Last year my friend Mark and I unmasked the Asia Times columnist "Spengler" as a NY currencies expert named David P. Goldman. A LaRouchie-cum-neocon, Goldman used various masks to write about religious issues. We unmasked him for a simple reason: because he had called for "more war, more killing, more barbed wire, please" for Arabs. Columnists who make those types of comments get their literary license revoked.
Well, Goldman has now come out as Spengler. The latest issue of the religious journal "First Things" has a piece by Goldman, and editor Joseph Bottom states what we said about him a year ago, he's Spengler. He's a religious Jew who's now joined "First Things" as an associate editor, Bottom says, but is careful to say nothing in the resume I was sent (can't find it online) about Goldman's LaRouche episode: "He was trained in Renaissance history and philosophy, particularly music theory, and he still serves as a governor of the Mannes College of Music."
Goldman's piece is called "Amalek Must Die: A Passover Meditation," (I've edited that title slightly, because it was too long in the original--remember, we revoked his literary license) and is filled with more barbed wire and killing, but with a highly-religious gloss. It begins:
Etc. My friend Mark says, "It is an only slightly veiled call for Christian acquiescence in something approaching genocide. We know where a lot of those neocons on the First Things board are coming from, but it bothers me to see conservative Catholics on the board of a magazine that runs articles like this. Zionists play on Christian theological confusion to get their support--or acquiescence."
If you want to read any more, here's the money graf, after the jump:
"That is why the harsh demands of the Hebrew Scriptures to rid the world of heathen enemies continue to be holy words for Christians. The battles of ancient Israel—the Exodus from Egypt, the wandering in the desert, the crossing of the Jordan and the conquest of Canaan—remain stations on the spiritual journey of every Christian."
I guess we're beginning to see the baleful consequences of Richard Neuhaus's death. He had serious flaws –he backed the Iraq war, and shamefully tried to give it a "Just War" gloss; he was never ouspoken on Israel Palestine. (I'm leaving out the social conservatism, which I more or less approve of. ) But he always recognized there were two sides to Israel Palestine, and I had fairly serious discussions with him about going to the West Bank to cover the issue in 2002. And on many ancillary issues (Swiss reparations, US blame for not doing enough to stop the Holocaust, etc.) he took a fairly stiff-necked, willing to defy the neocons pro-Catholic view. He never would have made Spengler an editor of his magazine.
Scott
I remember Richard Neuhaus writnig in his column, The Public Square, an very long, detailed and uncompromising rebuttal to pressure from US Zionists.
Do you recall any of that?
This is more Judeo-Christian conflation on behalf of a clash of civilizations agenda by means of appealing to a nostalgic, black and white morality to be applied on a geopolitical scale.
I too can appreciate the appeal of simpler, more wholesome times, and I get the feeling that a lot of progressives are thinking along the same lines, only environmentally and communally (ie organic farming, buy local, anti-Corporatism, environment over business interests, etc.). Spengler/Goldman appears to be tapping into that same "simpler times" impulse, only on the Right, by harkening instead back to biblical Hebrew times of clear cut right and wrong. (Clear cut because God was literally voicing right and wrong.)
The problem with this for Christians should be: then that means Christian civilization no longer has the covenant with God? Spengler/Goldman (and a lot of "Judeo-Christians") seem to think so:
"Neo-paganism laid its cuckoo’s eggs in Christianity and hatched them in the form of the national movements that would fight for dominance and leave the formerly Christian continent a secularized hulk…", he says.
Of course, most here know I trace the "cuckoo's eggs" mostly to disaffected Jews who midwifed Communism, which gave rise to Nazism. (But I'm told that this is "anti-semitic.") Spengler/Goldman says Christianity midwifed Communism, Nazism, and nationalism, yet he and the Neocons also profess to be on the side of Western (Christian) civilization.
I don't get it. How can one be on the side of Christian civilization while at the same time blaming it for Nazism, Communism and nationalism? Spengler/Goldman sounds like just another Jewish Zionist Neocon grifter to me. But instead of selling his anti-Christianity to the Left, he’s selling it to the Right under a “Judeo-Christian” label.
Very clever, Goldman. Or rather, too clever by half. I've longed believed that many conservatives have fallen for an anti-Christian, Jewish-centered swindle by means of Neoconservatism today the same way many liberals fell for one by means of Communism yesterday. This is yet more evidence.
This article leaves me speechless. I almost wonder if First Things published it as some sort of April fools joke. I can't believe that a Catholic site would publish such gratuitious heresy. It makes a mockery of Judaism and Christianity alike.
"Christianity wants each individual member of the tribe of Amalek to die to this world and be reborn into the nation of Israel, Amalek’s most hated enemy. Christian converts from the pagan nations still carry their Gentile nature within them. To say that a Christian must be converted every day is to say that the Christian must kill this inner Amalekite every day. It is the Jew who converts the inner pagan inside each Christian, wrote Franz Rosenzweig, by which he meant that absent the living people of Israel, the Israel of the Spirit into which Christians hope to be adopted too easily becomes an abstraction."
The phrase "nation of Israel" does not appear once in the Christian Testament. Perhaps he confusing "the nation of Israel" with "the Kingdom of God?"
I went to a Catholic church as a kid. But I must have been home sick the day the nuns instructed us to pray for the conquest of the Canaanites.
Spengler's a raving nut case. An anti-science, anti-arab, racist kook.
Goldman makes it clear that to the Jews when they say "Amalek must die" they are referring to the physical destruction of the Amalek's. And according to the story, that meant every man, woman and child and all of their livestock. This is as clear a description of genocide that could be written.
Now that rabbis in Israel are currently debating whether or not modern Palestinians are Amalek, (this is the view of the West Bank settler rabbis who have infiltrated the IDF in recent years) it really makes one wonder if Israel has collectively gone insane.
Does the average American jew have any idea what is going on over there?
Spengler/Goldman: "absent the living people of Israel, the Israel of the Spirit into which Christians hope to be adopted too easily becomes an abstraction."
LOL. I agree that Jewish-Zionists remind Christians why they are Christians, and why Christianity is necessary, but as a NEGATIVE example, not a positive one. That's always the way it was from Christ forward (Zionists being today's incarnation of the corrupt Pharisees of Christ’s era.)
Do you have any thoughts about why "Asia Times OnLine" give him such prominence.
He now has two columns: Spengler and one in his own name.
So who are the publishers and editors of Asia Times? I wonder?
Before people go all conspiratorial about Asia Times, they have always had a variety of people writing for them, including critics of Israeli policies and the neo-cons like Roane Carey, Jim Lobe and Ian Williams (I know – I have placed op-eds by critics of U.S. policy on their site in the distant past). And their editors are largely made up of East and South Asians, or at least were.
Who knows how the hell "Spengler" ever wound up in such august company. Not only is he a racist, his writing style in general is piss-poor compared to many of their contributors, and really soils AT's otherwise pretty decent journalistic standards. It makes no sense. His writing (both content-wise and stylistically) is more appropriate for Atlas Shrugs, not Asia Times. Maybe an instance of "CYA"?
And yes, Ed, your thinking about the whole "Jews caused Nazism because they caused Communism" IS anti-Semitic. You think you help Palestinians with this dreck? But I don't think that is your real agenda judging by your posts anyways.
I have been reading asia times for years. It is a very interesting paper. To be honest, I just figured Spengler was a gag since he was so out of place.
So now we have to fight the Crusades all over again?
Many people blame Christianity on Judaism, but this guy wants to shift it onto paganism. He might try reading a little history.
@ KatinPhilly,
The restoration of Christian civilization to its rightful place will help the Palestinians far more than terminally conflicted left-liberals who can never quite bring themselves to slap down the peevish outlaws whose rejection by God and man inspired their tapping of left-liberalism's poisonous wellspring — namely ideological envy and loathing.
@ David F
You're right. Never appeared once until the Dispensationalists added the "nation of Israel" in the 20th C.
Lets be clear. Amalek is anyone who is a non-Jew. The rest of his obnoxious screed is fodder and cover.
"Amalek" is the equivalent of the Gharkad tree hadith, with the exception that no one can know who the Amalekites of the present-day are. One hint: Arabs are separate from Amalekites, at least according to standard Halachic authority. You can tell by the use of the word "Arab", instead of "Amalek" to designate Arabs.
Odd how the genocidal Gharkad tree hadith, which is mainstream Islam, is discounted, while crazed dissident Rabbis are the essence of Halacha.
Pardon me for carrying on, but one more thought. The main requirement for acceptance in today’s left-liberal establishment coven is anti-Christianity. One can be the most usurious, treacherous, abusive, Capitalist pig, (ie Starbucks’ Howard Schultz) but so long as he is reliably anti-Christian (ie generally Jewish, homosexual, deviant, or atheist) and willing to spread his money around on the anti-Christian cause, the left-liberals will take him right in, no questions asked.
Left-liberalism really is a Rosemary’s Baby coven writ large. And Spengler and the Neocans are attempting to expand the coven into Christendom.
In defense of Judaism, this guy's reasoning about Amalek is both threatening and incredibly ignorant. First, he gets his biblical summary wrong, Saul actually killed all the Amalekines EXCEPT King Agag, whom he took prisoner (he killed Agag too after Samuel reproached him, but too late to appease God).
The problem of Amalek is puzzling, because it contradicts a passage in Torah prohibiting the execution of sons for the crimes of their fathers. Jewish authorities attempt resolve the contradiction in a number of interesting ways. Looking around for "Amaleks" to actually kill is not one of them.
MRW, I don't think you'd find any sane rabbi who would suggest that the Amalekines are simply non-Jews; it's clear in scripture that they are not. Still, writing this piece after the linking of Amalek and the Palestinians is simply horrifying. Refering to living people as "Amalek" sounds a heck of a lot like a call for genocide.
Ed, how were Zionists you refer to rejected by God? (The reverse would make more sense.)
Eurosabra,
I agree with your remarks on the Amalek commandment. The problem is how it is being misused.
I can't help but think that references to the Gharkad tree hadith in the Hamas charter are simply a lame excuse not to negotiate. I haven't heard of Palestinian authorities refusing to talk because of the Amalek comparison.
And I don't find the cases equivalent. The hadith is not even part of the Quran, and while it describes a massacre in battle, it does not seem genocidal (since some Jews are safe behind Gharkad trees)
On the other hand the injunction to kill Amalek is one of the 613 mitzvot, and any reference to it, however idiotic, is going to carry far more weight.
"Ed, how were Zionists you refer to rejected by God?"
They were rejected by God long ago, when they rejected Christ. This is according to the traditional Christian narrative. I wouldn't have otherwise believed it, but for the fact that they sought (and continue to seek) revenge upon Christendom for replacing them as the covenant, through all kinds of political intrigue and subterfuge.
They are of their obsolete and replaced spiteful and jealous God. The rest of us have moved on, but they persist, miraculously compelled by the fading, warped carryover of the former covenant, which proves the narrative.
@ David F
" Refering to living people as "Amalek" sounds a heck of a lot like a call for genocide."
This seems in this vein something to ponder. Are the settlers themselves Amalekites?
http://shiradukiyum.instablogs.com/entry/who-are-the-descendants-of-amalek/
@ Eurosabra
Arabs are separate from Amalekites, at least according to standard Halachic authority.
Odd how … crazed dissident Rabbis are the essence of Halacha.
Obviously Goldman isn't a standard Halachic authority. But neither is he a crazed dissident Rabbi. What he is is a well respected actor in high finance circles–he has appeared on many respected TV shows re finance and for seven years had a column with Forbes. That's how he's been able to gain a position at First Things, which has been a generally respected journal of ecumenical religious opinion.
But Goldman is a fanatic, as his Larouchie background alone should tell you–he appears to have stuck with Larouche until Larouche was convicted. Read the last paragraph in the First Things screed carefully. What Goldman is saying is this:
The Hebrew Scriptures demand that Israel "rid the world of heathen enemies." Note that "heathen enemies"–that is a very expansive interpretation of "Amalekites" and must be understood in connection with Goldman's statement that "it is entirely fair for Jews to remonstrate with Christians for having failed to suppress pagan elements that fostered anti-Semitism." Since for Goldman true Christians are those among the Gentiles who are reborn of the Spirit into the “tribe of Christians,” the “People of the New Covenant." The historical life of Israel is the inner life of the Christian, it is the duty of Christians–as it is of Jews–to "suppress" any "elements" that foster anti-Semitism.
Now, nobody wants to be an anti-Semite, but the question becomes: who will define what it is to foster anti-Semitism? Would that be anyone who happens to criticize Israeli policies with regard to the Palestinians? Would it be anyone who dares to suggest that there is such a thing as a Palestinian people? These are just a few among the many "heathen enemies"–the modern Amalekites–whom Goldman beliefs the world must be rid of. What Goldman is attempting is to use specious pseudo-Christian theology to convince Christians that support of the Zionist movement is a theological requirement for all who would call themselves Christian. If you peruse his Spengler forum, you will see that he has repeatedly maintained that anyone who opposes the Zionist ideology is ipso facto anti-Semitic. For David Goldman, the world is full of enemies: "heathen enemies" that the world would be well rid of.
When we reflect on the significance of the genocidal Amalekite episode which Goldman embraces, I think we should be very concerned that First Things chooses to provide a forum for these sorts of opinions. And as a Catholic I am very concerned that prominent lay Catholics such as Russell Hittinger, George Weigel and Robert George should continue to be associated with a publication of this sort which fosters a neo-fundamentalism that is used to justify genocide.
Whew! It's a surprise to encounter such a collection of anti-semitic tripe in what passes for a serious discussion. Does the word "supercessionism" ring a bell with anyone? The accusation of genocidal intent to Jews is utterly repulsive.
Perhaps some of the more thoughtful readers here might meditate on the value of eradicating their "inner pagan". In the world of Spengler/Goldman, the pagan is the one who worships themselves and their group. This phenomenon is entirely analogous to "pride being the chief sin" in a Christian way of speaking.
S/G, following Rosenzweig, has brought to our attention a way of thinking whereby Christian and Jew can live together in rational, creative harmony, under the God of love. Naturally, this imagined harmony appears insane and threatening to the avatars of Amalek, who in response accuse the messengers of precisely the crimes that they themselves seek.
Who would have thought that while the Shoah is still in living memory, that Goebbels/Amalek calumnies would be recirculated anew. Time for jihad, if you will, at least that which is claimed to be only an "inner jihad", a jihad for the extermination of pagan desire, which for the pagan is for the actual extermination of the "other".
JJ
@ JJ
In the world of Spengler/Goldman, the pagan is the one who worships themselves and their group.
It was the same way in the world of Paul of Tarsus. You can read about it in several of N. T. Wright's works. Here's a snippet from Wright's "The Letter to the Galatians: Exegesis and Theology." Wright is addressing Paul's argument about the nature of life in the Messiah:
(My emphasis–the full article is readily available via Google, for those who wish to read that passage in its full context.)
For Spengler/Goldman, Jewish ethnocentrism is somehow privileged, based on a fundamentalist reading of the patriarchal narratives in Genesis. But for those not blinded by Zionist ideology, it is simply another form of nationalistic self worship–paganism, in a word. Spengler/Goldman's channeling of Rosenzweig is a transparent subterfuge intended to convince Christians that their faith requires them to embrace Zionist ideology unquestioningly, on pain of being labeled "anti-Semitic," and thus a "heathen enemy." Is it anti-Semitic to consider that all should exorcise their inner pagan?
Another good place to read up on this issue in preparation for serious discussion is Wright's Climax of the Covenant.
Any body with a bit of common sense can see that those who faithfully believe they are chosen by God, whether to suffer or reap profit on earth, or a combo, and the same in some life beyond
this earth, after death, are a major problem. They are insane. They are really worshipping their own fond image in the mirror. That reflection has nothing to do with reality. By reality, I mean
only if you look at a tree, you can look at it and see what a survivor sees, i.e., a means to the simple desire for physical survival–eat the bark, etc.; again, once removed, you can look at like a lumberjack, or,
having no need to cut it down, take its aiding bounty otherwise, or grow that tree (e.g., Sale of Xmas Trees as capitalizing on
folk fantasy), a tree is a tree.
A poet sees what the lumberjack does not.
And visa-versa.
Anybody can act in the name of God. Each according to what they need from, e.g., a tree.