Kellmeyer's Intuition

For the record: my publisher, Steve Kellmeyer, puts forth a theory on Why The Left Loves Islam. I've rarely read such a Girardian insight sans mimetic theory before.

Grabbing a Crucifix

This is the sort of thing that will result, finally, in a mimetic backlash. A mimetic backlash is what the inferior partner in a mimetic doubling rivalry desires; that is to say, any attention paid by the model-rival is better than none at all.

There is, however, no mention of any kind of equal or escalating violence in reaction to Mr. Hamid's behavior. Fear, yes, on the part of bystanders (or crouchers).

Note well: the founder of the Christian faith is modeled in non-retaliation. The founder of the Scimitar is modeled in the actions of Mr. Hamid. The scriptures of each substantiate both, respectively.

Priorities - November

Did you visit a cemetery between November 1-8 and pray for your deceased loved ones' souls? If so, you would have received a plenary indulgence (if in a state of grace, of course).

Father Mark reminds us of helpful ways to pray for the souls of the dead all of this month.

And do keep in mind that all of us will be in similar need eventually.

Cutting out the PC Balderdash

On this feast day of St. Martin of Tours, who refused to put heretics to death I hasten to add, it is important to do two things: (a) reject the inane multicultural strategy of ignoring the obvious; and (b) speak truth in charity to men of good will, regardless of their religion. "Pussy footing" as we would say in the Midwest just doesn't cut it with today's realities. Nor does selective criticism of violence.

Lt. Col. Ralph Peters wants common sense and a facing of facts in the following interview:

Bring on the Gulag

For the record: ABC News, of all news outlets reports - Interview with the President: Jail Time for Those without Health Care Insurance?

Doctor Knows Best

Here is a man worth listening to, Dr. Tom Coburn:

Tom Coburn is a Southern Baptist deacon, a family man married to a former Miss Oklahoma, a white-coated physician back in Muskogee who has delivered more than 4,000 babies and sees patients free of charge every Monday.

But there's a darker side of the story, something that Coburn, a Marcus Welby type in ostrich-skin boots, confesses is his less honorable side.

He's a member of the United States Senate.

"I would fire us all," Coburn says, blasting Congress, as he does every chance he gets, as a place populated by people who don't do a whole lot to make the country a better place.

"I don't get my identity from being a senator," said Coburn, 61, a Republican. "I may get some of it from being a doctor . . . a real honorable profession...

"The ground is shaking," Coburn said on a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday, warning that America was at a "rendezvous" moment, sagging under trillions in debt.

It is Congress, he said, that is steering the American ship toward the disastrous shoals ...

"The country would be much better off if they kept us at home and not let us vote on anything."

Read it all ...

What Do You See

Photo #2 - ht: Creative Minority Report

Good Christian Men, Rejoice

As the attempt to strangle Christian faith, morals, and traditions gathers momentum, from multiculturalism on the ascendancy in the Last Self-Help Administration and left in the United States and the EU on the continent, Christianity in general and the Catholic faith in particular will find itself more and more under siege. The above is the neo-pagan "pincer" confronting Catholic truth, faith, and morals.

"Neo-pagan?" you may ask. "Is it not rather radical secularism in word and deed?"

No, it isn't. Only if one listens to its themes and self-justifying slogans. Observed through a cool, forensic lens of René Girard's mimetic theory, the structural behavior betrays its pagan pomp and ritual, right down to its Molech-like abortuarial cultus.

The other "pincer" attacking the remnants of the Christian West is, of course, the Scimitar. Again, it betrays its claims of "monotheism", let alone being a religion of "peace", by its necessary dependency upon victims for its sacrificial pyres of regeneration.

The two "pincers" are unlikely bedfellows, but both writhe and roil before the revealed faith, morals, and truths of the Church. Both hate (and secretly admire and desire in rivalry's side-long glances) what they can only reject, revile, and seek to destroy. Both are enslaved to this mission of destruction, for both house a collective mind trapped in mimetic rivalry to Catholic truth. As Robert Hamerton-Kelly describes this trapped mind:

“It is a mind enslaved. It desires not only to possess the other, but to consume or destroy. It wishes not only to imitate the other, nor merely to possess itself in the other, but to destroy the other as the place where the self is alien to the self.”

If you want to know what is called for in this struggle for the survival of truth in the face of the above "twin pincers," I strongly recommend C. S. Lewis's Prince Caspian, and belonging to a worthy organization of Marian chivalry like Corpus Christianum. Only close proximity to the Blessed Sacrament, fixing oneself to the Barque of Peter, and fortitude born of fealty to the Once and Future King (of whom Arthur is a pale parody) will hold us in Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

Schall - Ambiguity of Islam

Essential reading from Father James Schall, S. J. -

We really have no idea what we are up against unless we take a careful look at what is held theologically and what has happened historically in the Muslim world and its understanding of the world outside itself, which it calls the sphere of war. The voluntarism of Islamic thought enables it, apparently, to justify means of advancement that are by any reasonable or democratic standard immoral. Indeed, as Benedict noted in his “Regensburg Lecture,” this voluntarism and its invalidity stands at the intellectual root of Islam’s self-understanding.

Many western writers on Islam today, especially in explaining its violence, want to interpret this violence as somehow an aspect of western ideology, as if there were no roots of it in the sources of Islamic revelation itself. It is true that a number of modern Muslim thinkers were influenced by Lenin, Marx, or other revolutionary thinkers. There is a modern component. But there was violence in Islam’s expansion from its beginning.

Islam aggressively conquered large areas of the world, often ones ruled by unprepared Christians. Its methods of rule by tribute, second-class citizenship to the conquered, and isolation of subject groups are grim to contemplate. Much revolutionary Muslim theory and practice would want to rid Muslim lands of all foreigners who do not accept the Qur’an and its law. To a large extent, this exodus of non-Muslims from Muslim-controlled lands is happening. The Holy See has often sought to stem this tide, but one can hardly blame Christians and others from leaving such hostile environments while there is still time and still someplace to escape to.

The solution to the “problem” of Islamic violence, according to these same contemporary thinkers, is to “westernize” or “modernize” it. That is, make it something other than it conceives itself to be. While there may be some of this secularizing that is feasible—to “democratize” Islam—the drift is now decidedly in the other direction after the independence of Muslim states after both wars. Muslim states are under pressure of their own religious enthusiasm to reject overtures to modernity as contrary to Islam..MORE>>

Connecting Dots & Being Prepared

As Daniel Pipes convincingly shows, the conscious and unconscious denial of the violence inherent in the Scimitar is part and parcel of the methodology of the keepers of multicultural public discourse. Why would this be so?

In using the MSM and its apparent power to convince, these leaders wager that the Scimitar will become pacific, even though a millennium of violence against non-Scimitar peoples proves otherwise. But it also enervates and lowers people's legitimate defensive posture, causing wisdom to be doubted and clouding common sense judgment.

By legitimate defense I do not mean stockpiling weapons. I mean, as a former Boy Scout, "Being Prepared." All "have fallen short of the glory of God," of course. But when progressive revelation is not allowed, as in Jewish and Christian understanding of Scripture, and mandates to subjugate non-Scimitar peoples still stand, individuals, armies, nations, and all informed and enlightened by the Christian faith would do well to "Be Prepared."