Playwright David Mamet tells us about how Christianity came to be...

Amici,

The Muslims smell blood in the water. Like sharks, they're beginning to swim around Israel in ever closer circles.

And the USA are about at war with the world. Should Israel go into Gaza to wipe out Hamas (remember, an organization that certain Israelis helped in some way to form), it will potentially be like Stalingrad, a fighting step-by-step through a pile of ruins. House to house, and of course, civilians will be killed. As Col. Macgregor says, no soldier will try to ask first, "Excuse me, are you a Hamas terrorist or...?" No one can expect soldiers to do that. It would be a repeat of trying to figure out who was a Viet Cong guerilla and who a Vietnamese peasant. And as for the Jihadi Muslims, the two million Gazans are already dead, martyrs for Allah. The men among them will get to spend Eternity in carnal relations with the legendary 72 virgins per Muslim man, while their women can look on from the sidelines.

Since the U.S. is stitched cheek by jowl to Israel – well, the Obama/Biden Regine is cheek by jowl with Iran, insanely enough – the Americans will get dragged into whatever war develops. It all depends on what Israel does, but nothing stays the same forever, as the old saying goes. And Israel is badly, badly divided in many ways, a large segment of the population was enraged about the government's attempt to reign in their out-of-control supreme court. Many reservists were not showing up for duty, and air force pilots wouldn't fly. So no wonder the Muslims scented blood in the water, all right. They're now in it for the kill. (And the American's pending collapse will be icing on their cake.) Ironically, Israel has lasted about as long as the Crusader states in the same exact region. A bitter irony, indeed, for them, and for us Catholics with long memories.

Meanwhile, we must seemingly blindly follow the Biden Regime into war, but I don't think they're going to war for Israel. And anyway, Israel, so loved by evangelical Christians in America, loathes Christians. A controversial statemet? Yes, but let's see the celebrated American Jew David Mamet has to say in his essay about it. 

I read it. “Very intense” is one way to describe it. Mamet's angry and he doesn't "hold back". No doubt he, too, senses this is a critical time for Israel, and its survival is at stake. First, Mamet clearly points out how the Democrats in the USA have betrayed Jews in various way, and that’s all too true, in various ways. Especially about that evil man, FDR. But then the playwright points out that the American Jews tended to vote in a block for Democrats. There's an old joke that Jews live like Episcopalians yet vote like Puerto Ricans. Somehow – like the American Negroes – the Democrats keep Jews "down on the plantation" too.

Mamet and Christianity

Mamet also writes of Christianity that “Christianity came into being with the destruction of the Jewish State — the adherents were Jews whose Temple and culture had been destroyed. Every new religion, in its foundation myths, slanders its parent faith.”

Lovely. Let's get this straight. So Christianity, founded on a myth, only exists because the Romans destroyed the Temple and murdered up to a million Jews (some historians estimate that high a number for the 70 A.D. war, and a like number later with the later Bar Kochba revolt, when the Romans renamed the region "Palestine") and scattered the rest, and some of these traumatized survivors formed the first the Christian Jews? Most Christians of that first generation were indeed Jews. St Luke is the only Gentile writer of the New Testament (though some claim he was a Hellenized Jew). But nothing supernatural about the origin of Christianity occurred, Mamet seems to say; they only became Christians because they were depressed that the Temple was destroyed, so they made up the Jesus Myth. Nice. And remember as you contemplate that bit of insight that Mamet is a famous playwright and not supposedly some ignorant yahoo.

Mamet also writes: “Afterwards, we find the Christian libel that the Jews killed Christ, the medieval information that we slay Christian children to bake their blood into matzoh, that we were the cause of the Second World War; and, currently, that we exist to murder Moslems.”

• Well, well. Sadly, the “blood libel” has indeed been around for ages, and it is a great evil. Mamet left off that many Medieval people blamed Jews for the Black Death, by the way. And Muslims hate Jews for a host of reasons, and certainly slander them. When they're not killing them.

