Author Archives: Lila

Trump: US Should Take In Syrian Refugees

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Morally, Trump is actually right on this.  But does it make any kind of sense to aid and abet ISIS, and then say that Syrian refugees should come here?

What sense does it  make to grand-stand on Mexican refugees and then bring in Syrians?

If there are fears of ISIS penetration in Europe, what about here in the US? [Whatever you think about ISIS….]

My solution would be for the US to help/fund the resettlement of Syrian Muslim refugees in Muslim countries and Syrian Christian refugees in Christian countries like Armenia or Georgia.

BBC News:

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has asked governments around the world to resettle 130,000 Syrians by the end of 2016. In past conflicts, the US has typically taken half of the UNHCR request.

“On a humanitarian basis, something does have to be done,” Mr Trump said.

“It’s a serious problem. We haven’t seen anything like it since the second world war, and it’s getting worse and worse”.

When asked whether he thought they should be allowed in the US, the business mogul said: “I hate the concept of it, but on a humanitarian basis, with what’s happening, you have to.”

He added: “It’s living in hell in Syria. They are living in hell.”

Replies To Mail

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Had a few notes from readers, while I was away.

Thanks to everyone.

I’ll reply in this forum:

  • Reader who asks to send information without posting: I don’t read my email often, so posting will get a quicker reply. You can post anonymously and just use someone else’s computer, if you don’t trust encryption.
  •  Douglas V. has a couple of articles, including an interview. I’ll post them, when I have a chance to read them.
  •  M. asks about archives. Well, they’re accessible now.

Besides the mail, I had a rethink about  my comments about LRC/Mises/Rand and Ron Paul etc.

I am thinking of rewriting more politely some past criticisms of them and of various neocons and liberal/leftists, as well as stalkers and critics.

I’ve always shied away from the Hindu teaching that you should not focus on the negative, feeling that it was some thing wrong in Hinduism.

But as I read the Orthodox fathers, I come across similar teachings about not condemning.

I know they were talking about personal life, not political blogging, which, by it’s nature is confrontational and critical.

But still…

So if you see something changed or modified, I’ve not “gone wobbly” or “covering-up” for people.

I’m just trying to tone down the finger-pointing and make the criticism more peaceable.

Hard for me, being a bit trigger-happy, when I blog.

Trump’s Father Was KKK

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I saw this last night but couldn’t get into the blog until this morning:

Trump’s father was arrested in a brawl with the Ku Klux Klan in 1927.

Note – this is not the original Klan that grew up in the South.

This is the first revival that was busted after the stock-market crash.

There was another revival during the Civil Rights Movement.

Now you see what a Trojan Horse the whole Trump candidacy was.

It discredits reasonable objections to immigration policy, it tars the whole conservative movement by association, and it revives the link between Christianity and racism.

Now, consider that just before this story was released in the media, we just had another, in which Poland, Slovakia, and Czechoslovakia agreed to take in only Christian migrants.

Prior to that, some anonymous Syrian gunman says that 40,000 ISIS soldiers are being brought into Europe under cover of migration. Is that a planted story or real? I don’t know yet.

Trump is all FOR Muslim immigration to Europe, but against Mexican (mostly Christian) immigration to America.

Now he is shown to be connected to both the Zionist elite and to the Ku Klux Klan, which is a Nazi-like ideology.

Nazis and Zionists always collaborated when needed.

 

 

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From Analytical Philosophy To Krishna Consciousness..

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CORRECTION

[I have made one correction to the piece below  – changing Cambridge to Oxford. Mr. Sudduth also informs me that he has now left Vaishnavism for Zen. I will add a link later.]

ORIGINAL POST

Michael Sudduth, an Oxford analytical philosopher, researcher in paranormal phenomena, and devout Christian, on his journey to Vaishnavism and the truth that the paths to God are many:

My movement into Christian inclusivism was partially responsible for my eventual departure from the Calvinistic Baptist tradition around 2004, after 18 years of affiliation with this tradition.  The movement was gradual and actually began shortly after attending Santa Clara University.  While fellow church members “tolerated” my attending a Catholic university (primarily because I had the pastor’s support), criticisms mounted while I was in graduate school.  Many of my fellow church members were suspicious of my course of study.  They were, like most of the Calvinistic Baptists I have met over the years, clearly not fans of philosophy.  But there’s at least one thing worse than philosophy, and that’s Roman Catholicism.  Indeed, I was often under the impression that some Calvinistic Baptists hated philosophy because it was something Catholics did so well.  My increasing positive appraisal of different aspects of Catholic theology and enthusiasm for the work of St. Thomas Aquinas intensified “concerns” about the “spiritual effects” of my education, and these concerns eventually evolved into frequent vicious criticisms that served only to alienate me from this particular theological tradition.

