#you could argue that john can reclaim if not the fact he uses is as derogatory also why would you say this ugly af word???

[manglednatalia]

Started reading Homestuck, 1k pages in, the slurs encountered so far:

John: 3 r slurs

Dave: a variation of f word

#now don't you think I'm trying to ''cancel'' you silly goose #I'm very aware of the edgy times of late 2000s and early 10s #yeah the r slur is terrible but otherwise I have this stupid game of counting them #not minding the f word bcnwe all know how queer the series is #homestuck #you could argue that john can reclaim if not the fact he uses is as derogatory also why would you say this ugly af word??? #I'm just making these observations and have you throw them somewhere. sorry random creature reading this. it is pretty jarring #also no one there is neurotypical #wounder if it's just the beginning or they'll clam down with the edge #saw 'terminallyCAPRICIOUS' and was like 'THIS IS MY BOY' #also dave can reclaim. fucking superb you funky little gay

[aswithasunbeam]

I have a prompt idea: Jealous Ham post-RP, some men are you know giving Eliza that “I can treat you better” energy and Ham’s like: “You can’t expect me to just sit here and not fight for you, not fight for us” Canon era preferably but whatever works best for your style. I hope you find the time to fit this in!

A combination of a couple different prompts (those above and another asking for jealous Ham) that had to do with Ham and Eliza after the Reynolds Pamphlet - thanks to everyone for the great suggestions!

–

Trifles Light as Air

Rated: Teen and Up

“Well, if it isn’t little Betsey Schuyler. It’s been an age since I last set eyes on you.”  

Eliza started slightly and looked away from the portrait she’d been studying to find Philip Van Cortlandt approaching her with a wide, open smile. Alexander had been whisked away almost the moment they’d entered, leaving her to bear the weight of the curious guests, eager to gather more tidbits about New York’s most salacious scandal to feed to the maw of the gossip mill. She’d found this out of the way little corner to hide when the stares of the room had felt too oppressive.

“Phil,” she greeted, allowing him to scoop her into a friendly embrace. “I think I was beating you to the top of that big oak on your father’s property last we met, if memory serves.

They’d had a few brief encounters since, of course, the Van Cortlandts and Schuylers entwined as they were, but Phil laughed and readily played along.

“Right after stealing all my marbles.”

“I won them fair and square,” she retorted.

He held her by the shoulders as he released her from the hug, looking at her with a fond expression. “It’s good to see you, Bess.”

“And you,” she said, surprised at the sincerity of the words. “But you know it’s Betsey Hamilton now.”

The reminder of her married name caused something to darken behind Phil’s eyes. “Yes, that’s right. I’d heard.”

She felt blood rising to her cheeks in shame for just what he’d likely heard of late. “Art thou a wife?” a recent article had taunted. “See him, whom thou hast chosen for the partner of this life, lolling in the lap of a harlot!” Her eyes were cast down towards the floor, fighting the familiar wave of humiliation and anger.

“A day of great heartbreak for me, I’ll have you know, when I learned of your nuptials,” Phil continued, a note of forced joviality in his voice. She met his kind grey eyes again. “I was always rather sweet on you.”

She smiled at that. “Really? I didn’t know.”

Wry amusement lit his expression. “I suppose it wouldn’t have risen to your notice. Half of Albany society was sweet on you, after all. What was one among the throng?”

“That’s not true,” she argued.

“It assuredly is.” He held out an elbow to her. “Take a turn with me, Bess. We’ve so much to catch up on.”

She took his arm. “Tell me, how is your dear sister?”

“Oh, Catherine’s well, married and settled. Helping me look after the manor, in fact.”

“Really?”

They settled into easy, familiar conversation as they walked.

She was laughing by the time the call came for dinner, real, true, wonderful laughs that made her cheeks ache from all the smiling. Their trip down memory lane had been far more pleasant than she had imagined, reminders of the girl she’d been sweeping over her like being reintroduced to an old, dear friend. Phil escorted her into the dining room and held out her chair, lowering himself into the seat beside her without the least bit of care for their hosts seating arrangements.

“You’d already pushed poor Peter down in the mud. I didn’t think I stood a chance,” Phil teased as the soup was ladled into his bowl by a servant.

“I didn’t push him,” Eliza said. “He fell.”

“Sure, sure,” Phil replied, tone full of doubt. She shoved playfully at his shoulder as went to raise his spoon. “See, you’re at it again.”

The sound of a sneeze from a way down the table drew her attention away from their private merriment. Alexander was snuffling into a handkerchief and waving off a chorus of “Bless you” from those around him. It was the first she’d noticed he’d rejoined the wider party. Their eyes met, and his jaw clenched before he pointedly looked away.

Unhappy with her, then.

She allowed Phil to reclaim her attention and heard herself laughing with him just a touch louder than before.

They were sipping a sweet dessert wine in a corner of the parlor when Alexander finally approached them.

“Colonel Hamilton,” Phil greeted, courteous if not particularly warm.

“General Van Cortlandt,” Alexander nodded, a peculiar emphasis on the rank. A flash of memory recalled that Phil had been promoted after Yorktown in thanks for his brave service in battle before leaving the army; an honor not similarly granted to her husband. “I suppose I should thank you for so thoroughly entertaining my wife this evening.”

“No need, Colonel. Bess and I go way back. We’ve been trading stories from our youth. She and her sisters terrorized and fascinated in equal measure every young man in New York society.”

“I have no doubt,” Alexander said, and though he smiled, he didn’t look particularly amused. He finally looked at her as he added, “Well, I hate to interrupt your reunion, dearest, but I was hoping to slip away shortly. This head cold of mine is growing a bit bothersome.”

His pallor and bright pink nose attested to his misery readily enough, though she couldn’t help but wonder if they’d be leaving so early had she been silently suffering in a corner by herself.

“I can see her home, Colonel, if you need to retire for the evening,” Phil offered.

She felt Alexander watching her, waiting for her to refuse, to jump to his aid, to coo and comfort him while they waited outside for their carriage together. Months ago, that’s exactly what she would have done if he’d confessed to feeling poorly at a dinner. But then, she thought again of that taunting headline, of Philip’s expression when she’d mentioned her marriage, something sour curling in her stomach.

“That would be lovely, Philip, thank you.”

Alexander’s jaw bunched again, and his eyes flashed. “Eliza.”

“What?”

His lips hardly moved as he hissed, “You’ve made your point.”

She straightened her posture and narrowed her eyes. “My point?”

“Just come,” he said, holding his hand out to her expectantly.

“I expect you can see yourself home and get yourself to bed without my assistance, dearest.” She hurled the endearment like an insult and noted with satisfaction his slight flinch as it landed. “I’d like to stay. I’m enjoying reconnecting with my old friend immensely.”

His gaze swiveled between her and Phil, color rising in his cheeks.

“Fine,” he bit out. He looked for a moment like he was going to stalk off in a fit of anger, but then he paused, as though thinking better of it, and bowed slightly to Phil. “Enjoy your evening.”

“Feel better, Colonel,” Phil replied.  

When Alexander caught her eyes one last time, he didn’t look angry, she noticed; rather, he looked stricken, almost betrayed.

She wanted to slap him. Her teeth clenched as she watched him retreat, her breath loud and deliberate through her nostrils as she tried to reign her temper in. The nerve of him, to act as if he were the aggrieved party in any of this.

Lolling in the lap of a harlot.

Tears pricked at her eyes.

“Come on, Bess,” Phil encouraged, voice soft. “Let’s go for a walk.”

She swallowed, swiping at her eyes quickly, and nodded. “Thank you.”

The chilly fall air helped ease her distressed thoughts, and soon enough they were laughing over old times again. By the time they’d climbed into Phil’s carriage, she had the passing thought that she didn’t wish for the night to end. She relaxed back against the soft cushions of the seat and requested, “Could we drive around for a little while? Before you bring me home?”

He smiled easily and leaned out the open window to call, “The scenic route, John, as you please!”

“Yes, sir,” she heard the driver reply before the horses started off down the cobblestone street.

Phil watched her as they rode, mouth taut in careful consideration. She kept her expression open, waiting for him to speak. At last, he said, “This may be an impertinent question, considering we aren’t closely acquainted in our adult lives.”

“What is it?” she invited.

“Have spoken to someone yet?”

Her brow furrowed.

“An attorney, I mean?”

“An attorney?” she repeated, more confused. What need did she have for an attorney; and really, if she did, it’s not as if she didn’t have Alexander close to hand to manage any legal issues she might encounter.

“Even if he’s willing to go along with you, which I’d hope he is given the state of the evidence against him, you ought to be sure your interests are being looked after.”

“I don’t—”

“And, forgive me, I know this is unpardonably forward, and you’ll need time to settle, of course, but…well, I want you to know that I wouldn’t think any less of you, any differently of you, than any lovely unmarried or widowed lady.”

If she were divorced, she understood, his meaning dawning on her with awful clarity. He would still think her suitable for courting if she were divorced.

“I’ve always thought the world of you, Bess.”

“Phil, I….” She closed her eyes a moment, trying to gather her thoughts. Alexander rose up in her mind’s eye: the little half smile played on his lips; the pattern of freckles she traced upon his back each night; the way his hand felt when it closed around hers, fitting over her palm so perfectly. “I love my husband. I have no intention of leaving him.”

“Oh.” He sat back, nonplussed. “I…I thought…especially the way you were together tonight, so cool, I just assumed…. Pray, pardon me.”

“There’s nothing to pardon,” she assured him. “And as for tonight, loving him doesn’t mean I don’t want to throttle him on occasion. More so of late than ever before.”

He chuckled softly.

When the carriage pulled up in front of her house, Phil dismounted first and held his hand out to her. She took it, pausing before him, and leaned in to give him a fond kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for a lovely evening. I hope we’ll do a better job of staying in touch than incidental dinners and family gatherings.”

“I’d like that, Mrs. Hamilton.”

She smiled as she turned towards home.

She thought she saw the curtains rustle before the window of Alexander’s office and frowned. Surely, he’d gone up to bed when he’d come home? When she let herself in the front door, she saw that, indeed, candlelight still spilled out from under the door to his office.

Sighing, she unwrapped her cloak, hung it up neatly on the stand beside his coat, and steeled herself for another encounter with her infuriating husband. She gave three short knocks upon his office door before pushing inside. “I’m home.”

He was seated at his desk, a hand pressed against his forehead as he wiped at his nose with a handkerchief. “I heard the carriage pull up,” he muttered.

“I thought you were going straight to bed to tend to your cold. What are you still doing up? It’s getting late now.”

“Quite late.” His tone turned icy. “Did you enjoy your evening?”

“I did, in fact. I know you and he don’t see eye to eye politically, but he’s a very old friend of mine.”

“A very good friend, by the look of it.”

“Stop it, Alexander,” she warned.

“It was a suitable punishment, I’ll grant you, watching you fawn all over another man all evening.”

“I was not fawning all over him,” she argued. “And what are you talking about? You think I was punishing you?”

“I suppose you’ll tell me I ought not be angry over being given a taste of my own medicine.”

Her voice turned deadly quiet. “That’s not what I was doing.”

He stared up at her, something spiteful in his expression. “No?”

She glared at him. “I have another years’ worth of late nights before it would even come close.”

He paled significantly. “So, you…you and he, you…”

She let the silence linger for a cruel moment. The devastation in his eyes wasn’t as satisfying as she’d thought it would be. “No. Nothing happened. Nothing like that. He was a perfect gentleman.”

“He wanted you. He wanted something to happen. I could see it his eyes, the way he looked at you, touched you.”

He wasn’t entirely wrong, she supposed, considering his veiled proposal. The accusation rankled no less. “Don’t be ridiculous. We were childhood friends, that’s all.”

“Childhood sweethearts?” he pressed.

“We raced, and climbed trees, and played marbles, like all children.”

“You kissed him when you got out of the carriage.” He announced this with something almost like triumph, as though he’d trapped her in a lie.

She gave an exasperated sigh. “I kissed him on the cheek, Alexander. It’s not as if you caught us in a passionate embrace.”

He was breathing hard, his cheeks a florid pink oddly juxtaposed against his otherwise sickly pallor. “I don’t want you seeing him again.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t want you alone with him again!”

Her vision flashed red. “You presume to…as if you have the right, ever, to—”

But her fury cut off when she noticed a dribble of bright red blood starting from Alexander’s nostril.

“What?” he asked, visibly confused by her abruptly halted ire.

“Your nose,” she said, motioning to her own nostril. “You’re bleeding.”

He touched his fingers to his nose, smudging blood across his upper lip. A guttural sound issued from his throat as he reached for his handkerchief again, red immediately starting to spread across the bright white fabric as he pressed it to his face. When he started to tilt his head back, she moved towards him.

“No, no, honey, forward a little, or you’ll choke,” she directed. Her hand rested on his neck to encourage him into the right position. With the number of boys in their house, she’d had her share of experience with bloody noses.

Blood continued rushing into the handkerchief and started staining his hand.

“Pinch your nose,” she said. “That’ll slow it. I’ll get you another handkerchief.”

He mumbled something into his handkerchief, voice muffled and congested.

“What was that?”

“Drawer,” he repeated for her, removing a hand from the bloody mess his face had suddenly become to gesture to his desk. “More in the,” he cleared his throat, “the drawer.”

She pulled open the drawer he’d gestured to and pulled out the stack of clean, pressed handkerchiefs he’d squirreled away from himself. Holding one up, she helped him exchange the soaked handkerchief for a clean one, tossing the bloody one into the rubbish bin beside his desk. Then she squatted by his side, her hand tracing slow circles across his upper back.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered into the silence.

“Not your fault,” she hushed him. “Just relax. It will stop soon.”

“I didn’t mean,” he started, sniffling as he moved to handkerchief to check the progress of the bleed, “Not for the bloody nose.”

“Oh.” Her hand paused.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I just…seeing you with him, laughing, relaxed. It made me crazy.”

Her mood darkened. “I know the feeling.”          

“I know that. I know you do. And I can’t say you wouldn’t be right to leave me. But I can’t just…just watch you slip away from me like that. Let you run off with some other man without a fight.”

“And that little performance was your way of winning me back?”

“It’s possible I’m not thinking very clearly.”

She shook her head even as a little laugh escaped her lips. “I’m not running off with anyone, you goose,” she said.

“No?”

“No. You’re right that Phil was…interested in me.” His head whipped around, eyes the size of saucers. “He thought we were getting divorced, before you get it in your head to go duel him. He’d been sweet on me when we were young, and he made clear that he wouldn’t consider me, tainted, I suppose, if I were divorced. When I told him that I had no intention of leaving you, he really was a perfect gentleman.”

He snorted lightly, then coughed, pressing the handkerchief to his face more tightly.

“Worth it?” she asked, mostly teasing.

“Yes,” he muttered stubbornly.

“I love you, Alexander, for better or worse. There’s never going to be anyone else.”  

His expression softened. “Really?”

“Really. It doesn’t mean I’m not still hurt, still furious with you. Or that I don’t want to murder you from time to time. But I love you.” That earned her a little smile that she saw tugging at the corners of his eyes.

“I love you, too, Betsey.”

She rubbed his back again and leaned closer to inspect the handkerchief. “Has it stopped?”

He pulled the handkerchief away. The trail of blood appeared to have ceased. “I think so.”

She leaned over to press a kiss against his temple. “Let’s get you into bed, honey.”

#hamilton fanfic #alexander hamilton #eliza hamilton #tw:blood #jealousy #hamliza #reynolds pamphlet #aftermath

[briangroth27]

Bumblebee Review

Bumblebee is a genuinely fun, kind-hearted family film and it’s very likely the best of the Transformers franchise. I still enjoy the first Transformers, didn’t like the second or third, and never bothered seeing the fourth or fifth, so I can’t be a true judge, but based on what I’ve read about the latter two I’m not planning on catching up. I also wasn’t expecting much from this film given how the franchise has gone, but I came away pleasantly surprised! Bumblebee tells a refreshingly focused and simple story about the friendship forged between the titular Autobot and Charlie Watson (Hailee Steinfeld).

Full Spoilers…

The movie starts off with a bombastic and frantic escape staged by the Autobot rebellion back on Cybertron, and while the action here (and throughout the movie) is cleanly and clearly shot—as I’ve seen noted elsewhere online, a nice change of pace from the other films in the franchise—I can’t say that I’m invested in the Autobot/Decepticon war at all. I’m all for a good ol’ “overthrow the fascist, freedom-oppressing evil empire” story, but this particular conflict just doesn’t hit the right notes for me for some reason. I don’t really know how the movies can fix that at this point (maybe more focus on showing, not telling?). Likewise, the movies haven’t made me a fan of any of the Transformer characters besides Bumblebee (Dylan O’Brien). Maybe that’s because of a lack of nostalgic recognition on my part—I’ve seen a handful of the original series episodes and the animated movie—but my main (and favorite) Transformers point of reference is the Beast Wars CGI cartoon from the 90s (Transformers Prime was also good, but didn’t stick with me in the way Beast Wars has). I think my lack of connection with most of the Transformers is also definitely due to the fact that Bee is the one who gets to bond with the humans most in the films, so I’m much more attached to him than Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) or the others. I know a lot of fans have argued that the humans take up too much focus in these films, but Charlie and Bee (and Sam and Bee in the first one) bonding goes a long way towards humanizing and endearing these aliens. Besides, even in the vast majority of the cartoons, humans played a role.

In Bumblebee, I wish Bee got a chance to show more personality before he lost his voice. B-127 is certainly noble and heroic, but that seemed to be all there was to him at first. The more sheepish, injured version of Bee displays many more volumes of character (maybe because that’s when he gets to interact with Charlie?). I don’t believe for a second that trauma or tragedy makes characters inherently deeper or more interesting/engaging than happy/heroic ones , but because of what little we see of Bee before his voice box is (horrifically) ripped out, the temporary removal of his heroic veneer does a lot to expose other aspects of his character. In any case, Bee’s arc back to his ability to communicate and to reclaim his heroic mantle is solid and his recovery story was very well-told (pairing nicely with Charlie’s own recovery from loss). I also like that this film franchise, if nothing else, has never fallen for the idea that the most popular character (Bumblebee) needs to also be the leader of the Transformers. Not only is that a unique position, but in a way it puts him on the level of the kids he most closely bonds with. They aren’t the “leaders” in their lives either (that would be their parents/authority figures).

Charlie Watson was very likable and Steinfeld did a great job carrying the human side of the movie, perfectly balancing Charlie’s urge to get out and live her life vs. her resistance to change in her family and the dark cloud hanging over her. Her being a mechanic played well with a robot alien and also formed a strong connection to her dad (Tim Martin Gleason), whose loss is the source of her turmoil. That gave her and Bee a stronger bond than Bee playing wingman to Sam in the first film. I also liked that Charlie becoming Bee’s protector, healer, and disciplinarian made for a cool twist on losing her father, instead of Bee becoming her new father figure. While there’s a certain cliché connotation to making a girl into a mother figure in media (especially when there’s only one girl), while I think their relationship forces Charlie to grow up and accept more responsibility I don’t think it goes as far as saying that being a mother is her only destiny. Knowing Bee also gets Charlie to take more chances and move forward with her life, which had come to a stop in terms of fixing her dad’s car and getting back into diving, and I thought that worked pretty well. The car metaphor (Charlie needs to literally work on and repair her feelings about her dad’s heart attack via the Corvette they were working on together) is perfect, but the diving stuff is introduced a little awkwardly. It seemed like the school bully/popular jock Tripp (Ricardo Hoyos) existed almost solely to goad Charlie into jumping off a rock at a beach day hangout. That’s fine—he was barely a presence in the movie, so he truly does solely exist to challenge/further Charlie’s journey—but that scene also being the first big instance of her reluctance to take up diving again made things feel a little off or sudden/slightly random in some way. Still, the loss of her ability to dive is a neat connection to Bee’s loss of his voice; I just wish what it meant to her was a little more fleshed-out. Tripp’s girlfriend Tina (Grace Dzienny) being a mean girl made Charlie an outsider among her peers, which was a pretty good connection to Bumblebee among the humans. I’m glad that Charlie and her neighbor Memo (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.) didn’t end up together (even if she said “not yet”). The chemistry between Charlie and Bee was much stronger than between her and Memo (even though both relationships were platonic), and she never seemed to have a glimmer of romantic interest in him. And that’s totally fine! Healthy, platonic friendships between girls and guys are something we should see more of in movies and TV. Along these same lines, it was refreshing that they didn’t film Charlie with a male gaze. Charlie’s problems with her family (Pamela Adlon, Jason Drucker) moving on with her mom’s new boyfriend (Stephen Schneider) were well-developed and fit with her inability to move on from her dad’s death, but I wish that they’d been given a bigger moment where that family coalesced into a new family unit. The moment where it happens (in the middle of a car chase) is certainly dramatic, but it also felt too quick.

The villains, both human and Decepticon, were used well. Burns (John Cena) made for a good soldier stuck in a bad situation with orders he disagreed with (he’s the only one to point out their name is a big red flag), even if he still mostly follows his orders until the end. I was very happy that the “comedy” of Section 7 from the original Transformers films was largely dropped here, as that was always one of the weaker parts of those films to me. The Decepticons (Angela Bassett, Justin Theroux, David Sobolov) were suitably evil and imposing, if one-dimensional. I don’t need all villains to have a relatable motivation (sometimes evil is just evil), but the fascistic element of the Decepticons could’ve been played up in their dialogue and interactions with Bumblebee.

