“Look at Us”

A yearning and poetic song to express “how true love should [and might] be,” or how it sometimes is in real life.

Beautifully performed by Vince Gill, “Look At Us” was written by Max D. Barnes and Gill himself in 1991. An American neotraditional country singer-songwriter, Vince Gill earned 20 Grammy Awards, more than any other male Country music artist. In 2007, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame for being “one of his generation’s great contributors to the ongoing vitality of country music.”

What else? Well, I dare say that this stuff—I mean, this kind of song—is likely one of the reasons why I love Country music, and will always do... (Thanks: Holger Schimmelpfennig)

Obama Vs The U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Just a few lines and a couple of links to ...say hello and let you know that I am Ok ...

Only a few days ago President Obama, echoing his January State of the Union address (in which he warned that the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision “will open the floodgates for special interests— including foreign corporations—to spend without limit in our election”), reproached the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for funneling contributions to the business advocacy group from foreign corporations to its U.S. political activity. “Groups that receive foreign money,” he said, are a “threat to our democracy.” At first glance this might look like a good argument: after all Americans have never liked foreign actors meddling in their elections. But then again, that’s just a surface appearance. The substance is quite different. In fact, first of all, while the President expects the Chamber to prove that they’re not using foreign money to fund lobbying and other activity, we know that the onus is not on the accused, but on the accuser, to prove the allegations. In the second place,

This latest episode is only the latest in a series of words and actions from this administration that has always exhibited a very anti-business attitude. It really began with the health care debate and continues to this day with the debate over the Bush tax cuts. All of these policies are pushing businesses out of the United States, and halting the ones that already base themselves here.
[...]
What small business would want to operate in an atmosphere that gives them additional burden from the outset (health care) and looks to punish them as they grow (taxes), all the while attacking them because they look out for their interests? I can’t think the answer is too many, and that will remain true until our government gives itself a real good attitude adjustment.

Why Die For Kabul?

They say there was a somber atmosphere at Rome’s military airport yesterday morning as the Italian air force C130 carrying the coffins, draped in Italian flags, of the four Alpine soldiers of the Julia brigade killed in the Gullistan valley in Afghanistan on Saturday touched down. The same atmosphere greeted them during the state funeral that was held in the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli a few hours ago, before hundreds of mourners, including President Giorgio Napolitano.

The deaths took to 34 the number of troops from Italy to die in Afghanistan since 2004, when Italian troops were deployed there as part of the international military mission. Italy has about 3,150 soldiers currently in Afghanistan.

I may be wrong, but every time I think about what is happening in Afghanistan I cannot help asking myself, “Does it still make sense for our soldiers to die for Afghanistan?” And my answer is, No, it doesn’t make sense anymore. And this piece by Giuliano Ferrara in yesterday’s Il Foglio newspaper explains why [English translation by Mirino—thanks!—slightly revised by me] :


Obama has been euphemistically defined as “a reluctant soldier” by his apologists. But who wants to fight and die for a reluctant soldier who also happens to be the supreme commander of the most powerful army in the world?

In reality Obama bombs the same way as Bush, increases the numbers of troops on the battle fields just like Bush, organizes gradual and possibly safe withdrawals in the same way as Bush, but contrary to Bush he hasn’t got a political and military strategy to face the political challenge of Islam to the West.

In the province of Farah, the extreme west of Afghanistan, four Alpine soldiers of the Julia brigade were killed in a Taliban ambush last Saturday morning. Their names are Gianmarco Manca, Marco Pedone, Sebastiano Ville, Francesco Vannozzi. One of them was haunted by fear and death, but was still determined to fight; another, caporalmaggiore Luca Cornacchia who survived, wrote on Facebook: “I’m sick of Afghanistan; I don’t understand a thing.”

Processing the painful mourning for these four boys that one adds to the other thirty Italians fallen in the Afghan war, also means reflecting on “I’m sick of Afghanistan,” and “I don’t understand a thing.” And one can also ask: Why pay the price of death, for a “reluctant war?”

Certainly impulsive madness must be avoided, and obviously one must discuss things with the allies. But one must also tell at least a bit of truth. Whilst there was the Bush administration, the war in the Middle East had a sense: the right importance was given to the gravity of the most devastating terrorist attack in the history of humanity, the 11th September, 2001 in New York and Washington.

The reaction was strategically orientated to hit the rogue states in the heart, bringing to the front al-Qaida and the international terrorists of the whole world. This was done at great cost and there were many errors, but it was done with confidence, with heroism in the battle-field and magnificent results.

Moreover, Bush would never have permitted himself to define or to allow the definition of “reluctant.” With Dick Cheney he gave the right constitutional interpretation that he intended to his mission of security and defense of the American democracy. He mobilized the West making a division between willingness and recalcitrance, he constructed coalitions, strengthened friendships and clearly declared enmities. He limited the advantages of certain libertarian guarantees of protection of privacy with the Patriot Act. He resolved as best he could (and Obama has certainly not been able to do any better) the question of the asymmetrical war and the treatment of criminal combatants, the terrorists allocated to Guantanamo.

