My Correspondence With A Lifelong Friend And Current Conspiracist

Dear Ron,

I hope you are well -- that your persistent respiratory symptoms have disappeared and that you have clarity 
concerning a course of action for your knee.

I was going to end this email with "The Nub."

But because "stories" are always more attractive than "studied analyses," I've decided to start with it.

The Nub:

In 1988-89, when I lived in Nicaragua and worked for the Sandinista government, I spent most of the year 
believing that Sandinistas were knights-in-shining-armor who could do no wrong - true champions of an 
understandably adulatory, long-suffering people. 

Indeed, an overwhelming number of Nicaraguans - disproportionately poor peasant people - were avid devotees 
of Daniel Ortega's Sandinista government, as was I.

Then, more than six months into my year-long stay, I stumbled on a "mole" who worked in the office of one 
of the most militant and widely-respected members of Nicaragua's National Directorate, Tomás Borge, 
leader of a Sandinista "tendency" called "the prolonged people's war." 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom%C3%A1s_Borge 

Turns out that in the inner-most sanctum of Borge's bourgeois heart was a hankering for "the finer things" 
- and to satisfy his worldly desires Tomás had his "hand in the till" BIG TIME. 

I must say that the Nicaraguan people - and the low-level Sandinista functionaries with whom I interacted 
- were THE NICEST PEOPLE.... sweet as honey and more welcoming than Dolly Parton.

But almost always Acton's Dictum holds true: "Power tends to corrupt. And absolute power corrupts absolutely." 
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/04/power-tends-to-corrupt-acton-mussolini.html

It took me half a year to start seeing through the patina of wishful thinking and my self-deceiving haze of cherished 
"facts"

Indeed, I believed "The Sandinista Gospel" with absolute conviction.

Beyond question.

I even had good evidence that The Facts (at least as I experienced them) were true.

Except they weren't.

As time went on, Daniel Ortega was outed as an incestuous sex abuser, and alongside his femme fatale wife Rosario
Murillo -- at one time a staunch defender of The People -- they morphed into repressive autocrats who, 
while still providing meager assistance to the dirt-poor peasantry, are now gutted husks dedicated, above all else, 
to retaining power and living lives of leisure. 

By contrast, read about Uruguayan president, José "Pepe" Mujica, "the poorest president in the world." 
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/11/uruguays-socialist-president-leaves.html

Since the impoverished Nicaraguan masses have been conditioned - for 40 years - to consider Ortega's "Sandinista" 
government their only lifeline (however tenuous that lifeline may be), Daniel and Rosario can actually present 
plausible statistics that The Nicaraguan People are behind them.

Tryanny's Best Kept Secret: It's ALL About Epistemology

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/12/tyrannys-best-kept-secret-its-all-about.html

And now, decades down the pike, here we are.

You and I.

And one of us is completely deluded.

Or damn near. 

Predictably, neither of us is likely to realize -- or acknowledge -- our all-encompassing delusion.

Admittedly, the 9/11 "Official Story" stinks.

And in the "fog of war," it is possible that any of the Syrian "sides" may have conspired to make it look like 
"the other guy" was malfeasant... even if it meant slaughtering "one's own." 

That said, you and I agree that -  many years before the current geopolitical conflict - the Assad family murdered 
tens of thousands of Syrians. 

Here is Al Jazeera's report on the 1982 Hama massacre, an utterly ruthless seige that may have killed 40,000 
Syrians. 

Like "shooting fish in a barrel." https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/10/201110279954762656.html

To me it makes no sense that the majority of Syrian citizens (who do not belong to the Assad family's Alawite sect)
would have any fondness for the "well-educated dentist and his lovely wife." 

However, it does make sense to me that most Syrians would be imbued with revolutionary fervor to overthrow 
the Assads.

So, with this prelude out of the way...

I find myself in a quandary concerning which of my two already-written letters to send you first.

But since I cannot resolve that quandary, I am sending you this brand new one. 

I will dispatch my original missives after you've had "a week" to read this letter -- preferably more than once -- 
and to ponder the links below.

Correspondence With "The Thinking Housewife" About The Supposed Hoax Of Mass Murders

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/08/names-of-sutherland-baptist-church.html

"Why The World Is Turning To Hannah Arendt To Explain Trump"

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/11/why-world-is-turning-to-hannah-arendt.html

  

"Fake News": De Novo "Truths" Conjured Ex Nihilo Or From Rank Misrepresentation

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/11/fake-news-de-novo-truths-from-rank.html  

Here is my prediction for what will happen when you read "The Supposed Hoax Of Mass Murders." 

I am totally confident you will not travel to the ravaged community of Sutherland, Texas, where the 2017 church 
slaughter occurred.

As I envision your reaction, you will decide against that journey because - consciously or unconsciously - you sense 
that you would come away convinced that the massacre of 26 people occurred pretty much as reported. 

No crisis acting. 

No ruses to sour public opinion on 2nd Amendment Rights.

But worst of all would be your realization that The Reality of the Sutherland slaughter would leave you with clear 
awareness calling into question your whole ideological structure.

You traveled to Syria to be guided through a foreign culture by Assad devotees who were eager to "show you around." 

But you will not travel to Texas to conduct first-hand research, because in Texas you would be able to figure 
things out on your own, unlike Syria where you had to to depend on intermediaries to craft the narrative for you.

But backing up from my presumptions... maybe you'll surprise me.

Wishing you well.

Pax et amore

Alan

PS Paul Schulte asked me to say hello, and to let you know he misses you.

RF	Sat, Nov 23, 9:59 PM
to me

WelI, what a surprise.

I thought you might have languished somewhere in the Okefenokee in search of my beloved Walt Kelly.

I am over my flu-like symptoms, although they persisted for over three months. Lost the entire summer.
A great doctor at Stanford ran me through a battery of tests, even for prairie fever. My knee(s) are improving.
Thanks for asking.

I asked you what you thought of E. Michael Jones. Twice.

