Now Reading From Joe Walsh, Former Republican, Now Democrat, His Book Just Out!

 

This will be my major reading and will review ASAP

Introduction 

Opening Monologue 

Let’s get the boring part out of the way first. My name is Joe Walsh, and I don’t own a guitar. I was elected to Congress from a district in greater Chicago during the Tea Party wave in 2010. I ran as a freedom-loving, limited-government conservative. I voted like one when I was in office: against runaway spending and regulations that screwed over job creators and for lower taxes and free trade agreements I thought would help Americans through the toughest economy we faced since the Great Depression. I opposed Obamacare. I supported strong borders. I believed in following what the Constitution told the legislative branch to do (make the laws) and the executive branch to do (enforce the laws)—which meant that when a president tried to do Congress’s job, it was my duty to stand against him, regardless if he was a Democrat or a Republican. Those were my positions when the voters of the Illinois 8th Congressional District chose someone else to represent them in 2012. They were my positions when I hosted a nationally syndicated radio show between 2013 and 2019. And they are my positions today. This biographical stuff is usually saved for the jacket cover, I know. The reason I put it here is that I want you, the reader, to understand where I’m coming from when I make the arguments you’re about to read. President Donald Trump and I agree on some big issues. We both believe strongly that illegal immigration threatens our national security and strains our government. He made building a wall on the southern border a focus of his 2016 presidential campaign; I was for a border wall years before that election. He pledged to help unemployed workers in dilapidated manufacturing towns get back onto their feet—the very people who live in my backyard, in places such as Gary, Indiana, and Decatur, Illinois, and who called into my show to talk about an America that wasn’t as great for them as it used to be. Trump complained about a political system that was out of touch with ordinary folks, and he promised to get rid of the fancy assholes who ran it. That was all great. It was part of the reason that I voted for him—for disruption. But that vote wasn’t worth it if it means having a president who lies, bullies, abuses his power, places his vanity above the public interest, runs his administration like a cult, manipulates the laws for his personal benefit, befriends dictators while disavowing his own intelligence community, and fails in so many other ways—having nothing to do with being a member of one political party or another—to be a responsible steward of his office. Whether we intended to or not, this package of a little good and a ton of bad is what I and nearly 63 million other Americans voted into office. I believe now that this support was misplaced, and I want to explain to those 63 million why. I don’t believe I can do it by behaving like Trump, and I wouldn’t want to, either—by name-calling, mischaracterizing, exaggerating, and pitting people against each other. After all, if I truly believe that Donald Trump is a con man—and I do—then I myself was conned. I have to own that. But by owning it, I hope to lead others to the same realization—not by making them feel guilty about a politician they backed but by helping them understand the reality of who that politician is, what he’s done, and what history suggests he’ll continue to do. Sorting through all the information available to us about politics to find the truth of the matter is tough enough already. It’s difficult to use that information to help us make knowledgeable choices about our government. So I’d rather try to educate and persuade than lecture and condemn. What qualifies me to do this? Well, let’s start with what I’m not. I’m not a Democrat, so my criticisms aren’t just a cover for what I think about Donald Trump’s ideology. And I’m not a member of the media, a group that the people in Trump’s camp don’t trust to provide accurate news, especially about him. Republicans instinctively doubt the fairness of the mainstream press, and believe me, I get it. There are far more Democrats and liberals in newsrooms than there are Republicans and conservatives.1 That kind of imbalance means there are blind spots or even biases in coverage that disadvantage the Right—even if the majority of journalists are smart people putting in honest work, as I believe they are. But the Trump era has blown the idea of a skewed media out of proportion. This is a president who calls our free press a literal enemy of the people. It’s a cop-out to say he means that only for “fake news.” Unless you’re an outlet dedicated to propagandizing on his behalf, a commentator who arrives at a conclusion he likes, a friendly opinion host on a cable channel, or some internet personality who will fork over your shame, your spine, and your sensibility just for a retweet from @realDonaldTrump, you’re “fake news” in the eye of the president. It is every bit that black and white. What I offer instead is perspective: perspective as someone who voted for Donald Trump, who understands and has identified with his populist worldview, and who echoed the worst parts of his divisive and even bigoted rhetoric. In fact, I believe that I helped create this phenomenon in my own small way. I went on the radio to fight for the policies and the principles that I believed in. But oftentimes, during the course of waging this public fight, I went over the line: engaged in ugly personal attacks and participated in the very demagoguery of serious public policy matters that I call out today. I got caught up in the conservative media outrage machine—that motley crew of incendiaries for whom no “hot take” is ever scalding enough—to get listeners and internet “clicks.” This rhetoric, which is so widespread on the Right, partly led to the elevation of a man like Trump to the White House. He is the worst iteration of the politics of personal destruction. I want to help clean up the mess he made and prevent us from making another one like it ever again. I want to do this not to help me sleep easy at night or to ingratiate myself with the Left, “Never Trump,” or a clique of any kind, but to do the right thing. Because I have the good fortune and the opportunity to do it. I believe deep in my gut and in my head that Donald Trump has betrayed conservatives, crapped all over the rule of law, and damaged this country. And because of my background, I hope to be a credible source for making the argument. I can envision some of the criticism of this: Well, thanks for stating the obvious, Joe, but what are you going to do about it? First, it’s a mistake to assume that most of the public thinks it’s “obvious” that Trump is a threat, a real menace, to the nation. That especially goes for us conservatives, of course, many of whom get their news from sources that simply paper over the president’s unacceptable conduct. Most of the public don’t pay attention to Trump around the clock—but make no mistake, there are people who need to, because the president of the United States can change the world in an instant. I am not included in “most of the public.” I am part of an ecosystem in which reporters and pundits and provocateurs watch the president say something almost in real time, then react to it, determine its significance, and before we know it participate in the cycle all over again. Sometimes these flare-ups “make news” the way ordinary Americans are used to seeing it: one of the president’s tweets or comments out of the blue will become a story on a newspaper’s website or in print, on the radio, or during a television news broadcast. Sometimes they don’t. But these examples come so often and fade so quickly all the time that it’s easy to forget they ever happened. Second, it’s not always evident that the president’s acting out is dangerous or leads to a larger risk. Let’s take an example from the last year. Do you remember when Trump displayed a map in the Oval Office of Hurricane Dorian’s path that was edited with a Sharpie to make it look as though the storm was expected to strike Alabama? It happened during a string of days in early September 2019 when the president kept insisting that the hurricane was set to hit the state “much harder than anticipated.” If you don’t remember, I can hardly blame you. If you do, please bear with me—this’ll take only a minute. The president made his claim on the morning of September 1.2 He elaborated on it later that day, saying that Dorian “may get a little piece of a great place: It’s called Alabama. And Alabama could even be in for at least some very strong winds and something more than that, it could be. This just came up, unfortunately.”3 But the five most recent forecast tracks, between 5:00 p.m. EDT the previous day and 12 hours later predicted that the hurricane would take a northeasterly path along the Atlantic. The possible extremes for the storm’s center stretched east to west from hundreds of miles off the US coast to southeastern Georgia—a long way from Alabama.4 So maybe he was communicating some outdated information, or maybe he misinterpreted a map; the one he shared on Twitter from the National Hurricane Center the morning of September 1 showed that there was a 5 percent chance of tropical storm-force winds hitting a sliver of southeastern Alabama in the next five days. (I’m being generous here!) In any event, it wasn’t anything Trump couldn’t fix by saying “My bad” and deferring to the experts. There was no good reason for him to mistakenly alarm the good people of Dothan. Except one, apparently: to save face. He refused to say he was incorrect, and he refused to be corrected. Instead, he began sharing anything on Twitter he could find to prove he was right: a “spaghetti model” of the storm’s possible tracks dated August 28,5 a map of predicted winds dated August 30,6 a clip of a CNN meteorologist saying on the evening of August 28 that Dorian’s winds could eventually reach Alabama and Mississippi,7 each of which was outdated by September 1. The Sharpie-marked map should’ve been just the cherry on top. Except it wasn’t! The same day he put the map in front of the news cameras, September 5—by now Dorian was whipping South Carolina and bound for Canada—the White House released a statement attributed to Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor Rear Admiral Peter Brown that read, in part, “The President’s comments [on September 1] were based on that morning’s Hurricane Dorian briefing, which included the possibility of tropical storm force winds in southeastern Alabama.”8 A day later, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released this statement: “From Wednesday, August 28, through Monday, September 2, the information provided by NOAA and the National Hurricane Center to President Trump and the wider public demonstrated that tropical-storm-force winds from Hurricane Dorian could impact Alabama.”9 Of course, those statements weren’t unsolicited. Using common sense here, we know that someone had to have asked for them. Believe the New York Times or not—and I do—President Trump ordered NOAA to cover for him, and the message was handed down to his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, who handed it down to the secretary of commerce, Wilbur Ross, who handed it down to NOAA leadership.10 Let’s put this into words that our Founding Fathers wouldn’t have: That’s fucking crazy, all right? It’s insane. It does not reflect the behavior of a rational human being, much less a stable president and administration. But some people in the corner of political media sympathetic to Trump tried to downplay the saga’s significance. One journalist said, “I must spend way too much time reporting [and] with unplugged people because I totally missed the [S]harpie story. Also I don’t know what the [S]harpie story is. I don’t care to know what the [S]harpie story is.”11 Several Republicans in Congress have often used this same kind of dismissiveness to say they don’t pay attention to the president’s Twitter feed, as if nothing he posts to it is of significance. (“I have a long-standing policy that I don’t comment on tweets,” said Senator Ted Cruz in response to reporters’ questions about a derogatory comment Trump had made toward several minority congresswomen, which pretty much captures the spirit of this kind of dodge.)12 To get down to the questions, then: Why did any of this really matter? And should people disown the president just because he threw a days-long fit about his inaccurate assessment of a storm forecast? Look. If you’re a Republican, and your choices are to (a) swallow the childish, stubborn behavior of the person on your side of the aisle and get policy you like in exchange for it or (b) bail, risk empowering progressives, and get policy you don’t like, I understand how you could choose (a). It’s essentially the choice Republicans made in 2016. But what the last three years have revealed is that that wasn’t actually the choice. It wasn’t just about tolerating childish, stubborn behavior. To take it from the top: to justify his untrue statements that Hurricane Dorian was set to hit Alabama “much harder than anticipated” and that it could bring “at least some very strong winds and something more than that,” the president of the United States tweeted expired hurricane maps and a TV weather segment with old information, displayed a doctored storm track in front of a press gaggle in his office, and ordered his subordinates, including the head of a major government science agency, to misrepresent scientific data. Now . . . Let’s pretend for a second that this president doesn’t have a name or belong to a political party. Let’s pretend instead that he’s just an independent guy doing the job. Let’s call him “Bob.” Do you trust Bob to do the job of president? Do you trust him to put your interests before his if he will risk panicking Americans with false information about a natural disaster just so he can have an excuse to argue with the media? Do you trust him to give you the facts straight—about the effects of his trade policy, about how many new miles of border wall his administration has built, about an investigation into a foreign adversary’s meddling in our election—if he’ll bully his employees into lying about the weather? Do you trust him to give you the facts if the stakes are even higher, life and death, if already the stakes of a hurricane are exactly that? Do you trust Bob to perform the basic constitutional functions of his job? To uphold his oath? To “take care that the laws be faithfully executed”? Or is the reality that you can’t trust Bob even with a box of fucking markers? You’re going to read plenty of times throughout these pages that Donald Trump is unfit to be president. I mean it. But what do I mean? I mean he’s incapable of telling the truth and he’s incapable of putting the nation’s interests ahead of his own. We’ve seen this countless times these past three-plus years—we saw it in his refusal to acknowledge Russian interference in 2016, we saw it in his push to get China and Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election, and we saw it in this stupid Sharpie story. While our fellow Americans in the Carolinas were getting pounded by a hurricane, all the president of the United States could talk about was how poorly he was being treated by the press. He made the story about him. Not the hurricane. All. About. Him. He cared more about salvaging his reputation than he cared about the Americans adversely affected by a natural disaster. This is who he is. It’s why he’s “unfit.” And it’s why this Sharpie business isn’t some trivial story. It’s not a story about the president having some fun with his foils in the media, sticking it to the libs, or behaving goofy over a nothingburger. It’s a story about a deeply unserious leader whose priority is saving his own skin and who will develop new, often unseemly or illegal ways to do it. This priority is at stark odds with his oath of office: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States.” And you know what? It’s okay if none of this is obvious right off the bat. Remember when I said it would take “only a minute” to lay out the stuff about Trump and Dorian? Whoops. Not that you were keeping count, but it took a couple thousand words. Explaining the full thrust of Trump’s conduct—just how long even one example drags on and the bizarre details of it—takes up a lot of time and space. So much that you could almost write a book about it...

