The Roots of American Demonization of Shi’a Islam

By Pepe Escobar with permission and crossposted with The Unz Review

The US targeted assassination, via drone strike, of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, apart from a torrent of crucial geopolitical ramifications, once again propels to center stage a quite inconvenient truth: the congenital incapacity of so-called US elites to even attempt to understand Shi’ism – thus 24/7 demonization, demeaning not only Shi’as by also Shi’a-led governments.

Washington had been deploying a Long War even before the concept was popularized by the Pentagon in 2001, immediately after 9/11: it’s a Long War against Iran. It started via the coup against the democratically elected government of Mosaddegh in 1953, replaced by the Shah’s dictatorship. The whole process was turbo-charged over 40 years ago when the Islamic Revolution smashed those good old Cold War days when the Shah reigned as the privileged American “gendarme of the (Persian) Gulf”.

Yet this extends far beyond geopolitics. There is absolutely no way whatsoever for anyone to be capable of grasping the complexities and popular appeal of Shi’ism without some serious academic research, complemented with visits to selected sacred sites across Southwest Asia: Najaf, Karbala, Mashhad, Qom and the Sayyida Zeinab shrine near Damascus. Personally, I have traveled this road of knowledge since the late 1990s – and I still remain just a humble student.

In the spirit of a first approach – to start an informed East-West debate on a crucial cultural issue totally sidelined in the West or drowned by tsunamis of propaganda, I initially asked three outstanding scholars for their first impressions.

They are: Prof. Mohammad Marandi, of the University of Tehran, expert on Orientalism; Arash Najaf-Zadeh, who writes under the nom de guerre Blake Archer Williams and who is an expert on Shi’a theology; and the extraordinary Princess Vittoria Alliata from Sicily, top Italian Islamologist and author, among others, of books such as the mesmerizing Harem – which details her travels across Arab lands.

Two weeks ago, I was a guest of Princess Vittoria at Villa Valguarnera in Sicily. We were immersed in a long, engrossing geopolitical discussion – of which one of the key themes was US-Iran – only a few hours before a drone strike at Baghdad airport killed the two foremost Shi’a fighters in the real war on terror against ISIS/Daesh and al-Qaeda/al-Nusra: Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi Hashd al-Shaabi second-in-command Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Martyrdom vs. cultural relativism

Prof. Marandi offers a synthetic explanation: “The American irrational hatred of Shi’ism stems from its strong sense of resisting injustice – the story of Karbala and Imam Hussein and the Shi’a stress on protecting the oppressed, defending the oppressed and standing up against the oppressor. That is something that the United States and the hegemonic Western powers simply cannot tolerate.”

Blake Archer Williams sent me a reply that has now been published as a stand-alone piece. This passage, extending on the power of the sacred, clearly underlines the abyss separating the Shi’a notion of martyrdom from Western cultural relativism:

“There is nothing more glorious for a Moslem than attaining to martyrdom while fighting in the Way of God. General Qāsem Soleymānī fought for many years for the objective of waking the Iraqi people up to the point where they would want to take the helm of the destiny of their own country in their own hands. The vote of the Iraqi parliament showed that his objective has been achieved. His body was taken away from us, but his spirit was amplified a thousand fold, and his martyrdom has ensured that shards of its blessed light will be embedded in the hearts and minds of every Moslem man, woman, and child, inoculating them all from the zombie-cancer of the Satanic Novus Ordo Seclorum cultural relativists.”

[a point of contention: Novus Ordo Seclorum, or Saeculorum, means “new order of the ages”, and derives from a famous poem by Virgil which, in the Middle Ages, was regarded by Christians as a prophecy of the coming of Christ. To this point, Williams responded that “while that etymological sense of the phrase is true and still stands, the phrase was hijacked by one George Bush The Younger as representative of the New Worldly Order globalist cabal, and it is in this sense that is currently predominant.”]

Enslaved by Wahhabism

Princess Vittoria would rather frame the debate around the unquestioning American attitude towards Wahhabism: “I do not think all this has anything to do with hating Shi’ism or ignoring it. After all the Aga Khan is super embedded in US security, a sort of Dalai Lama of the Islamic world. I believe the satanic influence is from Wahhabism, and the Saudi family, who are much more heretic than the Shi’a to all Sunnis of the world, but have been the only contact to Islam for the US rulers. The Saudis have paid for most of the murders and wars by the Islamic Brothers first, then by the other forms of Salafism, all of them invented on a Wahhabi base.”

So, for Princess Vittoria, “I would not try so much to explain Shi’ism, but to explain Wahhabism and its devastating consequences: it has given birth to all extremisms as well as to revisionism, atheism, destruction of shrines and Sufi leaders all over the Islamic world. And of course Wahhabism is so close to Zionism. There are even researchers who have come up with documents which seem to prove that the House of Saud is a Dunmeh tribe of converted Jews expelled from Medina by the Prophet after they tried to murder him despite having signed a peace treaty.”

Princess Vittoria also emphasizes the fact that “ the Iranian revolution and Shi’a groups in the Middle East are today the only successful force of resistance to the US, and that causes them to be hated more than others. But only after all other Sunni opponents had been disposed of, killed, terrified (just think of Algeria, but there are dozens of other examples) or corrupted. This is of course not only my position, but that of most Islamologists today.”

The profane against the sacred

Knowing of Williams’ immense knowledge of Shi’a theology, and his expertise in Western philosophy, I prodded him to, literally, “go for the jugular”. And he delivered: “The question as to why American politicians are incapable of understanding Shi’a Islam (or Islam in general for that matter) is a simple one: unrestrained neoliberal capitalism engenders oligarchy, and the oligarchs “select” candidates that represent their interests before they are “elected” by the ignorant masses. Populist exceptions such as Trump occasionally slip through (or don’t, as in the case of Ross Perot, who pulled out under duress), but even Trump is then controlled by the oligarchs through threats of impeachment, etc. So the role of the politician in democracies seems not to be to try to understand anything but simply carry out the agenda of the elites who own them.”

Williams’ “go for the jugular” response is a long, complex essay that I’d like to publish in full only when our debate gets deeper – along with possible refutations. To summarize it, he outlines and discusses the two main tendencies in Western philosophy: dogmatists vs. skeptics; details how “the holy trinity of the ancient world were in fact the second wave of the dogmatists, trying to save the Greek city states and the Greek world more generally from the decadence of the Sophists”; delves into the “the third wave of skepticism”, which started with the Renaissance and peaked in the 17th century with Montaigne and Descartes; and then draws connections “to Shi’a Islam and the failure of the West to understand it.”

And that leads him to “the heart of the matter”: “A third option, and a third intellectual stream over and above the dogmatists and the skeptics, and that is the tradition of the traditional (as opposed to the philosophical) Shī’a scholars of religion.”

Now compare it with the last push of the skeptics, “as Descartes himself admits, by the ‘daemon’ which came to him in his dreams and which resulted in his writing his Discourse on the Method (1637) and Meditations on First Philosophy (1641). The West is still reeling from the blow, and it would seem has decided to put away its stilts of reason and the senses (which Kant tried in vain to reconcile, making things a thousand times worse and more convoluted and discombobulated), and just wallow in the self-congratulatory form of irrationalism known as post-modernism, which should rightly be called ultra-modernism or hyper-modernism as it is no less rooted in the Cartesian ‘Subjective Turn’ and the Kantian ‘Copernican Revolution’ than are the early moderns and the moderns proper.”

To summarize a quite complex juxtaposition, “what all this means is that the two civilizations have two utterly different views of what the world order should be. Iran believes that the order of the world should be what it has always been and actually is in reality, whether we like it or not, or whether we even believe in reality or not (as some in the West are wont not to do). And the secularized West believes in

a new worldly (as opposed to other-worldly or divine) order. And so it is not so much a clash of civilizations as it is a clash of the profane against the sacred, with profane elements in both civilizations arrayed against the sacred forces in both civilizations. It is the clash of the sacred order of justice versus the profane order of the exploitation of man at the hands of his fellow man; of the profaning of God’s justice for the (short-term or this-worldly) benefit of the rebels against God’s justice.”

Dorian Gray revisited

Williams does provide a concrete example to illustrate these abstract concepts: “The problem is that while everyone knows that the 19^thand 20^th century exploitation of the third world by Western powers was unjust and immoral, this same exploitation continues today. The continuation of this outrageous injustice is the ultimate basis for the differences that exist between Iran and the United States, which will ineluctably continue as long as the US insists on its exploitative practices and as long as it continues to protect its protectorate governments, who only survive against the overwhelming will of the people they rule because of the bullying presence of the US forces that are propping them up in order for them to continue to serve their interests rather than the interests of their peoples. It is a spiritual war for the establishment of justice and autonomy in the third world. The West can continue to look good in its own eyes because it controls the reality studio (of world discourse), but its real image is plain for all to see, even though the West continues to see itself as Dorian Gray did in Oscar Wilde’s only novel, as a young and handsome person whose sins were only reflected in his portrait. Thus the portrait reflects the reality which the third world sees every day, whereas the Western Dorian Gray sees himself as he is portrayed by the CNN’s and the BBC’s and the New York Times’s of the world.”

“Western imperialism in Western Asia is usually symbolized by Napoleon Bonaparte’s war against the Ottomans in Egypt and Syria (1798–1801). Ever since the beginning of the 19^th century, the West has been sucking on the jugular vein of the Moslem body politic like a veritable vampire whose thirst for Moslem blood is never sated and who refused to let go. Since 1979, Iran, which has always played the role of the intellectual leader of the Islamic world, has risen up to put a stop to this outrage against God’s law and will, and against all decency. So it is a process of revisioning a false and distorted vision of reality back to what reality actually is and should be: a just order. But this revisioning is hampered both by the fact that the vampires control the reality studio, and the ineptitude of Moslem intellectuals and their failure to understand even the rudiments of the history of Western thought, be this in its ancient, medieval, or modern period.”

Is there a chance to smash the reality studio? Possibly: “What needs to happen is for world consciousness to shift from the paradigm wherein people believe a maniac like Pompeo and a buffoon like Trump represent the paragon of normality, to a paradigm where people believe that Pompeo and Trump are just a couple of gangsters who go about doing whatever they please, no matter how disgusting and depraved, with almost complete and utter impunity. And that is a process of revisioning, and a process of awakening to a new and higher state of political consciousness. It is a process of rejecting the discourse of the dominant paradigm and of joining the Axis of Resistance, whose military leader was the martyr General Qāsem Soleymānī. Not least, it involves a rejection of the absurdity of the relativity of truth (and the relativity of time and space, for that matter; sorry, Einstein); and the abandonment of the absurd and nihilistic philosophy of humanism, and the awakening to the reality that there is a Creator, and that He is actually in charge. But of course, all this is too much for the oh-so-enlightened modern mentality, who knows better.”

There you go. And this is just the beginning. Input and refutations welcomed. Calling all informed souls: the debate is on.

2-cents worth... on January 23, 2020 · at 9:01 am EST/EDT

My first late night, and somewhat discursive, reply failed (perhaps wisely) to arrive on the thread.

I was going to leave it, but as I read Pepe E. still referring to this topic (here and at the Unz Review) I thought I should at least attempt to close off with a hopefully clarifying reply for the record. I hope this version passes the gatekeeper’s critical eye and helps clarify some of the points raised above (in “Minute by Minute on January 21, 2020 – at 9:08 am EST/EDT”).

[Note to moderator/blog owner — no need to post if you find reason. I can also easily forward directly to PE for (hopefully) his creative enjoyment if necessary.]

Bateson’s approach is designed to give a third reconciling perspective to those seeking some distance from the worldview forming processes of living. His three last books (mostly collections of other writings he produced during his later lifetime) suggest a process towards something perhaps relevant to this thread’s topic: “Steps to an Ecology of Mind” (1972); “Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity” (1979); and posthumously “Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred” (1988).

Bateson worked to provide an antidote to what he saw as a fundamental limiting feature of a culture enmeshed within a Cartesian dualism. Coming from a background in biology and anthropology, his view appears to be focused in this effort on the constructed mental mapping we create as part of our living. These maps/models/paradigms/worldviews sit conceptually between the internal observer and the real world. His approach is based on the assumption that properly developed (according to the way Nature, of which we are a part, works) they serve survival and evolutionary processes. Conversely, where they are developed at odds with natural laws they are less effective — and in the extreme, even detrimental to survival and evolutionary process (of the species).

Understanding how this relates to notions of “God”; the Quran; “right and wrong”; French radicals; historical Persian-Arab (and if you choose, Turk) issues; and kicking simple inert ‘stone’ compared to complex adaptive living systems (e.g. by way of example, dogs); souls; immanent and/or transcendent mind; physics vs metaphysics; and “all that jazz!” etc, is challenging. The simplest response is to say it provides another perspective to consider when evaluating complex issues – especially those related to the interstices and liminal spaces between – that is, things and relationships as forming “patterns that connect.” Nonetheless, as the saying “Trust in Allah, but first tie up your camel” goes: this is part of the ‘tying up’ process. One may then have more reasoned access to trust.

So, somewhat reflexively (and recursively), Bateson makes a tale of the “Tale of Two Camels.” He works in the epistemological domain wherein we construct our worldviews with a focus on the logical typing of information. He draws heavily on the works of C. S. Peirce in this regard.

In respect to “The Roots of American Demonization of Shi’a Islam:” Bateson’s approach enables these two camels” (American/Western and Islam/Shiá) to be reframed as competing epistemologies with more (or less) incommensurable aspects based on the underlying root metaphors and founding myths.

I phrase this as “American/Western” because the roots largely trace back to European adoption over time of a complex mix of pre-enlightenment indigenous pagan/nature religions, Roman empire influences, Judaism, Christianity and Islam (at least as far as Spain and the Iberian Peninsula). Underpinning this, and rediscovered at the end of the Middle Ages as the basis for Western scientific method, is the ancient Greek period (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle etc) – mostly passed down through the book burning ‘Dark Ages’ through Islamic libraries, if not thought.

On the other side, Islam today is a combination over time of several schools of thought; many sub-branches based on local environments and underlying indigenous cultures; complex intra-group dynamics and histories revolving around race, cultural preferences, power relations, invasions, and technologies (or lack thereof). These largely emerge at the apex of the Islamic domain under the labels, ‘Sunna’ and ‘Shia’. The root cause of this divide is placed on historical intergroup disputes between Arab and Persian sentiments (Ali being of the latter); a range of bias across the pragmatic-mystical spectrum in respect to policy, control and governance; and the usual inter-family disputes over linage (especially in regard to multiple wives and their families) in respect to precedence and authority. In respect to the latter, there are the children of Muhammad’s first wife (for 25 years) – Khadija bint Khuwaylid, from whom a daughter (Fatimah bint Muhammad) married his first convert and friend, Ali ibn Abi Talib (Ali). Muhammad’s childless third wife, A’isha bint Abu Bakr, was the daughter of Muhammad’s close friend Abu Bakr and maintained strong influence on Islamic developments during and after Muhammad’s death.

The roots of the ensuing schism between the Sunni and Shia Islamic subgroupings emerged following Muhammad’s death are based on community disagreement as to who should be the Caliph (politico-social leader). In a democratic fashion the larger group of Muslims chose Abu Bakr while a smaller group preferred Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law and cousin, based on interpretations of Muhammad’s intent. In brief, these terms came into use as: Sunni (‘one who follows the Sunnah’ and what the Prophet said, did, agreed to, or condemned etc; and Shi’a is a contraction of the phrase ‘Shiat Ali’, meaning ‘partisans of Ali’. ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/subdivisions/sunnishia_1.shtml)

There is therefore a classic political power struggle at the early stages of Islamic development as a social movement in Arabia. This reflects a deeper almost universal friction between fundamental worldviews and values systems – the more worldly pragmatic (Abu Bakr), and the more mystical (Ali) orientations (at least in respect to state craft). In the English idiom, this latter might be somewhat reflected in the myths of King Arthur and his (less hierarchal) ‘Round Table’ and quest for a Holy grail etc. The extended interfamily tensions should not be discounted between the daughter and favourite wife, Aisha bint Abu Bakr (‘bint’ meaning daughter of).

As political power shifted across existing traditional power structures in the Middle East, the fates of two sons of Ali and Fatimah (Hasan and Husayn) influenced historic developments. Initially Hasan’s early abdication as Caliph to the Umayyad ruler Mu’awiya (the then governor of Syria and cousin of Uthman); and then the subsequent murder (and martyrdom for the Shia) of Husayn by Mu’awiya’s son Yazid (as his disputed successor) became strong the thematic poles for Shia and modern-day Iranian culture.

However, an earlier pivotal civil war known as the “Battle of the Camel” (the Battle of Jamel or the Battle of Basra, c. Nov 656) set the stage and tone for later developments. This set out in brief at (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Camel) and in short derived from frictions resulting from the earlier murder of the Caliph Uthman ibn Affan in c. June 656 linked to political conspiracies in Egypt. The battle was fought between groups supporting Ali and groups supporting A’isha (then 45 years old) motivated to avenge the death of the third caliph Uthman which allegedly involved perceived rebellion by followers of Ali. Clandestine intervention in ongoing peace negotiations between the two parties by Egyptian connections and a breakaway group (Khawarij) led to a battle and victory by Ali’s group. Khawarij dissidence has links to Oman and Yemen via the Ibadi movement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibadi_Islam ). Aisha’s brother Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr, who was Ali’s commander, approached Aisha on her camel’s death, and following reconciliations with Ali, escorted her to a life of retirement from ‘affairs of state’ in Medina.

According to the Wikipedia (quoting Spellberg 1994) this is the genesis of the Sunni Shia divergence: “Āʿisha’s depiction in regards to the first civil war in the Muslim community reflected the molding of Islamic definition of gender and politics. Those who did not pick a side due to the honor and respect of both Aisha and Ali onwards were called Sunnis, and those who sided with Ali alone were known as the Shia.”

Relevance to American roots? This reply risks becoming an essay in itself. I’ll conclude by noting briefly the roots of American demonization of Shi’a Islam – as distinct from Iranian/Persian domestic (e.g. Shah vs Mullah) dynamics and geopolitics (US vs ‘The World’ over energy and fiat dollar hegemony) – appear to emerge for an insanely complex nexus of historical factors and genealogies for which “a mess” would hardly even begin to describe the rhizomic labyrinths involved in deconstruction. In fact, the metaphor of choice could be a form of “Quantum entanglement” over long macrohistory timeframes.

Mark Twain’s attributed refrain “history does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes” might just be a good note to end on. For those who wish to develop some conceptual distance, Bateson’s looking-glass skips right past Alice and her ‘Wonderland’ of White Rabbits, and deeply into darkly lit ‘patterns that connect’ seemingly at ‘spooky distances’ such that abducting inferences of modern day themes such as: ‘Oman/Yemen’ + Iran + Saudi; Saudi oil wealth + a rootless paper fiat USD$ + gangster economics; the ‘Trump and Clinton’ Camel Show with ‘the Donald’ playing Ali (Barba, as in the 40 thieves) and poor Hillary ‘retired’ from affairs of state at home looking after dear old hubby, Bill who probably has not yet fully retired from affairs of …). And, like an ancient caravanserai on the roads to Alawite “Assad Must Go!” Damascus, the list goes on.

My hunch is, the roots Pepe seeks on his quest for the “American Demonization of Shi’a Islam” are buried deep in the regional histories of the 1st century (ce) and watered by the luck of geological fortunes. The fruits they bare (“Ye shall know them by their fruits”— Mathew 7) drop like overripe mangoes and poisoned apples all across today’s geopolitical world stage from civilizational trunks grafted with all manner of medieval tribal and modern-day scientific national branches. This round of ‘pay to play’ in the never-ending ‘Great Game’ is domestically (US) a Yankee pantomime version of ‘Punch and Judy’ for mass distraction while the Davos crowd sketch out the next 12 month’s trickle-down script from the 1% — “Ye Are All Stakeholders Now!” it seems is the latest variant.

On the international stage things are more serious, deadly, and critical. Those self-serving elites, who think like Madeleine Albright’s “the price [others have to pay] is worth it”, are as morally and ethically rootless as their paper money’s ruthless oily schemes to avoid good accounting, audit practice and effective oversight for the common wealth and good. The recursive feedback loops that keeps these criminal murdering circuses in play on the Western stage are the reflexive international relationships of dependency between cultures of mendacity that see and scope a very broad spectrum of activity. One could easily conclude that American demonization of Shi’a Islam is a convenient (and deadly) subscript that draws as deeply from Islamic history as the US Fed (and Treasury) draw their funding support from the Saudi family’s oil well estates. If the US empire (like most) only has interests, then head-chopping Wahhabi-ism, and non-regime change in the historical Islamic heartland, are friendly ‘democratic’ by post-modern standards … and move along folks: nothing to see here! The show must go on.

As Ashkenazi influence does not enter the Hebrew picture until c. 900 (ce) then I’d suggest ‘historic resonance’ points to skipping over the ‘dual passport’ gang in Occupied Palestine and go for those deep-rooted truffles down south in the original slave-owning Egypt. The vipers from ‘de’ Nile bit deeply into early Islamic Caliph business. But where are the sons of ‘pyramid builders’ and magicians today? Anyone’s guess, but men in tartan dresses from the lands and times of Adam Smith with an interest in not so ancient rites (only c. mid-1700’s) and dark arts of ‘invisible hand’ business might be another place for curious travellers to visit. But whether those heathered high/low lands count as ‘roots’ (in spite of the dollar bill), only Pepe can decide.

Bottom line: from the character “Prometheus” speaking in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s (1875) “The Masque of Pandora” — “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” And there, dear Pepe E., ‘Poet of the Belt & Road’ is the root of All Things (and Batesonian Relationships) – we being mere transient patterns of connecting shade under a Cosmic Ecology of Metaphysical Trees. The root question is: who is the madder – the modern-day Arabs; Persians; or Americans (and their poodles)?

Bateson developed the ‘crazy making’ Double Bind theory (c. 1950’s) and I’d hazard to guess that his “Angel’s Fear” looks deeply into those dark fractal epistemological places where cosmic roots and the infinite are largely indistinguishable. He liked William Blake. Perhaps he’d say complex things are more emergent more than rooted? But 50 years have since past since he died and maybe both are now more equally true? Others might say just follow the money down those holes of endless black gold – after all, it’s been the new gold standard since Nixon’s 70’s.

Now where is that coke bottle that just feel from the sky… ???

[All that aside, and despite the dismal histories, good people still walk these many dangerous roads in their vain hopes, and so all is not completely lost yet.]

80 Comments

Snow Leopard on January 19, 2020 · at 6:28 pm EST/EDT

Humanism loses its appearance of absurdist nihilistic relativity when the Creator arises inside it. What Western humanism “appears” to be lacking is a grounding in the the authority of a divine absolute. This is the vital stabilizing ingredient that modernity is slowly finding its way towards. The true radical definition of modernity is the collective loss of Self and the ongoing quest to realize that Self at a deeper and more inclusive level. In that journey the very definition of modernity has been hijacked and distorted by academics who labour under the dominion of the ruling class. It is only this distorted definition of modernity that lends itself open to Pepe’s condemnation. But that is the nature of the agony of a collective journey through a loss of cultural self. Nietszche’s we have killed God insight applies here.
But resolving this issue requires an understanding of depth psychology.
dave on January 19, 2020 · at 6:31 pm EST/EDT

USA opposes the Shia cause Iran is a threat to Israel and US regional interests (through their proxies). Yet the Iraqi Shia was a US proxy in both Gulf wars.
- JoveBove/區司 on January 20, 2020 · at 8:25 am EST/EDT
  
  In the Gulf wars, Iraq was ruled by one man and his underlings, Saddam Hussein and his “partly secular and if not then Sunni” faction of the Baath party — and not by the majority Shiah poplace nor their leaders.
- kjell108 on January 20, 2020 · at 12:07 pm EST/EDT
  
  theSaker: Israel is an USS unsinkable carrier
  (I am still wondering how Israel managed to waste the $21 trillion they stole from US budget … who else stole them? Either it is “US” or it is “Israel” or it is “Trump”)
Michael Ewing on January 19, 2020 · at 7:12 pm EST/EDT

Thank You,Pepe Escobar & the Shaker for Your efforts to establish the Real Peace that the Leaven of the Pharisee would destroy.
Anonymous on January 19, 2020 · at 7:35 pm EST/EDT

That is very interesting discussion.
I stated years ago that the western civilization through the US policies took the wrong direction after the fall of USSR.

The US at their apex should have guided the world toward greater objectives.

They chose eternal war…

And the question is what is moving the society ?

It seems western philosophical materialism, being capitalist or marxist, has reached its limits.

One needs to recognize all the benefits of western materialism social programming in the past centuries.
What it brought in term of knowledge and power to change the world.

But at current juncture this philosophy is lacking greater principles and it seems more as shakles which are limiting human potential.
- jiri on January 20, 2020 · at 3:09 am EST/EDT
  
  “I stated years ago that the western civilization through the US policies took the wrong direction after the fall of USSR.”
  
  It took a wrong turn many hundred years ago, and has been consistently taking wrong turns since then.
- Anonymous on January 21, 2020 · at 11:02 am EST/EDT
  
  I definetely do not want to go back to the Middle Ages…
Joshua on January 19, 2020 · at 7:47 pm EST/EDT

The real reason for this hostility is that the enemy fears mankind’s conscious and spirtual re-connection with God. That’s about it. They know that when that happens, it is all over with.
ovaltine on January 19, 2020 · at 8:51 pm EST/EDT

There is nothing intellectual or philosophical or otherwise high-minded involved in this ‘Great Satan” vs Shia “thing”. B. A. Williams, in the paragraph, “The profane against the sacred”, comes about as close to the crux of the matter as one can get. Having lived in Iran Oct ’76 to New Years Eve ’78 and been closely in touch with the issue ever since, MY picture is simply one of a primitive, reckless, blood-thirsty, power-hungry, dumbed-down oligarchical, off-shore deep-state, mindlessly herding 330M dumbed down sheep toward realtime Perdition – “so that we might control the world’s natural resources and, thereby, THE WORLD!” (In any case, we need ’em baby…..we need ’em BAD”).
frank reps on January 19, 2020 · at 8:59 pm EST/EDT

The murder of General Soleimani by the covert Israeli agent Donald Trump with the almost full approval of ignorant American zombies is illustrative of the fact that we are living in a modern day version of Caligula’s Rome. Three democrat presidential hopefuls ; Bernie Sanders who never had a paying job in his entire life….. Elizabeth Warren ; who claimed Native American Heritage to shoehorn herself on to the road to success…and the Mayor of Indianapolis who claims to be married ; but has no idea about the actual functions of the genders are individuals who exemplify the types we do not want in our neighborhoods ….let alone as living next door. The very idea that the main stream media celebrates these types of misfits as the ” Norm ” ; tells us about who controls the MSM. The First Cause ;” God ” will eventually pull these weeds. Lets hope a good portion of the decent plants don’t get ripped up as well. If BP { back in 1905 } had not wanted the oil owned by Iran….that Country would have been left in peace.
- James on January 20, 2020 · at 3:58 am EST/EDT
  
  It’s more & more looking like while Israel told Trump to kill Soleimani, the “Cui Bono” is Xi&Putin, I really wish somebody at Saker would spend some time digging into this angle
  
  It completely explains why Xi&Putin have been rather silent on this entire matter.
  
  https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/soleimani-killing-strengthens-putin-hand-syria-iraq-200115080353213.html
  
  Yep terrible USA&Israel, but they’re just dog’s on a leash in this big game. Like Iran they’re all going down.
  
  Regarding Shia vs Sunni, the USA has been providing ammo&gun’s to both sides and engineering civil-wars, and funding militias in all of MENA forever. Greater Israel, just needs the elimination of all Muslims, let’s not think for a moment that ANZ would be done if all Shia evaporated tomorrow, the ANZ like Sauron would just turns its eye to the Sunni world
  
  In fact honestly, I think Xi&Putins BRI silk-road calls for the elimination of all Muslims in MENA for safe transit of the cargo (cult) to the natives in Europe.
  - Craig Mouldey on January 20, 2020 · at 10:27 am EST/EDT
    
    >In fact honestly, I think Xi&Putins BRI silk-road calls for the elimination of all Muslims in MENA for safe transit of the cargo (cult) to the natives in Europe.
    
    In fact, honestly, I think that this is nothing but conspiracy theory hysteria which is being promoted by the likes of Dave Hodges, Steve Quayle, and their ilk. There isn’t one scintilla of proof that what you say is true. Muslim nations are showing interest in being part of the BRI. They see the benefits of beneficial trade with other nations along with the peace it would generate. This would not interfere with goods reaching Europe but would increase its scope.
    Please, never consider running for public office.
- subhuti37 on January 20, 2020 · at 6:55 am EST/EDT
  
  re Sanders not having had a paying job: From wikipedia.
  After graduating from college, Sanders returned to New York City, where he briefly had a variety of jobs, including Head Start teacher, psychiatric aide, and carpenter.[30] In 1968 he moved to Stannard, Vermont, a town small in both area and population (88 residents at the 1970 census) within Vermont’s extremely rural “Northeast Kingdom” region, because he had been “captivated by rural life”. While there he worked as a carpenter,[32] filmmaker, and writer[46] who created and sold “radical film strips” and other educational materials to schools.[47] He also wrote several articles for the alternative publication The Vermont Freeman.[48] He lived in the area for several years before moving to the more populous Chittenden County in the mid-1970s.
  
  Looks like he did have paying jobs but apparently public service was his passion. I’ve not donated to his campaign, nor voted for him because of other blemishes on his record, e.g. voting for military budgets, supporting the F-35, and supporting Hillary after the DNC stole his election. A Sanders presidency would have been a lot better than Trump, dontcha think?
  - frank reps on January 21, 2020 · at 6:24 am EST/EDT
    
    In a literal sense ; Sanders did ” indeed “have some jobs ; but Flopping around from one thing to the next .to pick up a few bucks ….is hardly the definition of a man having a ” paying job “. Trump’s grotesque biography should have warned me off from voting for him. I am sorry that I made the mistake in believing his promises. As far as Hillary in comparison to Trump. It now appears to have been a choice of ; which debilitating affliction we chose to suffer with.
    - Rick on January 22, 2020 · at 12:31 pm EST/EDT
      
      Please stop lying about Bernie Sanders. He is a social democrat in the best western sense and a spiritual man. People get drunk on their own rhetoric.
- Steve Pahs/Wolfhound on January 20, 2020 · at 3:36 pm EST/EDT
  
  “Mayor Of Indianapolis”….. Pete Buttigieg was mayor of South Bend ….. about a tenth the size of Indy. If you peel back a couple of layers you will find Jabba the Hut/George Soros behind Pete and his “husband”.
  I think you may find that Iran is STILL a wholly owned subsidiary of Langley (Clowns in America) operating out of Armenia. Soleimani, according to George Webb’s intel was the lead man for Iran in the “Nuclear Deal” with the likes of Kerry and Obama getting their palms greased also. The Swamp is deep and operates across all the “religious and ideological” lines. You are known by your enemies. Trump is attacked from ALL directions. He has taken the wheel of a speeding train coming out of the mountains with no brakes. I harbor no illusions and into my 8th decade of paying attention I know the difference between “countries” and “populations. We are not all “ignorant zombies”. Lies are truth out of context in our MSM world. Who controls MSM or what? The “what” probably goes back to at least Babylon and before. I travel Europe and Rome is everywhere I look..
  I can’t fathom “God”. I personally believe that we are a genetic manipulation of indigenous primates for a purpose of the manipulators. I’ve come a long way from being a “Roman Catholic”. The “Commandments” are a great tool for social order. Just keep your kids away from the guys in the robes.
  The deep state uses the ignorant (lack of knowledge) to control resources for their benefit.
  Knowledge is power. There is still hope if we become wise.
  - Barbara on January 28, 2020 · at 2:55 pm EST/EDT
    
    Steve Pahs – enjoyed your writing. agree wisdom is power…and the masses are kept numbed/dumbed by all sorts of means, as I am sure you are already aware. How did you like the movie, Matrix?
George Gellatly on January 19, 2020 · at 9:05 pm EST/EDT

As the Shia are to the Sunni in Islam so are the Orthodox Christians are to other Christians in Christendom.
The West demonizes both in equal measure.
Larchmonter445 on January 19, 2020 · at 9:24 pm EST/EDT

Western civilizational philosophy has degraded into psychological nihilism and ideological feudalism. It operates through governments, but it is a Cult. As a Cult, it requires fealty to the ideological dogmas.

The Cult is disconnected from Nature and offers no spiritual life. God is dead to this Cult. In the struggle between Light and Darkness, Darkness won. Satan rules. (though Light still exists, thus the Long War).

Thus, not only is Shi’ism anathema to the Cult of the West. The older religion, Orthodox Christianity, is abhorred, too, and obsessively attacked through its home, Russia.

Therefore, no understanding is attempted by the West. They see the enemy they know and intend to destroy it. Light and Darkness cannot exist together. The Eternal battle nears its end because the tide of thirty years of pitched warfare has met Resistance. Russia defeated it in Chechnya, and in nearly all of Syria. Russia has arranged geopolitical forces to confront the West’s Death Cult in the Middle East, North Africa, Central Africa, and Central Asia.

Meanwhile, Iran has constructed its Axis of Resistance, a Brotherhood of Shia Militias. Its military strategy is devised upon Shia religious beliefs (as Pepe describes in this exciting article).

Thus, the West is confronted with a pincer construct. Russia and Iran, Orthodox Christianity and Shi’ism. The Light, like a powerful laser weapon, armed to eradicate the Darkness.
- Craig Mouldey on January 20, 2020 · at 10:51 am EST/EDT
  
  What a great comment you have made here. I have of late been referring to Trump, Pompeo, and their gang as gangsters leading a gangster state, as this article also refers to them as gangsters. But your comment about them having become nihilistic is pointed. This indicates a degeneration even beyond being a gangster. And indeed western society fits the bill. They have long since thrown off all decent reason for being. God is dead or so they think. They can be their own gods, creating their own reality, or so they think. The entire western system of thought is corrupted from the start, even in their economics of neo-liberal capitalism. As the article rightly states, this leads to a system of oligarchs where the wealth and power go to the few at the expense of the many. It is an inhumane system.
  The darkness won? I don’t think I would ever concede to that. It looks like it has won in the west. There appears to the little possibility of reversing what has happened. But light is so different from darkness. In a totally dark room with no doors or windows, the darkness is blacker than black. But light one tiny match and the light penetrates the entire darkroom. Light one little candle and with that another candle can be lit. In doing this the original candle is not diminished in the least. It still has the same amount of light. The west has no light to give even if chubby boy Pompeo claims the U.S. is a force for good in the world. He then goes on to basically threaten that if anyone doubts that they will be getting a visit from them to smack them and prove their force of goodness. They have nothing to give. They must keep taking or they will disappear. They can never totally defeat and extinguish the light.
Larchmonter445 on January 19, 2020 · at 9:29 pm EST/EDT

Western civilizational philosophy has degraded into psychological nihilism and ideological feudalism. It operates through governments, but it is a Cult. As a Cult, it requires fealty to the ideological dogmas.

The Cult is disconnected from Nature and offers no spiritual life. God is dead to this Cult. In the struggle between Light and Darkness, Darkness won. Satan rules. (though Light still exists, thus the Long War).

Thus, not only is Shi’ism anathema to the Cult of the West. The older religion, Orthodox Christianity, is abhorred, too, and obsessively attacked through its home, Russia.

Therefore, no understanding is attempted by the West. They see the enemy they know and intend to destroy it. Light and Darkness cannot exist together. The Eternal battle nears its end because the tide of thirty years of pitched warfare has met Resistance. Russia defeated it in Chechnya, and in nearly all of Syria. Russia has arranged geopolitical forces to confront the West’s Death Cult in the Middle East, North Africa, Central Africa, and Central Asia.

Meanwhile, Iran has constructed its Axis of Resistance, a Brotherhood of Shia Militias. Its military strategy is devised upon Shia religious beliefs (as Pepe describes in this exciting article).

Thus, the West is confronted with a pincer construct. Russia and Iran, Orthodox Christianity and Shi’ism. The Light, like a powerful laser weapon, armed to eradicate the Darkness.
- Anonymous on January 19, 2020 · at 11:43 pm EST/EDT
  
  Beware of hasty comparisons.
Azorka1861 on January 19, 2020 · at 9:43 pm EST/EDT

“…. of course Wahhabism is so close to Zionism. There are even researchers who have come up with documents which seem to prove that the House of Saud is a Dunmeh tribe of converted Jews ….”

The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Kingdom in Arabia

By Glen W. Bowersock · Published 2011

In these turbulent times in the Middle East, I have found myself working on the rise and fall of a late
antique Jewish kingdom along the Red Sea in the Arabian peninsula. Friends and colleagues alike have
reacted with amazement and disbelief when I have told them about the history I have been looking at.

In the southwestern part of Arabia, known in antiquity as Himyar and corresponding today approximately
with Yemen, the local population converted to Judaism at some point in the late fourth century, and by
about 425 a Jewish kingdom had already taken shape.
https://www.ias.edu/ideas/2011/bowersock-jewish-arabia

Glen W. Bowersock biography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Bowersock
Hoyeru on January 19, 2020 · at 10:13 pm EST/EDT

Let’s get the facts fight: Suleimani was killed on orders from Bibi because Iran has been helping Hisbolla for years. In fact, Suleimani was returning from Lebanon when he was killed. We all know how it goes: Iran->Suleimani->Hisbolla.

Plus, Sulemani defeated Iraeli’s/West’s/USA’s fake enemy ISIS and that was “unacceptable” to BOTH Israel/Bibi/USA/West/NATO/Trump.

on the larger picture, the so called West has been controlling and exploiting most of the world for the last 500 years(due to the NEXUS OF POWER theory that has been developed by several people); that has given it enormous arrogance. It thinks it has the best system, and it is invincible. Witness the existential horror USA/West has shown when confronted by rising China. How dare they? Don’t they know we are the best and we are invincible????
Thankfully, THE NEXUS OF POWER theory tells us the next super power will be China, no matter what occurs, short of a nuclear war. The West/USA are terrified of the prospect of losing power, and lets admit it, they ARE smart. They know if they control the Middle East, they will control the spice that oils the world’s economy. The easiest way is to utilize the old Roman divide and rule; the Shia vs Sunni is a given.
Come on pepe, don’t give us some princesses and some Islam scholars NOBODY in the West knows. The truth is oh so simple. Scarch the surface and you will find a jew and a Rothschild underneath, eager to exploit. Occam’s razor you know.
- Miley on January 20, 2020 · at 9:35 am EST/EDT
  
  https://www.beltandroad.news/2019/11/30/israel-a-chinese-bridgehead/
  
  https://christiansfortruth.com/chinese-people-believe-jews-control-america-so-why-arent-they-accused-of-antisemitism/
  
  Before you get happy on this China thing, don’t forget the Israel NEO-CON is going to be the muscle for China, so they don’t get their hand’s dirty.
  
  China 100% has put the Jews in charge of containing, and corralling the Goy.
  
  Greater Israel call’s for 100% elimination of Muslims, and China can deal with that because their investments would otherwise be subject to sabotage.
  
  Trump’s job is to destroy the USA, and he’s on target; Once USA is rebuilt it will become New-Israel, with Trump family in charge.
- kjell108 on January 20, 2020 · at 12:24 pm EST/EDT
  
  -Let’s get the facts fight: Suleimani was killed on orders from Bibi because Iran has been helping Hisbolla for years. In fact, Suleimani was returning from Lebanon when he was killed. We all know how it goes: Iran->Suleimani->Hisbolla.
  
  Not a fact.
  But it is a fact half the people will jump to that conclusion, believing Israel (the poorest in European context) are “running the world”. Israelis are not even biblical Jews.
Ian Shears on January 19, 2020 · at 10:35 pm EST/EDT

Pepe,
The roots of the current extreme danger we face lies in their exposure by none other than Jeanie Anez of Bolivian infamy. This person introduces ‘light’ by calling on a Four Gospel attack on a decent man – Evo.
This is a religion perverted from the Creator’s evangel through the Apostles and Paul. If we accept a Three Evangel preaching i.e. minus the phoney creation of Cerinthus or the Gospel of John then we relieve ourselves of the Apocalype. No Rapture, no Day of the Lord, no Armageddon, etc.
Zionism collapses under new Re-interpretation of the Chronogy of the kind of Judah and Israel.
A fresh look at Daniel also is a killer blow to Zionism.
The day has arrived – Western people are called to ‘re-evaluate their exploitative manners to the justice of Daniel and Solomon. David a man who slaughtered the unjust sons of the giants – copped a false genocide accusation for his trouble.
Right thinking can prevail – no human on Earth need be subject to Pompeian thinking.
But as in everything this involves a humility and mercy combined with faith – bye bye reason.
Sumer has outdone us in the West and is the basis of Iranian justice concepts. Since Sumerians had a Creator-relationship of a more healthy kind it all comes together in a strong focus on the Long Future not the next Long War.
- Craig Mouldey on January 20, 2020 · at 1:52 pm EST/EDT
  
  I’m sorry to say, you have a problem. You are infected with the same western mindset I’ve been struggling to free myself from. The so-called ‘enlightenment, age of reason’ thinking has contributed to the cancer which has infected the soul of western civilization which has thrown off all restraint because they think that by declaring God dead they can be their own gods and create their own reality.
  > minus the phoney creation of Cerinthus or the Gospel of John then we relieve ourselves of the Apocalype. No Rapture, no Day of the Lord, no Armageddon, etc.
  It is the west which has been deeply corrupted by this philosophy, not the east. You would attack parts of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church by ripping away sections of their teachings? The western understanding, caused first by the corruption in the Latin church, and then spread to her daughters, the Protestants is quite different to that of the east.
  I must tell you, if you eliminate the Gospel of John, the Apocalypse etc it won’t change a thing. You will not be able to create your own reality without God in it.
  - gunther on January 20, 2020 · at 3:54 pm EST/EDT
    
    Craig, you put yor belief as absolute truth.
    Please provide irrefutable evidemce or drop the absolute tone.
    That angry and jealous guy of the old testament does not keep his promises according to official scripture. He stated that Adam and Eve would die if they ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Did they?
    In the new testament, John 14,12 Jesus says that his followers would do greater works then he did. Start by turning water into wine, walk over water (no stones permitted) or levitate to start with.
    Then talk again.
    This scripture is copies of copies of redacted books.
    Moreover, some stories are taken from older sources that are consideted literature and not sacred. Take the flood myth from the epic of gilgamesh and the stoy of noah for example.
    The same goes for stories of Jishnu Krishna who did similar things as Jesus.
    - Barrabbas Jones on January 20, 2020 · at 5:03 pm EST/EDT
      
      I agree. If I wanted a Bible suppository every time I came here I would have ordered one. I would go where others of like mind would go, church, the mall, the asylum, whatever. What’s that thing about better to shut yourself up in a closet to than make the big public show like the Pharissees and Clem Kaddidlehopper would do.
  - Ian Shears on January 20, 2020 · at 4:10 pm EST/EDT
    
    If Cerinthianism is dead then what is left is an unperverted evangel. This is my point. Pompeo’s view is based on Jeanie Anez’ view of including a perverted gospel into the canon and leaving out The Book of Enoch, etc.
    Pure truth does not lead to an exploitative way of life. Hence no Long War.
  - Anonymous on January 20, 2020 · at 6:44 pm EST/EDT
    
    He has many problems of the hardly curable kind.
laodan on January 19, 2020 · at 11:41 pm EST/EDT

There is an extreme urgency for a paradigm shift in the human narrative about life, about society, and the place of humanity in “the whole”. But I’m afraid that the wording of Pepe’s conclusion could irrevocably fracture the possibility of the different components of an axis of resistance to come together.

In summary :
The fact is that, if it is to have any chance to survive in the near future, humanity needs urgently to awaken to a new and higher state of political consciousness. Such a higher state of political consciousness is a process of rejecting the narrative of “the reality studio” while joining the Axis of Resistance by :
1. rejecting the absurdity of the relativity of truth
2. abandoning the absurd and nihilistic philosophy of humanism
3. awakening to the reality that there is a Creator, and that He is actually in charge.

To possibly be successful such an axis of resistance needs to coalesce three necessary civilizational components that are given by the triangle China, Russia, and Persia. In my view it is highly unrealistic to think that an axis of resistance could possibly do without China’s capital accumulation.

The situation is the following.
– The Chinese are never going to follow n#3 in Pepe’s wording.
– n#1 and 2 are philosophical matters that have historically divided the “Tri-Continent Area” and by extension Europe that later adopted a worldview from it.
– It is my contention that, to have a chance to be successful, the narrative of a new and higher state of political consciousness will, at the least, have to be philosophically acceptable to its 3 civilizational components of the axis of resistance.

This means at a minimum that :
1. the idea of “rejecting the absurdity of the relativity of truth” has to be founded in a commonly acceptable understanding of what truth is all about for the 3 components of the axis of resistance. All 3 components can agree that truth relates to the acceptance of the state of reality. The question that follows is then “what is reality ?”. I posit that for all religious systems, for all philosophical systems, reality at it highest level is “the whole” or “the one” or “our Universe”. Science relates to it as in the all encompassing ensemble of mathematical “set-theory”. Religions relate to it as god and philosophic systems relate to it as “the one” of “the whole”. All systems of thought agree that humanity is a minuscule component of U and as such the path of humanity is largely given. These truths are universal and going against them is an unwise and risky endeavor as we slowly discover in Late-Modernity.
2. humanism was a ploy, by the elite that owned Western High-Modernity, to eliminate a religious worldview that acted as an obstacle to the expansion of “the reason that is at work within capital” to all aspects of life. The roots of humanism, understood in this way, would I think offer a better chance to unify the 3 civilizational components. It is indeed “the expansion of the reason that is at work within capital to all aspects of life” that is the root of the madness of Late-Modernity.
3. the place of humanity in “the whole” is answered differently by the “worldviews” (religions or philosophies) of the 3 civilizational components of the axis of resistance. A common denominator, that leaves open the different interpretations by these 3 civilizational components, would do miracles in unifying them. Such a common denominator could be the recognition that humanity is a minuscule component of “the Whole” or “the One”and as such there is no other alternative for all particles than to submit to “the rule-book of the whole”.
- ? on January 20, 2020 · at 5:55 am EST/EDT
  
  Very thoughtful post here. Thank you!
  There is too much to expend and discuss here, for those who has left the ‘soda and candy’ fully catered and flavoured for the unrestrained booming mass mind programming of the west, I will just seek to ask one question here,
  
  – The Chinese are never going to follow n#3 in Pepe’s wording.
  
  So am I the awaken GOD or am I to awaken to be GOD or awaken to be like god (but never GOD)?
  
  If the part is part of and from The Whole – is the Part the Whole? And it was always just that despite the religious ‘complex’?
  Or The Part is different from The Whole as it was ‘cast out of the garden’? And now it is separated from being GOD and can only be like god in another separate concealed artificial closed system, namely, individual human experience and ego? There is never gonna be full redemption full restoration full RETURN? Can’t unbreak a rotten egg, if you will!
  
  Which god-level do you think the chinese has attained? And The West?
- Anonymous on January 20, 2020 · at 6:23 am EST/EDT
  
  We’ll be forever beating around the bush if we don’t acknowledge that only Christ is the “Truth, the Way and the Life”. “No man cometh unto the Father, but by Him”. “He that is not with Him is against Him; and he that gathereth not with Him scattereth abroad”.
  - Anonymous on January 20, 2020 · at 8:23 am EST/EDT
    
    The church acknowledges there is no historical records of JC ever. If any who would want to find out more, will need to go beyond their fav bible verse. At least, learn to read the root words in the bible and learn proper exegesis. No christian archaeologist has ever found any ‘evidence’ either. But we have the case of Gregorian calendar, Pope Gregory XIII, who may have started the year from one thousand, which means we are at 1020 year, not 2020 year. Some points to learn more if you are seriously after the truth, the way and the life, and not be led further way in the opposite dierection. Just a suggestion.
    - Anonymous on January 20, 2020 · at 7:15 pm EST/EDT
      
      Have you caught the Fomeko’s virus?
      - Anonymous on January 21, 2020 · at 5:23 am EST/EDT
        
        Thats your personal respond/attack? If you disagree, and can show otherwise, just reply to the post and the contended issue. Are you are a JC loving christian btw? Go ask your church about the issue and verify it yourself. Some of us who really want to examine the truth, the way and the life, actually study a good several years in a theological university to seek TRUTH, not bank on some fav bible verse, and found they are less than honest. You should consider that if you love JC, if that is your virus reply coming from. After all, according to the christian doctrine, your soul is at stake here. If you believe that and if you believe them. Another suggestion.
      - amarynth on January 21, 2020 · at 5:54 am EST/EDT
        
        Story goes that one does not understand Fomenko unless you’ve studied his work for around 10 years or so. I’m into it now about 6 years, slowly, as time is short. It is worth it if only for the questions that beg for answers. It is worth it if only for the different methodology that flies in the face of Scaligerian chronology. It is high time that this ‘cast in stone’ chronology is challenged. Admittedly it is not comfortable work for the Church and I won’t recommend it to anyone that cannot see the wood for the trees and cannot keep to a researcher’s mindset. One does not have to believe every jot and tittle and there are vast swaths that I question, but to diss this work without having experience of it displays another kind of virus.
        
        Anonymous on January 23, 2020 · at 12:56 am EST/EDT
        
        Fomenko is a conman. More worrying is the mental status of the large swathe of brainless pseudo-nationalist and ‘eurasianist’ anti-‘Khazar’ (and anti-Church) Russians who bought into the hoax (over one million of copies of his books, lots of money from the idiots, but who payed for printing such an endless stream of garbage in the first place? – the fact that Gary Kasparov was one of the most active popularizers of the hoax is an indication) making fools of themselves.
    - Anonymous on January 21, 2020 · at 5:43 am EST/EDT
      
      Quick Addition by Anonymous on January 21, 2020 · at 5:23 am EST/EDT
      To All –
      There may not be ANY historical records of JC (to date as far as I know) but the mytical CHRIST or the spirit of CHRIST is well alive and much to learn from. In some ways, one needs to really explore the different sects of christianity, of which only orthodox, appears to me, the only real thing if there be one… but I am not expert on that. I think within the orthodox has many different kinds again. Obviously, some has also commented below, Islam is also closely related, and perhaps even the Jewish, back in the early days anyway, but something went wrong and the current version is ‘less than honest’. There is much to study and to learn and to choose wisely, the mind of god, dear all. Peace.
- Rastus O'Rourke on January 20, 2020 · at 5:10 pm EST/EDT
  
  Much like Dr. Kings 1967 Vietnam speech. The speech that finally got him on the MSM front page the following year.
Dr.NG Maroudas on January 20, 2020 · at 1:31 am EST/EDT

Pepe’s Prof. Marandi: “The American irrational hatred of Shi’ism stems from its strong sense of resisting injustice – the story of Karbala and Imam Hussein and the Shi’a stress on protecting the oppressed, defending the oppressed and standing up against the oppressor. That is something that the United States and the hegemonic Western powers simply cannot tolerate.”

It is all a matter of believing the fine words. I am sure there are many righteous U$ Christians who “defend the oppressed and stand up against the oppressor” — but no U$ Leaders (the last was FDR, in my opinion). On the other hand, it was precisely by reading the Syrian Foreign Minister’s explanation of Islam (published in the Independent some years ago) and comparing it with the actual deeds of Dr.Assad and his government, that I developed a sympathetic view of that religion. The same arose from comparing the words and deeds of Lebanese Rev.Nasr’Allah and the Iranian govt. Same holds for Pres.Putin and the Russian govt.

Not by their words but by their deeds shall ye know them. “By its fruits shall ye know the tree”. — New Testament.
luca on January 20, 2020 · at 2:43 am EST/EDT

“There are even researchers who have come up with documents which seem to prove that the House of Saud is a Dunmeh tribe of converted Jews expelled from Medina by the Prophet after they tried to murder him despite having signed a peace treaty.”

Should we call this WahhaBibi sm ?
Biloximarxkelly on January 20, 2020 · at 3:00 am EST/EDT

“There is a thinking stuff that permeates, penetrates and fills the spaces of the universe”. Dogberry, contemporary of Mark Twain and they were friends. Lao Tzu wrote the Tao Te Ching, “Manuscript for transforming the barbarians”. There was the great one who said the moving hand writes … nothing can erase the writing, he was from Iran and completely freed himself from all/any ideologies that were superstitious. All religions are decided to be a form of belief and the reality is Tao. That which cannot be in the realm of limited human thought. As long as we have “wind” (breath) we are having a human experience. The breath ceases and the mystery is a mystery. To be in a world where our own species mass murders our own species is truly an inexplicable insanity. Thanks Saker for your most highly intelligent blog.
S-400 on January 20, 2020 · at 4:59 am EST/EDT

The West, for all intent and purpose are now all post-Christian societies.

Throughout the West God is dead!

They have now arrogantly “progressed” to the point where the belief in God is routinely scoffed at and those who still lift up his name are regarded as backward.

The new religion that has taken root is materialism and the new church is the Mall.

Americans religiously flock to the Mall to buy tons of stuff that they dont need, with money that they dont have(credit cards), day in day out, in an endless quest for satisfaction that they will never find.

And if that is not bad enough, they in turn try to impose their toxic neo-liberal economics and social degeneracy – which promotes all things deviant – onto others.

When countries like Iran take a moral stance and push back, the Anglo-Zionists lash out and try to convert or destroy them.

Iran’s real problem with the US/ West however, stems from its support of the Palestinians and its general defiance of Israel.

If Israel should today order its vassals – the US, Uk, France, Germany etc. – to stand down vis-a-vis Iran, they would have no choice but to dutifully comply.
But as things stand now, Iran is the main obstacle to Israel’s plan for expansion and domination of the region, and as such, those who occupy positions of power in Washington and elsewhere, where powerful Zionists pull the strings, have to confron Iran on Israel’s behalf on the pain of death.

Jeffrey Epstein, working for Israel’s Mossad, spent his lifetime gathering dirt on the powerful and potentially powerful for a reason, and that reason is to ensure that they act in Zion’s interest at all times.

Shia Iran is strong because of its independence and strong moral underpinnings, and because of this, it will outlast the US, which long ago lost its independence and is now a vassal state and a pawn in the hands of Zionists.

Selah
- Ahson on January 20, 2020 · at 8:51 am EST/EDT
  
  Well put S-400…….what you say is indeed true. I was just going to mention that we know all these things as to why the West hates Iran…….the more important issue here is that where is all this leading to. What is Iran going to do next to confront this vicious onslaught from the Zionists. Sounds like the NPT is history with Zarif announcing that if the Iran dossier is referred to the security council, then Iran will in fact exit the NPT. Full steam ahead then toward developing a credible ICBM capability and a breakout/ weaponizing of its nuclear program. I honestly don’t fore see anything else. This is inevitable. What Iran does regionally next is the million dollar question. Totally worth a discussion.
- Blue Dotterel on January 20, 2020 · at 12:41 pm EST/EDT
  
  You do realize that Pompeo and Pence and most of Trump’s base are Christian fundamentalists who believe in God. You are not talking about humanists and relativists who are targeting Iran. Many of these people are card carrying monotheists, both Christian and Jew. Not to mention their Wahhabi friends.
  
  My version of secularism is about tolerance of others beliefs within reason. This is something that traditional religions do not contain in their philosophies. Traditionally, religions look at the other as being inferior to us, with us or against us. Tolerance is rare and limited.
  
  One reason it is hard to take this Western God/Allah/Yehovah theology seriously is that they cannot really accept diversity. They are exactly like the globalists who believe one size should fit all, or at least be dominated by one set of rules through a quasi fascist Big Brother (that is God). This God is hidden behind the curtain manipulated by its real human and institutional creators and masters. Of course, with a veneer of democracy.
- Ian Shears on January 21, 2020 · at 5:20 am EST/EDT
  
  Altogether to negative a view. What I was espousing above in relation to Pepe’s thesis is that whether we source our beliefs directly from ancient Sumer or indirectly through the dirty trickery in Book of (so-called) John we are still missing the mark of the original evangel which is the mystery that we are all one in God’s sight – He is not partial. This understanding after a few thousand years, a few thousand Kant, Nietchkes is NOW opening up. Don’t you small bunch of people realize that not one of us is ultimately above or below the other?
  A historic door is opening. Why don’t you bunch of rascals change? And jump on board.
  Sorry for that.
  Regards.
  - Alabama on January 21, 2020 · at 5:18 pm EST/EDT
    
    @Don’t you small bunch of people realize that not one of us is ultimately above or below the other?
    
    This can easily be proved wrong but I wont go into details. It parallels the democratic belief that “no one is above the law”
    
    But since the law is currently on trial, something must be “above” in order that the trial take place. What the sayers of term lack is two simple words, “no one is above the laws of nature”, many people can be above defective human law, which gets us back to the original statement, people who can better litigate these laws of nature are ultimately above the ones who can not, sending them to the below category of bunches of peoples. No disrespect naturally, just building a case.
subhuti37 on January 20, 2020 · at 7:31 am EST/EDT

It’s very obvious to me that the human mind works according to as different operating systems as Linux Windows to Apple. And a whole lot more. But the core difference as I see it, is that of those who are absolutely convinced of a First Cause and a Self Existent Entity.

And those who see Existence as an interplay of infinite causes and conditions with no First Cause and No Self Existent Entity.

The people in this essay seem to fall into the category of the first group. They think that there is an Arbiter and Source.

However, in the case of the second group, which arose in India and China and cross fertilized throughout Eastern Asia primarily, morality certainly plays a part as much as it does in the first group. Those in the first group think that Existence holds together because of the key elements in that paradigm. Those in the second group think things are just as they are, and ever changing.

Both work, which should be obvious, since both have existed as Mind operating systems for millenia. A problem arises in the fundamental difference in world view.

What is unrecognized is that Relative Truth And Absolute Truth exist separately and interpenetrate simultaneously. Failure to see the totality leads to misunderstandings. Nevertheless, Shia Iran or even Saudi Arabia are perfectly willing to sell their oil to those Chinese ‘heathens/atheists’. And China is perfectly willing to give them money and do business.

Question: Are you an entity with a name and history? Or an agglomeration of cells, who have no name? Or a clump of atoms? Or a mere wave pattern? Depending on your physics/biological point of view, it’s easy to belief one or another. Or do all these exist simultaneously, and if separated, don’t exist?

China is happily willing to do business with theistic oriented societies. Communist/Atheist China has accomplished the unimaginable, pulling hundreds of millions out of poverty, and going from basket case to world leader.

Point being, it doesn’t really matter what operating system one has or what a society or country has, religious, ideological, political, philosophical. And yet, and yet ….something matters as to whether a society succeeds or fails. I’d suggest that it is social solidarity itself, whatever its basis, not dependent on a specific belief system.

The West is falling apart, because its tactic of fragmenting countries and peoples has come back on itself. Which is also reflected in both systems:
Cause and Effect, As you sow so you reap.
Or that all that one does to others eventually one does to oneself, since there is no inside/outside.
Thomas La Porte on January 20, 2020 · at 9:09 am EST/EDT

The fundamental principles of relativity physics and quantum mechanics are demonstrably sound and cannot be swept away by dogmatic theology. The relationship that they demonstrate between reality and consciousness has been beautifully summarized by Keiji Nishitani (1983 p 108): ‘Even to say of something merely that it lies outside of subjectivity is still an act of subjectivity. An object is nothing other than something that has been represented as an object, and even the very idea of something independent of representation can only come about as a representation. This is the paradox essential to representation (and hence to the “object” as well), an aporia inherent in the field of consciousness itself.’ The principle of relativity refutes the notion of objectivity as substantive. The problem with much of ‘postmodernism’ is the fallacy that this relativity factor eliminates objectivity and reduces everything to subjectivity. The solution is to understand objectivity as an unfolding continuum (hence not reducible to the merely subjective).
peter mcloughlin on January 20, 2020 · at 10:01 am EST/EDT

Pepe Escobar is prophetic, predicting “the New Great Game in Eurasia, which pits the US against Russia, China and Iran.” His warning to be “ready for the battle of the ages” is in sync with the pattern of history.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Tim B. on January 20, 2020 · at 10:38 am EST/EDT

A Iraqi Military Defense document translated by the American DIA supports the idea that the Wahhabis originate from Turkish Jews (Dönmeh).
Quote: ” Muhammad Bin ‘Abd-al-Wahab is a descent of a family from the Jews of Al-Dunamah in Turkey. Al-Dunmah refers to the Jews who declared their embracement of Islam in an effort to insult Islam and to escape the pursuit by the Ottoman sultans. Subsequently; Tawran confims that Sulayman; the grandfather of the sheikh, is (Shulman); he is Jew from the merchants of the city of Burstah in Turkey…”
https://fas.org/irp/eprint/iraqi/wahhabi.pdf
Let’s also remember that the Dönmeh, with the help from Italian/French Freemasonry, created the Young Turks, actors of the destruction of the Ottoman Caliphate, that allowed Palestine to come under Judeo-British control. The Dönmeh are crypto-Jews, who converted to Islam when their (fake) Messiah, Sabbatai Zevi, converted to Islam under the threat of death by the Sultan Mehmed IV. Atatürk is said to have been one of them. True or not, Turkey is today still under their rule and Erdogan, Freemason (Muslim Brotherhood), is also said to be a crypto-Jew. This would explain why he has always a foot in both camps. When studying the Sabbatean doctrine and that of his “re-incarnation”, 100 years later in Poland, as Jakob Frank, who converted to the Christian religion, it becomes clear why Islam and the Vatican have both fallen under Jewish domination through Freemasonry. Furthermore, neocon concepts like “constructive chaos” or the absolute debasement of our Western civilization by cultural Marxism can be derived from Sabbatean/Frankist doctrinal concepts.
- Barry on January 20, 2020 · at 4:27 pm EST/EDT
  
  @ Tim B. Yes!! Good work! To understand the world, one has to understand the secret Sabbatean/Frankist influence on the world with it’s subversion of secret societies > religions, governments, and rule by debt to central banks. Sabbatian/Frankism is psychopathic (without empathy) and is the hidden influence of Satanism at the core of Nazism, Zionism, Wahhabism, and the deep inner core of most secret societies that seem harmless and acceptable on the surface and newer members. Adam Weishaupt’s “Illuminati” was Frankist in nature and joined forces with Amschel Rothschild’s central banking family with the intention to infiltrate and subvert the many secret organizations at the time, such as The Nights Templar, The Masons, then the Freemasons, the Opus Dei, The Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and many more secret organizations which were infiltrated long ago and influence the world today. MIke Pompeo’s “We (The CIA) lied, killed, and stole” is right out of the Sabbatean’Frankist Satanic playbook. Doing bad is good, doing good is bad. An inversion of ethics or true spiritual principals. Few have a clue!
  As an aside, I have a Polish immigrant friend, who with recent DNA testing was surprised to learn that she is distantly related to Jakob Frank. Subsequently she read his biography and has come to see the world as run largely with satanic Sabbatean/Frankist influence. It’s also true that the vast majority of Jews around the world have no clue that the Zionists at the top of the Zionist power structure hide behind “Judaism”, but hate “Jews” as much as they hate everyone else. From my viewpoint and understanding, I can “see” the ZOG Imperialist empire as Satanic, as are the millions of clueless Christian Zionists in the U.S. who want and pray for Armageddon. .
Per/Norway on January 20, 2020 · at 11:22 am EST/EDT

if you have a twitter account i suggest sending this video to pompeus and trumps twitter accounts..

Ask if they believe these people fear them and death.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-DyxDi8I9k
Aşura Tehran 2019 / Mahmud Karimi / Day Of Ashura / Ya Hussain
John4Truth on January 20, 2020 · at 12:05 pm EST/EDT

There is little doubt that the british crown has been designing the Middle East as a personal property. Relating to Saudi-Arabia they created it from a wahab sect of questionable authenticity probably a crypto jewish long groomed alliance for undermining the Ottoman empire for the british crown. So Saudi Arabia was created as well a sovereign country for a specific family of claimed royalty. How obvious is that construction. The country of Hejaz was designated according to the treaties of that period to gain independance, but was further exploited to estgablish a royal family in Jordan under the british crown Mandate of Palestine, and a royal family in Syria under the french Mandate that did not succeed, and was reinstalled as the ruler in Iraq under the british crown Mandate of Mesopotamia. Kingdom of Hejaz disappeared. Saudi Arabia is totally the construction of the british crown.
The history that brought these changes are quite deversive but it had to start with the removal of the Ottoman empire and continue with the misconception that the british had to establish a pro forma governance and the mandates were born with the League of Nations , the international law body they created. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nations
Now the Middle East came under the corrupt rule of false royal lines in diverse countries, they tried to take Iran as well but failed.
So what else than a british asset could Saud be ?
I noted that wikipedia use the same tactic as “the protocols of the elders of Zion” to claim they never existed or were fabrications by the russian inteligence community (of the Tsar). A book has been written who claim the same as the confessions of a british spy, so obviously it is a story only and must be a falsification. There exist an iraqi intelligence report that confirm the confessions of a british spy, so Saddam Hussein’s Iraq do not exist any longer just as tsar Russia does not exist any more. They were both destroyed and killed. When the Illuminati were uncovered by the Bavarian police they warned all Europe about their activities but they were also not believed. Their activities are also close to that of the zionists which protocol were a condensation from inteligence reports that did not transcript zionist meetings in Switzerland , but rather emphasized their extreme statements over time. Someone according to the official falsification statement from Wikipedia, has written a novel that reflect the transcript of the russian intelligence report, so therefore the protocols must be a falsification! The Tsar and his whole family are killed and the world is governed by zionists, actually that represent the facts, so the protocols are actually true as supported by evidence. Russia was subject to a coup d’etat and according to history it was developed by the zionists both in Britain and in America. A ship from New York laden with gold for the Bolshevik revolution storming of the palace while the military were away as an ally of Britain, Trotsky and other zionists named Christianiafjord was for a time detained by canadian authorities, proof of existence and the creation of a mercenary army within Russia. The Soviet Union was later run by zionists were they created another Middle East for exploitation all controlled by the state according to their associate philosphy of Karl Marx a correspondent fo rthe New York Post who wrote the damned thing of Capital in order to fulfil the robbery of Russia. All the tsar assets in Europe and America were also exploited already within the Rothschild banking and finance syndicate.
So the robber barons of the british crown are behind the situation in the Middle East now again attacking Iran.
IS and al Qaeda has been their recent armies as also evident from the ground and they are also from wahabi background and supported by the Saudi’s have been protected by NATO and USA.
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13981029000438
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13981029000641
So the british crown through falsehood established through puppet royals and other arrangements corrupt state leaders and dictatorships over the Middle East 100 years of exclusive rights to resources, their mining or drilling, their transport and other communication as well as trade effectively taking all the resources of the region. The same took place in Russia.
The story of House of Saudi jew or not do not matter they are zionist puppets, zionism being a political organisation for the governance of Palestine a parallell operation that took place. They are all connected to the Rothschild syndicate who wrote the letter to Lord Balfour a former associate of Lord Rothschild as the Secretary of the Treasury that ended in the Balfour decaration. So yes , also the british crown controlled the Parliaement and the british royals are in fact not in the loop of anything, the british crown is in fact the financial City of London controlled by the Rothschilds their total takeover was the acquistion of the Bank of England from King George in 1815. So they control the british treasury which is part of the parliament and they have also the various organisations running the politicians that were planned and institutionalised and expanded by the Round Table of the Rothschild Syndicate.
So it is hard to distrust reports from an old british spy in Istanbul and Basra Iraw who developed Wahab for the purpose of future governance that emerged as Saudi Arabia a corrupt undertaking by any international right and which violated interantional treaty regarding Hejaz at the time and was a corrupt installment by the british crown.
Saudi Arabia has now been elevated to UN head of HRC (human right commision) indicating the present hostilities in the Middle East, poicies in support of terrorism not human rights.
https://www.notablebiographies.com/supp/Supplement-A-Bu-and-Obituaries/Ibn-Abd-al-Wahhab-Muhammad.html
https://archive.org/stream/SaudiHornsOfSatan/THE%20DOCUMENTED%20JEWISH%20ROOTS%20OF%20SAUDI%20ROYAL%20FAMILY%20_%20Concise%20Politics_djvu.txt
http://themillenniumreport.com/2015/12/the-house-of-saud-its-jewish-origin-and-installation-by-the-british-crown/
https://stillnessinthestorm.com/2018/10/the-house-of-saud-and-deep-state-its-jewish-sabbatean-origin-and-installation-by-the-british-crown/
http://themillenniumreport.com/2015/12/the-jewish-roots-of-the-house-of-saud-family-tree/
So there are some links to the story of the House of Saudi and how they interface with that of the british crown now operated from the deep state of Washington DC mostly but orders still come from the city of London. The Saudi installment fit in with the rest of the crowns arrangements in the Middle East much of which has failed at this time, and therefore the Saudi led wars in the region on behalf of the Rothschild syndicate. It must be noted that the building of the syndicate was accomplished by control of the money of the rulers and of the later socalled democracies. It is pretty much in a totalitarian state at this time controlling international bodies like UN and EU.
Rubicon on January 20, 2020 · at 2:17 pm EST/EDT

Some comments here have gone far a’field in what Escobar is trying to tell us.

There are definite similarities between Iran’s religious beliefs and early Christian scholars. Moreover, even modern scholars who study the world’s top religions observe how they all believe in the same spiritual dimensions.

The early Western spirituals beliefs were slowly disbanded to gain power and wealth now in full force across most of the Western World.

It’s only natural that Iranian spiritual beliefs can not be understood by the former colonial, industrial and now corporate Western mentalities.
Philia on January 20, 2020 · at 3:29 pm EST/EDT

God is not dead in the west. A lot of us have woken up to see this great and on-going war against humanity. It is deeply disturbing to wake up to such a mess. You may not know much about us, because the “official reality” won’t let on. We carry a banner of love for humanity in our hearts and in our minds and we desire only what’s in the best interests and highest good for all of humanity and for all creation. We know that we are rising up but it is happening individually and then we look around to see, who else? We are building our courage and we are becoming wise, and this is accelerating. We are learning how to bring the best of what this materialistic age has to offer, and infuse it with the wisdom, love, courage and fearlessness of spirit. We all need to be reminded that we are not alone and that we are being supported by a great spirit that knows the great love, and the infinite opportunity available to everyone to live in it. Can you imagine a world that is always unfolding in beautiful and magnificent ways, one in which we are not just surviving and looking over our shoulders for who is wanting to do us harm? Do not believe we are some homogeneous mass of zombies in the west. It is just not true. It is more true that there exists strata of people throughout the world that are in various stages of waking up to their true spiritual natures, and that this is accelerating. Thank-you for taking a stand for what is right and what is morally in keeping with humanity’s highest good.
- Barry on January 20, 2020 · at 5:04 pm EST/EDT
  
  # Philia I don’t know any of the “we” you speak of who are aware or becoming aware, waving “the flag of love for all humanity”. Here in mid America, banks and churches seem to be on every street corner. The people stream out of Churches after Sunday services, pile into restaurants, leave huge messes, don’t tip waitresses paid a very low minimum wage, leave as they smile and say “Jesus loves you!”. These same people on a Wednesday morning sipping coffee at a coffee shop want to “bomb all the ‘ragheads’ and let God sort it out” though they usually smile, hold doors open and are very polite. If there is any “love” extended beyond the U.S. borders, it is for Israel.
  The Democrats I know believe Putin influences local county elections (I’m serious) and Russia should be stopped before it invades the United States. I’ve given up on trying to influence anyone, Democrats or Republicans. They are both war hawks though the Democrats sound more “loving”. They’ve been listening to lies for all their lives and the believes are rigid. I wish what you said is true, but I think it’s pretty far fetched. I think most Christian churches are very insular, loving only their own religious denomination and suspect of all others.
  
  The best to you!
- Alabama on January 20, 2020 · at 5:12 pm EST/EDT
  
  The gods may not be completely dead but they are no match for satan, who can just about equal the ways and means of the gods in an attempt to stay relevant and not see the human race complete it’s final task. For if it does, satan dies and must be reborn in a far away galaxy at best.
- Snow Leopard on January 20, 2020 · at 6:33 pm EST/EDT
  
  Philia; Excellent comment. I deem your post to be profoundly true and objective about the redemptive spirit rising inside the American nation. Just because that spirit is diffuse and below the radar of obvious visibility in no way nullifies it. The living God you speak of has infinite capacity for moving as a serpent in the night, as I believe you are aware. It is my discernment that at a refined level the positive contents of what Americans call “the New Age Movement” has a cultural lock on the intuitive allegiance of a great number of Americans. This bodes well for the future.
gunther on January 20, 2020 · at 3:37 pm EST/EDT

Cold it be that the powes that be have a hard time infiltrating the Iranian state?
I am not aware that the usual secret societies are compatible with Shiite Islam.
Freemasons, knights of malta, jesuits, the international bankers of a certain affiliation and whatelse may be around may not have a foot inside Iran. So they have to fight from the outside and to start they demonize Iran.
- Alabama on January 20, 2020 · at 5:08 pm EST/EDT
  
  Iran imposes harsh penalties for spying or attempting to enter Iran from any border, regardless of stated intent. And many don’t make it out, and the few who do are not the same person as when they entered. I dont know what these people are/were thinking, but most likely they wern’t, they were fooled by someone who hoped they would succeed and then relay information to be used at a later date.
- Barry in rural Missouri, USA on January 20, 2020 · at 6:02 pm EST/EDT
  
  @ Gunther
  Secret societies aren’t compatible so they hide in secrecy. They hide deep within organizations. It often only takes a few members to subvert things.
  
  AIPAC (The American Israel Political Action Committee) is not even secret. It’s very out in the open. But it works out in the open, but secretly against American interests if it benefits Israel to do so.
  
  Many on this blog consider the U.S. government a ZOG (Zionist Occupied Government). I agree. The House and Senate membership contains many with dual citizenships with Israel. It’s impossible to receive political donations from about 200 Jewish organizations feeding into AIPAC without signing an allegience to support Israel before any other consideration. I’ve also read that AIPAC also approves or disapproves who is hired as Senatorial or Congressional staff. AIPAC influences college admissions and destroys the careers of academics that criticize Israel. I could go on but the point I am making is that few Americans can recognize that even an organization as obvious as AIPAC can and is doing harm to the United States and it’s citizens.
  Apparently Freemasons are all over the world in governments and organizations everywhere. The Freemasons have 33 levels, few members get higher than the first three (Blue) levels. At those levels they are led to believe they are doing God’s (by whatever name) work. As they progress higher, their “works” become more and more malevolent. At the 33rd and even higher secret levels, they realize that the “God” they are now serving is Lucifer/The Light Bringer/ Baal/ Moloch/ and Basphemet.
  A Masonic finger ring means nothing, nor does membership to The Council on Foreign Relations as anyone can become a member by simply subscribing to their “Foreign Affairs” magazine as I once did. BUT, the dirty work is done at the highest levels deep in the core, where the secret doings are planned and executed. Stretch your imagination to think that the British M-16, The U.S. CIA, and the Israeli Mossad might be connected at their inner core by high degree Freemasons that have their own secret agenda. Here’s an interesting clue. M-16 was set up to support the Bank of England, The OSS>CIA was set up to support Wall Street Banks. Both are connected to Rothschild Zionism (think Mossad). The chaos in the world becomes more understandable when you understand and begin to recognize secret alliances doing secret things.
  I forget which of the more recent Popes was murdered (poisoned) by his physician the day after the Pope announced he would rid the Vatican of the Freemasons. The Official Vatican Excorcist, Malicai Martin, wrote several books about the subversion of the Vatican and the Catholic Church by Freemasons and the Opus Dei. He was murdered soon after his last book was published.
  Nothing is as it seems. Much is done in secret. We are fed propaganda.
  - Anonymous on January 21, 2020 · at 2:23 am EST/EDT
    
    There is always some trouble when you talk about things you can’t remember. The name of the ‘exorcist’ was Malachi Brendan Martin (Irish: Maolsheachlainn Breandán Ó Máirtín).
- Tim B. on January 21, 2020 · at 3:09 am EST/EDT
  
  @gunther
  Iran was infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood during its revolution:
  https://b-ok.org/book/996284/33b16c/?_ir=1
  The Muslim Brotherhood is a creation of Judeo-British Freemasonry and it’s ideology is that of a globalist Islam comprising all branches of Islam. This explains why Iran, during the Bosnian war, has sent troops to fight alongside Saudi Wahhabis and why Iran supports the Hamas, called “Sunni” by the MS media, but, in fact, a creation of the Muslim Brotherhood to divide and control the Palestinian resistance. The MB has its headquarters in Geneva and London and it is the type of conquering Islam that finds support in all European governments. Islam, as a whole, is manipulated by the Jewish power in order to bring about the “prophecy” made by Bernard Lewis: the Clash of Civilizations.
Pavel on January 20, 2020 · at 5:11 pm EST/EDT

In short: the planet Earth is large from the point of view of one small person, but small from the perspective of all people. Its resources are not enough for all people to live in as wasteful prosperity as those in the West. Therefore, there is a struggle of power, and the stronger the more people live on Earth. That is why we are now experiencing such strong moments as the wars since 2000. It is not about justice or faith, it is too little room for too many people. Certainly, modesty and thoughtfulness could improve the situation of many very poor people, but Western British and American society is built on ferocity and individualism. This unholy materialism is the cause of a situation in which war often prevails over cooperation between different nations. The ultimate stage of selfishness is war for personal gain.
JoAnne on January 20, 2020 · at 6:15 pm EST/EDT

To make it more comprehensible to those concerned, how about using the research of quantum physics, neurobiology and human ecology?
1. All/Everything/Reality is SACRED as it is the mysterious, miraculous interaction of Energy in the Universe.*
2.Human consciousness is relatively capable of processing information regarding Reality/Universal Energy.
3. Earth’s biosphere has evolved animals that are both predatory and symbiotic for survival in diverse ecosystems.
4.Developing a paradigm of “reverent interdependence” would encourage acknowledgement of Sacred Reality, the honoring and caring co-creativity required for biospheric health, including the wise, holistic choice of SYMBIOTIC BEHAVIOR over the institutionalized predation enforced by cognitively impaired, dominating, violent, materialistic manipulators of ideas and commerce?
We really must get beyond the academic dichotomy of sacred vs secular. Practically speaking, human life is either co-creative, non-violent and ETHICAL (healthy/happy)…or destructive, violent/competitive and unethical (pathological/fearful).
*there are many worldwide working toward a syncretization of science and spirituality.
jef on January 20, 2020 · at 7:59 pm EST/EDT

The “creator” is Nature. Anyone who has even an inkling of an understand of how our biosphere, all life on earth, works, and how it has ebbed and flowed over the millions of years understands this. Pepe and his mates, and Islam are more correct than most but still run the risk of getting all “convoluted and discombobulated” through the hubris of man made religious dogma that discounts or even dismisses nature and the natural world as the ultimate reality.

I know many will dismiss these thoughts as one of those earth firsters but can anyone give a robust argument that Earth wasn’t first? The ultimate threat of all religions is the wrath of said god. Well to use a very simplistic cliche, You Can’t Fool Mother Nature, and there several million people around the world feeling her wrath real time.
- 2-cents worth... on January 21, 2020 · at 3:55 am EST/EDT
  
  Re: “…risk of getting all “convoluted and discombobulated” …”
  
  Indeed, I have started and then deleted a couple of draft responses to Pepe’s post due mainly to this muddling of themes and scales. This one I decided to post and see what happens next.
  
  Re: “… can anyone give a robust argument that Earth wasn’t first? ”
  
  The problem with this approach you are promoting here is that it challenges the root assumptions of the other side of the debate without also questioning the same on your preferred side.
  
  —
  
  As Rupert Sheldrake (The Science Delusion: Freeing the Spirit of Enquiry, 2012) points out: “It’s almost as if science said, “Give me one free miracle, and from there the entire thing will proceed with a seamless, causal explanation.” The one free miracle was the sudden appearance of all the matter and energy in the universe, with all the laws that govern it.”
  
  Gregory Bateson (Steps to an Ecology of Mind, 1972) considered the Western Worldview suffered from a fundamental Cartesian error in logical typing. Bateson considered Cartesian dualism within modern philosophical and scientific thought as limiting — and often a source of fundamental error and hubris.
  
  In his view, enfolded hierarchical levels of qualitative recursion, based on logical-type categories, better
  described the necessary patterns of distinctions that made an effective difference within ecologically orientated epistemologies. In his view, Cartesian body–mind distinctions contained epistemological errors that support ways of thinking and language which subsequently inhibit both development of deeper understanding and
  comprehension of a living dynamic reality within the realm of creatura—a term borrowed from Carl Jung to describe the living world in which both information processes and matter energy processes are relevant.
  
  I would think that Pepe E. has his critical eye on that phrase referring to the linkages between ways of thinking and the language applied. There is a classic and very subtle double bind involved in the self re-enforcing processes between the language, culture and root metaphors/myths.
  
  And on this basis, trying to discuss something like this post from Pepe, that includes the views of Arash Najaf-Zadeh (aka Blake Archer Williams), is problematic without a careful and detailed expose on the terms and meanings selected for discourse. That is simply too much for this type of environment. So, we are left with science and its methodical approach to the mechanics of nature on one side; and the topic of genesis that Sheldrake alludes too. Science still has no answer to what and where of ‘life’.. And never will, imo. The question is simply beyond its ambit. And those who fail to see this end up turning it into a religion (usually of denial).
  
  Bateson’s position is closer to an ‘answer’ — not as a ‘The Answer’ but rather as a way of framing the situation such that language and thinking are better aligned with the very Nature that we are part of and at the same time study ‘objectively’ as if we were not. The scientific method (as that is what it is in its nature) has its place, and its limits. Knowing this, cannot result in such statements as “The “creator” is Nature.” Not because it is wrong (or right) — but rather because it is nonsensical in its conflation of logical typing. Ignoring your use of upper and lower case here (as if these were meaningful in this context), your statement simply says this thing created itself. Well, the term “autopoiesis” was applied by Maturana (& Varela) to describe a circular causation within the process of life and living. Fine as far as it goes. However, extending this to the whole of existence (living and non-living phenomena) is another matter altogether.
  
  If one wishes, the full spectrum of physical and non-physical must include, at least, the notions of the metaphysical within the epistemological, if not the ontological domains. That is, within our self constructed mental maps and worldviews (inertia realms) — a scientific fact (of belief systems at least) — if not in reality out there in the world as we know it. One can easily see why the wise choose silence.
  
  The “robust argument” you seek is simply that on the scale of logical typing that you question is pitched there is no such human concept as “first” that applies. You risk falling into the same trap as your antagonists. There is no proof either way, and so the ways of thinking and language we apply as humans to go ‘further/deeper’ is within the domain of belief. In this interior (at least) domain your criticisms do apply more forcefully. But again, to what purpose? Deprogramming the accumulated mental maps and worldviews given by family, society and culture? Or, simply adding to the aggregates of these swirling around within the domains of social discourse in search of dominance? This dismal analysis applies equally to the other side who prefer to assume an anthropocentric projection to cover the “Void” and bias those beliefs which support it — all the way in some cases across the ‘natural’ divide into the realms of science and non-metaphysical fact.
  
  If one follows Bateson’s view to its logical conclusion then these thorny questions melt away in their significance to be replaced with questions of developing an “ecology of mind” that aligns with the way Nature works. Bateson viewed mind and consciousness as immanent within Nature, rather than outside and transcendent. His mind extends as a recursive pattern connecting with a larger “Mind” within greater Nature on the scale of evolution. In this regard your position is closely aligned with his. However, to ‘see’ things this way requires the language to do so.
  
  Fundamentalist science and religion both promote domains of discourse that bias against this approach. They tend towards directing focus on ‘things’ (thus right and wrong) rather than also on relationships and processes of mentation. Bateson’s focus was on the “patterns that connect” and the apparent divide between what he called creatura (“the world of explanation in which the very phenomena to be described are among themselves governed and determined by differences, distinction, and information”) and pleroma (the world of nonliving matter described by physics and chemistry). As he once said, there is a difference between kicking a stone and kicking a dog (or words to that effect).
  - Minute by Minute on January 21, 2020 · at 9:08 am EST/EDT
    
    If there is no right and wrong. what is the difference between kicking a stone and a dog? The information?! Let me give you the definition of what God is in The Quran: God is within everything without being a part of it and without everything without being apart from it. How does it sound to you considering the fact, that God gave soul to all of it´s creation even the stone and the dog. But where does the very notion of the metaphysics come from? From the society, culture, history, or inherent within man from the moment of creation (we are not our own creators after all, ar we not?!). Where does the information come from? How do neutrons know where to go, since the existence has no beginning and no end? An existence without any beginning and no end, seems not to require morality either! What is the science of belief; Darwinism or Durkheim? Funny though, that it always ends up with whatever notion of what is right or what is wrong; Aleister Crowley and all that jazz! So how are we to do mentation with the big brain? Through chanting? Who decides, what the big brain wants. Social Darwinism? It sure sounds as if Bateson is falling into the same trap as the materialists and the french radicals, just another cult! Of mishmash of naturalism, humanism and relativism with a touch of new age stuff! Who gave you the right to kick the stone?!!!
Anonymous on January 20, 2020 · at 8:47 pm EST/EDT

Americans will instinctively demonize any nation, government, leader, group, or religion that stands in the way of America’s unipolar (new) World Order. Shia Islam and Iran are but one target.

At its base, America is a fundamentalist religion masquerading as a democracy–just like its allies such as Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, Zionist Israel, or Imperialist Europe.

But the Americans do not worship God.

No, Americans worship themselves and the false religion that they are the Shining City on a Hill, the Land of the Free, Beacon of Liberty, and Leader of the so-called Free World.

This is the foundational basis of America identity itself–and defines the United States across the political spectrum from the Progressives to Moderates to Conservatives. It makes no damned difference.

In short, America=the Good.

Thus, anyone that opposes America=Evil-Doers (who Hate Our Freedoms).

Like the Zionists, Americans delude themselves that they are the Chosen Ones, who have been selected by God as a light unto the world.

But also like the Zionists, American are in reality Satan’s Chosen Ones, whose continued existence spreads darkness across the planet….

America Is a Religion – An Aggressive One
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/how-its-exceptionalism-makes-america-dumb-and-aggressive/ri12257
- Anonymous on January 21, 2020 · at 12:48 am EST/EDT
  
  America is the ‘sunset’ of civilization.
amarynth on January 21, 2020 · at 4:37 am EST/EDT

A few comments, more slanted to the practical – I think we know what we are up against, what Pepe calls the sacred vs the profane and in practical terms, the ability to discern the difference.

We have a few ways that we habitually respond to the question that Pepe quite rightly poses here:

– Many folks talk about the ‘secret societies’, but I don’t give those much credence as they are not secret any longer. We know about them now, so knowledge is power. These societies may still advance their agendas according to secretive ritual and agreement, but an ‘informed soul’ must these days have the discernment to figure what is sacred vs what is profane – a difficult task in today’s sphere of sheer mind buggery.
– Religions – well, people experience God differently imv. Religions may want all of us to have the same experience of God, but that is not real and is not realistic. I would propose that if we want to reach the sacred, we have to go into a mode of acceptance of the differences and also learn the other traditions as well as we know our own, in a spirit of respect for God, or, if you want to throw out God, in a spirit of respect for yourself. If we cannot respect the other paths as much as we respect our own, we’re not much good in this fight for freedom for ourselves, are we? (I’m talking here of true religious paths, not crap).
– The educated and the more esoteric thinkers among us reach for esoteric answers, for philosophy, for psychological impulse of humans and these are perfect on the level of understanding the deep wisdoms. But we humankind have a problem in following that through practically. Only concerted study with the help of higher faculties (whatever you call these) will bring light on our paths.
– And then, the bugbear of zionism – it is all their fault. Yes, there is a lot of fault of course, not the least of which is the disrespect for all other life on earth. But thing is, zionism is not contained in the Jewish population alone. The Christians United for Israel in the US is now by some millions a bigger population than the complete Jewish population in the US. We cannot any longer talk of the Zionists without mentioning the Christian Zionists. The locus of control here also has changed. The land Israel is now the tail, and the dog is in the US and sometimes the dog wags the tail, and less frequently nowadays, the tail wags the dog.

And with all those things, we still today need to act and support a political resistance against the profane, on many levels, against ‘powers and principalities’, sometimes against our neighbor, our family and even our children. Within all of this we also have the need to live a life of value and of piety and of moral good that is real and of course have some fun somewhere. We have a massive job on our hands and it is not the time to sit down and lament now.

So, I would propose a simple value, a working yardstick, a litmus test that is applicable personally, because first we have to ’emancipate ourselves from mental slavery’ and this is an ongoing task. ‘Woke’ today does not mean ‘woke’ tomorrow – one has to stay actively ‘woke’. This value is better stated in the masculine form because of the strong archetypes that we exist with. If there is no Brotherhood of Man, if there is no respect for life on earth, throw it out as decidedly profane and most probably evil. And do not, never, coerce others or let yourself be coerced. If there exists Brotherhood of Man, respect for life on earth and no coercion, embrace that, as a step along the freedom corridor. One will probably find God there as well :-)
Anthony on January 21, 2020 · at 10:02 am EST/EDT

The end times are lifting up a mix of death cults principally the USA and its equally energetic helpers of an imminent messianic fulfillment of global peace supported by entrenched civil religion. Millions of ordinary believers struggle to live faithful lives under persuasion from corrupt pastors.
Its a depressing mix of psychotic delusions. Vietnam is a party in comparison.
I find distressed hope in the leadership of Russia and China who have the vision to incorporate the Iran plateau into a new vision of cooperation but with total war guaranteed against USA proxies into the mix.
With the ultimately mutually destructive ambitions of religious madmen and women, nuclear war promises an apocalyptic orgy of esctatic devotion and genocide.
But then there is the prospect of a new, atheist enlightenment pushing back from apostates living under the prospect of divine beheading in Pakistan etc etc, but resisted by an ideologically hostile woke urban ultra privileged educated elite. This pseudo elite fears accusations of apostacy and rationalises exotic genocide of women by psychic splitting and denial. The post islamic atheists have to split themselves from codependency and grapple with depression resulting from abandonment of familial rituals.
Where is Africa in this? Is there a competitive advantage to being the remnants of a lost diaspora in a continent that saw the emergence of the cosmos in human form. The restoration of the relationship between the living and the dead could replace the apostacy of religion.
Nature is an irresistible force. With patience the Sahara will become verdant grasslands in 10,000 years.
Stash on January 21, 2020 · at 11:12 am EST/EDT

I cannot comment on how Mid-east people think, I have never been there. Nor can I add anything to a philosophical discussion since the deep thought and requisite jargon excape me.

As a resident of small town midwest united states, I find the people I’ve talked to as being moral by upbringing. This morality crosses all lines of religeous beliefs. Ethics , on the other hand are dictated by survival. Common phrases are “what are ya gunna do”, or “a man’s gotta do what he’s gotta do”. Again, by upbringing, a man’s first duty is to his family. There are those people who by action appear to have chosen money over God (much talked about by all prophets), but in reality ,again by observation of my people , they straddle a line of compromise.We fear the manipulation of our government is done by the moneyed interests, and the influence filters all the way down to our local ballot box. It is difficult to even find a history of our local ballot counts, and the last election they even refused a transparent recount when offered money to do so. Most jobs in the area are agriculture or defense related. Refusing to work is out of the question since most of my people have never faced the proposition of total faith in god. At our present stage of enlightenment, “go along to get along” is, in fact, the reality. This is a tradition of the german and polish immigrants that have settled here. A tradition of the traditional. I’m glad that some writers make the distiction between the rulers and the ruled, for in our area, disgust for politicians is widely shared. We believe they are definitely lacking a moral compass. The rulers have failed to bring us the peace we desire and the religionist have failed to enlighten us
as to the only true choice we have e.g. God or money. Thus, even in small town USA, the profane clashes with the sacred.
By the bye, we here have very little exposure to liberation theology. Some of you were were probably aware of it early in your life. How has this philosophy worked out for the people you know. Has it influenced your life at all?
Outlaw Historian on January 21, 2020 · at 2:37 pm EST/EDT

Ah yes, a debate that dodges its bottom line concept–the idea of a god that created everything from nothing. I take an anthropological approach by noting every distinct culture created its own god(s) to explain what to the humans in that culture were unexplainable. As ever more secrets of Nature are made explainable via science, the “god proof” recedes further into the realm of magical thinking. Belief in gods pave the way for the most heinous of moral and ethical blasphemies, and the situation’s made crazier when it’s realized that the three religions in conflict all worship the same god. Thank goodness China’s sensible and long ago decided to keep all forms of religion out of its governance and state functions, although Confucian and Taoist philosophies dominate Chinese political-economic practice. The comparison between East and West is stark–the West’s Abrahamic religions were born out of conflict and chaos and are now used to generate disharmony that empowers a tiny ruling oligarchy whereas Eastern religions aside from Hinduism promote harmony and the quest for perfection in all human endeavors wherein their concept of god plays little role. That East Asia freed from its colonial fetters is passing the West in so many areas really ought not to be surprising as their underlying philosophy’s superior. The West constantly needs to promote the lie of its superiority simply because it isn’t whereas the East has no need to lie to itself at all as it’s secure in its place.
2-cents worth... on January 23, 2020 · at 9:01 am EST/EDT

My first late night, and somewhat discursive, reply failed (perhaps wisely) to arrive on the thread.

I was going to leave it, but as I read Pepe E. still referring to this topic (here and at the Unz Review) I thought I should at least attempt to close off with a hopefully clarifying reply for the record. I hope this version passes the gatekeeper’s critical eye and helps clarify some of the points raised above (in “Minute by Minute on January 21, 2020 – at 9:08 am EST/EDT”).

[Note to moderator/blog owner — no need to post if you find reason. I can also easily forward directly to PE for (hopefully) his creative enjoyment if necessary.]

Bateson’s approach is designed to give a third reconciling perspective to those seeking some distance from the worldview forming processes of living. His three last books (mostly collections of other writings he produced during his later lifetime) suggest a process towards something perhaps relevant to this thread’s topic: “Steps to an Ecology of Mind” (1972); “Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity” (1979); and posthumously “Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred” (1988).

Bateson worked to provide an antidote to what he saw as a fundamental limiting feature of a culture enmeshed within a Cartesian dualism. Coming from a background in biology and anthropology, his view appears to be focused in this effort on the constructed mental mapping we create as part of our living. These maps/models/paradigms/worldviews sit conceptually between the internal observer and the real world. His approach is based on the assumption that properly developed (according to the way Nature, of which we are a part, works) they serve survival and evolutionary processes. Conversely, where they are developed at odds with natural laws they are less effective — and in the extreme, even detrimental to survival and evolutionary process (of the species).

Understanding how this relates to notions of “God”; the Quran; “right and wrong”; French radicals; historical Persian-Arab (and if you choose, Turk) issues; and kicking simple inert ‘stone’ compared to complex adaptive living systems (e.g. by way of example, dogs); souls; immanent and/or transcendent mind; physics vs metaphysics; and “all that jazz!” etc, is challenging. The simplest response is to say it provides another perspective to consider when evaluating complex issues – especially those related to the interstices and liminal spaces between – that is, things and relationships as forming “patterns that connect.” Nonetheless, as the saying “Trust in Allah, but first tie up your camel” goes: this is part of the ‘tying up’ process. One may then have more reasoned access to trust.

So, somewhat reflexively (and recursively), Bateson makes a tale of the “Tale of Two Camels.” He works in the epistemological domain wherein we construct our worldviews with a focus on the logical typing of information. He draws heavily on the works of C. S. Peirce in this regard.

In respect to “The Roots of American Demonization of Shi’a Islam:” Bateson’s approach enables these two camels” (American/Western and Islam/Shiá) to be reframed as competing epistemologies with more (or less) incommensurable aspects based on the underlying root metaphors and founding myths.

I phrase this as “American/Western” because the roots largely trace back to European adoption over time of a complex mix of pre-enlightenment indigenous pagan/nature religions, Roman empire influences, Judaism, Christianity and Islam (at least as far as Spain and the Iberian Peninsula). Underpinning this, and rediscovered at the end of the Middle Ages as the basis for Western scientific method, is the ancient Greek period (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle etc) – mostly passed down through the book burning ‘Dark Ages’ through Islamic libraries, if not thought.

On the other side, Islam today is a combination over time of several schools of thought; many sub-branches based on local environments and underlying indigenous cultures; complex intra-group dynamics and histories revolving around race, cultural preferences, power relations, invasions, and technologies (or lack thereof). These largely emerge at the apex of the Islamic domain under the labels, ‘Sunna’ and ‘Shia’. The root cause of this divide is placed on historical intergroup disputes between Arab and Persian sentiments (Ali being of the latter); a range of bias across the pragmatic-mystical spectrum in respect to policy, control and governance; and the usual inter-family disputes over linage (especially in regard to multiple wives and their families) in respect to precedence and authority. In respect to the latter, there are the children of Muhammad’s first wife (for 25 years) – Khadija bint Khuwaylid, from whom a daughter (Fatimah bint Muhammad) married his first convert and friend, Ali ibn Abi Talib (Ali). Muhammad’s childless third wife, A’isha bint Abu Bakr, was the daughter of Muhammad’s close friend Abu Bakr and maintained strong influence on Islamic developments during and after Muhammad’s death.

The roots of the ensuing schism between the Sunni and Shia Islamic subgroupings emerged following Muhammad’s death are based on community disagreement as to who should be the Caliph (politico-social leader). In a democratic fashion the larger group of Muslims chose Abu Bakr while a smaller group preferred Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law and cousin, based on interpretations of Muhammad’s intent. In brief, these terms came into use as: Sunni (‘one who follows the Sunnah’ and what the Prophet said, did, agreed to, or condemned etc; and Shi’a is a contraction of the phrase ‘Shiat Ali’, meaning ‘partisans of Ali’. ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/subdivisions/sunnishia_1.shtml)

There is therefore a classic political power struggle at the early stages of Islamic development as a social movement in Arabia. This reflects a deeper almost universal friction between fundamental worldviews and values systems – the more worldly pragmatic (Abu Bakr), and the more mystical (Ali) orientations (at least in respect to state craft). In the English idiom, this latter might be somewhat reflected in the myths of King Arthur and his (less hierarchal) ‘Round Table’ and quest for a Holy grail etc. The extended interfamily tensions should not be discounted between the daughter and favourite wife, Aisha bint Abu Bakr (‘bint’ meaning daughter of).

As political power shifted across existing traditional power structures in the Middle East, the fates of two sons of Ali and Fatimah (Hasan and Husayn) influenced historic developments. Initially Hasan’s early abdication as Caliph to the Umayyad ruler Mu’awiya (the then governor of Syria and cousin of Uthman); and then the subsequent murder (and martyrdom for the Shia) of Husayn by Mu’awiya’s son Yazid (as his disputed successor) became strong the thematic poles for Shia and modern-day Iranian culture.

However, an earlier pivotal civil war known as the “Battle of the Camel” (the Battle of Jamel or the Battle of Basra, c. Nov 656) set the stage and tone for later developments. This set out in brief at (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Camel) and in short derived from frictions resulting from the earlier murder of the Caliph Uthman ibn Affan in c. June 656 linked to political conspiracies in Egypt. The battle was fought between groups supporting Ali and groups supporting A’isha (then 45 years old) motivated to avenge the death of the third caliph Uthman which allegedly involved perceived rebellion by followers of Ali. Clandestine intervention in ongoing peace negotiations between the two parties by Egyptian connections and a breakaway group (Khawarij) led to a battle and victory by Ali’s group. Khawarij dissidence has links to Oman and Yemen via the Ibadi movement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibadi_Islam ). Aisha’s brother Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr, who was Ali’s commander, approached Aisha on her camel’s death, and following reconciliations with Ali, escorted her to a life of retirement from ‘affairs of state’ in Medina.

According to the Wikipedia (quoting Spellberg 1994) this is the genesis of the Sunni Shia divergence: “Āʿisha’s depiction in regards to the first civil war in the Muslim community reflected the molding of Islamic definition of gender and politics. Those who did not pick a side due to the honor and respect of both Aisha and Ali onwards were called Sunnis, and those who sided with Ali alone were known as the Shia.”

Relevance to American roots? This reply risks becoming an essay in itself. I’ll conclude by noting briefly the roots of American demonization of Shi’a Islam – as distinct from Iranian/Persian domestic (e.g. Shah vs Mullah) dynamics and geopolitics (US vs ‘The World’ over energy and fiat dollar hegemony) – appear to emerge for an insanely complex nexus of historical factors and genealogies for which “a mess” would hardly even begin to describe the rhizomic labyrinths involved in deconstruction. In fact, the metaphor of choice could be a form of “Quantum entanglement” over long macrohistory timeframes.

Mark Twain’s attributed refrain “history does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes” might just be a good note to end on. For those who wish to develop some conceptual distance, Bateson’s looking-glass skips right past Alice and her ‘Wonderland’ of White Rabbits, and deeply into darkly lit ‘patterns that connect’ seemingly at ‘spooky distances’ such that abducting inferences of modern day themes such as: ‘Oman/Yemen’ + Iran + Saudi; Saudi oil wealth + a rootless paper fiat USD$ + gangster economics; the ‘Trump and Clinton’ Camel Show with ‘the Donald’ playing Ali (Barba, as in the 40 thieves) and poor Hillary ‘retired’ from affairs of state at home looking after dear old hubby, Bill who probably has not yet fully retired from affairs of …). And, like an ancient caravanserai on the roads to Alawite “Assad Must Go!” Damascus, the list goes on.

My hunch is, the roots Pepe seeks on his quest for the “American Demonization of Shi’a Islam” are buried deep in the regional histories of the 1st century (ce) and watered by the luck of geological fortunes. The fruits they bare (“Ye shall know them by their fruits”— Mathew 7) drop like overripe mangoes and poisoned apples all across today’s geopolitical world stage from civilizational trunks grafted with all manner of medieval tribal and modern-day scientific national branches. This round of ‘pay to play’ in the never-ending ‘Great Game’ is domestically (US) a Yankee pantomime version of ‘Punch and Judy’ for mass distraction while the Davos crowd sketch out the next 12 month’s trickle-down script from the 1% — “Ye Are All Stakeholders Now!” it seems is the latest variant.

On the international stage things are more serious, deadly, and critical. Those self-serving elites, who think like Madeleine Albright’s “the price [others have to pay] is worth it”, are as morally and ethically rootless as their paper money’s ruthless oily schemes to avoid good accounting, audit practice and effective oversight for the common wealth and good. The recursive feedback loops that keeps these criminal murdering circuses in play on the Western stage are the reflexive international relationships of dependency between cultures of mendacity that see and scope a very broad spectrum of activity. One could easily conclude that American demonization of Shi’a Islam is a convenient (and deadly) subscript that draws as deeply from Islamic history as the US Fed (and Treasury) draw their funding support from the Saudi family’s oil well estates. If the US empire (like most) only has interests, then head-chopping Wahhabi-ism, and non-regime change in the historical Islamic heartland, are friendly ‘democratic’ by post-modern standards … and move along folks: nothing to see here! The show must go on.

As Ashkenazi influence does not enter the Hebrew picture until c. 900 (ce) then I’d suggest ‘historic resonance’ points to skipping over the ‘dual passport’ gang in Occupied Palestine and go for those deep-rooted truffles down south in the original slave-owning Egypt. The vipers from ‘de’ Nile bit deeply into early Islamic Caliph business. But where are the sons of ‘pyramid builders’ and magicians today? Anyone’s guess, but men in tartan dresses from the lands and times of Adam Smith with an interest in not so ancient rites (only c. mid-1700’s) and dark arts of ‘invisible hand’ business might be another place for curious travellers to visit. But whether those heathered high/low lands count as ‘roots’ (in spite of the dollar bill), only Pepe can decide.

Bottom line: from the character “Prometheus” speaking in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s (1875) “The Masque of Pandora” — “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” And there, dear Pepe E., ‘Poet of the Belt & Road’ is the root of All Things (and Batesonian Relationships) – we being mere transient patterns of connecting shade under a Cosmic Ecology of Metaphysical Trees. The root question is: who is the madder – the modern-day Arabs; Persians; or Americans (and their poodles)?

Bateson developed the ‘crazy making’ Double Bind theory (c. 1950’s) and I’d hazard to guess that his “Angel’s Fear” looks deeply into those dark fractal epistemological places where cosmic roots and the infinite are largely indistinguishable. He liked William Blake. Perhaps he’d say complex things are more emergent more than rooted? But 50 years have since past since he died and maybe both are now more equally true? Others might say just follow the money down those holes of endless black gold – after all, it’s been the new gold standard since Nixon’s 70’s.

Now where is that coke bottle that just feel from the sky… ???

[All that aside, and despite the dismal histories, good people still walk these many dangerous roads in their vain hopes, and so all is not completely lost yet.]