The problem with reforms.

Sometimes it happens that there's an injustice in society, and some people see it, and they organize to try to make things better. So far so good, but there's certain things that are gonna happen whether you want them to or not.

(1) People want to hear about what they're going to get, but not about what will be expected of them. So, "You won't be discriminated against anymore!" sounds great. Everybody's fine with getting rights and entitlements. But as for "Equality means equal responsibilities - you'll have to work like everybody else, follow the law like everybody else, no freebies and no favoritism" - nobody wants to hear that part.

(2) People get caught up in the romance of the struggle and can't let go. They look to it for both internal fulfillment and external validation. They get a charge out of marching with signs and chanting slogans, and they bond with others that way. And some become professional activists and actually depend on the struggle for a paycheck. So people become both emotionally and materially invested in it.

(3) The most sinister part is that there will always be people who join the movement caring nothing about the cause or about justice. They don't want to fix things; they want to tear everything down and build a new order on the rubble, with themselves at the top of the pyramid.

If you had explained all this to me when I was younger, I probably would have halfway believed it. Now that I've lived long enough to see it play out, I understand just how inevitable it is.

That doesn't mean don't work for reform. It does mean you need to know what you're getting into.

Jerusalem: Tisha b'Av fast preparations.

Arutz Sheva:

The Western Wall Heritage Foundation is preparing the Western Wall area for Tisha B'av, when thousands of Jews flock to the ancient site to mourn for the destruction of the first and second Temples in ancient Jerusalem.

This year, Tisha B'Av actually falls out on Shabbat, but since mourning is not permitted on Shabbat, it will be observed on Saturday night and Sunday instead.

Israel police will guard the crowds both at the Western Wall itself and on its access roads and has stated that all the roads are secure and the public can safely travel to the Western Wall. However, the Old City will be closed to private vehicles and will only be able to be accessed by public transportation. ...

Moving ahead on Covenant Lands blog.

In my previous post I hinted that I was considering shutting down this blog. I've since reconsidered, and I plan to continue posting here at this platform.

I've gone back and culled some of my old posts so that the remaining archived material here is a bit more focused. (With 15 years of history on this blog, that's a fair amount of editing.)

One difference you might notice soon will be the appearance of ads. Since I started posting in 2004, I've done this strictly for my own satisfaction, and I haven't made a penny from it. Now that I'm working full-time (and, as I get older, becoming more conscious of the value of my time in general), I'd like to see if I can generate a little income from posting here. I'm hoping this will also give me an incentive to work harder on producing better quality posts.

Blogging and the future.

I started posting here on Blogspot some 15 years ago, in the spring of 2004.  Originally I named my political blog 'Dreams Into Lightning'; later on I changed the name to 'Covenant Lands'.  Blogging was new, the internet itself was still new, and it was very exciting. A short time later, I inherited a modest annuity, which allowed me to live more comfortably than would otherwise have been possible; so, with an interest in world affairs, time on my hands, and an internet connection, I began to post.  Around 2005 - 2006 I was posting prolifically, and typically getting traffic at around 100 hits a day.

In 2007, I became involved in a full-time relationship that was to last about two years.  She had first contacted me over Thanksgiving weekend of 2006; in early 2007, pregnant from her prior relationship, she became my girlfriend and I became the little girl's daddy.  She would leave this world - leaving behind a daughter - exactly twelve years later.  You can go to my LiveJournal to read her story.

So I was caring full-time for a baby girl from the fall of 2007 on for the next two years, and co-parenting for several years after that.  Around that same time, Facebook and Twitter exploded onto the internet and took a big bite out of long-form blogging.  I yielded to the trend myself, and started posting more frequently on Facebook.  Of course, the 2008 election brought the beginning of the Obama years, during which I saw many discouraging developments in the Middle East and in America.  But I'll come back to politics shortly.

More recently, video blogging and audio podcasts have entered the world of internet debate.  Programs like The Rubin Report proved that you could have a serious, intelligent, long-format talk show on topics of conservative interest, and have success.

Myself, though, I have always felt more at home with the written word.  I'm not particularly shy around people or about speaking, but I can't see myself sitting in front of a webcam.  Expressing myself in writing comes more naturally.

And I like to have the freedom to explore events and ideas at length, referencing multiple sources if appropriate.  This in particular is one thing I find limiting about short-form social media:  it's easy to share a single link on Twitter or Facebook, but decent blogging demands the ability to link and compare multiple sources.  A good blog post never just says "HEY GO READ THIS RIGHT NOW!"

We survived Obama and were spared Hillary Clinton.  I did not know what to make of Trump at first, but was willing to give him a chance.  Suffice it to say that by now I think it's clear he has surpassed all expectations.

