Pseudonymous Columnist Markets Zionism to Christians--and for Arabs, 'More Barbed Wire, More War,
Then yesterday, a guy called Mark wrote to me, pointing out an even uglier statement by Spengler, on May 8, in an online forum Spengler leads:
The hidden premise of Islam is that Israel is chosen; that is why it [Islam] had to invent a "final revelation" to replace Hebrew Scripture, substitute Ishmael for Isaac, etc. etc. The nations desire Eternal Life, of which they first heard from the Jews, and covet God's promise to the Jews, who never can "unchoose" themselves, because no-one ever will believe them. The Arabs are a dying culture and Islam is a dying religion, and the only sensible thing to do is keep death at a distance.
So: more war, more barbed wire, more killing, please! [emphasis mine]
Who is this murderous person? Wikipedia informs that Spengler has not been forthcoming about his religion, ethnicity or identity. My new friend Mark told me that he thinks Spengler also writes under the pseudonym "Shushon." Here are Mark's first couple of emails to me [and I will freely interpolate my comments within his, in brackets]:
I'd like to draw your attention to an article in the current issue of First Things, a monthly journal of "religion, culture and public life" [edited by neoconservative Father Richard John Neuhaus]. The article is entitled "Zionism for Christians" and is written by "David Shushon". I put the author's name within quotation marks because I think it's a transparent pseudonym, almost certainly for the anonymous internet gadfly "Spengler." First Things once previously published an article by Spengler under his Spengler pseudonym ("Christian, Muslim, Jew" - October 2007), and anyone familiar with his style and thought will recognize "Zionism for Christians" as his work.
[In a rapid hunt of the 2 pieces, I find that both quote extensively from Franz Rosenzweig, including his statement that Christians and Jews are "laborers at the same task," and both speak of anti-semitism as a form of neopaganism, i.e., not Christian. This guy Mark is making sense to me.]
The idea of this most recent article is to persuade Christians that support for the state of Israel is theologically mandated by their faith. What does "support for the state of Israel" mean, from the Spengler perspective? Perhaps the best way to summarize that phrase from Spengler's point of view is to quote a recent comment he made on his forum--the kind of comment he avoids in the urbane pages of First Things. [And here Mark quotes the "barbed wire" comment from above]
Obviously, such comments are difficult to make under a true name in mainstream media, so Spengler has been making them pseudonymously. For more polite audiences he has now found a forum at First Things, where he couches his ideology in pseudo-theological terms.
The bottom line is that Spengler is seeking to convince Christians that support for the Greater Israel agenda that you decry is hardwired into Christian theology. He is also probably trying to bolster the flagging Jewish support for this ideology.
First Things touts the article in these terms: "The issue features, as well, David Shushon’s “Zionism for Christians.” That’s this month’s free article, available even to non-subscribers–but, then, why are there any non-subscribers, when you could read in the print version Shushon’s fascinating essay, which begins: 'Israel always matters. Biblical scholars have devoted endless pages to ancient Israel as a religious idea, and pundits have penned endless newspaper columns about modern Israel as a geopolitical entity. The deeper implications, however, have received less attention than they deserve in recent years, overshadowed by the exigencies of Middle Eastern politics. Indeed, real questions remain: What does the sheer existence of the modern state of Israel mean for theology–particularly for Christian theology? And what does that theology mean for the continuing existence of Israel?'"
What, in effect, Spengler is attempting is to persuade the Catholic Church--or, at least and less grandiosely, influential intellectuals and opinion shapers within it--to sanction a specific form of nationalism: Zionism. The practical benefit Spengler sees would be an increase of support for a radically Zionist Israel within influential Catholic circles, and the Catholic Church remains the largest and most influential single Christian grouping in the West.
Spengler's attempt rests upon a fundamentalistic reading of the Bible, specifically of the Abraham and Exodus stories. While one might expect the Catholic Church to be immune from such a fundamentalist appeal, that is not the case. Catholic scriptural theology has been deeply infected with fundamentalist readings since the Reformation--essentially, they were put on the defensive by the Reformers and are unsure how to distance themselves from fundamentalism without seeming to renounce scriptural authority. I speak on a popular level--the official statements of the Church do struggle to effect this distancing, but very cautiously and not entirely coherently, for fear of the "modernists" among them. So, Spengler's appeal could well be considerable among the "conservative" Christians (including Catholics) especially in America.
By the way, as you may know, in Jewish mysticism the "shushon/shushan flower" seems to be a symbol for Zion - six points/petals to the flower. [Didn't know that. By the way, Switchboard lists nobody with the last name of Shushon in the U.S., suggesting that it is a madeup name] So, for those in the know, the pseudonym Shushon may be a code for Zionist.
[I asked Mark what's wrong with Spengler, whoever he is, using pseudonyms.]
First Things has given Spengler/Shushon a forum to try to recruit Catholics to the Zionist cause. Spengler/Shushon presents Zionism in a theological way, whereas Spengler's real interests are very practical. He conceals what may be entailed for those who are deluded into believing that support of the state of Israel is a matter of fundamental theology for Catholics: once on board with that concept, they may (if Spengler has his way) be called upon to support "more war, more barbed wire, more killing, please!" (Reminds me of the bar scene in Fawlty Towers.) After all, if support of the Zionist cause is written into the Creed, so to speak, there's no backing away from the implications: the end will justify the means at that point. For that reason, I think Neuhaus owes it to his readers to reveal who the author Shushon is, so they can be aware that his agenda is not academic theology but power politics.
[Weiss again: I think the sale of Zionism to evangelical Christians gets at one of my big problems with Zionism. Because Israel has depended from the start on the west and Zionists generally believe as an article of faith that gentiles won't protect Jews when it comes right down to it, Zionism's advocates have often tried to market Zionism as being in the west's best interest, and at times that claim feels like so much snake oil. During the Cold War it made realist sense, to some, to overlook the landgrabs. Since then it's been problematic. The whole idea of "Islamofascism" clearly helped--the claim that the U.S. and Israel are in the same war (a claim that Trita Parsi has said was dreamed up by Israelis in the '90s). But this idea hasn't worked out very well in Iraq, not in the blue states anyway, and meantime the American Jewish interest in Zionism has weakened: young Jews don't feel they have to flee to Tel Aviv, not when they're marrying privileged gentile peers.
[I raised the snake-oil issue with Mark.]
It's precisely the snake-oil aspect of what he's peddling--his effort to couch his product in terms that will appeal to the intellectual pretensions of the Christian chattering classes--that needs to be addressed. You don't have to be a Christian to have grave doubts as to the compatibility of "more war, more barbed wire, more killing, please!" with what are generally supposed to be the tenets of Christian faith, nor for that matter do you have to be Jewish to have the same reservations regarding the compatibility of what he's saying with the best in the very diverse Jewish tradition.
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2311324/29280522
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Pseudonymous Columnist Markets Zionism to Christians--and for Arabs, 'More Barbed Wire, More War, Please' :
Comments
thanks oarwell, lovely
Perusing
a few more of Spengler's recent (burnt)offerings, we find, from the
Oct. 30 2007 AT, "When you can't deal with the devil." Guess who the
devil is?
(Spengler's mask has slipped since last I read him--now he just dishes up straight Krauthammerian paranoiac propaganda)
"In February 2006, I argued that a few sorties by American aircraft
could put the Iranian problem to rest, but that the window for a clean
military operation would not last long.
The longer Washington dallies, the more resources Tehran can put in place, including:
Upgrading Hezbollah's offensive-weapon capabilities in Lebanon.
Integrating Hamas into its sphere of influence and military operations.
Putting in place terrorist capability against the West.
Preparing its Shi'ite auxiliaries in Iraq for insurrection."
...
"In early 2006, I predicted "war with Iran on the worst terms", and that is what the West is likely to get. I warned at the time, "if Washington waits another year to deliver an ultimatum to Iran, the results will be civil war to the death in Iraq, the direct engagement of Israel in a regional war through Hezbollah and Hamas, and extensive terrorist action throughout the West, with extensive loss of American life. There are no good outcomes, only less terrible ones. The West will attack Iran, but only when such an attack will do the least good and the most harm."
...
"Deals with the devil simply do not work, even in the ethically challenged world of foreign policy. The devil will act according to his nature, whatever bargain one attempts to make with him."
...
"Western civilians well may pay a heavy price for the excision of Iran's nuclear program in the form of terror attacks. The price may be steep, but it's worth it."
The West has no choice but to attack Iran, because Iran believes
that it has no choice but to develop nuclear weapons. Make no mistake:
this attack will destabilize the entire region, past the capacity of
the king's horses and king's men to reassemble it. The agenda will
shift from how best to promote stability, to how best to turn
instability to advantage."
------
Spengler's recommendations form a blueprint for Hell. He confuses the cause of the West's sickness, centralized government militarism in concert with imperialist corporatism, with the cure. We don't need to smash Islam with an iron fist, we need to reembrace the things that, historically, have made the West preeminent: Aristotelianism, Judeo-Christian ethical advances, and the inviolable dignity of the individual in relation to the State.
More war will only lead to more war, and the further destruction of authentic Western values.
Spengler, though he denies it, is, like his namesake, a pessimist: he can see no future for the West that does not entailing mass murder.
Like Neuhaus, Spengler's great intelligence is no protection against profound error.
I noticed that Midge Decter leads the list of the members of the Editorial Board of FT.
Ambitious Jews bent on power and control on a massive political and geographical scale have always been limited by the relatively tiny number of Jews within the crucible from whence they came, and so have sought after masses of gentile useful idiots who can be used as troops. They have drawn-in these useful idiots with ideologies open to everyone and theoretically beneficial to everyone, which are then used to primarily advance the interests of the Jewish core.
In the 20th Century, Communism was this ideology; in the 21st, it is Neoconservatism. Naive Christian Zionists are the useful idiots of today, just as naive, eager, idealistic collectivists were the useful idiots of yesterday.
Maybe there is a Darwinian element to this; those individuals foolish enough to be hoodwinked by Organized Jewish Chicanery (OJC) end up as canon fodder, just as whole societies foolish enough to be hoodwinked by OJC end up with the kinds of problems that now afflict America, including terrorist attacks because of support for Israel, open borders/cheap labor to enrich OJC, massive deregulation of OJC controlled industries, and a generally politically correct governing class that refuses to address the OJC elephant in the living room.
What OJC amounts to is a Jewish oligarchy bent on extracting as much nourishment and as many resource as it can from any given society or country before the cadaver finally collapses, as did the Soviet Union. OJC will then move on to fresh meat elsewhere.
Canada, Australia, Oceania…be afraid…be very afraid.
Will BushCo bomb Iran before he leaves office, or leave it to the replacement? If that's Obama, it will not happen; otherwise, it will. Is that the practical sum of it?
Just wanna know how much I will be paying for gas. And, wanna know if there will be US military draft.
Anybody got a clue?
RE:'More Barbed Wire, More War, Please'
FROM WIKIPEDIA:
Regarding regime change in Iraq, in 2002 Ledeen criticized the views of former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, writing:[20]
He fears that if we attack Iraq "I think we could have an explosion
in the Middle East. It could turn the whole region into a cauldron and
destroy the War on Terror."
One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please.
Friedmanism may be more comparable to Marxism as a world movement than is Christian Zionism.
The Christian Zionists are probably more like the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox peasant, who put so much effort into making pilgrimages to the Holy Land in the late 19th century. One can easily imagine that Jabotinsky wanted to harness such naive religious fervor to serve his movement.
When he finally visited the USA to recruit Jews to his form of
Zionism, he also found Christians with just the right combination of
zeal and gullability in white racist premillennial dispensationist
Confederate irredentists of the American South. Jabotinsky consciously
canvassed their leaders in order to inject Zionism into their
eschatology.
Friedmanism may be more comparable to Marxism as a world movement than is Christian Zionism.
The Christian Zionists are probably more like the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox peasant, who put so much effort into making pilgrimages to the Holy Land in the late 19th century. One can easily imagine that Jabotinsky wanted to harness such naive religious fervor to serve his movement.
When he finally visited the USA to recruit Jews to his form of
Zionism, he also found Christians with just the right combination of
zeal and gullability in white racist premillennial dispensationist
Confederate irredentists of the American South. Jabotinsky consciously
canvassed their leaders in order to inject Zionism into their
eschatology.
MICHAEL LEDEEN ON NRO:
February 07, 2005, 8:50 a.m.
Faster, Please
Iran needs change. We need to help — now.
"...to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own
liberty, America stands with you." — President Bush, in the State of
the Union Address
SALON:
Iranian regime change: "Faster, please!"
Neocon Michael Ledeen, long a proponent of "democratic revolution" in Iran, weighs the odds of military action by the U.S.
By Alex Koppe
An important post for anyone who still assigns weight to 'First Things.' I gave up on Asia Times several years ago, mainly because of the neocon pugnaciousness of Spengler, who I assumed was acting as vicarious amanuensis for the website owner. Same reason I gave up on pedantic, prolific Richard Neuhaus: apologias for neocon wars ain't Christian; the Good (converted) Father can line up rhetorical angels on the head of his pin till they are tumbling off the edges, but that doesn't make Iraq a just war under Catholic doctrine. Neuhaus should be obedient to Rome and the clearly expressed intent of the recent Popes; he isn't, his defense of unjust war (which becomes a defense of murder)is a disgrace to any thinking Catholic. What a disappointment from the (then-Lutheran) author of 'The Naked Public Square.'
(A nice rebuttal of his "Christian militarism" thesis can be read here:)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/paul-w1.html
Rosenzweig's a complicated figure, and it's an eccentric chink in Spengler's churlish armor that he remains so devoted to him. From Wikipedia:
"Rosenzweig, while critical of Jewish scholar Martin Buber's early work, became close friends with him upon their actually meeting. This friendship lasted despite their differences of political opinion: Buber was a Zionist, while Rosenzweig was a strong defender of the German-Jewish heritage and felt that a return to Israel would embroil the Jews into a worldly history they should eschew (this position was given a tragic tone by the death of Rosenzweig's wife in a concentration camp long after he himself had perished of disease)."
...
"Rosenzweig's final attempt (he was dying from ALS) to communicate his thought, via the laborious typewriter-alphabet method, consisted in the partial sentence: "And now it comes, the point of all points, which the Lord has truly revealed to me in my sleep, the point of all points for which there—". The writing was interrupted by his doctor, with whom he had a short discussion using the same method. When the doctor left, Rosenzweig did not wish to continue with the writing, and he died in the night, the sentence left unfinished."
Posted by: Oarwell | May 20, 2008 at 01:47 PM