The Grasping Tentacles of Obama's Church

Faultline USA has an important article updating the story of what's going on at Obama's church, the Black Liberation Theology espousing Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. He found a video of a sermon that Otis P. Moss III, the new preacher at TUCC, and his father, Otis P. Moss, Jr., gave together.

As luck would have it, I found a very enlightening, and very troubling, sermon given in tandem by Dr. Otis Moss Jr. and Rev. Otis Moss, III. Can Moses Generation Meet the Joshua Generation? Now you would have to go to the BLT African American Pulpit to find this hour long sermon. It isn’t on YouTube. But like anything of great value, a little time well invested is worth its weight in gold!

Gold? Yes, the kind of gold we need to expose the depths of BLT Heresy, and its Revolutionary form of anti-Americanism.

The sermon starts out with Biblical readings and then . . .

Rev. Otis Moss Jr. reads to his son, Rev. Otis Moss III, a letter written by Afro-centric Moses to Joshua in the 21^st Century. Afro-centric Moses says that "my Afro-centric heritage has served me well . . .I survived genocide because my mother and my father practiced civil disobedience . . .in spite of the Euro-centric distortions of my African-ness . . .”

The entire gist of the sermon is the creation of a new mythos based on the connection of Africans to Moses and the Israelites who were "kept under of the heavy hand of genocide and slavery 400+ years of bondage.”

The constant refrain throughout the sermon is to never forget the past, and the obvious implication is to never forget that Africans are the oppressed – and, most of all, to never forget who the oppressors are!

If you mix the Exodus with a pagan Igbo legend and let the pagan legend supply the meaning, you will not end up with the Christian message. That Moss sermon is thoroughly pagan. How can it be preached at a Christian church, and the church not be realized to be heretical?

When the old preacher said Kulay-Ba (cooley ba? kuleba? koo-lay-ba?) in the ear of the flying Africans the word entered into them and could not be taken out. That is a sorcerous, pagan word. The sermon is about permanently changing the Africans into pagans. It is not about Christianity, but something else that must not be confused with Jesus' message. It is about "liberation" in the form of permanent revolution, by means of a magic word passed down from pagan times. In other words, it carries a black-nationalist Marxist message that appeals to a revived paganism and casts white people as the reviled other.

The Black Liberation Theologists also forget, in their emphasis on the Egyptians as the eternal oppressors of the Israelites, that Jesus fled the Romans to take refuge in Egypt. The world changes. The face of the oppressors changes. The place of refuge changes. Just as it is with the dark-skinned American descendants of slaves. Their oppressors are not the same people who used to oppress them, but an oppressive belief system known as bureaucratic big government that holds them as slaves on the new plantations known as "the projects."

In these new plantations they lack privacy and safety. There is no effective law. They are left to the depredations of predatory drug dealers and other criminals. There is no community around them as employers cannot stay in business in the shadow of a project, as the coddled criminals continually test and rob every business nearby. The Law was scrubbed and racist remnants were removed during the 1960s and 70s. But the plantations have been denied the protection of the Law because of understandable black fears of the formerly racist legal system. These fears are understandable but they are wrong. When the Law fails to pursue criminals and punish them, or treats criminals as children who deserve their hand slapped for major crimes, then criminals take heart in the chaos and they grow more powerful and more dangerous. The prevalence of welfare in the new plantations is another sign of slavery. Rather than paying a poverty wage for hard work as slavery did, welfare pays a poverty wage for not working, or working off the books, and rewards the breakup of families. Neither slavery nor welfare allows people to rise above it, unless they reject it utterly. And rejection of the new plantations is also needed, not only by those who live within them, but by everyone who really cares about allowing people to raise themselves up out of financial, moral, and mental poverty.

Based on my comment at Faultline USA.

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Technorati Tags: Obama, Christianity, Heresy, Trinity, Otis P. Moss III, Religion

Harvey Korman, R.I.P.

Godspeed to a very funny man, here in an old fashioned but still funny musical comedy sketch with Tim Conway from the Carol Burnett Show.

Harvey, may you find the shortest trip possible to Heaven's all-star team of sketch comedy.

Also see Ace for the riotously funny Dentist sketch.

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Technorati Tags: pop culture, RIP, Harvey Korman

It is not enough these days to "Question Authority," you gotta speak with it too

Taylor Mali at a Def Poetry Jam talking about talking, about talking like you mean it, like you know what you're talking about, like you are not making a joke or asking a question.

Money quote:

"As society just becomes so filled with these conflicting feelings of ngggggh, that we've just gotten to the point where we're the most aggressively inarticulate generation to come along, since, you know, a long time ago."

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Technorati Tags: Poetry, Video, Taylor Mali

Fitna Remade and Others

With Fitna Remade, Reza Moradi recuts Geert Wilder's movie Fitna to speak for the Muslims who are victimized by the Takfirism, Sharia and Jihad of political Islam.

What follows is an edited version of Fitna with my commentary about the realities of Islam and political Islam. It is an attempt to disgrace political Islam and its apologists and side with the masses of people resisting it in the Middle East.

Moradi indulges in some moral relativism, comparing Muslim Terrorism to US Military "Terrorism." She favors the banning of religion from society at large (not sure how this could work without an omnipotent dictator in charge). And she also favors increased asylum in western countries of Muslims claiming persecution. But the majority of her argument is still interesting and worth watching.

At FaithFreedom.org, Amitabh Tripathi explores the message sent by a new Jihadist group called Indian Mujahidin claiming responsibility for the bombings against Jaipur, and describes why India has been unable to mount an effective counter to its own Jihadist threats.

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When Mujahideeens in Afghanistan were fighting against Soviet Union it was very much evident that after defeat of Soviet Union in Afghanistan they are not going to stop. America very tactfully used mujahideens against their arch rival of cold war but experts of Islamism in America never took these mujaheedeens as their ally and some of them had apprehensions that these Islamist forces in near future could target America as well. It is the reason why America was able to take on these Islamists just after 9/11. On Contrary we were unprepared to this surge of Islamist movement.

After 1991 when Soviet Union was defeated in Afghanistan and those Mujahideens of Pakistan took the cause to liberate J&K from India. It was prime time to nip in the bud and crush the Islamist aspirations in India but at that stage our political system and intelligentsia tried to divert the attention of people from the debate of Islamist aspiration and Islamist terrorism in J&K was defined as an insurgency and it was said that this is done by some misguided youths due to unemployment. But these misguided unemployed youths were very much guided with religious appeal that ethnic cleansing took place in valley and all Hindus were forced to evacuate their homeland to become refugees in their own country. This was the first chance when we were in position to curb the Islamic terrorism and stop it before spreading its tentacles in other parts of our nation. But we missed the bus.

