Tuesday, March 29, 2022

The Origin of "The Origin . . ."

“Does anyone know who employed Darwin, where Darwinism comes from?” [Lara] Logan, now with Fox News’ streaming service Fox Nation, asked. “Look it up: The Rothschilds. It goes back to 10 Downing Street. The same people who employed Darwin, and his theory of evolution and so on and so on. I’m not saying that none of that is true. I’m just saying Darwin was hired by someone to come up with a theory — based on evidence, OK, fine.”


https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/fox-news-host-lara-logan-211116591.html


*


Scene:


A massive office. Portraits of ancestors on the walls. A thick carpet. A large desk.


A quick knock on the door. A woman enters and addresses the man behind the desk:


“Mr. Rothschild, Mr. Darwin is here to see you.”


Rothschild: “Send him in.”


A young man in his early twenties, wearing a dark suit, enters.


Rothschild: “Ah, Charlie, good to see you again. Have a seat. I expect you have further news about that proposed expedition of yours.


Darwin: “Yes, Mr. Rothschild. But I’m afraid that my news may not be pleasing.”


Rothschild: “Er, why is that?”


Darwin: “Well, I recalculated the itinerary, the necessary crew, and the needed provisions, and determined that the initial financial investment figures I gave you fell rather short. So, I’m here, hat in hand, to ask for a greater capital commitment on your part for the expedition to advance. I’ll not take offense if you find the numbers on this sheet to be unsatisfactory and for you to withdraw your offer of support.”


Hands over a sheet of paper; Rothschild slips on a pair of spectacles and reads.


Rothschild: “Why, Charlie my son, do you think that a Jewish banker, a Rothschild, would blink at a figure like this? Look, we have agreed upon a purpose here: to bamboozle the scientific world and beyond with the idea that mankind has evolved from ape-like creatures. Your voyage on that ship of yours—what’s it called? . . .”


Darwin: “The Beagle.”


Rothschild: “. . . we both know that it’s just to produce a cover story that has to seem to be legitimate. So in order to accomplish that, what’s a few thousand pounds more to a Jewish banker? You go right ahead with that journey to . . . where? . . .”


Darwin: “Galapagos.”


Rothschild: “Galapagos; sounds like what a race horse does. Is that a real place?”


Darwin: “It’s off the coast of Chile.”


Rothschild: “Well, you just go right off, enjoy the ocean journey, write up a few ‘scientific’ notes, and come back in a year or two. Then slap together a book that will shake up the Christian establishment—and we’ll both have a great laugh at their expense.”


Darwin: “Thank you, Mr. Rothschild.”


Rothschild: “Don’t mention it. [Writes something and hands the paper to Darwin.]


Darwin: [Reads] “Matzos, chicken soup, gefilte fish . . . . What’s this?”


Rothschild: “Well, you have to provision your ship for the long journey. Take this list over to the address I’ve written. I have a side interest in a Jewish ship’s chandlery. I might as well get a little money back—under the table, as it were.”


Darwin: [Rises from his chair and puts on his hat.] “See you in about two years, Mr. R.”


Rothschild: “Gay ga zinta hate.”


  

 

Saturday, March 26, 2022

Wasteland

They have plundered the world, stripping naked the land in their hunger… they are driven by greed, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor… They ravage, they slaughter, they seize by false pretenses, and all of this they hail as the construction of empire. And when in their wake nothing remains but a desert, they call that peace.


Tacitus


  • Born: 56
  • Died: 117


*


Lovers of the wasteland:


1) Kirill, the Patriarch of Russian Orthodox Christianity


As The New Yorker noted, “Kirill’s support for the [Russian invasion of Ukraine] was no surprise. The Russian Orthodox Church is an arm of the state, and Kirill is one of Putin’s trusted advisers.”*


The reason for his support was the surprise:

the invasion was about stemming the spread of “gay parades” from the West, and [he] celebrated it as “a struggle that has not a physical but a metaphysical significance,” explaining that “we are talking about something different and much more important than politics. We are talking about human salvation.”

Perhaps you, like me, find it difficult to imagine bombs and tanks as necessary weapons of “a culture war—a holy war,” which is how The New Yorker claims Kirill looks at the world, seeing an existential battle between “religious traditionalism and liberalism.” 


Better a parade of death and destruction to bring about "human salvation" than a few multi-colored banners in a gay parade.


