RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://pjmedia.com/blog/gnostics-of-our-time/?print=1

A perhaps surprising relation exists between a branch of ancient Christian theology (or anti-theology) and a modern secular political movement, that is, between Gnosticism and Left-Liberal progressivism. In tracing this oddly creedal linkage, it will be helpful to begin with a brief and broad-stroke analysis of the Gnostic doctrine before appraising its application to the political sensibility of the Left. These two phenomena share a similar psychological matrix and both are fueled by the paradoxical theory of what we might call “pastoral insurgency.”

The term Gnosticism refers technically to various heretical sects of the first six Christian centuries that taught that knowledge (Greek: gnosis) rather than faith was the key to salvation. But such knowledge was, in effect, a putative and esoteric insight into the nature of the Creation which understood the existence of evil not as a product of man’s free will but as a flaw inherent in the very origin of the cosmos. Mankind has got things backwards. The fault lies with the Creator. The snake is our misprized benefactor who comes with knowledge of salvation, wisdom, and healing, as we now find its remedial emblem on the medical caduceus. Which is to say that mankind has been the victim of a diabolical stratagem, seduced by a devious “cosmocrator” into seeing what is evil as good and what is good as evil.

As I understand it, the essence of Gnosticism is this: the natural is regarded as unnatural. The laws of nature — aging, suffering, death, competition between individuals, groups, and species for resources and living space — are perceived as the consequence of a Divine mistake or a Demonic usurpation. Something went wrong at the moment of Creation, violating the immanent design latent in the “singularity.” The world is not as initially intended and is therefore repudiated as unnatural, an aberration.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-biggest-d-c-spy-scandal-you-havent-heard-about-part-one/?print=1 Two years ago, the executive director of the Kashmiri American Council [1] (KAC), Ghulam Nabi Fai, was riding high in Washington, D.C. circles. In March 2010, he hosted a pricey fundraiser in his own home for Rep. Dan Burton [2] (R-IN), the powerful chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia […]

http://www.myrightword.blogspot.com/ Economic situation in the West Bank and Gaza and positive Israeli measures towards the PA:- 3. Facilitation of the movement of people and goods • The number of roadblocks was reduced from 44 in 2008 to 10 in 2012, most of which are normally open. The most recent roadblock to be removed, in the […]

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/yonatan-silverman/the-oslo-accords-are-dead-and-the-palestinians-killed-them/print/

THE OSLO ACCORDS WERE STILLBORN BECAUSE THE ENTIRE PREMISE AND PROMISE WERE WRONG….IN THE PERIOD FOLLOWING THE HANDSHAKE AND THE POSTERIOR KISSING OF ARAFAT, THE PALARABS EMBARKED ON THE MOST VICIOUS SPREE OF TERRORISM…KILLING MOTHERS AND BABIES IN CAFES, PIZZERIAS, BUS STOPS, MARKETS, BUSES, AND SO ON. I AM PROUD TO BE ON THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF AFSI WHICH DENOUNCED THE ACCORDS BEFORE THE INK DRIED AND RABIN AND ARAFAT UNCLASPED THEIR HANDS…..RSK

On August 13th the Jerusalem Post reported the release of a report on Palestinian incitement, authored by Strategic Affairs Ministry director-general Yossi Kuperwasser. Among other things Kuperwasser wrote:

The bottom line is that Palestinian incitement is “going on all the time,” adding that the phenomenon is “worrying and disturbing.” He said that at an institutional level the Palestinian Authority was continuously driving three messages home: that the Palestinians would eventually be the sole sovereign on all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea; that Jews, especially those who live in Israel, were not really human beings but rather “the scum of mankind”; and that all tools were legitimate in the struggle against Israel and the Jews, though the specific tool used at one time or another depended on a cost-benefit analysis.

The unceasing phenomenon of Palestinian anti-Israel incitement is prima facie evidence that Oslo is dead.

When international agreements like the Oslo Accords are born it is very difficult for them to go out of existence. In general in the world of international diplomacy, when two countries make a diplomatic agreement it is permanent, like a country’s laws or its constitution. Once the powers that be agree on the small print in the newly codified laws or the country’s venerable constitution these documents are solidified. They remain in existence and remain in force ad infinitum – just like the countries themselves.

Obama’s sanitized history for Iftar dinner

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/08/obamas_sanitized_history_for_iftar_dinner.html

President Obama showed off Jefferson’s Koran at a recent White House Iftar Dinner, but ignored the book in its historical context.

According to a press release from the White House dated August 10, 2012, the President told those gathered at the Iftar dinner, where Muslims break the fast of Ramadan, that,

“As I’ve noted before, Thomas Jefferson once held a sunset dinner here with an envoy from Tunisia — perhaps the first Iftar at the White House, more than 200 years ago. And some of you, as you arrived tonight, may have seen our special display, courtesy of our friends at the Library of Congress — the Koran that belonged to Thomas Jefferson. And that’s a reminder, along with the generations of patriotic Muslims in America, that Islam — like so many faiths — is part of our national story.”

The President ignored the context for that “first Iftar at the White House.” To mention it would have been politically incorrect. Here, thought, is the rest of the “first Iftar” dinner at the White House.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/paul-ryan-the-muslim-brotherhood?f=must_reads

I’m glad Mitt picked Paul Ryan. Of the finalists who’ve been floated in the last few weeks, he is the best choice. I like him, although as I’ve said before, he’s not quite the Captain Courageous some on our side portray him to be. But he is more serious about dealing with our financial catastrophe than most of the Beltway GOP. As Mark’s never-to-be-missed weekend column illustrates today, that’s not exactly not a high bar, but hey, that’s the hand we’re dealt. Bottom line: I feel better about Romney because he made this choice, and I imagine most other conservatives will, too.

The pick also made me chuckle a bit because of the week I’ve had speechifying over the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence on our government. A little over a year ago, I wrote a column about President Obama’s speechifying. In particular, I was contrasting the difference between the way he treated the guests he famously took pains to invite to two of his speeches: Paul Ryan and the Muslim Brotherhood. It started out something like this:

There is always great intrigue in Barack Obama’s speeches. Not much heft, mind you, but substance is not the point. In this Chicago-style presidency, what is said is often less telling than who is invited to hear what is said. That’s where you find out who is in and who is out.

Count Rep. Paul Ryan among the outs. The GOP budget guru got a coveted invitation to hear the president outline his new vision for escaping the economic catastrophe wrought by his current vision. The speech was much anticipated, because it was Ryan’s own ambitious plan to slash trillions in spending that roused Obama from his customary crouch in the tall grass.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/313674/milquetoast-mitt-mark-steyn
Romney needs to get serious about the crisis we face.

The other day, I passed a Republican-party county office here in my home state, its window attractively emblazoned with placards declaring “Believe in America. Romney 2012” and “New Hampshire Believes. Romney 2012.” There’s not a lot of evidence for the latter proposition, but I’m certainly willing to believe that Romney believes that New Hampshire believes. An hour or two later, I chanced to be passing a television set just as the station went to break. The words “WE BELIEVE” appeared on the screen, followed by youthful hands raised to a clear blue sky at the dawn of a new day, shafts of sunlight gleaming through ears of corn, a puppy gamboling across a meadow, a kitten playfully pawing, happy green-T-shirted volunteers of many races unloading a recycling carton . . . and I thought, despite myself, “Well, say what you like, but the reassuring vapidity of the Romney campaign is at least getting more professional.” At the end, in the spot where the off-screen voice is supposed to say “I’m Mitt Romney and I approve this message,” it instead said: “Introducing Purina One Beyond: a new food for your cat or dog.”

Well, what do I know? By contrast, the Obama campaign’s theme is “Forward” — which, in the context of a second term for Mister You-Didn’t-Build-That, I’d carelessly assumed was a poignant allusion to “The Charge of the Light Brigade”:

http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/313882

The election of the biracial Barack Obama was supposed to usher in a new era of racial harmony. Instead, that dream is becoming a tribally polarized nightmare –by design, and intended to assist in the reelection of Barack Obama.

Consider the increasing obsession with the term “white” (as in versus “black”), along with the old standby charge of “racism” — nearly all of it emanating from the president’s surrogates and celebrity supporters. Upon the announcement of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential pick, almost immediately Donna Christensen, the non-voting congressional delegate from the Virgin Islands, tweeted: “Wait a minute! Are there black people in Va? Guess just not w Romney Ryan! At least not seeing us. We know who’s got our back & we have his.”

“Got our back” — compare the Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith’s video appealing to African-Americans to cover the president’s back — of course implies that Paul Ryan is a veritable racist who by virtue of his skin color and conservative politics will stab blacks in the back. In that vein, Mia Farrow, viewing the initial Romney/Ryan rally, offers, “Camera pans crowd: whole bunch of white people.”

Here is what Melissa Harris-Perry, the weekend host of MSNBC’s Hardball, said of Paul Ryan’s referring to the Declaration of Independence: “The thing I really have against him is actually how he and Gov. Romney have misused the Declaration of Independence. I’m deeply irritated by their notion that the ‘pursuit of happiness’ means money for the richest and that we extricate the capacity of ordinary people to pursue happiness. When they say ‘God and nature give us our rights, not government,’ that is a lovely thing to say as a wealthy white man.” In the postmodern world of Ms. Harris-Perry, which is the world of Barack Obama, what we say has no innate meaning apart from our class, race, and gender.

Expect the Ryan selection in the next few days to spawn a new flurry of “wealthy white man” invective in a manner that two Clinton-Gore tickets, a Gore-Lieberman ticket, and a Kerry-Edwards ticket never did.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/313904/ryanism-big-picture-william-voegeli By choosing Paul Ryan to be his running mate, Mitt Romney has ensured that a “far-reaching debate about the broader role of government and the entitlement state,” in the words of Politico’s instant analysis, will dominate the final, decisive twelve weeks of the presidential campaign. The long-term budget plans that Representative Ryan has advanced […]

JINSA Vice Chairman
MORRIS AMITAY
The specter of the January 2, 2013 sequestration has created rare unanimity here in Washington. Just about everyone both in the defense establishment and Congress maintains it would have disastrous consequences if implemented.

This new round of budget cuts was mandated by the U.S. Budget Control Act after the failure of a super committee – the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction – to reach an agreement on a balance between taxes and spending. The Act was part of a compromise between Democrats and Republicans to permit raising the Federal debt ceiling. This translates into a $55 billion cut in fiscal year 2013 from the roughly $511 billion base defense budget, $93 billion from the war budget and $82 billion from unobligated funding.

These cuts, mandated by the sequester, would be on top of the $487 billion in budget reductions already scheduled over the next decade, because Congress could not find another $1.2 trillion in Federal savings over the same period. With the Administration’s decision to exempt military personnel from the cuts, the rest of the defense budget would be looking at an 11.2 percent reduction and could mean an estimated 89,000 job cuts at the Department of Defense and a hiring freeze. Non-defense spending would also be sequestered, but at a lower rate.

Unfortunately, given continuing partisan rancor over this issue, Congress has been unable to agree on a solution to the growing financial crisis facing our country. With the politics of this election year preventing agreement on a decisive course of action on the economy, we can expect Congress to “kick the can down the road.” When it returns to work in September, it is expected to pass a stopgap spending measure to provide federal funding for the first half of fiscal year 2013. This would permit Congress in the “lame duck” post-election session to focus on the looming automatic sequestration cuts before the January 2 deadline.

But, at some point soon, crucial decisions will have to be made as to our nation’s overall defense posture, and by definition, our leadership role in an increasingly dangerous world. In a bipartisan vote, Congress recently tasked the Obama administration to lay out precisely what these cuts to defense and domestic programs would mean. The Administration has maintained that it had not provided details because sequestration was designed to be so draconian that implementation was unthinkable. Even with many of the details missing, there is almost unanimous agreement as to the catastrophic effects of sequestration on our national security.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has described the cuts as “devastating,” with the prospect of “the smallest ground force since 1940,” “a fleet of fewer than 230 ships, the smallest level since 1915,” and the “smallest tactical fighter force in the history of the Air Force.” In this regard, it is worth noting the average age of the Air Force’s B-52 bombers is nearly 50 years. On average, American long-range bombers are 35 years old, mid-air refueling tankers are 49 years old, and fighter aircraft are 22 years old.