, despite the continued war in Ukraine and the horrific and ongoing genocide in Gaza. But before I get to that, let me share a personal note about my own privileged life.

I’m writing from Clearwater Beach Florida, where Peggy and I arrived last Saturday (December 30^th). Like so many retirees, we’re seeking refuge from winter weather, and we find Clearwater to our liking. For a fourth or fifth year, we’re renting in a 10-story high-rise condo complex on a beautiful beach comfortably far from the honky tonk part of this small town. We’re about a mile’s walk from a state park called “Honeymoon Island.”

As some may have noticed, my blogging has been spotty lately. That’s largely because I’ve been recovering from knee replacement surgery which I underwent on November 8^th. Recovery has been rapid for me. In fact, my replaced left knee now feels better than my right knee, which I intend to undergo an identical procedure sometime in April.

Peggy also had a knee replaced – about five weeks before my procedure. So, we’ve been busy helping each other convalesce. You know what they say: “A couple that has surgery together. . ..”

So much for such medical issues that I find myself talking about much more than I should.

Now, what about this New Year?

Sorry: my reflections are not happy. In fact:

I even find it hard to say the words “Happy new year!”
Don’t you?
I can’t stop thinking about the thousands and thousands of children, women, and old people being mercilessly slaughtered by the genocidal Zionists.
Or about the one many now refer to as “Genocide Joe” for his arming and otherwise supporting the Israeli war criminals. Who could vote for such a demon?
More than 22,000 massacred so far.
Again, more than half children, women, and old people.
I dreamt about them last night.
I’m wondering why the Pope and other religious leaders have not been more outspoken denouncing apartheid Israel’s atrocities that include collective punishment, population transfer, starvation, water deprivation, unrelenting attacks on hospitals, ambulances, schools, UN facilities, and members of the press.
Every item on that list is a war crime.
Where in all of this is “Love your enemies,” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” “Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me”?
It’s such a disgrace. It makes me wonder about the value of religion at all.
I’m also scandalized by the way war has become such a central part of U.S. policy. It’s now a first resort instead of a last one. And somehow, we all accept that as normal.
I mean our “leaders” now talk casually about use of nuclear weapons, and about war with Iran and China.
What for?
No thought of diplomacy. It’s simply a lost art.
And what about the U.S. with 4.2% of the world’s population overriding the expressed desire of virtually the entire world to simply stop the killing in Gaza?
Reluctance to call for a cease fire? What’s that about?
And did you see that Brown University report that since 2001, the United States has been responsible for as many as 4.5-4.7 million deaths in the war zones it has created?
And that’s just since 2001. Millions and millions before that!
Are we and the other colonial powers any better than the Nazis?
It’s hard not to draw the conclusion that “our” government (like Israel’s) is simply a criminal enterprise much, much worse than any Mafia you care to imagine.
That’s our tax dollars at work.
That’s us!
That’s U.S.

The only hopeful thing I can think of in this desperate situation is that THE TRUTH IS COMING OUT:

We are not the world’s good guys.
Quite the opposite.
Now the whole world unmistakably sees us for who we are.
The undeniable evidence is there in the ruins of Gaza.
In those piles of dead Palestinian babies, their mothers, and grandparents.
We are exactly in the position to which Adolph Hitler aspired.
The irony is that our Zionist allies are now the genociders and so are we and the collective West.
Our country is genocidal.
We’re basically white European colonizers who believe in our racial superiority and with less than 15% of the world’s population want to control the other 85%.
It looks like Hitler won that war, doesn’t it?
Fanon‘s Wretched of the Earth are now rising up to reverse his victory.
I find that Good News!

GOP Attacks on Higher Learning: What’s Education for Anyway? And How about Religion?

Readings for the Third Sunday of Advent:Isaiah 61: 1-2A, 10-11; Luke 1: 46-48, 49-50, 53-54; 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24; John 1: 6-8, 19-28.

