The Athenaeum

"Neoliberalism is our Frankenstein..." Salon

"... most Americans have by now surrendered to a blitz of propaganda wherein Russia and its leadership are cast as Siberian beasts, accepting as truth tales the National Enquirer would be embarrassed to run. In Europe, Greeks and Spaniards show us up, indeed, as a supine, spiritless people incapable of response or any resistance to the onslaught. There is this, too.

At writing, Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s imaginative new finance minister, has just made his first formal effort to present European counterparts with new ideas to get foreign debts of €240 billion ($271 billion) off the books and the Greek economy back in motion. These ideas can work. Even creditor institutions acknowledge that Greece cannot pay its debts as they are now structured. But at a session in Brussels Wednesday, the European Union’s arms remained folded.

Also at writing, the Poroshenko government in Ukraine appears to have recommitted to a cease-fire signed last September in Minsk and promptly broken. It is not surprising given Kiev’s very evident desperation on all fronts. But neither would it be if Poroshenko once again reneges. There is a sensible solution on the table now, but these are not people who have so far been given to one.

There is something tragically irrational driving both of these crises. The genesis of each, at least nominally, is the question of whether markets serve society or it is the other way around. Economic conflict, then, has been transformed into humanitarian disasters. This is what Greece and Ukraine have most fundamentally in common."  Francis Smith in Salon

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This is a kind of general field theory of what has gone wrong.  pl

http://www.salon.com/2015/02/12/neoliberalism_is_our_frankenstein_greece_and_ukraine_are_the_hot_spots_of_a_new_war_for_supremacy/

The Iraq Tribal Study, June 2006 - Todd, Lang, Hashim et al

OSD Public Affairs has released this study of the Tribes of the Anbar Governorate to the public.  Enjoy.  pl

Download iraq_tribal_study_070907.pdf

"Europe's Epitaph" Arnaud de Borchgrave

"Almost two decades after the end of the Cold War, the 27-nation European Union counts 494 million people and a gross domestic product of $15 trillion, about the same as the United States. But appeasement is back. A Dutch Justice Minister said, "If a majority of Dutchmen opt for the Shariah (Islamic law) at some future date, this has to be respected."

Coupled with an aging native European population and an exploding Muslim influx (Mohammed is the second most popular name for newborn baby boys in Dutch cities), the Continent's 20 million Muslims will become majorities in several European cities by midcentury. Meanwhile, Mr. Laqueur's "Last Days of Europe," tongue only half in cheek, fears the emergence of Europe as "a museum of world history and civilization preaching the importance of morality in world affairs to a nonexistent audience.""  De Borchgrave

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The essential question here is whether or not it is virtuous and wise for Europeans to wish to retain their ancient identities and culture in the face of growing Muslim demographics.

Forget all the politically wise PC baloney about the "threat" of terrorist infiltration into Europe.  This is about cultural identity.

The same thing is true in the USA with regard to the tidal wave of Hispanic immigration. pl

http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20070703/COMMENTARY/107030004/1012/commentary

St. George

St. George is the patron saint of the Palestinian Christians.  He is thought to have been a native of "Lydda" (Lod) where Ben Gurion airport is now located.  I don't think we have a "St George thread" but should have.  pl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George

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"Dear Col. Lang:

Last spring I researched St. George in the Mills College library, which dates back to the mid 19th century and keeps very old books in circulation. I found two sources re: St. George. The second, 19th century source, seems particularly germane to our St.

George thread, and is very important to me and the novel I'm working on, set in South Lebanon and infused with visions of St. George. Herewith my notes:

St. George

From Dictionary of Mythology Folklore and Symbols Gertrude Jobes Vol. 2 p. 1370 publ. 1962

http://library.mills.edu/search/?searchtype=t&searcharg=dictionary+of+mythology&searchscope=3&SORT=D&extended=1&SUBMIT=Search&searchlimits=&searchorigarg=dLiterature+and+folklore

"George. Martyred 303. One of the seven chammpions of Christendom. In Georgia, Russia, revered as a deity of good fortune. His worship is related to moon worship, and he occupies a position similar to that of Christ as mediator and intercessor. Adopted by Edward III, he became patron saint of England. In legend, he killed a dragon to save Cleodolinda, daughter of the King of Lydia, or Sabra, daughter of Ptolemy, in much the same manner that Perseus killed dragons to save maidens.