But even more important is the goal, the objective of this political, military, diplomatic, and cultural mobilization : the export of civil freedom and human rights to the Islamic world, that is the advanced front of a clash of civilization, between the worlds of slavery and liberty. To die for Kandahar or Fallujah then had a sense. Even the sacrifice of hostages after their summary Koranic trials had a sense.

Bush, the Americans and the Europeans who followed him with enthusiasm in the first phase of the battle after the 11th September moved on the greater frontier of politics and war, provoking the large rainbow vomit of revulsion of the entire world’s pacifists. Whilst Obama moves on a grey line that doesn’t know how to make war or peace and is exposed to unrealism in all directions. He is inclined to take the route of dissimulated surrender. He’s woven with Harvardian chat and petty political expertise from the school of Chicago.

While the four Alpine soldiers were blown up by an explosive device, and other episodes of combat brought back the Taliban activism to the center of the attention, in Washington the umpteenth institutional farce was taking place, with the military James L. Jones replaced by the political civil employee Thomas E. Donilon with the decisive charge of Advisor for National Security. Donilon was for a long time the effective right-hand man for Obama in the field of national security. The reluctant soldier needs politicians able to keep a check on the domestic scene of public opinion and polls, more than military advisors able to supply expertise regarding war. If you want to let things slide re. a nuclear Iran, if you want to ease off as soon as possible from the AfPak, if you want to cultivate the fine rhetoric of the proffered hand, Carter’s advisors will serve you, like Donilon, and certainly not the less reluctant military.

Thus another presidential fiasco, more damage to the West of the reluctant belligerence that justifies anyone to say today, along with the Alpine soldiers of the Julia brigade: “I’m sick of Afghanistan, I don’t understand a thing.”

Raphael in London

Raphael, The Sacrifice at Lystra 

Four tapestries by Raphael have been reunited with the Urbinate’s original cartoons for the first time in nearly 500 years for a major exhibition in London (Victoria and Albert Museum, September 8 through October 24, 2010), made possible by a collaboration between the V&A and the Vatican Museums. Even Raphael himself never saw them together, nor is this a juxtaposition Londoners, as well as the rest of the world, are ever likely to see repeated, since both the tapestries and the designs are judged to be too fragile to be moved more than once in a lifetime.

The V&A’s Raphael expert Mark Evans described the event as a dream come true. “When the Vatican telephoned us in February offering to provide the tapestries for an exhibition, I couldn’t believe it” he said. “I’d always thought that logistic difficulties and a lack of political support would have made it impossible.” And Vatican Museums Director Antonio Paolucci echoes these words by saying, “This is a unique, one-off and unforgettable occasion, it has long been the dream of every art historian to see the cartoons and the tapestries alongside one another and it is indeed marvelous (...) to see how tapestry subtly alters the form and colors.”

To give a better idea of what we are talking about, let’s recall the testimony of the early art-historian and Raphael’s contemporary Giorgio Vasari, according to which the reception of the finished product was enthusiastic: “After they had been completed, the tapestries were sent back to Rome. The work was of such wonderful beauty that it astonished anyone who saw it to think that it could have been possible to weave the hair and the beards so finely and to have given such softness to the flesh merely by the use of threads.”

The tapestries (Acts of St Peter and St Paul, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, Christ’s Charge to Peter, The Healing of the Lame Man, and The Sacrifice at Lystra) were made for the Sistine Chapel. Raphael was commissioned by Pope Leo X to design them, then they were woven in Brussels, Europe’s leading center for tapestry-weaving, and finally sent to Rome for display.  As Arnold Nesselrath, who edited the exhibition book with Mark Evans and Clare Browne, writes in his essay on the Sistine Chapel (as reported in this NYT article), the tapestries were displayed when major liturgical services were celebrated by the pope.

Hal Lewis’ Resignation—Global Warming Is a Scam

A letter—first published here and re-published in yesterday's Telegraph—to the American Physical Society by Professor Emeritus of physics Hal Lewis of the University of California at Santa Barbara shows once more that (man-made) global warming is a scam.

“Please accept my resignation,” writes Hal Lewis, “APS no longer represents me.” It is at once a historical document and a passionate and powerful j’accuse against “the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare.”

Vargas Llosa’s Nobel Prize

An unyielding intellectual and a former leftist turned conservative—which was seen as a betrayal in certain quarters—wins the Nobel Prize for literature.

Emily Parker in The Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Vargas Llosa's Nobel Prize is a great victory—and not just for a talented and prolific author. His work is perhaps the greatest rebuttal to those who believe that literature exists on the periphery of history and politics, or who claim that they have "no time" for fiction.
In a New Republic essay in 2001, Mr. Vargas Llosa argued for granting literature "an important place in the life of nations." He wrote, "Without it, the critical mind, which is the real engine of historical change and the best protector of liberty, would suffer an irreparable loss."
Mr. Vargas Llosa's novels reflect his deep, personal hatred of dictatorships and his staunch belief in the value of individual liberty. He is hardly the only novelist to have shed light on these themes, but I would argue that he is among the most successful.