Now comes a quite lengthy letter from you with not a mention of Jones.  Can’t help but wonder why. I asked you
about him after remembering our discovery of C.S. Lewis and Chesterton, because Jones is an orthodox Catholic.
Completely his own unique mind and talent. Years ago, just after getting married he was hired to teach English
literature at St. Mary’s College across the street from Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. He still lives there
on the same block where Pete Buttigieg grew up. Buttigieg’s father teaches (at Notre Dame) the work of Italian
Marxist, Antonio Gramsci, who preached "the long march (of Marxist cultural critique) through the institutions
of the west". After one year Jones was fired for opposing abortion on the campus. His career has been a kind
of quest to find out how this could happen. But he found it to be a blessing, as Richard Neihbur called
encounters with God, when misfortunes become seen as blessings. I’m sure you remember him.

The neocon song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsBLKhjfO7g

Bashar al-Assad was not “a well educated dentist with a lovely wife” that Fred Owens called a ’babe'. That’s all
I got from him. Your air quotes of contempt shock me. By what means did you earn your contempt? Asma is a
 woman who eschews publicity, from the likes of those who refer to her as “the rose of the desert”. She finds this
absurd. She drives her own car to hospitals of the injured and distressed to see if she can help, mostly by
cutting through red tape when the solution is obvious. She is afflicted with cancer. Assad was an
ophthalmologist in London before being called back to Syria on his father’s death.

'Quite the babe’ ...F.O. 

Assad was elected in 2014 as president of Syria in the middle of a war, by over 80% of the voting Syrians.
This can be seen as remarkable in itself. There were three other candidates. Syrians refugees abroad also voted
in the election at the Syrian embassies nearest them. This exile vote was 97% in favor of Assad. You might
wonder how those in exile voted in favor of the man who was murdering them according to the NY Times
and all of the media in America and in England (and France and Germany and Canada).The seven year long war
is not a civil war. I followed it from the first demonstrations and even at its very inception when an infiltration
of snipers shot intentionally unarmed Syrian police. I watched the liberation of Aleppo on Christmas Day 2016,
the year that I visited Syria. We couldn’t go to Aleppo although we all wanted to: it was too dangerous. Civilians
were being shelled in west Aleppo every other day with shrapnel-like artillery from the terrorists' fortified
holdout in East Aleppo. As I watched the Syrians come out of the liberated corridor, on cell phone cameras
streamed by Twentieth Century Wire, some faces were black. As they ran into the hands of their liberators,
the Syrian Arab Army, the NY Times and others were claiming that the Assad ‘regime' had bombed these
civilians in buses. I was there…as there as I could be. I know the woman who was reporting from Aleppo,
Vanessa Beeley.

My trip to Syria was organized by two Palestinians, one a doctor in Australia, and the second, my friend Wassam,
a Palestinian refugee living in the refugee camp in Beirut with his wife and two adorable children. I got to know
Wessam quite well, probably because he would not let me travel in Lebanon by myself, concerned as he was for
my safety. We travelled to the magnificent Roman ruin of Baalbek together.

 

Then on to Sidon, the ancient Phoenician city on the southern coast.

His wife once said she thought of me as Wessam’s big brother. I don’t know why. Maybe I was able to help them
in some way.

Their refugee camp was a real eye opener.

 

I was never in the hands of Assad devotees, as you say.

No one ever preached to us about the political situation. One of our fellow travellers wrote a book on the trip
called Voices From Syria, available from Global Research.ca. I have not read it: but then I didn’t need to: I was
there with him. A Palestinian archeologist was present to answer questions on ruins, mosques and other cultural
highlights.

We did meet with what was referred to as the official opposition, a man named Dr. Haidar. I think I told you about
him. He was a member of the Syrian parliament, in opposition to the ruling party. Assad asked him to join his
cabinet, to form a sort of coalition war cabinet. He said okay, if he could become a Minister of Reconciliation.
This was a strange, audacious move, even for me. Assad agreed to creating this Ministry, which gave armed
opponents the choice to lay down their arms and either join the Syrian Arab Army or to join al-Nusra forces in
Idlib, a northern governate. Whatever the decision, the Syrian government would supply financial assistance to
their families, including free medical and educational benefits. Not everyone thought this was a good idea,
including myself. But Assad said they tended to look at each situation on a cost/benefit analysis. What value I saw
in the new Ministry however was a genuine effort to negotiate with the enemy, the diplomatic principle of
Cardinal Richelieu, and certainly what’s practiced by Lavrov in his exemplary diplomacy, creative and surprising.
I once asked Dr. Haidar about the Mukhabarat, the secret police of Syria that has been called out as the source of
much of Syria’s cause for grievance. His answer was not satisfying to me, and he ended by saying that Americans
have the CIA. One of our delegation who was Traditionalist Catholic and whom I had befriended somewhat, came to
me afterward almost dazzled or dazed that I could ask such a question. It never occurred to me not to. That’s what I was
there for.

We also met with the unofficial opposition as I told you. In the second floor of a Damascus coffee house with large
hookas on the floor all around. They were twelve people, one of whom had been jailed for five years. The first
thing they said to us was that they all supported Assad. He was their only hope. In other words it was not a civil
war. It is a war on Syria on behalf of western imperialism, on behalf of Israel. Even Wesley Clarke announced this
fact in his speech to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco some years ago, after the invasion of Iraq. The
Pentagon, he found out, had a plan to take down seven countries in five years. Syria was on the list. Syria is one
of Israel’s enemies. Israel has stolen the Golan with its oil. Netanyahyu has been offering condolences to the
terrorists in hospitals of the Golan.

This meeting with the unofficial opposition became a great big bone of contention in our group. The interpreter, a
Syrian I believe (but a genius I am convinced) was outraged by the meeting, which had been arranged by Jamal
Douad, the Palestinian doctor, without permission from the government. Jamal claimed that it was his right, our
group’s right, that the terms of the trip included the freedom to go anywhere and to speak with anyone we wanted.
Hassad’s contention was that we were in a country at war for god’s sake and ordinary rights are restricted in war:
he accused Jamal of extreme arrogance in his actions. “You just have to ask permission, out of decency. They
always grant it.”

