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[ by Charles Cameron — cat picture meets strategy, history meets scripture ]
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Here you go:

With thanks to @alabandine.

[ by Charles Cameron — behold Abraham Lincoln of the USN sending a signal to Iran, the IRGC, and various Shia militias of dubious reliability ]
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Here is a word, maybe even a sentence, in the language of menace:

It looks even more menacing in the full-sized image as I found it, thanks to Julian West, in the Guardian. – hit the link to see it, it’s too large for the Zenpundit format!

Now imagine how menacing that word or sentence becomes when it’s not a photo but a carrier strike group sailing your way..

And now think how menacing that carrier group becomes when John Bolton‘s the one who may be — pardon the pun — calling the shots

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Let’s go back to the image up above for a moment, and pray there are no unfortunate accidents, and that the carrier strike group seen here as a sentence in the language of menace doesn’t become anyone’s death sentence..

[ by Charles Cameron — Oxford the memory, Edward Said the music critic, WB Yeats and his Tom O’Roughley, Townes Van Zandt in the song of David Broza.. Barr and Aaliyah — four-page letters, kisses .. plus FaallBack, & Wiz Khalifa on my watch [!!] ]

Minefield, yes —

— but also two sides on one stage, so two virtues in the music of ideas:

polyphony — many voices, and

counterpoint, the juxtaposition, clash and resolution of contrary points of view

For war and peace as symphonic, see Edward Said:

When you think about it, when you think about Jew and Palestinian not separately, but as part of a symphony, there is something magnificently imposing about it. A very rich, also very tragic, also in many ways desperate history of extremes – opposites in the Hegelian sense – that is yet to receive its due. So what you are faced with is a kind of sublime grandeur of a series of tragedies, of losses, of sacrifices, of pain that would take the brain of a Bach to figure out. It would require the imagination of someone like Edmund Burke to fathom.

Just a snippet — the first paragraph from the Guardian piece:

Lou Armour is a special needs teacher, an introspective man with a walking stick. If you passed him on the street you probably wouldn’t notice anything about him beyond his limp. But 35 years ago he yomped across the Falkland Islands and ran through a minefield under artillery fire on Mount Harriet. His section killed several Argentinians in a bloody battle and Armour found himself attending to a fatally wounded Argentinian soldier who spoke to him in English about visiting Oxford. He watched as the young man died.

Ah, Oxford.

That’s I’d say, is a very good start for this post.

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Okay, back into the mire:

Defense One, The US Military Is Creating the Future of Employee Monitoring

Uh oh, just what we need!

As I said to Ali Minai, my view is that of WB Yeats in his poem Tom O’Roughley:

‘Though logic choppers rule the town,
And every man and maid and boy
Has marked a distant object down,
An aimless joy is a pure joy,’
Or so did Tom O’Roughley say
That saw the surges running by,
‘And wisdom is a butterfly
And not a gloomy bird of prey.

‘If little planned is little sinned
But little need the grave distres.
What’s dying but a second wind?
How but in zigzag wantonness
Could trumpeter Michael be so brave?’
Or something of that sort he said,
‘And if my dearest friend were dead
I’d dance a measure on his grave.’

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Back to the Mueller probe according to President Trump

:Many, many people were badly hurt by this scam, but more importantly, our country was hurt. Our country was hurt. And they are on artificial respirators right now. They are getting mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

— and back to “little pencil-neck Adam Schiff” aka “Adam Schitt”:

He’s got the smallest, thinnest neck I’ve ever seen. He is not a long-ball hitter, but I saw him today, ‘Well we don’t really know, there still could have been some Russia collusion.’

Sick, sick.. these are sick people and there has to be accountability because it is all lies and they know it’s lies ..

Well then:

That’s an unexpected and welcome follow-up ..

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And so to Trump:

Wildcard*****, a nice, slightly paradoxical example..

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I’m watching Hanna (Amazon), starring the skilled and lovely Esme Creed-Miles:

Life, she is full of variety, no?

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elshi & Ruhle:

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MTP 3/29/2019:

Again, trump, trump, trump..

Rep Jamie Raskin, his way with words:

Attorney General Barr writes letters like Agatha Christie novels, there are more and more mysteries built into each one ..