So, to sum up, the Jewish leaders of Christ's day didn’t kill Christ. (Maybe it was the Buddhists?) I suppose the Romans did the deed just for the heck of it. Pontius Pilot got up that morning and said, "I'm feeling bad today. Go round up some harmless Jewish dreamer and crucify him for me. I'll feel better." "But hey, boss, we got Barabbas. We can crucify him. He's a murderer!" "Naw, an innocent day dreamer is who I want to see crucified today."

And Christians have been slandering Jews ever since? In fact, Mamet quotes St John's Gospel, 8:44: “You are of your father, the Devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the Beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth because the truth is not in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

Ouch. But curiously enough, gee whiz, Mamet the playwright doesn't bother to stage the scene. So, allow me to do so. 

• Jesus of Nazareth is brought the "woman caught in the act of adultery" at the beginning of St. John 8. 
• He says His famous, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." 
• So the whole trap they had set blew up in the Pharisees' faces. I suppose Mamet would say that whole scene didn't actually occur. Part of that Christian mythology, dontcha know? 
• Then Our Lord says, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

The Pharisees immediately dispute His self-witness, and assert that "Your witness is not true." So Our Lord Christ goes into long conversation where after much give and take, they insist “Abraham is our father.” (In St Matthew 3:9 the Jews are saying the same thing, "Abraham is our father" so often that St John the Baptist shouts out, "God could raise up children to Abraham from these very stones!") In St John's Gospel scene, Jesus tells them no, they are not Abraham's children for were they Abraham's descendants, "You would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this." 

By this time they're really angry, not least because He obviously knows they plan to kill him (oh, right; it wasn't the Jews!) and they say, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father—God.” Notice how they've moved from Abraham to God? We're now up to verses 42 and 43, and Our Lord says, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word." It is then with verse 44 that He begins the speech Mamet quoted. 

This dramatic scene builds and builds, and is excellent dialogue. It would be fantastic on a stage. Doesn't the playwright notice that? In any event, the whole confrontation goes on until they say, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” Jesus answers them with his famous “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” That's it for the Jews He has been speaking with. Without ever uttering it themselves, they know the Sacred Tetragrammaton, the "I Am Who Am." This unemployed wanderer Who performs endless miracles is claiming to be God Himself, so they take up stones to stone him with, and He disappears from the Temple.

Now, wouldn't that make a fantastic drama on the stage, Mr. Playwright? Oh, yeah, it's mythology. Um, but still...

A Revelation

Perhaps an article like this gives insight for those who might be interested into the intractable separation between Judaism and Christianity. They are non-negotiable. No middle ground can be reached except to go their separate ways, a lot like Abraham and Lot. The average Christian has no idea of how Jews loathe Christians who take their religion seriously. It is widely taught by Jews that a gentile who obeys the Noahide covenant might have some share in the afterlife, but a Christian who tries to convert a Jew will go to the deepest part of Hell for eternity. A wise rabbi, Rabbi Abraham Heschel, famously said “Christianity is Judaism for Gentiles” But his was a rare wisdom, and sorely missed in these times.

But I digress. Armageddon does that to me.

God bless them and have mercy on all of us. 

The Jewish people, or Biblically speaking, the People Israel (St. Paul seems to see a difference), have a major role to play in the End Times. Fr. Mawdsley discusses that with Kennedy Hall here. "ISRAEL: Biblical prophecy of the conversion of the Jews to Christianity with Fr. Mawdsley". This second is a new one: "Jesus is no Zionist. Neither is Moses." Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss is a revelation, and Brother Nathaniel in a clip from his: "Why I Left Judaism", is priceless.