GABixlerReviews

Greg Grandin, Pulitzer Prize Winning Author, Presents America, Ame'rica: A New History of the New World - Introducing A Book Which Needs to be Taught!

Have you ever learned something in your older years that was briefly touched on in your early school years, yet you were hearing an entirely different point of view about that particular "something" that was being discussed?

Or, have you ever talked with an individual from a different country and learn just how much different your life is from theirs?

Have you ever felt ashamed when you've met somebody new, or from a different country, who is totally confused by what we are saying or they are seeing?

I answered YES to all of the above questions. I had learned in my own life... But I had learned so much more just by reading the Introduction to this new book, which, hopefully, will become a textbook for public schools in the United Stats... I knew it before, but I'm saying it here, the United States has become and is becoming even more so, such an insulated nation, that we are becoming what we never wantd to be...

The type of countries that we, or our ancestors, had left, to come to a free land where we would have all that we had lost under tyrannical or authoritarian country leaders...

This new book is just out. 

I have already purchased his prize-winning book, The End of the Myth, as I am sure you can realize, ends when the border wall became the beginning of the present chaos in which we are now suffering... It is time we depend upon history and facts--and world-wide awareness-- to know what is right and truthful for our world...

Hopefully this will be a new beginning for a North America AND a South America... 

Yes, we worked to earn a reputation of being a free nation, welcoming the immigrants, responding to needs...but, in reality, there has always been an underbelly of unease... Those who lived it, wondered why it was... Or how did we get here? Or why we never heard at least a basic overview of issues in our public schools... I quickly want to say that it certainly was not the teachers who did not do their job... Let's begin by just reminding everybody that banning books has been a part of the issues for as long as I can remember. And that's a long time! Why is it that the United States, even while moving forward in so many ways, yet lack stability--that united front--that has never been totally accepted, or at least acknowledged, as a known accepted basis of Truth for the nation?

I'm not going to comment on this excerpt, other than to highlight what I learned... You will see that I had to acknowledge that I had never thought about the fact that we refer, naturally, to South America on a global basis...but, that, we never really understood what that meant to the people living there, versus, those who live in North America... At first, that was accepted, even while many things done by our early settlers, especially against the indigenous natives, was totally unacceptable... But, what it seems to have happened is that, whatever reason that drove people to leave their homes and move to North America, never really was forgotten. Rather those individual grievances and fears festered underneath or out in the open... We may have claimed our land and built our homes...

But we never really accepted that our (MY!) land was part of YOUR land as well...

As you read, begin to consider who you are as you consider who and where you live...

