Burning for Justice

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In a stunning symbolic act, US airman Aaron Bushnell, declaring that he will “no longer be complicit in genocide,” on Sunday immolated himself in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C. The act stuns with its deafening echo of the incineration of Jews during the Holocaust. I feel certain that Bushnell was conscious of this association.

Bushnell’s choice was overwhelmingly tragic. But is it heroic – or insane?

At my parallel site, I will elaborate upon the redemptive goals of the Book of Jonah. Simply, Jonah was sent in response to a plea from the king of Ninevah for a prophet to lead his people into civic maturity. Jonah refuses to the bitter end and vanishes from history. Jonah’s importance is recognized in celebration of the Day of Atonement, with modern Jews sometimes building meditative huts, seeking to glimpse the understanding that eluded Jonah when he fled Ninevah.

It is this simple: the Israelites were an object lesson regarding the benefits of regulation by love. They were meant to inspire their neighbors to emulation. Instead, as exemplified by Jonah, they become ethnic zealots. This confusion is echoed in Netanyahu’s summation of his bombing campaign against Gaza, in which he proudly proclaimed, “The world will see what Israel can do.” Violence, rather than love, is taken as the sacred language.

Returning to Bushnell, in the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus is said to have taught that redemption is achieved when we take off our clothes and trample upon them. This is not a literal reference to outer garb, but a metaphor concerning the relationship between the soul and the body. To “trample on clothing” is for the soul, upon death, to liberate itself from any future dependency upon bodily existence.

Given his calm tone in his videocast prior to his self-sacrifice, I have hope that this is how Bushnell conceived this event. He no longer wished to exist among leaders who used incarnation as a tool to wreck spiritual havoc.

What saddens me, however, is that I may have lost one who could have borne witness and facilitated the realization of justice in Palestine. Every innocent soul in Gaza is going to be reborn from its torment in Israel, filled with repugnance for ethnic prejudice. Israel will be redeemed by the victims of its own violence. Love makes all things new.

Guardians against Genocide

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I used to joke that the Bible was “his-story” because women of power don’t need to write down “hers-story.”

My eldest son’s sixth-grade teacher was a member of the Sisterhood. One of the controversies of her curriculum was reading of “Anne Frank’s Diary” and a long segment on the Holocaust. We had a conference mid-year in which it was clear that she had strong antibodies to powerful men.

Shortly afterwards, she sent me a dream. I was a young girl disembarking from a railcar, wondering why it was snowing, and then looking up to see the ash clouds descending from the incinerators. The dream sequence was complex, but at the conclusion I was sitting up in bed, the globe hovering before me. I reached out with my left hand to touch Europe in three places. As I pulled the fingers away, the souls of all those – whether Jew or Gentile – who surrendered without hatred followed to encircle the globe. I requested that they stand as guardians against a repetition.

Contemporaneously, I was attending Sabbath Torah study at the local Reform congregation. Arriving that morning before class, I was met by one of the elders. When I tried to describe the dream, he interrupted me, “Brian, there may just be parts of you that other people don’t have.”

Since 10/7, I have been waking up most mornings to dreams that litigate my anti-Semitism. I have been trying to be patient. But let me offer the witness of the guardians: they are hovering over Gaza.

Atrocity and Hegemony

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Perhaps the most frightening trend in political circles is the idea that nations must stabilize as “civilization states.” Justifications for this view emphasize the stubborn persistence of ethnic and racial conflict. In Africa, this was cultivated when colonizers drew maps that splintered tribes into warring blocks. Elsewhere, it reflects the residue of conquest as cultural dominance shifted from region to region, leaving diverse mixtures of peoples in its aftermath.

The principles of hegemony – achieving a stable state through conquest – were laid out by Machiavelli in “The Prince.” His brutal prescriptions reflect the challenges of hegemony.

  • Native languages allow resistance to consolidate before the state can respond.
  • Historic practices for conflict resolution consolidate authority that can light the match of rebellion.
  • Egalitarian philosophies of moral judgment (i.e. – redemptive religion) provide a foundation for critique of hegemony.

I would assert that all of the atrocities of the 19th and 20th centuries reflect the industrialization of the practice of hegemony. It should be no mystery that embedded cultures manifesting the characteristics described above are always the target of repression.