The Most Beautiful Work Of Art

The Luteplayer (det.), Caravaggio, c. 1596

“ The word of faith has need of great inner silence in order to listen and obey a voice which lies beyond the visible and tangible world. This voice speaks through natural phenomena, because it is the power that created and governs the universe. But to recognize it we need a humble and obedient heart, something also taught us by the saint whose feast day falls today: St. Therese of the Child Jesus.

Faith follows this profound voice in places that even art itself cannot reach alone. It follows it along the path of witness, in the giving of self for love, as Cecilia did. Thus the most beautiful work of art, the masterpiece of human beings, is each of their acts of authentic love: from the smallest (in everyday sacrifice) unto the extreme sacrifice. At this point life itself becomes a hymn; an anticipation of the symphony we will sing together in heaven. ”

~ Benedict XVI, speaking at the end of an orchestral and choral concert in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall (Friday, October 1, 2010). Thanks: Luigi Accattoli

What Is Wrong With Italian Politics

“Can you write a little more about what is happening in Italy? I would greatly value your opinion.” It was about a couple of weeks ago when Alex, a British blogger living in Milan, sent me this kind appeal not to overlook Italian politics—actually this is not the first time I get asked why I don’t write more about this subject, and I must admit that there is some fairness to the implicit meaning that I have recently been a little bit reluctant to write about what’s going on in Italian politics …

What can I say for myself? Well, the truth is that I’m pretty much fed up with the state of Italian politics these days, or better still, I am almost as fed up with the “thing-in-itself” as I am with the way the Italian and, consequently, the mainstream international media is portraying it. What I dislike most about current Italian politics is that both the main opposition party and the main government party seem to be allergic to dissent within their own ranks. I mean, I can expect that from the Democratic Party (made up mostly of former Communists), whose totalitarian tendencies are well known and, so to speak, encoded in its DNA, but I cannot accept it when it comes from a party whose name is People of Freedom (PDL). I’m talking about both the way the “Democrats” have treated the founder of the new Democratic Movement, Walter Veltroni, though he is not trying to bring about a split but only to change his party from within, and the ejection of Gianfranco Fini—a former neo-fascist who has moved to the mainstream—from Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party last July. In fact, the Prime minister was furious about Fini’s strong opposition to the PDL’s concessions to the federalist Northern League, and to the government’s attempt to push through the controversial “gag law” restricting police and media use of wiretaps. Hence Fini’s ejection for conspiring to administer a “slow death” to the party. Fini, in turn, accused Berlusconi of promoting self-serving legislation to block corruption charges. And the story is still far from over.

Now, to be clear and straightforward, there are very few doubts about what Fini wants to do: he most likely wants to do exactly what he is accused of doing …, but this cannot, by any means, justify his ejection from the party. Even when there are good reasons to be suspicious, and frankly Fini seems not to be a man above all suspicion in the light of his past political experiences…, if we confuse dissent with disloyalty—but it’s nearly impossible to define where dissent ends and where disloyalty begins—then there is no true freedom. It’s a matter of principle, and Berlusconi should be aware of it. In other words, he made a huge mistake, no matter whether Fini is a “hero” or a “traitor.” After all, has Berlusconi ever heard of the strong rivalry between Jaques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy in France? Both men disliked each other. Chirac, in particular, considered Sarkozy as an opportunist and a traitor (e.g. Sarkozy supported Edouard Balladur, a strong rival of Jacques Chirac, in the presidential election of 1995), and nevertheless they both were active members of the RPR party for decades. (Does this say something to you, Silvio?)

However, to complete the picture, it is also to be said that Fini is indeed an extravagant man: he proclaims to be a man of the Right, but on many issues (immigration, bioethics, justice, etc.) he frequently sides with the Left, and his entourage are big fans of Barack Obama, whom they consider—without ifs and buts—a ray of hope for all humanity, the realization of a dream that comes from far away, etc. And to think that most of them were members of the far-right National Alliance party, the post-fascist heir of the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano. Not that I’m saying that Fini and his followers are turncoats, but …

As it was not enough, despite his being a huge moralist, last July it turned out that he, along with another ultra-moralist such as Antonio Di Pietro, the head of the small opposition Italy of Values party (see here), might not be as immaculate as one might expect. Yet, it is not my problem. As you should have already guessed, I have never been tempted to take him seriously (he never worked a day in his life, can you believe it?), unlike the rules of the democratic game, that apply to all players, Berlusconi and Fini included.

Can you understand now why I don’t look forward to writing about current Italian politics? As the saying goes, “Enough is enough!” But never mind, I’m not going to change my mind—I’m not going to cross the Rubicon. Seriously, there is no alternative to Berlusconi—may Silvio save us all from Obama’s fans and supporters!

Glenn Beck Revealed

Interesting piece in yesterday’s New York Times, a long profile-interview with American conservative broadcaster and political pundit Glenn Beck. Tom, at Opinion Forum, is definitely right: “Whether you view Beck with respect or disdain, you’ll learn things in the article that will help you understand where he’s coming from and maybe where he’s going.” A good read and well worth your time.

Why Did Islam Become What It Is?