I didn’t know who was more right. Still don’t. But here is where we stayed:

But we were not led around by Assad devotees. Your claim is unfounded and baseless and it hurts. Do you really
think I could be that naive?

The highlight of my trip was our journey to Ma’aloula, an old Syrian town which is Christian, built just like its
name means ‘between the walls’. Walls like those in Arizona and southern Utah, gigantic slopes of red stone.
I saw on Hassad’s i-phone the video made by the terrorists on the morning they came to the town. At the city
gates a white pickup drove up in the light of sunrise, voiceover of the terrorist commander giving directives.
Then an explosion from the pickup that made me almost hit the ceiling of the bus. Suicide bombing, right here:

We continued on the road up to the summit, where there had been a 5 star hotel. It was captured by the terrorists,
The Free Syrian Army, (the moderate rebels according to the western press) who continued to remodel the building
with bozookas, to create their redoubt. Then they filled automotive and truck tires with dynamite and lit the
dynamite fuses and sent them rolling down into the village. They captured ten nuns who lived in some of the
shrines built into the canyon walls, shrines dedicated to saints of centuries past. The Syrian government eventually
negotiated their release with the help of Qatar as an intermediary. Qatar was an intermediary because they had
been funding the Free Syrian Army. I have often said all that is needed to stop the war is to cut off the funding.
The terrorists are apparently paid  much more than the Syrian Arab Army.

 

I love this. Scratchy white sky. Primitive expressionism. Can only aspire to something this effective.

The redoubt

 What rebels fighting for the people against a tyranny would do such a thing to the people they are supposedly fighting for? Do I need to spell it out?

The church of St. George and St. Basil at the summit, reminded me of St. Gregory’s early days. Everything is
made of stone. Behind the iconostyle an altar of marble that is pre-Christian.

You can see that it had been used for sacrificial offerings. Had just been rebuilt after the terrorists’ bombing.

One of the canyon wall shrines:

The allegation of chemical weapons attacks on the Syrian people are nothing short of preposterous. Assad and his
government had eliminated all stockpiles of chemical weapons following the agreement suggested by Lavrov to
John Kerry. Upon the very first alleged attack, UN inspectors had just arrived in Damascus, and the momentum
of the war was gracing the Syrian Arab Army. It would be suicide for Assad to use chemical weapons at such a
time, to bring world outrage against him when he was on the verge of years’ long victory. Mother Miriam Agnes,
mother superior of the beautiful monastery in Qara, north of Damascus and a Melkite Catholic whom I met twice,
claimed upon the first alleged gas attack that three of the seven videos released by the ‘rebels’ were fake.  She said
this in her role as an impartial intermediary between the government and the sectarian forces as she called them.
I knew this to be true by viewing the videos myself: it was obvious.. Now we have an astounding revelation from
Caitlin Johnstone published in CounterCurrents regarding the alleged attack in Douma, a region on the outskirts of
Damascus not so long ago. A second OPCW whistleblower, a real whistleblower unlike Ciaramella, shifty Schiff’s
confederate from the CIA, has made the claim that the OPCW report on the attack is completely corrupted. Well,
duh. Six of the seven engineers on the agency’s staff believed the cannisters were placed on the scene and the
incident was staged. Evidence of chlorine was not active chlorine but ordinary household chlorine traces found in
any building. Clorox. Amounts analyzed were even less than that.

And the fraud was perpetrated by the heroic White Helmets, those Oscar award winning humanitarians who
unfortunately are in the off hours gun toting armed terrorists themselves. They were constituted by an ex British
MI6 official, James le Mesurier with financing from the British government and other funds from France and
from the US. Yes, they are as fake as department store snow.

You might ascertain that my life interest has not really changed at all: global politics is all theater, now even
including the political Oscars. It is also more than just theater. All major events in the world today are a function
of deceit. And not just any deceit. It seems that these events are 180 degrees from the truth. In other words the
complete opposite. People cannot make the adjustment, get their minds to accept that the victims could actually
be the perpetrators of the very same ghastly crimes. And the perpetrators are actually the victims. The White
Helmets for example, with their humanitarian cover, with their awards and media acclaim pulling on the
heartstrings of the public as righteous humanitarians, risking their lives to save others. To employ this kind of
deceit is repugnant. In war there can be valor and nobility, fighting for a just cause. But there is a sickness in this
pathetic subterfuge. No possibility of nobility. Is there a culture that is prone to this kind of behavior?  In
psychological terms it is called the victim/oppressor mechanism. And I wish you could see through it.

The reporter who knows most about the White Helmets impostors is Vanessa Beeley, an English reporter who
reports verbally and is associate editor at Twentieth Century Wire and in print at globalresearch.ca. And a Canadian
firebrand from Hamilton, Eva Bartlett.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDD0BBNC_mA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVsVrhu4OQU

Here is a video from The Duran that addresses this recent discovery of the second OPCW whistleblower. Video
from two people on the Duran staff whom I respect. Will you take a look at this for me? 

You will see the kind of reporting that I engage with and that I value.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq1HfkWf1iU

Hama. As you know I don’t have an opinion on Hama, on what actually transpired. I didn’t visit there and regret
not having had the foresight when I was in Syria to inquire about it from those who might know. I did meet a
young man in Athens from Hama and he had no animosity towards Bashar as-Assad, but rather was a strong
supporter. I do know that the Muslim Brotherhood was involved in the takeover of the town. I do know also that
Al Jazeera is a property of the emir of Qatar who is supporting the terrorists in Syria. As I said they were the
intermediary in the negotiations to free the nuns and priests of Ma’alooula from the moderate terrorist Free Syrian
Army because they were paying them. Al Jazeera has done wonderful work as well though, especially their
expose of the Israel Lobby in Britain and a second documentary exposing the Lobby in the US. It has been
wiped off YouTube in the recent purges but you can find them both here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceCOhdgRBoc&t=623s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhQSZMtDw3c

Do I need to go to Texas now?

Is that what you are telling me? I thought the plan was to concentrate on one incident, to stay focused and not to
jump all over the map in confusion.

BTW, your tone here is patronizing and pompous: I feel like you are speaking to a seven year old. It is
insufferable. Please give it a rest.

Almost identically, you admonished me to visit Sandy Hook to speak with the families of the victims for my
edification and enlightenment. Well, as you might guess, you cannot speak to aggrieved family members in
Sandy Hook that don’t exist. I mentioned that you were invoking as a fact that which we had tabled for debate:
 a not uncommon fallacy in argument. There can be no deaths at Sandy Hook if the school was closed since 2008.

What I sent you last included several photos of the staging of the front of the school at Sandy Hook. The yellow
barrier tape is up, two men behind the front doors are staging the front entry with kids’ drawings on bulletin boards
and Christmas paraphernalia. But the entry glass is not shot out yet. The windows of classroom 10 are also not yet
shot out. And yet there is the barrier tape.You ignored this evidence in your response, criticizing the young man,
Jerry who used to go to the abandoned school in past years to eat his lunch, who claimed the school had been
closed since 2008. I sent photos that indicated why it had been closed, the mold, the water line on the interior halls
and mold from water absorption on the under sides of doors. Your comment was to criticize the young man, Jerry,
for having less than a dozen visits to his newly found website.

Can his website have anything to do with his testimony? What has come of your Right Reason? You know
Thomas Aquinas may want to lock you up in the tower of San Giovanni del Monte to get you thinking straight.
But not to worry, his brothers will come to your aid with a prostitute to soften your resolve and harden your
revolver.

La Torre

I sent you photos of the conga line. The first was the photo we all saw in newspapers around the world, the second
also taken by Pulitzer Prize winner Shannon Hicks, so she claims. I had to write you to show you that you missed
the salient feature of two photos when they are juxtaposed. One don’t rearrange children in the line and take two
different photos at no mass murder event. It was and could be nothing other than staging. Why I should even have
to mention this kinda says it all.

The photo of Noah Pozner showed up in an alleged mass casualty shooting in Pakistan. You claimed, hope against
hope, that likenesses occur all the time and it is only a matter of pixels after all. I responded that it was not just an
amazing likeness, it was the very same photo. Drawing a grid three squares across and three squares down is
enough to see that every feature of the photo, the sheepskin lining of the collar, the position of the eyes in relation
to the points of the grid are identical.

You responded that you weren’t going to do tit for tat. Tit for tat is what is called give and take in normal
conversation. In face to face or voice to voice, one cannot evade responding.

This lack of response, the refusal to respond, this strategy of ignoring or denying evidence makes productive
discussion impossible. In fact we end up with no discussion at all, speaking past one another, just a drive-by
of opinions bouncing off one another. This is a function of email and of snail mail. In a proper conversation
person to person or by phone, this evasion would not occur.

The parking lot cars are all parked nose to tail. This means one row would have to back into place. Have you
ever seen a Safeway parking lot like this where you have to back in to one of the rows? It is not just improbable,
it is impossible. Can you not admit it was staged? Staged in haste, on the clock, and without thought. There are
no blue handicapped signs or handicapped parking spaces near the front door. This is an overt violation of the
law in 2012: the handicapped provision became law in 2010.

There is so much more. So much more. It is a farce.

Alan, I invite you to call me any time if you want to discuss this further.

Or meet me in person; I would always love to see you.

Maybe to talk about E. Michael Jones. Like old times.

But no more emails.

The form makes it impossible to address or redress what is being ignored or denied. It is unproductive and
frustrating in the extreme. Please do not send me any more emails.

A Real Conspiracy with Russian Operatives and a Compromised President?

Have you heard about the Russian Hoax?

Have you noticed that after three years and a slew of lawfare indictments to squeeze false confessions, the
Mueller (i.e. Wiseman) investigation came up with nothing? Absolute zero?

Oh no, I take that back.

What we have is a detailed trail of FBI, CIA crimes including false FISA warrants, a “dossier” proven now to
be a fake, paid for by Hilary Clinton through Fusion GPS. Then there was the ‘dangle’ for Trump campaign
 associate George Papadopoulos, dropping information via professor Mifsud to him that Russia had Hilary’s
emails, then a meeting with Alexander Downer, Australian intelligence, who was recording Papadopoulos at a
wine bar in London trying to get him to disgorge that Russia had Hilary’s emails. The Five Eyes. All working
together to fabricate false evidence that the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians. Of course all
instigated by the CIA. It’s all being exposed. All going down if I could manage it.

 As I have said many times, I don’t like Trump. A buffoon and Israelophile. Reneged on his promises to his
base a thousand fold. Gotta watch this impersonation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwE-WIdIzz8

But it is the occasion of Trump and Trump Derangement Syndrome that is exposing the mendacity of the
mainstream press on several continents, and the treason of the CIA, the FBI, MI6, MI5 , Australian intelligence,
all working together. The Five Eyes. It seems he doesn’t have to do anything at all.

E. Michael Jones would probably call it Logos rising.

Maybe he’s been reading too much Hegel. Die zeitgeist and all that.

Trump’s call to Zelensky was made at the bequest of William Ball who, along with Durham, is investigating
the origins of the Russia Hoax: investigating the treasonous investigators. I have read the transcript. All Trump
did was to ask for help in Ball’s investigation as one head of state to another head of state. He did not even
mention Biden. It was Zelensky late in the call who brought up Biden. This impeachment hearing is farce shot
through with banality.

 And a lot more. Including the assassination of Seth Rich. And the prosecution of Julian Assange. How could
Barr and Trump allow such a thing?

 Love to talk with you in person.

 Anytime, my age old friend.

PS:

If Paul Schulte misses me, tell him that I am still here in Berkeley.

I would love to hear from him.

I would love to hear what he thought of the book I sent him a couple of years ago, which is now a collector’s
item, which I know he did not read. Or a kind response to the letter I sent along with the book, which was Kand
font in the major text, Hoefler Text Italic in the sidebars, and duotone images with wraparound text. Serious
formatting.

And serious content.

Alan: It is now December 27th and here is the most recent email I sent Ron - the missive I mentioned in reply to your text message from earlier today.

My son Danny and I outside Barcelona airport, June, 2019

Dear Ron,

I received your recent email, and although I will eventually respond to its specifics, your missive makes clear that we are fundamentally estranged.

For example, I consider Vladimir Putin not just a bad actor but one of the worst, a guy who is keenly interested in toppling Liberal Democracy, the form of governance - which, for all its faults - is the political philosophy in which I believe.

I am opposed -- tooth and nail -- to the kleptocratic autocracy Putin has put in place and, unless I am very mistaken, I believe you are his ally.

I may have sent you the following link but I stumbled on it just now and find it so fundamentally pertinent to our discussion that its "apparition" strikes me as synchronistic if not "an act of God."

Hey, Conspiracists! This Is The Frame Tale In Which You Live And Do Fundamental Damage

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/08/hey-conspiracists-this-is-frame-tale-in.html  

In a world where The Social (and political) Contract -- and nearly all other "shared meanings" -- no longer exist, we still understand that married couples (and other partnered people) drift apart. 

And when they do, they become estranged, which is to say they "become strangers to one another." 

Then, because they no longer perceive sufficient meaning in their relationship to carry on, they typically don't. 

In your recent email, you were apparently upset that I did not respond to the information you sent about Dr. E. Michael Jones.

As it happens, I did respond.

But because we have been "walking on eggs" in our relationship, I did not send you that response because it seemed my honesty would be offensive.

Well, be that as it may -- and at your request -- here is my belated reply:

Dear Ron,

Thanks for your recent emails.

I hope you are well. 

Have you made a decision about your knee?

***

I do not want to get lost in the weeds but I do want to discuss a few specifics mentioned in your last two emails: 1.) E. Michael Jones, 2.) the prospect of white genocide, and 3.) your concern over recent events in Italian politics.

I watched your recommended video with E. Michael Jones and was intrigued by his presentation.

I was particularly struck by his "summary" sentence: "We are ready to kill meaning to let our guilty conciences off the hook."

As a cradle Catholic who was also educated in Catholic schools from Kindergarten through university I think I understand Jones from the inside out.

As a good, practicing Catholic, Jones is concerned with authority, continuity of apostolic succession and holding a rigid line on sex.

Situated at this "trinitarian" intersection, it is not surprising that he represents (and clings to) a very lofty ideal concerning sex and reproduction.

However, although Jones is a good Catholic, he is not a truly Roman Catholic.

I am a truly Roman Catholic even though I no longer participate in "obligatory" ritual. 

To a significant extent, Jones is a Manichaen, unduly (and probably unconsciously) influenced by the theological teachings of a Persian Christian named Mani who, for a century or more, vied for primacy with what we now call Christian "orthodoxy."

Manichaeism: The Pollution Of Early Christianity By A Radically Dualistic "Iranian" Christian Sect

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/10/manichaeism-pollution-of-early.html

Returning to my observation that Jones is not "truly Roman Catholic."

Dating back to pre-Christian Rome, we find a trans-millennial cultural tradition that exhibits exceedingly high regard for "the ideal" but is also prone to indulge the inevitability of sinfulness in our "fallen" kind. 

It is also true that modern Italian culture, like Catholic culture, experiences - in one of its two chief "mindsets" - persistent attraction to fascist authoritarianism. 

Just "lay down the law and toe the line!" 

Or, as fundamentalists put it: "God said it. I believe it. That settles it."

An Open Question: Could Satan Himself Destroy As Many Souls As Biblical "Literalism"

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/12/an-open-question-could-satan-himself.html

Jones' prime directive is NO SEX OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE. 

And if you do fornicate (or even take pleasure in an adolescent hard-on) "Sorry Charly, it's off to hell with you." 

An eternity of ever-recurring 3rd degree burns right down to the bone. 

And all this torturous affliction takes place while these tormented souls are fully conscious. 

But rest assured! 

"Jesus loves you." 

"God loves you."

It is not coincidental that Hitler and Mussolini were both cradle Catholics as were the most notable fascists in our own lifetime (excepting Trump):  in Argentina, Chile and now (carrying on a long authoritarian tradition in Portuguese America) the resurgence of Brasilian fascism under Bolsonaro. (I realize we can quibble over definitions of "fascism.")

One of the differences between you and me Ron is that, despite my fondness for detail, I ultimately incline to "take the grand view" - to back up from the individual trees to see the forest. 

I have little interest in microscopic chemical residues; hairsplitting interpretation of photographs to find the hidden meaning of porta-potties suspiciously situated outside police stations; why a bereaved mother is smiling; or spotting deep state revelations in the machinations of ever-corrupt Italian politics. 

Such myopia impresses me as an attempt to distract from what is overarchingly important. 

Here is a recent post which pits supposed "deep state shenanigans" against the actual, provable shenanigans of the right wing.

Whistleblower Chris Wylie Explains How Cambridge Analytica Helped Fuel U.S. "Insurgency"

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/10/mindfck-cambridge-analytica-and-plot-to.html 

As for Salvini... 

Initially I intended to "skip over" Salvini as just more flotsam in the incessant whirlpool of Italian politics.

Then I consulted Wikipedia. 

Ron, I am not in your political camp. 

I am, "by head, heart, loving Christian culture -- and centuries-old family tradition" -- almost always opposed to right-wing politics which, despite the loftiness of right-wing principles, is the locus where I routinely find the seedbed of ethnic-and-racial animus; uncharitableness-if-not-cruelty; and exclusivity-if-not-ghettoization. 

And always I see bedrock punitiveness.

It is as if merely mouthing the "doctrinally-correct words" is what's REALLY needed for salvation, whereas one's actual volition-and-behavior can (and even should) aspire to harm The Infidels --- a kind of pre-punishment for what our loving God has "in store."

In this hard, brittle, punitive world view, we find that St. Paul's "Big Three" -- Faith, Hope and Charity -- constellate faith as pre-eminent, so pre-eminent that Faith imparts Hope... while Charity always gets short shrift. 