Last week, Americans were treated to a high-level display of hypocrisy, double standards, and pure ignorance regarding higher learning. The spectacle occurred during a House Education Committee hearing about on-campus demonstrations supporting Palestinians in Gaza.

The procedure raised questions not only about alleged anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, but also about the very purpose of higher education.

For me in the context of biblical readings for this third Sunday of Advent, the hearing also touched issues of faith and its dictates regarding the conflict in Gaza. As we’ll see, today’s readings suggest that Christians should stand with Palestinians in their conflict with an Apartheid state turned genocidal – and against the United States now unquestionably revealed (in the words of Scott Ritter) as “the world’s bad guy.”

Let me deal with each of those points successively.

The Hearing & Anti-Semitism

During the hearing just referenced, rightwing congress member Elise Stefanik (R NY) grilled Harvard president Claudine Gay, her MIT counterpart Sally Kornbluth, and University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill about allowing pro-Palestinian demonstrations on their campuses.

According to Ms. Stefanik, the demonstrations ran the danger of threatening pro-Zionist students.

Ignoring her own history of alleged anti-Semitic positions as well as her votes funding the Zionist genocide of Gazans, the congresswoman’s questioning deceptively linked the term “intifada” to advocacy of extermination of Jews.

Similarly ignoring Zionist claims to “Greater Israel” extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, the congresswoman’s questioning implied that any use of the phrase “from the River to the Sea” uniquely threatened Jewish students. Clearly, Congresswoman Stefanik, along with many Democrats, was anxious to restrict pro-Palestinian speech on Campus.

For their part, the university presidents at last week’s hearing were correspondingly anxious to protect first amendment guarantees on their campuses in today’s context where any talk of Palestinian rights is interpreted as anti-Semitic.

The whole affair had commentators like Omer Bartov, a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, viewing the presidents’ grilling and its fallout as an attempt by champions of Zionism to distract from actual genocide (of Palestinians in Gaza) while centralizing highly marginal hypothetical speech about repeating Hitler’s horrendous genocide of Jews.

Meanwhile, right-wing commentators on Fox News offered outright condemnation of the three women presidents’ unwillingness to give a simple “yes” or “no” answer to loaded questions about a complex constitutional issue of free speech.

According to Bill Bennett, the former Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan, the whole affair illustrated, how American education at all levels has declined into what some have called “cesspools of liberal propaganda.”

Education’s Purpose

All this raises questions about the purpose of education in general and of higher education in particular. What is it for?

What do you think?

The relatively new prevailing answer equates the university’s function with pre-professional training. If courses don’t directly prepare students for “the world of work,” they’re a waste of time.

That approach, of course, discards traditional approaches to learning in general as preparation for living meaningful lives that transcend considerations of jobs and income in favor of free discussion and representation of all points of view – even those advocating genocide.

This more traditional approach unabashedly believes that free speech and debate will broaden students’ horizons. And doing so will inevitably challenge students to move from positions of egocentrism and ethnocentrism, from narrow tribalism and patriotism to something like world-centrism and even to cosmic consciousness.

In fact, many educators (like me) would say that’s the whole purpose of education – to help students and professors grow beyond egocentrism and ethnocentrism towards world centrism (where all humans are seen as brothers and sisters) and even to the mystical viewpoint that concludes “there is really only one of us here.”

In fact, reaching that cosmic vision is arguably the whole purpose of life. At least that seemed to be the position of all the world’s great religious traditions including their Judeo-Christian branch. Reaching that point of course would automatically exclude wars of any kind on the grounds that they are all suicidal.

Today’s Readings

And that brings me to the biblical selections for this third Sunday of Advent. Transcending even academic “objectivity,” today’s passages call us to take sides. They call us to side with the Palestinians against their apartheid colonial butchers.

