Why political science matters

Political scientists are probably the first to notice the implication of why the Congress gaveled into session yesterday without a budget deal in hand. They will do so again Monday. This has nothing to do with the government shut down. It has everything to do with them not wanting Trump to make a recess appointment, even though both houses are controlled by members of the President's party. Don't worry about repeating this. MAGA voters don't listen to political scientists or the mainstream media.

Vice: Reality was worse

Vice was an excellent movie, but it hid a harsher truth in an effort to reinforce the narrative that Bush was a boob. The reality, as told in the original story, Angler by Barton Gellman, which inspired the movie, shows that in 2004, Cheney and his staff tried to get the Torture Memo ratified by DOJ and the DOJ lawyers went to Bush and threatened to go public if Bush would not back them in their resistance to Addington and Yu. Bush looked into it and sidelined Cheney quietly, so in 2006 Cheney could not have fired Rumsfeld. 

It was Woodward's book on the Iraq War which led, in part, to the 2006 Republican electoral debacle and which ended Rummy's career.  From 2004 on, Bush listened to others, including Petraeus, who suppressed al Qaeda in Iraq by turning Sunni tribal chiefs against them. The withdrawal started under Bush and was finished by Obama due to the end of extraterritoriality for Americans in Iraq, both military and contractors. Cheney with an empty desk for four years and no pardon for Libby would have been more cutting, but would have been kinder to Bush, who punished Cheney in the way that hurt the most - he retired him in place. It was also Richard Armitage who let Robert Novak know about Valerie Plame. Scooter Libby and Cheney were not the leak,  and Bush did not pardon Libby for lying to the FBI, which was the last cut. 

Speaking of  cuts. Cheney did not get a new heart when his failed. He was on an artificial pump, so he had no heart. He only get the new heart when the pump was wearing out. That probably would have had more dramatic effect, but the movie was already longer than most bladders could take, but cuts to the front would have allowed the real truth to emerge, which was more humiliating in reality for Cheney but not for Bush.

 

Christmas Choices

This essay is cross posted to my NCR comments post, Hey, Michael Sean. You can find MSW's post at https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/god-us-catholic-faith-incarnation-not-abstraction and mine at https://heymsw.blogspot.com/2018/12/god-with-us-in-catholic-faith.html

The story of Emmanuel (God with Us) is more a series of choices than hagiography.  Whether the story happened as described or portrayed by the modern Church is immaterial to the deeper reality of the story.  In reality, the Magi came first because their journey was longest. They chose to believe in Jesus as something more than an earthly king even before he was born and not because they received an angelic message.

To understand the Magi, we must admit that they were Astrologers and that they would have sought the transformational King of the Jews based on what they understood from the planetary positions of the day, including both conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn and a solar eclipse on the appropriate day. Reverse engineering their calculations places Jesus' birth day at April 17, 6 BCE.

The reason the Church placed Christmas where it is was to counter the Saturnalia of the Winter Solstice (which fell on December 25th due to the progression of the equinoxes, which was corrected by Pope Gregory).  The Church failed in its endeavors. Saturnalia is still with us at Yuletide as a natural human reaction to the longer nights. It need not be suppressed.  Indeed, it should not be. While we celebrate Christmas because Christ is our light, one season of Masses does not overcome a very human need for revelry. That revelry at the solstice was still happening in the England of the Seventeenth Century (and beyond). It is why the Plymouth colonists banned the celebration of Christmas and why the Jehovah's witnesses still do. Only marriage is celebrated by the Witnesses, which is why many marriages occur on Christmas day or New Years.

The real first choice, because it was made by God beyond time, was to come and personally experience human suffering (from the changing of seasons to death on a cross). Both the Incarnation and the Passion and Resurrection are essential elements of this choice.

The next choice is Mary's, who consented to be the vehicle for the incarnation. She could have said no or it would not have been an authentic choice. Then Joseph chose. He was more a poor itinerant laborer than a carpenter, according to alternate translations from the original Greek. First, he chose not to kill the child and his mother when she came back from Jerusalem pregnant by someone else. Second, he chose to believe his dream and took Mary into his home, which resulted in the birth of Salome, Thomas and Simon, Salome's sons James and John who were partners with Andrew and Peter. This is half of the Twelve. In modern times, an itinerant laborer would not have such a household, but Joseph did.

Jesus chose a life of poverty, at least for his birth. A reading of the story of the Baptizer shows that he may have been a Pharisee (as in one among you will be the chosen one). He was born to a poor family in Bethlehem in either Judah or Galilee. St. Helen directed the building of a church on the reputed site of the nativity, but Galilee has a good claim too. That the site of that ancient church is now buried under the highway to Tel Aviv actually speaks to its authenticity. Jesus choice to live among the poor also led to his discovery by shepherds. who were tending the spring sheep and lambs in the countryside. Jesus was born in a stable, but that stable was likely in a family compound. Jesus was born downstairs with the animals because childbirth was regarded as unclean.

Herod reputedly chose wrongly (although there is no evidence of the slaughter of the innocents). In the story, he rejected the infant king which was not his son. That anyone but his son had a claim to the throne, especially of the house of David, would put a crimp in his cooperation with Rome. The child must be eliminated and Herod was sure he had been. The reputed flight to Egypt (or elsewhere) of Jesus and his family to be foreign migrants (including older siblings James and Joseph) has a different meaning today, as foreign migrants in America still depend on the day labor that Joseph had to endure.

The important choice again falls to Mary. The most accurate piece of information is that she remembered all of these things and kept them in her heart. She then told Jesus, which was his first knowledge of his divinity. Being both fully human and fully divine means he was no hybrid, so his mind could not have held all of the knowledge of God. Rather, he was a man of absolute faith in what was told to him by his mother. His miracles were by faith, not power. Even the healing of the woman with constant menstrual bleeding was an act of faith on her part.

This leads us to the Cross. When Jesus gave his mother to the care of John without commissioning John to save the world, he emptied himself of both the divinity that Mary told him about as a child and the mission he had chosen. This led him to the abandonment which we feel in our lives today as he called out to Elijah in despair. That he drank the fruit of the vine in John's Gospel shows that he died in the Father's kingdom, transforming even the abode of the dead into Paradise. When we accept that divine journey, bookended by the Incarnation and the Passion, the Incarnation makes sense.

The subsequent triumph of the Resurrection is central to our faith. Despite all evidence to the contrary, we believe Jesus defeated death and that we shall rise again.  That choice we make, based on what Paul relates about real people seeing a real Jesus, is the central fact of our faith. Rejecting that fact turns the Incarnation into a nice fairy tale. We believe it is not.

First Sunday of Advent 2018

Happy New Year! The new liturgical season starts today. It began with the Gospel of the Apocalypse. Jesus speaks of the darkening of the sky and the coming of the Lord after the days of tribulation (no Rapture here). The standard interpretation of this reading is about real events to come. Others say that this scene is about the inevitable sack of Jerusalem by the Romans (the Evangelist has the luxury of hindsight here, because it would have occurred by the time the Gospel was committed to paper).  The mood is generally described as one of doom.

The usual interpretation highlights Advent as a penitential season, with doom to come, therefore the need for the Sacrament of Penance. The Lord talks about being ready to look up to great him, lest drunkenness and things of the world distract us. This season is counter-cultural to the pagan celebrations involving alcohol that take place this time of year. 

As the day grows shorter in northern climates, the gloom is very real. The new term is seasonal affective disorder (or SAD) and the usual medicine is getting drunk. Those who are in recovery are hit particularly hard because alcohol is no longer an option. This is why there are recovery events in most recovery clubs from Halloween to Christmas. 

For first time parents, upcoming doom is a good topic.  They have no idea what they are getting into. Pregnancy is simply the calm before the storm. In the modern world, unlike antiquity, we pamper our children, so the season is marked by the purgatory of children whining about what they want from Santa.

Although the scriptures are clear that Jesus was born in the spring, when the sheep are in the fields, the Church has hijacked the birth of Christ to substitute for the pagan Saturnalia. This is fine as long as it is not overdone and the need for cheer forgotten. We must not push the spiritual angle so far that we forget the very real need to curse the darkness.

The theme of the coming of the day of the Lord is emphasized both during the 33rd week for ordinary time and the first week of Advent. In the early Church, this was seen as an imminent possibility. There are Evangelical sects who believe that this is still just around the corner. Most Christians are more complacent about it, as every generation believes it is the last and it never has been. 

We know that after the solstice comes the longer days and eventual spring, with wedding season occurring between Christmas and the spring harvest of winter wheat. Darkness is followed by celebration before the environmental season of scarcity, which was the Lenten fast. The fast was necessary to make sure that all went hungry, so that the rich would not take all of the food. More on that on Ash Wednesday.

 For much of the world, food is plentiful, so the fast is no longer needed so that none starve. Indeed, the provision of food aid to nations right before the harvest actually hurts the poor because prices go down and local agriculture suffers, which may be the point of such aid.

Penitence for both seasons came later, to add a spiritual dimension to what were and are environmental events. Perhaps we should shift to more current penances, like taking the bus rather than driving. In the winter, this brings home the plight of the homeless as well. If we remember that, solidarity with the poor and support for better services to the homeless would be a step in this direction.

Penitence is essential for those who do not know suffering on a regular basis. Most people are not alcoholic, so the urging against drunkenness does not really apply to them. While many have SAD, for most it is not particularly noticeable. Modern medicine has eliminated much disease. Most people die quickly of heart attacks and most cardiac patients and many cancer patients are older, which means that most suffering occurs later in life. If the old are shunted off to nursing homes, the family no longer shares in the suffering of the seniors. Mental illness is more common, but now it is more easily treated, although the pressure we put on the young bring such suffering much earlier.

Without natural suffering, the artificial kind is prescribed so that those that penance highlights the need for God. Of course, this can be taken too far, which is why Luther rebelled against it. Unless we know why Penance is necessary, it is simply sadism or masochism for no reason. Abandoning the things of this world is harder for those who do not suffer, while the poor and sick do not require artificial penance. They need to stress the mercy of God. 

It is the rich (and most Americans are rich by planetary standards) who must seek righteousness, which is about doing justice to the poor. It is not self-righteousness, which is becoming smug because occasions of personal sin are not particularly serious for most people. Making sexual sin so stressful is an attempt to make everyone suffer. That is also a bad idea.

While war brings about serious tribulation (another reason that righteousness and peacemaking are equally important), most have not seen it directly - although the last century was particularly violent. In times of peace, war is forgotten by all but the survivors. Bringing mercy to them is also a form of righteousness, as many suffer in silence or in the streets in the cold.

Doing justice makes the seeking of penance a secondary goal. It really is the reason for the season. We will likely not see the end of the world in our lifetimes (although the rumor of war and the poor will always be with us), If we are truly just, we can hold our heads up in anticipation of the coming of the end, not the end of the world but of our own lives. 

Today's Gospel applies to all of us because we will all likely die before the return of the Lord to the world. He will, however, call on each of us and will demand an accounting, not of our sin or our penitence, but of the justice we did and did not do if we care too much of the things of this world.