Just proclaim that "Jesus Christ is your personal Lord and Savior" and The Pearly Gates swing wide. 

In sum, this is the perrennial reappearance of Luther's bedrock belief in Sola Fide. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/06/pope-francis-on-fundamentalism-horror.html

"In The End, We Choose Between Cruelty And Kindness"

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/10/in-end-we-choose-between-cruelty-and.html

"Cruelty Is The Point," An Update On Trump's Policies And His White Christian Base

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/10/cruelty-is-point-update-on-trumps.html

"Christian Conservatives, The Republican Party, And Deliberate Cruelty As A Source Of Laughter"

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/10/christian-conservatives-republican.html

"Tennessee Williams' Critique Of Cruelty Should Be Included In The World's Sacred Scripture"

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/09/tennessee-williams-critique-of-cruelty.html

"Family Separation And The Deportation Of Parents Constitute Kidnapping And Human Trafficking"

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/07/family-separation-and-parent.html

"New England Journal Of Medicine Determines The Lethality Of Trump's Family Separation Policy"

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/09/new-england-journal-of-medicine.html

I am a liberal-radical (with certain conservative tendencies) and I believe that the "inalienable rights of man" ratified by the European Enlightenment (upon which The Founding Fathers launched The American Experiment) are, in the end, commonly sacrificed by fascists and other authoritarian absolutists.

Because of my over-arching observation that authoritarian absolutistism is opposed to the political and personal freedom that informed the Renaissance and the European Enlightnment, I believe Dr. Jones would spend his time more beneficially if he defended those "inalienable rights" rather than make his bedrock stand on a rigid call for sexual suppression. 

By the way, young people today -- and I know this from my 22 and 26 year old children -- are quite conservative sexually, with little if any of the formative influence that Jones ascribes to Margaret Mead and others who would "kill meaning." (Like aging military generals, Jones is "fighting the last war.")

My kids and their peers know much more than I did at their age. 

They are also committed to peace, justice, creativity, environmental integrity and sex/gender parity in ways that are incalculably more informed-and-impassioned than my political dilettantism back in those simpler, let's-get-high-and-have-a-tumble-in-the-hay times. 

I do not know to what extent "our generation" of sexual libertines may be responsible for current sexual conservatism, but nowadays even abortion takes place at a lower rate than it did BEFORE Roe v. Wade!  

Personally, I will credit our generation with immeasurably better social and cultural outcomes than throw-back Trump and his typically right-wing cultists whom I see as genuine barbarians --- "in it" for themselves and eager to destroy (or as Steve Bannon euphemistically puts it "to deconstruct")  The Common Good, The General Welfare and anything like a Social Contract. 

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin quipped: "The motto of the Republican Party is: 'We're all in this.... alone.'"

I once read the following revelatory definition: "Evil takes delight in deliberate destruction."

I can think of no better categorization of Trump and his DF shills who cling to their cruel vision of Christianity as if "mouthing the right credal formulas" will save them from the horrifying epiphany they will confront at "The Pearly Gates." 

Whether they know it or not, they are singlemindedly committed to the deconstruction (aka destruction) of The American Experiment with its deep root in the Enlightenment "Trinity" of Deism, Science and a bedrock belief in inalienable human rights.

Liberal Democracy: Born In The 18th Century "Enlightenment"; Not What The Uneducated Think

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/11/liberal-democracy-born-in-18th-century.html

But back to Salvini...

Salvini's comments on Roma people turned my stomach. 

I also find his zealous opposition to Pope Francis repulsive. 

Profoundly repellent. 

Ineffably odious.

And although the following positions are not as offensive to me, I also oppose his proscriptive position on same-sex marriage; detest his advocacy on behald of looser gun laws; and --  since I am a rational scientist -- I heartily favor mandatory vaccination which he considers an impingement on real freedom.

Salvini also endorsed the Republican candidate in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump, whom he met in April 2016 in Philadelphia.^[195] Multiple news agencies have compared him and his views to those of Trump.^[196][197] In September 2018, Salvini pledged his support for The Movement, a European populist group being founded by Trump's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon.^[198]

In 2016, Salvini used his personal Twitter account to re-tweet a call to murder an Italian judge. He later described that as a "mistake".^[199]

In September 2018, Salvini endorsed conservative nationalist candidate Jair Bolsonaro in the Brazilian presidential election that year.^[200] 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matteo_Salvini

I believe Salvini, Trump and Bolsonaro are essentially fascist and I am emphatically opposed to fascism. 

All three of these mofos are shittily educated assholes dedicated to underming the aspirations-and-pillars of civilization as set forth by 18th century democrats rooted in the European Enlightenment.

In my mind, the only important conspiracy is taking place ALL THE TIME on the other side of the plutocratic one-way mirrored glass ceiling. 

ALL other conspiracies I consider distractions from everything that is essentially important.

Everything.

"Deep State Plutocracy" Is The Enduring Conspiracy. Warfare And Racial Animus Are The Decoys

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/05/deep-state-plutocracy-is-ancient-and.html

"The forest" (as opposed to "the trees") which I perceive in Dr. Jones' creed is his overarching (and subtending) insistence that absolutes exist and they must be respected with unbending rigidity.

Consequently, Jones strikes me as an authoritarian absolutist.

And even if "God" is, in some fashion, an "authoritarian absolutist," I do not see how we sexually-driven mammals are going to do any good in this world by setting aside mercy and compassion in order to promote the dry bones of absolutism and the perrennial killing fields of authoritarianism.

James' Epistle: "Judgment Without Mercy Will Be Shown To Anyone Who Has Not Shown Mercy"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/03/james-epistle-judgment-without-mercy.html

Even so, I am aligned with Jones to the extent that he may share the Roman Catholic sense of absolutism tempered by indulgence, compassion and ready forgiveness.

When the apostle Peter says "love covers a multitude of sins" he notes that our sinfulness never goes away, that our penchant for wrongdoing is always there, that we always fall short, and that brittle absolutes are absolutely unachievable. 