Introduction:  On the Utility of Magpies 

The traveler sat silently in Quaker meetings for hours during the day and visited brothels at night. In Philadelphia, he watched a raucous crowd welcome the arrival of George Washington, with men, women, and children as ecstatic as if “the redeemer had entered Jerusalem.” General Washington, the Venezuelan Francisco de Miranda wrote in his journal, was magnificent in his bearing and grace. He embodied virtue, and focused all the New World’s desires for independence into a single flame—a flame, Miranda said, that belonged to all America.[1] Miranda, as a colonel in the Royal Spanish Army, had already fought on the side of the North American rebel colonists during the bloody siege of Pensacola. He would later go on to defend the French Revolution and lead one of Spanish America’s first independence movements. 

Now, in the middle of 1783, he was beginning a yearlong tour of the new United States. Miranda wanted to see how the world’s first modern republic fared. He spoke with tradesmen, farmers, and Revolutionary War veterans. In New York’s Hudson Valley, he waxed lyrical about the sweet “grasses of the field” and mistakenly assumed the Catskills were North America’s highest point. He dined in gentry estates even as he noticed much hardship amid the wealth. Many of New York’s Dutch-speaking farmers couldn’t afford shoes, while the well-off, men and women alike, adorned themselves with silks, perfumes, pomades, and powders. The money spent on such “vanity,” he noted, would cover a year’s interest on the new country’s war debt. New York’s politicians and preachers professed abolition, Miranda noted, yet slavery still existed in the state. “The number of Negroes is large.” 

In Boston, he was introduced to Phillis Wheatley, a formerly enslaved West African woman who had won her freedom and became a celebrated poet only to die penniless. Miranda cited Wheatley as proof that all humans, regardless of color or sex, were rational beings. Miranda’s family in Caracas owned slaves, as did Miranda himself. They lugged around his famous library, many bundles of papers and an ever growing number of books. While in Philadelphia, he purchased the indenture of a Scottish boy who had arrived in port on a ship carrying over three hundred shackled Africans. But Miranda would soon embrace the abolitionist cause, as part of a broader belief that all the subjugated peoples of the Americas should be liberated, including Native Americans. When the New World was finally free, Miranda suggested, it might be called Columbia, with the English-language u instead of the Spanish o (as in Colombia), a spelling he picked up from Wheatley’s ode to Washington: “Celestial choir! enthron’d in realms of light, Columbia’s scenes of glorious toils I write.”[2] The Venezuelan thought both Native Americans and women were more oppressed in the new English-speaking republic than in colonial Spanish America. In the United States, the wives of revolutionary leaders were forced into a “monastic seclusion, and such submission to their husbands as I have never seen.” Boston’s General John Sullivan, who gained fame pacifying the British-allied Iroquois, kept “his wife and numerous children completely segregated from society and without giving the latter formal education.” Miranda, his journal pages full of detailed sexual encounters, was appalled when a Shelter Island parson refused to baptize a baby conceived prior to wedlock.[3] In New Haven, Yale’s president, Ezra Stiles, gave him a tour of the university. Miranda sat in on a Hebrew lesson, which he enjoyed, and was pleased that Optics and Algebra were taught “simply and naturally.” He was shocked, though, that the university offered no modern-language instruction, a bad omen for educating modern citizens, thought Miranda (who spoke English, French, and Italian, and read Greek and Latin). Nor was he impressed by Yale’s library: “nothing special.” He read Cotton Mather’s history of New England as “curious evidence of fanaticism.” And kept himself busy in Sunday New England with a pack of playing cards and flute practice, which violated strict Sabbath restrictions. No kite flying either. Stiles, in his own journal, called Miranda a “flaming son of liberty.”[4] Miranda took in the full variety of the new republic. He was welcomed everywhere he went, though he was often mistakenly introduced as a Mexican. Most men were polite but also, he thought, “unsocial,” or huraño, that is, aloof and disinterested in the wider world. Some of the people he met did ask questions about Spain’s American empire. Others proved stubbornly ignorant. In Providence, Miranda visited the estate of Esek Hopkins, who had commanded the rebel navy during the Revolution. Miranda made mention of Mexico City and was surprised to hear Commodore Hopkins respond by saying that there was no such place. A century earlier, New England Puritans had been entranced by Mexico City, the command center of New World popery, with its wide cobbled streets, many horses, and fine carriages. Now, when Miranda tried to correct Hopkins, the Commodore refused to believe him. “Very vulgar,” Miranda wrote in his journal of the encounter. He found most of the university presidents he met to be equally provincial and pedantic. Miranda admired the United States, its dynamism, and early steam power. He liked the psalm singing of Methodists and the organ playing of Episcopalians but was taken aback at how strictly religious most people were. He thought river baptisms absurd, that they indicated a stubborn literal-mindedness. There was too much pulpit “braying” of hatred directed at Jews, Catholics, and Muslims. Miranda singled out one parson for praise, James “Redemption” Murray, who preached that there was no such thing as damnation. “Salvation was universal,” Murray said, which Miranda found refreshing compared to Catholic and Protestant brimstone. Miranda was catching the first notes of the Second Great Awakening, a religious revival movement that went in many directions. There was the harshness Miranda criticized, but also a passion for political reform, for making the United States a vital, healthy, democratic, and energetic nation. He was repulsed by the return of Cotton-Matherism, but compelled by the energy, by the expectation, the scent of something new on the morning wind. And he shared with many of the leading figures in the Awakening the conviction that America, which for him meant all of America, was history’s redeemer.[5] One gets a sense from Miranda’s diary that he hoped the new United States would overcome the problems he recorded: poverty, slavery, the subordination of women, a tendency toward antisociability, and an occasional flash of unflattering self-regard. The diary also makes clear that Miranda wasn’t sure that it could. — “South America will be to North America,” declared the North American Review early in the 1800s, “what Asia and Africa are to Europe.”[6] Not quite. Europe’s liberal capitalist powers—Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands—would rule over culturally and religiously distinct peoples in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. British travelers to India made much of the impenetrability of Hinduism, with its jumble of noises, colors, deities. “There is no dignity,” said E. M. Forster after entering a temple to witness a celebration of the birth of Krishna, “no taste,” in what Indians call ritual. Only chaos. Forster was overcome by India’s mulligatawny metaphysics, the barrage of chants, ecstatic dancing, and indecipherable music. “I am very much muddled in my own mind about it,” he wrote. Forster worked the experience into his novel A Passage to India, writing that nothing the worshippers did seemed “dramatically correct” to the non-Hindu observer. It was, he thought, a jumble, a “frustration of reason and form.”[7] There was no frustration, not of reason nor form, when English and Spanish Europeans, Protestants and Catholics, engaged with one another in the New World. Miranda saw the differences separating Boston and Caracas society, but they didn’t muddle his mind. An indifferent Catholic, he didn’t like Protestant braying. But as a Christian, he understood the theology of the brayer. The republican insurgents who broke from Great Britain defined their system of liberties against what became known as the Black Legend, a compound of negative stereotypes that held the Catholic Spanish Empire to be especially cruel and corrupt. The Legend, though, was legible, emerging from Europe’s political rivalries and religious schisms, its scientific revolutions, renaissances, and enlightenments. When on one Sunday in 1774, future presidents George Washington and John Adams wandered into Philadelphia’s new Catholic Cathedral, they appreciated the priest’s sermon on the duty of parents to care for the spiritual and temporal well-being of their children. Adams, though, in a letter posted to his wife, Abigail, said that he was dismayed at the servility of the congregants, as they fingered their beads, crossed themselves with holy water, and chanted Latin incantations. A painting of “our Savior” in his “agonies,” blood streaming from his wounds, appalled him. So did the Church’s dominion over the senses: “Everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear, and imagination”—organ music, Latin prayers, stained glass, velvet and gold cloth covering the pulpit, the lace of priests’ vestments, candles, crucifixes, and statues of the saints—combine to “bewitch the simple and ignorant.” “I wonder how,” he wrote to Abigail, “Luther ever broke the spell.”[8] The freethinker Adams’s contempt for Catholic superstition mirrored the freethinker Miranda’s for Protestant fanaticism, and later, when Adams searched for some way to describe Francisco Miranda’s revolutionary enthusiasms, he reached for a satire that all literate people in the Americas, of a certain class, had read, either in its original Spanish or its many English translation editions: Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote. The Venezuelan, Adams said, was “as delirious as his immortal countryman, the ancient hero of La Mancha.”[9] There was an intimacy to such disdain, with both disdainer and disdained living in the same ideological village, sharing the same Savior, the same republican patois, reading each other’s books. Adams might have thought Miranda, and other Spanish Americans of his generation, foolish. But they were not inscrutable. They were not the incomprehensibles Forster found in Krishna’s temple. American insurgents, whether they spoke English or Spanish, inherited a set of common assumptions related to the dominance of Christianity and the fight against monarchism. They were mostly all republicans. Some were loosely deists, in one fashion or another, and most were Freemasons, some more anticlerical than others. And they all believed that the right to govern required the consent of the governed, even if that consent needed to be overseen by a caste of elites schooled in the virtues of civic republicanism. The men who would topple the Spanish Empire in the Americas felt they had a kindred spirit with their English-speaking counterparts. They looked to the North American revolution for inspiration, hoping that once Spain was thrown off they might replicate its system of liberties, representative government, and equality under the law. In any case, they shared a faith in the redeeming power of the New World, that America was more an ideal than a place. Simón Bolívar and Thomas Jefferson could at times sound as if they had fallen into a cataleptic trance as they prophesized the future. “It is impossible not to look forward to distant times,” Jefferson wrote, when the United States will “cover the whole Northern, if not the Southern continent with a people speaking the same language, governed in similar forms.” Bolívar imagined himself flying “across the years” to a moment when America had united the world under a system of rational laws, with the Isthmus of Panama a planetary capital, binding north and south, linking east and west. Greece and Rome had its laws and philosophies, but, really, asked Bolívar, what was “the Isthmus of Corinth compared with that of Panama?” 

Miranda conspired with Alexander Hamilton to liberate all South America, believing their escapades would “save the whole world, which is oscillating on the brink of an abyss.” And yet. When Jefferson and Adams used the word America, they were referring to the United States. When Bolívar, Miranda, and other Spanish American republicans used the word America, they meant all the Americas. “Our dear Country America, from the North to the South,” 

Miranda wrote Hamilton. — Who is an American? And what is America? These questions go back a long way. “I that am an American,” affirmed Cotton Mather in the early 1700s. In 1821, the radical Catholic priest Servando Teresa de Mier—born in northern Mexico to a family that traced its lineage back centuries to the first dukes of Granada—also thought himself an American. Having escaped the dungeons of the Inquisition, Mier had set up a printing house in Philadelphia to publish books banned by Spain. He complained, in a letter he sent to a revolutionary compatriot, about the way English speakers used the word America. There were two problems, actually. The first was the constant equation of Spanish American with South America. Mier was tired of pointing out to his English-speaking acquaintances that North America was also Spanish America—that there were more Spanish speakers in Mexico (which at that point ran well into what is today the United States’ Southwest) than in all South America.[10] The second problem was that each European empire used the word America to refer only to their colonial or former colonial possessions. Great Britain called the United States America, Spain called its colonies America, Portugal referred to Brazil as America, France and the Dutch did the same for their Caribbean islands. It is as if, Father Mier said, “there is no other America other than the one they dominate.” “A thousand errors,” he said, lamenting how America was fractured by such usage. All the New World is America. Confusion was natural. America, for Anglo settlers before their revolution, was both the entire New World and their sliver of that world—both their narrow dominion of a thin slip of land between the Alleghenies and the sea and all the land west of those mountains. 

In 1777, the Articles of Confederation named the new country the United States of America, but also referred to it as just America. Europeans liked to point out that the “United States” wasn’t really a “proper name” but rather an adjective attached to a generic noun. Washington Irving agreed. Irving wanted “an appellation” of his own to ensure that he wasn’t confused with a Mexican who by rights could also call himself an American. He wanted a name that would identify him as “of the Anglo-Saxon race which founded this Anglo-Saxon empire in the wilderness.” He suggested Appalachian or Alleghanian. The New England social activist Orestes Brownson thought such ideas rubbish. The “name of the country is America,” he wrote in 1865, “that of the people is Americans. Speak of Americans simply and nobody understands you to mean the people of Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Paraguay, but everybody understands you to mean the people of the United States.”[11] Brownson was right at least about royal Canadians, who tended not to call themselves Americans to distinguish themselves from their English-speaking republican neighbors. But Mexicans, Brazilians, Peruvians, Chileans, and Paraguayans all thought themselves Americans, as did the Venezuelan Francisco de Miranda. Nosotros los Americanos—We, the Americans—was how early Mexican nationalists called themselves. Somos da América e queremos ser americanos, said Brazil’s republican leaders, who wanted to overthrow their monarch: We are from America and want to be Americans.[12] Proprietary claims to America became politicized over time, serving as stand-ins for struggles about more substantive issues. “We’ve lost the right to call ourselves Americans,” the Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano wrote in 1971. “Today, for the rest of the world, America means nothing but the United States. We inhabit at best a Sub-America, a second-class America of confused identity.” “We are more American,” goes a song by the Mexican norteño band Los Tigres de Norte “than the sons of the Anglo-Saxons.” Los Tigres are a favorite of migrant and borderland workers, suggesting the matter is not just a concern of literate elites.

In 1943, the diplomatic historian Samuel Flagg Bemis struggled to decide what adjective he should use to refer to the United States, reluctantly settling on American. It sounds better, Bemis wrote, than “the less euphonious adjective United States.” Latin Americans will occasionally refer to the United States as América del Norte, but generally use Estados Unidos and estadounidense, which in Spanish with all its rolling vowels is euphonious, mellifluent even.[13] 