I have always thought that nobody who has an ounce of common sense—not to speak of sensibility and culture—cannot help but respect other people’s religious beliefs, except for those which are manifestly contrary to universal human right principles. Such is, of course, my attitude toward Islam. Hence my deep appreciation for thinkers such as G.K. Chesteron, whose respect for Islam is as strong as his “humanistic” approach to life in general. Which obviously generates some kind of tension between the two needs: respect, but awareness of the most controversial aspects of Islam, with regard to its (much) less humanistic approach…

Here is an example of his, so to speak, “bivalent attitude” toward Islam. There is in Islam “a paradox which is perhaps a permanent menace,” he wrote in his 1917 Lord Kitchener...

The great creed born in the desert creates a kind of ecstasy out of the very emptiness of its own land, and even, one may say, out of the emptiness of its own theology. It affirms, with no little sublimity, something that is not merely the singleness but rather the solitude of God. There is the same extreme simplification in the solitary figure of the Prophet; and yet this isolation perpetually reacts into its own opposite. A void is made in the heart of Islam which has to be filled up again and again by a mere repetition of the revolution that founded it. There are no sacraments; the only thing that can happen is a sort of apocalypse, as unique as the end of the world; so the apocalypse can only be repeated and the world end again and again. There are no priests; and yet this equality can only breed a multitude of lawless prophets almost as numerous as priests. The very dogma that there is only one Mahomet produces an endless procession of Mahomets. Of these the mightiest in modern times were the man whose name was Ahmed, and whose more famous title was the Mahdi; and his more ferocious successor Abdullahi, who was generally known as the Khalifa. These great fanatics, or great creators of fanaticism, succeeded in making a militarism almost as famous and formidable as that of the Turkish Empire on whose frontiers it hovered, and in spreading a reign of terror such as can seldom be organised except by civilisation…

Islam as “the great creed born in the desert.” That’s the key argument he makes to explain both what is wrong and what is the sublimity hidden in the heart of the religion of Muhammad. Two faces (what is sublime and what is “a permanent menace”) of the same coin—a Weltanschauung which is son of the desert and which generates both great mystics and huge fanatics and creators of fanaticism.

But it was not until 1919 that Chesterton had the opportunity of making this perfectly clear to himself, when he left his home in Beaconsfield, and traveled backward through time to the place which is sacred to the three “religions of the Book.” And his 1920 The New Jerusalem, is just a philosophical travelogue of his journey across Europe, across the desert, to Palestine.

Chesterton saw Islam as the Way of the Desert. The desert being a place of loss of perspective, and Islam personifying that loss of perspective. When the mind has grown used to the monotony of the desert, he wrote, a curious change takes place:

It may sound strange to say that monotony of its nature becomes novelty. But if any one will try the common experiment of saying some ordinary word such as "moon" or "man" about fifty times, he will find that the expression has become extraordinary by sheer repetition. A man has become a strange animal with a name as queer as that of the gnu; and the moon something monstrous like the moon-calf. Something of this magic of monotony is effected by the monotony of deserts; and the traveller feels as if he had entered into a secret, and was looking at everything from another side. Something of this simplification appears, I think, in the religions of the desert, especially in the religion of Islam. It explains something of the super-human hopes that fill the desert prophets concerning the future; it explains something also about their barbarous indifference to the past.

We think of the desert and its stones as old; but in one sense they are unnaturally new. They are unused, and perhaps unusable. They might be the raw material of a world; only they are so raw as to be rejected. It is not easy to define this quality of something primitive, something not mature enough to be fruitful. Indeed there is a hard simplicity about many Eastern things that is as much crude as archaic. A palm-tree is very like a tree drawn by a child—or by a very futurist artist. Even a pyramid is like a mathematical figure drawn by a schoolmaster teaching children; and its very impressiveness is that of an ultimate Platonic abstraction. There is something curiously simple about the shape in which these colossal crystals of the ancient sands have been cast. It is only when we have felt something of this element, not only of simplicity, but of crudity, and even in a sense of novelty, that we can begin to understand both the immensity and the insufficiency of that power that came out of the desert, the great religion of Mahomet.

And here is a generous eulogy of Islam:

In the red circle of the desert, in the dark and secret place, the prophet discovers the obvious things. I do not say it merely as a sneer, for obvious things are very easily forgotten; and indeed every high civilisation decays by forgetting obvious things.

But a second later he challenges those whom he has just praised:

But it is true that in such a solitude men tend to take very simple ideas as if they were entirely new ideas. There is a love of concentration which comes from the lack of comparison. The lonely man looking at the lonely palm-tree does see the elementary truths about the palm-tree; and the elementary truths are very essential. Thus he does see that though the palm-tree may be a very simple design, it was not he who designed it. It may look like a tree drawn by a child, but he is not the child who could draw it. He has not command of that magic slate on which the pictures can come to life, or of that magic green chalk of which the green lines can grow. He sees at once that a power is at work in whose presence he and the palm-tree are alike little children. In other words, he is intelligent enough to believe in God; and the Moslem, the man of the desert, is intelligent enough to believe in God. But his belief is lacking in that humane complexity that comes from comparison.
[Italics mine]

And a few lines below he says:

[Islam] was content with the idea that it had a great truth; as indeed it had a colossal truth. It was so huge a truth that it was hard to see it was a half-truth.

What does he mean by that? Let’s follow his reasoning:

Islam was a movement; that is why it has ceased to move. For a movement can only be a mood. It may be a very necessary movement arising from a very noble mood, but sooner or later it must find its level in a larger philosophy, and be balanced against other things. Islam was a reaction towards simplicity; it was a violent simplification, which turned out to be an over-simplification. Stevenson has somewhere one of his perfectly picked phrases for an empty-minded man; that he has not one thought to rub against another while he waits for a train. The Moslem had one thought, and that a most vital one; the greatness of God which levels all men. But the Moslem had not one thought to rub against another, because he really had not another. It is the friction of two spiritual things, of tradition and invention, or of substance and symbol, from which the mind takes fire. The creeds condemned as complex have something like the secret of sex; they can breed thoughts.
[…]
The philosophy of the desert can only begin over again. It cannot grow; it cannot have what Protestants call progress and Catholics call development.
[…]
The highest message of Mahomet is a piece of divine tautology. The very cry that God is God is a repetition of words, like the repetitions of wide sands and rolling skies. The very phrase is like an everlasting echo, that can never cease to say the same sacred word; and when I saw afterwards the mightiest and most magnificent of all the mosques of that land, I found that its inscriptions had the same character of a deliberate and defiant sameness.
The ancient Arabic alphabet and script is itself at once so elegant and so exact that it can be used as a fixed ornament, like the egg and dart pattern or the Greek key. It is as if we could make a heraldry of handwriting, or cover a wall-paper with signatures. But the literary style is as recurrent as the decorative style; perhaps that is why it can be used as a decorative style. Phrases are repeated again and again like ornamental stars or flowers. Many modern people, for example, imagine that the Athanasian Creed is full of vain repetitions; but that is because people are too lazy to listen to it, or not lucid enough to understand it. The same terms are used throughout, as they are in a proposition of Euclid. But the steps are all as differentiated and progressive as in a proposition of Euclid. But in the inscriptions of the Mosque whole sentences seem to occur, not like the steps of an argument, but rather like the chorus of a song. This is the impression everywhere produced by this spirit of the sandy wastes; this is the voice of the desert, though the muezzin cries from the high turrets of the city. Indeed one is driven to repeating oneself about the repetition, so overpowering is the impression of the tall horizons of those tremendous plains, brooding upon the soul with all the solemn weight of the self-evident. [Italics mine]

Isn’t that a wonderful explanation of the (abyssal) difference between them and us, whose minds have been nurtured by Greek rationality and Judaic-Christian values? This difference is also why, compared with its millennial rival, Christendom, the world of Islam had become poor, weak, and ignorant. In his What Went Wrong, Bernard Lewis asks, but does not answer, the following questions: “Why did the discoverers of America sail from Spain and not a Muslim Atlantic port, where such voyages were indeed attempted in earlier times? Why did the great scientific breakthrough occur in Europe and not, as one might reasonably have expected, in the richer, more advanced, and in most respects more enlightened realm of Islam?” One might say, “Just read The New Jerusalem to get the right answers to these questions and a few others.”

~ First written for The Metaphysical Peregrine ~

Mount Athos - The Holy Mountain

A World Heritage Site, The Holy Mountain, on the peninsula of the same name in Macedonia, in northern Greece, is a self-governed part of the Greek state, subject to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But first and foremost it is the centre of Eastern Christian Orthodox Monasticism.

Having never been there, I cannot help but dream of the day … How about you? If you feel the same way as me, you might like the video below (thanks: Adolfo Morganti).



Mont Athos - La république des moines (bande annonce VF)
Caricato da NS-Video. - Serie TV classiche e spettacoli televisivi

A Time for Choosing

“ It’s time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, “We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government.”

This idea—that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power—is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream—the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order—or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, “The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.”

The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing. ”

~ Ronald Reagan  



Ronald Reagan delivered this speech in support of Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign. Besides being one of the best examples of Reagan’s rhetorical powers, and his first major national political address, this speech launched his career as both a politician and a leader of the conservative movement. Almost needless to say, these words are as relevant to the U.S. current situation as they were when he delivered them. To the extent that this speech has become a sort of “Bible” for the Tea party movement, as this new (and excellent) video shows …

The philosophical habit of mind

In his Conservative Mind, Russell Kirk located the importance of John Henry Newman as a great “philosopher of tradition” in his skill in articulating the value of knowledge, the limits of reason and science, the danger of utilitarianism and rationalism, the nature of intellectual virtue, and the necessity of such virtue for the grasp of first principles. But perhaps the fundamental feature of Newman’s defense of tradition is his natural deference to classical Greek philosophy, particularly Aristotle. To be precise, Newman conceives  and defends tradition with a mind formed and disciplined by a study of the Stagirite.

