Mideast conflict II: more details

Last night was the worst shooting in US history, but this morning at Quakers there were reminders of how we are called to keep trying to find a way forward, and of a few important hints. At a very discouraging time, with horrible news in many directions... the discussion was Romans 8, and the one message in meeting proper... that old Psalm about the valley of death. Maybe this was what we needed today, and a reminder of how important it is to get deeper into issues I raised in the previous blog.

Two weeks ago, a young weighty Quake talked about "bad seeds" threatening the most important freedoms we have come to take for granted in the US. I affirmed that strongly.. but noted how it is hard to fully understand and properly respond to.. the cancer.. because it is a complex phenomenon. Most important causes are misconstrued of faith, and the role of certain flows of money in a world which has become all too responsive to the wrong kinds of money. Both deteriorate life BOTH in MidEast and in US.

On the subject of faith I drew an analogy to the old James Bond movies, a story I blogged about before, and mentioned at Meeting. After I narrowly escaped being knifed in bed early in the summer of 1969, I started paying more attention to the kind of intuitive feeling which pulled me out of that bed in the night of the murder. But I also thought hard about the way I had drifted into.. love of James Bond movies playing at the time ; I never would have called it love back then, but examining my feelings, I could see how i did it, and how my life was moving that way. So I resolutely looked inside, and resolved to keep loving what I really liked (high tech, beautiful dangerous women, beaches, sunlight) and to steer as far as I could away from guns and knifes with the kind of nastiness that gets people to use them.

We as humanity need to get a firm grip on our attitude to FAITH, as firm as I did on those movies, holding a clear image of what is good and what is not. This kind of inner spiritual work is NOT like a hermit in the wilderness, because deep in each if us is also of humanity. Itzjihad IS an action. Guns are not the only real action. Yes they are part of it, but if we only have that part, we die, as if by a vitamin deficiency.  Yes, we should never lose the key good parts of faith, openness and respect of spirit and if our Father in heaven, and the confidence to move in a positive direction even in "the valley of the shadow of death." But we should also all be aware of crucial realities in the article "Are we a nation of mystics?" by Greeley and McReady, where they describe how humans afraid of their own shadow retreat into stupid ethnocentric nonsense, hiding from the obvious large and cosmopolitan character of spirit, and from our obvious ignorance, simply trying to believe what others in their own tribe tell them -- retreating from spirit and embracing local tribal nonsense instead.

But yes, flows of new billions from rich folks seeking power, seeking to be like the corrupt rulers of the first Caliphate, seeking to "purify" the entire earth, are a major part of the problem as well. In the previous blog, I mentioned Erdogan and ISIS and RT. Of course, the caliphate billionnaires are aware of how it has been exposing their puppet on a network which, though small, is widely known in the US. RT, and the proIsraeli group AIPAC, are very well known and open. But the caliphate billionnaires put a lot more money into trying to manipulate the US, and are far less open.

Thus I was not surprised when, after a major RT expose of Erdogan, one of the many puppets of caliphate funding introduced a bill to set up a special new unit in State to probe RT and Chinese, and try to shut down information they do not want to get out, but to steer clear of investigating the much larger and less overt operations traceable to their various funding streams. Having been drawn into the Mideast, we have been drawn in oblivious into a way of doing business and seeking power which has been real and horrible for millennia. Failure to appreciate just how deep the tendrils of the fifth column go is extremely dangerous. Certainly they wanted the US invasion of Iraq, and tried for a rerun in Iran this year.

Could it be that the action against Rousseff in Brazil was just a dress rehearsal for what they want to do to democracy in the U S?

Yesterday's mass murder was by a guy from a private security contractor. Do not assume this is as incongruous as it may sound. Do not assume that the witch-hunt against Hillary Clinton is as unique as many assume it just personal. The latest scientific American story on Arecibo talks about retirements which may not have been retirements or even constitutional. Also, of course, the caliphate folks are not the only ones aspiring to empire, with funds and access to tools such people did not have just a few decades ago.

Best of luck. We need it. Those of you who hope for Ragnarok may not enjoy it if it comes, by its own script.

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For completeness... a couple of other things discussed last week at meeting.

In discussing the book of Romans, we discussed the intense debate back in those days:
should Christianity be a branch of Judaism, requiring full member ship in Judaism,
ro should it be something bigger and more inclusive? It was noted that the same question exists within Quakers for the past century: should it be a branch of Christianity, or should it be something larger and more inclusive ("Quaker universalism"), DRAWING on Christianity 
and on Jesus but also drawing on other great traditions, on the experience and ideas of all of humanity (and even of all life on earth)?

There is a more, but this is enough for now.