— I’ve written this book not to fuss over names but rather to explore the New World’s long history of ideological and ethical contestation. Philosophers use the phrase immanent critique to describe a form of dissent in which challengers don’t dismiss the legitimacy of their rivals’ worldview but rather accuse them of not living up to their own stated ideals. It’s a useful method for considering the Western Hemisphere, for Latin America gave the United States what other empires, be they formal or informal, lacked: its own magpie, an irrepressible critic. Over the course of two centuries, when Latin American politicians, activists, intellectuals, priests, poets, and balladeers—all the many men and women who came after Miranda—judged the United States, they did so from a shared first premise: America was a redeemer continent, and its historical mission was to strengthen the ideal of human equality. One can’t fully understand the history of English-speaking North America without also understanding the history of Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking America. And by that history, I mean all of it: from the Spanish Conquest and Puritan settlement to the founding of the United States, from Indian Removal and Manifest Destiny to the taking of the West, from chattel slavery, abolition, and the Civil War to the rise of a nation of extraordinary power—from the First World War to the Second, from the Monroe Doctrine to the League of Nations and the United Nations and beyond. And the reverse is true. You can’t tell the story of the South without the North. But America, América is more than a history of the Western Hemisphere. It’s a history of the modern world, an inquiry into how centuries of American bloodshed and diplomacy didn’t just shape the political identities of the United States and Latin America but also gave rise to global governance—the liberal international order that today, many believe, is in terminal crisis. The book starts with the Conquest. The astonishing brutality that Spain, in the first decades of the 1500s, visited on the people of the New World shocked the Catholic realm—Europe’s realm—leading to a reformation within Catholicism, a dissent as consequential as Luther’s. The Catholic Church claimed to be universal, the agent of human history and bearer of humanitas, all the world’s wisdom. And what had that wisdom wrought? Carnage unprecedented. The slaughter, which inaugurated what scholars place among the greatest mortality events in human history, forced theologians to consider Catholic claims to universalism with new attention. Many of these clerics wound up defending Spanish rule, not so much dehumanizing America’s native peoples as refusing to admit they were human at all. Those who died by the Spanish lance, or by European diseases, were of a lesser kind than those people who lived in Europe—defective, not touched by the divine, but rising from the muck and mire. Their dispossession and enslavement were allowed.[14] Others dissented—first among them Father Bartolomé de las Casas—realizing that what had previously been called universal was but provincial, that Europe was just a farrago of fiefdoms whose princes and priests knew nothing about the fullness of the world, nothing of its hitherto undisclosed millions. The dissent of these theologians and jurists has rung down the centuries. Protestant England paid attention to the interminable Spanish debates, to the Catholic friars who insisted on the humanity of the New World’s people, and wondered if they might secure their settlements, in Jamestown and Plymouth, on more defensible principles. They couldn’t. They opted for evasion.[15] Then came the Age of Revolutions, when the New World broke free from the Old. The United States did so first—a republic alone, as many of its leaders imagined, an “Anglo-Saxon empire in the wilderness.” Spanish American nations, in contrast, came into being collectively, an assemblage of republics, an already constituted league of nations. They had to learn to live together if they were to survive. And they largely did so, with their intellectuals, lawyers, and statesmen elaborating a unique body of international law: doctrines, precedents, and protocols geared not toward regulating but outlawing war, not adjudicating conquests but ending conquest altogether. But how to contain the United States? The hemisphere’s first republic seemed more a force of nature than a political entity. More than one of its founders said they could see no limits to its growth, that once they drove the natives beyond the stony mountains they’d soon fill both North and South America with Saxons. What to do with a kinetic nation that believed itself to be as universal as Christianity, as embodying the marching spirit of world history? What Spanish and Portuguese Americans did was update the criticisms aimed earlier at Spain during the Conquest and directed them at the United States. In so doing they sparked a revolution in international law. The triumph of liberal multilateralism after the Allied victory in World War II (especially the nullification of the right of conquest, the prohibition of aggressive war, and the recognition of the sovereign equality of all nations) is often narrated as a transatlantic story, a fortuitous evolution of ideas. Concepts in their infancy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries grew stronger in the nineteenth, matured in the twentieth century’s cataclysmic wars, and then found their moment in a series of meetings in the last years of World War II: Moscow, Tehran, Dumbarton Oaks, Yalta—onward to the establishment of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945 and the UN’s ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Most scholars ignore, or pass quickly over, Latin America when considering the founding of the League of Nations, and then the United Nations. It’s a curious indifference, for the English-speaking statesmen involved in founding global governance, along with those who laid prior groundwork for such an effort—Woodrow Wilson, Andrew Carnegie, Nelson Rockefeller, Henry Wallace, Sumner Welles, and Winston Churchill, among others—openly and repeatedly held up the New World as what the whole world should look like. Wilson often said that Latin America was the model for what he had hoped to accomplish in Paris. FDR told Stalin that Pan-Americanism would be a good template for a postfascist Eastern Europe.[16] America, América argues that the New World’s magpie rivalry, its immanent critique, played a vital role in the creation of the modern world, shaping its economics, politics, and moralities. The Protestant settlers who colonized, followed by the republicans who revolutionized, North America looked to Spanish America not as an alien other but as a competitor, a contender in an epic struggle to define a set of nominally shared but actually contested ideals: Christianity, freedom, law, sovereignty, property, equality, liberalism, democracy, and, above all, the very meaning of America.

~~~

To My Readers in The Old World and the New World!

No matter what country or nation or location where you now reside, I have learned much from just the Introduction, together with other earlier books. I believe this book is meant to be the future History Book for our Schools... Therefore, I highly recommend that you get a copy if you are a planner, like me, and start thinking about how and who you want to be in the future... The history begins in the 1700s... Right now, yes, right now, I see that the world is even worse than in the 1700s...Indeed, in the United States, there is an effort to return our nation into a century where slavery was still allowed... where women continued to die in birth because there was no medical miracles that had been developed that allowed family planning... As we see how many millions are being killed through what started out as minor attempts for help, for freedom, they soon loomed into major losses when greed, pride and power looked for new possibilities for fulfilling personal desires... Some of those who moved into North America because of cruelty and a desire for freedom, soon got just like their former leaders--greedy--and, right from the beginning, started forcing the occupants of both North and South America to abide by their beliefs, or to take what they had, as selfish actions, not caring that they were now doing exactly what had happened to them in the old country! 

Will anything happen to move us back on track to move forward in working to live together in peace? Across the World?! 

I will be working toward that for the rest of my life... Decide today, only working together--learning together will allow each of us, not just those that make money by destruction, hate, and violence, may learn that we can once again dare to reach our hands and arms out to others, in peace, and God's Love...

God, Hear Our Words... It is said that YOU are inside each of us... We are listening... Let us not turn aside for greed and become those who use violence and hatred to think "they" are now in control of that tiny or large world... For surely, right now in today's world, especially in where we had gone--where we had come so far--that we now willingly turn aside our neighbors for some grand scheme--for some mandate that only a few have created--with their millions--only to punish the rest of us? This is where we are. This book takes us back centuries to only now begin to realize just how far we are walking, slowly, backwards.

Will each of us help bring Love Back to This World?

Or will our history be created by machines that go back to this time, Today, and discover that many are dying by other men's hands...and explaining that this is for entertainment only...those people are...GONE

DESTROYED BY GREED, HATE, BIGOTRY, OR FEAR

Looking Toward the Palestine Situation Through the Eyes of Christ's Love... Introduction to The Quantum Gospel of Mary and The Lost Gospel of Truth by Keith Giles

 

Have we never stopped to listen to exactly what Jesus said?

Check out the discussion from the author of The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory by Tim Alberta

As well as the above video discussion! I've said it before, but I'll say it again... I never would have chosen Barabbas!