The legend is an allegory expressing the triumph of Christianity over evil. He is called the everlasting green one, inasmuch as his conflict with evil is eternal. Again and again he was slain, but he kept returning to life until he was mutilated, cut into small parts and burned, his ashes scattered in the wind, attributes of a fertility lord...By Arabs called Djirdjis.

S. Baring-Gould: Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, Boston, Roberts Brothers 1882. comparative mythology

http://library.mills.edu/search/abaring-gould/abaring+gould/1%2C8%2C15%2CE/frameset&FF=abaring+gould+s+sabine+1834+1924&2%2C5%2C

"he was a native of Lydda, but brought up in Cappadocia, he entered the Roman army and suffered a cruel death for Christ." "The turks pay great veneration to St. George."

Dean Stanley moreover noticed a Mussulman chapel on the sea-shore near Sarafend, the ancient Sarepta, dedicated to El Khouder, in which "there is no tomb inside, only hangings before a recess. This variation from the usual type of Mussulman sepulchres was, as we were told by peasants on the spot, because El Khouder is not yet dead, but flies round and round the world, and these chapels were built wherever he has appeared"

(p. 231).

Ibn Wahshiya al Kasdani, 900s, Chaldaean, Muslim, "hated the Arabs", translated Nabathaean writings rescued from "Moslem fanaticism." "Book of Nabathean Agriculture by Kuthami the Babylonian". Ibn Wahshiya links Tammuz to festival of St. George end of Nisan

(April)

–

says "what is related of the blessed George is the same as that told of Tammuz" i.e. Restored to life.... "Phoenician Adonis was identical with Tammuz.

St. Jerome in the Vulgate rendered the passage in Ezekiel (viii. 14)< "He brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house, which was towards the north; an behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz," by ecce mulieres sedentes plangetnes Adonidem; and in his commentary on the passage says, "Whom we have interpreted Adonis, both the Hebrew and Syriac languages call Thamuz, and they call the month june by that name." He informs us also of a very immportant fact, that the solstice was the time of wailing for Tammuz.

George/Tammuz identified with sun/fire (torture by fire, dumped in vat of molten lead etc.)

Baring Gould says fight between St George and dragon took place at Berytus (Beirut). Compares to story of Perseus. Scene of conflict near Joppa, where in the days of St. Jerome the bones of the huge reptile were exhibited (p. 255)

"According to another version, the dragon guards the spring of water, and the country is languishing for want of water; St. George restores to the land the use of the spring by slaying the dragon." (264)

(end notes. All of the above is quote or paraphrase from referenced sources, not my original material).

If this is of interest, feel free to republish.

Copyright must have passed into public domain ages ago.

Regards,

Leila Abu-Saba

Regards,

Leila Abu-Saba

http://bedouina.typepad.com

Dove's Eye View - An Arab-American woman sees signs of hope"

"Collective Memory is the Toolshed." Christine Helms

"THE HISTORICAL MEMORY OF A NATION IS NOT MERELY A REPOSITORY.  OUR VISION OF THE PAST CHANNELS OUR VISION OF THE FUTURE BY CONSTRAINING OPTIONS, BUT ALSO IT PLAYS A PROACTIVE ROLE.  THIS MEMORY IS ACTUALLY A VERY IMPORTANT FACTOR IN STRUGGLE.... IF ONE CONTROLS PEOPLES' MEMORY, ONE CONTROLS THEIR DYNAMISM....  IT IS VITAL TO HAVE POSSESSION OF THIS MEMORY, TO CONTROL IT, TO ADMINISTER IT, TELL IT WHAT IT MUST CONTAIN.'  COLLECTIVE MEMORY IS THE TOOLSHED, TOMORROW'S IDEOLOGICAL ARSENAL, FROM WHICH POLITICAL CONCEPTS AND SYMBOLS ARE SELECTED, REINTERPRETED, AND MANIPULATED BOTH BY ESTABLISHED GOVERNMENTS AND OPPOSITION GROUPS.  IT MAY WAIT FOR DECADES, PATIENTLY DORMANT, ONLY TO BE REACTIVATED SUDDENLY AS AN EXPLOSIVE CONTAGIOUS FORCE." DR. CHRISTINE M. HELMS IN MCNAIR PAPER # 10 "ARABISM AND ISLAM: STATELESS NATIONS AND NATIONLESS STATES."  SEPTEMBER, 1990.

