Racism

Migration sinks boats

eejoseph, , ,

Migration is one of humanity’s earliest developmental and survival moves.  Sometimes it has been the best move of all. I do not know exactly what triggered the first migration but one thing is clear.  The whole human race is no longer sunburnt as the first Africans were.  What brings us to disaster – boat sinking – is the racism that is popular today in the 21st century.  Racism and patriotism has fuelled many migrant moves.  The most fascinating and momentous migration of all is Abram’s from Mesopotamia, and I would not be surprised if there are cultures with a similar explanation of its genesis.  Migration is sinking the boats of Israel, the Unites States, Canada, and all those states that depend on migrant workers without showing them a shred of natural affection

From the fascinating and momentous to the enigmatic

Did the Jewish people have to preserve their stories of migration, with the narratives of miraculous and military conquest and puzzling episodes of genocidal criminality? I do not know why anyone would want to be truth tellers to this extent. Kicking people out of their land is a serious breach of international morality, but the migration of the Israelites from Egypt is a curosity from start to finish. So why should the events at the destination not be also enigmatic? A pattern accompanies all the ancient cultures of migration that synchronizes with the annual seasons, and the disruption of annual migration in Asia and North America by immigrants is the latest international crime for which we are pretending we have no solution. The United States and a few other conscientious rogue states would never accept the ruling of the inernational bodies who have a vested interest in keep track of and helping to adjudicate the movements of people.

Gentile, Jew, us, them

Moses made a number of legislative paths for migrants and strangers. Here are a few.  Do you know them?

GAYR, (like SHARE) the foreigner, masculine noun.

  1. Leavened food regulation affecting the foreigner: For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. Exod 12:19
  2. Passover regulation affecting the foreigner: And the LORD said unto Moses and Aaron, This [is] the ordinance of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof: Exod 12:43
  3. A circumcision regulation admitting the stranger to the seder: If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. Exod 12:48
  4. Sabbath observance imposed on the stranger: Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed. Exod 23:12
  5. The stranger shielded from oppressve treatment by Israelites: “You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. Exod 23:9
  6. Foreigners forbidden to eat the roasted flesh uased for atoning sacrifices: They shall eat those things with which atonement was made at their ordination and consecration, but an outsider shall not eat of them, because they are holy. Exod 29:33
  7. Respect the fact that blood carries life.  “Therefore I said to the sons of Israel, ‘No person among you may eat blood, nor may any alien who sojourns among you eat blood.’ (Leviticus 17:12)
  8. Giving/selling unclean meat to the alien/foreigner. “You shall not eat anything which dies of itself. You may give it to the alien who is in your town, so that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner, for you are a holy people to the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk. (Deuteronomy 14:21)

What justification can there be for the criminal and unjust behaviour of governments today who think nothing of deporting people based on ethnicity? For those who look the other way when governments and religious zealots say Palestine is nothing and Palestinians are not a people there is a destiny Christ described as outer darkness.

There’d be no America or Canada to threaten Turtle Island without Immigration

Blanket emigration would be a Solomonic judgment in the case of racist Europeans wanting to overthrow God.  America and Israel have never practically renounced the dehumanization of Africans. Let us be straight about White Anglo Saxon Protestantism and its responsibility for the continuing morass of colonial capitalism.  Sure enough First Nations waged wars and corruption damaged progress,  but never let it be said that a slave economy brought them to civil war or self-denial.

Let it be: let the great again boats sink

Neither Russia, China, or America are the light of the world.  Not one of them is the salt of the earth.  So let Felonious I and his cult talk incessantly about deporting residents as if the American continent belongs to the descendants of Europeans. There is no common sense to racist patriotism and colonial thievery. The madness of the MAGA cult is spectacular, because they have control of the media. They can swamp the airwave and the public square with junk and numbing nonsense.  The First Nations of the world though would have the vast majority of intelligent people on their side. They would also have the most powerful nations on their side if they said “Let’s deport the descendants of the pilgrim fathers”. Migration helps to expose the immorality of the United States’ latest attempt to assert the influence it has lost and will never recover.

Just because the cause of racists is now boldly public

eejoseph, , ,

It is said that the groundbreaking bile issuing from official sources is overdue.  People who despise government, people who are prone to use violence to get their way,  people who are unapologetically racist and xenophobic, are having their day in the spotlight.  The poorly opinionated will believe that the public airing of their views is a sign of triumph, but they willingly are wearing blinders and will not escape the lesson learned by Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. The sun sets on the kingdoms and empires.  The sun and moon also set on television clips,  the simple get lost in the spin, trapped in the web of insincerity and ignorance, and while the number of people who think that they can plant flags on things they hear on TV from people they admire, remains at the same level,  the voices become more insane in support of racism. 

Privileged but gehenna-bound

And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will be brought down to Hades!

Luke 10:15, NASB

Although Capernaum was Yeshua’s chosen hometown there was no benefit to the town from the fact.  Capernaum never became a tourist attraction and did not become a holy city.  The Bethlehem native was never compromised about righteousness and goodness, unlike the people of the so-called Book.  Just as he fled from Bethlehem to avoid Herod’s sword so he fled Capernaum to avoid the stones of synagogue attendees.

The United States is an aborted frog-prince

There is no free lunch for homicidal cultures.  Lots of people associating themselves with Christ of Nazareth like to think of ultimate justice as the annihilation of wrongdoers.  They believe in unending punishment and ignore the successive generations of public villains and private sinners.  They play with capital punishment and mouth platitudes about Christian virtue. The wonder of the American rise from under the British colonial boot and the new national psyche is still unprecedented in the modern era, and God must have inspired the vision of rights and liberty as basic to all human beings, even though American powerbrokers feel they can change ALL to SOME and get away with it. The pressures to steer the United States into the mold of the nations whence the pilgrims came are immense and unrelenting.  One would have to be pretty naive to see as unrelated to these pressures the perversion of religion and politics.  Instead of the land of the free and the home of the brave, we are witness to “a home for demons, a cage of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird.” (Revelation of John 18:2). Believe your eyes: all kinds of crime and immorality get the approval of legislatures and high court justices.  The prince in shining armour of the American Revolution is today, 200 years later, a Wizard of Odds, clamouring to ensure a place at the table of honour for criminal types.

Nobody knows justice like the Nazarene.

Solomon was wise, learned and discerning, but he made the mistake of embracing the spiritual priorities of all the nations within the young king’s reach.  We make the same mistake concluding that ancient customs are the best, and like Israel, cannot seem to be able to pull away from the agricultural and astronomical elements of all primitive cultures.  We have no excuse for trying to combine the nobility of human beings with the interests of earth’s rulers.  Governments will continue to prosecute people for doing things the Almighty authorized.  You have no leg to stand on when the very things you proscribe are in your bosom, mouth, hands and feet (Romans 2:17-21, 3:13-18).  There is no such thing as a spiritual government.  Every example before us is like an agent of Sheol, dealing out pomp and ceremony and death. Each one parades  their wealth and tradition like a hypnotist.

Who is drumming up war with Caesar, Herod, or the Council?

It surely is last gasp bravado and chest-thumping when instead of providing peace and security for all the people in their care leaders all over the globe are arming their supporters with increasingly lethal weapons and hateful rhetoric.  The alliance between religious movements and political parties is as abominable as partnerships can get.  Yeshua did not join a political or religious party and he raised no militia against Rome.

24) When they came to Capernaum, those who collected the two-drachma tax came to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the two-drachma tax?” 25) He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth collect customs or poll-tax, from their sons or from strangers?” 26) When Peter said, “From strangers,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are exempt.” 27) “However, so that we do not offend them, go to the sea and throw in a hook, and take the first fish that comes up; and when you open its mouth, you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for you and Me.”

Matthew 17:24-27, NASB

The megaphone justification fizzles

We are witnesses to an unspeakable disregard for facts.  Because worms do not eat them up and the ground does not open up and swallow them we should not think that their causes are just.  Even if the majority marches in support of racism, xenophobia and misogyny.  The doors are closing of tribalism and insurrection, but people are loathe to acknowledge the fact.  The voices of intolerance are loud and urgent but God has a generation that will situate itself in the valley between tradition and the here and now.  I have to imagine that the Jewish public at the time of Solomon’s Temple felt that Yahweh had swept the country free of Canaanites, but God had a surprise for them, and in such a way as to make sure that it could not ever be forgotten. David bought the property on which the temple was built from a Jebusite, one of the nations destined for dispossession by Yahweh in the instructions that came from Moses.  Inconsistencies in national policies do not escape Gods notice, as surely as the xenophobic policy the Israelites thought they had could not be laid at Yahweh’s feet.  No magaphone or megaphone can prevail when hearts get turned to hearts. If we keep falling for extreme sound bytes and violent revolutionary slogans just because it is on television and comes from an elected official, we may never recover from the tinsel that passes for public discourse, and we may never see the light.  Tune in!

What juice are people drinking?

eejoseph, , ,

Canadians are rallying today March 19th against the racism hoping to eradicate it.  Meanwhile in the United States an entire party, one of the two that make up the American political system, cannot see racism in America. I do not know whether they have convinced the preachers or whether the preachers have convinced the politicians that it’s better not to mention racism.   I suppose it is treasonous to announce the emancipation of the slaves upon whose labour the economy is based.  In Canada preachers  do not see the evil of  filling people with lies and false hopes, neither do the police believe that white people have been killing First Nations children and women.   Racism will be with us as surely as the poor will be with us until the end of the age. 

Part of the problem or slayer

What is taking society as long as it has to end the scourge of racism may be more than simply not being a part of it.  They will tell us we are crazy for saying that our societies need a makeover.  As courageous and visionary as we think Washington and McDonald to be we have contorted the foundations with our selfish and homicidal views. Israel did it too.  I suppose we in the western hemisphere are fortunate that God did not call us to be the guardians of the mystery of the ages.  We seem to be caught between being selfish and being good neighbours.  No one needs a neighbour like Russia, if you are Ukraine, or like China if you are Taiwan.  The problem of racial discrimination begins in homes where the nextdoor neighbour is devalued; his iron, wood and stone are not as valuable as ours.  Let us not keep up the delusion that automobiles made identically in Canada and the United States have sticker prices disparate by  tens of thousands of dollars.

The end of racism is beyond our telescope

From those who find Hitler attractive, hate Muslims, Jews, Christians, and despise all foreign cultures racism is a necessity, and it is curious that the most costly and highly treasured systems of legislation, jurisprudence and education have been taking little nibbles out of the racism beast for decades (in some cases centuries). Not only is the end of racism beyond our vision, it is beyond the reach of our ropes, hoses and ladders.