2) Pat Robertson


Unlike Kirill, Robertson wonders whether Vladimir Putin is “out of his mind . . .  yes, maybe so.”** But loony or non-loony, Putin has a purpose on this Earth—“he's being compelled by God.”


Robertson, who must have a direct hot line to God, explains that Putin’s move into Ukraine wasn’t about conquering that country. “His goal was to move against Israel, ultimately."


You’re confused? But wait, here’s Robertson’s explanation:

God is getting ready to do something amazing, and that will be fulfilled . . . . And what Putin is doing, by moving as he is, to set up Ukraine as a staging ground for one of the armies, and then across is Erdogan in Turkey, and you've got between them that little Dardanelles area. And it's going to happen. So I say, that is what's coming up. Is Putin crazy? Is he mad? Well, perhaps. But God says, I'm going to put hooks in your jaws and I'm going to draw you into this battle, whether you like it or not. And he's being compelled, after the move into the Ukraine, he's being compelled to move to get a land bridge, and then across the Dardanelles with Turkey, and watch what's going to happen next. You read your Bible, because it's coming to pass.

So, God is using Putin as a cat’s paw to bring Armageddon to pass. 


How nice that the wasteland of Earth will be offset by the delight of a few non-sinners (certainly none of Kirill’s gays) eating grapes and romping through the clouds of heaven.


Peace—it’s wonderful.


***


* https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-pope-the-patriarchs-and-the-battle-to-save-ukraine


** https://www.salon.com/2022/03/01/pat-robertson-putin-is-being-compelled-by-god-to-invade-ukraine-and-fulfill-biblical-prophecy_partner/


 

 

Monday, March 14, 2022

Benito never kicked my cat

Tucker Carlson:

Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia? Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years? Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity? Does he eat dogs?

These are fair questions, and the answer to all of them is "no." Vladimir Putin didn't do any of that. So, why does permanent Washington hate him so much?


https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/tucker-carlson-gives-passionate-defense-vladimir-putin-person


*


Benito never kicked my cat,

Ate my porridge, crushed my hat.


Stalin remembered to return

My samovar, my coffee urn.


Hitler and the Nazi SS

Never made my carpet a mess.


I confess that Pol Pot

Never took my parking spot.


Pinochet and Vlad the Impaler

Never squatted in my house trailer.


The Tonton Macoute and Papa Doc

Never re-set my electric clock.


And surely Chairman Mao

Never tried to milk my cow.


Franco warned the Falange:

“Hands off Tucker’s blancmange.”


Thus I am so very glad 

To deny that they were bad.


 

Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Special Cover-up

George Orwell’s most famous essay is “Politics and the English Language,” written in 1946.* He wrote out of concern that “the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language” and in hope that “one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.”

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. . . . Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements

The workings of euphemism are wonderful: “pacification” has the root meaning “making peaceful”; “rectification” has the root meaning “making right.” Who can oppose such claims? And surely “elimination” of the “unreliable” has to be beneficial.


Euphemism is from a Greek word meaning "good speech.” The substitution of nice terms to cover up nasty deeds (as exemplified above) is one way to accomplish that mind trickery. Another way is the use of very general and/or abstract words to deflect audience’s attention from the dirty specifics.** 


Putin’s war against Ukraine can serve as an object lesson in euphemism. For one thing, the word “war” has been outlawed in Russia; Putin has called his invasion a “special operation.” What can be vaguer than something called “an operation”? What exactly goes on in “an operation”? The use of the term when applied to a surgical practice (probably the most used application of the term), although describing an action that is designed to have a beneficial outcome, is still a cover-up of the nasty work of cutting into a patient’s body. Beyond medicine, the vagueness of “operation” can denote any kind of action: the “operation” of a motor vehicle, for example. 


And the modifier “special”: the “operation” is not indiscriminate or ordinary, but purposely focused, like a “special” gift for a “special” person.


Meanwhile, shells are landing on civilian targets, millions are fleeing their homes, or hiding out in improvised shelters—and the death toll mounts.


*


Vladimir Putin, the ex-KGB man, may be an expert in spycraft, but he is no historian. His arguments about the relationship of Russia and Ukraine (and Russians and Ukrainians) is fraught with error. In a speech in February, Putin asserted that 

Ukraine and Russia are, in historical terms, essentially inseparable.

“Ukraine is not just a neighboring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space,” he said. . . . “Since time immemorial, the people living in the south-west of what has historically been Russian land have called themselves Russians.”***

Ok, let’s for the moment forget that what Putin said is not historically correct. Let’s instead consider that that is what Putin sincerely believes. Which is the real interesting thing. If Putin can unleash a war against a populace he believes to be his own people—that is native Russians—what carnage and destruction would he unleash against the natives of Ukraine if he believed that they were really Ukrainians?


***


https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/politics-and-the-english-language/

** Consider here these two examples of Nazi euphemism:

“As part of the final solution…Jews fit for work” would be separated by sex and forced to do road construction, “in the course of which the majority will doubtless succumb to natural wastage.”


Dear Party Comrade Rademacher! On my return trip from Berlin I met an old party comrade, who works in the east on the settlement of the Jewish question. In the near future many of the Jewish vermin will be exterminated through special measures.


https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022/03/24/wannsee-the-road-to-the-final-solution-peter-longerich/


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

End Note:

"The war is framed in Russia in terms of forcing peace upon Ukraine."

Masha Gessen

The New Yorker


Tuesday, March 1, 2022

Witches' Brew

BRABANTIO

O thou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my daughter?

Damn'd as thou art, thou hast enchanted her;

For I'll refer me to all things of sense,

If she in chains of magic were not bound,

Whether a maid so tender, fair and happy,

So opposite to marriage that she shunned

The wealthy curled darlings of our nation,

Would ever have, to incur a general mock,

Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom

Of such a thing as thou, to fear, not to delight.

Judge me the world, if 'tis not gross in sense

That thou hast practised on her with foul charms,

Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals

That weaken motion: I'll have't disputed on;

'Tis probable and palpable to thinking.

I therefore apprehend and do attach thee

For an abuser of the world, a practiser

Of arts inhibited and out of warrant.


Othello (Act I Scene 2)


*


Thus the accusation by Desdemona’s father against Othello. How could the Moor win his bride unless he “hast enchanted her”? He has used “chains of magic” to bind her. He “hast practised on her with foul charms” and used “drugs or minerals.” And, overall, Othello is “an abuser of the world, a practiser/ Of arts inhibited and out of warrant.”


Brabantio later complains to the Duke of Venice about his daughter (Act I, Scene 3):

She is abused, stol'n from me, and corrupted

By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;

For nature so preposterously to err,

Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense,

Sans witchcraft could not.

Othello counters that the only “witchcraft” he has used was telling Desdemona the story of his life and the adventures that he underwent. 

My story being done,

She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:

She swore, in faith, twas strange, 'twas passing strange,

'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:

She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd

That heaven had made her such a man: she thank'd me,

And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,

I should but teach him how to tell my story.

And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:

She loved me for the dangers I had pass’d,

And I loved her that she did pity them.

This only is the witchcraft I have used.

The Duke wisely notes that Brabantio’s vouching 

is no proof,

Without more wider and more overt test

Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods

Of modern seeming do prefer against him.

 

*


How often do people, when faced with an outcome they deplore, refuse to accept that a better story has won the day, insisting instead that their opponent has used underhanded methods to fool others? 


*


Let’s move from 16th century Venice to 21st century America.


A Republican House candidate claimed Saturday that college education turns young people into “radical, leftist, hating-America atheists.”

“We know how important the youth are to our future because you can raise them the right way. You can work your butts off every day to put food on the table, send them off to college, and then what ends up happening?” said Christian Collins, a Republican candidate for Texas’ 8th Congressional district, at a rally just north of Houston at the Grace Woodlands church.

“They go off to college not knowing what they believe sometimes, and their teachers, their professors, try to deconstruct everything that you’ve taught them. And they go off with the college that you paid for and come out radical, leftist, hating-America atheists, and they don’t have any usable skills to get employed. And then they’re even more cynical.”*


Oh, those poor, innocent Desdemonas and Desdemonos, lured from their natural homegrown biases—if not by charms and minerals—then by the witchcraft of the coven of PhDs who inhabit the iniquitous dens of university halls!


That students in colleges around the country hear stories (and arguments and proofs) that touch their hearts and their minds, and so, freely, do take up liberal causes cannot be accepted by those who, as the Duke of Venice says, “vouch” without further proof that it can only be some sort of black magic that has been practiced on the vulnerable young.


*


Of course, there is no reason to trust this post. I spent over a third of the 20th century as a modern-day warlock.


***


https://news.yahoo.com/gop-house-candidate-says-college-015817343.html