For the readings reveal what scripture scholars call our Great Mother-Father God’s “preferential option for the poor.” They reveal that the Great Spirits themselves take sides. They demand justice for the poor (like the children of Gaza and their mothers) in their struggle against the rich [like the Apartheid Zionists and their genocidal IDF with its (U.S.-supplied) planes, bombs, missiles, and tanks].

Let me show you what I mean by “translating” today’s liturgical selections. Please read the originals here to see if I got them right.

Isaiah 61: 1-2A, 10-11

If you’re possessed by the Holy Spirit, if you have Christ consciousness, you must imitate the Great Mother herself. You must make a “preferential option for the poor.” It prioritizes healing hearts broken by imperial powers. Begin by recognizing the fact that poverty and debt render the poor hostages and prisoners of the rich. However, just like the wealthy, poor husbands and their brides deserve their own sparkling jewels. Put otherwise, wealth redistribution is a simple matter of divine justice which imitates the abundance and generosity of Nature herself.

Luke 1: 46-48, 49-50, 53-54

Yeshua’s mother recognized all this. Myriam was a poor peasant herself. And yet she, rather than some rich woman, was chosen as the mother of the long-awaited Messiah. So, she militantly praised the Divine One for feeding the hungry while specifically rejecting the rich. She glorified the Great Source for standing with Myriam’s people when they were unjustly occupied by imperial Rome.

1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24

Paul of Tarsus experienced Myriam’s consciousness as well. It expressed, he said, the Spirit of Yeshua himself whose prophetic program was identical with Isaiah’s (Luke 4:18). Yes, Paul said, Yeshua’s “preferential option for the poor” represents the criterion separating authentic interpretations of the Lord’s message from those of deceptive charlatans. The latter “solve” problems by war, rather than by peace which respects soul, body, spirit, and the absolute integrity of human community.

Isaiah 61:1

Lest you forget, we repeat: Christ’s Good News is addressed primarily to the poor, not the rich.

John 1: 6-8, 19-28

That’s what John the Baptizer recognized too. He was poor people’s alternative High Priest. His Temple was the Jordan’s wilderness, not Herod’s urban Temple. Yet, neither John, nor Elijah before him, nor any of the great prophets was anywhere near as radical as Yeshua. John merely baptized with water; Yeshua, his disciple, would administer a baptism that conferred the very Spirit of God – the fiery Spirit that preferred the poor to the rich.

Conclusion

Like secular universities, religious people within the Judeo-Christian tradition should never censor free speech. That’s because good-willed people hold all kinds of opinions. Even advocates of genocide deserve places at the table, in congressional hearings, at teach-ins, discussion groups, and bull sessions. Our Constitution’s First Amendment (every bit as important as the Second) demands that.

But today’s readings invite subscribers to the Judeo-Christian tradition to go further still. They summon followers of Isaiah, Myriam, Paul, and Yeshua to stand with the poor and powerless – with victims of empire and colonialism. The readings urge adoption of the divine “preferential option for the poor” by imagining what today is impossible, but as our aspirational North Star. And that means standing with Gazans against their genocidal oppressors.

To me at least, that further means:

Getting informed about the tragedy unfolding before our eyes.
Recognizing and naming the crime of genocide even when its perpetrators were once victims of genocide themselves.
Denouncing all violations of international law as such including indiscriminate attacks upon and wholesale slaughter of children, women, and the elderly.
Also including policies of collective punishment, carpet bombing, destructions of medical facilities, use of chemical weapons (such as white phosphorous) and assassinations of teachers, doctors, and members of the press.
Identifying “national leaders” like Israel’s Netanyahu and U.S. “Genocide Joe Biden” as international criminals.
Calling for the latter’s arrest and trial by the international court. (If that can be done for Russia’s President Putin for much lesser crimes, why not for Netanyahu and “Genocide Joe?”)
Similarly identifying Apartheid Israel and its enabler the United States of America as criminal nations.
Calling for their expulsion from a restructured United Nations that strips a nation representing 4.2% of the world’s population from overriding the will of the overwhelming majority of the U.N.’s membership.