Amil Imani, Europe Shall Bleed, Once Again

Me and my brother against my cousin; me, my brother, and my cousin against the other. This is an old Muslim saying and Muslims live by this motto. To be sure the people of the-religion of peace- find the world full of “other,” to oppress and kill, both within as well as without the Islamic Ummeh.

Civilized peoples’ idea of the “other” is the exact opposite of that of Muslims. All over Europe, for one, people have been singing the praises of multiculturalism; the idea that everybody should bend over backwards to accommodate the different in society. [...]

To Muslims, anyone who doesn’t toe the line of Islam, as each sect defines it, is the “other” and fair game as kafir (blasphemous; unbeliever in Allah).

Douglas Farah, Good News on the Terror Funding Libel Front

The cases seem to indicate that careful, fair and accurate reporting on terrorism financing can withstand legal challenge even in Europe, where plaintiffs are heavily advantaged in libel proceedings. The catch: You have to be willing and financially able to defend yourself. To all our benefit, the WSJ had the will.

Gilbert T. Sewall, Islam in the Classroom: What the Textbooks Tell Us

Flexibility of taste and, on matters of content, an element of nihilism are essentials for textbook publishing executives and editors. Top editors - who in the case of social studies publishing are indistinguishable from marketing executives - make a business of appeasing pressure groups. Islamic activists, some with no academic credentials or background, are listed as academic reviewers in major textbooks from several companies and imprints. The Council on Islamic Education and other Islamic education organizations are secretive and easily agitated. Their links and consulting activities with publishers raise unanswered questions and merit further scrutiny.

Ibn Kammuna, Qur'anic Shari'a Law

In this article I talk about some aspects of Shari'a law as founded in the Qur’an. A Muslim, regardless of school of thought will have to accept such laws. After all, they are founded in the Qur’an, Allah’s final word. After introducing the crime, I provide the Qur’anic evidence followed by some critical analysis that sheds light on possible alternatives. I end the article with a substantive conclusion.

Basharee Murtadd, Fight Islam because it’s Intolerant, Not because it’s False

Religion is like a placebo. Those who believe in it can do a lot of good for themselves and mankind. Who are we to say that anything that’s false is bad for us? Is Santa Claus bad for our children?

The problem with Islam is not in its inaccuracies, but rather in its intolerance. Belief is a personal choice made by an individual. I have no problem with people believing in Jesus, Buddha, or Mother Goose for that matter. But when a ‘religion’ preaches hatred and intolerance for all those who differ from its adherents, then this ‘religion’ should be declared as a banned political ideology no different from Nazism.

Jahanshah Rashidian, Minorities in Allah’s Country

The Islamic Republic of Iran places the Shiite sect of Islam at the heart of the state apparatus. The Islamisation of all life, based on Khomeini’s own interpretation of Islam, is the central policy of the Islamic ruling elite.

Religious minorities, which include the Sunnite sect of Islam, Christian, Jews, Zoroastrians and Baha’is compromised about 10 % of the population after the Iranian revolution, most of them Sunnite Muslims who also suffer from discrimination as national minorities. In addition, increasing numbers of Shiites, especially after the inception of the IRI, are non-believers.

Laina Farhat-Holzman, Western Media Stooges of Islamist Propaganda: The Case of al-Dura

Our founding fathers regarded a press free from government interference as an essential institution for the protection of democracy. The press was to inform voters through a diversity of viewpoints and to prevent the abuse of power that thrives in the absence of scrutiny.

In the real world, however, media often serves as a mouthpiece of the government in power or a distraction of scandal and gossip as we often find in the American and European popular tabloids.

In some dictatorships there is only one view permitted, the dictator's and foreign journalists are not permitted. In Burma and North Korea, we have seen in the necessity to clandestinely cover Burma's flood-storm disaster or North Korea's recurring starvation.

But in sophisticated dictatorships (Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein's Iraq), foreign journalists were permitted but were under constraint. Uncooperative journalists were expelled. Journalists couldn't cover the country at all if they were expelled, so they had to wait until the end of their tour of duty to tell the truth.

One area of the world that needs to be covered honestly is the Arab Middle East - an area that plays a major role in American foreign policy. Israel has a rambunctiously free press, but the Arab world, particularly the Palestinian Territories and Gaza, is a different case. Local journalists foolish enough to expose graft or corruption will not live long. Foreign journalists must be pro-Palestinian or they are expelled. And some foreign journalists let themselves be used for political propaganda.

Kanchan Gupta, Islam's enemy within

A lie repeated again and again, as Paul Joseph Goebbels proved through word and deed, tends to be believed by the masses. Islamofascists, both at home and abroad, who peddle the myth that 'Islam is the solution' and thus see nothing wrong with the ghastly crimes committed in the name of Islam, would naturally take to Goebbelsian propaganda tactics like a duck takes to water. Fiction propagated slyly at conferences and seminars, mentioned between the lines in newspaper articles, and slipped into Friday sermons by mullahs after the jumma namaaz, acquires a certain legitimacy and is soon perceived as fact.

We have seen this happen in India on more than one occasion. When Hindus were forced to flee their ancestral homes in the Kashmir Valley by killer squads of Islamists who indulged in rapacious depredations and reveled in the slaughter of innocent men, women and children, an insidious campaign was launched, pinning the blame on Mr Jagmohan, then Governor of Jammu & Kashmir: He was accused of telling the Hindus to flee the Valley. Strangely, this fiction was believed by the secular intelligentsia which, in any event, is desperate to clutch at straws to absolve Islamic fanatics of their crimes and eager to paint Islamist marauders in the most glowing of colours.

Similar tactics were used in the wake of commuter train bombing in Mumbai, which killed 187 people. It was blatantly suggested by our homegrown Islamists that the massacre was the handiwork of either "Government agencies" or "Hindu organisations."

The Apostate, Muslims and my intellectual loneliness

I haven’t “engaged” with Muslims about Islam — online or off — for quite a while now. I simply have nothing to say to them about their persistent belief that fairy-tales are real. What can you say? You blink and nod and move on. [...]

Ugh — I feel dirty, tainted. Muslim men do that to me — unfailingly condescending and deeply sexist Muslim men. Unfortunately, I haven’t run into a single specimen that doesn’t conform. Should remember just always to steer clear.