[Impeachment] it’s the people’s defense against a president who’s acting like a king ..

Katy Tur:

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The Beat, Ari Melber:

First, a stream of chyrons..

Aisha:

I’m dropping this four-page letter and enclosing it with a kiss..

Aside: the things we learn!!

Howard Fineman:

I think he’s part of the team..

Let me use a basketball analogy if you don’t mind.. You know how, at the end of a game when one team thinks it’s ahead and they spread the floor and start tossing the ball around to keep from getting fouled to stop the clock, that’s my interpretation [of Barr’s actions] here..

.. dozens of years of Yale Law School education, and we end at the freak-show tent ..

A pair:

Then there’s a quote from Obama’s Selma Bridge speech:

We are the people Langston Hughes wrote of who “build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how.” We are the people Emerson wrote of, “who for truth and honor’s sake stand fast and suffer long;” who are “never tired, so long as we can see far enough.”

That’s what America is. Not stock photos or airbrushed history, or feeble attempts to define some of us as more American than others.

Fallback, which I generally don’t like too much, but here —

— hunting and shooting a sleeping lion —

If you’re hunting to eat, that’s one thing ..

You want to impress me — go fight that lion with your bare hands, knuckles, teeth — and then come back and talk to me..

[cf past Maasai hunting traditions.. ]

— and which, further into the Fallback episode, brings us more music — Stay in ur lane:

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So here I’ll take a break..

[ by Charles Cameron — nuke is about as fierce a military metaphor as you can use, though bringing on Armageddon may surpass it, while being grilled can’t be nice, eh, Kirstjen Nielsen? — but for unabashed cliché wizardry in the dark arts is hard to beat. And much more ]
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All in With Chris Hayes 3/6/2019:

Harry Littman:

It’s very kind of clock and dagger and ham handed, but just ham handed enough to be potentially a Rudi Giuliani signature move..

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Rachel Maddow:

possession of brains ..

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The Atlantic:

Will John Bolton Bring on Armageddon—Or Stave It Off?

Bolton is a sovereigntist,” John Yoo told me. “He thinks the U.S. should not be bound by international organizations, and we should not be ceding our authority to the United Nations or NAFTA.” After the Cold War, “the U.S. tied itself down with multilateral institutions, primarily run by Europeans, to constrain our freedom of action—to tie down Gulliver.” Every time the United States joins an alliance, or consents to arbitration on equal terms with, say, Latvia or Guinea, one more rope is lashed over Gulliver’s limbs.

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New Yorker:

Morning Joe 3/7/2019

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grilled

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The Atlantic:

California Is at War With the Trump White House
Governor Gavin Newsom called President Trump’s border wall and immigrant bashing “a national disgrace.”

From the moment Donald Trump took office, California has been ground zero for the resistance against him and his administration, in terms of both grassroots citizen activism and legal and administrative action by its Democratic-dominated state government. But since the inauguration of Governor Gavin Newsom in January, the Golden State has often seemed to be in a state of total war with the White House.

At the same time, California’s once-mighty Republican Party—which gave the nation Earl Warren, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan—is at war with itself, and weaker than it’s been in decades. The GOP’s new state-Senate leader was once quoted as suggesting that California’s epic drought was divine punishment for abortion, and last weekend the party elected its first female and first Latina state chair, only after a bitter internecine fight that left its conservative wing enraged.

ground zero, the resistance, a state of total war, at war with itself, divine punishment for abortion, a bitter internecine fight..

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The Atlantic:

A hideous DoubleQuote from Eliot Cohen, Socially Acceptable Anti-Semitism
It is the religion of people too lazy to accept the complexity of reality.

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The Atlantic:

nuke, wizardry in the dark arts

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How to Cheat at Xi Jinping Thought
A newly mandatory app is eating up Chinese workers’ time—so they’re finding ways around it.

The origin of the app has some obvious parallels to Cultural Revolution-era drives to study Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book. For example, the first two characters of the app’s logo are written in Mao’s calligraphic style. Mao once encouraged youths to study hard and make progress every day, while Xi has highlighted several times the importance of study in a digital era of media.

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And this one’s for the liminal, borders and walls collection:

When the Frontier Becomes the Wall
What the border fight means for one of the nation’s most potent, and most violent, myths.

n Election Day, 2018, residents of Nogales, Arizona, began to notice a single row of coiled razor wire growing across the top of the city’s border wall. The barrier has been a stark feature of the town’s urban landscape for more than twenty years, rolling up and over hilltops as it cleaves the American town from its larger, Mexican counterpart. But, in the weeks and months that followed, additional coils were gradually installed along the length of the fence by active-duty troops sent to the border by President Trump, giving residents the sense that they were living inside an occupied city. By February, concertina wire covered the wall from top to bottom, and the Nogales City Council passed a unanimous resolution calling for its removal. Such wire has only one purpose, the resolution declared—to harm or to kill. It is something “only found in a war, prison, or battle setting.”

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Some final notes:

Ali Velshi 3/7/2019:

Jennifer Rubin:

We’re going to see sort of what he does when he’s finally looking at years and years in prison, is he then kind of sober up, and decide well maybe I should be cooperating with these people after all, or does he just at this point go down for the count, and take whatever secrets he has with him..

Hardball:

Malcolm Nance:

I would make it clear there are more chips in the bag of the Special Prosecutor

All In:

Eric Swalwell:

As a former prosecutor, I think you’re seeing a white collar, white-washing sentence here [ .. ]

We learned a lot about the Trump code, that people like Paul Manafort and others know the code, that Donald Trump speaks to them in the code that they’re supposed to talk to him. And when the lawyers saying words that mimic or parrot what Donald Trump is saying, it’s as if the fix is in, and Paul Manafort knows if he just keeps quiet, a pardon is coming his way [ .. ]

I saw someone [DJT] who games the system ..

Rachel Maddow:

That was supposed to be the start of a whole new Paul Manafort, right? Coming clean, pleading guilty, admitting guilt on the charges on which they didn’t retry him, right? At that moment, when he decided to plead and become a cooperator, that was him joining Team USA .. joining Team USA, joining the prosecutors, admitting his guilt .. the cooperation aspect of Paul Manafort’s case is another fascinating curve-ball..

team USA, curve-ball

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And here’s another border and liminality header:

Belfast Shows the Price of Brexit

I took a guided tour of some of the scenes of the Troubles. The tour was led by a former IRA paramilitary, now working with an association of former prisoners partially subsidized by EU funds. A few hundred meters to the north, former Loyalist paramilitaries lead tours on their side of the defensive barrier that still separates predominantly Catholic from predominantly Protestant neighborhoods. The EU helps underwrite those tours, too.

[ by Charles Cameron — fascinating — how a scriptural theme is developed by Catholic and Orthodox sources, is turned by a Calvinist split-off and a related Pentecostal movement to an attack on the Virgin Mary, carried out on Mt Everest — and in New York City, on AOC! ]
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Said president Dave Kubal of Intercessors for America:

It’s been widely publicized that there is a coven of witches that cast spells on President Trump 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This particular coven is found in the southern portion of New York City.

The southern portion of New York City? A coven? Typically, though not always, referring to a gathering of a dozen plus one witches? 24/7?

Is this a witch-hunt? Literally??

So, right in the middle of all of this, the southern district, in the middle of where these witches are doing the 24/7 spell-casting, we find the territory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Her district is in the center of all of this going on. Is this a coincidence? Maybe … Is there an evil thread running through this area, trying to dispel diabolical power?

Furthermore:

Just this week, there was a spiritual SWAT team that was sent into this particular geographic area to deal with the spiritual activity that is going on there.

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Sending prayer teams to tackle the malevolent spirits associated with geographical areas is an idea associated with C Peter Wagner, lately of Fuller Theological, the moving spirit behind geographically oriented Spiritual Warfare, and the New Apostolic Reformation.

C Peter Wagner, Territorial Spirits: Practical Strategies for How to Crush the Enemy Through Spiritual Warfare

C Peter Wagner, Breaking Strongholds in Your City: How to Use Spiritual Mapping Tomake Your Prayers More Strategic, Effective and Targeted

I’ve used the full titles and sub-titles of both books above, because I want to catch the geographico-militarist flavor of each — and of course, from my POV and with my interests, the word mapping doesn’t hurt..

Spiritual warfare is a concept at least as old as St Paul’s letter to the Christians in Ephesus, telling them:

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. 13Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. 14Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; 15And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. 17And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

It’s also to be found in both Catholic and Orthodox traditions:

Dom Lorenzo Scupoli, The Spiritual Combat: and a Treatise on Peace of Soul

Theophan the Recluse, Unseen Warfare: The Spiritual Combat and Path to Paradise of Lorenzo Scupoli

What can I say? In these classic, sacramental traditions, there’s no emphasis on territorial spirits. Territorial spiritual warfare is an innovation that goes along with the Seven Mountains theory, by which many present-day Pentecostal and other Christians seek dominion over:

family,

religion,

education,

media,

entertainment,

business, and

government

Dominion theology is the work of an off-shoot of Calvinism pioneered by RK Rushdoony in his master-work:

RJ Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law

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There’s a slippery slope, I believe that’s the phrase, between the somewhat eschatological dominionism of many who may nonetheless feel a sacred devotion to the Constitution, and Rushdoony‘s original version, which regards anything less than strict Old Testament law with some New Testament changes — “Ye have heard.. but I say unto you..” — and views the existing laws of the United States as tantamount to anarchy:

For a sense of where C Peter Wagner‘s territorial spiritual warfare takes us, see:

C Peter Wagner, Operation Queen’s Palace

This includes Wagner‘; endorsement of Ana Mendez‘ spiritual warfare on Mt Everest, fighting the Queen of Heaven. Wagner quotes Mendez‘ report, in which (see final paragraph below) she asserts that among the blessings brought about by her spiritual warfare on the lower slopes of the highest mountain on earth was the death of Mother Theresa, whom she describes as “one of the most visible advocates of exalting Mary as co-redemptrix and mediatrix” — Mary Mother of God in the Catholic tradition, the Theotokos or God-bearer in Orthodoxy.

Mendez, as quoted by Wagner, reports:

After five days of prayer, on September 22, 1997, an incredible climbing anointing came over the team, and God led us through the Ice Fall, the most difficult, dangerous, and technically exacting part of the Everest ascent, with no guide but Him and no help other than from His angels. After many hours of crossing crevasses and climbing ice walls, we were about to reach the point where we had located the seat of the Queen of Heaven. At that moment the fury of the devil was unleashed and a huge avalanche broke loose above us, sending megatons of ice and snow crashing our way. At the last moment a huge crevasse in front of us swallowed up the avalanche, saved our lives, and we only had to deal with the [life threatening] resulting cloud of ice for about ten minutes.

“We continued toward our goal, and when we arrived we took the throne that the Lord had showed us, prophesying against the powers of darkness and declaring the judgment of God on the whore of Babylon and the false religions of the world.

“That same evening God spoke a clear and strong order: “Go out from this mountain tomorrow before 11:00 AM because I am going to destroy everything. The next day we dismantled the camp in a great hurry, and left Base Camp at 10:30. When the last of our 36 beasts of burden [yaks] had come out, not one, but all three mountain slopes which surrounded Base Camp–Everest, Loh-La, and Nuptse–simultaneously collapsed in the greatest avalanche ever seen in Everest. Base Camp was totally buried under the snow and the enormous falling clouds of ice. The climbing season was closed, and the only flag waving on the top of the world was the one planted by the king of Kings and Lord of Lords.” [ .. ]

Ana points to some world events which occurred within two weeks after the prophetic act at the throne of the Queen of Heaven which she senses have some connection: (1) The nation of Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation in the world, caught on fire and began to burn on that very day; (2) An earthquake destroyed the Basilica of Assisi in Italy, the place where the Pope had called a meeting for the unity of all world religions; (3) Hurricane Paulina destroyed the infamous temple of “Baal-Christ” in Acapulco, Mexico; (4) Princess Diana of England died, representing the crown of England, to whom Mt. Everest was consecrated by Sir Edmund Hillary; and (5) Mother Theresa, one of the most visible advocates of exalting Mary as co-redemptrix and mediatrix, died in India.

This attack on the Blessed Virgin Mary, to use another title afforded her in Catholicism, was so blatant as to arouse a comic-book artist to pillory it:

It is often taught in Catholic circles and elsewhere that Mary, as Queen of Heaven, is portrayed in Revelation 12.1:

A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.

The artist Albrecht Durer rendered her thus: