Category Archives: Morality

Fairytales and Snowflakes, by Raúl Ilargi Meijer

Posted on December 25, 2018 | Leave a comment

Apply today’s standards to art of the past to censure and ban that art is a crime. From Raúl Ilargi Meijer at theautomaticearth.com:


Rembrandt van Rijn Bathsheba at her bath 1654 (see video at the bottom)There are not many things that I’m allergic to. But there are some. Here’s a good example: bigotry. Behold, in the article quoted below, the danger of political correctness in all its glory. A 30-year old Christmas song, Fairytale of New York, it is claimed, must be censored or banned. For a reason I’ll explain, such things always make me think of Rembrandt’s painting “Bathsheba at her Bath” (the painting above), which hangs in the Louvre.

No doubt there are those who are offended by her nakedness. But as John Berger put it in the video below, the master painted it with the utmost love and devotion. I first saw the video many years ago in art school, and it’s always stayed with me. Berger was a British art critic (he died last year) who wrote many books and made lots of TV shows on his view of what makes art – and its viewers- tick, together. Berger loved Rembrandt as much as Rembrandt loved Bathsheba. And so do I.

Back to the song, Fairytale of New York: There are people who think/feel/proclaim that the perhaps most popular Christmas song of the modern age contains one word they do not like, and must therefore be changed. It hurts their safe space, or something. It’s not politically correct. You can’t say ‘faggot’, even after it’s thoroughly explained to you that it means something else entirely in older Irish vocabulary. This is a very dark road towards a very dark future; don’t go there.

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Posted in Culture, Government, History, Literature, Morality, Philosophy, Politics

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Speaking of Manners, by Taki

Posted on December 25, 2018 | 1 comment

The term “good breeding” is now undoubtedly politically incorrect, but it used to refer to people who had good manners. That’s not to imply good manners cannot be self-taught, in some cases they are. Unfortunately, good manners are becoming increasingly rare. From Taki at takimag.com:

Sometime during the 1920s, at an exclusive party at Count Boni de Castelanne’s, a great French lady felt herself beginning to die at the dinner table. “Quick, bring the dessert,” she whispered to the waiter.

She was not overcome by greed. She simply wished to hurry dinner along so as not to drop dead before the party rose from the table. In other words, she did not wish to cause discomfort to those present. Needless to say, the lady had impeccable manners.

Now, please don’t get me wrong. I do not expect anyone nowadays to avoid leaving a room when feeling unwell in order to not cause discomfort for the rest. I simply brought up a true story to illustrate how far our mores and manners have fallen these past 100 years. Back then, a grand lady dropping dead would have caused somewhat of a scandal. The hostess of the dinner would have become associated with the death forevermore. Such were the joys of a closed society. Especially in Catholic France, where the old guard tried its best for years to resist the Napoleonic nouveaux, with their extraordinary titles granted to them by the Emperor for having served him well on the battlefield. (Boni de Castellane’s family was titled long before the great Corsican came along, and his pink palace on Avenue Foch I remember well when I was young and lived nearby. Sadly, it is no longer there, torn down and replaced by apartment houses mostly inhabited by rich Arabs.)

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Posted in Collapse, Culture, Entertainment, Media, Morality, Politics, Society

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Remembering the Christmas Truce of 1914: (Questioning Christian Participation in War), by Gary G. Kohls, M.D.

Posted on December 24, 2018 | Leave a comment

What if the naive young men that sinister old men con to fight their wars for them decided to swap stories and Christmas gifts from the home front with the “enemy,” instead of bullets and bombs? It happened once, in 1914 during World War I. A wonderful film, Joyeux Noel, was made about the Christmas truce, and it’s great Christmas viewing for the whole family. From Gary G. Kohls at lewrockwell.com:

“…and the ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame;
And on each end of the rifle we’re the same”– John McCutcheon

104 years ago something happened in the fifth month of the “War to End All Wars” that put a tiny little blip of hope – which was cruelly and rapidly extinguished by the pro-militarism powers-that-be in both church and state – in the historical timeline of the organized mass slaughter that is war.

The event was regarded by the professional military officer class to be so profound and so disturbing that strategies were immediately put in place that would ensure that such an event could never happen again.

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Posted in Geopolitics, Government, Insurrection, Military, Morality, Politics, War

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May You Know Joy, by Robert Gore

Posted on December 24, 2018 | 23 comments

Summa Theologica

Most of us have done something terribly wrong to another person. We realized it at the time or afterwards. For those with an intact conscience, there was overwhelming shame and a burning, seemingly inextinguishable guilt. Perhaps there was an admission, maybe to the victim, from whom forgiveness was asked. Perhaps there was only self-confession. If the shame overwhelmed and the guilt burned deeply, there may have been a redemptive pledge not to commit the same transgression and to improve a deficient character.

No one caught in throes of such a wrenching experience would characterize his emotional state as happiness. Indeed, depending on the transgression and the emotional reaction, happiness might have seemed forever out of reach.

If a tormented conscience makes one miserable, doesn’t that suggest that a clean conscience is necessary for more salutary emotions? Conscience is often thought of as an internal control system, allowing us to recognize right and wrong and helping deliver us from evil. Many religions and secular philosophies envision perfect alignment between individual conscience and the morality they embrace.

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Trump Derangement International, by Raúl Ilargi Meijer

Posted on December 23, 2018 | Leave a comment

Don’t think that Trump Derangement Syndrome is confined to the US. From Raúl Ilargi Meijer at theautomaticearth.com:

Dirk Kurbjuweit, deputy editor-in-chief of Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine for the past 4 years, unwittingly put his foot a mile deep in his mouth this week when he reacted to a letter written by US Ambassador to Berlin Richard Grenell. His reaction presents perhaps the most perfect example of the downfall of news, journalism, the media in general, that we’ve seen so far. Most perfect among very stiff competition.

After Der Spiegel itself this week ‘outed’ its award-winning star reporter, Claas Relotius, as someone who had made up many of his lauded articles from scratch, Grenell suggested the magazine, and especially its editorial staff, shouldn’t think they can get away with putting all the blame on just this one guy. He tweeted:

We value policy criticism. We love a free press. But @Spiegel literally fabricated stories saying people (Americans) were racist & xenophobic. They made up events, details, & lies – and no editor checked the stories. Every real journalist should be outraged by this.

And he wrote a letter to Der Spiegel, albeit addressed at the ‘wrong’ editor, Steffen Klussman, who won’t be in the post until after Jan. 1:

The recent revelations of completely fabricated stories, completely fictional people and fraudulent details in Spiegel over the last seven years are very troubling to the US Embassy. These fake news stories largely focused on US policies and certain segments of the American people. It is clear we were targeted by institutional bias and we are troubled by the atmosphere that encouraged this recklessness.

While Spiegel’s anti-American narratives have expanded over the last years, the anti-American bias at the magazine has exploded since the election of President Trump. We are concerned that these narratives are pushed by Spiegel’s senior leadership and reporters are responding to what the leadership wants.

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Posted in Crime, Cronyism, Governments, Media, Morality, Politics

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Send the Mad Dog to the Corporate Kennel, by Ray McGovern

Posted on December 23, 2018 | Leave a comment

The US military establishment is a hammer perpetually in search of nails. From Ray McGovern at consortiumnews.com:

“Mad Dog” Mattis was famous for quipping, “It’s fun to shoot some people.” It remains a supreme irony that Mattis was widely considered the only “adult in the room” in the Trump administration, argues Ray McGovern.

Outgoing Defense Secretary Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis was famous for quipping, “It’s fun to shoot some people.” It remains a supreme irony that Mattis was widely considered the only “adult in the room” in the Trump administration. Compared to whom? John Bolton, the rabid neocon serving as national security adviser? That would be the epitome of “condemning with faint praise.”

With his ramrod-straight image, not to mention his warrior/scholar reputation extolled in the media, Mattis was able to disguise the reality that he was, as Col. Andrew Bacevich put it on Democracy Now! this morning, “totally unimaginative.” Meaning that Mattis was simply incapable of acknowledging the self-destructive, mindless nature of U.S. “endless war” in the Middle East, which candidate-Trump had correctly called “stupid.” In his resignation letter, Mattis also peddled the usual cant about the indispensable nation’s aggression being good for the world.

Mattis: All dressed up.

 

 

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Imperialism, Media, Military, Morality, Politics, War

The Donald’s 60% Gone – But No Cigar for CNN, by David Stockman

Posted on December 22, 2018 | Leave a comment

The Trump rally has been 60 percent reversed. Will the Russiagate farce ever end? From David Stockman at antiwar.com:

At Friday’s close fully 60% of the Trump Bump in the S&P 500 has been liquidated. And we have some nice round numbers to show for it.

The broad market index stood at 2140 just hours before the shocking 2016 election results were reported, and rose by 800 points from there to 2940 on September 21, 2018. That was a gain of 37% on top of the already massively inflated stock market than extant.

It was also Peak Trump. During the last 40 trading days 475 S&P points have gone missing in a relative heartbeat, and there’s miles to go before it’s over.

And that’s also why the Donald’s sojourn in the Oval Office is heading for its sell-by date as well. It has been only the Trump Bump and the misleadingly happy jobs data attendant to the waning days of a failed, octogenarian business cycle that has kept him afloat with his enthusiastic base in the hinterlands and the grudging GOP establishment in the Imperial City.

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Posted in Business, Debt, Economy, Financial markets, Government, Investing, Money, Morality, Politics, War

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