Tahir's Journey, from Muslims for Christ

Soon after arriving in the United States from Palestine 14 years ago, I married a nice Christian girl. She tried to become a Muslim to please me, but the more she did, the more I turned away from her. We had a child together, but the marriage didn’t last because it is hard to love when your heart is filled with hate. Hate is what I was taught growing up in Palestine; hate towards the Jews, the Christians and hate against the world. As a Palestinian, you are taught from day number 1 that the whole world is responsible for our misfortune especially Jews and Christians.

Ahmed Paul, Create in me a clean heart, O God

My name is Ahmed; I was the first born in 1969 in Alexandria Egypt to a religious poor family. My father is a very Devout Muslim who keeps all the pillars of Islam and then some, being raised in such a family made it a very important requirement to be as religious as my father who is also an open minded Man, loved by everyone.

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Technorati Tags: Ex-Muslim, Roundup

For Memorial Day: John McCain III's Address to the Naval Academy

April 2, 2008

Thank you. I am very happy to be here. Annapolis holds a special place in my life, and in the years that have passed since my father drove me to the gates of the Naval Academy to begin my plebe year, memories of my experiences here are often bathed in the welcome haze of nostalgia for the time when I was brave and true and better looking than I am at present. But witnesses to my behavior here, a few of whom are present today, as well as a nagging conscience, have a tendency to interrupt my reverie for a misspent youth, and urge a more honest appraisal of my record and character here. In truth, my four years at the Naval Academy were not notable for exemplary virtue or academic achievement but, rather, for the impressive catalogue of demerits I managed to accumulate. By my reckoning, at the end of my second class year, I had marched enough extra duty to take me to Baltimore and back seventeen times -- which, if not a record, certainly ranks somewhere very near the top.

Never in my wildest flights of youthful fancy did I imagine I would one day be honored to give the commencement address at the Academy as I was some years ago. And, certainly, no matter how inflated was my self-regard as a midshipman, it could never have admitted the prospect that I would someday return to the banks of the Severn as a candidate for President of the United States. My old company officer, who for four years devoted himself to tracking my nocturnal sojourns outside the walls of the Academy and my other petty acts of insubordination, would have certainly shared my skepticism. But in the intervening years and experiences, I have learned what a young man seldom appreciates: that life is rich with irony and unexpected twists of fate, and is all the more fascinating for them. And I learned this, too: that my accomplishments are more a testament to my country, the land of opportunity, than they are to me. In America, everything is possible.

I had a difficult time my plebe year adjusting to the discipline imposed on me, which included, of course, deference to officers and instructors, but to other midshipmen, whose only accomplishment entitling them to my obedience, I thought at the time, was to have been born a year or more before me. I was something of a discipline problem to begin with. The problem being, I didn't like discipline. And that childish impulse that seemed then so important to my self-respect; to protecting the individualism I had been at pains to assert throughout my itinerant childhood, encouraged my irreverence to some of the customs of this place.

It's funny, now, how less self-assured I feel later in life than I did when I lived in the perpetual springtime of youth. Some of my critics allege that age hasn't entirely cost me my earlier conceits. All I can say to them is they should have known me then. But as the great poet, Yeats, wrote, "All that's beautiful drifts away, like the waters." I've lost some of the attributes that were the object of a young man's vanity. But there have been compensations, which I have come to hold dear.

If I had ignored some of the less important conventions of the Academy, I was careful not to defame its more compelling traditions: the veneration of courage and resilience; the honor code that simply assumed your fidelity to its principles; the homage paid to Americans who had sacrificed greatly for our country; the expectation that you, too, would prove worthy of your country's trust.

Appearances to the contrary, it was never my intention to mock a revered culture that expected better of me. Like any other midshipman, I wanted to prove my mettle to my contemporaries and to the institution that figured so prominently in my family history. My idiosyncratic methods amounted to little more than the continued expressions of the truculence I had used at other schools to fend off what I had wrongly identified as attacks on my dignity.

The Naval Academy was not interested in degrading my dignity. On the contrary, it had a more expansive conception of human dignity than I possessed when I arrived at its gates. The most important lesson I learned here was that to sustain my self-respect for a lifetime it would be necessary for me to have the honor of serving something greater than my self-interest.

When I left the Academy, I was not even aware I had learned that lesson. In a later crisis, I would suffer a genuine attack on my dignity, an attack, unlike the affronts I had exaggerated as a boy, that left me desperate and uncertain. It was then I would recall, awakened by the example of men who shared my circumstances, the lesson that the Academy in its venerable and enduring way had labored to impress upon me. It changed my life forever. I had found my cause: citizenship in the greatest nation on earth.

Like most people, when I reflect back on the adventures and joys of youth, I feel a longing for what is lost and cannot be restored. But though such happy pursuits prove ephemeral, something better can endure, and endure until our last moment on earth. And that is the honor you earn and the love you give when you sacrifice with others for a cause greater than yourself.

Our civilization's progress is accelerated by the information-technology revolution that ranks with the industrial revolution as a great pivot point in history. All around the world, the dynamics of the new economy: the internet, the communications revolution and globalization are transforming the way we work and create value; the way we govern ourselves -- or others presume to govern us; the way we live.

But even as we stand today, at the threshold of an age in which the genius of America will, I am confident, again be proven -- the genius that historian Frederick Turner called "that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism ... that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom" -- many Americans are indifferent to or cynical about the virtues that our country claims. In part, it is attributable to the dislocations economic change causes; to the experience of Americans who have, through no fault of their own, been left behind as others profit as they never have before. In part, it is in reaction to government's mistakes and incompetence, and to the selfishness of some public figures who seek to shine the luster of their public reputations at the expense of the public good. But for others, cynicism about our country, government, social and religious institutions seems not a reaction to occasions when they have been let down by these institutions, but because the ease which wealth and opportunity have given their lives led them to the mistaken conclusion that America, and the liberties its system of government is intended to protect, just aren't important to the quality of their lives.

I'm a conservative, and I believe it is a very healthy thing for Americans to be skeptical about the purposes and practices of public officials. We shouldn't expect too much from government -- nor should it expect too much from us. Self-reliance -- not foisting our responsibilities off on others -- is the ethic that made America great.

But when healthy skepticism sours into corrosive cynicism our expectations of our government become reduced to the delivery of services. And to some people the expectations of liberty are reduced to the right to choose among competing brands of designer coffee.

What is lost is, in a word, citizenship. For too many Americans, the idea of good citizenship does not extend beyond walking into a voting booth every two or four years and pulling a lever. And too few Americans demand of themselves even that first obligation of self-government.

But citizenship properly understood is what Ronald Reagan was talking about when he said that Americans "are a nation that has a government -- not the other way around." Citizenship is not just the imposition of the mundane duties of democracy. Nor is it the unqualified entitlement to the protections and services of the state.