The effects were well done and I liked the use of the 80s here. The Decepticons gifting the humans the internet (to use it for their own nefarious purposes) was a nice tie back to the first movie’s comment that so much of our technology was reverse-engineered from studying the All Spark and Megatron. The songs they chose were still popular and recognizable, but not necessarily the songs that almost always accompany a trip to the 80s, which was nice. There’s one cliché and overdone bashing of “Never Gonna Give You Up,” but otherwise this was a refreshing change of pace music-wise.

I really wish we could get more adventures with Charlie and Bumblebee teaming up, but they go their separate ways at the end. It feels a little like the filmmakers felt they had to wrap everything up here instead of hoping they’d get a sequel (which is not at all a bad thing!), but closed the loop to the first film a little too tightly. Maybe there’s still a way for Bee and Charlie to meet up again in the future. Either way, this was a very enjoyable flick in the “80s kids meet an alien” vein and I definitely recommend it!

 Check out more of my reviews, opinions, and original short stories here!

#bumblebee #transformers #charlie watson #autobots #decepticons #haliee steinfeld

[pamphletstoinspire]

The Death Penalty and the Myth of Closure

Many argue that the death penalty can help survivors move on with their lives. However, this counselor writes that true healing can happen only when we learn to "walk with the pain."

The death penalty has been with us for millennia. If you take the time to read the Old Testament, you will find that the death penalty was widely accepted. We find in the words of Exodus the justification invoked to this day to defend the use of executions: “You shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (21:23–25).

This is known as Mosaic law and is an integral part of our legal system. And yet Jesus came to challenge it: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on [your] right cheek, turn the other one to him as well” (Mt 5:38–39).

What a truly radical notion! In the Old Testament, one sees that violence was a way of life, and execution was a primary tool for meting out justice. But Jesus sweeps that all away.

As with many things Jesus said, excuses have been made and qualifiers added: Love your enemy . . . except when he is a murderer. Then you are justified to kill him, a conclusion that sounds very much like Mosaic law.

Desire for Vengeance Is Real

On the other hand, even if we accept Jesus’ teaching, turning the other cheek is not that simple. I can’t simply say, “Well, Patterson, you claim to be a Christian, so you must love your enemy and oppose the death penalty.” I also understand the desire for vengeance.

Some years ago when I was an Army psychologist, I was tasked with evaluating a man arrested for beating his 3-month-old stepdaughter within an inch of her life on Christmas Eve. It had already been determined that the child suffered irreversible brain damage. As I was interviewing the man, I received a call from the pediatric ICU informing me she had also been blinded. I hung up and told this man that news. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Oh, well.”

In that moment, I wanted to jump across my desk, grab him by the throat, and beat him within an inch of his life! As I think about him almost 40 years later, I have the same feeling. I am not proud of that, but it also helps me to be sensitive to the feelings of survivors when it comes to discussions of the death penalty. It reminds me to be sensitive to survivors’ need for justice and, possibly, vengeance.

Many justifications for executions set aside the language of Mosaic law and focus on possible benefits for the surviving family. One doesn’t so much hear the word vengeance in such discussions, but one does hear the word closure. A common justification for the death penalty is that it provides closure for the family.

When Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death, the mayor of Boston expressed the hope that “this verdict provides a small amount of closure.” Similarly, when the decision was made to allow survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing to witness the execution of Timothy McVeigh, Attorney General John Ashcroft stated that he hoped the execution would help survivors “meet their need to close this chapter in their lives.”

Whether executions provide closure depends on what we mean by that word. For most of us, closure implies a completion or conclusion. When a corporation announces store closures, that means those stores are no longer operational. So, in discussing the process of grief and trauma, closure would seem to imply a conclusion—the suggestion that there is an end point to grieving.

This expectation of closure is sometimes supported within a person’s social network. At this time, I am counseling several parents of children who committed suicide. All have commented on encountering, either directly or indirectly, the message “Aren’t you over it by now?”

Think for a moment of the people in your life you have lost. Are you no longer grieving? If I think of loved ones who are gone, I become aware that I may be grieving those losses for the rest of my days. My grief may not be as intense as it was at the time of the loss. But reminders of someone’s absence in my life help me see that grief goes on, that there is no closure in the sense of conclusion to my grief. There’s no point at which I dust myself off and say, “OK, I’m done missing that person.”

The Myth of Closure

In her book Closure: The Rush to End Grief and What It Costs Us, Professor Nancy Berns makes the compelling argument that the concept of closure has emerged within a political context to justify the death penalty and as a “made-up concept: a frame used to explain how we respond to loss.” It has become such a common word in discussions about grief that people assume it exists and is within their reach. In fact, its prevalence reflects the hope we all have that we can heal from the devastation of tragedy and trauma.

For some, closure means the conclusion to a very public process of crime, arrest, trial, and multiple appeals. Anecdotal evidence suggests that indeed the execution provides that sense of closure. But the word closure also implies healing and completion. Evidence suggests that not only does the death penalty not facilitate healing but, in fact, may interfere with it.

In his 2007 study of families of murder victims, Scott Velum found that only 2.5 percent indicated a strong sense of closure resulted from the execution of the murderer. A study published in the Marquette Law Review compared survivors’ reactions in Minnesota and Texas. Killers in Minnesota were sentenced to life imprisonment, an outcome that was experienced as satisfying by survivors. Texas survivors were less satisfied by death penalty verdicts, in large part because of the prolonged appeals process.

As Bill and Denise Richards, parents of a 9-year-old boy killed in the Boston Marathon bombings, wrote in the Boston Globe, asking that the government not seek the death penalty, “The continued pursuit of that punishment could bring years of appeals and prolong the most painful day of our lives.”

Jody Madeira worked with and studied survivors of the Oklahoma City bombings. In her book Killing McVeigh: The Death Penalty and the Myth of Closure, she noted that Timothy McVeigh’s execution did not provide the kind of closure some survivors may have hoped for. As one survivor noted, “There won’t be closure till I am dead.”

The Path to Healing

Are survivors then simply left in anguish, or is some form of healing possible? Perhaps rather than talking about closure, we should be talking about healing.

Sociologist Loren Toussaint suggests that healing is possible through the process of forgiveness. Madeira agrees that forgiveness can help but argues that it is not the only path to healing. This is a delicate topic that must be approached carefully and without judgment. Forgiveness can indeed help survivors heal, but it isn’t that simple. Forgiveness is a process, one that can last a lifetime.

First, let’s be clear on what forgiveness isn’t. Forgiveness does not mean condoning—a distinction relevant to people dealing with someone on death row. Forgiveness does not minimize what was done. The bombings in Boston will never be acceptable. The 9/11 attacks can never be dismissed in terms of the personal trauma. The murder of a loved one will never be OK. After all, the God of my understanding is indeed a God of mercy, but also a God of justice.

Then there is the common phrase forgive and forget. Not only is that often not possible, but in some cases it’s not a good idea. If someone has assaulted me, I may need to forgive that person, but it may not be a good idea for me to invite him or her over for dinner. That person may have no remorse and might assault me again.

The first step in forgiving is making the decision to forgive. The important thing to realize in making this decision is that the person who will benefit most from forgiving is the forgiver. Forgiving frees the forgiver from all the negative venom of hatred and resentment. Essentially, to forgive is to reclaim power from the forgiven. Professor Madeira quotes Oklahoma City bombing survivor Bud Welch as saying about forgiving Timothy McVeigh: “I was the one that got relief from all this pain . . . and it wasn’t about McVeigh.”

Sometimes we confuse forgiveness with reconnecting with someone in a loving way. That reconnecting is a decision that I may make after I have forgiven. I also have the option of not having the offender in my life. In other words, to forgive doesn’t necessarily mean to reconcile with someone.

To forgive means I also have to face all my rage and anger, all my thoughts of vengeance. We can’t sidestep the emotions. I have sat with some people who experienced tragedy or trauma and afterwards stated, rather flatly, “I’ve forgiven that person,” without any acknowledgment of the pain inflicted by that person. This to me is an intellectual exercise, not an experience of true forgiveness.

Learning to Walk with the Pain

In exploring alternatives to the prevalent concept of closure, we also need to broaden our understanding of grief. The concept of closure may have its roots in Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ famous five stages of dying. That theory has been broadened to include grief. The fifth stage is acceptance. Like closure, this notion has many meanings.

What does it mean to accept the death of a loved one? Again, some kind of finality is suggested, a sort of conclusion to the grieving. I have sat with persons who judged themselves because they did not feel they were finished grieving. Others had well-meaning friends and relatives suggest they should be “over it by now” or that they hadn’t “accepted” the death because they were still grieving.

Over the years I have dealt with many people who came to see me because someone else was concerned about them or, more often, because they themselves questioned whether they were grieving correctly.

I recall one beautiful woman who came to see me after the death of her husband of 50-plus years. She was concerned whether she was grieving correctly. She stated that well-meaning friends had given her a stack of books on grieving. Not wanting to disappoint anyone, she read them all. When I asked what she thought after all that reading, she told me: “I’m completely confused. They contradict one another.”

So what did I do? I gave her a book to read! Only it wasn’t an edition of Grieving for Dummies. It was C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed, his journal written the first year after the death of his beloved wife, Joy. The book has no easy answers, and, at its conclusion, it is clear that Lewis will continue to grieve. There is no nice, clean ending. No closure. Only Lewis trying to learn to walk with the pain.

In dealing with losses in my own life, what works for me is to view grieving as a process of learning to walk with the pain. This suggests that, because of a particular loss, my life is changed forever. I am challenged to find a way to move forward living my life as well as possible while at the same time carrying the loss. This is especially true for those who’ve lost a loved one through some criminal act, be it murder or terrorism.

To learn to walk with the pain has several facets. One is to make the decision not to let the trauma define the loved one’s life. It is to affirm that I will not be known as the parent of that girl or boy who was murdered. Rather, I will be known as the parent of a child who touched lives in a beautiful way before leaving life much too soon.

Another facet of walking with the pain is to facilitate the loved one’s legacy. Such legacies may take the form of charitable donations or even the establishment of a charity. Others might establish a scholarship fund. Some get tattoos or plant trees. Such actions don’t make pain go away, but they create a legacy that has some meaning.

For me, acceptance means acknowledging that life is now different, and that I will be walking with this pain until I meet my loved one again in a better place. That may be the only real closure.

By Richard B. Patterson, PhD

#death penalty #myth of closure

[orbemnews]

Biden’s Recovery Plan Bets Big on Clean Energy WASHINGTON — President Biden’s next big thing would fuse the rebuilding of America’s creaky infrastructure with record spending to fight climate change, a combination that, in scale and scope, represents a huge political shift, even for Democrats who have been in the climate trenches for decades. A guiding philosophy of the Biden proposal argues that the future of good jobs is the transition to an economy that no longer churns out carbon dioxide through the burning of coal, oil and gas. Aides are set to brief Mr. Biden this week on plans to invest between $3 trillion and $4 trillion in spending and tax credits on a wide range of efforts meant to bolster the economy. The money is currently planned to be split between two packages, starting with an infrastructure bill that is rooted in the effort to halt the emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide. Administration officials stress that the details remain in flux. But as currently constructed, accelerating a clean energy transformation underpins nearly every part of the plan, people familiar with it said. It includes building electric power lines that can deliver more renewable energy, building electric vehicle charging stations, capping oil and gas wells to reduce emissions and reclaiming abandoned coal mines. There is money to build a million new affordable, energy-efficient housing units and to make existing structures more energy efficient. Hundreds of billions of dollars would go toward “high-growth industries of the future,” such as advanced battery manufacturing. The underlying message — that the next step of America’s economic recovery is fundamentally tied to countering the climate crisis — represents a major pivot in the way Democrats make the case for tackling global warming. No longer merely an environmental imperative like saving the polar bears, or a side element of a stimulus package like it was under the Obama administration, climate change has become the centerpiece. Administration officials say they view averting catastrophic warming and pursuing American dominance of the emerging global industries as inseparable. That is a sharp break from even the most recent Democratic administration, when Mr. Biden was vice president, let alone the Trump era, when the president denied the existence of climate change. “Thinking about addressing climate change through infrastructure is in itself not a revolutionary idea, but if you said to most people, ‘Is America’s infrastructure in trouble?’ I think the first words they would mention to you are bridges and roads, not E.V. charging stations,” said Robert N. Stavins, an environmental economist at Harvard University. White House officials would not put a dollar figure on the amount dedicated to climate change, but one person familiar with the talks said climate and clean energy spending could exceed $2 trillion. Some climate activists say the plan suffers from a lopsided approach that would increase the supply of clean-energy projects and products while doing little to spur demand by forcing reductions in fossil fuel consumption. Republicans, who unanimously opposed Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus package, and even some independent analysts recoil at wrapping climate policy in the widely popular mantle of infrastructure, which raises old arguments against government-driven industrial policy. Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, said in a statement that Mr. Biden should focus on working with Republicans “to fix America’s crumbling roads and bridges,” rather than “raise taxes while also spending trillions on a bill that includes the punishing regulations of the Green New Deal.” But Mr. Biden is not straying from his recent positions. He promised during his campaign to “build a more resilient, sustainable economy” that puts the United States on a path to achieve net-zero emissions by midcentury, while creating “millions of good paying jobs.” He has continued to hit the theme since his inauguration. Along with more than $600 billion for the construction of roads, bridges, rail lines, and electric vehicle charging stations, the infrastructure package will incorporate some form of a rebate program championed by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, to replace millions of gas guzzling cars in the next decade with electric vehicles. Some environmental groups on Monday criticized Mr. Biden for not proposing an even bigger package for climate change. But Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, who has championed the Green New Deal, an aggressive plan to address climate change and revamp the economy, called reports of the infrastructure package “encouraging.” “One of the big goals we had when we introduced the Green New Deal was to shift climate change from being a billion dollar problem to a trillion dollar opportunity,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview. “The fact that climate and infrastructure is seen as part of the same endeavor is, I think, highly reflective of that shift,” she said. So far, the package excludes the one thing that economists agree is the most efficient way to draw down planet-warming emissions: taxing or otherwise putting a price on the carbon dioxide emissions that cause it. Instead of a gasoline tax, for instance, the president plans to greatly raise fuel efficiency standards for cars, forcing automakers toward electric vehicles through regulation, not legislation. Similarly, Mr. Biden plans to reimpose strict emissions regulations on electric power plants to move the sector away from coal. Frequently Asked Questions About the New Stimulus Package How big are the stimulus payments in the bill, and who is eligible? The stimulus payments would be $1,400 for most recipients. Those who are eligible would also receive an identical payment for each of their children. To qualify for the full $1,400, a single person would need an adjusted gross income of $75,000 or below. For heads of household, adjusted gross income would need to be $112,500 or below, and for married couples filing jointly that number would need to be $150,000 or below. To be eligible for a payment, a person must have a Social Security number. Read more. What would the relief bill do about health insurance? Buying insurance through the government program known as COBRA would temporarily become a lot cheaper. COBRA, for the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, generally lets someone who loses a job buy coverage via the former employer. But it’s expensive: Under normal circumstances, a person may have to pay at least 102 percent of the cost of the premium. Under the relief bill, the government would pay the entire COBRA premium from April 1 through Sept. 30. A person who qualified for new, employer-based health insurance someplace else before Sept. 30 would lose eligibility for the no-cost coverage. And someone who left a job voluntarily would not be eligible, either. Read more What would the bill change about the child and dependent care tax credit? This credit, which helps working families offset the cost of care for children under 13 and other dependents, would be significantly expanded for a single year. More people would be eligible, and many recipients would get a bigger break. The bill would also make the credit fully refundable, which means you could collect the money as a refund even if your tax bill was zero. “That will be helpful to people at the lower end” of the income scale, said Mark Luscombe, principal federal tax analyst at Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting. Read more. What student loan changes are included in the bill? There would be a big one for people who already have debt. You wouldn’t have to pay income taxes on forgiven debt if you qualify for loan forgiveness or cancellation — for example, if you’ve been in an income-driven repayment plan for the requisite number of years, if your school defrauded you or if Congress or the president wipes away $10,000 of debt for large numbers of people. This would be the case for debt forgiven between Jan. 1, 2021, and the end of 2025. Read more. What would the bill do to help people with housing? The bill would provide billions of dollars in rental and utility assistance to people who are struggling and in danger of being evicted from their homes. About $27 billion would go toward emergency rental assistance. The vast majority of it would replenish the so-called Coronavirus Relief Fund, created by the CARES Act and distributed through state, local and tribal governments, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. That’s on top of the $25 billion in assistance provided by the relief package passed in December. To receive financial assistance — which could be used for rent, utilities and other housing expenses — households would have to meet several conditions. Household income could not exceed 80 percent of the area median income, at least one household member must be at risk of homelessness or housing instability, and individuals would have to qualify for unemployment benefits or have experienced financial hardship (directly or indirectly) because of the pandemic. Assistance could be provided for up to 18 months, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Lower-income families that have been unemployed for three months or more would be given priority for assistance. Read more. “Biden never made a carbon tax the center of his proposal,” said John Podesta, a former adviser to President Barack Obama on climate change. “I think he believed that the combination of investments and standards with a focus on equity was a winning formula both for the economy and was more politically viable.” Others, though, said they worried that Mr. Biden’s strategy — long-term projects and regulation that could take years to finalize — was too lengthy, too pricey and too uncertain to cut enough emissions. “The scale of the climate problem demands the most economically efficient response, and because it’s politically difficult to talk about pricing carbon we’re drifting toward a really expensive way of addressing climate,” said Alex Flint, executive director of the Alliance for Market Solutions, a conservative nonprofit group that supports a carbon tax. “A carbon tax at least has to be part of the discussion,” Mr. Flint added. Mr. Stavins of Harvard University cautioned that using government spending to achieve both job creation and climate change, while popular, isn’t always compatible. Quick boosts to the economy rely on so-called “shovel-ready” projects — and those aren’t necessarily the ones that will lead to deep decarbonization. But, he conceded, if Mr. Obama could not secure legislation to cap carbon emissions when he had 59 Democrats in the Senate, Mr. Biden cannot win a similarly tough plan with 50 Democrats, one of whom, Senator Joe Manchin III, represents the coal state of West Virginia. Supporters of the package say tying climate action to fiscal growth is good politics and grounded in fact. A federal report in 2018 found that failing to curb planet-warming pollution could result in more record wildfires, crop failures and crumbled infrastructure across the country, shrinking the U.S. economy 10 percent by the end of the century. Jamal Raad, who co-founded the climate advocacy group Evergreen Action, said both the politics of climate change and the market for clean energy have changed dramatically over the past decade. “There’s been a whole lot of work telling a broader story about what climate change means and what the transition to clean energy would mean for our economy and jobs,” he said. “This investment package is about telling a positive story about economic growth in clean energy.” Source link Orbem News #bets #Bidens #Big #clean #Energy #Plan #recovery

[ppdoddy]

Republicanism

The attached proposed op/ed article is hereby submitted to every print media organisation in Britian and Ireland with a view to getting it published. No fee is sought. ===== Republicanism. A Normative Definition. "If you ask what kind of a man he was, he answers that he lived content with his own small fortune. Bred a scholar, he made his learning subservient only to the cause of truth". (Epitaph of John Locke). After all the recent talk of reclaiming 'republicanism' for the Irish people, I argue that we must first describe what we mean by that term before we can have any meaningful insight into what in fact we are 'reclaiming.' Traditionally, in an Irish context, 'republicanism' has been identified with opposition to 'monarchy,' but it is more. The word comes from the Latin term 'res publica' meaning 'things public' or alternatively 'public affairs.' Plato's 'Republic' is something of a misnomer in that the original title ' politeia' more closely relates to the concept of politics or citizenship. Likewise Cicero's 'De republica' is not taken to accord to any modern definition of republicanism although he did say that 'some sort of free-state' is the necessary condition of a republic. The modern idea of the Republic (in the sense that is widely understood) is drawn from ancient Greece and Rome but it was truly created during the Renaissance when scholars developed what is known as 'classical republicanism'. Classical republicanism rejected monarchism in favour of 'rule by the people' and writers like Machiavelli proposed various versions of such a system of government. However, during the Enlightenment men like John Henry, Thomas Paine and John Locke paved the way for a new understanding of republicanism that ultimately came to fruition in Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence in 1776. Familiar from before was Jefferson's call that 'governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.' However, freely elected governments could still lead to the 'tyranny of the majority' where democracy was "nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." Thus, according to Jefferson, democracy was a necessary but not sufficient factor for republicanism. Necessary too was the concept that each individual (however in the minority) had 'certain inalienable rights.' In order to prevent pure democracy endangering individual rights therefore, Jefferson advocated a republic where individual freedom was protected from democratic rule by a set of laws enacted in a Constitution. Expanding on the concept of the 'sovereignty of the people' Jefferson wrote that the mother principle of republicanism was therefore that 'governments are republican only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute it.' Citizens likewise had responsibilities. Implicit here is the idea of active citizenship which stresses the moral duty of 'republicans' to act in the interests of the republic or to be 'patriotic.' The opposite of patriotism consists of the corruption often referred to by such classical republican thinkers as Aristotle and Machiavelli, in which citizens are more concerned with their personal and group interests than with the common good of the political community as a whole. So what has the term 'republicanism' come to mean in an Irish context then? Some years ago while on a J1 visa on Nantucket a friend remarked on the fact that every house on the island seemed to have a US flag flying proudly in the front garden. 'If we did that people would just think we were RA' he remarked. I don't think you would struggle to find somebody of my generation in Ireland today who hasn't been inhibited in expressions of pride in Irish republican values as a result of the uniquely Irish connotations of the term 'republicanism,' even if perhaps they wouldn't have put it quite that way. Consider this from Queens's historian Feargal McGarry; 'the ideological vagueness of modern Irish republicanism, a distinctive political tradition rooted more in an incoherent blend of Fenianism, Catholic nationalism and Irish-Ireland cultural nationalism than the republican principles of the American revolution.. It is only in this sense that figures as diverse as Wolfe Tone (a product of the French Enlightenment) and Patrick Pearse can be brought together in a seamless pantheon of martyrs to sustain and legitimise present day republican objectives'. Tom Gavin has also noted that 'the term republicanism is generally understood in Ireland as a sort of shorthand for insurrectionist anti-British nationalism rather than any particular ideological or philosophical principles'. On this question there can be little doubt, although I have yet to hear a single commentator in the Irish media make this point. Yet the importance of this question is central to the whole debate. Surely we must know what we are 'reclaiming' if we are to have any chance of a legitimate choice with regard to whether we want to 'reclaim' it or not. Suppose as an experiment we took to agree on Jefferson's principle that politicians or governments are 'republican' 'only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute it.' How would modern-day Irish 'republicans' score on this metric then? Sinn Fein/IRA would surely not score well. Never since the 1920's did the 'struggle' command popular support, so their compliance with the 'will of the people' or even basic democratic principles is surely in single figures. On the personal and ' inalienable rights' of individuals they must score zero by default such has been their callow disregard for innocent life. Ironically, until the Good Friday Agreement, Sinn Fein/IRA have repeatedly been defined and shaped by their opposition to political compromise, and the most inflexible of them have always succeeded in representing themselves as the authentic voice of 'republicanism.' How about the 'republican party' Fianna Fail? How do they score on embodying the 'will of the people?' Well, recent evidence is not encouraging. On February 15th 2003 an Irish Times/MRBI opinion poll showed that without a new UN resolution (which never came) just 21% of the Irish people would approve of allowing Shannon airport to be used by the US military, with 68% disapproving. A republican government therefore would have disallowed the use of our sovereign territory in such an illegal war in accordance with the wishes of 2.8 million of its citizens. 'The Republican Party' in government did the opposite. However, any attempt to assess the extent to which Irish politicians 'embody and execute' the will of the Irish people however is subject to one serious restriction. Even if data on wider citizen preferences were available (which is infrequently the case), such an analysis presupposes that each citizen has all the information at hand required to form an informed opinion. If this is not the case then surely no degree of public acquiescence can confer 'republicanism' on any politician, political party or government. As Jefferson said, 'only when the people are well-informed can they be trusted with their own government.' It may come as cold comfort to those of us who view Irish 'republicans' as having abrogated their political responsibilities to the Irish Republic to say that in the United States the situation is even worse. There, the 'Republican party' was long known for its adherence to balanced budgets, constitutional government, a non-interventionist foreign policy and for keeping government out of peoples personal lives. Today that country has unprecedented deficits, the Bill of Rights has been eviscerated, the army is bogged down in two (and potentially a third) Asian wars and well, in a word, Schiavo. It is perhaps symptomatic of the age that nobody seems to realise that here in Ireland or in the United States we are led by 'republicans' who only seem to share one thing in common, a distain for basic republican values. This can be expressed in terms of democratic values, respect for the individual or advocacy of an informed public. Axiomatically, we don't realise because we are uninformed. We are uninformed (in both jurisdictions) primarily because we live in corporate controlled media environments where the objectives of corporations (legal citizens?) and citizens shall never the mark twain meet. Almost one hundred years ago that Irish patriot James Connolly stated that the struggle for Irish freedom had two aspects, national and social. Were he to analyse the state of Irish freedom in 2006 he would surely have a different focus. Yet if we can agree that a republic is such 'only in proportion as it embodies the will of their people' and that the people 'can only be trusted with their own government when they are well-informed' can we not say that 'republicanism' in 2006 can be interpreted as the degree to which public opinion is informed? I believe we can and we should. Perhaps only then is our true august destiny possible. ===== Morgan Stack is a lecturer at the Department of Accountancy, Finance and Information Systems at University College Cork. He is co-founder of the Irish 9/11 Truth Movement and an independent candidate at the next general election in the constituencies of Kerry North and Cork South Central.

[amoralto]

Thoughts on the Vanity Fair excerpt of the new Jann Wenner biography (Sticky Fingers)? It not only establishes how angry John was over Lennon Remembers but also Paul's unvarnished opinion of Wenner. Basically John never forgave Wenner, so after he died Jann dealt with the guilt by blatantly reclaiming his hero worship and using Rolling Stone to create the St. John (& Yoko) myth.

Yes, it would seem that the grief over John’s death and the (frankly rather sanctimonious) guilt didn’t so much moderate Wenner’s stance as it served to compound it, in the admixture of his inherent and always apparent bias for John, which went beyond harmless preference and into equal parts unconcerned and calculated disparagement of John’s former other half.

The fact of John’s anger over Lennon Remembers being published as a book and Paul’s pointed lack of regard for Wenner has been established before, so that at least is not necessarily new information. John and George actually allude to it in 1974:

GEORGE: I remember the day when John did an interview with a certain magazine and said certain things, and then I remember the day when he disagreed with what he’d said, but the man who interviewed him denied him the right to change his mind and, even though it was two and a half years, later still went ahead and published something which John said he no longer agreed with himself on. Which means the dream was over, yet certain people wouldn’t allow him to have his dream… over. Nudge nudge wink wink, say no more. [inaudible]

JOHN: In other words, imagine if somebody or if you accidentally bang your head and you shout, “Ow!” – that’s the end of it. [self-conscious; laughs] Right?

GEORGE: And he said that too.

JOHN: I mean, it doesn’t go on for the next five years, right? And we all did that.

— John Lennon and George Harrison, interview for KHJ 930-AM. (December 21st, 1974)

It’s wonderful to have broader perspective on things, though - more facets to the prism, as such. The story of John and Yoko weeping Let It Be just off the throes of primal therapy and crying was entirely new to me, and just the notion of it, the idea of John overwhelmed with sadness at the image of a cold, wind-swept Paul singing in harmony with him awards the barest, faintest hint plausibility to that dubitable, uncredited anecdote of John primally screaming ‘Yesterday’. I was also rather heartened by the proud Polaroid John sent Wenner of him and Paul hanging out in Los Angeles, as if to communicate that neither Wenner nor the machinations of his hallowed institution could ever make a dent where it actually mattered.

… I can only bring myself to contemplate and ruminate on Jann Wenner in short bursts before wanting to submerge myself in a Brain-Duster, I’m afraid. I do apologise for not being more verbose and penetrative; I was holding off on this ask for a while precisely because I wanted to gather my thoughts and take some special consideration into my answer, but at the same time I don’t want to find myself devolving into giving out about characters whose opinions I don’t necessarily share nor hold in esteem. As a consolation, have some waffle I wrote years ago on the St. John (& Yoko) projection:

As for the JohnandYoko myth: they politicised their love, basically. Which is an elevation above plain romanticism, which is fairly ubiquitous in human nature - everyone romanticises their life or certain events of their life to some degree, after all, because of the emotions that have been accumulated since then and have come to be associated with it. Ostensibly, this was their political agenda, during the early 70s - they certainly weren’t very intellectual or sophisticated in their methods or their discourse on politics and political activism and/or altruism, but they knew that they could bring awareness to a cause because of their high media profile, and being generally associated with a particular movement or cause was enough to arouse public interest of that cause. Sell peace as a product, have it promoted by a popular figure who is known to the public as hip and iconoclastic, and peace will be a hip and iconoclastic product that people will want to buy. It’s certainly idealistic, and a naive endeavor for effecting deeply-rooted, long-term change, but they projected an image and established it iconically, which did indeed encourage discussion and movement amongst the common populace. So, to speak specifically about their relationship and the image of their relationship that they presented to the public - fundamentally, it was what was conceptually sound for them in trying to achieve a median between being private figures and public figures: project the reality you want to believe, and the reality that is perceived will be reality. Details are collapsible because it doesn’t alter what’s true on a simple, abstract level (in this case, the fact that they loved each other). Which I believe in part came from an innate understanding of the relationship between the consumer and the icon (the artist, or product, to be even more general), and generality is more straightforward and striking than tedious specificity. Promoting love > promoting exhaustively accounted and functionally “irrelevant” inconsistencies or mood swings in marriage. As a side-note, because I don’t want to make a fatuous comparative: I’m reminded of John referring to the Beatles themselves as a myth, and indeed, John and Paul both tended in interviews (not all the time, but definitely enough times) to talk about songs written almost entirely by the other person in interviews as if they were written together  - which is, in its own way, a collapsing of details in light of the intrinsic truth of the partnership. Different contexts, of course, but still. The fact that the Beatles myth was largely media-perpetrated as well (beyond the image of cheeky suit-wearing boys from Liverpool) probably spurred John on when it came to publicising his relationship with Yoko - this time, they had the presence, power, and agency to perpetrate their own myth, on their terms.  

All that being said, I’m still looking forward to reading Sticky Fingers when it’s released. In the meantime, here’s a winning anecdote from Robert Draper’s Rolling Stone Magazine: The Uncensored History (1990):

When Langdon Winner praised Paul McCartney’s new solo album [McCartney] as a departure from overproduced Beatles records, Winner made no mention of the album’s press sheet, on which McCartney took several digs at John Lennon, Yoko Ono and the Beatles.

Said Greil Marcus, “Jann told me, ‘I don’t want to run this review without taking this other stuff into account. Here’s this sunny-sounding record—everything’s coming up roses—that in fact has been made with a tremendous amount of bile. And I think the review should reflect that.’

“We must have argued two hours about this. Finally he convinced me. So I went and had a two-hour argument with Langdon.”

Winner rewrote the review. He did not regard the incident as an example of wrongheaded meddling. “I took it as the sign of a strong and good editor,” he said.

Or two:

When not invited to a party thrown by Paul McCartney, the editor repaid the snub by inserting a barb in a McCartney cover story.

(If anyone would appreciate a palate cleanser, here’s a cheerful and evenhanded listen: The Word Podcast: The McCartney Cast! In which editor and publisher David Hepworth, editor and journalist Mark Ellen, journalist Laura Barton, and journalist Paul Du Noyer (of Conversations with McCartney) chat about Paul, his persona, his public conduct, his altogether acumen, and most importantly, his best looks. Mid-1967, clearly.)

#ask #jann wenner #'made with a tremendous amount of bile' #to borrow @pivoinesque's tag: okay.jpg

[noemilayda]

Can theater be an influence on today's politics?

We can all agree that politics are a big influence on theater, on every form of art in general. But what if the roles could switch? Is it possible?

Art is a beautiful way to express any feeling that we have, and art is also a beautiful way to give a message, to raise awareness, but can it be more? Sure thing. So, what do we need to make it more influential is to use the right language towards the right audience.  

Art is for everyone, but it's message is different for every individual. In a world where simple things like a dress color can divide a whole population a far more complicated thing like art can cause a deeper impact.  

Let me explain it with an example;  

There was a play to be premiered in July 2008, a play written in hopes to change the politicians' minds on immigration laws in UK. The play is based on accounts of life inside UK detention centers.  

Benjamin was brought up in Nigeria by a stepfather who had been a hitman for the government. As a boy, his stepfather had forced him to dismember the bodies of his victims, and had also regularly raped and beat him. When political allegiances changed, their knowledge became a liability and men were sent to kill them both. They fled to the UK where Benjamin, now aged 12, was deposited with his natural father. He spent the following decade as an ordinary British Nigerian boy in London, studying hard, getting to university and even having a baby with his girlfriend. A chance immigration check at Belfast airport was where it all unraveled. His family had never cemented his immigration status beyond that of a dependent minor, so he had no legal basis to be in the UK.

The author of the play (Fin Kennedy) met Benjamin earlier in 2008, when he was 22, in Colnbrook Immigration Removal Center (IRC), it is a grim* high-security facilty near Heathrow airport. He claimed that he had been beaten up by guards, and his hands were broken so bad that later he found out that he needed a surgery, regarding that fact, at the time the author met him, medical attention was being repeatedly denied. But Colnbrook denied this when the author put the word out, so it was essentially Benjamin's words against theirs.

Benjamin painted a horrifying picture of life in the UK's removal centers. The use of violence and solitary confinement to subdue prisoners was widespread, he said, while personal effects, including cash, were often confiscated and not returned, and he claimed staff regularly "lost" important paperwork relating to detainees' appeal hearings. Hard drugs were everywhere. Benjamin led a hunger strike while in Harmondsworth IRC. It was reported on Indymedia, nowhere else.

These were part of the author's research for a new play for The Red Room theatre company. The play was called "Unstated", a multimedia theatre installation that documents and dramatizes the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK. The play made use of testimonials and ponders the value of campaigning theatre. The testimonies also form the basis of several fictionalized scenes spliced into and around the bulk of the action in what is a highly syncretic dramaturgical experiment that draws upon a multiplicity of contemporary performance techniques: documentary, journalistic, verbatim and promenade genres are all melded here in an ambitious spectacle. the venue itself has been transformed into a removal center, complete with an oppressive, prison-like cage in which most of the action takes place, and an airport waiting room from which the audience witness failed asylum seekers being deported.

The director, Topher Campbell, has said that he would like to see real legislative change as a result of this production. It's a terrific ambition.

Fin Kennedy began a letter-writing campaign after meeting Benjamin. He wrote to his MP (Member of Parliament), the management of Colnbrook, to John McDonnell MP (British Labour Party politician), chief executive of Serco plc (the corporation which owns and runs Colnbrook). He got in touch with Benjamin's university student union, who began to mount a campaign. Kennedy then received a handwritten letter from John McDonnell expressing his ongoing concern about Colnbrook and promising to raise the matter with ministers. Serco and Colnbrook dismissed Benjamin's allegations out of hand.

To effect an actual legislative change, a play would have to do two things according to Kennedy. And these would be to gain access to a substantial proportion of the nation's politicians and law-makers, and then proving them that a state of affairs is the either illegal or of such harm to the nation that it can no longer be tolerated. A well-connected theatre company may be able to achieve the first, but he isn't sure drama of any kind will ever achieve the second, as drama is necessarily anecdotal and never truly credible.

John McGrath, founder of radical Scottish theatre company 7:84, argued that "the theatre can never "cause" a social change. It can articulate pressure towards one... It can be the way people find their voice, their solidarity and their collective determination."

There is a long history of performance as activism, from the street interventions of Bread and Puppet Theater to the secret shows of Belarus Free Theater, or Reclaim Shakespeare Company’s protest against the links between the RSC and BP. The artist Judy Chicago once argued that “performance can be fueled by rage in a way a painting or sculpture cannot”.

The Turkish theatre-maker and activist Memet Ali Alabora argued that arts events can certainly contribute to political change. He and others involved in staging the play Mi Minör now live in exile in Cardiff after the Turkish government and pro-government media accused the play of incitement and being a “rehearsal” for the 2013 Gezi Park protests in Istanbul, and Alabora had threats made against him. As with the Belarus Free Theatre, using performance as a means of protest threatened to become a matter of life and death. It has certainly changed his life.

Rhiannon White, from Common Wealth Theatre, argued that artists working within communities need to adopt the projects those communities really want rather than vice versa. She believes community art will have changed nothing if it doesn’t have the enduring effect of empowering the community to continue what has been started.

So yes, art and especially theater can make a change, it takes time, a lot of courage in some cases, you have to be patient, you have to understand the environment and the community's conditions, you have to work hard. The message will get out eventually, and if you can make a change in a good way in one person's heart it is a win. And the rest can result with a domino effect. I encourage everyone to create something that is good for humanity, because humanity isn't lost until we give up trying to save it.  

#ilayda #political theatre #theatre #theater #tiyatro

[artbookclubdublin-blog]

This is the list of book suggestions that were gathered for our first book club. We then voted for the book that we wanted to read for our first meeting. 

Documents of Contemporary Art: Participation, edited by Claire Bishop 

The desire to move viewers out of the role of passive observers and into the role of producers is one of the hallmarks of twentieth-century art. This tendency can be found in practices and projects ranging from El Lissitzky's exhibition designs to Allan Kaprow's happenings, from minimalist objects to installation art. More recently, this kind of participatory art has gone so far as to encourage and produce new social relationships. Guy Debord's celebrated argument that capitalism fragments the social bond has become the premise for much relational art seeking to challenge and provide alternatives to the discontents of contemporary life. This publication collects texts that place this artistic development in historical and theoretical context.

Participation begins with writings that provide a theoretical framework for relational art, with essays by Umberto Eco, Bertolt Brecht, Roland Barthes, Peter Bürger, Jen-Luc Nancy, Edoaurd Glissant, and Félix Guattari, as well as the first translation into English of Jacques Rancière's influential "Problems and Transformations in Critical Art." The book also includes central writings by such artists as Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, Joseph Beuys, Augusto Boal, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Thomas Hirschhorn, and Rirkrit Tiravanija. And it features recent critical and curatorial debates, with discussions by Lars Bang Larsen, Nicolas Bourriaud, Hal Foster, and Hans-Ulrich Obrist.

Ways of Seeing, by John Berger

John Berger’s now classic article "Ways of Seeing" (1972) revolutionarily, for his time, analyses the manner in which men and women are culturally represented, and the subsequent results these representations have on their conduct and self as well and mutual perception.

The Sublime, edited by Simon Morley 

In a world where technology, spectacle and excess seem to eclipse former concepts of nature, the individual and society, what might be the characteristics of a contemporary sublime? If there is any consensus it is in the notion that the sublime represents a taking to the limits, to the point at which fixities begin to fragment. This anthology examines how ideas of the sublime are explored in the work of contemporary artists and theorists, in relation to the unpresentable, transcendence, terror, nature, technology, the uncanny and altered states.

Book of Mutter, by Kate Zambreno

Composed over thirteen years, Kate Zambreno's Book of Mutter is a tender and disquieting meditation on the ability of writing, photography, and memory to embrace shadows while in the throes -- and dead calm -- of grief. Book of Mutter is both primal and sculpted, shaped by the author's searching, indexical impulse to inventory family apocrypha in the wake of her mother's death. The text spirals out into a kind of fractured anatomy of melancholy that comes to contain critical reflections on the likes of Roland Barthes, Louise Bourgeois, Henry Darger, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha , Peter Handke, and others. Zambreno has modeled the book's formless form on Bourgeois's Cells sculptures -- at once channeling the volatility of autobiography, pain, and childhood, yet hemmed by a solemn sense of entering ritualistic or sacred space.

Neither memoir, essay, nor poetry, Book of Mutter is an uncategorizable text that draws upon a repertoire of genres to write into and against silence. It is a haunted text, an accumulative archive of myth and memory that seeks its own undoing, driven by crossed desires to resurrect and exorcise the past. Zambreno weaves a complex web of associations, relics, and references, elevating the prosaic scrapbook into a strange and intimate postmortem/postmodern theater.

Aliens and Anorexia, by Chris Kraus  

First published in 2000, Chris Kraus’s second novel, Aliens & Anorexia, defined a female form of chance that is both emotional and radical. Unfolding like a set of Chinese boxes, with storytelling and philosophy informing each other, the novel weaves together the lives of earnest visionaries and failed artists. Its characters include Simone Weil, the first radical philosopher of sadness; the artist Paul Thek; Kraus herself; and “Africa,” Kraus’s virtual S&M partner, who is shooting a big-budget Hollywood film in Namibia while Kraus holes up in the Northwest woods to chronicle the failure of Gravity & Grace, her own low-budget independent film.

In Aliens & Anorexia, Kraus makes a case for empathy as the ultimate perceptive tool, and reclaims anorexia from the psychoanalytic girl-ghetto of poor “self-esteem.” Anorexia, Kraus writes, could be an attempt to leave the body altogether: a rejection of the cynicism that this culture hands us through its food.

In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective, by Hito Steyerl  

Available on the e-flux website: http://www.e-flux.com/journal/24/67860/in-free-fall-a-thought-experiment-on-vertical-perspective/

The Temporality of the Landscape, by Tim Ingold

“In Tim Ingold's article, there are two themes present; that "...human life is a process that involves the passage of time," and that "...this life-process is also the process of information of the landscapes in which people have lived". Through the use of these themes and his methodological structure, Ingold argues that the landscape can be read as a text. First, he defines the terms landscape and temporality, and second, he introduces a new word, "taskscape", and considers how this relates to landscape. Finally, to further prove his point, the author attempts to "read" the landscape of a well-known painting, The Harvesters, by Bruegel, in which he interprets the temporality of this landscape. This article is useful in understanding cultural landscapes in that it encourages the researcher to think about an often missing, yet integral part of the interpretation of landscapes: time. The researcher is also made to question the relationship of the dimension of time to a particular landscape.” [E. Martin]

The Indiscipline of Painting, by Daniel Sturgis  

Essay and catalogue texts to exhibition.

 High Rise, by JG Ballard

High-Rise is a 1975 novel by British writer J. G. Ballard. The story describes the disintegration of a luxury high-rise building as its affluent residents gradually descend into violent chaos.

Two Hito Steyrl essays, to be read in combination: 

Politics of the archive, Translations in film: http://eipcp.net/transversal/0608/steyerl/en  and In Defense of the Poor Image:

http://www.e-flux.com/journal/10/61362/in-defense-of-the-poor-image/

The Secret History, by Donna Tartt

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last - inexorably - into evil.

Curating Research, edited by Paul O'Neill and Mick Wilson. Specifically the text called ‘The Complete Curator’

This anthology of newly commissioned texts presents a series of detailed examples of the different kinds of knowledge production that have recently emerged within the field of curatorial practice. The first volume of its kind to provide an overview of the theme of research within contemporary curating, Curating Research marks a new phase in developments of the profession globally. Consisting of case studies and contextual analyses by curators, artists, critics and academics, including Hyunjoo Byeon, Carson Chan and Joanna Warsza, Chris Fite-Wassilak, Olga Fernandez Lopez, Kate Fowle, Maja and Reuben Fowkes, Liam Gillick, Georgina Jackson, Sidsel Nelund, Simon Sheikh, Henk Slager, tranzit.hu, Jelena Vestic, Marion von Osten and Vivian Ziherl, and edited by curators Paul O'Neill and Mick Wilson, the book is an indispensible resource for all those interested in the current state of art and in the intersection between research and curating that underlies exhibition-making today.