But the 2016 election brought panic for the Democrats and their enablers in the left-leaning technology industry - the Masters of the Universe, to use Breitbart's phrase.  The giants of Silicon Valley had done everything they could to help Hillary Clinton defeat Donald Trump - and yet Trump still won.  Determined not to repeat the outcome of 2016, they redoubled their efforts to stamp out "hate speech" and "far-right extremism" - meaning anything not conforming to their political agenda - and launched a massive purge of social media which continues to the present moment.

And so, Milo Yiannopoulos, Tommy Robinson, Carl Benjamin, Laura Loomer, Gavin McInnes, Jordan Peterson, and countless other conservative (or non-leftist) voices have been banned from social media outlets, or had their content summarily demonetized.

Nor is it just the newer social media - longtime blogging platform WordPress.com has deplatformed two sites for political reasons.  I am sure it is only a matter of time before Google - on whose platform you are viewing this very post, dear reader - decides to follow suit.

The good news is that there's been a burst of new, underground, free-speech-oriented social media:  Gab, MeWe, Minds, Parler, BitChute, and a forthcoming project backed by Jordan Peterson called ThinkSpot. 

So the bottom line is this:  I'll be looking for a new venue for a long-format blog.  Meanwhile, though, feel free to follow me:

asherabrams at Gab
Asher Abrams at MeWe

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'Game of Thrones': two views.

Michael Weingrad: A Jewish view of 'Game of Thrones'.

And it’s not only politics that [George R. R.] Martin treats with bracing realism. His books are shorn of much of our present-day, feel-good notions about the goodness of human nature, the malleability of gender, and other contemporary dogmas. The idealizations he avoids are less chivalric than progressive ones.

At their most compelling, the books and the television series offer characters who see the world and themselves through commitments to family, clan, and nation, rather than our narrow, present-day lens of atomized individuals and their arbitrary desires. “Everything I did, I did for my house and my family,” says Jamie Lannister, an admission echoed at one time or another by most of the show’s characters.

The evident fascination of so many readers and viewers with such thick social connections is worth noting. I happen to live in Portland, surrounded by people indifferent if not hostile to tradition, people who want to live their lives independently of family, religion, canons of art and literature, nationhood, biology, market behavior, and probably the laws of physics. Yet many of them are deeply invested in the continuity of House Stark and House Targaryen.

Unfortunately, the writers of the HBO series seem in the end to have been unable to sympathize with the possibility of a positive identity not reducible to a 21st-century self. This imaginative failure sounded ever louder in the characters’ speech, as when Arya Stark, rejecting her courtly role, explains “It’s not me,” or when Danaerys’s advisors repeatedly proclaim their desire to “make the world a better place” and to “leave the world a little better than we found it.” (Given that the show runners are both Jewish, I was relieved that none of the characters mentioned “tikkun olam,” but it was surely a close thing.) The Starbucks cup inadvertently left on a feasting table in one scene was widely reported as a gaffe, but it wasn’t out of place with the show’s contemporary ethos at that point. ...

Michael Totten: Three cheers for 'Game of Thrones'.

In a world without peaceful transfers of power, the only checks and balances available against tyrants are assassination and war. The Mad King Aerys Targaryen ruled from the Iron Throne in the years before those covered in Game of Thrones Season One. He, too, was a murderous psychopath, burning alive lords who displeased him and advisors who disobeyed him. Half the realm rose up in arms—including Ned Stark and later-king Robert Baratheon. When Tywin Lannister’s army approached the capital, the Mad King ordered his pyromancers to lace enough explosives throughout the city to destroy King’s Landing as thoroughly as a nuclear weapon. “Burn them all!” he screamed. “Burn them all!”

Jaime Lannister, head of his very own King’s Guard, ran a sword through his back in the throne room.

Almost everywhere in Westeros is governed badly, not just by modern standards but by its own. “All I ever wanted was to fight for a lord I believe in,” says the imposing female warrior Brienne of Tarth. “The good ones are dead and the rest are monsters.”

Unlike the Westerosi, modern audiences know the way out: liberal democracy, republicanism, the rule of law, and the separation of powers. Lest we assume these are part of the natural order of things, Game of Thrones—with its echoes of our own distant past—reminds us that they are not, and that maintaining them is as difficult as it is essential.

No Jeffersonian figures inhabit the Game of Thrones universe. Such a modern intrusion would break the spell of epic high fantasy and violate the compact between author and audience. A Jeffersonian wouldn’t make historical sense, anyway. The American Revolution grew out of the European Enlightenment, and no such philosophical movement ever existed in Westeros. Even so, consumers of fiction, whether it’s written or filmed, need someone to identify with, someone who shares at least some of their values. Martin gives us the dangerous yet inspiring Daenerys Targaryen. ...

Go read the rest at the links.

Soldier, where's your hatred now?

SOLDIER, WHERE'S YOUR HATRED NOW? (F.I., March 1943)

Soldier,
Where's your hatred now?
You haven't any? But you ought to have.
Remember the advice we gave.
Where will you be anyhow
If you forget that you must fight,
That they are wrong, and we are right?
You must make their heads to bow.

"I will fight because I must.
My hatred falters. In the heat of war
The hatred that was once a sore
Festered with a bitter lust,
Becomes a heartache, throbbing deep,
So that I cannot help but weep
Seeing comrades fall to dust."

Soldier,
Why that tear-wet eye?
Your fallen comrades you won't see again?
Remember, this affair is plain:
You may be about to die
Like them; but while you live, be strong,
For right will conquer all that's wrong.
Fight till they for mercy cry.

"You are right, my hatred's gone,
But I remember they are human too -
Those boys who in a sick world grew,
Groping - while afar, the dawn
Awaits to shine on them again
As it has on Freedom's men.
Can I , hating, speed the dawn?"

Soldier,
Spare no love for those
Who try to tear down what we want to save.
They're bestial, and they're not so brave.
Bring conflict to a quicker close:
Destroy their tanks, destroy their planes;
It is this Justice ordains.
Give them death if death they chose!

"I will wreck their tanks and planes
And let their cities fall, for all I care,
And in the name of right, I'll tear
Their bowels out, and smash their brains,
(For you, my country, killed my soul)
And as we approach the goal,
Clamp them in Revenge's chains!"

Soldier,
Bear it for a while,
And if you find no hatred for the foe,
Hate, then, the evil that brought woe.
Hate the greed and hate the guile.
Hate, then, the motive, not the man.
Love the Truth, for if you can,
Soldier, you have won God's smile.

- anonymous soldier of the 136th Field Artillery Battalion

http://pacificmemories.blogspot.com/

California: Anti-semite attacks Poway Chabad, one dead.

Chabad:

A gunman walked into a Chabad-Lubavitch center outside San Diego during services on the last day of Passover on Saturday morning and opened fire, killing one person and injuring three. The suspect, John Earnest, a 19-year-old white male from San Diego, is in custody.

Around 11:30 a.m., as the congregation had been listening to the biblical verses describing the observance of Passover, the service was abruptly interrupted by gunshots. Once, twice, they rang out from the lobby, fatally striking Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, of Poway and grievously injuring the synagogue’s rabbi, Yisroel Goldstein, who later required surgery on both hands. Six more shots then rang out, injuring 8-year-old Noya Dahan and her uncle, 34-year-old Almog Peretz of Sderot, Israel, who suffered a gunshot wound to the leg as he led his niece and a group of children to safety.

As the terrorist paused to reload, a Chabad regular and U.S. military veteran heroically rushed him. As the shooter fled, an off-duty Border Patrol officer shot and struck the shooter’s vehicle four times. ...

Arutz Sheva:

Multiple people were injured Saturday in a shooting at the Chabad of Poway synagogue. Poway is approximately 20 miles north of San Diego.

The attack occurred at just prior to 11:30 a.m. local time.

All four of the patients were sent to the Palomar Medical Center.

60-year-old Lori Gilbert Kaye was identified as the woman who was murdered in the shooting attack. ...

Daily Caller - unarmed combat vet charges shooter:

The man who fired a semi-automatic weapon inside the Chabad of Poway synagogue in San Diego on Saturday froze, dropped his gun and sprinted to his car when he saw Oscar Stewart come barreling toward him, yelling so loud the priest at a neighboring church could hear.

“Get down!” Stewart yelled, according to his wife and others who were at the scene. “You motherfucker! I’m going to kill you!”

Others who were there later told him it sounded like four or five people were shouting. He thinks maybe an angel was standing behind him and speaking through his voice. When the shooter ran, he immediately gave chase. ...

Jewish Journal - Lori Gilbert-Kayre remembered:

Today at synagogue an anti-Semitic murderer shot and killed my friend Lori Gilbert Kaye z”l, age 60. Lori you were a jewel of our community a true Eshet Chayil, a Woman of Valor. You were always running to do a mitzvah (good deed) and gave tzedaka (charity) to everyone. Your final good deed was taking the bullets for Rabbi Mendel Goldstein to save his life. Lori leaves behind a devastated husband and a 22-year-old daughter. ...

Bloody Sunday: Muslim terrorists kill over 200 Christians on Easter in Sri Lanka.

Debka:

The death toll from the seven explosions that ripped through Sri Lanka’s churches and hotels on Easter Sunday has shot up again to 215 with 500 injured. Among the dead are scores of tourists, believed to be American, British, Dutch, Danish, Chinese, Japanese, Pakistani, Moroccan and Indian. They have not been identified. No organization has taken responsibility for the atrocity. After an emergency cabinet meeting in Colombo, investigators were still groping in the dark, although Indian sources say the multiple attack on Christian worship, including at least two suicide attacks, bears all the hallmarks of the Islamic State,

The cabinet in emergency session initially responded by imposing a night curfew on all parts of Sri Lanka and shutting down access to the social media, in an attempt to restore a semblance of control. By afternoon, the government ordered all universities closed until further notice and the mail rail service suspended, apparently in expectation of more attacks. The defense ministry reported a raid on a home and the arrest of 7 people suspected of planning and executing the terrorist attacks. This report was greeted with general skepticism as an attempt to prove the authorities were in control. ...

Long War Journal:

The Islamic State has released three statements and a video claiming responsibility for the bombings in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday.

The first, a terse statement by Amaq News Agency, offered no details about the operation, saying simply that a security “source” told the group’s media arm that the so-called caliphate’s “fighters” had carried out the attacks.

The Islamic State subsequently released a longer statement, saying that 1,000 people were killed or injured in the orchestrated assault. That statement highlighted the fact that Christians were the intended target, as they are supposedly at war with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s enterprise. The statement also provides the aliases for several of the bombers.

Amaq News then produced a third statement, including a photo of the eight alleged perpetrators standing in front of the flag typically flown by the group. ...

CNN roundup here.

Genesis: Crime and punishment.

Mankind's archetypal crime, Cain's murder of Abel, points to a persistent flaw in human nature: It is always easier to tear the other guy down, than to try to improve yourself.

The consequence in politics is that it is easier to erase the progress of others, so as to give yourself a lower bar by which to be judged. It's hard to stand tall among temples and skyscrapers; easier, on a plain filled with rubble.

*

G-d showed mercy to Cain, and what's the thanks He got? Mankind devolved into violence. The mark of Cain, meant to protect the killer from arbitrary mob justice, became a status symbol. Four generations later, Lemech could brag, "I've killed a man for wounding me, and a boy for bruising me - if Cain was avenged 7 times, then Lemech for 77." Mankind had perverted G-d's compassion into a literal license to kill. No wonder He's pissed.

After the Flood, G-d decrees that there are going to be some new rules. "Who sheds the blood of man, by man shal his blood be shed."

USA: President Trump at CPAC.

Full speech here.

Transcript via UPI.

North Korea / USA: Trump, Kim meet in Hanoi for summit.

Breitbart:

Thousands flocked to see President Donald Trump arrive in Vietnam on Tuesday for the diplomatic summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un.

Trump landed at the Hanoi airport early evening and was welcomed by over a dozen Vietnamese officials and American diplomats.

He traveled about 30 minutes to his hotel, as thousands of people lined the streets to welcome the president, according to reporters. Many of the locals waved U.S. and Vietnamese flags. ...

Austin Bay at StrategyPage on DJT and US/NK diplomacy:

This “first brush” narrative in this section describes ongoing history. It collects illustrative, connected events and actions that occurred from March 2017 to March 2018. When examined in concert, theysketch a concerted effort to wage twenty-first-century “cocktail” warfare by employing and coordinating American power in pursuit of a geo-strategic goal: denuclearizing North Korea. Subsequent events will determine the effectiveness of this particular multi-dimensional operation.

The Coercive Diplomacy narrative actually begins with Donald Trump’s October 24, 1999 Meet the Press interview with Tim Russert.

The interview is a historically illuminating flash forward to his administration’s 2017–2018 “de-nuclearizing” North Korea coercivediplomatic effort. It also adds convincing depth to the US narrativethat “North Korea has gone too far.” ...

Portland: Antifa at town hall meeting.

Via Andy Ngo at YouTube. Andy's account of the incident follows:

'On Feb. 22, 2019 at a "listening session" at Maranatha Church organized by the Portland Police chief on policing issues, the public raged at her, the mayor, and conservatives who showed up. The previous week, a slanted report from Willamette Week portrayed Portland Police Lt. Niiya as a "collaborator" with Patriot Prayer, a right-wing protest group. The public and city council expressed outcry, despite the fact that it was the responsibility of Niiya to build rapport with a variety of protesters to gather intel. The intel he gathered was fed directly to the Mayor's office to track protest plans. Niiya has been removed from his position and Mayor Wheeler demanded an investigation into him following the report's release. At the town hall meeting, citizens called police chief Danielle Outlaw a "traitor" to black and brown people, and demanded that Portland Police be disbanded. At one point, Haley Adams, a Jewish right-wing activist, yelled at the panel for allowing the public to mistreat the few conservative speakers (an elderly woman was told to sit down; an elderly man was called 'racist'). Adams was surrounded and called "Nazi Scum." She was kicked out for disorderly behavior.'

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