Citizenship thrives in the communal spaces where government is absent. Anywhere Americans come together to govern their lives and their communities -- in families, churches, synagogues, museums, symphonies, the Little League, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the Salvation Army or the VFW -- they are exercising their citizenship.

Citizenship is defined by countless acts of love, kindness and courage that have no witness or heraldry and are especially commendable because they are unrecorded.

Although it exists apart from government, citizenship is the habits and institutions that preserve democracy. It is the ways, small and large, we come together to govern ourselves. Citizenship is the responsible exercise of freedom, and is indispensable to the proper functioning of a democracy.

The English writer G.K. Chesterton once wrote that America is a "nation with the soul of a church." What he meant is that America is not a race or a people but an idea -- a place where the only requirement for membership is a belief in the principles of liberty, opportunity and equality under the law on which this nation was founded.

Citizenship is our acceptance of -- and our protection of -- these principles. It is the duties, the loyalties, the inspirations and the habits of mind that bind us together as Americans.

We are the heirs and caretakers of freedom; a blessing preserved with the blood of heroes down through the ages. One cannot go to Arlington Cemetery and see name upon name, grave upon grave, row upon row, without being deeply moved by the sacrifice made by those young men and women.

And those of us who live in this time, who are the beneficiaries of their sacrifice, dare not forget what they did and why they did it, lest we lose our own love of liberty.

Love of country, my friends, is another way of saying love of your fellow countrymen -- a truth I learned a long time ago in a country very different from ours.

That is the good cause that summons every American to service. If you find faults with our country, make it a better one. If you are disappointed with the mistakes of government, join its ranks and work to correct them. I hope more Americans would consider enlisting in our Armed Forces. I hope more would consider running for public office or working in federal, state and local governments. But there are many public causes where your service can make our country a stronger, better one than we inherited. Wherever there is a hungry child, a great cause exists. Where there is an illiterate adult, a great cause exists. Wherever there are people who are denied the basic rights of Man, a great cause exists. Wherever there is suffering, a great cause exists.

The good citizen and wise person pursues happiness that is greater than comfort, more sublime than pleasure. The cynical and indifferent know not what they miss. For their mistake is an impediment not only to our progress as a civilization but to their happiness as individuals.

As blessed as we are, no nation complacent in its greatness can long sustain it. We, too, must prove, as those who came before us proved, that a people free to act in their own interests, will perceive those interests in an enlightened way, will live as one nation, in a kinship of ideals, and make of our power and wealth a civilization for the ages, a civilization in which all people share in the promise and responsibilities of freedom.

Should we claim our rights and leave to others the duty to the ideals that protect them, whatever we gain for ourselves will be of little lasting value. It will build no monuments to virtue, claim no honored place in the memory of posterity, offer no worthy summons to the world. Success, wealth and celebrity gained and kept for private interest is a small thing. It makes us comfortable, eases the material hardships our children will bear, purchases a fleeting regard for our lives, yet not the self-respect that, in the end, matters most. But sacrifice for a cause greater than yourself, and you invest your life with the eminence of that cause, your self-respect assured.

All lives are a struggle against selfishness. All my life I've stood a little apart from institutions that I had willingly joined. It just felt natural to me. But if my life had shared no common purpose, it would not have amounted to much more than eccentric. There is no honor or happiness in just being strong enough to be left alone. As one of my potential opponents often observes, I've spent fifty years in the service of this country and its ideals. I have made many mistakes, and I have my share of regrets. But I've never lived a day, in good times or bad, that I wasn't grateful for the privilege. That's the benefit of service to a country that is an idea and a cause, a righteous idea and cause. America and her ideals helped spare me the worst consequences of the deficiencies in my character. And I cannot forget it.

When I was a young man, I thought glory was the highest attainment, and all glory was self-glory. My parents had tried to teach me otherwise, as did the Naval Academy. But I didn't understand the lesson until later in life, when I confronted challenges I never expected to face.

In that confrontation, I discovered that I was dependent on others to a greater extent than I had ever realized, but neither they nor the cause we served made any claims on my identity. On the contrary, they gave me a larger sense of myself than I had ever had before. And I am a better man for it. I discovered that nothing in life is more liberating than to fight for a cause that encompasses you but is not defined by your existence alone. And that has made all the difference, my friends, all the differences in the world. Thank you.

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Technorati Tags: United States, McCain, Military, Memorial Day

I Praise Thee, Fallen Hero: Repost

I first posted this a year ago, on Memorial Day. I think it still stands.

I had to work today, on Memorial Day. The Titanium mines of Titan are a cruel taskmaster indeed. And yet I took a moment to remember those who have given all their tomorrows for my tomorrows and the tomorrows of those who are close to me. Thank you brave men and women. Thank you for caring enough to risk it all. I don't deserve your deaths, but then none of us do. We don't believe in human sacrifice, not our country, but in men doing what is necessary and putting themselves at risk in order to do what must be done against those who do believe in human sacrifice, the burning bull of Moloch, the suicide bombers and headchoppers and torture-murderers of the global jihad death-cult.

Read some of the stories of those who have earned the Medal of Honor, both those who died and those who lived. Here is one who has an important lesson for those who feel a conflict between their desire for peace and the realization that war has been declared against our country, and that like it or not our choice is not whether to be at war but whether to fight back against those who would slaughter us.

Sgt. Alvin Cullium York, US Army

Alvin York did not want to go to war. He freely admits that and tells why. He says, "There were two reasons why I didn't want to go to war. My own experience told me it wasn't right, and the Bible was against it too.....but Uncle Sam said he wanted me, and I had been brought up to believe in my country."

If there is anything one can say about Alvin York without fear of contradiction, it is that he was patriotic. He loved his country, and what is more, he came from a long line of patriots who had fought for their country all the way from King's Mountain to New Orleans, Chapultepec and Shiloh. In addition to York's direct family ancestors who had fought for their country since the Revolution, he also felt a close kinship with such frontier greats as Andrew Jackson, Davy Crockett and Sam Houston. The influence of all these patriotic ancestors, both by blood and by culture, weighed heavily on the mind of Alvin York as the day of his induction into the army moved closer and even after he got to Camp Gordon. He describes his dilemma in these words:

"So you see my religion and my experience...told me not to go to war, and the memory of my ancestors...told me to get my gun and go fight. I didn't know what to do. I'm telling you there was a war going on inside me, and I didn't know which side to lean to. I was a heap bothered. It is a most awful thing when the wishes of your God and your country...get mixed up and go against each other. One moment I would make up my mind to follow God, and the next I would hesitate and almost make up my mind to follow Uncle Sam. Then I wouldn't know which to follow or what to do. I wanted to follow both but I couldn't. They were opposite. I wanted to be a good Christian and a good American too."