It’s worth noting that the unpleasant dynamics of rigid Christian exclusivism I experienced among Calvinistic Baptists were not a mere local phenomenon.  I found more of the same, and sometimes worse, intolerance and narrow-mindedness towards Catholicism and other forms of Christianity in at least six different Calvinistic Baptist churches I attended between graduate school and the first five years of my teaching career.  The lack of respect for philosophical inquiry, rigid exclusivism grounded in a highly parochial conception of Christianity, distaste for self criticism, and a moral outlook and practical theology that was intractably stuck in a perpetual time warp, circa 18th century New England, each contradicted many of the intuitions forged through my own spiritual experiences and intellectual reflections.  These each alienated me from participating in the life of the tradition, which I terminated around 2004.

The Journey to India

A bolder venture into inclusivism developed after 2004 when my Christian inclusivism evolved into an inclusivism of world religions. The regular teaching of courses in world religions, the nature of religious experience, and philosophy of religion at this point in my career provided me with an opportunity to dig deep into eastern philosophy and religious practices. This exploration resulted in my growing appreciation of eastern approaches to God, as well as an assimilation of aspects of eastern thought to my own developing philosophy of religion.  Never personally detached from matters of intellectual interest, my attraction to eastern spirituality eventually manifested in my own spiritual experiences and practices, which became increasingly oriented towards the mystical and philosophical heritage of the devotional or bhakti traditions of India.

In 2011 I converted to Gaudiya Vaishnavism (also known as Bengali Vaishnavism), an eastern stream of devotional theism that may be traced to the teachings of Caitanya Mahaprabhu in sixteenth-century Bengal and the sacred Vedas of ancient India. On its philosophical axis, Gaudiya Vaishnavism is a school of Vedanta, which seeks to systematically elaborate the teachings of the Upanishads, Brahma Sutras, and Bhagavad Gita –principal sacred texts of the Indic traditions.  On its religious axis, Gaudiya Vaishnavism is a monotheistic mystical tradition centered on bhakti (love and devotional service) to Krishna as the Supreme Personality of the Godhead.

My conversion to Gaudiya Vaishnavism gradually emerged over a three-year period as the result of major shifts in my religious and philosophical perspective that were facilitated in part by my more mature reflections on core questions in the philosophy of religion, my deeper engagement with Vedanta philosophy, and my study and teaching of the Bhagavad Gita, one of the great sacred texts of eastern philosophy and spirituality.  My inclusivist attitude helped remove obstacles to understanding other traditions and inspired the pursuit of the wisdom contained in those traditions, but ultimately it was only one element among a variety of interrelated philosophical and experiential factors that led me to the wisdom of India.

After a near fatal automobile accident in March 2011, I experienced a deep personal transformation that drew me closer to the teachings and spiritual practices of the Gaudiya tradition. My associations with Swami Tripurari Maharaja and the devotees at Audarya (the Vaishnava ashram in northern California) provided me with a unique opportunity to more authentically explore the philosophical and spiritual tradition of Gaudiya Vaishnavism.  Most importantly, it served as a catalyst for my own experience of  Krishna consciousness, which brought profound clarity to different aspects of my personal life and spiritual journey. Already long convinced on philosophical grounds that God may be experienced in different ways through diverse spiritual practices and traditions, each yielding its particular form of spiritual attainment and relation to God, I see my movement eastward as the natural development of my personal devotion to God that began in the summer of 1984.  It’s not surprising that devotion should be dynamic and evolve in a way that reflects changes in our psychological dispositions, aesthetic sensibilities, and intellectual outlook.

Now, 37 years later, I reflect on that brief exchange with my mother when I was a young boy. “Which God?” my mother cynically responded, “the God of the Jews? Jesus? Allah?”  “There is only one,” I replied.  I believe the intuition back then was correct. There is only one Absolute being. Indeed, there are philosophical reasons for supposing that there could not be more than one Absolute being.  What I know now theoretically and experientially, and didn’t see back then, is why the One appears as many. “

 

Isis Only Continues What US/UK Did To Iraq

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Isis is only continuing what the US and UK did during  Gulf War II when hell was let loose in Iraq and its ancient monuments were plucked, gutted, and burned.

Simon Jenkins at the Spectator.co.uk:

When I protested the dropping of high-explosive bombs near ancient Serbian churches during the Kosovo war of 1999, I was told it was unreasonable to expect the RAF to be pinpoint accurate in its targeting. The heirs of Bomber Harris are not squeamish about the far end of a bomb site, be it a human being or a historic building. There will always be ‘collateral damage’. On this 70th anniversary of the Dresden firestorm at least we say sorry. We did not do so at the time. We saw eliminating an enemy’s heritage and culture as justifiable revenge — as Harris’s apologists still do. That is roughly the Isis approach.

There is no point in the United Nations secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, declaring the destruction of Nimrud ‘a war crime’, or Unesco declaring it ‘a direct attack against the history of Islamic Arab cities’. There is in place a clear 1954 Hague convention protecting ‘cultural property in the event of armed conflict’. It remains unratified by two states, America and Britain, ‘for reasons of national security’. That is two states, plus the Taleban and Isis. As Robert Bevan has written in The Destruction of Memory (2006), the razing of history has long been the most hypocritical weapon of war.”

Isis Embedded 4000 Gunmen Among Migrants?

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From the Express.co.uk:

The Syrian operative claimed more than 4,000 covert ISIS gunmen had been smuggled into western nations – hidden amongst innocent refugees.The ISIS smuggler, who is in his thirties and is described as having a trimmed jet-black beard, revealed the ongoing clandestine operation is a complete success.”Just wait,” he smiled.The Islamic State operative spoke exclusively to BuzzFeed on the condition of anonymity and is believed to be the first to confirm plans to infiltrate western countries.”
We know now that ISIS has been aided and abetted by the CIA.

[This is from Wikileaks, so I am delinking it. It is not necessary to go to WL because there is ample whistle-blower testimony to the fact. Besides, common-sense will tell you as much, given the surveillance apparatus in use now and the known history of the CIA.]

We have claims of social-media revolutionaries embedded among the refugees.
 

Multiple unusual and unusually large military drills have been running concurrently this summer all over the world.

Jade Helm 15 is one of them, and it is running in the US in the south, emphasizing special operations inside enemy territory.

 

Migrant Crisis Is Birthing Pangs Of Jewish Rule

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Piotr Bein:

The actual wave of immigration under the title “refugees” looks orchestrated indeed.
-MSM in Western Europe is clearly hyping up the event, trying to give evidence, that the majority of the local population is willing to accept all these foreigners, when clearly the contrary is the case. At the same time Hungary and Serbia are depicted in a negative way, for their justified efforts to control the invasion.
-MSM did limit their reporting on casualties of immigrants departing the Maghreb, they are trying to downplay the main massive influx into the Greek islands of Kos and Lesbos.

[Lila: Is that location significant in any way?]

These Islands are located just a short hop (1 hour trip by small motorized boat) from the Turkish shore. The majority of the immigrants must have transited Greece, otherwise they would not have ended up in Hungary / Balkans.
-Given the number of people involved, the Turkish government (NATO) must facilitate this mass emigration, there is no way these immigrants could have organized this mass movement on their own
-the US government, which is ultimately responsible for all these displaced people, is refusing to accept any of these people.
-there is no indication, that the situation for refugees in Syria did recently deteriorate in a manner, to explain this mass movement of people
-according to reports in MSM, all these people want to go to Germany and Sweden?, they do not request asylum in Austria or Switzerland, which is proving that they are following clear instructions of a hidden plan
-the site http://www.fluchthelfer.in/ is actively trying to increase the influx of immigrants into Western Europe. (the site is said to be related to the Ayn Rand (jewish) organization)
(see http://www.info-direkt.at/page/3/ (scroll down, 3rd report) or directly https://www.whois.net/)
-long story short, the entire affair looks to me like one of the final events to bring Jewish NOW finally to power..

Lila: So this is Jade Helm’s meaning I suppose…ominous.

From Thierry Meyssan:

Photo of drowned child possibly faked/staged?

NATO misrepresenting crisis as caused by war, orchestrating movement of Syrians, in order destabilize Europe.

Moral Melodrama Of Migrant Crisis

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From the always insightful Brendan O’Neill at Spiked.com:

This media-orchestrated moral drama, complete with invasive photos of dead children, highly inappropriate comparisons with the Holocaust, and the performative piety of politicians and the Twitterati holding up pro-refugee placards or promising to open their homes to migrants, confirms that what ought to be a democratic discussion — the question of what caused this crisis and where refugees should go — has been reduced to an opportunity for virtue-advertising in which rational thought and public engagement are positively frowned upon.

The most striking thing about the outburst of ostentatious concern for the refugees is its bad faith. What is presented to us as a sad humanitarian disaster that somehow materialised over the past seven days is in fact traceable to the disintegration of the Middle East over the past five years and the hollowing-out of 50 years worth of state structures in Libya and the knock-on destabilising effect that had across north Africa — globe-shaking events which our governments in the West played no small part in bringing about. ……

Indeed, the value of the refugees seems to lie in the extent to which, through playing dutiful humanitarian victims, they might help Western politicians assume the role of smiling saviour and in the process repair their flagging moral authority. It’s well known that sections of the hard right have a tendency to dehumanise asylum seekers, treating the complex human beings who cross borders as an amorphous threat. Over the past week we have seen that the other side in this discussion, those who pose as friends of migrants, also play the dehumanisation game. Where the right criminalises migrants, liberals infantilise them, reducing them from moral agents who have made a decision to migrate to childlike victims in need of rescue by virtuous Westerners. The much-shared, wept-over photo of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi spoke to the new Western view of the migrant: as hapless, helpless; pathetic; children requiring our care. The hard right juxtaposes itself to the threatening migrant; the pseudo-humanitarian left presents itself as lifesaver to the childish migrant. Both sides dehumanise them, for self-serving reasons.”

Privacy Expert Questions Europe’s Migrant Crisis

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Privacy Surgeon.com:

I’m starting to believe the so-called “migration crisis” facing Europe is little more than a tragic confidence trick. Worryingly, however, it involves dangerous consequences for the rights of every EU resident.

I’m not being heartless. Yes, thousands of refugees have lost their lives in the struggle to reach EU borders. Many more are living in a desperate plight, often at the mercy of human traffickers. That’s not my point.

Relatively few of us have genuinely got to grips with the realities of this situation. It’s a massively complex issue that goes to the heart of geopolitics and national dynamics, but intelligent people should not be sucked into the orchestrated rhetoric that is being peddled. This isn’t the first time we’ve faced such circumstances – and it certainly won’t be the last.

The migration issue is trending across the political landscape of nearly all EU countries. Emerging from the hysteria over rising numbers of asylum seekers is a mix of innovative and humane solutions. Sadly, the “crisis” is also spotlighting the very worst of Europe, spewing out a raft of reactions that defy the very basis of the values that Europe is supposed to uphold.

Instead of making an effort to find a rational way through the difficult issues, some governments have cheered on a contagion mentality which has genuinely terrified entire populations that the barbarians are at the gate. It feels like Donald Trump’s shadow has fallen across Europe.

At one level (though certainly not for the migrants themselves) the situation is nowhere near as dramatic as some media outlets are portraying. At another level, the crisis is far worse for Europe than anyone could imagine. This situation could trigger a backlash for civil liberties across the EU.

Let’s deal first with the raw figures.

At the risk of simplification, here is the top level statistic. The EU’s external border force, Frontex, which monitors the flow of people arriving at Europe’s borders, says some 340,000 migrants have been detected at EU borders since the beginning of 2015. That compares with 123,500 in the same period last year.

My response is “what’s the big deal?”

[Lila: Exactly my reaction. Anyone who has actually been in populous, poor, or war-torn countries, would find the numbers nothing so extraordinary.]

…….

During World War II, refugees flooded from Germany to Switzerland, as any Sound of Music fan will remember. Between 1933 and 1939, about 200,000 Jews fleeing Nazism were able to find refuge in France. At around that time several hundred thousand Spanish Republicans fled to France after their loss to the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War. Unlike the EU of today, nations coped with such circumstances.

It’s true that the current headline figures can look dramatic. More than 300,000 migrants have risked their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe so far this year, according to the UN. This compares with 219,000 for the whole of 2014.

Nearly 200,000 people have landed in Greece since January this year, while another 110,000 made it to Italy.

To put the current situation into a statistical perspective, imagine a town of 10,000 people calling emergency meetings and getting into a froth of paranoia because ten migrants show up at the town hall office. 

Having said that, the total population of the EU member states is just over half a billion. Is anyone seriously arguing on any basis of rationality that a region of five hundred million people can’t find a way to absorb a peak of an extra half million migrants? In the view of many observers, this isn’t so much a migrant crisis as it is a crisis of political fragility over Europe’s teetering economy and employment.

To put the current situation into a statistical perspective, imagine a town of 10,000 people calling emergency meetings and getting into a froth of paranoia because ten migrants show up at the town hall office. Most of us would condemn such a response.

In line with this reasoning, let’s try to put the situation is a historical context.

Some people might like to forget that the decade leading up to 2001 saw the one of the bloodiest conflicts of modern times – and right on Europe’s doorstep. The Bosnian and Yugoslav wars saw genocide that murdered between 100,000 and 200,000 people (depending on whose figures you accept). States that are now happily part of the European family of nations were obliterating entire communities at the time your fifteen year old child was born. Now, all is forgiven – and almost forgotten.

But at the time, there was misery and human displacement at a scale that people these days can barely understand. Vast waves of refugees poured out of the carnage and tried for a new life in Europe and elsewhere.

Europe whines about a “crisis” of having to deal with an overflow that’s equivalent to less than one tenth of one percent of its population. Compare this to what Croatia agreed to burden at the time of the conflict.

The U.S. Ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, tried to put the number of refugees in Croatia into perspective during an interview in 1993. He said the situation would be the equivalent of the United States taking in 30,000,000 refugees. The number of Bosnian refugees in Croatia stood at 588,000. Serbia took in 252,130 refugees from Bosnia, while other former Yugoslav republics received a total of 148,657 people.”