The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson

A brave, fascinating memoir about love, gender, gender theory, having children, death, writing, and the modern family. Maggie Nelson, an established poet and prose writer, details her love for and relationship with Harry Dodge, a charismatic, gender-fluid artist ('are you a man or a woman?' the narrator wonders, but it just doesn't matter). In a brilliantly-written account that is moving as well as fascinating, Nelson charts her thoughts and feelings about becoming a step-parent, her pregnancy, Harry's operation and testosterone injections, and the couple's complex joys in queer-family creation.

Staying with the Trouble, by Donna Haraway

In the midst of spiraling ecological devastation, multispecies feminist theorist Donna J. Haraway offers provocative new ways to reconfigure our relations to the earth and all its inhabitants. She eschews referring to our current epoch as the Anthropocene, preferring to conceptualize it as what she calls the Chthulucene, as it more aptly and fully describes our epoch as one in which the human and nonhuman are inextricably linked in tentacular practices. The Chthulucene, Haraway explains, requires sym-poiesis, or making-with, rather than auto-poiesis, or self-making. Learning to stay with the trouble of living and dying together on a damaged earth will prove more conducive to the kind of thinking that would provide the means to building more livable futures. Theoretically and methodologically driven by the signifier SF—string figures, science fact, science fiction, speculative feminism, speculative fabulation, so far—Staying with the Trouble further cements Haraway's reputation as one of the most daring and original thinkers of our time.

#book suggestion list #book suggestion list 1 #art book club dublin

[comebeforegod]

Catholic Testimony: Rejoicing at Jesus’ Coming

By Amy, USA

Welcoming the Lord is the greatest wish for all who long for His return. By the grace of God, I welcomed His return. My heart is full of gratitude toward Him, scenes of the past appearing in my mind.

The Desolation of the Church

After graduation, I came to work in America. There I was baptized into the faith of the Lord and became a Catholic. In the first several years after that, no matter how tired I was, every Sunday I would go to the church for Mass and focus my attention to listening to the priest’s preaching and feel the Lord’s love with my heart. The church friends were warm-hearted to each other, just like family members coming together.

But later, I gradually found that apart from espousing letters and doctrines and knowledge of history from the Bible, the priest had nothing new to preach. Although I listened to it carefully, I couldn’t get the supply of life or feel the work of the Holy Spirit at all. Moreover, when I had some questions, I dared not to ask the priest, because he always positioned himself high above, only noticing and speaking to those who contributed the most money or had position. As for the common believers like me, he had no regard, much less answered my questions. The thing that disappointed me most was this. He actually argued with an old church friend who helped preach in the catechumen class. He even cursed the old church friend before many church members, so that the old church friend didn’t come to our church since then. I saw that outwardly the priest dressed himself elegantly and was well-mannered, but actually he was as hypocritical as the world’s government officials. Therefore, my enthusiastic heart became cold gradually as if it had been doused by a bucket of cold water. What was more, I found that the church was the same as the world: Relationships between church friends were based on nothing but mutual interest. They became very kind only when they exploited connections to sell products or do business. Other times they came and went in haste and guarded against each other and were indifferent like people in the world. There I couldn’t feel the love between each other.

During those years, in the church I learnt nothing except some religious rules and rituals. During the sermons, many believers dozed off and later I also became drowsy, somehow. And I didn’t want to go to church gradually, even to the extent of going there once every several months. Because I felt empty and had no support, I became unknowingly addicted to TV series. In order to fill the emptiness within my heart, I was obsessed with them every day and had a decadent life. Even after I got married and had kids, I was still given to the soap operas at my leisure and even though I went to the church for Mass sometimes, I was sleepy. I felt very confused about this. Until one day in December 2017, I met one of my old classmates in the park. She also believed in the Lord. Thanks to this encounter, my confusion was resolved and meanwhile I welcomed the Lord.

My Confusion Was Resolved

The weather in December was cold, yet it was a sunny day. With the sun shining on us, we were full of warmth. My classmate and I were invited to her friend’s to listen to the preaching. The preacher was a brother, who was proficient in the Bible. He integrated some characters recorded in the Bible such as Abraham, Job, Peter, the woman of Samaria, and so on, and fellowshiped their experiences of knowing God. I enjoyed very much listening to it. When we had some questions, he was very patient in giving us an answer, and he wouldn’t stop until we understood. Moreover, what he fellowshiped was enlightening, making me feel very brightened. I liked such get-together very much for there was no distinction of class. Instead, everyone sat together face-to-face fellowshiping. I felt very free and released with no restraint.

Later, my classmate told my confusion to the brother and asked, “Why is the church the same as the world? In church, we doze off during the sermons and can’t feel the Lord’s love and the work of the Holy Spirit at all. Could you tell us your views ?”

The brother said, “Thank God! The question you’ve asked is an important one. We all know that we live in the late period of the last days. The Lord Jesus once prophesied: ‘And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold.’ (Matthew 24:12). Lawlessness in the world of religion is growing. Religious leaders don’t abide by the Lord’s commandments, but only follow religious ceremonies and ancient traditions, turning churches into places of religious ritual and treating their responsibilities and duties as access to status and income. They appear godly outside but substantively are hypocritical. They don’t at all exalt God or bear witness to God, God’s words, and God’s requirements of man when preaching biblical knowledge, but only show off and bear witness to themselves. This leads to them deviating from the Lord’s way and bringing believers before themselves. They’ve been loathed and rejected by God. Another reason is that the Lord will perform a new stage of work in the last days and personally come to earth and express the truth to save mankind corrupted by Satan. The Bible predicted, ‘Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I myself come upon the shepherds, I will require my flock at their hand, and I will cause them to cease from feeding the flock any more, neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more: and I will deliver my flock from their mouth, and it shall no more be meat for them. For thus saith the Lord God: Behold I myself will seek my sheep, and will visit them’ (Ezekiel 34:10-11). From these verses, we can see the Lord will personally come to search for, shepherd, and lead His sheep.” Hearing those words “come to earth, express the truth, personally search for and shepherd His sheep,” and his fellowship, I felt the love and care from the Lord and my heart was deeply touched. Unknowingly tears blurred my eyes. A sister was considerate and handed me some tissues with a smile. I took them with a shy smile. Then I listened to his fellowship carefully lest I lose one word.

Reunion With the Lord

The brother went on fellowshiping, “The Lord Jesus once said, ‘I have yet many things to say to you: but you cannot bear them now. But when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth. For he shall not speak of himself; but what things soever he shall hear, he shall speak; and the things that are to come, he shall shew you’ (John 16:12-13). From these verses we can see when the Lord returns, He will express the truth and tell us the things we do not know. Now the Lord has returned to the flesh, expressed all the truths man requires to be saved and begun the work of judgment beginning with the house of God to purify all who accept His work of the last days. And the work of the Holy Spirit turns to God’s work of the last days. Those who accept God’s work of judgment in the last days will receive the work of the Holy Spirit, and receive the watering and provision of the living water of life, while those who stop in religious place and refuse to accept God’s work of the last days are left in dark desolation. This proves a prophecy in the Bible: ‘I also have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon: and the piece whereupon I rained not, withered. And two and three cities went to one city to drink water, and were not filled: yet you returned not to me, saith the Lord’ (Amos 4:7-8). Just as the Old Testament recorded that at the end of the Age of Law, the temple that originally shined with the glory of the Lord fell into desolation—it became a place of trade, a den of thieves. This was because the Lord came and performed a new stage of work. Those who accepted the work of the Lord Jesus were accompanied by the work of the Holy Spirit, while those who rejected His work were eliminated by the work of the Holy Spirit.”

I said, “Now the situation of the churches is almost the same as that of the temple at the end of the Age of Law. They also become a place of trade.” Others all said, “That’s right. It is indeed the same.” The brother nodded and said, “In order to gain the work of the Holy Spirit and watering of the living water of life, we must escape the deception and shackles of pastors and priests in the churches to seek and study the work of God in the last days. Only in this way can we follow the footprints of the Holy Spirit and come out of the spiritual darkness.” Then the brother turned on the computer and read two passages of God’s words, “God will accomplish this fact: He will make all people throughout the universe come before Him, and worship the God on earth, and His work in other places will cease, and people will be forced to seek the true way. It will be like Joseph: Everyone came to him for food, and bowed down to him, for he had things to eat. In order to avoid famine people will be forced to seek the true way. The entire religious community is suffering severe famine, and only the God of today is the wellspring of living water, possessed of the ever-flowing wellspring provided for the enjoyment of man, and people will come and depend on Him.” “All of God’s work in the entire universe has focused on this group of people. He has devoted all His efforts to you and sacrificed all for you; He has reclaimed and given to you all the work of the Spirit throughout the universe. That is why I say, you are the fortunate. Moreover, He has shifted His glory from Israel, His chosen people, to you, in order to make the purpose of His plan fully manifest through you group of people. Therefore, you are those who will receive the inheritance of God, and even more the heirs of God’s glory.”

The brother went on fellowshiping, “God has reclaimed all the work of the Holy Spirit throughout the universe and worked on those who follow His work of the last days, in order that they can hear God’s voice and be raptured before His throne to accept the judgment, purification and perfection of His words. After God makes this group of people into the overcomers, He will send down great disasters to reward good and punish evil. At that time, all those who don’t accept God’s work of judgment in the last days or achieve purification and change will fall into disasters and be punished.” Hearing this, I was very surprised: Is this the truth? The Lord Jesus has truly returned? If we don’t follow God’s work the outcome will be so severe? It’s so sudden. With lots of doubts and confusions, I listened attentively.

Afterward, the brother fellowshiped with us about the truths of the origin of the Bible, the mystery of incarnation, the inside story of three stages of work, the meaning of God’s names, and other aspects. His fellowship was well-grounded and very clear. I thought: The Lord must have returned. Otherwise, how could the brother know so many mysteries? Thank God! By His grace, I welcomed the Lord.

Satan’s Disturbance

One day, I came over to my sister’s with my child and then I asked her whether she knew Eastern Lightning. She stared at me keenly, saying, “I’m telling you. Don’t believe in Eastern Lightning.” And then she said much negative information about it. I said in a tone of anger, “Sister, you should find out about everything before speaking. Don’t follow the herd. You haven’t investigated The Church of Almighty God but blindly judge it. Is it right? We Christians should have a heart that reveres God.” She replied angrily, “I’m reminding you for your good, lest you take the wrong path. You can see for yourself on the Internet.” Her words aroused my curiosity. I thought: Is it really like what she said? I will check it out. And then I searched on the internet and saw many rumors. In particular I saw the May 28 Murder Case in a McDonald’s in Zhaoyuan, Shandong. After seeing it, I was very frightened and became a little wavering. I thought to myself: Are these real? Is the way true or not? What if it is wrong? However, when I recalled the small details of gatherings with the brothers and sisters—everybody was kind and I gained a lot in each meeting—I didn’t want to give up this way. At that moment, there was a fierce battle in my heart. I was afraid of being deceived and took the wrong way, yet I was also afraid of missing the opportunity to welcome the Lord. Therefore, I called my classmate and told her this matter, wanting to find the brother and figure it out.

The Truth Came Out

During the meeting, the brother played for us two videos: “Jia Chunwang Ordered Siege on The Church of Almighty God. Project 807 Caused the Purported McDonald’s Murder” presented by MingjingLive, and “The Truth Exposed Behind the May 28 Zhaoyuan Case,” which allowed me to have some discernment of the rumors online. Then the brother fellowshiped, “The defendants of the Zhaoyuan case of Shandong clearly stated in court that what the state had been cracking down on was not the ‘Almighty God’ that they believed in and that they never had contact with The Church of Almighty God. They themselves didn’t admit they belonged to The Church of Almighty God, but the CCP judges openly contradicted the fact and ruled that these suspects were the followers of The Church of Almighty God. They brazenly framed and blamed The Church of Almighty God for this case. Wasn’t it twisting fact and framing, defaming The Church of Almighty God on purpose?” “Yes, it was.” We replied in chorus. The brother went on saying, “Then why did the CCP do this? What was its purpose? As we all know, the CCP is an atheist party. Since it gained power, it has been frantically suppressing and banning Christianity, Catholicism and other forms of religion. It has labelled Christianity and Catholicism the evil cult and the Holy Bible as the work of an evil cult, confiscating and destroying innumerable copies of the Bible and arresting countless Christians. Now, Almighty God has become flesh and delivered utterances of millions of words. People in all denominations and sects who love the truth and yearn for light, after reading the words of Almighty God, all confirm God’s word is the truth and that Almighty God is the appearance of the Christ of the Last Days, so they have one after another accepted the work of Almighty God in the last days. In recent years, the gospel of the kingdom of Almighty God has spread to many foreign countries and regions. The word of Almighty God is being spread and witnessed by more and more people. The rapid development of The Church of Almighty God has caused the CCP to panic. It fears that after people read God’s word and understand the truth, they will see through its demonic essence and reject it from heart. Therefore, in order to protect its dictatorial regime and turn China into an atheist state, it framed and blamed The Church of Almighty God for Shandong Zhaoyuan Case and wanted to build up public opinion for it to ban The Church of Almighty God. From this we can see the CCP is the devil Satan, the enemy of God.”

One sister said, “That’s right. Concealment and deception are impermanent, and dark clouds cannot block the sunlight. Lies are always lies and they will never turn into the truth.” My classmate also said, “Yes. For so many years, the CCP has become increasingly notorious for its deceits and frauds. The cases adjudicated by the CCP’s courts are not to be trusted.” After seeing clearly the true facts, I felt very indignant. The CCP is too evil, too detestable, and it is capable of any low-down tricks. Meanwhile, I realized that I was so foolish and ignorant, and had no discernment that I almost fell into Satan’s scheme. The brother said, “Sister, this isn’t a bad thing. Through these rumors, we can understand some truths and have some discernment of the CCP. This is a harvest. Thanks be to God.”

Rejoicing at the Lord’s Coming

After experiencing the disturbances of the rumors, I had some knowledge of the nature and essence of the CCP resisting and hating God and saw through the CCP’s sinister intentions of creating rumors. I was not deceived by rumors any longer and returned to God again. From then on, as long as I had time, I would read God’s words and have meetings and fellowship the truth with my brothers and sisters. I was completely sure that Almighty God is the second coming of the Lord Jesus. I no longer felt empty and lonely or lived in the degenerate, decadent life of watching soap operas. I, a lost sheep, finally welcomed the Lord and returned to God’s family. Afterward, I spread the gospel to my husband, and he also returned to God’s family. Now, we have meetings, fellowship God’s words, and fulfill the duty of spreading the gospel together. I enjoy an earnestness and peace and joy in my heart I have never felt before. Thanks be to God!

#Gospel Testimonies #Return to God #Come Before God

[purkinje-effect]

The Purkinje Effect, 11

Table of Contents

Bars of sunlight scattered across the floor and Galen. From his sleeping bag, he glanced around at the variety of filing cabinets, file boxes, and desks, to ascertain he had not in fact been alone all night. There was also another sleeping bag and a mattress, the latter of which another drifter was still using. Both bedding arrangements were strewn with personal effects and other signs of occupation. He checked on his duffel to find it still where he’d left it at his feet. Sitting up, he retrieved his knuckledusters and lighter and returned them to the pockets in his jumpsuit, and also his smokes to his right rolled sleeve. The gloves remained where they were, too hardened with blood and gunk to be comfortable to wear. He’d have to beat the tar out of them later. Getting out of the sleeping bag, he put his duffel into it and zipped it back up, to make it look like the bedding was still being used. Then he put on his boots and walked out into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

“You lookin’ for Hancock, he’s in his room upstairs,” one of the Neighborhood Watch ghouls informed him, loosening his steel blue necktie.

Galen nodded in thanks, finding the hall for the building was more circular, with doors to either side of a spiral staircase, and two short halls with a pair of closets each which led one to the room from which Galen had slept, and another directly ahead which he assumed mirrored it. The stairs went down to what Galen figured was a basement, but instead the pink fellow ascended them in search for the man who had seemingly walked straight out of space and time himself.

Two more Neighborhood Watchmen stood upstairs, to either short hallway, one ghoul and one a Latin fellow. They tipped their hats a bit at him as he passed, and he raised a greeting hand in response. The mayor’s white double doors were open, and Hancock sat on the couch with a woman porting military armor and long fiery hair shaven to one side. She noticed their visitor first and rose, her posture and expression firm. When she rose, Hancock glanced up from his smoke.

“You’re here to speak with Mayor Hancock, I take it,” she asserted.

“Ahh, our new face.” Hancock smiled and exhaled smoke through his nose-less nostrils. With cigarette in hand, he pointed over to the armchairs across from the couch. Between the furniture was a coffee table strewn with a variety of reading material, containers, inhalers, and syringes. “Come, take a seat.”

Galen complied, dropping his hood when he did, and produced a cigarette of his own, eyes on Hancock’s personal bodyguard as she reclaimed her seat.

“So tell me, friend. What brings you to Goodneighbor?”

“I’d all but given up trying to find a place that didn’t draw their weapons on me. I... I’ve got compulsion habits,” he confessed through a breathy exhale. “Tried Diamond City, for one. That didn’t last long.”

“I could have told you that,” the bodyguard ribbed condescendingly, futzing with a cigar, nipping the tip with a switchblade before lighting it.

“Farh, give the guy a break. He’s not from around here.” The mayor nudged toward her. “This here’s Farhenheit. She’s my second-in-command.”

“The Neighborhood Watch is under my supervision,” she added, leaning hard into the back of the couch, finally comfortable again. Her eyes didn’t leave Galen.

“Elaborate on the compulsions, though,” Hancock asked, putting out his cigarette in the coffee table ashtray after one last drag. “I’m surprised they’d let you inside in the first place. Skin color’s... usually a determining factor.” He pinched his cheek for emphasis.

“They don’t like synths or ghouls? I mean, nobody’s told me what a synth IS. But they keep tellin’ me I am one.”

“Couple years back, the windbag that runs Diamond City instated a law banning all ghouls.” Hancock shut his eyes a moment longer than could be a blink. “And synths aren’t welcome here, either, long as they’re still playin’ by Institute rules. A synth’s a synthetic human, created by the Institute. The Institute kidnaps above-grounders and replaces ‘em with a doppelganger. Everyone is welcome in my town--human, ghoul, or synth. But kidnapping? That shit don’t fly on my watch.”

“Tell me about your town,” Galen started, hoping to change the subject at the impression he’d gotten on a bad one. Besides, the ghoul mayor had skimmed the surface of why no one he’d met so far trusted synths.

“Heh. We just recently celebrated our 45th anniversary, but I’ve held my office eight years now. Goodneighbor started out as a raider settlement--outright criminals were the first that Diamond City purged, and they came here. It started as a raider settlement. But, I fixed that. We live free here, not near-enslaved under armed fascists. This place is a bastion for the lost, wanton, and downtrodden.”

“Of the people, for the people.” Fahr melted into her cigar.

The small history lesson explained for him the design and initial purpose of the neon signs--he’d been right, to question whether they were a trap--but he didn’t mention it. He bit his filter nervously, and mumbled:

“You... forgive me for sayin’ so, but you don’t sound at all like I’d think John Hancock would.”

Fahr and Hancock looked at each other, neither sure they’d heard Galen right, then burst out laughing.

“Friend, you’ve been hitting the Jet too hard,” the mayor laughed. “He’s still in the dirt at the Old Granary, last I checked. It’s a long story, how I got to look and dress like this. Got my name takin’ over this place and settin’ it right.”

“What’s in a name?” Galen mumbled lyrically, taking a slightly Shakespearean posture.

“Rosy pink, this one,” Hancock chuckled. “You gotta Pipboy there. See that Holotape on the table there? Pop it in an’ give it a listen. It’s a short recording, but it’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Galen did as instructed, and inserted the square orange-and-beige cassette into the tray atop his Pipboy. He got to his filter as the playback began, and he swallowed it.

“Wake up, Commonwealth,” a woman’s voice proclaimed. “Synths are not your enemy. They are victims in this war, as well. True, they were created by the Institute. But they were created as slaves. Thinking, feeling, and dreaming beings utterly oppressed by their tyrannical masters. So join with us in fighting the real enemy: The Institute. Join the Railroad. When you're ready for that next step, don't worry, we'll find you.”

“Your thoughts? These tapes’ve been popping up in Goodneighbor past few months. I’ve been noticing some unusual behavior up in North End, too.”

“Sounds t’me like they’re trying to ramp up to do something about the Institute,” Galen deduced. He tried to slick his fallen hair back across his scalp, but it didn’t stay. “They’re definitely not raiders. They’re too organized.”

“Could I get you to do a little recon? I don’t know exactly where they’ve set up shop, and it’s a little too close to comfort, not knowin’ what they plan to do about everybody’s least favorite boogeyman. Sounds like they could be on our side, but they could also be damn fanatics. All bark, no bite, feel me?”

“I haven’t been North of Boston yet since I got out here. There’s no more super mutants past downtown, right?”

“Small pockets, last I checked,” Fahr replied for Hancock. “Nothing like the Financial District or the Commons. Shouldn’t run into more than one or two at a time. Nothing you can’t handle.” She puffed at her cigar with a sneer to punctuate her jab at him. Galen laughed it off.

