Planned Infanticide

Bas-relief at Angkor Wat, dated circa 1150, depicting a demon performing an abortion by pounding a mallet into a woman's belly. [Wikipedia]

Our intrepid, latter-day Joan of Arc, Dawn Eden, continues to storm the citadel of postmodern paganism with posts like this one: Poverty's Final Solution. The primitive Sacred's abortionary mechanism keeps the bloody red carpet rolled out for mothers who are willing to sacrifice their unborn children to the unnamed god (Old Testament prophets would recognized it as Moloch or Ba'al). For readers of René Girard, we see that the single victim mechanism isn't functioning very well today. It demands more and more victims, and Planned Parenthood is only too happy to oblige.

Billboard Truth & Sacred Dread

WorldNetDaily reports that an Anti-terror theme scares billboard companies -- Firm rejected ad because some "clients" might be on the "other side". What is the billboard ad in question advertising? It is an anti-terrorism symposium sponsored by America’s Truth Forum featuring such speakers as Dr. Wafa Sultan, Robert Spencer, and Lee Boyland. What are the rejectors of the ad, Clear Channel Outdoor, saying? " ... we have an international clientele – some of whom might be on the other side."

Robert Spencer, in his usual apt turn of phrasing says of this rationale: "The other side? On the side of the jihadists? Imagine an American billboard company in 1942 toning down an anti-Nazi billboard because, well, some of their clients are Nazis."

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This is a fine example of the way that the primitive Sacred inhibits moderns from looking closely at its sacred violence: fear of incurring accusation by trespassing one of its prohibitions ("Thou shalt not look closely and thematize our rituals of violence"). And one may certainly not show a jihadist wearing a keffiyeh shrouding his face with the smoking ruin of the World Trade Center in the background on vast outdoor billboards. The power of soft coercion ("lawfare", "hate crime," and "thought crime") on the one hand, and the hard coercion of murderous violence we have come to associate with jihadism becomes yet another No-Go Zone for westerners. And the primitive Sacred accrues yet more fear and dread, lest we not avert our eyes from its rituals, myths, and prohibitions.

Swastika & Scimitar - Part 4

With a hat tip to Pam Geller, Andy Bostom pieces together yet more evidence of the connection between Swastika and the Scimitar.

News Vs. Good News

Couple this with this, and one sees that "objective" reporting of news is a chimera and kettle of fish. One needs this to sort it all out.

The Imam & Dar al-IslamoIowa

”Muslim opening prayer at Iowa Statehouse raises concerns.” What the ... ? Wait a goldarn minute, feller! We was a-gonna ask him to share the blessing at the Potluck Sunday after church! I mean, he was a-talkin' about "Victory over those who disbelieve," and "Protection from the great Satan." Don't Americans need protectin' from Satan?

Deconstructing the Hearth & Heart

A marvel-filled delight of an essay at New Oxford Review by Mitchell Kalpakgian, "The Ideology of Diverse Families" --

How does ideology differ from poetry? Like education, poetry educes or leads out, bringing forth what is there and lending shape, form, and adornment to that which is praiseworthy or admirable. The poet sees the wonder and glory that dwell in natural and human things, as Gerard Manley Hopkins does in his famous "Pied Beauty":

Glory be to God for dappled things --
For skies of couple-color as a brindled cow;
For rose moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced -- fold, fallow, and plough
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

Poetry captures the splendor of the form (splendor formae) that dwells in matter and lets it speak for itself as Hopkins does in marveling at the many examples of pied beauty that appear throughout creation in the variegated tones of the sky, in the mixed colors of brindled cows, in the rainbow streaks of trout, in the motley patchwork of the landscape, and in the multiplicity of human talents and gifts that constitute "all trades, their gear and tackle and trim." Poetry sees the truth shouting from the housetops everywhere: the glory of God shines in the sky above, in the water below, and on the landscape surrounding the Earth, and it manifests itself in the vast heavens and in the small bird, in the animal kingdom and in human nature.

Ideology, in contrast, twists, tortures, and truncates. Like Procrustes, who either stretched or chopped off the legs of his victims to fit his notorious bed, ideology does violence to reality and distorts truth to accommodate its arbitrary theories. Ideology does not see the splendor of the form in matter or acknowledge a natural purpose or God-given design in creation. It resists recognizing the inherent structure of reality -- the givenness of things -- presuming always to improve nature, to redefine established universal meanings, and to substitute human theory for divine wisdom. Hence, all the attacks on the poetry of the home involve a denial of the universal truths which the poets sing: "All is well" or "Glory be to God for dappled things" or "Home is the definition of God" (Emily Dickinson). Instead, ideology resorts to sophistic legal reasoning, verbal gymnastics, and social engineering to demythologize the romance of the family. United Nations propaganda questions the universal meaning of "family" and "gender" by claiming that families come in a "plurality of forms" rather than by way of marriage, and by assuming that there are five genders, not two. Liberal rhetoric has revised the traditional, normative meaning of marriage to include the "marriage" or civil union of two men or two women. Feminist ideology persistently denies the existential reality of maleness and femaleness and regards these universal norms as mere social "constructs." Thus, how can one write of The Privilege of Being a Woman as Alice von Hildebrand does, or of The Greatness of Marriage as Dietrich von Hildebrand does, or of the beauty of families that Louisa May Alcott praises in Little Women ("I think families are the most beautiful things in all the world!")? Without the poetry of the home, life degenerates to the survival of the fittest and the most barbaric. Read all …

Bloody Borders

In the Sunday Book Review, Fouad Ajami looks back at Samuel Huntington's insights and how well they have stood up in The Clash.

Cassandras - Keep It Up

In classical literature, Cassandra is depicted as a harbinger of impending peril to whom none listened in her doomed and beloved city of Troy. Today, the number of Cassandras cry out about a formidable array of signs pointing to the old Christian West's denial and ignorance of the demographic, legal, and religious intentions of Islam.

I will not name the blogs, you probably know most of them if you are a regular reader of The Four Mass’keteers; two I am fortunate to say are posted by my personal friends. The Catholic bloggers among them -- and I count myself among them -- consider the heirs of Christendom at the height of its finest hour to be no account wastrels who have given up and gone to seed. Like Jack and the choirboys in Golding's Lord of the Flies, they have not only let the signal fire go out, they have begun tribal, pagan practices as orgies, infanticide, and dilapidation of the walls that once offered protection and the temples that safeguarded truth, beauty, and goodness.

To the blogging Cassandras, it seems that if Islam wants to gain its world-wide domination and "peace" [Dar al-Islam], the children of the West seem only too willing to provide the foot-baths, change the laws, cloak their women, and relinquish any signs of strength, virtue, and chivalry ... as long as the party lasts and the dope holds out. The West's motto? "Yeah, whatever, man. Pass me another toke."

The Cassandras at moments wonder if these wastrels are worth worrying our heads about, particularly since the mammoth, bell-shaped curve of westerners slumber and do not perceive any threat.

My one piece of advice to western nations is this: demand reciprocity when it comes to the freedoms of immigrants. If a country like, say, Saudi Arabia does not allow Bibles to be distributed within it, do not allow immigration into the western country by citizens of that nation. If freedom of religion is not allowed, do not allow immigration into the western country. It is a simple -- and no doubt simplistic -- action, but it is to a degree measurable.

As a Cassandra, I'd love to finally be proved a Chicken Little. But for now, I'll keep the sword upstairs, the dog loose, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church handy. [Originally posted @ 4 Mass'keteers, 9/6/07]

The Rival as Parasite

I did not expect to find this 7-minute lecture to be informative or helpful ... at first. Gladly, I was pleasantly surprised by the level of discourse, eloquence, and erudition. [Infidel Bloggers Alliance]

Allies of the Two Great Tribes

If return of an old war between two great tribes seems as anachronistic as, say, placing the words "human" and "sacrifice" side by side, here is another conundrum. The allies of the Christian West are Judaism and remnants influenced by the biblical faith. The allies of Islamofascism are liberals and progressives whose pansexualism and multiculturalism seem far away from the strict code of behavior of Islam.

The key to understanding the conundrum is this: which side is trying to move away from human sacrifice? Which utilizes at its heart the fallen human trait of gathering around the victim(s) killed by the community? Answer that, and you understand the strange bedfellows of jihad.

Candidates on Caliphate? Nada

Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch 51 on American presidential candidates' public opinions on jihadist terrorism. Note well: Spence gets right the motive of the terrorists (read: ad hoc priests of the primitive Sacred) who want to bring down moderate Muslim states as well provoke those influenced by the Gospel in the West. Always keep this in mind.

The Old Tribal War, Again

Watching a favorite film, The Ghost and the Darkness (1996), I realized the truth of what René Girard has said about the post 9/11 world: "What Is Occurring Today Is a Mimetic Rivalry on a Planetary Scale."

Samuel, a native African workman played by John Kani in the film, summarizes what happened to the famous hunter, Charles Remington played by Michael Douglas: his nation "suffered a war between two great tribes, and his tribe lost." This is how Samuel, a member of a traditional society, sees what those in the United States of America call the Civil War ... or the War of Northern Aggression. Neither side would typify it as a "war between two great tribes," but would hasten to nuance it with many aspects, subcategories, and subheadings. Nevertheless, from the perspective of mimetic theory, Samuel would be right in his assessment.

In the same way, our world today is in the early stages of a new outbreak of a very old mimetic rivalry between two "great tribes" "on a planetary scale," as Girard says. If one were wise, one would view what is happening in terms of what is variously called "radical Islamism," "terrorism", "jihad", "islamofascism" as members of one tribe wanting to re-establish a model/rival doubling crisis with the Christian faith -- a poor substitute for ontological substantiation, a parody of true covenantal transcendence. The ignoring of the truth of this phenomenon is, in my opinion, actually not a bad thing. It is a form of what is best about the West: an attempt not to get snookered into a doubling rivalry by leaning on what little is left of the influence of the Gospel in it.

Nonetheless, thoughtful writers and thinkers like Gil Bailie have stated their alarm at the baiting taking place, fearful of what may happen when the denizens of the West may finally turn and violently confront those seeking to provoke them into the "war between two great tribes" that a growing number of Islamists truly seek.

Till that time, it would indeed be wise to practice the "innocence of doves and wisdom of serpents" that Our Lord admonishes [Mtt 10,16]. For the myth of righteous violence is growing. Legitimate defense and chivalry are behaviors to get down off the mantle, and polish up. Mark my words, even with a heavy heart at their necessity.

Mobile and Eagle-Eyed

In Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien made the arrival of eagles the frequent turning point in tide of battle. Maybe this is the reason why.

Primitive Sacred & the Gift of Faith

Mark Steyn tries his best to bring cogent logic to bear in his examination of the Canadian "human rights agents" before whose power to set the terms of discourse and levy sentences he stands accused. One forgets at one's peril that the primitive Sacred creates a mystifying aura of confusion around its victim. Steyn, try as he may, will find it nearly impossible to navigate the shoals of these waters; the influence of the Gospel in history is too far removed from the Canadian "Human Rights" Tribunal for the voice of the victim to be heard for comprehension.

Gil Bailie notes in his November 2007 ”Emmaus Road Initiative” series the powerful status of the primitive Sacred today in the forms of radical Islamism and an antiseptically sterile yet murderous postmodernism. C. S. Lewis, too, tried to warn us of its "hideous strength" in his Space Trilogy.

So why, then, is the immeasurably more heinous strength of postmodern abortuary madness and radical Islamist terror not brought before such tribunals? If you begin to feel the hideous strength of the primitive Sacred, good. The effect of the Gospel and, perhaps, the gift of faith, is at work in you.

You may be discovering one of the reasons you are alive and in the world in these dark and dangerous times. My suggestion? Follow that string out of the minotaur's labyrinth of the culture of death called the primitive Sacred. If you are blessed, it will lead you into the Catholic Church. If you are really blessed, you will be led to pick up Gil Bailie's Violence Unveiled and The (René) Girard Reader -- the two most useful taxonomies of the primitive Sacred you are likely to find.

Joys of Scimitar Caste System

"The honour of Islam lies in insulting kufr and kafirs. One who respects the kafirs dishonours the Muslims... The real purpose of levying jiziya on them is to humiliate them to such an extent that they may not be able to dress well and to live in grandeur. They should constantly remain terrified and trembling. It is intended to hold them under contempt and to uphold the honour and might of Islam."

Sufi saint Ahmad Sirhindi (1564-1624), letter #163 [h/t: Liberty Planet]

3 Heroes Recovered

For full story, read "Dustoff Three-Zero confirms 3 Heroes on board, 3 Heroes recovered... "