Dr. Helms is an old friend.  Years ago I read this quotation from her work and was as impressed with it then as I am now.  All too often we Americans seem to think that the past has little relevance except as a matter of antiquarian concern.  As I have written before it is only in this country that the statement "That's history" is dismissive.

A belief in the malleability of human consciousness and the irrelevance of the past underlay our ridiculous over confidence in Iraq.

Have we learned anything from the experience?  Do we now grasp the notion that collective memory will not be expunged by public relations campaigns or lying "information operations?"

Pat Lang

"The Chalabi Archive" Anon.

Our old friend "anonymous,"  (no not that one) has made us a gift of a compendium of media articles, court records, etc. concerning Ahmad Chalabi.  Chalabi is his hobby and "Anonymous" has been collecting bits and pieces on him for a long time.  It is made available here as a resource for researchers and the merely curious.  pl

Download Chalabi_2.doc

Jamestown and Plymouth

"American history today begins with the Pilgrims because their experience in Plymouth has been molded to offer a more acceptable foundation story than the exploitative dog-eat-dog world of the early Chesapeake. The Puritans' arrival in Boston, where they built John Winthrop's "city on a hill," clinched it for Massachusetts.

The Pilgrim story took over as our founding fiction after the Revolutionary War, when New England and the South began to pull in different directions. The Massachusetts colonists were labeled the Pilgrim Fathers in the 1790s, and the agreement they signed on arrival became the Mayflower Compact about the same time. Because Puritanism had come to be seen as repressive (think of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter"), early American leaders such as Daniel Webster brought the Plymouth colonists forward as the kinder, gentler Puritans.

This is the origins story we prefer and the one we promote. We prefer it because we like to think that we are descended from a humble and saintly band, religiously motivated and communal in organization, who wanted nothing more than the freedom to worship God. The individualistic, grasping capitalists of Virginia offer much less appealing antecedents."" Wapo

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At last, someone gets it right!  It is a long standing mystery in Virginia.  How did the Massachusetts people succeed in appropriating to themselves both; the founding of the United States and Thanksgiving?  It is true that times were hard at Jamestown "in the beginning" but the truth is that times were equally hard at Plymouth.  The colonists at Jamestown were tough on the Indians?  The idea that the Puritans were not is laughable.  Who here knows that the Indians killed a third of the people in Jamestown colony in 1622. A third, in a sudden, colony wide onslaught.

Massachusetts was a model of democracy ? Not!  The original Massachusetts Bay Colony was an oppressive theocracy, founded on the basis of a controlled emigration policy in England which screened potential colonists for wealth, submissiveness to church rule and orthodoxy (Puritan) of belief.

If you do not accept that characterization of the Massachusetts colonies, see "Albion's Seed" by Fischer.

pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/11/AR2007051102052.html

"Failing in Baghdad -- The British Did It First" Toby Dodge

Who, but an Englishman would be named, "Toby?"  Cute, faintly redolent of classes in 18th Century literature.  I should have studied more.  Echo there of a line from "Ghostbusters."

Nevertheless, this is a fine piece of work, highly relevant to our present predicament (some of us).   I think Dodge is a bit hard on the Hashemite monarchy, but, I am an admitted partisan of the Hashemite house.  This is a strange thing in someone as fixedly republican as I.  Back, before the Israelis and Jords had made their peace, an Israeli colleague (and friend) used to claim (jokingly I hope) that I was partial to the Bedu (as he called them) because I liked the "hugging."  Unkind.  The Israelis don't say things like that anymore now that the Jordanians are their "pals." 

Santayana said,  etc......

This is worth reading.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/23/AR2007022301746.html