Monthly Archives: February 2020

Strange

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Belarus Beer Lovers’ Party

One of the good things about a real democracy is that it allows even fringe groups of every kind to have a voice and set up a party. Here in Israel, it being election time, there is no shortage of such groups. Including a “Bible Party” that wants to prepare for the day when millions of Jews suddenly decide to leave their homes and immigrate to Israel; a “Listen” (as in “Listen, o Israel”) Party dedicated to fighting homosexuality, pornography, and adultery; a “Compassionate Jewish Heart” Party that has as its objective stopping Israel from selling weapons to almost anyone, no questions asked; and a “Justice” Party aimed at reforming Israel’s justice system and give Rabin’s murderer, Yigal Amir, a second opportunity in court.

Some of the ideas of the fringe parties (and by no means only those of the fringe parties) are ridiculous; indeed their very purpose may be to act as a caricature. Others merit much more serious consideration than they actually get. However, Israel is a small place and Israeli politics are like a tempest in a teapot. So I thought that, rather than proceeding with the list, I’d collect some other fringe parties from other places in the world. For my own amusement and, hopefully, yours too.

Belarus: Beer Lovers’ Party of Belarus (now defunct). One of several similar parties in several European countries. According to its statute, “the major goal of the BLP is the struggle for the cleanness and quality of the national beer, state independence and the neutrality of Belarus, freedom of economic relations, personal inviolability and the inviolability of private property.”

Britain: The Brits have always had penchant for the bizarre as well as a sneaky sense of sense of humor. That probably explains why, judging by Wikipedia, it has more fringe parties than any other country. Including a Witchery Tour Party; The Church of the Militant Elvis Party; The Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality; The Eccentric Party of Great Party; and the Fancy Dress Party (defunct) and the Official Monster Raving Party. Several of these parties have participated in elections and put their representatives in parliament; generally, though, their success has been modest to almost nonexistent.

Canada: An Animal Protection Party. As its website explains, “we are North America’s first federal political party dedicated solely to the protection of all animals and the environment.” Among other things, it aims at banning the use of horses for drawing carriages and well as dolphin shows and the like.

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Germany: German Apple Front. This is one of a number of political organizations opposing the “extreme” Right, especially in and about the city of Leipzig. One of its principal ways of doing so is to use caricature—a method which, in the past, has sometimes caused it to be confused with its opponents.

Hungary: Two-Tailed Dog Party. To the extent that it has an ideology, this group identifies itself as “anti-anti-immigration.” As the name indicates, though, it is also addicted to caricaturing the mainstream parties as well as the government in general. This explains why, among the establishment, it is not exactly popular—and also why it has been quite successful in raising funds.

New Zealand: The Imperial Party of New Zealand. Its policies include restricting immigration, forced repatriation, chemical castration for sex offenders, the re-introduction of slavery, and supporting the creation of a Commonwealth Parliament. Thankfully it has been revealed as a comedy hoax against a British group that bears the same name and advocates similar policies—this time, seriously.

Serbia: SPN (“You haven’t tasted the cabbage”). Founded by a group of comedians as a humorous parody, this party promised to make a lot of false promises and raise false hopes. Notwithstanding this unpromising background it is one of the more successful organizations of its kind and actually has representatives in the Belgrade parliament.

Crazy? To the extent that is serious, yes. But certainly not across the board.

Back to the Beginning

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Robert Lanza, Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys in Understanding the True Nature of the Universe, Kindle ed., 2010.

“In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

Starting at the time when those words were written down perhaps 2500-3000 years ago, human thought concerning the origins of the universe in which we live has essentially moved along two parallel tracks. One, which was associated with some versions of ancient Greek philosophical thought as well as with Hinduism right down to the present day, claimed that it has always existed and would always exist. The other, which is exemplified by the sentences from Genesis just quoted, was to assign its origin to some kind of conscious God (or gods) who, once He had made up His mind, created it just as a constructor designs a building and then does on to erect it.

Looking back over the three and half centuries since the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, the outcome has been a kind of compromise. On one hand, few non-Hindus have accepted the idea that the world has always existed and will always go on existing in the same form. On the other, God has been banished from the discussion, at any rate as conducted among scientists as the most important purveyors of modern knowledge concerning questions of this kind. For example, Isaac Newton around 1700 still devoted as much attention to his theological works as he did to the laws of motion, gravitation, and optics. But when Napoleon in 1802 asked the famous physicist Pierre Laplace whether the existence of the observed universe did not prove that there was indeed a God he was told, “Sir, that is a hypothesis I do not require.”

Since then attempts to understand how the universe could have come into being without invoking the “hypothesis” in question have gone on and on. Laplace’s own answer, as set out in his writings, was that it had started out as a rotating nebula, or interstellar gas cloud. From there the planets and sun coalesced in accordance with the ordinary laws of gravity on one hand and mechanics on the other. Newton’s latest successor, Stephen Hawking, who incidentally is buried right next to him at Westminster Cathedral, argued that it was formed 13.8 billion years ago as a result of an imaginably enormous explosion popularly known as the big bang. However, there are many things this theory cannot explain. Asked what had exploded (impossible to say), why it had done so (for no known reason), what had existed before (a meaningless term) the explosion, and what the young universe, triggered by the explosion (of nothing), expanded into (also nothing), all Hawking could do was to shrug and declare that these questions and others like them were unanswerable. So precise, supported by so many equations. Yet so lacking, so unsatisfactory; it is enough to make one want to tear out one’s hair.

In other words, the scientists’ continuing efforts to do without Him, while admirable, have never been able to carry complete conviction. However often it was derided and dismissed, the idea that there must have been a creator of some kind could not be gotten rid of any more than the devil having been driven out through the door, could be prevented from returning by way of the window. He was, however, not God—a taboo term, since His existence could not be verified by any kind of observation or experiment—but consciousness.

These pills empower the development of the penile muscles. http://deeprootsmag.org/2013/08/28/he-wrote-two-steps-from-the-blues/ female viagra pills In rare cases, soft cialis has also led to the same conclusion. Any man can become dupe of this best price vardenafil awkward condition at any specified point of time. The inability uk viagra prices of males to have an orgasm. One of the most recent advocates of this view is Dr. Robert Lanza. Born not far from Boston in 1956, as a teenager he carried out some basement experiments with the genes of chicken. This, as well as an unusual amount of Chutzpah, brought him to the attention of some world-famous biologists and behavioral scientists at Harvard University. Later, having taken out a degree as a medical doctor, he specialized in award-winning stem cell research, cloning, and various new methods for treating heart attacks and blindness. As he did so he became increasingly dissatisfied with the prevailing view of the origin and nature of consciousness, the life that gave rise to it, and the universe in which both that life and that consciousness exist. He first presented his conclusions in a 2007 paper; assisted by Bob Berman, later he developed it into the book under review.

Starting at least as far back as Laplace—much earlier, if one cares to go back all the way to Epicurus—scientists have been arguing that consciousness grew out of the matter that preceded it. Not so, says Dr. Lanza: no natural process known to us could have performed that feat. Instead, he says, it was consciousness which gave rise to the world—so much so that, without the former, the latter could not even have existed.

To understand what he meant, take the popular riddle concerning a tree that has fallen in a forest with no one there to witness the fact. did it make a sound? Of course it did, say ninety-nine percent of those asked. Not so, say Dr. Lanza and a few others. The splintering of the trunk and its crash on the ground certainly gave rise to vibrations in the surrounding air. However, in the absence of anyone to receive those vibrations in his or her ears, transmit them by way of the acoustic nerves, and process them with the help of the brain, they would not have amounted to what we know as sound.

What applies to hearing applies equally well to our remaining senses. What the specialized neurons in the back of our brains register is not the world’s existing, objective, sound, light, and impact. On the contrary, light, impact, and sound are created by those neurons. To adduce another example, a single rainbow that can be seen by everyone who looks in the right direction at the right time does not exist. What does exist are trillions of raindrops. Each one carrying a potential rainbow; and all “waiting” to be discovered by animal sense organs and brains to be brought to bear on them. Instead of the internal and external world being separate and independent of one another, as Descartes would have it, they are merely two sides of the same coin. That, incidentally, is also the best available explanation for the riddle of quantum mechanics where, as far as we can make out, the speed and position of elementary particles seem to be determined by the fact that they are or are not observed.

This premise serves Dr. Lanza as the foundation on which to build everything else in the book, leading up to the conclusion that “the universe burst into existence from life [which is the seat of consciousness], not the other way around.” What I personally found most interesting in it is the following. We present-day humans are immensely proud of our scientific prowess. And rightly so, given that it has enabled us to study, and often gain some understanding of, anything from the bizarre submicroscopic world of elementary particles that exists right under our noses to gigantic galaxies more than thirty billion light years away. Dr. Lanza’s contribution is to point out that, without taking account of consciousness and the life with which it is inextricably tied, we shall never be able to understand reality as a whole. Some people might find this prospect disturbing. In so far as it means that there will never be a shortage of questions to explore and ponder, I personally find it comforting.

But isn’t consciousness, pure and unadulterated by a physical body, simply another word for God?

 

1917

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A really good movie, like a really good work of literary fiction, will almost certainly contain at least some measure of moral ambiguity. As to which characters are good, which ones are bad, the factors that make them so, and the thousand different ways in which good and evil manifest themselves and interact. Think, for example, of the Iliad as perhaps the best work on war ever written. In the entire poem, much the most sympathetic character is the Trojan hero Hector. And why? Not because the cause he is serving is just—as he himself is well aware, it is not. And not because he is some kind of superman—at least three other characters, including above all Achilles at whose hands he is destined to die, are better warriors than he is. And not because those whom he fights are bad people. In the end, even the proud, touchy, and overall terrible Achilles is shown as capable of love and sorrow (for Patroclus) and compassion (for King Priam). But because he is, at bottom, a modest and even likeable man; god-fearing and not inclined to boast or commit deeds of superfluous cruelty as so many other heroes do. Above all there are his ability to love, which comes through even in the midst of “fearsome war,” and his perfect loyalty both to his own family and to the city of his birth; doomed to destruction though they both are.
By that, admittedly very high, standard 1917 is definitely not a very good movie. The plot is simple, not to say simplistic. This is April and one of the battalions of a British infantry regiment is manning a sector of the front in the rich earth of Flanders. Finding the enemy in retreat, its commander wants to attack and pursue. However, higher headquarters learns that the retreat is really a trap. Thereupon two soldiers are sent out on a perilous journey to warn the commander. One, Lance Corporal Tom Blake, volunteers for the mission because he hopes to save a brother who is serving in the battalion in question. The other, Lance Corporal William Schofield, is selected by Blake himself because of his immense obstinacy and determination to carry out orders at all costs.
Carrying a message, the two of them set out into what soon reveals itself as a nightmarish landscape of abandoned guns, wrecked buildings, bare, mutilated trees, and above all, vast seas of mud. Not to mention the rotting corpses of dead men and animals half buried or lying around in bizarre postures. Pursued might and main, shot at from every available weapon, following many adventures in one of which Blake is killed, Schofield finally arrives at his destination. True, the attack is already under way and Blake’s brother has already been killed. But at least he is able to save the bulk of the regiment from certain destruction.
I am not expert on movies and will not comment on the film’s direction, musical score, and sound effects, for all of which (and more) it has been called “a work of cinematic wizardry.” I do, however, want to say something about two other aspects. The first is its supposed realism for which it has earned much praise. I do not want to go into detail on this point. Just trust me when I say that real war is much, much worse. So much so that putting all its horrors on the screen is probably impossible. And so much so that, had someone succeeded in doing so, much of the public, instead of praising the product, would have refused to watch and turned its back on it.
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As a result, I found watching 1917 was a bit like watching a caricature in black and white. In favor of the movie I must say that it did make me think about what a really good war movie, or a really good war novel, should be like; the way drinking a simple vin de table makes one appreciate, and long for, a grand cru.
That too, is something.

Guest Article: The View From Olympus – His Majesty’s Birthday

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By

William S. Lind*

As the whole world knows, His Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany was born on January 27, 1859.  It is both my duty and my pleasure to telephone him every year and congratulate him on his birthday.  He is, after all, my reporting senior as well as Germany’s last legitimate governor.

I tried to reach him first at the Neues Palais in Potsdam, followed by the old palace in Berlin, then Charlottenburg, and then the Adlon Hotel.  The latter proved the right guess. When he picked up the instrument, it was clear he was out of breath.

“Happy birthday, Your Majesty,” I opened.  “It sounds as if something has you running around.”

“As usual, it’s not something but someone, namely Bismarck,” His Majesty replied.  “He has me running all over town keeping every crowned head in Europe happy while he manipulates them all at his latest conference.  As my grandfather said, sometimes it is a hard thing, being Kaiser under Bismarck.”

“That sounds like Bismarck all right,” I ventured.  “But his goal is usually to keep the peace, and he was rather good at it.  If only he’d been there in 1914, the Christian West might not have committed suicide.”

“If only, indeed,” His Majesty said.  “As you know, I neither wanted war nor expected war that fateful summer, and once I realized all Europe was heading down that road, I did my utmost to stop it.  I ordered the pack of fools in my foreign office to telegraph Vienna and tell them to take Belgrade and then stop. But the telegram was never sent. The German foreign office without Bismarck has done the Fatherland more damage than the French and British put together.”

“Very true, Your Majesty,” I replied.  “May I ask the subject of Bismarck’s latest Congress of Berlin?”

“It’s the North American problem,” the Kaiser said.  “It’s the year 2120 here now, and the Powers have decided we have to intervene.  The question is who gets what. It’s not a reward, I promise you. It’s a damned bloody mess that will cost us all plenty to fix.”

“I regret to say that does not surprise me,” I responded. “I assume the United States is gone, and what remains is essentially what Columbus found: tribes and tribal warfare.”

“Exactly,” His Majesty said.  “We have to civilize the place all over again.”  But it’s even worse than you expected.”

“I am hesitant to ask how,” I said with trepidation.

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“Oh God, not another Holocaust,” I replied, shocked.

“No, fortunately, not that bad, but it was bad enough.  The one thing consistent among all the tribes is that blacks and Jews were given a choice: exile or sterilization.  Most chose the former. The blacks went to Africa, where they have actually done a great deal of good, for themselves and for the Dark Continent.  By African standards, American blacks were competent and efficient. They have brought order and economic development, including in German East Africa, where they were very welcome.  As you know, my army had black soldiers there, and they were among my very best. The Allies never beat them. And here in Imperial Germany, the Jews were also welcome, as they were in my time.  I had a number of close Jewish friends, such as Herr Ballin, head of the HAPAG shipping line, the largest in the world. I stayed at his home in Hamburg five or six times every year. He was so loyal to the monarchy that when it fell in November of 1918, he killed himself.”

“But Your Majesty, I cannot imagine such a thing happening in North America,” I said.  “Why, how–I don’t understand.”

“It was in some ways similar to what happened in Germany after your moronic President Wilson demanded an end to the German monarchy.  I would never have permitted a government policy of anti-Semitism. But the Weimar Republic was weak, and you know what happened after that.  Why and how did it happen? In five years, from 1914 to 1919, the German people underwent a terrible shock. In Germany in 1914, everything was going well and the future looked bright.  By 1919, there was no future, just death, poverty, and humiliation. The same thing happened in the United States early in the 21st century when world-wide debt crisis hit. There was no future any longer, just misery and dissolution.  Someone had to be blamed, and in your case it was the Jews and blacks.”

“But why them?” I asked.  “Why not the politicians who spent us into bankruptcy and the cultural Marxists who wrecked our society?”

“Well, the blacks were blamed because everyone saw them as ‘takers’, people who relied on welfare and who were always committing crimes.  In truth, the black crime rate in early 21st century America was twelve times the white race. Most of the victims were also black, and most blacks just wanted to lead normal lives.  But their ‘leaders’ needed to keep them ‘victims’ to maintain their own power. With the Jews, as in Germany, most American Jews were assimilated, patriotic citizens who paid their taxes and fought for their country.  But it was also true that the hard Left was disproportionately Jewish in both places. When a country falls apart in a short time, people are too angry to be fair or just. They want someone to blame, and they want to kill.  It was only because some courageous people on the Right fought it that North America did not see a twin Holocaust. At least the Jews and blacks could get out.”

“Your Majesty, is there any way for us to avoid this grim fate?” I asked, still in something of a state of shock.

“Yes, if people will get serious,” the Kaiser said.  “Donald Trump showed that someone from outside the Establishment could be elected President.  He was not himself the man to bring about fiscal sanity and cultural renewal. If you can find someone like him but more serious, more grounded intellectually and morally, I think your country might still have a chance.”

“But now I must go.  I’ve just been told that good King George III has agreed to take New England back, and martyred King Louis XVI said France will take the South.  His Most Catholic Majesty King Philip II has accepted the burden of the American West for Spain. The Inquisition will have fun in Las Vegas. Yes, yes, Otto I’m coming. . .”

And so Bismarck saved the day again.  What a pity he had to do so.

 

* William S. (”Bill”) Lind is the author of the Maneuver War Handbook (1985) and the 4thGeneration Warfare Handbook (2011) as several other volumes that deal with war. This article was originally published on traditionalRight on 31.1.2020.