Angelo Bottone’s new book, The Philosophical Habit of Mind. Rhetoric and Person in John Henry Newman’s Dublin Writings—as far as I can tell without having read it yet …—seems to be on the same wavelength as Russell Kirk. “This work,” as the book’s cover says, “offers an original exploration of the influences of philosophers such as Aristotle, Cicero and Locke on Newman’s own thought. Aristotle’s inspiration is presented in a new light and compared with Ciceronian rhetoric and the Utilitarianism of Locke and his followers. Moreover, the intellectual, moral and artistic dimensions of the human person in Newman’s Dublin Writings are discussed, in conjunction with his concepts of the unity of knowledge and of the philosophical habit of mind.”

Angelo, besides being an associate lecturer at the School of Arts of the Dublin Business School, where he teaches Introduction to Philosophy, Critical Thinking, Theories of Knowledge and Philosophy of Science, is a highly appreciated contributor of this blog. That’s also why I wish him all the very best with this new book.

Fall

The leaves are falling, falling as from far,

from wilting in the heavens' farthest gardens:

They're falling to negate the summer's mirth.

And in the nights the heavy Earth

falls into solitude from star to star.

We all are falling. This my hand here bends.

And look at others: Fall's in all their calling.

And yet there's One, who's holding all this falling

forever tender in His upturned hands...

Rainer Maria Rilke

[Translation by Walter A. Aue]

Herbst

Die Blätter fallen, fallen wie von weit, 

als welkten in den Himmeln ferne Gärten; 

sie fallen mit verneinender Gebärde. 

Und in den Nächten fällt die schwere Erde 

aus allen Sternen in die Einsamkeit.

Wir alle fallen. Diese Hand da fällt. 

Und sieh dir andre an: es ist in allen. 

Und doch ist Einer, welcher dieses Fallen 

unendlich sanft in seinen Händen hält.

What the Profumo affair is all about

First off let me start by saying that I am no expert in finance and economics, and that, therefore, I myself am just trying to understand what happened. And this just because of the obvious importance—not only from a financial point of view, but also from a political (and social) one—of what actually happened.

That being said, let’s face it. UniCredit SpA Chief Executive Alessandro Profumo liked to say he wanted to keep his job heading Italy’s biggest bank (or the second biggest after Intesa San Paolo, according to some sources) until he is 60. But his tenure came to an abrupt end some 7 years ahead of that deadline: the 53-year-old architect of UniCredit’s relentless growth from regional Italian bank to a global financial giant resigned on Tuesday at an extraordinary board meeting called by the chairman, Dieter Rampl. Disgruntled shareholders forced Profumo out in a dispute over Libya’s growing influence on the bank and lagging results. The company confirmed the resignation in a statement distributed by the Italian stock exchange. Profumo will be replaced, temporarily, by chairman Dieter Rampl, who is also the former head of Germany’s second-biggest bank HVB, which was acquired by UniCredit in 2005.

It is also to be said that UniCredit was the most exposed Italian bank in the global financial meltdown which began in late 2007, and this just because it had the biggest international profile, including owning the HVB group, which suffered in the subprime loan crisis that sparked the credit crunch.

And here is a good summary of what has recently happened:

UniCredit was recently assigned a banking license by the Central Bank of Libya to operate in that country. Mr. Profumo said this month that Libyan investors chose to “autonomously” build their stakes in UniCredit. But the increase in the Libyan stake infuriated some Italian officials.
The question of Libya’s voting rights — and whether the two Libyan shareholdings should be treated as one entity — is being examined by Italian regulators. UniCredit’s bylaws state that no single shareholder should control more than 5 percent of the votes.
The other main shareholders in UniCredit are Aabar Investments, an Abu Dhabi state entity with 4.9 percent, and the four regional Italian bank foundations — based in Verona, Turin, Bologna and Treviso — which together control about 10 percent. German companies including the insurer Allianz also hold significant minority stakes in UniCredit. The American investment firm BlackRock holds 4 percent.

But, with regard to the four above mentioned regional Italian bank foundations, the 2008-2009 financial crisis ended the flow of dividends

to which UniCredit’s shareholders had been accustomed; and the bank had to make calls for fresh capital, bringing hard times to the philanthropic foundations that had owned the five savings banks and which now own a combined stake of about 12% in UniCredit. As the savings banks themselves had once been, the foundations are political as well as philanthropic, with boards made up of party appointees and local bigwigs. Cuts in dividends from UniCredit have meant less largesse for them to bestow on good works such as repairing church roofs, helping hospitals and funding old people’s homes, and also less influence.
The share-buying in UniCredit by two arms of Muammar Qaddafi’s regime, coming on top of recent stake-building by another Arab government—that of Abu Dhabi—has caused indignation in northern Italy, where the xenophobic Northern League political party is strong.

In fact, Flavio Tosi, a League governor and Verona’s mayor, said Profumo should have stopped the Libyans at 5%. “I’m not a banker,” he said, “but to let in partners like Gaddafi and the Libyans means letting in partners who may not have the [same] interests as Verona and the Veneto.” He also accused the bank of focusing on business abroad at the expense of Italian enterprises, which need help recovering from the world economic crisis.

Yet, now Northern League leader Umberto Bossi is urging foundation shareholders of UniCredit to defend the company against the growing German influence: “I hope the foundations don’t stand there with their hands in the pockets, but that they organize a defence,” he said. Doesn’t it seem a bit contradictory? The most vocal opponents of Profumo—his departure is a significant victory for the foundations, and for the federalist Northern League party—are now worrying about the consequences of their political fight. I just don’t understand.

However, despite the many subtle, and not so subtle, political explanations and interpretations that have been put forward in the last few hours, perhaps Oscar Giannino (in Italian)—one of the most respected economic opinion-makers in Italy, and a columnists for several Italian newspapers—is right: “This is not all about the misery of Italian politics. This is all about the misery of the Italian market.”

Madam President?

It could happen, no doubt. As a matter of fact, speculation that Sarah Palin, former Alaska Governor and Republican candidate for Vice President in 2008, will run for President in 2012 is reaching fever pitch. Yet, they say the ambition doesn’t always sit well with Alaskans, who have a saying: “We don’t care how they do it on the Outside.” At least, until the Outside suddenly lands on their doorstep… Read the story in today’s British newspaper The Independent.

The New York Times: More papist than the Pope?

It might well be the case. Things change, my friends …

All in all, the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Britain over the weekend must have been a disappointment to his legions of detractors. Their bold promises notwithstanding, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens didn’t manage to clap the pope in irons and haul him off to jail. The protests against Benedict’s presence proved a sideshow to the visit, rather than the main event. And the threat (happily empty, it turned out) of an assassination plot provided a reminder of what real religious extremism looks like — as opposed to the gentle scholar, swathed in white, urging secular Britons to look with fresh eyes at their island’s ancient faith.
[…]
And yes, the church’s exclusive theological claims and stringent moral message don’t go over well in a multicultural, sexually liberated society. But the example of Catholicism’s rivals suggests that the church might well be much worse off if it had simply refashioned itself to fit the prevailing values of the age. That’s what the denominations of mainline Protestantism have done, across the last four decades — and instead of gaining members, they’ve dwindled into irrelevance.

The Vatican of Benedict and John Paul II, by contrast, has striven to maintain continuity with Christian tradition, even at the risk of seeming reactionary and out of touch. This has cost the church its once-privileged place in the Western establishment, and earned it the scorn of fashionable opinion. But continuity, not swift and perhaps foolhardy adaptation, has always been the papacy’s purpose, and the secret of its lasting strength.
[…]
This, above all, is why the crowds cheered for the pope, in Edinburgh and London and Birmingham — because almost five centuries after the Catholic faith was apparently strangled in Britain, their church is still alive.

P.S.
Anyway, great article and good analysis. Excellent food for thought. Amen.

Benedict XVI's call for religious reciprocity

During his UK visit, Benedict XVI said many things on many topics. Most of these things went unreported or underreported, sometimes with a certain degree of inaccuracy (to say the least), by the mainstream media. One of them is the following statement, made during His Holiness meeting with representatives of Britain’s other major religions, namely Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs (read the full text of the speech here):

The presence of committed believers in various fields of social and economic life speaks eloquently of the fact that the spiritual dimension of our lives is fundamental to our identity as human beings, that man, in other words, does not live by bread alone. As followers of different religious traditions working together for the good of the community at large, we attach great importance to this ‘side by side’ dimension of our cooperation, which complements the ‘face to face’ aspect of our continuing dialogue. […] Ever since the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church has placed special emphasis on the importance of dialogue and cooperation with the followers of other religions. In order to be fruitful, this requires reciprocity on the part of all partners in dialogue and the followers of other religions. I am thinking in particular of situations in some parts of the world, where cooperation and dialogue between religions calls for mutual respect, the freedom to practice one’s religion and to engage in acts of public worship, and the freedom to follow one’s conscience without suffering ostracism or persecution, even after conversion from one religion to another.

Now, dear readers, which one of the above mentioned religions was the Pope referring to, in your honest opinion? Ok, no rhetorical questions … There is no doubt that His Holiness referred to them. So, the moral of the story is very simple: once again, while the Pope has shown himself to not be afraid to take a clear stand on controversial issues, the mainstream media have shown their ineptitude, i.e. their reluctance to “displease” the Muslim world, even when its behavior is grossly inadequate and inexcusable.

Stopping the Socialist Express

~ “LETTERS FROM AMERICA” - by The Metaphysical Peregrine ~

Americans are practical people. If something doesn’t work, it’s tossed aside. What the Democrats and President Obama are doing to the country doesn’t work. Socialism has a one hundred percent failure rate; it only appears to work if there’s enough money generated from capitalism to support it.

As a result of legislation that can’t be paid for, increasing debt rising into the $trillions, unemployment rate stuck at about 10% (over 30 million people out of work), racial and class divisiveness, and RINO’s (Republican In Name Only) going along with this destructiveness, there’s a grass roots revolt happening.

The TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party Movement started a couple years ago to bring public awareness to the need for limited government and lower taxes. That in turn has put RINO’s in a losing position, and they don’t like it at all. The Statist Democrats can only resort to character assassination, malicious defamation, and negative campaigning. RINO’s recently have been doing the same to Conservatives and the TEA Party movement because their jobs and power are just as threatened. Not only will the Democrats be voted out this coming November, but a lot of RINO’s will be too.

There’s a big kerfuffle going on in the Republican Party, and some talking heads that have been identified as Conservative Republicans, namely Karl Rove (GW Bush’s campaign manager) and Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, have sided with the RINO's. Christine O’Donnell, an inexperienced politician beat out a RINO, Mike Castle, in the Delaware primary this past Tuesday. The expected ad hominem attacks came from the Democrats, but Rove and Krauthammer piled on too, saying she can’t win and the TEA Party movement was basically stupid backing her rather than Castle. They have said the same about Sharron Angle of my state of Nevada, running against Statist Harry Reid. In fact they have said the same of any TEA Party backed candidate. 

The counter attack against Rove, Krauthammer and the rest of the RINO’s and weak kneed conservatives have backfired with a vengeance. Conservatives don’t want Liberals with an “R” for Republican behind their name that vote with Democrats, and want to get along with the Statists. Castle is a prime example; he mostly votes with the Democrats. Rove, Krauthammer and the rest seem to think that an unreliable Statist is preferable to a Conservative because the Statist is more likely to win in the general election this coming November. Then they’ll mostly vote Statist, with the Democrats, and that’s a good thing?

O’Donnell, within 48 hours after her win, had over $750 million donated to her campaign in small donations from all over the US. Her Democrat opponent is a self named, self indentified Marxist. He has used that word to describe his politics, and the RINO’s don’t think O’Donnell can beat him?

Here’s a little history of what RINO’s have done in Congress. The major ones are Arlen Spector, Olympia Snowe, Jim Jeffords, and Susan Collins. Jim Jeffords cost Republicans the Senate when he accepted bribes from the Democrats and changed his party affiliation to Independent. Obama’s stimulus packages could have been successfully filibustered and stopped in the Senate by Republicans (unsuccessful packages that has run up the national debt by $trillions), but Snowe, Collins and Spector voted with the Democrats. This kind of thing has been going on for years, and Conservatives are fed up with it.

The question becomes why do people that identify themselves as Conservatives think running a liberal Republican against a liberal Democrat is a winner. They will vote with the Statists, so what’s the point? We have reached a crossroads, and I think the general public is beginning to notice that the Conservative message of low taxes and limited government works, that deficit spending, anti-business, high tax, top down government control doesn't. It’s just not practical.

A bit of a side note. Not one Democrat that is up for reelection that voted for the Obama\Democrat health care bill are campaigning mentioning that vote.

There’s a revolution happening in America. The weak kneed conservatives are afraid to stand on principle and win advocating for low taxes and smaller government, so have lost credibility as Conservatives. The RINO’s in office are about to be thrown out with the Democrats. The revolution isn’t just happening nationally, but at the state and local levels too.

Viva la Revolucion! 

Benedict XVI: What is owed to Caesar and what is owed to God

Addressing British politicians, businessmen and cultural leaders a few hours ago in Westminister Hall, where in 1535 the great English scholar and statesman Saint Thomas More was tried for treason and condemned to death, Pope Benedict XVI paid tribute to “the perennial question of the relationship between what is owed to Caesar and what is owed to God,” and defended the legitimate role of religion in the public square. It was a masterful speech and well worth checking out. Here are some excerpts from it (or read the full text here):

[T]he fundamental questions at stake in Thomas More’s trial continue to present themselves in ever-changing terms as new social conditions emerge. Each generation, as it seeks to advance the common good, must ask anew: what are the requirements that governments may reasonably impose upon citizens, and how far do they extend? By appeal to what authority can moral dilemmas be resolved? These questions take us directly to the ethical foundations of civil discourse. If the moral principles underpinning the democratic process are themselves determined by nothing more solid than social consensus, then the fragility of the process becomes all too evident - herein lies the real challenge for democracy.

The inadequacy of pragmatic, short-term solutions to complex social and ethical problems has been illustrated all too clearly by the recent global financial crisis. There is widespread agreement that the lack of a solid ethical foundation for economic activity has contributed to the grave difficulties now being experienced by millions of people throughout the world. Just as "every economic decision has a moral consequence" (Caritas in Veritate, 37), so too in the political field, the ethical dimension of policy has far-reaching consequences that no government can afford to ignore.
[…]
The central question at issue, then, is this: where is the ethical foundation for political choices to be found? The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation. According to this understanding, the role of religion in political debate is not so much to supply these norms, as if they could not be known by non-believers – still less to propose concrete political solutions, which would lie altogether outside the competence of religion – but rather to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles. This "corrective" role of religion vis-à-vis reason is not always welcomed, though, partly because distorted forms of religion, such as sectarianism and fundamentalism, can be seen to create serious social problems themselves.

And in their turn, these distortions of religion arise when insufficient attention is given to the purifying and structuring role of reason within religion. It is a two-way process. Without the corrective supplied by religion, though, reason too can fall prey to distortions, as when it is manipulated by ideology, or applied in a partial way that fails to take full account of the dignity of the human person. Such misuse of reason, after all, was what gave rise to the slave trade in the first place and to many other social evils, not least the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. This is why I would suggest that the world of reason and the world of faith – the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief – need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization.