Amici,
As
the year 2019 ends, I'm tempted to try to find good things to reflect
upon, but can't. Bad things seem to be multiplying insanely.
Three basic problems in the world exist, and there seems to be no way to effectively deal with them.
First: Communism, et al.
Second: Scientism
Third: Catholicism
First,
Communism or the truly "Red Socialism" (as opposed to, say, the
very-Capitalist-yet-Welfare-States of Scandinavia) is a religion that
many, many "intellectuals" in the Western World adhere to, and also that
has many followers among the ignorant classes in a host of countries.
It survived the collapse of the Soviet Union, it survives in Communist
China, thrives throughout Latin America, while in the West, it has
morphed into "Watermelon Communism" – Green on the inside and Red on the inside.
Communism
is a lot like the Jehovah's Witnesses. Think about it. JWism is a
publishing house that cons many ignorant people around the world into
"selling" JW's products (Watchtower Bible and Tract Society
publications). The big shots of the "religion" get rich on the backs of
its followers. Now, all religions, from Catholicism to Mormonism, want
their adherents to contribute money, but JW's laity is its worker ants.
In the same manner, Communist higher-ups live "the good life" by
manipulating its masses in the same vein.
With
all such, it is that underlying "religious fervor" keeps 'em all going.
(Just because Communism doesn't believe in a god, except the god of
self, so what? Buddhism has no god, either.) And Communism/Red Socialism
will bring down the West and reduce us all to poverty, not to mention
serfdom. This is because Communism's "long march" through Western
institutions – very much including all-things family
related (study up on the Frankfurt School of Communism), they seem to
have won. They rule Western Entertainment, Academia, a good portion of
the political class and significant elements of the underclasses. And
they work hand-in-condom with all the deviants to force sexual deviancy
on the rest of us – the goal of that is to bring down the family. Here's a good article on how the Chinese are doing this: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/12/coming_backfire_chinas_family_separations_in_xinjiang_a_recipe_for_islamic_radicalism.html It has some info on how Communism has always wanted to re-order human family life (as in put it out of existence).
And
notice how all of the above squeezes the Middle Classes, the people who
actually work for a living, and who are benefiting from President
Trump's Mainstreet-Not-Wall Street Nationalism-focused Conservatism.
Here's an interesting and insightful article by Salena Zito, a
"shoe-leather" journalist who takes the time to spend time getting to
know people in Rust-Belt towns like Ashtabula, Ohio.
She's
excellent. Zito, a Catholic, is probably an old-line Democrat herself, and you'll
see how many "knee-jerk" pro-Trump people don't trust her if you read
the Comments, but then many of them do understand where she's coming from. She's a great read. And she predicted Trump would win in 2016. She was right.
As
part of Communism's break up of society, we have all the "racist" talk
and Social Justice Warrior crap. These two articles below discuss the
outrageous attacks on Jews in New York City, and the reasons for the
Leftists who run NYC's response -- well, NON-responses. The articles are
valuable "eye openers".
and
And that is in the "financial capital of the world", New York City. As the author of the second piece writes:
And Jews are dying because of it—namely, because identity politics demand that violence against Jews be ignored in favor of “protecting” other minority groups. This type of selectivity actually worsens racial relations rather than improving them.
The left has spent the last three years marketing itself as having seized the moral high ground on tackling Jew-hatred, which may explain why their recent anger towards Trump’s Executive Order a few weeks ago, designed exclusively to combat antisemitism on college campuses, was particularly virulent. The mask has slipped, and for the left, battling antisemitism has become a means towards eviscerating the right, rather than a noble end in and of itself. I am curious how much more Jewish blood will need to be spilled before ending violence becomes an end inherently worth pursuing.
(Highlights are my own.)
Now
Communism has in common with the Vatican II Church the foundational
idea that people, humanity, is basically good, so all we need to do for
joy and happiness is remove the Oppressor, whether nasty Capitalists or
"Pharisee" "Rigorists" in the Church. However, on the larger world
scene, war (all sorts of conflict) seems to be an ever-growing threat.
(And it just goes to show that "humanity is basically good" is not true,
not remotely.) So if the Commies in the West "shut down" the West's
ability to defend itself and global commerce, etc., via local takeovers
or civil wars, then we're all going to soon be living in a
post-holocaust-like "Dystopia", wherein life will truly be, as old
Thomas Hobbes wrote, "Solitary and poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
Scientism: But I'm almost more concerned with the blindness of "our betters" when it come to Scientism, defined as "best
or only objective means by which society should determine normative and
epistemological values." (As Wikipedia puts it.) You can readily see
the basic Scientism fallacy in economics, with so many academics
apparently being economic determinists, thinking because people have
feet, as Chesterton once wrote, they only walk around on them to find
shoes for them. All such ideas fuel "Globalism", of course, which has
both great good and also great harm, depending. Trade between nations
whose first concern and focus is protecting their own citizens is fine;
trade wherein national sovereignty is surrendered is not. Another aspect
of Scientism in economic issues is the conceit that someone trained in a
grad school, earning an MBA, is smarter in business savvy than a guy who worked his way
up in a company from the mailroom. That's been the cause of a massive
amount of business failure and disasters in the last 40 years.
In
another aspect of Scientism, one the reasons the Catholic Church
crashed and burned, was post-WWII its bishops went to psychologists and
psychiatrists for all their answers, instead of to the Church Fathers
and theologians of the past. It is, in fact, a mirror image of Scientism
and MBAs. But I suppose today, Scientism is a problem first and
foremost via Global Warming, of course. On the one hand, GW is is
being successfully used as a tool by the "Watermelons" and their
Luddite collaborationists, but also far, far too many average, everyday
folks are taken in by it.
For example, it is easy to find article like this: https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions
that shows how consistently wrong all such prognostications have been.
You'd think people would "step back from the brink" and "chill out". In
any event, this article linked to above is interesting because it opens
with an excerpted report from 1967 that predicted "Dire Famine by 1975",
followed by a hosts of newspaper articles reporting a new Ice Age
descending upon us. Of course, these all eventually peter out and are
replaced by dire Global Warming predictions of 20-so-years-ago. All
these have hyper-dire warnings from that time about what the world would
be like today have turned out bogus as well, of course. Reading the
invaluable Wattsupwiththat blog https://wattsupwiththat.com/
is endlessly fascinating for anyone remotely interested in science, and
how complicated and not clearly understood planetary earth science
issues can be manipulated.
For
example, read this article above then the Comment section wherein a lot
of questions and objections are raised, sensible ones – extremely so.
For example, "spangled drongo's" news about the latest Australian Bureau
of Met sea levels for a stilling pond adjacent to the broadest piece of
ocean in the world. The latest mean sea level at Ft Denison tide gauge
is 6 inches LOWER than the first reading taken in 1914. Wattsupwiththat
is full of such astute and informative commentary.
In
general, the GW alarmism kind of reminds me of all the dire
lamentations that the election of Donald Trump would destroy stock
markets, such as Paul Krugman used to squeal about: https://thefederalist.com/2019/12/26/paul-krugman-said-markets-would-never-recover-from-trump-the-dow-is-up-10000-points-since-2016/
Krugman
was completely wrong. Utterly! (Is he fired yet? Don't hold your
breath.) Yet the mainstream media would never remind you of that. (A
major part of our problem today is the mainstream media is inhabited by
Leftists as strongly as Academia and Entertainment.)
But
in terms of science, right now the Global Warming (renamed "Climate
Change") "narrative" seems to be still in control. Here's an article
lamenting how the European "Green Plans" would bankrupt Europe. First,
Holly Sheer on the staggering costs of Europe's Green Deal:
An excerpt:
Additionally, current green or renewable energy sources
still come with environmental
costs. They’re expensive — often exorbitantly so, with
each of the 28 member countries needing some €575 billion every year to
cover these costs of implementing green energy — and still have negative impacts
on wildlife, habitats, and workers
involved in sourcing the parts. Even implementing these energy sources
doesn’t guarantee ridding emissions problems.
If the EU has all this money to throw around, perhaps
it’s time to examine North Atlantic Treaty Organization spending and funding,
and why the USA is responsible for “69%
of overall defense spending by NATO member states.” If the EU has money to
spend, it’s time to make its expenditures on its own defense more
proportionate, instead of continuing to allow U.S. taxpayers to fund their
security while they use their own tax revenue for unproven fantasies like the
Green Deal.
Trump, roundly
loathed and hated in certain circles in "Europe", has pulled the U.S.
out of this GW nonsense and if re-elected (and if you read the article
at Lifesite below, you'll see Obama himself intentionally hamstrung the
agreements years ago, in 2009) – and what with China, the world's biggest polluter and most polluted country – only talking big about even beginning to clean up its act 'round about 2030, maybe the tide will swing against the Global Warming hoax. But I'm not betting on it. As this article
says, in its final paragraph, perhaps the most cogent and succinct explanation of "it all" I've ever read:
The Left has gone
Green because it solves what has always been the fatal flaw in socialism; the
inability to produce growth and improve people's lives. Now that the Greens
have proclaimed growth to be bad and affluence to be evil, socialism is the
perfect model for managing mass poverty in an "equitable" manner.
Environmentalism will be pushed regardless of the state of scientific knowledge
because socialism requires it. Capitalism will be condemned because it corrupts
people with a destructive desire for more. And China and other rising nations
will be ready to pick up the pieces if any "big country" in the West
falls for this suicidal ideology. With its strong domestic growth program, its
globe-spanning Belt and Road Initiative, and its daring space exploration
agenda, "socialism with Chinese characteristics" is a very different
beast. Its attitude is full speed ahead. Can we afford to do any less?
(Highlights are, of course, my own.)
The
whole article is good; I recommend it. The author is William R.
Hawkins, "...a consultant specializing in international economic and
national security issues. He is a former economics professor who has
served on the staff of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee."
So, it is all about about being on the road to a real-time version of Orwell's 1984.
Now I've come around to thinking that only a major,
civilizational-level war will finally kill off Global Warming. A war
would both give people something else to think about and end the ability
of our "Betters" to control us on an International level, because a war
would trash out the whole shebang. We'll see.
Catholicism:
We certainly cannot expect guidance from the Mainstream Church, as this article shows: https://wdtprs.com/2019/12/amazonian-and-pachamama-skubala-in-annual-vatican-christmas-concert-video/
An excerpt:
Marco Tosatti caught it and it is on Twitter (below). An indigenous woman from the Amazon region got up in front of the camera, had them all cross their arms over their chests (they did it) and explained about Mother Earth and vibrating. More Pachamama crap. On Youtube, 1:44:25 in original language. How ridiculous is this becoming? If she had told them all to strip naked and hug each other, the prelates in the front row would probably have been the first to comply.
I guess there's three categories of stupid, in ascending stupidity: Stupid, Staggeringly Stupid, and then Catholic Church Hierarchy Stupid.
There's
so much going on in terms of the wretched Bergoglio that I can't
remotely keep track. “Combat hatred, small-mindedness and prejudice. Do
not be content with making superficial proposals or abstract synthesis:
accept instead the challenge of the overflowing restlessness...” is a
sample of his latest drivel.
Check out the Canon212 website for more such news: https://canon212.com/ Or OnePeterFive is a good site, too. https://onepeterfive.com/
Suffice
it for me to write here that the Church, acting like a focus-group
tested NGO and currying favors with all the latest breathless idiocy and
deviancy, is not the way Christianity is either lived or
preached, and that as an old Lutheran professor of history at OSU once
told Msgr Frank Lane, "We need you guys to be Catholics!" So it is that
if Catholicism goes the way of the Presbyterian Church USA (to give just
one of a plethora of examples; indeed, the mainline Catholic Church is
becoming more Episcopalian USA than the Episcopalian USA Church is!):
Protestantism has no grounding, and there's IS no Christianity
except the "Ghetto Churches" of the fissiparous and separatist
xenophobic Orthodoxies, or the (truly) mindless emotional chaos of the
Pentecostals, many of whom "speak in tongues" praising Satan. (A
well-known and researched phenomenon, actually.)
All
of these three maladies are tied together, of course. Just one example:
Communism infiltrated its strongest critic, the Catholic Church, back
in the 1930s, as detailed by the famous Bella Dodd, who was converted by
the Holy Ghost working through Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who's cause for
Beatification, you may have heard, has been "sidelined" (translated:
trashed).
And
so it goes. 2020. What will it bring? I've come to believe we're in
Third Secret of Fatima territory right now, and nothing that happens
will surprise me. It may well kill me, but surprise me -- nope, not a
whit.
Happy New Year
An Préachan
