Tags
decency, democracy, dignity, freedom, New Years Day 2023, Ukraine, western civilization, Zelensky
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“We Are All One Family” — #Ukraine #NATO #Europe #Democracy #Freedom #Western Civilization — Stand!
01 Sunday Jan 2023
Tag Archives: western civilization
FTAC: Lebanon – Iran: Cash – Arms – Trade
01 Saturday Sep 2018
Tags
cash, Hezbollah, Iranian arms, Lebanon, transnational crime, western appetites, western civilization
Inspiration:
The Iranians, with their crashing rial economy, have been offering Beirut even more cash – from where, exactly, we don’t know – than the Americans, along with guns, agricultural and industrial assistance.
I’d assign the delusional surrealism to the narcissism involved in most politics middle east but may also note that the transnational narcotics and other smuggling businesses may be doing well for Hezbollah and whatever else Iran has going “behind the curtains” and “under the table”. The main player in pressuring up illicit funds from all sources has to be Moscow — and Moscow loves frozen conflicts as well as unsettled and weak governments. It doesn’t seem to know how to create much good, but it sure knows how to gin up a lot of cash ready for the laundry.
Back to something like observable reality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_equipment_manufactured_in_Iran
Iran has the industry; the west has the addicts and coke heads — and there may be the cash for the arms. I do wonder how that might actually look in numbers.
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“Jerusalem”
21 Sunday Jan 2018
Tags
a dream, a poem, a song, England, human development, international development, Jerusalem, political philosophy, western civilization
2012.
2016.
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54684/jerusalem-and-did-those-feet-in-ancient-time
2011.
Reflect ye on the work of Rome — aqueducts, castles, fortifications, ports, roads | estates, villages, towns, metropolises | centers of agriculture, education, industry | a magnificence unrivaled in expression of the constructive channeling of human energy | eagerly adapted or reluctantly accepted . . . .
Whatever one may think of “Western Civilization”, the fruits of the labor of it have been coveted and enjoyed worldwide, and the twinned ideas of “Jerusalem” and the “Kingdom of Heaven” may be where we live and anywhere on earth.
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Also in Media: “Vienna: How Vienna produced ideas that shaped the West” | The Economist | December 24, 2016
27 Tuesday Dec 2016
Posted in A Little Wisdom, Europe
In 1933 Engelbert Dolfuss seized power in the name of Austrofascism, which gave way to Nazi fascism in 1938 with the Anschluss. Hitler, who moved to Vienna from Linz in upper Austria, had been transfixed by Schoenerer and, particularly, Lueger. He hungrily absorbed all his hero’s complaints about the Jews and the mixing of “races”; he called the Viennese a “repulsive bunch”. Thus liberal Vienna had produced its exact opposite: militant nationalism and anti-Semitism. During the interwar years these forces gradually took hold of the new Austria and from the 1920s onwards many began to flee abroad. One of the last out, in 1938, was Freud.
Source: Vienna: How Vienna produced ideas that shaped the West | The Economist – 12/24/2016
Magnificent article on Vienna’s most glorious days and its lasting contributions to western art and culture. As this is BackChannels, the note, however, picks up on the irony of developing a liberal state only to find it encouraging a transformation in the direction of fascist enterprise.
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BackChannels 