Up to this point in the sheltered life of the isolated valley in which Alvin York had lived, he had never come face to face with and had to choose between two great principles or courses of action. He had always just assumed that being a good Christian and being a good, patriotic American were one and the same thing. At least they were so closely connected that a man dedicated to one would automatically be dedicated to the other. Now he was learning it was not so in the light of what he had always been taught about Christianity and about patriotism. The complexities of theology and its application to living in a world far more complex than he had imagined, drove him to cry out, "I am a soul in doubt."

The records in the War Department in Washington will always make it appear that Alvin York was a conscientious objector. He was not. He was a "soul in doubt" as he said. He was torn between what he thought was his duty to his country and his God. When this conflict was resolved in his mind, he never again voiced objection to fighting, killing if necessary, for his country. The petitions filed asking exemption from military duty were initiated by Pastor Pile and his mother. "My little old mother and Pastor Pile wanted me to get out," he wrote in his diary.

"Pastor Pile put in a plea to the government that it was against the religion of our church to fight, and that he wanted to get me out on these grounds. And he sent his papers to the War Department, and they filled them out and sent them to me at the camp and asked me to sign them.

"They told me all I had to do was to sign them. And I refused to sign them, as I couldn't see it the way Pastor Pile did. My mother, too, put in a plea to get me out as her sole support. My father was dead and I was keeping my mother and brothers and sisters. And the papers were fixed up and sent to Camp Gordon and I was asked to sign them. I knew I had plenty of brothers back there who could look after my mother, that I was not the sole support, and I didn't feel I ought to do it. And so I never asked for exemption on any grounds at all. I never was a conscientious objector. I am not today. I didn't want to go and fight and kill. But I had to answer the call of my country and I did. I believed it was right. I have got no hatred toward the Germans and I never had."

Here we have a direct statement from Alvin York denying categorically that he ever was a conscientious objector. But we have another direct quotation from another book stating that "....so long as the records remain I will be officially known as a conscientious objector. I was. I joined the church. I had taken its creed, and I had taken it without what you might call reservations. I was not a Sunday Christian. I believed in the Bible, and I tried in my own way to live up to it."

Here we have two direct statements which appear to be flatly contradictory: "I never was a conscientious objector," and "So long as the records remain I will be officially known as a conscientious objector. I was."

How do we reconcile these statements? Or can we reconcile them? I think we can.

Those who knew Alvin York personally knew how confused he was at that time. In that confused state of mind he interpreted the term "conscientious objector" in two different ways, as it was used by the War Department and as he saw it in the light of his church creed and the Bible. By the former interpretation he was not a conscientious objector; by the latter he was. His lack of education made it impossible for him to comprehend entirely the two horns of the dilemma upon which he was impaled. In his own writing he gives us a basis for this explanation: "Only the boy who is uneducated can understand what an awful thing ignorance is . . . . I know what I want to say, but I don't always know just how to put it down on paper. I just don't know how to get it out of me and put it in words."

The conflict raged on in his mind. He was still the "soul in doubt knowing that he really wanted to follow in the footsteps of his ancestors and fight for his country, but finding no way to reconcile war and killing with his own conscience and the creed of his church.

What did this conscientious objector do to earn himself the Medal of Honor?

"The part which Corporal York individually played in the attack (the capture of the Decauville Railroad) is difficult to estimate. Practically unassisted he captured 132 Germans (three of whom were officers), took about thirty-five machine guns, and killed no less than twenty-five of the enemy, later found by others on the scene of York's extraordinary exploit. The story has been carefully checked in every possible detail from headquarters of this division and is entirely substantiated. Although York's statement tends to underestimate the desperate odds which he overcame, it has been decided to forward to higher authorities the account given in his own name. The success of this assault had a far-reaching effect in relieving the enemy pressure against American forces in the heart of the Argonne Forest."

The official history of the 82nd Division states that York's exploit in the Argonne Forest "will always be retold in the military tradition of our country. It is entitled to a place among the famous deeds in arms in legendary or modern warfare." Following this exploit which made him famous, York stayed on in the front lines in the Argonne from October 8 until November 1. It was during this time that he had his closest call. "The nearest I came to getting killed in France," he wrote, "was in an apple orchard in Sommerance in the Argonne." They were digging in during a German artillery barrage when a big shell hit immediately in front of them. York describes the experience: "I have dug on farms and in gardens and in road work and on the railroad, but it takes big shells dropping close by to make you really dig. And I'm telling you the dirt was flying. And then Bang!....one of the big shells struck the ground right in front of us and we all went up in the air. But we all came down again. Nobody was hurt, but it sure was close."

After retiring, York became a tireless campaigner for education for mountain children, and eventually was harassed until his death by the IRS. It is one hell of a story. Read the whole thing.

Thank God for men like Sgt. York and all the other brave fighting men and women that have honored America with their service.

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Technorati Tags: United States, Military, Memorial Day, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Repost

SUVs, Backyard Grills, Snowmobiles found on Jupiter, causing Global Warming

Jupiter's Great Red Spot has been a feature of its surface for about 300 years. But since 2006 there have been two. Now a third has appeared. NASA explains that Jupiter's recent outbreak of red spots is likely related to global warming, as the gas giant is warming near its equator.

Sunflower McGee, of the Jupiter Liberation Front, explains. "Darth Cheney and Halliburton are responsible for sending cheap Chinese manufactured SUVs, snowmobiles, Ginsu knife sets, and backyard grills to Jupiter. This encourages the formerly vegetarian tribal natives of Jupiter to cut down their rain forests and burn the wood in their new grills, all in order to murder and cook the same Jovian animals they used to esteem as their brothers and sisters. I am ashamed to be a human, for we are not only a plague on our own planet but also one to Jupiter."

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Technorati Tags: Global Warming, Eco-Paganism

200+ Billion Barrels of Oil underneath North Dakota - The Sequel

On March 28, I wrote:

According to Next Energy News, maybe as many as 500 Billion Barrels of Oil are sitting in the Bakken Formation underneath North Dakota. Even if the deposit is only 200 Billion Barrels it is still the biggest known deposit in the world. If it is 500 Billion, it gives the US the largest deposits in the world by a big margin.

The preliminary report of 200-500 billion barrels has faded into invisibility as the USGS released a revised study stating that 3.5 billion barrels were available. How can this be? Never fear, I will explain it. Piccolo analyzes the data at the Oil Drum. He explains that the Bakken range has 200-500 billion barrels of oil in place. It is an oil shale deposit. The porosity and permeability of the rock average around 5% and 0.04 millidarcies. I'm not going to explain what a darcie or millidarcie is, because unlike Piccolo I am no petroleum engineer. Stay with me though. In the sweet spots of the Bakken, the recovery rate may range between 5% and 15%. There won't be many of these. Wells drilled in other locations will have a recovery rate between 1% and 5%, or even lower than 1%. Overall, the USGS estimate of 3.5 billion barrels assumes the total recovery rate is 2.1%. Piccolo is skeptical that the recovery rate will really be this high.

The only way that more oil could be recovered would be if there was a breakthrough invention for recovering oil from low porosity, low permeability oil reservoirs such as the Bakken. And such an invention would vastly increase the amount of recoverable in all the played out oil wells of the world, not just in the new wells in the Bakken Range and the Williston Basin. Any inventors with a good idea out there?

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Technorati Tags: Energy, Good News, Science, Bakken

Obama's Barack and Roll crowd in Portland

I have no idea whether the 75,000 people who attended Obama's rally in Portland, on the first warm Sunday after an unusually long and cold winter, were there to see him, to have fun on a nice day and flirt with all the other promiscuous liberals, or to see the free rock band. It was probably a combination of reasons. Someone who was there wrote:

I saw the crowd in my city. It was the single largest number of people I've ever seen. No doubt a few thousand came to see the 45 min rock band, but the other 70,000 came to see Obama. You ask anyone in the crowd why they came. It was free, the weather was perfect, and Obama was in town. Portland showed up for Obama when it counts in the end. May that never be forgotten. Portland is progressive--we don't want to recycle old presidents, Clintons, and Bushes, for another 20 years!! Revolving dynasties turn rotten after a while.

I sympathize with the sentiment concerning the revolving dynasties in the Presidency. However there are more important things in the world than the last name of the candidates. Platform is one of them. The personal history and character of the candidate is another. Their skill at drawing rock-show sized crowds is secondary at best.

Anyway, before BO spoke there was a free concert by the Decemberists, an up-and-coming crypto-communist rock band from Portland. Rolling Stone loves them. Watch "O Valencia" for a taste of Tarantino-style paranoia from the band.

The juxtaposition of BO with Portland's own Decemberists, who play the National Anthem of the Soviet Union before their concerts, is interesting enough, and also interesting in what it says about progressive Portland.

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Technorati Tags: Obama, Portland, Progressive, Neocommunism

Wordpress Trackbacks Broken - UPDATE: Fixed

As is currently being discussed on this forum, WordPress.com trackbacks are broken. The WordPress trackbacks option hides and comes out like it's supposed to but there is no trackback box to put trackbacks into. If you need to do trackbacks you can use haloscan's manual trackback page. You will have to create a haloscan account to use it.

Update: As of 8:45PM CDT on 5/20/08 it's fixed.

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Technorati Tags: Wordpress, Blogging, Trackbacks

HizbAllah Symbology

I believe this to be an important analysis of the symbolism and meaning of HizbAllah. Alexis brings up some interesting points [1, 2, 3] about the symbology of HizbAllah / Hezbollah / Hizbullah at the Belmont Club. His or her points have not, as far as I know, been raised anywhere else.

The images of the HizbAllah flag appear to the right on the yellow field of the Hizb flag. Wikipedia lists the obvious features of the symbol.

Flag of Hezbollah. The bottom text means "The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon". The upper text means "Then surely the party of Allah are they that shall be triumphant". (Quran 5:56) The green text is the name of the group — with the first letter of "Allah" reaching up to grasp a Soviet AK-47.

Here is the first bombshell that Alexis launched concerning the Hizb flag.

Another part of Islam is post-apocalyptic. In this scenario, the reign of Mohammed and the Four Rightly Guided Caliphs was the golden age of Islam; Islam has declined ever since. This is a common view in Shi’ism. Sunnis have their own variant; Sayyid Qutb claimed that Islam hasn’t existed for several centuries; al-Qaeda laments the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Restorationism comes from a post-apocalyptic view of time, which regards one’s religion as ruined, finished, gone. The Restorationist seeks to turn back the clock to a previous golden age and appeals to a keen sense of desperation, a sense that evil has almost entirely triumphed except for a small band of courageous revolutionaries who seek to restore an earthly paradise that actually never was.

Islamic Restorationism can be considered to be a religious form of Viagra; it’s intended for men who lack confidence in their own potency. I urge you to look carefully at the Hezbollah flag. On first glance, that assault rifle could be considered to be an expression of a man’s potency. The hand holding the assault rifle could be seen as an abstract head of a penis. But look to the left part of the “globe”; there is a break. This would appear to be reference to castration, to having one’s penis cut off. So, far from the Hezbollah assault rifle being an expression of a man’s potency, it is a substitute for a man’s potency; it essentially says that without an assault rifle, a man in Hezbollah is nothing. So of course Hezbollah will not disarm; it will not because it cannot. Its flag tells you that.

To those who know Middle Eastern history, Hezbollah’s apparent reference to phallic worship should not come as any surprise. It’s really sad. For a terrorist organization to appeal so blatantly to fears of castration illustrates just how frail supporters of terrorists can perceive themselves to be. Moreover, Hezbollah’s apparent phallic reference suggests that, far from being an Islamic organization at all, Hezbollah is attempting to pass off its counterfeit religion as the real thing.

Well that was a Freudian shock. The severed fist of HizbAllah resistance holds an AK-47 over a globe which may represent Earth or may represent the Moon. It looms over a branch with several leaves. The leafy branch resembles an olive branch to my eye. The AK-47 is also suspended over a book, shown in profile, which for any Muslim must mean the Koran. There is more on the Koran and the leafy branch later in this post. The AK-47 also looms above the green stylized words "Hizb Allah." The first letter of "Allah" forms the base of the phallic symbol and raised fist holding the AK-47, thus showing that Allah is subservient to HizbAllah's Jihad.

Alexis expounds on this point (I have deleted a sentence that Alexis admitted was in error).

Look at the gap. Why was the gap so necessary? One could argue that Hezbollah does not wish to sully the word “Allah” with a direct connection to an assault rifle. Yet, why would the rifle be above the word “Allah” and not below it? When one sees a shahada flag, once expects the sword to be underneath the shahada, not above it. There is a difference between a sword underlining the power of a sacred word and a sacred word underlining the power of a sword. [...] The hand on the rifle is on top of the word “Allah”, not below it; this shows God to be in service of the rifle, not the other way around.

The question of whether anything is on top of the word of God is a major issue among devout Muslims. (If you don’t believe me, you haven’t met any.) This issue is very important to many Muslims. It is regarded as disrespectful to place any other book on top of the Koran. If there is a copy of illuminated Koranic manuscripts at the bottom of a bookcase, a devout Muslim will feel uneasy about it and will try to get it placed at the top of the bookcase. To a devout Muslim, the word “Allah” is more important than any other word and the Koran is more important than any other book. There are reasons why rumors of flushed Korans get Muslims upset. So, given such a cultural circumstance, it is logical to question why Hezbollah puts the rifle above the word “Allah”, as if there were anything more important than the word "Allah".

Alexis also expounds on some of the other symbology in the device.

I also do not understand the reference to a branch with leaves; I’m not sure which plant it refers to. (For example, a palm reference in Semitic literature would have a very different meaning from an olive reference.) I also don’t understand the “accordion” reference either, although I strongly suspect this also has an important meaning attached to it. I confess that there is much to the symbolism of the “hezbollah” insignia that I do not understand. Wretchard may write about psychological warfare, yet I greatly doubt there has been any systematic analysis of the symbolic language used in Middle Eastern politics. I think the symbolic terrain of Arab culture is largely Terra Incognita for western academe.

I very much doubt that my analysis is written anywhere else. Symbolic communication, particularly cryptic symbolism, does not seem to be generally talked about outside of academic settings. Cryptic symbolism is central to any study of WWII resistance propaganda, though. For example, one popular favorite piece of Dutch wall propaganda was the number six and a quarter with a slash through it. In Dutch, this was “seis en kwart” (six and a quarter), a reference to the local Reichskommissar, Dr. Arthur Seyss-Inquart. Dutch people also wore orange flowers, symbolizing the exiled House of Orange. Likewise, the letter “Z” was used to protest the assassination of Gregoris Lambrakis and repression by the Greek junta. Cryptic language is difficult for repressive regimes to control.

I believe the "accordion" is actually the Koran. The leafy branch (olive leaves?) arising from the Koran combines the peace symbolism of the olive branch with a visual pun on the "suras," or verses of the Koran. "Suras" means "leaves" in Arabic. The leafy branch arising from the Koran is a representation of the verses or leaves of the Koran branching out and reaching out into the world. The leaves also reach toward the AK-47, underlining the Koranic justification for Hizb's idolatry of Jihad.

I hope this analysis of HizbAllah's symbolism has been useful and of interest to others besides myself.

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Technorati Tags: HizbAllah, Jihad, Counterjihad

Obama in the Hood

Ti$a's viral campaign video for Obama seems like the kind of polarizing appeal that Barack Obama's campaign is dreading having to explain to the squares. By the squares I mean anyone who isn't already in the tank for Obama.

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Technorati Tags: Obama, Video

Hillary's Good Luck Charm Finishes Second, Dies

Hillary Clinton picked the filly Eight Belles to win the Kentucky Derby. She bet on her to win, place, and show. Eight Belles was running a clean race with no bumping, but both front ankles broke shortly after crossing the finish line. She (the horse) had to be euthanized by injection on the track, in front of the spectators of the race, before Big Brown, the favorite and winner, was presented with his trophy.

Barack Obama picked Colonel John (not Admiral John) to win. His horse was not in the money.

PETA blamed the jockey, Gabriel Saez, for the tragedy.

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Technorati Tags: Clinton, Obama, Sports, Eight Belles

Egypt May 4 Strike Fizzles, "inshallah"

The May 4 strike that the April 6 group planned seems to have fizzled. Whether it was the security preparations, the Muslim Brotherhood calls for protesters to stay home in a peaceful (non) protest, or the fact that Mubarak promised a 30% raise to the civil service, something appears to have taken the wind out of the strikers' sails.

I guess that the Egyptian economy and government will be improved "inshallah," if God wills it. But I don't expect Egyptians to do anything about it.

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Technorati Tags: Egypt, May 4, Mubarak, Strike

Reach for the Star and you might just reach the Moon

This is a comment I made on the Spyglass, in response to a post about witnessing to and proselytizing to Muslims that focused on Father Zakaria Botros and Pope Benedict XVI.

As Skarbutts points out in Faith Against Faith, there is no belief system that lacks faith.

A belief system based solely upon the science of reason is more limited than a system based upon faith in a Creator, in that, man as the exclusive source of knowledge is limited. Since a materialistic system of thought seeks to exclude things that cannot be verified, gaps in knowledge are created which must be bridged in order to be logical. This creates a paradox, for to fill these gaps in knowledge, the materialist must resort to faith. The faith of the materialist, however, is an antifaith. His thought process is not in the spiritual but the in the physical. He is, therefore, forced to manufacture knowledge based on circumstantial evidence, or create and rely upon theories and assumptions in order to connect pieces of knowledge and arrive at any explanations. These explanations often tend to create even more questions which in turn demand an even greater faith from the materialist. Thus, in many cases, the materialist is no less believing, no less devoted, no less fanatical, nor any less evangelical than his religious counterpart. When an idea gains enough traction in intellectual circles it becomes widely accepted as a reality; therefore, many things that are treated as fact are unknown to man.

In other words, there is no practical reason to choose the secular outreach over the religious one. A religious belief system is complete where a secular one is not (as Skarbutts proves), and the fundamentalist Islamic belief system is nothing if not complete. You cannot replace a complete belief system with an incomplete one. The incomplete belief system will not hold if challenged.

To add to the previous paragraph, a secular belief system ends up being as complete as a religious one because faith becomes incorporated in it. However, the nature of that faith can change based on circumstance. So the real danger of a secular belief system is that it is unstable, and therefore it might not last. The faith basis of a religious belief system comes from the core beliefs and moral structure of religion and is not susceptible to casual changes. Therefore it is stable. Stability increases happiness and satisfaction. Instability leads to flailing for answers and to a change in beliefs.

If we make our strategy one of conversion or moral neutralization, and our target either all Muslims or only the Idolaters of Jihad, there is no good reason to choose either the lesser target or strategy. Failed neutralization does not reduce the number of Jihad-worshippers in the world. But a failed conversion might still neutralize. Likewise, reaching out to all Muslims will necessarily include Jihad-worshippers as well as those who do not idolize Jihad, and will reduce the human ocean in which the Jihad terrorists travel.

Imagine the winking five-pointed star perched above the crescent moon. Reach for the star and even if you fail you might reach the moon.

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Technorati Tags: Christianity, Islam, Counterjihad

Mayday Poem - The Ballad of Lenin's Tomb

The stealth communist holiday of Mayday deserves a poem that exposes the rotten, hollow heart of Russian Communism and the mass murder and tyranny that beat at the heart of the Mayday celebration.

Here is a good poem. "The Ballad of Lenin's Tomb" by Robert W. Service.

This is the yarn he told me
As we sat in Casey's Bar,
That Rooshun mug who scrammed from the jug
In the Land of the Crimson Star;
That Soveet guy with the single eye,
And the face like a flaming scar.

Where Lenin lies the red flag flies, and the rat-grey workers wait
To tread the gloom of Lenin's Tomb, where the Comrade lies in state.
With lagging pace they scan his face, so weary yet so firm;
For years a score they've laboured sore to save him from the worm.
The Kremlin walls are grimly grey, but Lenin's Tomb is red,
And pilgrims from the Sour Lands say: "He sleeps and is not dead."
Before their eyes in peace he lies, a symbol and a sign,
And as they pass that dome of glass they see - a God Divine.
So Doctors plug him full of dope, for if he drops to dust,
So will collapse their faith and hope, the whole combine will bust.
But say, Tovarich; hark to me . . . a secret I'll disclose,
For I did see what none did see; I know what no one knows.

I was a Cheka terrorist - Oh I served the Soviets well,
Till they put me down on the bone-yard list, for the fear that I might tell;
That I might tell the thing I saw, and that only I did see,
They held me in quod with a firing squad to make a corpse of me.
But I got away, and here to-day I'm telling my tale to you;
Though it may sound weird, by Lenin's beard, so help me God it's true.
I slouched across that great Red Square, and watched the waiting line.
The mongrel sons of Marx were there, convened to Lenin's shrine;
Ten thousand men of Muscovy, Mongol and Turkoman,
Black-bonnets of the Aral Sea and Tatars of Kazan.
Kalmuck and Bashkir, Lett and Finn, Georgian, Jew and Lapp,
Kirghiz and Kazakh, crowding in to gaze at Lenin's map.
Aye, though a score of years had run I saw them pause and pray,
As mourners at the Tomb of one who died but yesterday.
I watched them in a bleary daze of bitterness and pain,
For oh, I missed the cheery blaze of vodka in my brain.
I stared, my eyes were hypnotized by that saturnine host,
When with a start that shook my heart I saw - I saw a ghost.
As in foggèd glass I saw him pass, and peer at me and grin -
A man I knew, a man I slew, Prince Boris Mazarin.

Now do not think because I drink I love the flowing bowl;
But liquor kills remorse and stills the anguish of the soul.
And there's so much I would forget, stark horrors I have seen,
Faces and forms that haunt me yet, like shadows on a screen.
And of theses sights that mar my nights the ghastliest by far
Is the death of Boris Mazarin, that soldier of the Czar.

A mighty nobleman was he; we took him by surprise;
His mother, son and daughters three we slew before his eyes.
We tortured him, with jibes and threats; then mad for glut of gore,
Upon our reeking bayonets we nailed him to the door.
But he defied us to the last, crying: "O carrion crew!
I'd die with joy could I destroy a hundred dogs like you."
I thrust my sword into his throat; the blade was gay with blood;
We flung him to his castle moat, and stamped him in its mud.
That mighty Cossack of the Don was dead with all his race....
And now I saw him coming on, dire vengeance in his face.
(Or was it some fantastic dream of my besotted brain?)
He looked at me with eyes a-gleam, the man whom I had slain.
He looked and bade me follow him; I could not help but go;
I joined the throng that passed along, so sorrowful and slow.
I followed with a sense of doom that shadow gaunt and grim;
Into the bowels of the Tomb I followed, followed him.

The light within was weird and dim, and icy cold the air;
My brow was wet with bitter sweat, I stumbled on the stair.
I tried to cry; my throat was dry; I sought to grip his arm;
For well I knew this man I slew was there to do us harm.
Lo! he was walking by my side, his fingers clutched my own,
This man I knew so well had died, his hand was naked bone.
His face was like a skull, his eyes were caverns of decay . . .
And so we came to the crystal frame where lonely Lenin lay.

Without a sound we shuffled round. I sought to make a sign,
But like a vice his hand of ice was biting into mine.
With leaden pace around the place where Lenin lies at rest,
We slouched, I saw his bony claw go fumbling to his breast.
With ghastly grin he groped within, and tore his robe apart,
And from the hollow of his ribs he drew his blackened heart. . . .
Ah no! Oh God! A bomb, a BOMB! And as I shrieked with dread,
With fiendish cry he raised it high, and . . . swung at Lenin's head.
Oh I was blinded by the flash and deafened by the roar,
And in a mess of bloody mash I wallowed on the floor.
Then Alps of darkness on me fell, and when I saw again
The leprous light 'twas in a cell, and I was racked with pain;
And ringèd around by shapes of gloom, who hoped that I would die;
For of the crowd that crammed the Tomb the sole to live was I.
They told me I had dreamed a dream that must not be revealed,
But by their eyes of evil gleam I knew my doom was sealed.

I need not tell how from my cell in Lubianka gaol,
I broke away, but listen, here's the point of all my tale. . . .
Outside the "Gay Pay Oo" none knew of that grim scene of gore;
They closed the Tomb, and they they threw it open as before.
And there was Lenin, stiff and still, a symbol and a sign,
And rancid races come to thrill and wonder at his Shrine;
And hold the thought: if Lenin rot the Soviets will decay;
And there he sleeps and calm he keeps his watch and ward for aye.
Yet if you pass that fram of glass, peer closly at his phiz,
So stern and firm it mocks the worm, it looks like wax . . . and is.
They tell you he's a mummy - don't you make that bright mistake:
I tell you - he's a dummy; aye, a fiction and a fake.
This eye beheld the bloody bomb that bashed him on the bean.
I heard the crash, I saw the flash, yet . . . there he lies serene.
And by the roar that rocked the Tomb I ask: how could that be?
But if you doubt that deed of doom, just go yourself and see.
You think I'm mad, or drunk, or both . . . Well, I don't care a damn:
I tell you this: their Lenin is a waxen, show-case SHAM.

Such was the yarn he handed me,
Down there in Casey's Bar,
That Rooshun bug with the scrambled mug
From the land of the Commissar.
It may be true, I leave it you
To figger out how far.

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Technorati Tags: Open Trackbacks, Communism, Poetry, Tyrrany, Crime and Punishment