However, love "covers them all." 

This "coverage" is a kind of divine, love-driven "cover-up" to make it "totally okay that we are NOT okay." 

But when Jones says that we are ready "to kill meaning to let our guilty consciences off the hook," I think he is grinding an axe - that he is inappropriately harsh, unloving and unforgiving - not to mention his implicit hostility to indulgence if not mercy itself 

Johann Tetzel is a minor hero of mine. 

Despite Tetzel's objectionable profiteering from the sale of indulgences, he nevertheless embodied the persistent Catholic desire to "admit people to heaven" even if inconceivable "amounts" of transcendent Mercy -- completely apart from our "just desserts" -- are required to leap over The Wall of authoritarian-absolutist judgmentalism which I see as essentially pharisaic. (In the mid-Fifties when I was a student at St. Thomas the Apostle grammar school in Irondequoit, New York, the Mercy Sisters taught us that "There is no doctrinal reason why Catholics need to believe that a single soul is in Hell. In fact, it is our obligation to pray for the salvation of everyone, including Adolf Hitler.")

The Pharisees Are Always With Us: Here's What They "Look Like" Today
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-pharisees-are-always-with-us-heres.html

Yeshua Excoriates Fellow Pharisees: "The Woe Passages"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/08/yeshua-excoriates-fellow-pharisees-woe.html

The Pharisees... And What Became Of The Thirty Pieces Of Silver

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-pharisees-and-what-became-of-thirty.html

In my view, Pope Francis is very good about prioritizing mercy over justice which, revealingly, represent the two "value poles" featured in the most problematic Myers-Briggs question: "Do you value justice or mercy more?" 

Note that the very insolubility of this question points to the fact that we live along a dialectical spectrum, and that -- ultimately -- there are good arguments on "both" sides just as there are for any polar, and therefore polarizing, issue. (Fortunately, love can "cover" it all.)

However -- and this is a HUGE "however" -- to acknowledge that there are always two valid poles in Life is a position that fundamentally opposes the mono-polarity or monopoly-of-values that absolutist-authoritarians INSIST upon.

I say that absolutist-authoritarians are essentially out-of-touch with Reality... which may be why so many American "conservatives" have taken leave of their senses.

"Postive/negative" (whether in the human psyche or in electrical current or across earth's magnetic field); "conservatism and liberalism"; "goodness and badness" co-exist. 

The essentially right-wing passion to eliminate one of these everlasting poles - "the left" - is not only crazy but apocalyptically whacked-out. 

Conservative Christianity, Armageddon As Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, And Return To The Neolithic

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/12/conservative-christianity-armageddon-as.html

"Mercy makes the world... more just."

What a brilliant dialectical solution to a knotty problem!

Admittedly, Jones is well-grounded in his value system and raises genuinely provocative questions. 

And so, I do not argue directly against him, but would rather contextualize what I see as The Larger Meaning. 

And that "Larger Meaning" -- like Love itself -- "covers a multitude of sins."

Paul Schulte comes to mind. "Right wing. Left wing. Who ever saw a bird fly with just one wing?" 

Like other bright conservatives, Jones says many things that ring true.

But he says them in a way that reminds me of the saying "It's too true to be good." 

I repeat: "Too true to be good." (My psychologist friends seem to moving toward experiential consensus: "We can either be right or we can be happy.)

I will also spotlight Chinese sage Lao Tzu reminder (in Lionel Giles' 1903 translation of the Tao Te Ching) that "The profoundest truths are paradoxical." 

Like many authoritarian-absolutists, Jones is straightforwardly intense -- the kind of intensity Chesterton perceived in Islam's ferociously monopolar belief in Allah, a "unitarian" God who seems to invest his believers with the power-and-the-authority to use their slashing scimitars to slaughter infidels. 

The godly elimination of Evil is as impossible -- and as ill-informed -- as the godly elimination of polarity. 

We must "give the devil his due." And if we don't, the chances increase that we are ourselves will become diabolical.

Alternatively, Chesterton's view of Christianity's trinitarian God was that the Godhead itself embodies a community -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit - so that there was alway need for conviviality and harmonization among the disparate "persons" of this "society." 

It was (and is) woefully insufficient to try to annihilate any innate tendencies just because they seem to rival THE ONE. 

That God needs knocking down a notch.

On this earth, polar tendencies are eternally melded - just like the exceedingly problematic relationship between justice and mercy.  

If you have not read Eric Hoffer's hundred page book, "The True Believer," it is brilliant. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/09/san-francisco-stevedore-eric-hoffer.html

In similar vein, one of my top five quotations (which also include Lao Tzu's citation above) is the following passage from Thomas Merton:

"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice.  The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization.  We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal.  Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good.  The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.” "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” by Trappist monk, Father Thomas Merton

Imagine.

The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.

The best becomes evil.

Again we see the unspeakably benighted ruthlessness of insisting on the normalization of unbending ideals... which, in turn, pre-empt the need to incarnate love in our own lives.

Just say "the magic formula": "I accept Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior!"

"Voilà!"

More Merton Quotes

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/04/merton-best-imposed-as-norm-becomes.html

You also link to Paul Craig Roberts who is such an interesting fellow that I always glance at his writing whenever it "crosses my desk." 

However, over the last decade I have come to realize that Roberts is adept at "making mountains out of mole hills" - the only way he can continue promoting consistently contrarian views. Absent exaggeration there is just not enough good evidence to inform a weekly column

To illustrate Roberts' penchant for "making mountains out of mole hills," I direct you to his review of the movie "The Hunt" in which sporting liberals hunt "Trumpistas."

To create a "sellable story" Roberts converts a two-star movie into "The Foundational Template" that construes liberals and progressives in common cause with Satan himself.

How Conservatives Use Decontextualized Shards Of Truth To Tell HUGE Lies
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/08/scott-pruitt-how-conservatives-use.html

It is incalculably more likely that right-wing militias will come after me than any imaginable scenario in which liberals sould hunt down Trumpistas. 

"Who Gets The Political Support Of 892 Certifiable U.S. Hate Groups?"

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/11/who-gets-political-support-of-892.html

If Trump cultists win next November -- and then finish their fascist destructuring of The American Experiment -- I will head for the native American hills "south of the border" where -- whether or not I have valid residence papers -- native friends will welcome me and integrate me into peaceful community.

Craig is a white guy who -- akin to other white guys -- became too wealthy and, no longer needing the economic collaboration of others to survive in the world, many of his kind stopped reproducing, and, as a lock-step result, we now import dark-skinned laborers to help us age and die.

How could we even think it might be otherwise?

Are we white people THAT stupid?

Are we so self-centered and "supremacist" to think we're entitled to have it both ways?

No children.  AND no "darkies" to help us "get by."

I am not surprised to learn that Roberts' "singular zealousness for supply-side economics provoked ire in some quarters within the government, with Larry Kudlow – then an official in the Office of Management and Budget – saying that "Craig saw himself as the keeper of the Reagan flame. Only Craig knew what was right. No one else knew what was right".^[1]

In the above passage, Pascal describes the intrinsic inclination of religiosity as practiced by authoritarian, absolutist people who believe themselves unimpeachably righteous, people who are typically rigid, brittle, unbending, unmerciful and given to finger-wagging.

"Only Craig knew what was right. No one else knew what was right"

"From Jesus to Christ: The Early Christians"

PBS

 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/

"Dead-End Conspiracism" And "The REAL Thing"... Hidden In Plain Sight

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/08/backwater-conspiracism-and-real-thing.html

The Sutherland, Texas, Baptist Church Massacre

My friend Elaine K --- Fred Owen's former editor at Wilson County News (the county where the Sutherland Baptist Church massacre took place) --- knows that those 26 congregants are dead and that 20 more were wounded. 

Elaine also knows that every slaughtered individual was killed with a firearm.

What I believe you need to do Ron --- if you are to claw your way back from the right-wing Bamboozle that has overtaken you --- is to prove to yourself that one of your foundational falsehoods is, in fact, a lie.

You are lying to yourself -- and to the world -- when you reflexively claim that "all" mass carnage involving firearms is attributable to "crisis actors," who routinely fool "the rest of us" by "disappearing" every theatrically-murdered person for the rest of their lives, and in the process cause permanent family separation. 

Why do crisis actors -- collaborately with people who live in "target" communites -- do this?

According to "The Official Conspiracist Story" they do this to sour popular opinion on Second Amendment Rights.

I not only suggest Ron that you go to Sutherland, Texas, I say that your responsibility to Truth requires that you go to Sutherland. 

And, in addition to poking around Suthermoan for at least a week, I believe you need to interview my devout Catholic friend Elaine, who, like "everyone" else in her community is a staunch defender of three things: God, Trump and The Second Amendment. 

Elaine is the LAST person in the known Universe who would participate in a cover-up to advance the cause of gun regulation.

Do you know any parent -- just one parent in The Whole World -- who would agree to have their child torn from the bosom of their families and their home communities -- FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES -- in order to collaborate with Homeland Security to turn popular opinion against The Second Amendment?

I know no parent who would do this - or even ponder the possibility. 

Furthermore, every person I know would consider the idea of parents agreeing to such "family separation" as equivalent to promoting legislation to revoke The Law of Gravity, or the make Caligula's horse emperor.

Just to get a feeling for Elaine, here is her Christmas letter which arrived yesterday:

Happiness is a new toy, and Al proudly shows off his new monster Kubota tractor, complete with an air conditioned cab — and a sun roof! (Not that I’m jealous, but he had to one up me because I was excited about the sunroof in my Edge!) 

Seriously, Al and Chester continue to farm their combined 70 acres in Sutherland Springs. Karl does most of the work cutting and baling hay, so the tractor met with his approval. Speaking of the farm, they have quite a herd, with six baby calves and counting. Meanwhile, we need rain at the farm ‘cause we’re gonna have to feed a lot of cattle! 

This year didn’t begin all that good, though, as last Dec. 15, Al broke his hip. My Christmas letters had already gone out, but suf- fice it to say that things were in an upheaval after that. That happened on a Saturday, and fortu- nately, there was a wonderful surgeon, Dr. Wayne Lee, who was willing to do surgery the next day. On Sunday, Al had a partial hip replacement, and on Tuesday, he was transferred to rehab in Flores- ville. Several months of therapy followed. 

I can finally say, we survived. There re- ally isn’t much else to say about 2019. As we haul out the Christmas decorations once again, I’m trying not to be premature, but it looks like it’s going to be a good one! 

I feel like I want to make up for what I couldn’t do last year, so December is filled with activities. We’ll do the best we can to keep up. Julia and Jacob both play in the County Line Community Band, so we have their concerts to attend in addition to the school band concerts. 

James Paul, in the 7th grade, is proving to have some of the same musical talent as his sister. He plays the trombone and is in the top tier of the three middle school bands. 

Jude, in the third grade, is showing signs of being a politician. He is quite the talker and a little social bug. 

Julia will graduate in May and she and Kristen have been scoping out several nearby colleges to which she has been accepted. They are still deciding on the best one. 

At the newspaper, we are operating very lean so that means there is more for me to do, trying to pick up the pieces and keep things together. Under Kristen’s guidance, we have expanded our online

presence and added a phone app. With additional efforts to diversify, we are experimenting with more retail in our front office while Julia works on building an online store. These are just ways to involve the community and increase our visibility and the amount of foot traffic. 

I’m still as much of a political junkie as ever, but must admit that, with the current circus in Washington, I sometimes have to change the channel to a Hallmark movie for some comedic relief. 

To be sure, at Christmas, we celebrate the love of the Christ Child by attending Holy Mass as a family, followed by a family dinner with everyone present. True to our human nature, though, we observe the spiritual through material celebrations. We decorate, prepare foods, and find ways to share with family and friends.

We exchange gifts with each other as we remember the greatest gift of all ... for God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son.

Pax tecum

Alan