The concept of the “civilization state” is a rationale for hegemony. If the US does not robustly critique the threat represented by its proponents, the 21st century will eclipse the tragedies of our ancestors.

Comparative Aggression

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After watching justification of the choice not to provide an opportunity for international agencies to deliver aid to Gaza:

To insist that one should be held to the same standards of conduct as an internationally condemned terrorist organization is to aspire to the same condemnation.

The alternative path, of course, is for a people that dwells on a history of oppression to demonstrate sensitivity to the consequences of their own search for security – and take the higher ground in limiting the side-effects of their aggression.

Final Solution

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On the Chris Hayes show last night, the panel analyzed the impossibility of separating Hamas from the fleeing civilians. Hayes, not having grasped the significance of the destruction in Gaza City, drew upon past history, suggesting that when Israel shifted focus to southern Gaza, Hamas fighters would move back to the north with the civilian population.

Oh, Chris: no one is returning. Look at the pictures. The IDF is going to squeeze the civilian population to the south, slicing the territory into half, then quartered, then an eighth, until the weight of human suffering drives the international community to force Egypt to allow the refugees to enter.

Death has the leaders of Netanyahu’s coalition firmly in its grasp. The conclusion drawn from Israel’s history by the Orthodox and military leaders is that counseled in guidance to the Chosen People when they entered the Promised Land. “Kill all the men and destroy everything that has known the touch of a man’s hand.” This is the “ancient evil” that lives again in those circles.

Those leaders – who are not willing to submit to the restraint demanded by the people of Israel – have become the thing that attempted to destroy their ancestors. You see, in the Third Reich, a “Jew” was anyone who carried the blood of a Jewish grandparent. Hitler himself had an abusive, alcoholic, Jewish grandfather. As God’s protection was upon the souls of Hitler’s victims, so it will be upon the souls of innocent Palestinians. As for their prospective murderers: do not follow orders that violate international laws of war. If the President of Israel expected unarmed civilians to overthrow Hamas, he can no less expect you to refuse to commit war crimes.

Tyrants and Conspiracies

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A tendency (shared by myself) has been to evaluate susceptibility to conspiracy theories as a psychological defect. I have begun to realize that serves to immunize the tyrants that cultivate and profit from such theories.

Psychologists see susceptibility to conspiracy theories as rooted in social identity. The power of this dynamic is revealed in studies that ask participants to allocate resources equitably or punitively. What the researchers have learned is that even being sorted by odd and even number assignments results in a tendency to eschew a large, equal reward when offered the opportunity to achieve a comparative advantage against the “out group.” The assumptive goal is to pre-emptively starve the members of the out-group — perhaps under the intuitive expectation that when they are gone, our group will no longer need to compete for the bounty of nature.

For a group in social distress, a conspiracy theory creates a narrative that assigns fault to such an external force. The theory provides a focus that channels the need to respond to suffering. That focus may be defined by race, ethnicity, religion, class — or an arbitrary and amorphous label such as “wokeness.”

In “How Minds Change,” David McRaney reports that argumentation based upon facts will not sway a subscriber to a conspiracy. In fact, such argumentation serves to move us into the category of those under the sway of the conspiracy, actually strengthening belief. The only antidote to conspiracy, apparently, is to be offered membership in an alternative and effectively supportive community.

Of course, from the perspective of sustainable human relationships, we might be right to criticize adherents for failing to understand that they are engaged in a race to the bottom. Any constructive social activity requires the assumption of good will. I think that this lies at the root of my past tendency to see psychological weakness as the cause of susceptibility to conspiracy. To believe is to throw out both the baby of rationality and the bathwater of social cohesion.

But I am beginning to perceive a darker influence in the strength of conspiracy in current political dialog. This is that a conspiracy theory is a tool used by a tyrant to create social pressure that coerces the behavior of his thralls. This is evident in the bizarre competition between Trump and McConnell for control of the GoP — each maintains influence by threatening excommunication of those in dissent. But it also seemed evident in the video from the Tennessee Chamber yesterday, when the Speaker, panicked by the effectiveness of the victims’ oratory, called the question to pre-empt the development of dissent within his caucus.

We think of Russian compromat as a slippery slope greased by money. Certainly, McConnel operates according to this principle. But in Trump and the MAGA movement at large, accession to a conspiratorial lie seems to serve the same end — without the commitment of wealth. The lie is validated by acceptance from the political class, who can expose the lie only at the cost of a career. For the tyrant, a second benefit arises: the constituency, convinced of the need to combat the conspiracy, gratefully fills the tyrant’s money trough.

This shift in understanding leads me to a new prescription for responding to conspiracy theories. Rather than analyzing the traits of the susceptible, I think that we should focus on the propagators and beneficiaries of the conspiracy. This makes them the “out group.” Furthermore, as we are all susceptible by nature, it leaves open the only path to freedom: to open our arms to our fellow victims.

Empire Without War

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The Atlantic published an essay on the crisis facing dissidents of conscience in authoritarian countries. The challenges reflect two geopolitical changes. First, autocrats have surrendered territorial ambitions, instead focusing solely on enriching themselves. Secondly, democratic countries have failed to shift their propaganda from traditional to social media.

The Atlantic misses some important side-effects of this shift. Autocrats no longer need armies to wage war – they need only demoralize democracies. So, while China and Russia spend billions on social media and influence campaigns, the US spends billions on aircraft carriers. Which is the better investment? Well, who needs aircraft carriers when you can wage war directly in the bedrooms of the citizens that you wish to control?

Still, the principles of the Cold War apply. Putin and Xi and Maduro and the mullahs may not be unified by their borders, but their attempts to create a state-controlled trading block will face the same end as did the Soviet Union. It was the trappings of capitalism that convinced their citizens that they had a stake in the success of their economies. As the inefficiencies of corruption take hold, that belief will erode. Worker productivity will decline. Conversely, democracies will continue to innovate.

The greatest threat to democracy is that global corporations prefer to do business with autocrats. Negotiating with Western stakeholders is exhausting. This is the reality behind the critique that allows China to acquire extraction rights in developing nations. Western corporations were rapacious in their search for profits. China’s state-owned enterprises are simply offering better terms to the autocrats that were created by their Western predecessors.

Murder Out of Context

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I have previously offered the sacred perspective on procreation, a position that tolerates choice while recognizing that parents are responsible for controlling the frequency of medical trauma. That perspective has been shouted down by psychopathic legalists whose edicts amplify, rather than mitigate, the trauma suffered by women and their children.

To elevate human law over the promptings of the Holy Spirit is the only irredeemable blasphemy. While the Sixth Commandment (“Thou shall not murder.”) issued from the Holy Spirit, it was given in a specific context, and pertains specifically to that context.

The larger context is that of the Flood, after which Noah is told:

“Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood.”

[NIV Gen. 8:21]

With the burden of justice settled upon humanity:

“Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed;
for in the image of God has God made mankind.”

[NIV Gen 9:6]

This is an object lesson in attainment of the “knowledge of good and evil.” As Jesus said, God is the source of all that is good. Without His guidance, justice will be irregular of sometimes perverted. This is seen in the structure of the Law itself, which specifies murder as punishment for many offenses, to the absurd extent of an accidental death only when involving an iron implement.

The specific context is the conduct of Moses himself. Moses, positioned in the royal household as the representative meant to organize the liberation of his people, loses his temper and murders an Egyptian. God comes to him in exile, commanding Moses to resume his duty, a duty that Moses renounces in shame. God prevails, of course, and Moses returns to the royal court. The point was apparently lost on Pharoah: the advocate for the Israelites was returned to Egypt, and the heir was allowed the opportunity to be receptive to the testimony of his adopted brother. Instead, the Israelites are liberated only through the intervention of the Angel of Death itself.

Upon reaching the Mount, the People had been conditioned to moral receptivity. The Most High knows that they still are susceptible to the religious anarchy that prevailed in Egypt. So, a set piece is staged: Moses climbs into the Holy Presence while Aaron gathers the wealth of the Israelites to fashion a profane idol.

In this context, the Sixth Commandment was a prophylactic against Moses’ anger, an intervention insufficient against the “inclinations” of his heart. Moses was meant to reason with his countrymen. “Oh, look,  you have created a god to worship. How is that investment paying off? Consider instead these tablets, on which the God of our Fathers has explained how to channel His power…” Instead, of course, Moses shatters the tablets on the ground and proceeds to violate the Sixth Commandment, murdering thousands.

Jesus’ attitude regarding the Mosaic Law is clear. He derogates it. Regarding divorce, He pronounced, “Moses allowed you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard.” And throughout the New Testament, Jesus said that he would fulfill the Law, and create a New Covenant. The Covenant with Moses would be respected, but only to those that follow it without changing so much as “a jot or tittle.” This judgment is reiterated on multiple occasions by the Mosaic prosecutor who became the evangilist Paul.

In the place of the Law Jesus sent “[His] Holy Spirit,” a personal counselor against whom none are allowed to blaspheme. This covers those that rationalize their sins as “the promptings of the Holy Spirit,” but includes those that impose their understanding of justice on those whose life context leaves them no good choices. To victims of circumstance, the Holy Spirit tenders the compassionate gift of the “Peace that Surpasses All Understanding” and the hope of the Prodigal’s redemption.

The only justification for imposition of human judgment is a claim to privileged preparation to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. The “pro-life” conspiracy is proud to claim such institutions, to govern them with men in respect to the male institution of the Hebrew priesthood, and to reference scripture that counsels wives to follow the edicts of their husbands. Those that assert such privilege, however, should heed the witness of those that persecuted Joan of Arc. At the end of a sham trial in which the martyr frequently rebuked the accusers “Do you really think that We do not perceive the traps that you lay?” an English noble observed “We are all going to Hell.” The entire proceeding was blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the second party in Joan’s “We.”

Women, to those that understand Revelation 4, 12, 19 and 22, are the Tree of Life. They have their independent spiritual purpose. For men to impose themselves as judges upon that sacred mission is egregious blasphemy. They should remember that Jesus used a violation of the Sixth Commandment as the mechanism by which He pierced the gates of Hades, thereby redeeming Humanity from the sins codified by Moses. Death is part of the sacred order; the Most High grants that through faith – attentiveness to the prompting of the Holy Spirit – lives can hold meaning. Do not impede the female prerogative to bear children only under conditions propitious to the realization of their Sacred Purpose.

Hear then my judgment: The Federalist Society is an abomination, and the parties that direct its activities and promulgate its policies are guilty of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. In divorcing themselves from the promptings of the Holy Spirit, the destruction that they wreak within themselves has an irredeemable finality.

Chatbots and Intelligence

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Chatbot technologies are prompting predictions that automation is going to enter the white-collar space. This inevitability leads to concerns that AI is going to replace humanity. Prophets are using words like “intelligent,” “sentient,” and “conscious” to describe their assistants.

This is all based upon the criteria for intelligence proposed by Alan Turing. The problem is that Turing’s test (can I tell if I am conversing with a computer?) is not a meaningful test of intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to change behavior in response to a change in the environment. The environment known to a chatbot is grossly impoverished in comparison to the environment experienced by humans. The capacity of the chatbot to navigate that environment is almost non-existent – it does so only under the rules defined by its training algorithm. What these systems actually do is propagate human intelligence and combine language in novel ways.

Without intelligence, claims of sentience and consciousness fall aside.

The real problem with these technologies is that other people will use them to create the impression that they are intelligent and moral actors. Copying the speech of Gandhi or MLK Jr. is going to become easy. We are going to have to invest in deeper means of assessing capabilities – such as actually observing what people do.

Healing Projections

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When I first began to project myself into the world, my “anthem” (in the sense that it confronted others most directly with my nature) was “Revelation Song.” When played at the local mega-church, as I closed my eyes in meditation, the struggle of the cross arose within me. When I opened my eyes, I witnessed those around me huddling together, staring at me in frightened awe.

Today, the song that builds most immediately into sacred fugue is “King of Kings,” a succinct summation of Jesus’ ministry. The official Hillside Worship video brings the familiar tingle that comes with others “tuning in,” and continues to expand as I raise the volume.

Tuesday night, I followed this with Bethel’s “King of My Heart,” the extended video with spontaneous worship by Steffany Gratzinger. Having accepted that humanity is yet unwilling to follow where my heart leads, I have turned my attention to the natural world. The visions unlocked by the words took a corresponding turn. Rather than boats and meditative retreats, I was drawn into muffled ocean waters and a brook burbling through an ancient grove.