Fr Mawdsley going to get himself banned from YouTube, no matter how pro-Jewish he otherwise is. The other day he had one where he showed video clips of an altar they erected somewhere in Jerusalem (IIRC) where newly reconstituted Levitical priests offered the carcass of a freshly slain lamb up in the fire. The lamb had been butchered somewhere else, but it was a pathetic – truly the word for it – sight. Skinned carcass. Guys in robes awkwardly leaning toward fire. THAT's the religion religious Jews want to bring back?

Most Jews are not "religious observant". I read a Times of Israel article recently about just how religious Israeli Jews actually are. Most Jews in the U.S., which some say has 51 percent of the world's Jews, are not "religious" either. Note this doesn't necessarily mean they're atheists, just not that into God. Being Jewish without God can great if no Muslims are around. Fun festivals, a strong identity, lots of connections. But to really believe it...? Those poor kids at the music festival had a huge statue of the Buddha there. Isn't that like setting up a pillar to Baal or an Asherah? Does anyone besides the religious observant in Israel know about false idols? Do they ever wonder, "Gee, maybe...?"

Asking for a friend, as they say.

           AnP

"Three-way-squeeze" will result in Biden's departure from the presidency...

 Amici,

See The Three-Way-Squeeze here for a great read, a "futurist" speculation about the near future.

It's a fascinating essay by James Howard Kunstler (novelist, political writer, blogger) on the near future. He predicts the Joe Biden Administration will last "probably" till the Fall (Autumn for non-U.S. English) of this year, and I myself predicted Biden himself wouldn't last through April. However, I didn't count on Biden's wife, "Dr Jill", who seems to be replaying the role of Woodrow Wilson's wife, Edith Bolling, in the last months of that dictator's presidency. (Wilson had suffered a stroke in October of 1919.) It's now mid-June and the zombie "Zhou Xiden" is still tethered to his wife or the puppet strings of whoever is controlling him, but this trip to Europe and the G7 was so cringe-worthy embarrassing as to be utterly appalling.

(I actually prepared an email a few days ago with many examples of Biden's stumbles, mumbles, bumbles and "get-off-my-lawn" rage reactions (like his clutching his answer notebook to his chest, leaning into the microphone, and breathing in clear rage the words, "I've only been here 120 days, ok? C'mon, man! Give me a break!", but these burlesques are all over the Net.)

As noted, Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke and his wife filled in for him. But America has never elected the brain-dead before. It has elected cripples such as John Kennedy (severe pain in his back) and the paralyzed FDR. The U.S.A. has otherwise had all sorts of presidents, from demi-gods like Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt to competent but forgotten men like James Monroe and James K. Polk and Calvin Coolidge, not to mention would-be dictators such as Woodrow Wilson and FDR, Theodore's distant cousin, and of course scoundrels galore, like Andrew Johnson and JFK and LBJ (and of course many would place Nixon at the head of the list, but he couldn't hold a candle to LBJ, the worst president the country ever had!) and we've even had a gay president, James Buchanan (of course the word wasn't invented back then but check out his history – interestingly, no one seemed to care about his private life.) Finally, we've had our share of incompetent presidents, such as Warren G. Harding (also a sort of scoundrel, maybe even the "master scoundrel" of them all, right, Mike?:), Herbert Hoover, and the ever luckless Jimmy Carter.

We're never had, however, a non compos mentos president! Biden is not "there" mentally; this is manifest. He exhibits this senility almost every time he is in public. It is so bad even his fawning press are mocking him now. We've never had anyone like Biden.

Presumably his "puppet master" is Obama, or Obama's "brain", Valerie Jarret. Behind them are globalists like George Soros, Klaus Schwab, and Bill Gates. Yet even as a figurehead, this trip to Europe has shown Biden to be simply grotesque, a simulacrum of a man. In truth, he always was basically stupid, a plagiarist intellectually who endlessly grabbed women's butts or spent time sniffing girls' hair, and ever and always raking in money via his brother and son. (Woodrow Wilson, in contrast, was an actual intellectual and a university professor at Princeton – when that meant something, indeed – then president of Princeton, and later governor of New Jersey! Of course, he later became a dictator, and created the first fascist state in the world, before Mussolini even invented the word! But still, he was a man of actual accomplishment.) But now, finally, Biden is on the world's stage and he's just too much. He has to go. So does Kamala Harris, who – after her disastrous trip to Guatemala – is clearly incapable of being president. Harris is currently 'on the run' from going to the Border, as Biden (or more likely, "Dr Jill") made Harris 'Border tsar', and she's avoiding that job like the plague. Harris, who came in last of all the Democrat candidates, actually never ran a real political campaign before; she was placed in her various roles owing her advancement in California politics to her carnal relations with a married Willie Brown, a powerful CA politician. She's a sort of "Animal House" sorority version the idiots in that famous 1978 movie, and her incompetence is stunning.  

Therefore, the blogs (blogs not on the Left, I should point out, but even some of those are embarrassed by Biden; he's just too embarrassing for anyone) are full of articles about how the U.S. is doomed. This Kunstler article is better written many and quite insightful. Kunstler's "Three-way-squeeze" pretty much covers the Biden situation.

I highly recommend it.

An P

Reflections on the UK EU Election...

There's no reason England (sans Scotland if necessary) can't be like Switzerland or Singapore. I say "no reason" in the sense of economics and trade; in the sense of the UK political class "thinking outside the box" of course, they're stuck -- maybe Nigel Farage can effect some real change.

Scotland could have used its oil money to become itself a Singapore, but instead is a Lolland-speaking version of Vermont: an all white, totally socialist, and increasingly childless satrapy of the EU.

What really irks is Ireland, stuck snug up the EU anus. If I could have three wishes, one of them would be to take Connacht out of Ireland. Oh, well.

After World War II, I suppose the English-speaking nations should have formed some sort of Delian League Against the World, but that half-feline half snake FDR was a Commie tool, Churchill was thrown out of office, and General MacArthur made sure Australia was sidelined into irrelevance.

Muise, as the Irish used to say.

Democrats, Party of Infanticide and now Antisemitism?

The Democratic Party seems to be self-destructing. Here Laura Ingraham and Newt Gingrich discuss it a bit starting at 1:44 minutes in with Reparations, and then they move on into antisemitism, and finally the Border Crisis, were now it is expected the U.S. will be facing 1 million illegals swarming the border this year.

Gingrich (who is 75) has an interesting comment about Nancy Pelosi (soon to be 79) and her two closest House leadership people are also approaching 80 years of age (Steny Hoyer will be 80 in June), and Ilhan Omar and Rashide Tlaib (the antisemites) and AOC (the idiot Leftist) are like her grandchildren, pushing her aside, and the party Leadership just doesn't know how to handle them. All Pelosi can say of Omar is "she has a different use of words...".

So down into Hell itself go the Democrats.

I never thought I'd see Antisemitism in the U.S. like I'm seeing it now in the Democratic party.

It seems baby killing isn't enough; see Litesite  and also the Conservative Evangelical CBN news report on the Democrats blocking a bill that would protect babies who survive abortion. 

Of course, the MainStream Media is running a full-court press that the Democrats are not the party of Matricide and Infanticide – any internet search will deluge you with such articles – but with each vote the Dems make, it becomes ever clearer.

Now on top of that, they're becoming clearly antisemitic, and they don't give a hoot in Hell about it. 

Melissa Langsam Braunstein has an excellent column here about it.

An excerpt:

This fight has been a long time in the making, but things are changing quickly. It’s been only two years since Jewish women felt the need to publicly make the case that one could be both a Zionist and a feminist. Is it now time for a debate about whether one can be both a Jew (who believes in Israel’s right to exist) and a Democrat?

The political party that’s long attracted the support of 75 percent of American Jews has shown this week that their leaders won’t stand up for the community when it matters. It’s quite breathtaking, really. It’s not only bipartisan support for Israel that’s being debunked as much weaker than advertised, but also, quite troublingly, an acceptance of Jew hatred directed at fellow Americans. For the record, that hatred is not only being tolerated but embraced by congressional Democrats.

A chairde, this is NOT politics and usual.

Here's Rabbi Spero on it at American Thinker:

Down the road, this unwarranted but official congressional proclamation today against Islamophobia will muzzle any rightful criticism of sharia or terrorism as a manifestation of bigotry, with calls for censure of those shining the light on the dangers to us from Islamism.  Omar commits verbal anti-Semitism, and in consequence, America is warned not to be Islamophobic.  Talk about creating victory out of defeat, as well as how our side allows itself to be held guilty for sins done by others.

The Jewish organizational community, almost entirely liberal and Democrat, has not pressured the Democrat leadership in any way near the degree they would have if the victim of hate had been black, Islamic, Hispanic, or LGBT.  Furthermore, there has been no unified call by the 36 Jewish Democrat members of Congress against Omar.  Most liberal Jews seem unconcerned when anti-Semitism comes from the political left, their home base. 

It's also no surprise that Jewish organizational clout has diminished, since the Democrat leadership knows full well that Jewish votes and funding will continue as before.  They always do.  It seems that most Jews need the Democratic Party more than the party needs them.  Most are more afraid of American conservatives than they are of the Muslim Brotherhood, more afraid of Republicans than anti-Semitic groups on the Left, more fearful of whites than minorities.  It's not logical, but emotional.  A terrible error...and perhaps a form of prejudice.

The Rabbi is right, of course: most American Jews vote Democrat and have a horror of American Conservatives, Republicans, and Whites, and of course they have an inveterate fear of White, Conservative Republicans mainly because of their children to converting Christianity. That's the source of their opposition to the American Right. The classic, old-fashioned stereotype of a Republican is a Protestant churchgoer. So, still carrying that mental baggage in their souls, a cultural detritus they picked up a half century or more ago, they'd rather their kids be atheists or worship the Idol of Socialism in either its Red or Green form than run any threat of conversion. 

And also a part of this, of course, is that many of them are from families that originated in Russia and neighboring areas, where Socialism was a big thing "back in the day" – but a new age has dawned and unless they take off the blinders they've worn now for generations, they're going to be in serious trouble with the insane bulldozing American Left, which is as Antisemitic as the British Left. 

See also another American Thinker piece:

An excerpt:

The Democrats will not produce a meaningful resolution denouncing anti-Semitism. The vile hater, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, will not be named. Her position on the powerful Foreign Relations Committee will be as secure as ever. The resolution will dilute anti-Semitism by conveniently placing it among other hatreds.

Such duplicity is reminiscent of the New York Times burying the Holocaust in the back pages.

They covered it, just not where you could see it. The Times, like the Roosevelt administration and the British Foreign Office, knew of  the Holocaust since 1942 and chose to ignore it.

The Democratic Party has once again abandoned the Jews. The Jews, however, refuse to abandon the Democratic Party. 

I grew up in a Democratic home in Chicago where Franklin Roosevelt was revered as if he were some form of deity.

Little did my parents and grandparents know the Roosevelt’s State Department worked tirelessly with the British Foreign Office to obstruct and delay the rescue of  European Jews so that Hitler could continue to kill them as the clock ran out and, consequently, eliminate the problem.  Like today’s Democrats, they created mechanisms to give the symbolic appearance of being concerned about the plight of the Jews while doing nothing until the last days of the war.

Little did my family know that Roosevelt fumed at Casablanca about the Jews being overrepresented in the professions and worried that if not restricted by quotas, after the war, North Africans would have the same “justifiable” resentment toward Jews as did Germans. Roosevelt exaggerated the role of Jews in the professions just as he exaggerated the threat of loyal Japanese Americans.

An Préachán again: Yes, indeed. FDR. But if I get started on that lout, I'll be writing for hours.

An Préachán