“I gotta eat breakfast, an’ see if I can’t separate some supplies from Daisy, but I can definitely do that. Which, speakin’ of breakfast... that issue with compulsions I’ve got... The Watchmen warned me y’all have a strict law about theft. Y’all would be all right if I rooted in your dumpsters, yeah? I got unconventional nutritional needs, but I’ve so far been able to manage with trash bins.”

“What do you think you’re going to find in our dumpsters that you can’t find at Daisy’s or The Third Rail?” Hancock wondered, drawing a bead on the real reason Galen was there in his town. For a moment, Galen’s only answer was to empty the ashtray into his mouth. Once he’d swallowed, he thought a moment.

“...Flatware, nails, screws, broken plastic an’ glass... An alarm clock sounds real good right now. Anything past its prime, really...”

“You really are a geek like Daisy said, aren’t you?” the ghoul remarked, both offput and impressed. The two of them weren’t quite glaring, but Galen definitely had their attention.

“The way people keep describing me like one, you’d think that was my name.” The pink fellow chuckled quietly as he eyed the various paraphernalia on the table, unsure of exactly what most of it was. “Is that... all right then?”

“Hey, if it don’t have a lock on it, I’d say the fourth amendment still holds merit in the Commonwealth. No government to enforce it, but I don’t think much of anybody’s gonna argue with you long as you don’t come across somebody’s stash of a thousand caps.”

“Their fault for stirring up trouble,” Farh tacked on, “if they left that kind of wealth stowed away in plain sight, unlocked. Bad planning.”

“I don’t know what I’d do with that kind of money, either,” Galen said, standing up. “Probably couldn’t hold onto it long enough to count it. It’s been a real pleasure, Mayor, Fahrenheit.”

“You too, ...Geek.” The mayor grinned at him, heavy-lidded. “Mh, that does sound like a name, when you use it like one.���

“Do I sound like a ‘Geek’ to you? I look like a ‘Geek’...” Galen laughed at his bad joke. “It’s fine.”

“Look forward to hearing what you find,” the charismatic ghoul nodded.

“Don’t do anything too stupid,” Fahr threw after him on his way out.

“Heh, sounds like Farhenheit likes you already,” the human Watchman ribbed as Galen descended the stairs.

“Yeah, it does.”

#fallout 4 fanfic #fo4 fanfic #fallout 4 oc #fo4 oc #hancock #fahrenheit #fallout 4 #the purkinje effect #geek

[aswithasunbeam]

An Elusive Peace, Chapter 6

[Read on AO3]

Rated: T

Summary: For Hamilton and Eliza, peace was supposed to mark the end to their separation and the beginning of domestic bliss. But Hamilton's ambition and the challenges facing the new nation quickly interfere. Happily ever after may not be as easy to attain as they once hoped.

The Jay’s throw a dinner party, Eliza’s angry, and Hamilton’s kidneys are acting up again...

 August 1786

Even with the windows thrown wide to catch the breeze off the Hudson, Jay’s spacious office felt unbearably warm. Hamilton wiped at his forehead with his already damp handkerchief and adjusted again in his chair, attempting to alleviate the dull throb in his back. Lively music emanated from the front parlor of the Jay’s country estate, mixing with the cricket song from the gardens, both sounds loud in the otherwise quiet office. John Jay peered at the letter from Henry Laurens, holding it close to the lamplight, before sighing and passing the paper to his right, where Robert Troup began to study the document.

“A tissue of lies, eh?”1 Troup read with a sardonic laugh. Egbert Benson leaned over his shoulder to read the letter as well. The men were not only fellow members of the New York Manumission Society, but also three of the finest legal minds in the country.

“Any suggestions?” Hamilton queried, hopeful, but not optimistic.

“He claims the poor fellow remains his property,” Jay sighed. “It’s much harder to argue attempted kidnapping when papers can be produced showing ownership. His attorney is Jacob Read?”

Hamilton gave a resigned nod. “He’s coming to collect Frederic on Laurens’ behalf.”

“There’s nothing from Colonel Laurens attesting to this grant of freedom?” Benson queried, adjusting his glasses as he looked up from the letter.

“Surely Jack must have given him something?” Troup pressed as he placed the letter on the side table and leaned forward, beseeching.

“If he did, Frederic no longer has it,” Hamilton answered with a half shrug.

“The lack of documentation certainly gives credence to Mr. Laurens’ claim,” Jay pointed out.

“I believe Frederic,” Hamilton retorted firmly. “And his claim makes perfect sense. Jack wanted to grant all the men who fought for the Patriots their freedom after the war. If he believed it was in his power to grant it to one of his men, he would absolutely have done so.”

Benson had crossed the room, and he poured himself a brandy as he stated, “Be that as it may, his word and your belief won’t be enough to overcome Mr. Laurens’ proof of ownership in court.” He held up the brandy bottle to Hamilton when he’d finished pouring, silently asking whether Hamilton would like some as well.

“No, thank you,” Hamilton refused. His kidneys ached terribly, and alcohol only seemed to make things worse when he was in this state.2 When Troup frowned at him, he tried to force a reassuring smile.

“I agree with Benson,” Jay said, sitting back and swirling his own glass of brandy slowly. “There’s nothing to be done for him.”

“Sorry, Ham.” Troup patted his knee companionably. “I know how much this meant to you.”

He’d known there was nothing to be done after reading the first few lines of Henry Laurens’ letter, but hearing it confirmed still carried the sting of failure. Jack had freed this man—the just act had been one of his dearest friend’s last in this world, and Hamilton was powerless to see it through for him. Now Frederic would be taken back to South Carolina to labor on the sprawling Laurens’ estate, and no amount of Laurens’ rosy and paternalistic rhetoric could make Hamilton believe that was a positive outcome. To take a man once free and return him to a state of enslavement seemed to him an affront to the laws of man and God alike.

“Oh, I wanted to show you,” Jay muttered, leaning far over the chair to reach the top drawer of his desk. “This just arrived from General Washington.”

They had moved easily on to the new topic, as though they hadn’t just condemned a man to a terrible fate. Hamilton tried not to imagine Frederic’s face when he visited him at the jail on his way through the city with the news that he’d be returning to his master. The man’s earnest, pleading expression floated across his mind’s eye nonetheless.

Jay had pulled a thick stack of pages from his desk. Hamilton winced in pain as he reached to take the letter. Washington’s careful, looping handwriting was immediately recognizable. “Your sentiments, that our affairs are drawing rapidly to a crisis, accord with my own,” Washington began.3

“You’ll want to read this, too, Benson,” Jay said as Hamilton read. “General Washington is firmly behind an effort to overhaul our current system. Knowing you have his support, I have great hope for the upcoming convention in Annapolis.”

As Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Jay was intimately familiar with the shortfalls of the current Articles of Confederation that governed their young nation. When Hamilton had been appointed to attend the meeting, Jay had immediately taken him into his confidence regarding improvements he wanted to see. Hamilton had no doubt that was the reason he and Eliza had been extended the invitation to the Jay’s country retreat along with Benson.

“Isn’t the meeting just to work out new interstate trade regulations?” Troup asked curiously.

“That’s what Clinton thinks,” Jay granted. “With any luck, he’ll continue to believe so.”

“He and every other state official,” Hamilton added distractedly as his eyes darted around the page. “Those of us who understand the urgent need for a better system are few and far between.” It was entirely possible that he, Benson, and Jemmy would be the only ones interested in making any changes at all, assuming anyone else even bothered to attend.

A soft knock preceded the office door cracking open, and Sarah Jay’s open, heart-shaped face peeked in at them. “Are you gentleman going to join us ladies in the parlor any time soon?”

“We’ll be right there, dearest,” Jay assured her, his expression tender at the sight of his wife. “Shall we, gentlemen?”

They all rose, but while Jay, Benson, and Troup started out of the room, Hamilton paused, pressing his hand to his back. The dull ache had suddenly turned to a sharp pain that was radiating from his sides down across his abdomen. He hissed and held his other hand to his stomach, trying to breathe through the pain.

“Ham?” Troup had turned back when he didn’t move. “Are you all right?”

“Mm,” he hummed.

“Do you want me to get Eliza?”

He huffed a wry chuckle. Eliza was hardly speaking to him at the moment. “I’ll be fine. I just need a moment.”

Troup leaned against the wall to wait for him. “Your kidneys?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t need to say more. The attacks were an unfortunately common occurrence, and Troup had been by his side during one of his worst ones while they were at King’s. He’d never forget how caring and kind his friend had been while he’d writhed and heaved on their shared bed.

After a few deep breaths, the pain eased enough for him to move again. He made his way from the office, Troup close at his side.

“Hammy!” Someone crashed into him as they entered the parlor. He hissed again as arms clasped around his torso.

Easing the figure away, he forced a smile, and, with only partially false enthusiasm, greeted, “Kitty! I didn’t know you were coming.”

“When Sarah said you and Eliza were staying here with your children, I had to come visit.”

“Is your husband here as well?”

She laughed. He smelled wine heavy on her breath even over her cloying perfume. “No. You wouldn’t want him to be, trust me—he’s dreadfully dull.” Her cheery yellow dress was cut low across her chest, and she was angling in a manner that seemed designed to give him a full view of her bosom. His gaze lingered a moment longer than he’d like to admit. She still had a beautiful figure.

Coming to his senses, he pushed her farther away gently. “I’m…I’m sorry to hear he won’t be joining us,” he managed, the most diplomatic response he could think of on the spot.

Eliza was seated at the far end of the parlor on the sofa beside Jennet Troup, he noticed. The two women appeared engrossed in conversation. He tried to catch his wife’s eye. Her gaze flitted in his direction, enough that he knew she’d seen him looking at her, but she pointedly kept her face turned towards Jennet.

Still angry with him, then.

“Now that we’ve finally reclaimed our gentleman, perhaps a dance?” Sarah suggested.

“Oh, yes! We should dance, Hammy. For old time’s sake.” Kitty pulled on his arm, attempting to tug him towards the center of the room.

What he needed was to sit, or, better yet, lie down. Either way, dancing certainly was not in his plans for the night. In fact, the slicing pain was beginning to make him feel slightly sick to his stomach. “I’m sorry, would you excuse me? I need to step outside.”

“Oh.” Kitty looked deeply disappointed, but she released him.  

He cut across the room towards the open patio doors, and exited into the garden, where torches lit a path to the nearby privy. Relieving his bladder always became a torturous task when his ailment flared up, but he managed. Instead of going straight back to the party, though, he decided to sit down on one of the garden benches and let the fresh, cool night air help to settle his stomach.

Footsteps crunched along the gravel path, forking away from the direction of the necessary house. He expected to Troup coming to check on him, or perhaps Kitty anxious to reclaim his attention. To his surprise, it was Eliza making her way towards him. The light from the torches along the path shimmered on the rose pink silk of her gown, giving it an almost golden hue.

She lowered herself onto the bench beside him and gave him a considering look. “You know, it’s difficult to stay cross with you when you look so sullen.”

A tiny smile pulled at his lips. “It’s difficult not to look sullen when you’re so cross with me.”

“I hate fighting with you,” she confessed.

“I don’t much care for it either.”

“I wish you wouldn’t give me so much cause to be angry, then,” she retorted.

He wasn’t entirely certain what it was he had done to make her so upset with him in the first place, but he knew better than to inquire about the cause when she seemed to be softening towards him. Whatever it was he had done, there was usually only one right answer, anyway. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think you are.” She knew him far too well, it seemed. Her hand rested gently upon his left knee, though, as if to indicate a temporary truce. “Why are you sitting out here by yourself? It’s not only because of our fight.”

“Mm, no,” he agreed. “I’m just not feeling very well tonight.”

Her thumb stroked soothingly along his thigh. “What’s wrong? Your kidneys?”

He nodded. “I’m having a bit of an attack. And I feel a little sick to my stomach. The fresh air helps.”

“Should I ask Mr. Jay to send for a doctor?”

“It will pass on its own. It always does.”

“Perhaps a doctor could do something to ease your discomfort until it does pass.” When he refused again, she huffed.  “You’re so stubborn.”

“You knew that when you married me,” he teased lightly.

She favored him with a small smile. “I suppose I did.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his handkerchief to dab at his sweaty brow again. As he did, Eliza’s right hand clasped his left, her fingers sliding naturally into the spaces between his own. Sliding a little closer, she leaned against him, apparently content to sit beside him for as long as he needed to take the air. He closed his eyes and focused on taking deep breaths.

The pain seemed to be worsening rather than improving. He blew out a controlled breath through his pursed lips during a particularly bad spasm, and his hand clutched at Eliza’s tightly. Her other hand closed around his comfortingly.

“Mrs. Jay gave Pip and Angelica some paints to play with today,” Eliza told him, her voice calm and casual as she sought to distract him. “Apparently, though, Pip got bored with the painting on the paper. I looked away for half a second, and poor little Alex had blue cheeks and a red nose. Thankfully it washed off in the bath. At least the little monster didn’t try to repaint the nursery walls.”

He laughed weakly at the story, but the sound turned to a soft whimper in the back of his throat. His heart was beating a loud, pounding tattoo in his chest. The whole lower half of his torso was tender and beset with terrible, shooting pains.

Eliza sighed, and reached her left hand up to touch his cheek. “God, sweetheart, you’re shaking.”

“Hurts,” he managed to gasp out between breaths.

“I’m going to ask Troup to come help you upstairs so you can lie down. Will you be all right for a minute?”

He nodded stiffly and forced his hand to release the tight grip he had on hers.

“I’ll be right back,” she promised. Her hand brushed over his back before she hurried back down the garden path towards the house. Good to her word, she returned within a minute with Troup close on her heels.

“Oh, Hammy,” Troup sighed heavily.

His friend reached down to wrap Hamilton’s arm around his shoulders, but Hamilton shook his head. “Not yet,” he requested. He couldn’t bear to stand in the midst of a spasm. “Another minute, please.”

“Take your time,” Troup granted. “Tell me when you’re ready.”

Another few rounds of deep breaths through his nose, and the pain finally ebbed enough for him to stand. “All right. I think I can move now.”

Troup pulled Hamilton’s arm across his shoulders with his hand clutching at the material beneath Hamilton’s opposite armpit. Balancing carefully, they rose and began an awkward shuffle towards the house. Sarah was waiting anxiously just inside the patio doors as they made their way inside.

“I’m so sorry to hear you’re feeling unwell, Mr. Hamilton,” she said as they stumbled in, Troup setting the course for the stairs. “Mrs. Hamilton mentioned your stomach was troubling you. I do hope it wasn’t something you ate.”

He felt Eliza’s hand soothe across his lower back as she answered for him. “I’m quite sure your excellent dinner was not the problem, Mrs. Jay. My husband occasionally suffers from an inflammation of the kidneys, often in the late summer or the early autumn.”

“It’s plagued him since his childhood,” Troup added.

“He just needs rest,” Eliza assured their hostess.

Sarah looked much more at ease, but her expression remained compassionate. “I’ll send a servant up with some peppermint water and some hot towels. Is there anything else you need? You’re sure we shouldn’t call for a doctor?”

“I’ll be perfectly well again presently,” he interjected. He heard Eliza huff softly behind him again, but she didn’t contradict him. With Troup’s help, he managed to struggle upstairs into the guest room they were occupying.

“In you go, Hammy,” Troup encouraged, lowering him down onto the mattress and tugging the blanket over him.

He groaned as he rolled onto his back, breathing hard. His heart was still hammering in his chest. Eliza sat carefully beside him and reached into his pocket for his handkerchief to mop his brow again.

“Thank you, Robert,” she said, sending his friend a sincere smile.

“Sorry,” he added to Troup.

“Oh, please. We’ve seen each other in worse states than this over the years,” Troup brushed away his apology.  “Let me know if you need anything else, Mrs. H.”

“I will,” Eliza promised, subtle amusement on her face at the nickname Troup favored for her.

Troup turned to the side in the doorway to allow in one of the Jay’s servants, who carried a tray of supplies. The girl left the items on the nightstand and retreated quickly herself, closing the door behind her with a gentle tap. Eliza leaned over to inspect the items, her face glowing in the lamplight.

“You’re not going to be sick, are you?” she asked him.

His stomach still felt uneasy, but it didn’t feel urgent. “I don’t think so.”

“Can you sit up to sip the peppermint water? That should ease your nausea at least.”

“If you help me,” he answered. She leaned back towards him and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder to help leverage himself up against the pillows. As she began to prepare the drink for him, she noted, “We’ll have to take off your waistcoat and tails when you’re feeling a little more recovered.”

He nodded and accepted the cup from her. The peppermint water did help alleviate the queasiness. As the pain from the spasms started to ease as well, Eliza helped him undress and flip over onto his stomach, where she placed a hot towel across his back and began to slowly massage his tense shoulders.

“Feeling better?” she whispered when his eyelids began to droop drowsily.

“Mm,” he hummed agreeably.

Her thumbs traced slow circles on his shoulder blades as she heaved a sigh. “This is what I’m worried about, you know.”

He blinked his eyes open and craned his neck to look up at her. “What?”

“This.” She waved her hand over his torso. “This is what happens when you spread yourself too thin.”

“I’ll be fine.”

She raised a brow skeptically. “Oh, will you?”

“This isn’t from stress,” he tried to argue. “It’s a very old complaint. I’ve been suffering with it since childhood. It’s nothing to do with my work.”

“I was there when you came home from the war. I saw how worn you were after years of hard service to the country. I never wish to see you so ill again.”

He shook his head to try to focus. Her icy attitude towards him had coincided with him mentioning the reason for his upcoming trip to Annapolis, but he’d had no idea why exactly it had upset her so. “Is that why you’re angry with me? Because I’m going to a meeting for the government?”

“I don’t even expect you to ask me, you know, but you could have at least told me what you were doing. You found out you’d been appointed in May, for heaven’s sake.”

“I didn’t want to bother you about it, with the new baby and—”

“I don’t care how you rationalized it, Alexander!” She hadn’t raised her voice exactly, but there was distinct heat in her tone now. “You hid it from me for months. You must have known it would upset me, otherwise you would have said something when word first arrived.”

He tried to ignore the truth of her words, and instead squinted up at her in aggrieved disbelief. “I don’t understand what’s upsetting you. It’s a single meeting. I’ve been gone far longer for court and on business for Church.”

“Don’t patronize me,” she hissed. “This isn’t one meeting. You, and Mr. Jay—and Mr. Madison, I’d wager—you’ve all been plotting together. You’re going to turn that commerce meeting into a full scale review of our governing document.”

Her political savvy astounded him sometimes. He flashed her a smile, hoping to charm her out of her temper. “It’s a good thing I have you and your political instincts on my side, my angel. If you worked for Governor Clinton, I’d be ruined.”

“It’s not political instincts that I have. I just know you,” she contradicted. “You’ve been desperate to revise the Articles of Confederation ever since your miserable experience in Congress. And this will be your chance.”

He felt transparent and vulnerable as he grappled with just how easily his wife had seen through him. Another searing pain shot across his side as he contemplated the development. Her mood towards him seemed to soften when she saw him wince.

Leaning down, she pressed a gentle kiss to his temple and whispered, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone into all that when you’re not feeling well. I just…I just want you to be honest with me, Alexander. You know I’ll support you, whatever you decide to do. But I don’t like you hiding things from me.”

She was right, of course. He’d known she wouldn’t be happy with his decision to delve back into government service, and he’d deliberately avoided telling her about the appointment until the last possible moment. He rolled onto his side a little so he could see her more easily.

“You’re right,” he said. “I should have told you. I’m sorry.”  

She brushed her knuckles over his cheek fondly. “Thank you.”

“I love you,” he told her sincerely.

Tenderness stole over her expression as she kissed him again. “Get some rest, my love. You’ll need all your strength if you’re going to overthrow the government next week.”

He laughed at the bare truth of the statement.

She ruffled his hair and pushed softly at his shoulder to encourage him back into the more comfortable position on his belly. As he adjusted, she replaced the hot towel on his back and resumed her massage. In her loving hands, he drifted easily into a peaceful sleep.

1. See Henry Laurens to Alexander Hamilton, 19 April 1785 and Henry Laurens to Jacob Read, 16 July 1785—I aged this case up a year just to keep the story moving, but otherwise the details are all true. Hamilton was very active in the New York Manumission Society in the mid-1780s, along with the three other men in the room with him. The society focused on agitating for gradual abolition and the end of the slave trade (he signed a petition in March 1786 for that very purpose), and on providing legal aid to free men who were being kidnapped from the city and sold into slavery down south. Hamilton personally took the case of a man named Frederic, who claimed John Laurens had freed him in return for his service to the army during the revolution. Unfortunately, Hamilton could do little to assist him, because Henry Laurens insisted that Frederic remained his property.

2. See Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 8 September 1786—Hamilton was suffering from some kind of illness on his trip to Annapolis, and given the time of year, it was likely an attack of his persistent kidney ailment that plagued him throughout his life.

3. George Washington to John Jay, 15 August 1786.

#hamilton fanfic #hamliza #historical hamliza #alexander hamilton #eliza hamilton #john jay #robert troup #kitty livingston #john laurens #henry laurens #frederic #an elusive peace

[avanneman]

Daniel Drezner and the Darkening Detritus of Doom

A few months ago, WashPost columnist Daniel Drezner blossomed forth with a series of articles on the future lying before us whose tone was so gloomy that I may start wishing I won’t live long enough to see it. His biggest “big picture” picture appeared in Reason last April, titled “Will Today's Global Trade Wars Lead to World War III?”, springing off a recent dispute between rebel province/newly independent nation Kosovo, which broke away from Serbia in 2008, reminding Dan all too fatally of an earlier contretemps in the Balkans, leading to a further contretemps later to be known as World War I. As I read, I became a bit exercised over what Dan had to say, to the extent that I decided that I would take it on myself to explain why Dan was getting World War I all wrong—though the present day, it would seem, perhaps not so much.

Unfortunately, when I started to explain the errors of Dan’s ways, I discovered that I didn’t know quite so much about WWI as I thought. When I finished bringing myself up to speed, I then discovered that I had so much to say about how Dan got the war wrong that, unlike Dan, I couldn’t cover both past and present in one post, even a post as long as this one. To simplify a bit, the “nut” of my argument is that Dan, and the scholars he quotes, overemphasize the determinative power of economic arrangements between nations, leading to my conclusion that “mere” politics—when driven by powerful class interests—can dominate economic advantage.

Easy to say, but once I started talking I found it hard to shut up, feeling it somehow “necessary” to refute (with utter conclusiveness, I might add) everyone else’s “wrong’ ideas about the Great War, attacking in particular detail the argument that Dan more accepts than argues, that Europe “slipped” into war. I believe that, instead, the war was practically inevitable, though fortunately the present, I hope, isn’t so gloomy. But I’ll have to explain that in a different post.

To return to Dan, and to modern day Kosovo, Dan explains that shortly after declaring its independence, the new country began seeking to free itself economically from Serbia by shutting off trade with that country, and two of its Balkan neighbors, Bosnia and Herzegovina, who have been siding with Serbia. Dan is worried, and, both to do his worries justice and to set up my ripostes, I will quote him at length:

Even if this particular trade dispute is resolved, a larger challenge remains: The Kosovar government's explicit aim is to reduce its economic dependence on its former occupier. So far, it's been successful; imports fell by 99 percent from a year earlier.

This is the kind of kerfuffle that causes world-weary observers of international affairs to shrug their shoulders and say, "the Balkans" with a knowing smile. That would be fair enough if not for the déjà vu it inspires among attentive students of economic history.

In the first decade of the 1900s, it was the newly independent Serbia taking actions to try to reduce its economic dependence on the Austro-Hungarian empire. The country increased its imports from France and signed a customs union with Bulgaria. In 1906, Austria-Hungary responded by slapping high tariffs on Serbia's chief export: pork. The "Pig War" lasted another five years, during which time Serbia painfully weaned itself from economic dependence on the Habsburg empire. Austria-Hungary's share of Serbian trade fell from 90 percent to 30 percent.

The Pig War prompted Austria-Hungary to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina [in 1909], a move that escalated tensions with Russia—and sowed the seeds for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914 by a Bosnian Serb.

Economic closure in the Balkans did not ignite the First World War. It did make the kindling that much easier to spark, however.

Before the First World War started, powers great and small took a variety of steps to thwart the globalization of the 19th century. Each of these steps made it easier for the key combatants to conceive of a general war.

We are beginning to see a similar approach to the globalization of the 21st century. One by one, the economic constraints on military aggression are eroding. And too many have forgotten—or never knew—how this played out a century ago.

The problem with this sort of analogizing is that Dan is putting the economic cart before the political horse in both past and present. Today’s Serbia doesn’t want Kosovo to be recognized as an independent country, while Kosovo is, naturally, striving to make itself as independent as possible from the country of which it was once a part. Past Serbia, in turn, was striving to free itself from economic dependence on the Austro-Hungarian Empire, both on general principles and to free itself in order to launch a campaign of nationalist agitation ultimately directed at territorial expansion of Serbia, largely at the expense of the province of Bosnia, officially a part of the Ottoman Empire but administered by Austria and ultimately scheduled, in Austria’s eyes at least, for ultimate absorption into the “Dual Monarchy”, as it was known.1

Up until 1903 Serbia’s king had been in the pay (literally) of Austria, ever since Serbia’s creation as a “modern” nation in 1878 by the “Congress of Berlin”, a peace conference called into existence to tidy up after a war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire had cost the Ottomans about half of their Balkan Empire. But a brutal coup in that year brought a new king to the throne, one reliant on radical nationalist supporters who dreamed of recreating the 14th-century Serbian Empire, which covered much of the Balkan Peninsula and was ultimately overthrown by the Ottomans in the famous Battle of Kosovo in 1389. The “Pig War” was definitely a thing, but it was much more about politics than economics. Serbia “painfully weaned itself” from Austria not because it had to but because it wanted to, and Austria formally absorbed Bosnia and Herzegovina into its empire not for economic reasons, as Dan implies, but to forestall Serbian political agitation and in response to a change in the political situation in the Ottoman Empire, which, Austria feared, might now try to reclaim administrative control over the two provinces.

Dan makes his elaborate comparison between past and present because, as he tells us “A central tenet of the liberal approach to international relations is that economic interdependence reduces the likelihood of war.” The era before World War I is frequently described as the first heyday of globalization, a heyday that did not end well. What might that say about the current, second heyday, which also has its problems, to say the least?

Dan tells us that he won’t give us a “potted history” of the state of affairs in Europe just prior to World War I, but what he supplies is heavily repotted from John Maynard Keynes, who wrote rather foolishly about that golden epoch, "the inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep,” ignoring the fact that the vast majority of London’s inhabitants did not start the day sipping tea in bed bur rather rose early to put in an honest 10 to 12 hours of hard manual labor, did not own a telephone, and rarely had anything delivered to their doorstep from anywhere.

Drezner acknowledges what many others have pointed out, that early 20th century Europe was not at all an era of free trade—many tariffs had been lowered in the middle of the 19th century but as the 20th approached they were often increased in response to increasing economic competition from imports. The era, however, was an era of dramatically increasing international trade, because prices of imported goods fell despite the increases in tariffs, thanks to scientific breakthroughs, inventions, and improvements in transportation—most spectacularly the development of ocean-going steam ships, which tripled the carrying capacity of the world’s commercial fleet without increasing overall tonnage. But this takes away from his argument that the years immediately preceding World War I were marked by a pulling away from economic interdependence. In fact, as he tells us, the rejection started decades before, and was counteracted, as he says, by rapidly falling prices. So why was the “retreat” from free trade significant at all?

In his analysis, Dan relies extensively on two (fairly) recent scholarly articles, The Achilles' Heel Of Liberal IR Theory? Globalization And Conflict In The Pre-World War I Era, by Patrick J. McDonald and Kevin Sweeney (World Politics 59, April 2007) and Trading on Preconceptions Why World War I Was Not a Failure of Economic Interdependence, by Erik Gartzke and Yonatan Lupu, (International Security, Vol. 36, No. 4 Spring 2012). (Both publications available via online services but require a fee unless you have access.) I’ll briefly summarize each to get the ball rolling.

McDonald and Sweeney argue, correctly, that “economic interdependence” has different effects on the various economic interests within a nation. Economic interests that do not benefit demand protection, and if these interests gain control of national policy, the nation will be more likely to engage in an aggressive foreign policy, one with, of course, a greater likelihood of war. Gartzke and Lupo2 point out that World War I started in the Balkans, where there was less economic interdependence, and, in fact, a long history of war, which, unlike the case of western Europe, did not end after 1870 (the date of the Franco-Prussian War).

Neither article strikes me as impressive, certainly not sufficient to base any sort of theory on the limitations of economic “globalization” to create peace among nations, largely because they assume that economic analysis—correct economic analysis—can explain everything. They develop models, that, seemingly, could be applied to the Babylonian Empire, or the Aztec, and could be expected to crank out reasonably accurate descriptions of the actual course of events. And this seems to me to neglect the historical record entirely, to not notice what many other studies have pointed out, that the Industrial Revolution was creating in Europe a crisis that no traditional society had ever experienced before. It was creating a world in which a land-owning aristocratic elite no longer possessed overwhelming financial and social power.

In Great Britain, the rural folk had a saying about their “masters”: “They have all the land, all the money, and all the power.” By 1900, that was becoming increasingly untrue. The aristocrats saw with ever-increasing horror the ever-rising power of both the bourgeoise and the “masses”. Although only France was actually a republic, and the rulers of the German, Austrian, and Russian empires were all men who claimed to rule by divine right, that was only a pose. The passions engendered by the French revolution were alive and spreading throughout Europe and demanded satisfaction in one form or another. Bismarck had shown how martial glory, coupled with social reforms that gave the bourgeoise the economic if not the political freedom they desired, could revive the prestige of the traditional ruling cliques and allow them to maintain their grip on power. But after a generation, the effects were wearing off. New victories were needed.

The people living around the turn of the 20th century saw themselves living in an age not of beneficent and benevolent free trade, as imagined by Keynes, but one of ever-growing international competition. “It is a pushing age and we must shove with the rest,” wrote the arch imperialist and eminently pushy Winston Churchill to his mother. To other European nations, it seemed that Britain was doing most of the pushing and getting the most out of it. The Brits seemed to have figured out how to handle the masses: Create a vast overseas empire and let the “lesser breeds” in the colonies do all the real dirty work, or at least most of it. Let them provide agricultural products and raw materials to the mother country at low prices while selling them manufactured goods at high ones, thus avoiding the disagreeable effects of “free markets.” The resulting surplus would provide enough crumbs to satisfy the lower classes while allowing those at the top to enjoy themselves in a manner befitting their rank.

The colonies would be of course taxed for the costs of their administration, with the very convenient benefit, as George Orwell observed, of allowing impecunious “gentlemen” like himself to live like real gentlemen, which they could never afford to do in Britain itself. Best of all, the colonies allowed for occasional “splendid little wars”, in which European regulars, armed with breech-loading precision rifles and machine guns could slaughter any number of sword-wielding “natives” with impunity, allowing the military “glory” an otherwise useless aristocracy so desperately craved. In this way an increasingly out of date and dysfunctional social structure could be maintained.

It’s true, as McDonald and Sweeney argue, that the aristocratic landowners wanted, and got, protective tariffs, but simply maintaining their absolute wealth meant nothing when the manufacturers and the financiers of the modern age were enjoying wealth that surpassed anything the world had ever seen. At the same time, of course, the lower classes, which in the past had counted for nothing, became ever more obstreperous. Only empire, it seemed, could direct the multiple aggressions of the various classes outward, towards a common goal, and a common victim, the hapless inhabitants of Africa—all this despite the fact that the British had plenty of domestic problems of their own, which their empire did not solve for them.

In 1898 Germany began its famous challenge to British naval supremacy, with the goal of forcing Great Britain to accept Germany as the co-equal ruler of the seas, thus enabling German expansion abroad. In both 1905 and 1911 it sought to pressure France to allow expansion of German “interests” in the quasi French colony of Morocco, with the ultimate goal of laying claim to a massive empire in Africa. The German search for “big wins” short of war ended in frustrating failures. They couldn’t force the issue in Morocco both because the British backed the French and because no one in Germany thought Morocco was worth fighting over, and they couldn’t achieve “parity” at sea against the British because they harder they pushed the more the British resisted.

The rulers of Austria and Russia were even more desperate for wins than the Germans. The Russian Czar had sought to expand his empire in the east in what turned into the Russo-Japanese War, and it almost cost him his throne. After its eastern debacle, the Russians turned their attention west, to the Balkans, where they had long played the role as the champion and big brother of the Slavs, oppressed by both the Ottoman Empire and Austria, seeking to emulate Bismarck by enlisting the spirit of nationalism, born of the French Revolution, in support of the throne instead of against it, while also hoping to achieve Russian’s long-time dream of ultimately conquering Istanbul and returning the Hagia Sophia to the Orthodox Church, and also obtaining control of the famous straits of Bosporus and the Dardanelles, allowing Russia free access to the Mediterranean and, what she had always lacked, an ice-free port.

Austria was in the worst shape of all, a multi-national empire that was simply being torn apart by the forces of “modern” nationalism. There were no “Austrians”, only a collection of nationalities that, increasingly, hated each other. Furthermore, there were millions of Serbs and Romanians within the Empire whose recently reborn “mother countries” bordered the Empire, countries whose rulers were anxious to play the nationalism card as well, for further aggrandizement. “I do not know who would win a general European war,” said Bismarck, “but the three Emperors [of Germany, Austria, and Russia] would pay the bill.” Yet it was precisely the three emperors who were most imperiled by the social changes sweeping Europe, who were most in need of a “cause” and a triumph to justify their increasingly absurd privileges. “War is the ultimate argument of kings” and the ultimate excuse for an aristocracy, whose role it is to fight. Without a war, who needs them?

Drezner underplays all this social and ethnic stress to a remarkable degree. For whatever reason—perhaps only for dramatic effect—Drezner relies on Keynes again to describe the general atmosphere of society just prior to World War I:

The projects and politics of militarism and imperialism, of racial and cultural rivalries, of monopolies, restrictions, and exclusion, which were to play the serpent to this paradise, were little more than the amusements of [the average person's] daily newspaper, and appeared to exercise almost no influence at all on the ordinary course of social and economic life, the internationalization of which was nearly complete in practice."

Keyne’s description—apparently, of what “others” thought—is quite clichéd, and scarcely accurate. In the first place, it reflects the view of an Englishman, the one country where, in 1914, the arms race had cooled down, as the Germans realized, but would not admit publicly, that in the naval spending war between the two nations the English would not let themselves be outbuilt. Furthermore, Great Britain was distinctly the odd man out among the Great Powers for being the only one without a million-man conscript army, which made the state of military preparedness omni-present everywhere else. What was out of sight was out of mind.

Drezner, like so many others, can’t, or at least doesn’t, resist having fun with poor Norman Angell, who wrote a bestseller in 1909, The Great Illusion, in which he proposed what is actually Drezner’s own thesis, though somehow Drezner can’t recognize it. Angell, Drezner says, argued that “globalization had rendered territorial conquest unprofitable: ‘Since trade [said Angell] depends upon the existence of natural wealth and a population capable of working it, an invader cannot 'utterly destroy it' except by destroying the population, which is not practicable.’ Angell concluded that war for profit was inconceivable to any rational human being.” Even though Drezner laughs at Angell’s naïveté, the whole point of his article, as well as the two scholarly pieces he cites as his inspirations, is to “explain away” the outbreak of World War I, by claiming that the WWI globalized economy really wasn’t so globalized.

One could argue that Angell’s “problem” was in part that he wrote his book a few years too early. From the time of the second Moroccan crisis in 1911 (the “Agadir” crisis) to the start of the war in 1914, the mood on the continent was entirely different. Each crisis triggered another one, and each caused each nation to tighten its relations with its allies, expand its armies, and increase their preparedness. After France expanded its “interests” in Morocco in 1911, the Italians thought they ought to do the same thing in neighboring Libya. Since Libya was unfortunately still in form part of the Ottoman Empire (unlike Morocco, which had its own sultan), that meant that, also unfortunately, Italy would have to go to war with the Ottomans. But if Italy did that, would not the Balkan states take the opportunity to declare war on the Ottomans as well? And if they were successful, wouldn’t that create a more powerful Serbia, and might not that Serbia start agitating to expand its territory at the expense of Austria, and mightn’t Austria then invade Serbia in response, and mightn’t Russia then declare war on Austria, thus triggering a general European war? According to David Stevenson, writing in his excellent study, Armaments and the Coming of War,3 Italian prime minister Giovanni Giulitti and his foreign minister San Giuliano foresaw this very possibility: “Both men knew that they were playing with fire, but Italy’s and their interests were their main preoccupation, rather than the peace of Europe.”

Drezner has his own discussion of the aftermath of the 1911 Morocco crisis, that both runs counter to his basic thesis—that economic stresses caused by globalization led countries to move back to more self-contained economies, reducing the obvious costs of war—and leaves out more than a few significant details. Drezner argues that, among other things, that as one of the pre-conditions for war, the European central banks stopped supporting each other.

That cooperation [between the banks] came to an end in 1911 with the Agadir crisis, which drew its name from a Moroccan port where Germany dispatched warships as a challenge to French pre-eminence in the region. Just as Germany was fomenting conflict overseas, it faced a financial panic at home. Its stock market plunged 30 percent in a single day, and German citizens began converting their paper currency into gold.

Unaided by other central banks, the Reichsbank came perilously close to having to suspend the gold standard. Germany eventually backed down in Morocco—but Kaiser Wilhelm II told his bankers to be prepared to fund a general war as quickly as possible. In the next few years, the Reichsbank more than doubled its holdings in gold, and German banks began restricting loans to foreigners. By the time the First World War started, German gold reserves were more than twice as large as the Bank of England's.

Drezner makes it sound as though the stock market crash, the Agadir crisis, and the refusal of the other central banks to assist Germany were coincidental. In fact, they were all linked. The German stock market crashed because there was no support in Germany for a war with France, and Russia, and Great Britain, over German interests in Morocco, which were utterly trivial. The other banks did not cooperate because their governments were angry with Germany for its behavior in Morocco. If Germany had persisted with its aggressive behavior, simply having more gold with which to pay out panicky investors would have contributed nothing. And none of the thirty or forty odd books I have read on World War I have suggested that Germany started the war in 1914 because it had “enough” gold. The German stock market did not crash in August 1914 because the country was united. And, in war time, all the major governments denied their citizens the right to convert paper money into gold anyway. Furthermore, even if Drezner’s thesis were true, it would be a case of politics overriding economics, not economic conflicts leading to political ones.

The true situation in Europe was apparent to Col. House, President Wilson’s famous emissary, who happened to reach Europe on a fact-finding tour on what proved to be the very eve of war, in May and June 1914. Summing up his experience, House wrote to Wilson as follows:

The situation is extraordinary. It is militarism run stark mad. Unless someone acting for you can bring about a different understanding, there is some day to be an awful cataclysm. No one in Europe can do it. There is too much hatred, too many jealousies. Whenever England consents, France and Russia will close in on Germany and Austria. England does not want Germany wholly crushed, for she would then have to reckon alone with her ancient enemy, Russia; but if Germany insists upon an ever increasing navy, then England will have no choice. The best chance for peace is an understanding between England and Germany in regard to naval armaments and yet there is some disadvantage to us by these two getting too close.

According to British historian Robert Ensor, who lived through the WWI era, House warned the British leadership of his dire impressions of German militarism, telling them that the German generals were “ready to dethrone the Kaiser the moment he showed indications of taking a course that would lead to peace” (Clearly, Ensor wasn’t aware that House was skeptical of Britain’s intentions as well, though House seems to have over-estimated the significance of the “dreadnaught war”.) Writing in his book England 1870-1914, published in 1936, Ensor said that he was personally told similar things by “other good observers.” Ensor claims that Grey and Asquith based their expectations for German behavior too heavily on the “Anglophile” German Ambassador Prince Lichnowsky and the assumed ability of Reich Chancellor Bethmann Holweg to overrule the military and didn’t take House, a mere American, after all, seriously.

After the war, the inconceivable havoc that had been wrought naturally made everyone wish that it hadn’t happened, and they searched for reasons to explain it away, a feeling particularly strong in Great Britain, which was the one major nation that did hesitate. The notion that Europe “slipped into war”, argued in retrospect by Lloyd George, reflected, in part, a guilty conscience, since he had been one of the leading men in power at the time, and was also gratefully embraced by Germans as freeing them from the “war guilt” demanded by the Versailles Treaty.

A few people in Great Britain had noticed what was happening in Europe. “The world is arming as it has never armed before,” said Winston Churchill on the floor of the House of Commons in 1913, and it was true. The recurrent crises of the early 20th century—the first Moroccan crisis in 1905, the Bosnian crisis in 1909, the second Moroccan crisis in 1911, the first Balkan War in 1912, the second in 1913—pushed the alliances closer and closer together, created spiraling budgets, increased confidence and readiness, while the compromise settlements that “saved” the peace left nations smarting and resentful, feeling they had been denied the victory they deserved, and needed. There had been “breathers” after 1905 and 1909, but after 1911 the pace never slackened. In fact, it always increased.

Austria in particular felt threatened by the outcomes of the first and second Balkan wars, which saw the Ottoman Empire simply disappear from Europe, after having been a “Great Power” for centuries. The Austrians were convinced that they should have gone to war following the Second Balkan War, against Montenegro, before the tiny nation unfortunately agreed to behave itself and surrender some disputed territory. Austrian Chief of Staff Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf is the single individual most responsible for World War I, having convinced himself at least as early as 1909 that only a “great victory”—against Italy, or Russia, or Serbia—could ensure the survival of the Hapsburgs. After the experiences of the Second Balkan War, the rest of the Austrian leaders, including the Emperor Franz Joseph, agreed with him. During both Balkan wars, Austria and Russia, while not actually mobilizing, increased both the size and the readiness of their forces for an extended period of time. A short war (Conrad was sure it would be short) would be both cheaper and far more glorious. Most of all, it would demonstrate that Austria, as a “Great Power”, had both the right and the ability to act unilaterally when it felt that its ��vital interests” were being threatened.

Two factors made the Austrian enthusiasm for war particularly dangerous. The first was that Austria felt that they had “backed Russia down” in both Balkan wars, and that Russia had ultimately discouraged Serbia and the other Balkan nations from direct confrontation with Austria. It is a fact that the Russians were backed down in the Bosnian crisis in 1909—by Germany, when Russia was still struggling to recover from its massive defeat in the Russo-Japanese War and the domestic turmoil that followed that defeat. Whether it was Russia or the Balkan nations themselves that decided to accept a diplomatic compromise in the two Balkan wars is probably impossible to determine.

The second and unfortunately conclusive factor is that Germany now agreed that Serbia (and also Romania),4 by both their existence and aggressive nationalism, constituted a mortal threat to the survival of the Austrian Empire, something that the German leadership had not believed during the two Balkan wars. Worst of all, Germans unwisely and (probably) unnecessarily felt that Austria was necessary to the survival of the German Empire, at least of one ruled by the tiny aristocratic clique clustered around the imperial throne. Both nations agreed that a conclusive war waged by Austria against Serbia was necessary and should be embarked upon as soon as the opportunity presented itself. And, fatally, both agreed that such a war should be embarked upon even if Russia responded by declaring war on Austria and Germany as well, because both expected Russia to assume (correctly) that Austria would not start such a war without explicit German approval and backing.

The opportunity presented itself, of course, in the form of the assassination of the heir to the Hapsburg throne, the Arch Duke Ferdinand.5 The original plan, as formulated by the Austrians and approved by the Germans, was for Austria to launch a surprise attack on Serbia, with no “warning” at all, aiming not merely to defeat but to destroy the Serbian army, leaving Austria to dictate such terms as it saw fit. The Austrians, unsurprisingly, were not in fact capable of carrying out such a decisive course of action, and, thanks to pressure from the Hungarian government, went through the process of appearing to seek a diplomatic resolution, even though they were in fact determined not to accept one.

It was this delay that, paradoxically enough, has helped perpetuate the belief that Europe “slipped” or “stumbled” into war, an argument that originated in the self-exculpatory memoirs of many of the individuals involved, and has since been perpetuated, often “naïvely”, by those either seeking to excuse their country’s “war guilt”—principally Germany, of course, since few people today identify with either Hapsburg Austria6 or Czarist Russia—or else wishing somehow that such a gigantic tragedy could have been avoided. Both of Drezner’s “sources”, McDonald and Sweeney and Gartzke and Lupo mistakenly apply modern game theory to try to determine what went “wrong”—why the Austrians, Germans, and Russians let themselves get caught in a game of “chicken” instead of pulling out before it got too late. That didn’t happen because the Austrians weren’t playing chicken—they weren’t trying to reap the profits of war without engaging in war. They didn’t want the Serbians to back down, and didn’t care if they did: they were going to attack anyway. War was not a threat—not a means to an end—but rather the end and purpose of the entire enterprise. A number of the European wars that preceded World War I, notably the Crimean War, the Franco-Prussian War, and the Russo-Japanese War, were “arguably” wars of miscalculation, but World War I was not.

It’s true that both Austria and Germany hoped that Russia would not come to Serbia’s defense, but both knew that if Russia abandoned the Serbs its prestige would take an enormous hit. Championing Slavic nationalism allowed the Czar to tap into the strongest passion of the age. He almost lost his throne by losing the Russo-Japanese War; if he lost the Austro-Serbian War by default, the result might be even worse. The Germans and Austrians knew they were backing the Czarist regime into a corner that might prove disastrous, but they didn’t care. They would not be dissuaded. And it is “interesting” that neither Russia nor France hesitated. The Russian leadership felt it could not afford another humiliation, and the French knew that it was only the alliance with Russia that allowed France to pretend to the role of a great power, and that its failure to stand with Russia on this occasion would be the end of the alliance. In the weeks before the outbreak of war, French officials repeatedly assured their Russian counterparts that France would stand by Russia no matter what. The French army, they believed, was ready, and, after all, the great goal of every French politician was the recovery of Alsace-Lorraine, which never could be accomplished without a major war. Of course, because of the German war plan, the French had no choice anyway.

Richard J. Evans, in his excellent recent history of 19th century Europe, The Pursuit of Power, presents the last-minute exchange of messages between the Kaiser and the Czar as the “last chance” to prevent war. But Wilhelm was simply asking Nicholas to step willingly into the trap that he and the Austrians had prepared for him—to stand by and let Austria overwhelm Serbia. Wilhelm could have announced that Germany would not support Austria in the face of Russian intervention, but a more outrageous betrayal could hardly be imagined. The alliance between Germany and Austria would have been destroyed, and the House of Hapsburg would probably collapse as well. Wilhelm had nothing to offer Nicholas, and it’s no wonder the Czar refused to back off.

Remarkably, it was Germany that was most nervous of the continental powers at the approach of war. Since all the “real proceedings” had been concealed from the general public, the German leadership had no idea how the Social Democratic Party—which was officially committed to the position that all wars were devices of the ruling class to exploit the workers—would react. Sadly, the decision of the Russians to order a general mobilization before Germany was enough to convince the German working class that the barbaric Slav was the aggressor, thanks in significant part to the German government’s predictably unscrupulous decision to act as though the Russian mobilization constituted an “existential threat” to Germany, which it did not. Unfortunately, the poison of nationalism had done its work: the leadership of the SPD dared not stand against the emotional outpourings of their membership, terrified by the prospect of hordes of Russian “barbarians” pouring across the border. Only one member of the German parliament, Karl Liebknecht, had the nerve to speak the truth, that the Russian mobilization did not mean that the Russians were the aggressors, and his voice was drowned in the patriotic fervor of the moment.

The famous timetables did “push” the decisions for war. The military elites of all the major European powers had convinced themselves that all the advantages lay with the power that seized the initiative and struck first. And the more aggressive the offense, the more immediate and complete the victory.7 It is (very) easy to believe that both doctrines were self-serving—a general who predicted that a “modern” war would be similar to the American Civil War, only ten times as lethal, would probably not receive a second audience. If the Russians had had the nerve to go against the conventional wisdom, to have had faith in their defense and forced the Germans to mobilize first, German unity could have been much less certain.

In the west, the French were determined to force the Germans accept responsibility for aggression, in particular the violation of Belgian neutrality, out of respect for British opinion, both official and public, which proved to be extremely wise, for Great Britain was, of course, the one great power that did hesitate. Lord Grey, foreign secretary for the ruling Liberal Party, has received a great deal of blame, much of it deserved, for concealing the level of British commitment to France prior to the war. Grey, a “Whig” far more than a Liberal, had the firm aristocratic conviction that foreign affairs were best handled by gentlemen in as private a manner as possible.

He had a strong ally in prime minister Herbert Henry Asquith, a “new man” but far more “Imperial” in his thinking than previous Liberal prime ministers. Furthermore, the other “strong men” in the Cabinet, notably Lloyd George and his protégé Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, were of a similar mind. Both men had earlier been “Radicals”—suspicious of big military budgets and longing to spend money on social programs—but both were of pugnacious temperaments and both recognized the extent of German power, due both to the pressure Germany exerted on France during the second Libyan crisis and the continuing “war of the dreadnaughts” conducted with Great Britain.

By 1914 it was clear that Germany had abandoned its goal of matching the British navy ship for ship, but by that time the damage was done. The great struggle over dreadnaught funding occurred in Great Britain in 1909, when the Liberals, buckling under Conservative pressure, ended up building eight of the big ships rather than four. It ultimately suited the purposes of both parties to pretend that as long as Great Britain had twice as many dreadnaughts as Germany, the Empire was invulnerable, which was entirely untrue.8

Even though it was clear that the dreadnaught race had slowed, leading some historians to conclude that “tensions were easing”, the Germans for prestige reasons naturally refused to admit that such was the case, and in any event the Germans had, perhaps inadvertently, already cemented a Franco-British alliance. To assure British dominance in the North Sea, where the British would face the Germans, Churchill had withdrawn the British fleet from the Mediterranean, with the understanding that France would protect British interests. Unrestricted access to the Mediterranean was essential to the British for two reasons. One was the traditional access to India through the Suez Canal. The other was access to Middle Eastern oil, particularly from Persia. The British were equipping all their new ships, including the new “super dreadnaughts,” to use oil as fuel. If Germany defeated France in a major war, it would be the Italian and Austrian navies, both allies of Germany, that would dominate the Mediterranean. A British fleet without oil would wither on the vine.

Even more dramatically, of course, a victorious Germany would surely claim effective control of the mouth of the Rhine, dominating both the Netherlands and Belgium if it did not absorb them directly. Germany’s industrial base was almost twice the size of Great Britain’s, and, freed from the burden of maintaining a “two-front army” against France and Russia, the Germans would have no trouble outbuilding the British navy. Luckily for Asquith, the German invasion of Belgium made the implicit threat of German domination of the “Channel Ports” explicit rather than implicit. Asquith had endured several brutal political battles with the Conservatives in the years prior to World War I9 and was determined to bring Great Britain into the war with a united Liberal Party, something he hardly could have done if the Germans had respected Belgian neutrality.

Grey has been criticized “both ways”—for drawing Britain into a war it didn’t need to fight and for failing to back the French from the first, the theory being that if the Germans knew they would face France, Russia, and Great Britain, they would not have given Austria the “blank check.” This ignores several factors. First of all, the German military were confident that they could defeat France before the British could mount an effective force—the “myth of the offensive” once more. In particular, if the German generals were worried about the British, they wouldn't have developed an invasion plan that sent their troops into Belgium. Furthermore, in the granting of the “blank check”, neither the Kaiser nor Reich Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg expressed any particular concern about British participation. The idea was for Austria to demonstrate its willingness to unilaterally defend its “vital interests” regardless of what other nations felt. It was only when the worst case scenario of the general European war, which they had explicitly foreseen and accepted, became a reality that they suddenly tried to minimize what they had done.

Secondly, Grey had reason to fear an emboldened France. When Germany complained of “encirclement”, they were quite accurate. France was providing loans and arms to the Balkan nations, equipping what could, and quite likely what would, have been a second Balkan League, this time directed at Austria rather than the Ottomans. France was also providing loans to Russia to finance railways—as long as the railways were specifically tailored to facilitate movement of Russian troops to the German border. The danger was not that France would unilaterally start a war of conquest against Germany if assured of uncritical British support but rather that it would constantly pursue a “forward” policy that would sooner or later end in war. Since the British couldn’t allow the Germans to inflict a decisive defeat on the French even if the French “started it”, Grey went out of his way not to tell France that they could rely on Britain.

During the August crisis, Grey’s obvious handicap was that he simply didn’t know what was going on. He assumed, on the basis of the settlements following the two previous Balkan crises, that “everyone” wanted a peaceful solution, which was precisely the opposite of the truth. He didn’t know that the Austrians felt they should have resolved the Second Balkan Crisis with a war rather than a settlement, and he didn’t know that the Germans had given Austria a blank check that would be honored even in case of the general European war. And he didn’t know these things because the Austrians and Germans deliberately concealed them.

Furthermore, even if he had divined the Central Powers’ plans, Grey utterly lacked the authority, either formal or informal, to threaten them with war. Not even Asquith could do that. Only the House of Commons could do so, and, prior to the German invasion of Belgium, a declaration of war would never have passed the Commons. The notion that a “Great Man” can commit his nation to war merely on his own authority—the sort of “If only a Disraeli/Lord Salisbury/Bismarck/Theodore Roosevelt had been at the helm” sort of nonsense—is a complete fiction, granting historical figures not only the certainty of hindsight but the uncanny ability to convince others of that invisible, impossible truth as well.

In the years immediately following World War I, the issue of Germany’s “war guilt” largely turned on the invasion of Belgium and supposed “atrocities” that were committed during that invasion, events that were given enormous publicity in “real time”. Then in the reaction against the war, arguments regarding war guilt were regarded as examples of British hypocrisy. In fact, there were a large number of atrocities committed during the German invasion of western Europe, as there are in any modern war. And, since the war in the west took place entirely on Belgian and French soil, it’s not surprising that almost all of the atrocities in the west were committed by the Germans. But the real German war guilt took place in the east, in the decision to explicitly back Austria’s invasion of Serbia even in the event of a Russian response, guilt that was masked by Russia’s decision to order full mobilization before the Germans did.

The notion that the Germans’ “war guilt” was simply British propaganda was popular in the U.S. as well in the 1920s and 1930s, when a large majority of the population felt that we had been tricked into fighting a pointless war, and, of course, popular most of all in Germany. This “consensus view”, which absolved everyone of guilt while charging all the politicians in power with equal incompetence, proved equally convenient in the 1950s, a classic example of “Cold War Thinking”, very similar to the notion that the virulently anti-Semitic Vichy government in France from 1940-1945 was a pure accident, as was indeed the similar government in Germany from 1933 to 1945.

As anyone who has read at all in the World War I literature knows, this “no fault” thesis, blaming everyone and no one, was upended in 1961 by the German historian Fritz Fischer in his famous book, published in English as Germany’s Aims in the First World War. Like many other people, I think Fischer went too far in accusing the Kaiser and the German high command of deliberately conspiring to provoke a general European war as the only way to keep themselves in power and head off a socialist revolution. I don’t think anyone had the nerve to deliberately provoke such a war, particularly the Kaiser, who enjoyed talking tough but not acting tough. Furthermore, we have “proof” of the Kaiser’s lack of ruthlessness in his refusal to wage a war of aggression against France in 1905, a decision the Kaiser made on the sensible ground that such a war would be immensely unpopular and divide Germany, despite the enthusiasm from armchair strategists like Max Weber.

Friedrich Engels, writing at the very end of his life in 1895, supplying a new introduction to the Marxist classic, The Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850, argued that modern armaments, and the gigantic conscript armies of modern Europe, precluded any “little wars” of the sort that Germany had fought as recently as 1870. Wars had grown so destructive that it would only be possible to lead a nation into war on the grounds that its very existence was at stake. Of course, that is precisely what the German leadership argued when Russia mobilized—succeeding beyond its expectations. It’s very true that many in the German and Austrian leadership were fearful of Russia’s growing power, and once the August crisis was fully underway, some—though not the Kaiser—were glad that Russia was coming in. “Better fight them now than later.” But that doesn’t prove that they were plotting this from the first. In fact, the German “plan”, which Austria failed to execute, was to present Europe with a fait accompli—the Serbian army crushed before anyone knew what was happening—a plan intended to reduce the likelihood of a Russian attack, not to provoke it.

The second half of Fischer’s thesis—that Germany was aiming at a war of conquest from the very first—has more validity. The German military, because they feared Russia, wanted to crush her “forever” by stripping her of her entire eastern European empire—basically what has happened to Russia today. The multitude of small states would be dominated both politically and economically by Germany as its empire, in lieu of the African empire that Britain and France had denied them. The staggering losses endured by the major combatants during the opening months of the war probably ensured that it would be politically impossible for any of them to make peace except on the basis of either victory or complete exhaustion, but the extravagance of Germany’s war aims from the beginning—the immediate crushing of France, to be followed by a conqueror’s peace in Russia—guaranteed it.

For centuries, the explicit goal of British foreign policy had been to prevent one power from dominating all of western Europe. But the economic and population growth of Germany on either side of 1900, coupled with near stagnation on the part of France, allowed that to happen without a war. During Bismarck’s time in office (he left in 1890), the thought of a two-front war that pitted Germany against both France and Russia seemed the height of lunacy. By 1905, it was sole strategy of the German army.

The near collapse of Russia following the Russo-Japanese War and the 1905 revolution gave Germany and Austria a sort of holiday from history in that they could behave in a truculent manner without fear of war—Austria took the opportunity to seize Bosnia and Herzegovina—though waging an unprovoked war of aggression against France remained fortunately out of the question. But the revival of Russian strength ended the “holiday” even as the first Balkan War created a power vacuum that, in retrospect, almost guaranteed a clash between Austria and Russia in an area that Bismarck once grandly declared was “not worth the bones of one Pomeranian grenadier.” Germany, so proud of her strength that she deliberately courted, and obtained, a war against France, Great Britain, and Russia all at once, insisted on tying herself to the moribund Hapsburg dynasty—because useless aristocrats had to stick together.

The overwhelming cost of the war—not only of the war itself but both the Great Depression and World War II, which were its all but inevitable consequences—make it impossible not to wish it never happened, but the alternatives are more than dubious. The war was not an “accident” or a miscalculation, other than, to my mind, Germany’s conviction that they “had” to stand by Austria. Serbia and Romania surely would have attacked Austria in a second Balkan league, which could easily have been successful, leading to the rapid collapse of the entire Austrian Empire. Conversely, the failure of Russia to “stand by” Serbia could easily have weakened the Czar’s support among right-wing nationalists while emboldening leftist criticism, thus further weakening his throne. The French, of course, had no choice but to participate and I have already described why a German victory would have been be a disaster for the British. At the same time, Germany’s belief that she could defeat France, Great Britain, and Russia all at once was largely born out by events. If Germany had been patient—if she hadn’t resumed unrestricted submarine warfare, which naturally failed to achieve the results promised—there is no question but that France and Great Britain would have been compelled to sue for peace on largely German terms.10

“Contemporary” reconsideration of the war was largely awakened by Niall Ferguson’s massive though meretricious work The Pity of War, published in 1998, based entirely on Ferguson’s absurd nostalgia for the British empire, a nostalgia never shared by those who had to bear its weight. Ferguson, who furiously denounced the British leaders who led the nation into war, adopted the “thesis” of a man he otherwise must surely have detested, philosopher Bertrand Russell, who had it in “real time”, that if Britain had stayed out, Germany would have won quickly, and, without the terrible bitterness the real war produced, would have established a “reasonable” peace (my word), trading British acceptance of German dominance in Europe for German acceptance of the continuance of the British empire. The problem for Dr. Ferguson is that no one in 1914 who wasn’t an extreme left-wing Fabian socialist believed Russell’s argument, which did little more than ask for mercy from a nation not well known for it. And it’s equally hard to believe today.

In 2013, Christopher Clark published The Sleepwalkers, repeating the “slipped into war” thesis, while reflecting the modern awareness of terrorism by investigating in great detail the complicity of Serbian officials in the Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination. The research is impressive, but, as the author uncomfortably admits half way through his book, the information was unknown to the Austrian government at the time, and, in any event, the Austrians were determined to attack regardless of any involvement by the Serbian government. In the same year, Margaret MacMillan, author of an excellent book on the end of the war, Paris 1919, recently wrote another on its start, The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914, whose thesis, Dr. Drezner says, is similar to his own. I haven’t read MacMillan’s book, but in her introduction she calls Austria’s decision to attack Serbia “mad”. As I’ve argued, it wasn’t mad at all if you accept the ruling clique’s self-centered belief, which they at least never doubted, that their downfall would be the ruin and degradation of some two thousand years of “civilization”. A world without the Hapsburgs would be a world of unrelieved barbarism and ruin, worse than the fall of Rome itself. And, again, if Germany had been patient, the Central Powers might have “won”, for a decade or two, before the whole thing fell to pieces once more.

Bibliographic Note I have read thirty or forty books on World War 1, including The Sleepwalkers and Germany’s Aims in the First World War, though I have only “sampled” Ferguson’s and MacMillan’s books. The books I relied on most heavily in putting this response together are David Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War, as well as his overall study Cataclysm, Mark Hewitson, Germany and the Causes of the First World War, V. R. Berghahn, Germany and the Approach of War in 1914, Zara S. Steiner and Keith Neilson, Britain and the Origins of the First World War, Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., Austria Hungary and the Origins of the First World War, and D. C. B. Lieven, Russia and the Origins of the First World War.

For centuries, the Austrian Empire had been “Austria”. However, after Austria’s defeat by Prussia in the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, the former province of Hungary was able to achieve virtual equal billing as a separate kingdom, though under the same monarch, Emperor Franz-Joseph. ↩︎

Alas, poor Lupo! Word can spell “Gartzke” but not “Lupo”? Ridiculous! Publish or perish, dude! Publish or perish! ↩︎

A better title would be “The Arming of Europe and the Coming of War”, because the book is about the constant expansion and improvement of equipment and general readiness of the European armies rather than ordnance and armor plate. It is Stevenson’s general thesis that the constant pushing and shoving between the Great Powers caused each to improve its military readiness to the point that the war came when everyone felt “ready” for war, and when all of the major nations involved felt that they were confronted with an “existential threat”—in particular an existential threat that would be accepted by the vast majority of their populace. ↩︎

About three million Romanians lived in Hungary, whose Hungarian, or “Magyar”, majority felt it their sacred duty to oppress everyone else. ↩︎

Of the 30 or 40 authors I have read on the subject, only one, A.J.P. Taylor, remarks that the Arch Duke’s decision to appear in public in Serbian territory on June 28, the date of the historic battle of Kosovo, during which the Ottomans decisively defeated Serbia and the day on which a Serbian assassinated the Ottoman sultan, was a deliberate provocation. “If the King of England presented himself in Dublin on St. Patrick’s Day, he could expect to be shot at.” ↩︎

Except the Hapsburgs themselves, of course, who remain numerous. ↩︎

As many scholars have pointed out, the actual wars that the generals had to study—for example, the Boer War, which lasted four years, and the Russo-Japanese War, in which the “aggressive” Japanese armies suffered three times the casualties as the Russians, a war that was actually won at sea—tended to contradict rather than confirm their theories. This is not unusual in military “science”. ↩︎

Among other things, the public was encouraged to believe that the big ships were unsinkable, which was entirely false, as German mines and submarines would soon prove. If today you visit one of the four “Iowa class” American battleships still extant, you will be told a version of the same lie. In fact, Admiral “Jacky” Fisher, the father of the dreadnaught, supposedly believed that the ships, in existence for less than a decade, were already passé prior to the outbreak of the war. Fisher felt that submarines and battlecruisers, relying on speed rather than armament for defense, represented the future of naval warfare. Naturally, Fisher lacked the nerve to tell the general public that the “great ships” of which they were so proud were obsolete less than a decade after their launching. ↩︎

Just prior to the outbreak of the war, Asquith and the Liberals had been bracing themselves to take up the most contentious issue in British politics, Home Rule for Ireland. The Conservatives had used their dominance in the House of Lords to block all “controversial” legislation—that is to say, Liberal legislation—since Gladstone had first tried to pass Home Rule in 1893, in blatant violation of the unwritten British constitution, which required the Lords to subordinate itself to the Commons on major issues. Asquith had been forced to obtain the support of the monarch in order to overcome the lords, and in fact had to do it twice because Edward VII died during the middle of negotiations. Asquith, who was not a “gentleman”, would have found it extremely difficult to demand political favors from his “sovereign,” and the experience of having to go through it twice surely left him bitter at the Conservatives for their utter refusal to “play the game.” For a less sympathetic take (that is to say, an “Irish” take) on Asquith’s behavior, see Michael Brendan Dougherty’s recent article on the subject. ↩︎

Throughout the war, the British made massive purchases and received substantial loans from the U.S. By the spring of 1917, just before the U.S. entered the war, they had only enough gold and securities on hand for three more weeks of purchases and the Wilson government was discouraging U.S. citizens from buying foreign securities. The Allied war effort would not have shut down, but it would have been significantly weakened. By June 1917 the Russian armies, now operating under the revolutionary Kerensky government, were clearly foundering. Without the prospect of millions of fresh American troops arriving in 1918, the Allies would have had a hard time making it through the winter and very likely would have given up by the spring of 1918. ↩︎

#Daniel Drezner #World War I

[catholiccom-blog]

The True Language of Respect

On a recent episode of Catholic Answers Live that invited callers to explain why they’re “pro-choice,” a few pro-life listeners told our call screener that they objected to our use of that term. They preferred we use the term pro-abortion, and some even accused me of making legal abortion sound more defensible by using the euphemism choice.

In the short amount of time we had left on the show, I explained that by using my opponents’ preferred term I was able to have productive conversations—heard by thousands of other people—that might not have been possible if I had insisted on using pro-abortion. I added that although I generally do this, I don’t always do it. Sometimes it can do more harm than good and even distort the message I am trying to share.

An example of this can be found in Fr. James Martin’s newest book, Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter Into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity. Although it offers some helpful suggestions for priests and bishops (and a few light admonishments of homosexual critics of the Church), there is no call for Catholics with same-sex attraction to “cross the bridge” and embrace God’s plan for their sexuality.

Worse, even though he doesn't call explicitly for the Church to change its teaching on homosexuality, Fr. Martin does seem to suggest that it should change—or at least become more ambiguous and malleable for those who want it to change. This is especially evident in his recommendations for how we talk about homosexual behavior and persons who are attracted to members of the same sex.

On “gay Catholics”

One of the book’s drawbacks is that there is no clear articulation of the Church’s teaching on homosexual behavior. Fr. Martin repeatedly cites the Catechism’s insistence that people with deep-seated homosexual tendencies “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity” (2358), but he never cites the preceding paragraph, which says that homosexual acts represent “grave depravity,” “are contrary to the natural law,” and that “under no circumstances can they be approved” (2357). In fact, Fr. Martin says it is wrong to say homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.”

Concerning the use of labels like “LGBT Catholics,” I could see where, in a private setting, one might use such terms in order to facilitate a conversation. But even in such a case I would always try to not reduce a person’s identity to his sexual attractions, and I would especially not promote the idea one can be an “LGBT Catholic” through a public venue like blogging or radio appearances. That’s because such actions can confuse people and make them think the Church has no moral opposition to homosexual behavior, or that one can be an “LGBT Catholic” in the same way one can be an “Irish Catholic.”

In his book’s rebuttal to Catholics who do not agree with using such labels, Fr. Martin offers this argument:

Some Catholics have objected to this approach, saying that any outreach implies a tacit agreement with everything that anyone in the LGBT community says or does. This seems an unfair objection, because it is raised with virtually no other group. If a diocese sponsors, for example, an outreach group for Catholic business leaders, it does not mean that the diocese agrees with every value of corporate America.

The problem with this argument is that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the concept of “business.” There are immoral businesses, but the idea of business or commerce itself is not wrong. A better comparison for the label “LGBT Catholic” would be “pornographer Catholic,” or “polygamous Catholic.” Moreover, the “LGBT” labels reduce a person to his sexual behavior, which would be dehumanizing even if that behavior weren’t disordered. A person should be defined by his vocation and status as a child of God, not by his sexual proclivities.

But, says Fr. Martin, simple respect means we should use the labels people choose for themselves. He writes, “[R]espect means calling a group what it asks to be called. On a personal level, if someone says to you, ‘I prefer to be called Jim instead of James,’ you would normally listen and call him by the name he prefers. It’s common courtesy.”

This is a bad comparison. Using a variant of someone’s name does not reinforce the mistaken idea that a disordered action is an essential part of that person’s identity. Sometimes respecting someone means not following his wishes, if following them would cause him harm.

Likewise if his request were dishonest. For example, I do not refer to people who received Ph.D.s from unaccredited universities with the title “Dr.” That kind of person hasn’t properly earned that title, and to refer to him that way would involve propagating a lie and cheapening academic degrees in general. In the same way, if I consistently referred to someone as a “gay Catholic,” I would be telling a lie about that person, reducing his identity to a disordered desire. I would have also conjoined the person’s Catholic faith with a serious sin. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith puts it this way:

The human person, made in the image and likeness of God, can hardly be adequately described by a reductionist reference to his or her sexual orientation. Every one living on the face of the earth has personal problems and difficulties, but challenges to growth, strengths, talents and gifts as well. Today, the Church provides a badly needed context for the care of the human person when she refuses to consider the person as a "heterosexual" or a "homosexual" and insists that every person has a fundamental Identity: the creature of God, and by grace, his child and heir to eternal life.

On “intrinsically disordered”

According to Fr. Martin, “Saying that one of the deepest parts of a person—the part that gives and receives love—is ‘disordered’ in itself is needlessly cruel” (47). In an interview with the Religion News Service, Fr. Martin suggested instead that “the phrase ‘differently ordered’ might convey that idea more pastorally.”

I would argue instead that this expression conveys the idea more ambiguously and is not a sound pastoral approach to homosexuality. If a friend is constructing a barbecue grill and has placed the flame jets so they shoot at his knees instead of the food, you wouldn’t tell him the grill had been “differently assembled.” For the sake of his health you would tell him that he’s using the grill wrong and should stop what he’s doing.

If we love someone with same-sex attraction, we will correct him and urge him to conversion when he engages in behavior that is destructive to body and soul.

Some people think that pastoral means “nice” or “friendly,” but the word’s roots are related to shepherding. Along with being kind, shepherds have to be tough and fight predators that try to destroy his flock while assertively keeping the flock from going astray. The goal of pastoral outreach is to lead someone to Christ; and a person can’t be led to a joyful relationship with Christ if he places a disordered desire at the center of his identity instead of his relationship to God.

To conclude, I’d like to quote Daniel Mattson, a gentleman who is attracted to people of the same sex but refuses to let this define him. (See his recent book, Why I Don't Call Myself Gay: How I Reclaimed My Sexual Reality and Found Peace.) Concerning the CDF quote I referenced earlier, he adds:

With confidence in the Church, I embrace this teaching about my identity in the same way that I have accepted the word “consubstantial” in the Creed. I accept all of the words of the Catechism concerning who I am in nature and in grace. I take no umbrage at the phrase “ objectively disordered” and feel no shame that it truthfully describes my sexual desires. I view my same-sex attraction as a disability, in some ways similar to blindness, or deafness, and I view it with the same hope communicated by Jesus about the man born blind: It has been allowed in my life, so that God’s work would be made manifest in me (cf. John 9:3) . . .

The gay community will become family when those of us in the Church who live with the inclination accept it for what it truly is: a deep wound within our persons which we joyfully choose to unite with the Suffering Christ, on behalf of those we love so dearly in the gay community. By his wounds we are healed, and by the acceptance and transformation of our wounds, through the love of Christ, the Holy Spirit will draw them home to their Heavenly Father.

#CAMO #Catholic Answers #Trent Horn #LGBT #Fr. James Martin #America Magazine #Gay Community

[petehalvorsen-blog]

Keith Urban Plastic Surgery

No lines, no wrinkles, no flaps, nothing actually ... and also it has resembled this for more than two years? And in this comprehensive celebrity reference celebrity weeks you can see the use of cosmetic surgery!Indeed, we are talking about Keith Urban below as well as how he could keep his face so damn charming ... for so long.

Truthfully, how does he do it?

This man does not recognize precisely how to get old!

Any concept?

Last month, we covered just how Keith's current spouse, Nicole Kidman has been using Botox to keep her young people. So we couldn't aid however wondered if cosmetic surgery has been a strange proclivity of theirs in the connection. Besides, individuals tend to such as each various other even more when they share the "same" rate of interest ... right?

So we figured it is time that Mr. Urban should have a full message of his very own as we, the cosmetic surgery individuals, attempt to uncover all the evidence (e.g., renovation, nose surgery, you call it ...) to help our visitors choose the real truth. Otherwise, we'll dig tougher to situate Keith's secret fountain of youth as well as share it with everybody.

He has to have a water fountain hidden somewhere, or else; there's just no way he can look this great in his 50s. (Unless a person wishes to send us his cosmetic surgeon's number as well as we'll gladly stop!).

Presuming that this American Idolizer court has been making use of synthetic ways to regulate his aging, then there will typically be indications and even proof that we'll be able to spot, as we check out his images throughout his career.

Allow's examine them out together!

Keith Urban Fixing His Teeth.

It showed up that the c and a singer has always had some bad teeth problems because he was young. This was caught in singing competitors when he was just 16 years of ages. You can see the separation on his front tooth as he sang the classic "Full blast Of Love" for the courts.

Good tune by the way and also you've reached confess that he was a natural performer. Birthed for this ...

He didn't have a straight set of teethSource: Youtube.

Here's a shot from an additional angle and also you can see that Keith did not have the straightest collection of teeth. They were sharp as well as you can also see gaps between his incisors, pooches, and also premolars (sorry ... making use of a couple of technical terms below).

No person would argue that he was a beautiful boy back then. An adolescent boy with an extraordinary vocal singing skill that's seeking his dreams ...

Perhaps the modern oral technology back then wasn't progressed enough to shut the space in between, so Keith's had this diastema (medical term) for some time into his career. Until his dental professional lastly repaired it for good.

See for yourself.

Before and after Keith repaired his teethPhoto Credit history-- (Left): Youtube (Right): Getty.

As you can see from the images above, Keith is no stranger to cosmetic dental care. Currently, we're not precisely sure which technique he used to repair his teeth gaps. However, it indeed did not appear like he needed any oral implants.

We suspect that he may have first gone to an orthodontist to have the entire set balanced out by putting on braces, before lowering the void between his leading front teeth. Yes, due to that enormous void, conventional correcting props would not have also been efficient to attain the desired outcomes.

He 'd most likely have received dental bonding, porcelain veneers or porcelain crowns to reduce that room. Regardless, he's obtained that perfect smile currently as well as he would have done some lightening treatments as well because his teeth are so white.

Keith Urban Rhinoplasty

Judging from the fact that he's been continuously good-looking looking growing up, there indeed isn't much work needed to be done to his face, specifically during his journey to fame. Besides his teeth, this New Zealander has the entire bundle to come to be a celeb, so we could not see any reasons that he desired service his nose.

Did Keith Urban Have A Nose Job? Photo Credit History-- (Left): John Elliott/ Headpress (Right): Source.

If you look carefully at the above comparison, you'll have the ability to see that Keith shows up to have a slightly jagged nose. It's been shifted to his best side and also this appeared in both the left image, which was reclaimed in 1994 and even from the best picture, which was taken 12 years later ... in 2016.

Now if Keith were to take into consideration a nose surgery, we highly think that he wants to correct this up. So based on this fact alone, there's no factor to recommend that the Australian vocalist had done rhinoplasty of any type.

Keith Urban Facelift

Many individuals understand that Keith had a history of medicine trouble including drug, ecstasy as well as alcoholism. All these years of abuse would have done massive damage to his skin.

If you consider the picture from the leading left, that pic was the more active version of Keith, approx 14 years difference to the image on the right. You can see the crow's feet and also the wrinkles around his jaw as well as cheek area. And even the heavy eye bags under his eyes and also the noticeable lines on his temple. His skin looked incredibly dry. He looked much worse than his mid 40s photo on the right.

Even though Keith has never honestly admitted to any types of face surgical procedures, however, we feel that there are indicators to suggest that some facelift treatments may have happened. Unless he had some genuinely great eye creams and faced tightening up toners, otherwise presumably impossible to turn around those problems, precisely as his age advances. But of course, we'll leave that judgment for you to make.

Keith Urban Botox

Keith might be using botox or injectable fillersPhoto Credit score: Getty.

A Detroit based plastic surgeon, Dr. Anthony Youn, has informed an Australia Magazine, New Idea, that it was reasonably obvious Keith had injectable fillers injected into his cheeks to give him that fuller, as well as a rounder, view his contour. Now while we don't necessarily concur with the A on his evaluation about Keith's nose, however, if you take a look at the images above, you can see just how much distinction his cheek looks from 13 years earlier.

Dr. John after that went on to explain precisely how subtle his cosmetic improvements were and exactly how well they were done, before advising that way too much Botox around Keith's eyes and forehead may intensify his top eyelid skin. Nonetheless, he is honestly looking amazing at half a century old.

Take a look at his most recent video clip below, as he performs his new tune, "Blue Is not Your Shade."

[theconservativebrief]

Seventy-one percent.

That’s the percentage of white evangelicals, according to a recent Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) poll, who still say they approve of Donald Trump’s presidency. That figure is down just 3 percent from April.

In the intervening months, Trump’s controversial migrant family separation plan scandalized faith groups by taking undocumented children from their families at the US-Mexico border, and several prominent evangelicals, including Franklin Graham, spoke out against the policy. But that seems to have figured little into evangelicals’ assessment of Trump overall.

Why do white evangelicals still support Trump in such strong numbers? And what will that mean for the upcoming midterms? I spoke to John Fea, a historian of American religion at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and author of Believe Me: the Evangelical Road to Donald Trump, about how Trump has galvanized his Christian base and about the “court evangelicals” who have traded their traditional moral ethos for access to one of the most powerful men in the world.

Tara Isabella Burton

In your book, you make the case that the tendency toward “fear” in white evangelical culture — fear of the immigrant, fear of secularization, fear of modernization — is not just a contemporary phenomenon. Can you talk a little bit about the rhetoric of evangelical fear in American history, and particularly how it has played out in terms of racial politics?

John Fea

If you look closely at American evangelical history, you see fear everywhere. During the early 19th century, white evangelicals in the South constructed a “way of life” built around slavery and white supremacy. When Northern abolitionists (many of whom were also evangelicals, I might add) threatened this way of life by calling for the end of slavery, white evangelicals in the South responded by turning to the Bible and constructing a theological and biblical defense of slavery and racism. After the Civil War, the fear of integrating blacks into white society led to Jim Crow laws and desegregation.

Meanwhile, in the North, many white evangelicals feared the influx of Irish immigrants, especially in the 1850s. These immigrants not only had different religious beliefs (Catholicism), but they were viewed by many as members of a different, inferior race. The same could be said of white evangelical responses to Italian immigrants and Jews at the turn of the 20th century.

In the 1960s and 1970s, as historian Randall Balmer has shown, white evangelicals in the South felt anxious about Supreme Court decisions forcing them to desegregate their K-12 academies and colleges. They claimed that “big government” was intruding on their way of life and their right (based on their reading of the Bible) to segregate. Many of the arguments they made sound a lot like the arguments made by the Confederates against the “Northern invasion” during the American Civil War.

With such a long history, it should not surprise us that so many white evangelicals believed Donald Trump’s accusations that Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, was not born in this country or was a secret Muslim. A 2015 CNN poll found that 43 percent of Republicans, a political party dominated by white evangelicals, believed that Obama was a Muslim. This, of course, is not true. It can only be explained by racial and religious fear.

Tara Isabella Burton

In your book, you characterize the 1980s as a watershed moment when it comes to the encroachment of (white evangelical) Christian participation in the political sphere and shaping of political discourse. What are the social and political forces that made the rise of the Moral Majority possible, and how did we get there?

John Fea

The rise of the Moral Majority followed a familiar pattern in American history. Whenever the United States has faced significant demographic or cultural changes, it has always resulted in some kind of reactionary backlash. Evangelicals are almost always part of that backlash and, in many cases, have led the backlash. As noted above, when the Southern “way of life” was threatened, white evangelicals responded with a defense of slavery. When the Irish arrived, white evangelicals joined the nativist Know-Nothing Party. At the turn of the 20th century, the fundamentalist movement arose to protest intellectual and theological changes taking place in Protestant churches.

The Moral Majority, and by extension the rise of the Christian right, was a backlash to the removal of prayer and Bible reading from public schools, the increasing diversity of the country in the wake of the 1965 Immigration Act (which allowed Asians and Middle Easterners into the country in large numbers), the civil rights movement, and the legalization of abortion. The nation was changing on many fronts, and white conservative evangelicals mobilized to turn back the clock and “restore” or “reclaim” an America that they believed was in danger of disappearing.

Tara Isabella Burton

That brings us to Donald Trump. Now, as you point out, in the age of Clinton, the idea of moral rectitude in one’s personal life was deemed necessary to garner evangelical support. Now? Studies like this 2016 one by PRRI have shown that is no longer the case. What do evangelicals see in Donald Trump, if not moral rectitude?

John Fea

While there is much continuity between the past and the present when it comes to evangelical political engagement, the Trump era also represents a significant change. With the exception of becoming pro-choice on abortion or appointing a Supreme Court justice who is not a strict originalist, it is hard to imagine something Trump could do, in terms of character or policy, that would lead white conservative evangelicals to abandon him.

Since the rise of the Moral Majority, these evangelicals have been operating with a political playbook centered around abortion and one or two other issues, depending on the election year. (This year, it is “religious liberty,” as they define it.) Trump has delivered on these issues, especially in terms of his two nominations to the Supreme Court. As a result, white conservative evangelicals, to use the now famous phrase of Family Research Council leader Tony Perkins, are willing to give the president a “mulligan” on the misogynic, racist, and nativist rhetoric, the adultery with adult film stars, and even the separating of children from their parents at the Mexican border.

In the past, the Christian right political agenda has always been associated with someone (Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney) who they believe exemplified character, integrity, and a respect for American institutions.

Tara Isabella Burton

It seems that, through his campaign, people around Trump (if not Trump himself) are actively leaning into the rhetoric that he’s not just the best of bad options, or morally preferable to Clinton, but actively chosen by God, such as the idea that he’s a new “King Cyrus,” the Persian king some evangelicals see as a biblical example of a “pagan” being used for God’s ends in history. How do you account for this part of the narrative?

John Fea

Most evangelical Christians believe that God is sovereign. He raises up rulers and he brings them down. So the fact that so many evangelicals believe that God is somehow responsible for the election of Donald Trump would not be shocking to students of American evangelicalism.

What is surprising, however, is the sense of certainty that many conservative evangelicals have about exactly why their God has allowed Donald Trump to be president. You never hear devout evangelicals say that God raised up Trump to punish or chastise evangelicals for placing too much of their hope in power politics or political strongmen. Evangelicals are modern people — they believe in certainty and often insist that they know the exact will of God on all matters. In other words, they do not share the Catholic or Orthodox idea of the “mystery of faith.” They also have a long history of cherry-picking from the Bible to justify their politics.

Some believe that Trump, like King Cyrus, is delivering them from the “captivity” of the Obama administration. Bible verses calling for obedience to government are used to justify immigration policies that seem to contradict the teachings of the Scriptures in relation to refugees and “strangers.” They find some verses useful and ignore others.

Tara Isabella Burton

In your book, you write a lot about the “court evangelicals” surrounding Trump. They seem to come from two camps. Some are the old-guard names — Jerry Falwell Jr., Franklin Graham — associated with a more traditional form of evangelicalism and the rise of the moral majority. Others, like Paula White, say, are associated with new apostolic reform movements or other fringe theologies. How do these two camps work together, and do you see any tensions there?

John Fea

The “old guard” and the Pentecostal/Charismatic wing make for strange bedfellows when it comes to theology. Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell Jr., Robert Jeffress, and others rarely talk about healing, prosperity, prophecy, or speaking in tongues in the way that Paula White and others do. Yet they all share a concern for the Christian character of the United States. They all read pseudo-historians such as David Barton, who argue that the United States was founded as a Christian nation but has lost its way in the last 75 years. They are all in the business of “reclaiming” an “restoring” what they believe has been lost.

This view of American identity and history drives their politics. They are willing to put minor theological differences aside in order to battle together for the evangelical soul of America.

Tara Isabella Burton

What are the points of evangelical resistance, if any? Do you see the potential for the evangelical community to ever break away from Trump support?

John Fea

The “evangelical community” is a large tent. The evangelicals who attend Trump rallies and wear MAGA hats will not abandon him unless he starts to reject the moral issues they hold dear. Since Trump is a savvy politician, he will always give lip service to evangelical concerns as a way of holding his base.

As I travel around the country listening to Trump voters, it is also clear that many white conservative evangelicals are disgusted by Trump’s rhetoric, character, and even some policy decisions, but because Trump has delivered the Supreme Court, they still believe that their vote for him in 2016 was worth it. Other evangelical Trump voters are having second thoughts about their 2016 vote. They thought Trump would have more respect for the office of the presidency once elected and they do not see that happening.

Of course, there are many white evangelicals — the so-called 19 percent — who did not vote for Donald Trump.

This group is divided between conservatives who support most of Trump’s policies but reject his immoral rhetoric and disrespect for American institutions. Ben Sasse, the senator from Nebraska, falls in this camp. Others did not vote for Trump because they reject his character and his policies. They believe he champions policies (immigration, the Muslim ban, “America First,” etc.) that do not reflect their Christian values. In the end, the white conservative resistance to Trump is vibrant, and it may be growing, but it still remains relatively small.

Original Source -> Why (white) evangelicals still support Trump

via The Conservative Brief

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