Still, those primal natural energies remained suspicious until the break. “You’re never going to let me down” Followed by “You are good.” Reversing the focus, I projected those out into the natural world, reviving the witness of Genesis 1: “It is good.” The imagery received from the future encouraged them. Yes, humanity is hurting you, but you will survive that exile from love.

The capstone species tumbled into awareness. Whales, dolphins, petrels, and kelp. Conifers, bears, and raptors. Wolves, felines, and cycads. Worms, voles, and grasses.

Abandoning my chair, I turn the lights off and laid down in bed. Awareness shifted. The Earth from a great distance. My heart opening and the deeper frequencies of the sun’s emanations pouring through. The encounter was resisted, and an irreconcilable pain arose within its chambers. Pulsing, massaging, pushing through – the pain built until I cried out aloud. And then a retreat, allowing the energies that had been projected to find a home within receptive life.

It doesn’t happen all at once.

Sunday brought a choice. The Super Bowl represented a global distraction that allowed me to integrate progress in dance. Again, Ecstatic Dance LA’s nature experience at Venice Beach seemed opportune. My desire was cemented by a frustration at church. Considering the opening verses of Jonah 4, the pastor provided an exhaustive summation of human wisdom – all of them in error. I built a wall around my frustration, but could not escape the response “Why am I not honored? I do the best that I can.”

No, you do not. I am here among you. All you need do is pick up the phone and ask.

Enough of people, their privilege and ritual delusions.

Venice was sunny, but blustery and cool. I followed the meditative piping on the headphones down to the waves, mimicking the terns hunting along the surf line. Dissolving into the elements, expanding into a space beyond words, free from order or dependency, simply witnessing the moment as it was.

Gathering that into the opening ceremony, I presented the elements to the community. Many were first-time attendees, not expecting experience that I generated. We made our way down to the shore, and it began. Clouds gradually blew across the sky, their progression impeded by the sun, which continued to peek through the verge throughout the dance. Temperatures dropped, but the women disrobed, sheer fabrics revealing more than seemed prudent. Many more of them than men, they danced together playfully. Navigating through the space, awareness of the signals sent was unavoidable, and reciprocated by sideways glances. Regretfully, desire is my point of entry.

Resonating with that vibration, I paused, raising arms, and projected heart-energy upwards and outwards. “You and your sisters need more power.”

Descending back into the dance, I followed the resonance to individual women. Refocusing their intentions, pouring energy into hearts, damming the overflow up into the crown chakra. The engagement was unfamiliar, many drifting away uncertainly.

Underneath, however, was a claim of primacy from a woman that I had encountered in Santa Monica. Sexual politics invaded my dance. The higher perspective allowed me to evade it. A flight of pelicans, rays of sun through the clouds contrasting with the sparkle on the waves and the orange flame on the horizon, sage-covered hills to the right arguing with construction behind and to the left, surging surf that pushed the dance up the shore. These resonated, in moments, with specific women, and the dissonance of primacy reentered the engagement.

Finally, I made my way up the shore, escaping the confusion of human desire, and danced with the elements.

Leaving early, the claims followed me. Prior to COVID, such had forced me out of the dance community. My immediate concern is to restore the biosphere that has been raped by human greed. Accepting sexual interest corrupts that goal. It serves, I have discovered, to validate greed’s primary justification: protection for mate and children. This was the thrust of the negotiation, focused on my trustworthiness. I countered, again and again, “I accomplished today what I set out to do.”

Still, it would not let me go, and so the verbalization became more precise, focusing on a woman who ventured out into the surf to immerse her bare legs. My interlocutor’s concerns were sexual, mine more abstract, concerning extension to her heart of the opening of the wader’s womb to the ocean. Visualizations followed detailing my participation in deepening that relationship, always impeded by suspicion. Brushing that aside, I testified, “I am the mechanism by which these energies adapt themselves to human limitations.”

Where does that end, though? This woman, having been given the sea off Venice Beach, does she receive the oceans? Recalling the message sent to their sisters, I explained that the ocean chooses its representatives. Each teaches the next, and in their glory the call to them men that will commit to the work of healing the world.

Yet, still more suspicion regarding my integrity, until I reached a point of judgment. “You are only proving your unsuitability to participate in the task set before me. My service is to Life itself, and the role that any woman plays will be determined by the degree of her commitment to that end. I must empower the virtue of your sisters, free from the pollution of thoughts that impugn our integrity.”