Each morning I take my meds while watching some news program... Lately, it's been harder and harder to do... For instance, I listened to the video, below, about Israel not being willing to allow an American doctor to enter GAZA with professional care and some food for children... And then, I heard the words of a medical student who had called this doctor... There was no way that I could NOT cry...The girl is supposed to continue to learn...but is so hungry that she finds herself unable to move!!! And talks about just allowing herself to die!!! Here's my first thought...

How can you talk about a place for the rich and famous? When people were killed and starved to make it so? This man is the same as the Prime Minister--Power Seekers~

Now Reading!

“Every Christian has the right to know there’s a major textual problem in John 11. That’s a fact.”

Finally, in 1955, after twelve years of labor and countless revisions, the first printed edition of the Gospel of Mary was released, and much later, in 1983, yet another Greek fragment (Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 3525) was discovered, further strengthening the Gospel of Mary’s historical credibility. Why Does It Matter? 

Here’s the remarkable thing: we now have fragments of three separate copies of the Gospel of Mary, two in Greek from the early third century and one in Coptic from the fifth century. This level of preservation for an early Christian text is rare. Most ancient works survived only if they were meticulously recopied over the centuries. Yet, the Gospel of Mary, by contrast, seems to have been suppressed, neglected and physically mutilated before finally emerging from the shadows. Thanks to serendipity, determination and a large amount of luck, this Gospel—fragmentary as it is—has, at last, re-emerged. 

What it offers us is a unique glimpse into early Christian thought and reminds us of the countless other stories and teachings that may lie hidden, waiting to be discovered. Gnostic or Not? So, is the Gospel of Mary a “Gnostic” text? Well, that’s a question scholars are still kicking around. The heart of the debate lies in whether so-called “Gnostic” texts really share enough of a unified worldview to even justify the label. After all, we’re talking about a pretty diverse collection of writings here. Can one word really cover it all? Some Gnostic texts do make a clear distinction between the earthly Jesus and some heavenly redeemer figure. But the Gospel of Mary doesn’t play that game. For instance, when the disciples mention how the Savior wasn’t spared from suffering, that shows us they believed Jesus genuinely suffered and died—and they were terrified the same fate might await them. 

In other words, there’s no sign of that docetic Christology you might expect in a truly Gnostic text. The Gospel of Mary sticks to a flesh-and-blood Savior who truly lived and died. Interestingly, most scholars no longer lump texts like the Gospel of Thomas, the Dialogue of the Savior, and the Gospel of Mary into the Gnostic bucket. While they might share some overlapping ideas with Gnosticism or even Platonism—like the notion of the soul’s ultimate return to the realm of light—they don’t embrace one of Gnosticism’s hallmark ideas which is the idea that an “evil demiurge” created the material world. That’s completely absent here. Another interesting twist is that scholars like Esther A. De Boer and Elizabeth Schrader Polczer argue that the Gospel of Mary leans more toward Stoic philosophy than Gnostic thought.

So, maybe it’s time to rethink how we classify this fascinating text. As Harvard theologian Karen L. King asserts, “I never call the Gospel of Mary a Gnostic text because there was no such thing as Gnosticism.”1 A Composite Text? Some scholars have wondered if the Gospel of Mary is really more like a patchwork quilt, stitched together from different pieces rather than a single cohesive text. Scholars like Jean Puech certainly lean toward the former. In his contribution to Hennecke’s New Testament Apocrypha, he suggests that the Gospel of Mary might actually be made up of two smaller, independent writings, that were later merged. 

Here’s his reasoning: At the end of the first part of the Gospel, Mary Magdalene steps into the narrative. Her presence seems designed to lift the disciples out of their fear and despair. But there’s a noticeable shift in the second section where Mary takes center stage, playing a dominant role. Compare that to the first part, where she’s more of a background character—barely making an impression—and one wonders if we’re dealing with two different authors. Puech argues that the title “Gospel of Mary” really only fits the second part of the text. That’s the section where Mary’s voice shines, inspiring and leading the disciples. As for the first part? It might belong to a different story altogether. What we have now, according to Puech, is an Apocryphon that’s been pieced together—artificially united to form what we call the Gospel of Mary today.2 

Scholars like Barrie Wilson seem to agree with Puech’s theory. 

Wilson points out a fascinating detail about the section sandwiched between two longer sections—the dialogue between the Savior and the disciples and Mary’s vision. What’s interesting is that while the middle section has a significant concentration of New Testament references, the two longer sections show almost no clear Christian influence. Wilson’s conclusion is that these two longer sections might have originally been independent, possibly even non-Christian in origin, and were later merged into a single text by a Christian editor. 

Scholar Anne Pasquier takes this idea a step further when she focuses on the shifting roles of Peter in the text. In the earlier part of the story, Peter’s attitude toward Mary is refreshingly positive. He calls her “sister” and even acknowledges her special connection with the Savior: “We know that the Savior loved you more than the rest of women.” He even encourages her to share her vision, giving her a platform to speak. 

But, fast-forward to the end of the text and suddenly, Peter’s tone takes a 180-degree turn. He’s questioning Mary’s revelation, even wondering if the Savior could really have spoken to her privately and without others present. Pasquier argues that Mary’s vision and the positive portrayal of Peter inviting her to recount it might have been added later, inserted into the text to tie things together. Here’s where things get even more interesting: Not everyone agrees with Wilson and Pasquier. 

Some scholars—both old and new—argue that the Gospel of Mary makes perfect sense as it stands. They believe there’s no need to assume it was pieced together from separate sources. So, is the Gospel of Mary a carefully curated quilt of stories, or is it a seamless garment that’s been misunderstood? Either way, exploring these questions gives us a deeper appreciation for the complexity and history of this remarkable text. 

Magdalene Defined Most references to Mary in the New Testament Gospels refer to her as “Mary of Magdala” which suggests that she was from the town of Magdala. However, it might surprise you to learn that, not only is there no mention of any town called Magdala in any of the New Testament texts, there is also no evidence that the place now called Magdala was called that at the time of Christ. In fact, it wasn’t until the sixth century that references to the town of Magdala started to appear. There were several places with Migdal (tower) in the name, but none of them were compelling as a place of origin for Mary Magdalene. So, what’s going on? Why do some New Testament Gospels identify Mary as being from Magdala? Perhaps it could be that what was originally being communicated wasn’t the name of the town where Mary was born, but the title given to Mary as the result of her prominence in the early Church. The Hebrew word Midgal means “tower” and there is some speculation that the term “migdal” was later confused as a reference to a town called “Migdal" (or “Magdala”) rather than as a title for Mary, “The Tower,” in much the same way that Peter was called “The Rock.” So, it’s quite likely that Mary Migdal is a reference to Mary, the Tower, and not to the town of Magdala which, as far as anyone can see, didn’t exist until around the sixth century, and was probably named such because of the mistaken reference in the Gospels to Mary the Magdalene, or Mary from the town of Magdala. 

Here’s what scholars Elizabeth Schrader and Joan E. Taylor have said on this question: “While it is common today to refer to Jesus’s disciple Mary Magdalene as Mary ‘of Magdala’—with Magdala identified as a Galilean city named Tarichaea—what do our earliest Christian sources actually indicate about the meaning of this woman’s name? Examination of the Gospel of Luke, Origen, Eusebius, Macarius Magnes, and Jerome, as well as evidence in hagiography, pilgrimage, and diverse literature, reveals multiple ways that the epithet ‘Magdalene’ can be understood. While Mary sometimes was believed to come from a place called “Magdala’ or ‘Magdalene,’ the assumption was that it was a small and obscure village, its location unspecified or unknown. Given the widespread understanding that Mary Magdalene was the sister of Martha, it could even be equated with Bethany. However, Jerome thought that the epithet was a reward for Mary’s faith and actions, not something indicative of provenance: Mary ‘of the Tower.’ No early Christian author identifies a city (Tarichaea) called ‘Magdala’ by the Sea of Galilee, even when they knew the area well. A pilgrim site on ancient ruins, established as ‘Magdala’ by the mid-sixth century, was visited by Christians at least into the fourteenth century, and thus the name is remembered today. In view of the earlier evidence of Origen and Jerome, however, the term ‘Magdala’ may be based on an underlying Aramaic word meaning ‘the magnified one’ or ‘tower-ess,’ and is therefore best left untranslated.” 3 As we’re about to see, this isn’t the only clue that Mary Magdalene’s prominence was aggressively downgraded by some Christian leaders over the centuries in an attempt to rewrite the history of her importance in the early Church. That’s what we’ll talk about in our next chapter.  

REDISCOVERING MARY MAGDALENE A Scholar's Journey to Uncovering the Truth 

Imagine being a musician who stumbles upon a mystery hidden in the text of the Gospel of John—a mystery so profound that it could rewrite our understanding of Mary Magdalene’s role in early Christianity. That’s exactly what happened to Elizabeth Schrader, a singer-songwriter turned biblical scholar. Schrader’s journey began in the most unexpected way. While living in New York and frequenting a Catholic church with a garden dedicated to the Virgin Mary, she had a profound moment of inspiration as the phrase, “Maybe you should talk to Mary Magdalene about that,” popped into her head while praying. 

Inspired by this, she penned a song about Mary Magdalene, not realizing it would change the course of her life forever. Curiosity about Mary Magdalene led her to the Brooklyn Public Library, where she began studying all that she could about this mysterious woman. What started as an effort to better understand the subject of her song turned into an obsession that propelled her into the world of biblical scholarship. “It was like falling down the world’s deepest rabbit hole,”1 she said. Soon, she was poring over ancient manuscripts, diving into textual criticism, and asking bold questions. The Mystery of Martha’s Addition

In her quest to find answers about the life and character of Mary Magdalene, she turned to Papyrus 66, one of the oldest substantial copies of the Gospel of John, dating back to around 200 CE. What she found was shocking: in John, chapter 11, where the story of Lazarus unfolds, the text showed clear signs of alteration. Mary’s name had been crossed out and replaced with Martha in several key verses. Even the verbs were altered to change singular references to plural, suggesting the addition of a second sister. “It looked like someone had split one woman into two,” Schrader explained.2 

In fact, the changes were so awkward and clumsy that they hinted at an editor grappling with conflicting source texts. Scholars had noticed these edits as far back as the 1960s, but no one had delved deeply into their implications. Elizabeth decided to change that. 

A Competitive Hypothesis Elizabeth’s research uncovered a plausible hypothesis: originally, the Gospel of John might have featured just two siblings—Lazarus and Mary—with Mary playing a prominent role. “There’s no reason to think Martha from Luke’s Gospel has anything to do with this story,” she argued.3 After all, Luke’s Martha and Mary live in a different location, lack a brother, and appear in a completely unrelated context. What’s more, early church fathers like Tertullian and Hippolytus seemed to remember a version of John’s Gospel where Mary—not Martha—was the central figure. 

This Mary was the one who made a pivotal confession of Jesus as the Christ, a role similar to Peter’s confession in Matthew’s Gospel. Yet, over time, Martha appears to have been added to the text, diluting Mary’s prominence. Why Was Mary Magdalene Erased? So why would anyone tamper with Mary’s role? 

Elizabeth points to a potential power struggle in early Christianity. “The Gospel of John makes deliberate parallels between Mary’s role in raising Lazarus and her encounter with Jesus at the empty tomb,” she said. “It suggests that Mary Magdalene could have been as central to the movement as Peter.”4 

However, this posed a problem for a patriarchal church structure that favored Peter’s authority. Adding Martha served a purpose. 

It diminished Mary’s unique role by spreading her actions across multiple characters. Suddenly, the confession of Jesus as the Christ belonged to a minor character, not the woman who stood at the cross, visited the empty tomb, and received the first apostolic commission from the risen Christ. 

Bringing the Research to Light Schrader’s groundbreaking work didn’t stop with her discoveries in Papyrus 66. She broadened her research to include over a hundred manuscripts and found similar patterns. Her findings culminated in a peer-reviewed article published in the Harvard Theological Review, an achievement that shocked even her. “I was just a songwriter,” she said. “Now I’m presenting my work to the top biblical scholars in the world.”5 

Today, her work has sparked conversations about the need for diversity in biblical scholarship. “If everyone studying these texts comes from the same background, we’re bound to miss things,” she noted.6 

Her fresh perspective as a woman and a layperson allowed her to ask questions others hadn’t...

GABixlerReviews

Dictionary of Biblical Symbolism by Stanislaw Kapuschinski - Introduction - How It Can Be Used! - Open Memoir

 

 

1 Corinthians 13:11 King James Version (KJV)

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

When I put away childish things,

I began to meet extremely dedicated men and women from around the world

writing and researching books--

Dale Carnegie's book and course, for instance...

both fiction and nonfiction.

For me, that started

At High School Graduation

I was an A Student normally, except for maybe Physical Education (Sadly)

Selecting the Clerical Rather than Academic Course Option

I was ready to assume a secretarial position immediately after graduation.

And, with a job, I immediately began to buy my own books--mostly religious, self-help, or study books

I was third in full class (including Academic)

I was first in Clerical Program

I was hired as secretary for the summer of 1963

at the Albert Gallatin Senior High from which

I had Graduated

I began working in Personnel based upon

Employment Tests

As a Records Clerk and 

Secretary to the Assistant Director of Personnel

I was then promoted to Secretary to Director

Then Promoted to Secretary to (2) Provosts

On to Facilities Analysis and Utilization

As Facilities Technician/Classroom Manager

During those years I began

taking University Courses

And, Achieved over 360 Credits for

Continuing Education Courses

Stopping there...Pointing Out that 

Self-Study Occupied My Time

Any free time was dedicated to

Cat Cozy Mysteries...LOL

I have said it at other times, Stanislaw is one of the most brilliant writers I have met. He has authored both fiction and non-fiction... writing under two variations of his own name.

He used his full name for non-fiction

And, Stan I. S. Law for fiction

Again, you can check out his books that I've previously read and reviewed. To the Right

The most important result of reading him was that I knew--definitely--that I had put away childish things. His books are meant to help us move forward in what, he, and I, believe is what God's Plan For Us

really is...

Consider all of the advances made in just one area

Science

Please consider that what the early men before Christ

and those After Christ would have known in this area.

Yet God, the Creator, Had Used Science

During His Creation

Surely We thank God for Sharing His Wisdom?!

Is It Time for YOU to Become All That God

Has Planned for Us?

God (s) This word is used in the Bible as a translation of Hebrew El, elah, elohim, eloah, Jehovah (read by Jews elohim, probably Yahweh), Greek theos, kurios (Lord, master), theodidaktos (God taught), and a number of other terms.  Only the context can help the student to determine the intent of the original writer.

Kapuscinski (aka Stan I.S. Law), Stanislaw. Dictionary of Biblical Symbolism (p. 130).  

And after all, let us not forget what Jesus said some two millennia ago, when his disciples had asked him why he spoke in parables. His response: “Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.”(6) Why? Perhaps only a few were ready—then.

Kapuscinski (aka Stan I.S. Law), Stanislaw. 

Dictionary of Biblical Symbolism (pp. 17-18).  

Maneh a weight; [1/60 of a talent = maneh]

Kapuscinski (aka Stan I.S. Law), Stanislaw. 

Dictionary of Biblical Symbolism (p. 168). 

Just two of the references found in the Dictionary

mentioned in a previous post Today...

FOREWORD: 430 B.C. Around 430 B.C. Democritus of Abdera said: Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion. Today, some two-and-a-half millennia later, the same can be said of the Old Testament of the Bible: Nothing exists but a lot of Hebrew words arranged in a linear fashion; everything else is an opinion. Why? Because the ancient Hebrew had been written in capital letters only, in continuous lines without any breaks for paragraphs or punctuation. No proper names of either people or places had been identified in any way. All we have is a flood of words, flowing like a beautiful stream, perhaps a mighty river... All else is an opinion. For centuries self-proclaimed experts imposed their opinion on what those words mean. In extreme cases, those who disagreed with the scholars approved by the Orthodoxy had been burnt at the stake. You needn’t worry. In most countries murder and torture for religious belief is now illegal. Today, in most countries, you can dare to think for yourself. And you must. In the Age of Aquarius, religions, all religions, have entered a protracted, lingering period of inexorable demise. Dogmatic authoritarians are rapidly loosing their credibility. We have entered an Age of individualization. We shall be forced to think for ourselves. It is with this sentiment that I am offering my Dictionary of Biblical Symbolism. Everyone who so desires will be able to study ancient Scriptures and attempt to understand the secret, perhaps sacred knowledge, hidden in their pages. And the knowledge of the ancients is staggering. On closer examination I found no evidence of any dogmas, no promises of unearned rewards now or hereafter, but also no dire threats of eternal damnation. But this is only my opinion. I shall not repeat the mistakes of the past by interpreting the Scriptures for you. I’m offering you the means to find your own wisdom. The rest is up to you. 

INTRODUCTION The desert, near Nag’ Hammadi 365 A.D. As the dying wind sighed and heaved among the undulating dunes, a single dark shape, a hood pulled well over his face (the desert has many eyes), made its way towards the distant cliffs. Even from afar, brother El’zaphan could detect the agonizing whimpers of ghostly howling as it slithered low over the sand from the mountain ahead—the eerie mountain they called the Jobal al’Tarif. Its jagged slopes and contorted innards, ridden with countless forbidden caves and tunnels, held many secrets. For twenty-five centuries the dark, mysterious caverns guarded the scant remains of the noblest people. Perhaps some... not so noble. They said that the spirits of the unworthy howled, aye, howled and whimpered in the desert night air. Brother El’zaphan shrugged his narrow shoulders. He knew better. He was among the few who shared in the Secret Knowledge. Soon the caves would serve once again as nature’s sarcophagus to hold and protect the most noble remains. Those sacred volumes, or what remained of them, containing the Secret Knowledge which the inspired brethren had committed to papyrus. With such selfless love, such steadfast perseverance. At the risk of their lives. And just as well. The original Greek texts, those now translated into Coptic language, had been destroyed long ago. By whom? By the misguided ignorant men jealous of the secrets contained within the gospels. “Gnostic gospels,” they called them. “Pseudo-knowledge!” they sneered... “The ravings of drunkards... Yes, of drunks and heretics... The knowledge of the devil!” Brother El’zaphan quickened his pace. His robe, the color of the whispering sand, gave him only partial protection from the lurking ungodly. He inhaled deeply. The cool night air filled his lungs with fresh strength after the scorching heat of the merciless desert sun. Yet the Books were heavy. It wasn’t far now. Brother El’zaphan had been chosen go alone to Jobal al’Tarif, at night, and hide the thirteen books before the bishop’s men made a burnt offering of them to their jealous god. Thirteen books containing more then fifty manuscripts that the scribes had consigned to paper with such determination. He, El’zaphan, had helped to cover them with the very best leather. To help them last. Who knows for how long? “These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke, and which the twin, Judas Thomas, wrote down.”(1) His parched lips moved in silence recalling the sacred stanzas. He did not really need the Holy Books anymore. He had committed them all to memory. Long ago. But what of those who will follow? It was only a question of time. Brother El’zaphan knew that ever since Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons had written his hateful dissertations some 200 years ago, calling for “The Destruction and Overthrow of Falsely So-called Knowledge,”(2) it would only be a question of time before the Orthodox Church, the fundamentalists, would lay their hands on his beloved Books and have them burnt as heresy. Ireneaus and his cohorts served a very jealous god. Soon the Manuscripts would be safe. Safely hidden among the caves of the dead. The Books of Life, Logos, among the silent corpses. Even the orthodox priests and deacons were afraid to enter the hollows of the departed. The wandering spirits would protect the sacred stanzas from the ungodly. For as long as it took. Until people were ready. Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.(3) FOOTNOTES: (1). Gospel of Thomas, gleaned from The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels, thereafter referred to as TGG. (2). Irenaeus, Libros Quinque Adversus Haereses 3.11.9. Gleaned from TGG. (3). Matthew  7:6; [The Holy Bible, King James Version] 

Jobal al’Tarif near Nag’ Hammadi 1945 A.D. Many years have passed since brother El’zaphan risked his life on that lonely mission across the desert sands. Perhaps he was lucky. He had managed to avoid the needle of the deadly scorpion, the prying eyes of the Bishop’s men and even the bandits who were ever ready to pounce on anyone within reach of that dreaded mountain, the Jobal al’Tarif. Even in his day some had dared to rob the graves of the departed. Perhaps brother El’zaphan had been lucky, perhaps under a Special protection. Some 1580 years later, Muhammad ‘Ali’s mallet struck a tall earthenware jar. Quite by accident. “Gold!” he exclaimed.  Then, after glancing at his brothers, he bit his lips. He would have to share his find with them. In the name of Allah! Is there no justice in this world? His mallet struck the jar first, he must get the lion’s share of the riches. But there was no gold. There were just some books, wrapped in old-looking leather. But no gold. Perhaps he could sell them for a few piasters. If not, his mother could burn them in her cooking stove. And his mother did burn some of the loose sheets. But only some. The rest must have been well protected. Just like brother El’zaphan. It took another twenty-seven years before the first volume of photographic edition was released for publication. Nine more volumes were to emerge over the next five years. In 1977 the first complete, English language edition was published in the United States. Perhaps it was meant to be that way? We have now reached a stage in the history of the world when the whole of the human race as a body, or at least a large majority of people of every kind and of every race, are ready for the Second Coming of the Christ.... it is beginning to happen.... (it) is taking place now in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of people. (1) “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you” (2) It would seem that the time is ripe for the next step in the development of the human psyche, or as the Bible prefers to call it, the human soul. About fifteen years ago, I came across some books written by the late Emmet Fox. I read them avidly. Later, I spent a good many years trying to find out if anyone had taken up the work, which Emmet Fox had began. I could find no one. I began looking for a dictionary that would explain to me the symbolism, which, according to Emmet Fox, served to conceal or rather to protect the mysteries of Truth and Wisdom, perhaps from those who might want to destroy them as heresy. The experience of Nag Hammadi had proven that whoever had chosen to leave over 3000 words of the King James Version of the Bible untranslated, must have done so for a good reason. I have not the slightest doubt, that if orthodox religions had the key to Biblical Symbolism, all the volumes would have been destroyed long ago as heresy. Or altered beyond recognition. Orthodoxy demands conformity and obedience and doctrinal conformity defines the orthodox faith. Effulgent diversity defines Divine creation. The two are at odds. I have no degree in theology nor a doctorate in Divinity, though I had been offered the latter title, for $10 U.S. by post, when I visited Florida in 1982. I also lay no claims to divine revelations, though I believe that we all serve as channels through which the Divine reveals Itself to us. I do claim to have read a number of books and done some considerable research which, I hope, will serve the reader to look beyond the letter of the law and recognize the spirit thereof. I offer no more than a few brief examples of the manner in which the Dictionary of Biblical Symbolism can be used, or applied to the original Biblical text. The examples are to serve as illustrations of how symbolism can be applied to unravel the allegories, and to increase our understanding of the original authors’ intent. In my opinion the Dictionary works. Whether it will work for all the Books of the Bible, I have no idea. If not, I hope the readers will contribute additional information, which will augment and complement the work I have done to date. I firmly believe that anyone who lays claim to possessing the final key to the total wisdom hidden in the Bible is both presumptuous and absurd. After all, those who will venture on this exciting journey of discovery should bear in mind that the Bible (Gk. biblos, a book) had been written by and for ancient people, living mostly in the Orient, under very different conditions and needs to ours and, perhaps most of all, for people who could neither read nor write. The Books had been written in the ancient languages of Hebrew and Greek, the first of which did not even make use of vowels, as we know them, and the second of which few of the present day Greeks can understand. Furthermore, the Truth, or the deeper sense that the authors intended to convey, is hidden behind symbol, while the allegories are typical of their time, their customs and their spiritual needs. It has been said that Truth is One for all time. I have no intention to dispute this thesis but, if so, than I am sure that it must be constantly rediscovered. It is my contention, however, that there is Secret Knowledge in the biblical writings. Furthermore and in spite of innumerable difficulties, the Truth seems to flow in great abundance to him, or her, who takes the trouble to look beyond the obvious. All too often the principle problem seems to lay not in the translation or the etymological origin of the word per se, but rather in our inability to rise above the belief in our own limitations to cope with such problems. But most of all, we seem to refuse to let go of our established mindset, our preconceived ideas.   Of one thing I am certain. Should we put as much effort into the pursuit of Truth, biblical or otherwise, as we do into almost any other facet of our day to day existence, we would advance on the scale of spiritual evolution at the same pace as we presently advance in physics, or chemistry, or medicine, or any branch of pure or applied sciences.

Body symbolizes physical consciousness, our conscious awareness, or the state of mind of which our (physical) body is a reflection  [In a broader sense, the “Body” also symbolizes the individualization of Soul. In more developed states of consciousness, such as the Body of Christ, It symbolizes the conscious awareness of I AM, the Higher Self].

Kapuscinski (aka Stan I.S. Law), Stanislaw. Dictionary of Biblical Symbolism (pp. 101-102).  

Reference made in Psalm 23

In this post I wanted to Introduce Stanislaw's Dictionary of Biblical Symbolism together with very recent references used in the last few posts.

As you can see, finding individual words is quite easy... parable, talent, God

I was using an ebook version which makes it even more simple to search and find the particular words needed to provide guidance, as needed.

Re the Intro material

I have reviewed only one of the books that had been found as described.

The Book of Thomas Who Recorded the Words of Jesus.

As Usual, Look to the Right, Search on Title

Watch for a full review of this extraordinary book

in near future...