Blog

Christian Prayer vs. Magic, Part 4

(This is the 4th installment of a series examining the differences between Christian prayer and a pagan, magical worldview.  You can find the previous posts here, here and here.)

The fourth distinction I want to make between magic and Christian prayer is the magical emphasis on secret knowledge.

For the magical mindset, incantations, spells, etc. (let’s call them magical prayers) are effective because the properly trained and educated magician knows the secret ingredients, words, phrases and names that make the incantations powerful and effective.

These can include the bizarre ingredients we popularly identify with cartoon witches:  frog eyes, bat wings, snake bladders and more.  Specialists now debate whether or not such weird recipes were to be taken literally or if, perhaps, they were code words signifying more common items available in the average home.  I suspect that we will may never know the answer.  But regardless, the average person seeking help from the local magician certainly believed that actual bat wings and newt testicles were essential items in the magician’s bag of potions.

Magicians also knew the secret names and titles that allowed the magician to command the many gods, spirits, and angels required to bring a positive response to a prayer.  Every spiritual force had multiple designations.  Some

A Victorian pendant inscribed with the ancient, magical word Abracadabra (a near palindrome, which was always popular in magic)

names and titles were public knowledge.  But only those who were initiated into “the mysteries” of a spiritual power knew the secret names and titles of that power.  When those secret names and titles were used properly, perhaps combined with a potion containing the necessary secret ingredients, then the person offering those magical prayers could expect the designated deity or demon to do exactly what was requested.

We can see a good example of such magical thinking in Acts 19:13-16 when the apostle Paul encounters the seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest

Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.” Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. One day the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?”  Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.

This text provides an ancient example of Jewish magical exorcism practiced by Jewish magicians (who were probably entirely orthodox in their religious

The seven sons of Sceva

beliefs).  The sons of Sceva had seen Paul’s successful exorcisms when he declared the resurrected Jesus’ victory over the power of Satan in this world.

As was common in ancient religion, the concept of “personal faith” was not always relevant to religious practice.  The Jewish magicians simply latched onto Paul’s use of a new secret name – Jesus.

Here is another example of magical prayer and its emphasis on technique (see the previous post).  The Jewish magicians thought they had discovered a new, obviously effective, technique – call upon the secret name of Jesus and watch the demons flee.

Little did they know that Christian prayer is not magic.  The results of authentic prayer in the name of Jesus have nothing to do with using the correct technique, or saying the proper phrasing with the right names in the right way.

So, what lessons can we learn?

First, the results of Christian prayer are tied up with personal faith in a real personal relationship with one’s personal Lord and Savior, allowing his Lordship to determine the answers we eventually receive.  True prayer is about spiritual intimacy not technique.

Second, there is no hierarchy in the Body of Christ determined by secret or special knowledge.  There is no “in group” who is privileged to know the more powerful, more effective ways to pray. Ways that are not available to others who have not yet learned the correct “prayer language,” who haven’t attended the proper conferences or seminars, who haven’t had certain mystical experiences, who have yet to learn the most effective ways to express themselves to God.  Such ways of thinking are characteristic of Gnosticism not Christianity.

Third, every Christian should be suspicious of anyone unduly fixated on acquiring and possessing spiritual power.  Certain strains of the Christian church seem obsessed with gaining power, exercising power, seeing displays of power, being empowered and living a power-filled life.

Typically, this fixation with power fills the concept with more worldly, pagan notions of power that it does New Testament ideas of power.  In fact, I find very little New Testament precedent for this common preoccupation with becoming a more powerful Christian.

For example, let’s look at THE New Testament power- prayer where Paul most explicitly prays for believers to experience more of God’s power, Ephesians 3:14-19:

For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

As far as the apostle Paul was concerned, the most vital experience of spiritual power available to any Christian, and the focus of his prayers that fellow believers become endowed with power, concerns the Christian’s daily experience of union with Christ leading us to a deeper and deeper awareness of the eternal, immeasurable, divine fullness of Christ’s love for each of us.

Get that?!

The immeasurable height, depth, length and breadth of Jesus’ love for his people is so infinitely beyond any human ability to comprehend that the most profound operation of God’s eternal power is best realized when a sinful follower of Jesus slowly apprehends a bit more and a bit more and a bit more again of what the full measure of Christ’s love means in his/her life.  That blows my mind…

THAT’S a display of divine power in this life, my friends.  And it’s the most incredible display of power anyone can ever experience this side of eternity.

Fox News Rejects Ad for Oscar Nominated, anti-Nazi Documentary

The Trump News Network, aka Fox News, refused to sell 30 seconds of air- time for the Academy Award nominated documentary, “Night at the

20,000 American Nazis in Madison Square Garden, 1939

Garden.”  The ad is called “It Can Happen Here.” Read the story here and here.

The 7 minute film consists of archival footage showing a pro-Nazi rally held in Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939.  Hitler had just completed construction of his 6th concentration camp.  In only seven months Germany would invade Poland, triggering the bloodiest war in recorded history.

Americans give the Nazi salute

During that East coast winter evening 79 years ago, 20,000 Nazi-supporting Americans packed the New York City arena, raised their right arms in the Nazi salute, and applauded wildly to virulent, anti-Semitic speeches.

We can even see a mob of Nazi brown-shirts beat a protester who climbs onto the stage, until he is finally saved by New York police on the scene.

You can watch the entire film at the producers’ website here, or on YouTube here.

Yes, IT CAN happen here, folks.

Is it unfair of me to suspect that this is why Fox News refused advertisement time for this documentary; the

A Jewish protester, later identified as a plumber, is beaten by Nazi brown shirts

very network that daily encourages Trump to take more and more extreme measures in his racist policies against people of color?

I don’t think so.

Israel Imprisons Palestinian Legislator without Charge, Detained for 20 Months and Counting

Israeli leaders, and their Zionist cohorts, frequently describe themselves as “the only democracy in the Middle East.”  But as Gideon Levy points out in his lasted piece at Haaretz, this claim can only be accepted if we redefine “democracy” to mean “an ethnocratic state providing democracy to Jews while confining all others to a police-state devoid of liberty or due process of law.”

Levy’s article is entitled, “Remember: Israel is Still Holding a Palestinian Law Maker as Political Prisoner Indefinitely.”  I have excerpted his article below.  You can read the entire piece by clicking on the title above.

Palestinian legislator, Kalida Jarrar, being imprisoned indefinitely, without charges or trial, in an Israeli military prison

“Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar has been incarcerated in an Israeli jail without a trial for 20 months. Another period of ‘administrative detention’ will soon expire. Will she come home?

“Khalida Jarrar is Israel’s No. 1 female political prisoner, the leader of the inmates in Damon Prison, on Mt. Carmel, and the most senior Palestinian woman Israel has jailed, without her ever having been convicted of any offense.

“The public struggle for her release has been long and frustrating, with more resonance abroad than in Israel. Here it encounters the implacable walls of the occupation authorities and the startling indifference of Israeli public opinion: People here don’t care that they’re living under a regime in which there are political prisoners. There is also the silence of the female MKs and the muteness of the women’s organizations.

“Haaretz has devoted no fewer than five editorials demanding either that evidence against her be presented or that she be released immediately. To no avail: Jarrar is still in detention and she still hasn’t been charged…

“…Reminder: On April 2, 2015, troops of the Israel Defense Forces raided the Jarrar family’s home in El Bireh, adjacent to Ramallah, and abducted Khalida, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

“She was placed in administrative detention. In the wake of international protests over Israel’s arrest without charges of a lawmaker who was elected democratically, the occupation authorities decided to try her. She was indicted on 12 counts, all of them utterly grotesque, including suspicion of visiting the homes of prisoners’ families, suspicion of attending a book fair and suspicion of calling for the release of Ahmad Saadat, a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who has been in prison for years.

“The charge sheet against Jarrar – an opponent of the occupation, a determined feminist and a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee – will one day serve as the crushing proof that there is not even the slightest connection between “military justice” and actual law and justice…

“…During Khalida’s last arrest, recalls her husband, IDF soldiers and Shin Bet security service agents burst into the house by force in the dead of night. They entered Suha’s (their daughter) room and woke her up. He remembers how she shouted, panic-stricken at the sight of the rifles being brandished by strange men in her bedroom wearing black masks, and how the soldiers handcuffed her from behind. As Ghassan replays the scene in his mind and remembers his daughter’s shouts, he grows distraught, as if it had happened this week.

“Not knowing know what the soldiers were doing to her there, and only hearing her shouts, he tried to come to his daughter’s rescue, he recalls. He says he was almost killed by the soldiers for trying to force his way into Suha’s bedroom.

“After the soldiers took Khalida, preventing Ghassan from even kissing her goodbye, despite his request – he discovered his daughter, bound by plastic handcuffs.”

 

 

Rep. Omar Speaks Truth to Power and Pays the Price

Newly elected Representative Ilhan Omar is being accused of Tweeting anti-Semitic slurs for speaking the truth:  AIPAC (the American Israel Public

Rep. Ilhan Omar

Affairs Committee) is among the most powerful lobbying organizations in this country.

Working in coordination with the Israeli government, AIPAC deploys sizeable financial and public relations resources in order to destroy any and all congressional voices that are critical of Israel.  They don’t hesitate to destroy the political careers and personal reputations of anyone with sufficient moral backbone to criticize Israel’s inhumane treatment of the Palestinian people.

Please watch the 4-part Al-Jazeera documentary, “The Lobby,” to see for yourself how insufferably dishonest pro-Israel lobbying groups can be.  I have discussed it in a previous post, “Discover Why Pro-Israel/Zionists Groups Fought to Stop You From Seeing This Documentary.”  You will find embedded links to the documentary there as well.

Two recent articles also provide helpful information with some historical context to the campaign of public shaming Rep. Omar has suffered for speaking the truth.  They are:

“Pro-Israel Lobby Caught on Tape Boasting That Its Money Influences Washington,” by Ryan Grimm at The Intercept.

“Democratic Party Insiders Create Group to Promote Israel to Progressives,” by Alison Weir at MPN News.  This well-researched piece is particularly apt in that Weir highlights AIPAC’s influence within the upper

Rep. Rashida Tlaib

echelons of the Democratic Party specifically designed to stop politicians like Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from ever criticizing Israel.

The two excerpts below come from the two articles mentioned above.  The first is from The Intercept, the second is from MPN News.

First excerpt: “A debate about the power in Washington of the pro-Israel lobby is underway, after Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., responded sharply to reports that Republican leader Kevin McCarthy was targeting both Omar and fellow Muslim Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan.

“Omar quoted rap lyrics — “It’s all about the Benjamins baby” — to suggest McCarthy’s move was driven by the lobby’s prolific spending. Asked specifically who she was referring to, Omar responded, “AIPAC!”

“The debate over the influence of pro-Israel groups could be informed by an investigation by Al Jazeera, in which an undercover reporter infiltrated The Israel Project, a Washington-based group, and secretly recorded conversations about political strategy and influence over a six-month period in 2016. That investigation, however, was never aired by the network — suppressed by pressure from the pro-Israel lobby.

“In November, Electronic Intifada obtained and published the four-part series, but it did so during the week of the midterm elections, and the documentary did not get a lot of attention then.

“In it, leaders of the pro-Israel lobby speak openly about how they use money to influence the political process, in ways so blunt that if the comments were made by critics, they’d be charged with anti-Semitism…  

“…Without spending money, Ochs argues, the pro-Israel lobby isn’t able to enact its agenda. “Congressmen and senators don’t do anything unless you pressure them. They kick the can down the road, unless you pressure them, and the only way to do that is with money,” he explains.”

Second excerpt:  “Some Democratic heavy hitters have formed a new pro-Israel organization focused on progressive Democrats. The new group, “Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI),” is the latest in a long line of groups working for Israel in the United States.

“New York Jewish Week reports that the group was formed “to counter the drift

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accompanied by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 19, 2009. (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)

— if not dive — away from support for Israel within the party.” Israel partisans are concerned at the growing support among Democrats for Palestinian human rights, as awareness of the situation has grown in recent years.

“Numerous humanitarian agencies have documented Israeli human rights violations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW), the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), Christian Aid, the International Red Cross, and others.

“In addition, videos of Israeli settlers destroying Palestinian crops, Israeli soldiers beating people, including children, and killing unarmed protestors have become increasingly available on the Internet.

“This has had a perception-shattering impact.

“For many years surveys showed that more Americans sympathized with Israel than with Palestinians. But growing knowledge of the region among progressive Democrats has now reversed the numbers within that group. A 2018 Pew survey found that “nearly twice as many liberal Democrats say they sympathize more with the Palestinians than with Israel.”

“In addition, the New York Times reports, Israel partisans were jolted by the election of  Representatives Ilhan Omar (MN) and Rashida Tlaib (MI), who support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) who has called the occupation of Palestine a humanitarian crisis.”

History tells us that AIPAC, with the covert support of the Israeli government, will  do everything it possibly can to defeat these brave, new congresswomen when they run for reelection.  The current character assassination of Rep. Omar is only the first volley of pro-Zionist dirty tricks.

I can’t vote for any of these women, but I have written them letters of support, thanking them for their honesty and encouraging them not to give up.  I hope that you may take similar steps yourself.

Senate Committee Unveils How BigPharma Steals From and Extorts Consumers

Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ro Khanna expose the fact

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

that the lion’s share of pharmaceutical research for the development of new drugs is funded by the National Institute for Health not by the drug companies themselves.  Watch the video here.

In other words, the long-standing argument used by pharmaceutical companies,  insisting that they had no choice but to charge high prices for their medications in order to recoup the initial investments demanded by

Rep. Ro Khanna

their own research and development, has always been a lie.

No. These companies have used our tax dollars, invested into the publicly funded scientists working for the public good at the N.I.H., to develop new drugs for their private, commercial benefit.

They then lie about the costs of their own research in order to justify the extreme price gouging that prevents many people from being able to afford the medications that they need.

It’s class warfare, again, folks.  Class war in the land of crony capitalism.

Big corporations exploit the little people both coming and going.  It’s like paying a huge cover charge, first, to get into the dance, and then being mugged by the same bouncer as you exit out the back.

 

Anya Parampil Reporting From Caracas, Venezuela

Anya Parampil is another young, investigative journalism I highly respect.  She is also reporting from Caracas, Venezuela about the massive crowds of pro-Maduro, pro-Chavez,  pro-Bolivarian government supporters standing

Anya Parampil, investigative journalist

in lines that stretch for blocks, as they wait to sign a public petition demanding that the United States stop meddling in their country’s internal affairs.

Please, take a few minutes to watch Ms. Parampil’s video report here.  Listen to the voices of Venezuelan men and women who support their president and plead with the world’s leaders not to undermine their government or agitate for war.

Reports such as these (also see the post linking to Max Blumenthal’s Venezuelan coverage) demonstrate how grotesquely dishonest are the monotone refrains for regime change in the mainstream media.

Here is a good test case illustrating how extremely propagandistic are the major American news outlets.

Max Blumenthal Reporting from Caracas, Venezuela

The independent, investigative journalist, Max Blumenthal has reported

Venezuelan’s stand in line for blocks waiting to sign the new petition opposing US intervention in their country

extensively on the unfolding situation in Venezuelan at his news site The Grayzone Project.

He is now reporting from Caracas, the Venezuelan capital.  Check out the recent video segment posted on his Twitter feed here.

Max’s headline reads:

“I’m at Simon de Bolívar square in Caracas where Venezuelans are lining up for blocks to sign a declaration denouncing US intervention and imperialism. One man waiting just told me: ‘Please put in your picture that we’re not invisible and not being paid.’

“…Lines stretch for blocks. Maybe some other western media is here but I haven’t seen them.”

I am grateful to intrepid reporters like Max and his co-workers who bring us the other side of this important story; the side that U.S. news outlets will never report; the side that our government wants to hide; the side which highlights American aggression in the pursuit of American greed and self-interest.

This is the side that the American church ought to be defending….there’s no two ways about it.

 

A Christian’s Personal Meditation on the Appeal of Suicide

I learned at church this morning that a member family had lost their teenage son to suicide.  As a parent myself, I think that I can sympathize — though not truly empathize — with their grief; a pain from which they will never fully recover.

As someone who has grappled with clinical depression for all of his adult life, I can also sympathize — and perhaps even empathize — with the turmoil of the young man who took his own life.

I have been wrestling and praying for a long time now about whether or not I would ever tell you, dear reader, about the day when I tried to do the same thing.

I have decided that I will, soon, but not today.

Instead, I simply want to share a reflective piece that I wrote some months ago when I was in the midst of another depressive episode.  I have attempted to describe the way I felt at the time.

My description may not be helpful to anyone else.  Everyone has his/her own emotional diction.  Mine may not be yours.  Perhaps it’s too schmaltzy for your taste, like the really, really bad teenage poetry that was thankfully lost (or torn up) long ago.

But, for those who are left behind after a suicide; those who can’t understand why the person they loved so dearly would ever do such a thing; here is one man’s description of how he feels when he is teetering on the edge and wanting to jump.

Please understand.  I am not offering excuses or justifications for suicide.  Heaven forbid!  Far from it.

But I know that suicide leaves the living with desperate, unanswered, often self-accusatory, questions: “Why?”

Only the deceased can answer that question adequately; but, then again, maybe they couldn’t either.  Maybe that’s part of the reason they are gone…I don’t know.

Sometimes depression doesn’t leave cogent answers behind.

Here are my reflections on how I feel when I wish I could be dead:

It’s the loss of cohesion that tips me off. 

I can feel the entire polar ice-shelf shift within me.  Acres of my psyche split off and fall away, silently sliding into the bottomless, black sea leaving barely a ripple.  I don’t know where it goes or why.  All I experience is a deep, darkness within.

Nothing to see here, folks. Just move along…

The actual break goes unnoticed.  I can’t say when it began.  But I feel like a man consciously unconscious, suddenly aware that he is sinking, drowning.  I try to reach out and gasp for air, clamoring for a shard of daylight, the tip of an iceberg.  But I remain submerged, my body growing numb, buried beneath a placid surface reflecting nothing.

My feelings are disconnected from reason.  The two have no relationship.  At least, that is how it feels.  My core is frozen, drifting where it will, no longer secured to anything solid or rational.

I am completely alone, even as I am surrounded by people who love me.  Their love just doesn’t matter.  Not to the way I feel, anyway.  Not to the way I see myself.

Life is meaningless, and no amount of self-talk can change that now.  It’s too late for another counseling session.  All of life has been a colossal waste of time and effort adding up to nothing.

I learned long ago never to “share” these thoughts or feelings with just anyone.  Too many accuse me of self-pity.  Buck up and soldier on, they say, not realizing that’s all I’ve done for much of my life.

Stop focusing on yourself; look outward, they insist.  But wherever I look all I can see is a panoply of reasons for despair.  A human parade of pain, suffering and hopelessness.

Tell the coroner that I killed myself with an overdose of self-pity.

The undertow has me now.  I recall the many times I swam hard against the current and briefly managed to remain afloat.  But I can’t remember that stroke now that I need it again.  How did I do it?, I wonder.  Perhaps that was my dream self.  I have no psychic muscle-memory to bring me towards shore. 

There is no shore.  Only blackness.

Nothing matters.  My strength is spent.  It’s not only the unremitting tragedy of life, the futility and aching sadness of this world that pulls me under, but the unbearable weight of nonstop resolve required to keep me above the surface of despair.

My mind can repeat its therapeutic S.O.S. till kingdom come: “You know none of these things are true! There is no good reason for you to feel this way! Count your blessings; count them one by one; count your many blessings, see what God has done!”

I do review my blessings, repeatedly.  I know I have many.  I haven’t completely lost my mind, after all.    I do not forget what God has done.  But recollection occurs far, far away, in the distance, beyond the horizon.  Memory has no relation to my current drowning.  Recollection is the resurrection of dead, dusty data.  What difference does any of it make right now?

I am adrift in a dark ocean, going nowhere, meaning nothing, too tired to tread water any longer.

This is the peculiar burden of living.  Dying takes only a moment of surrender before the void, then peace.  Whereas living is a voracious, unsated beast always demanding more.  More energy.  More effort.  More human contact.  More expenditure when all reserves are empty. More than I have left to give.

What the hell does life expect?  It has sucked me dry till my insides are a wasteland, an arctic desert with nothing more to give and no more interest in receiving.  How much more can God require?

I am already gone. I began to leave a long time ago.  My further absence will be grieved temporarily, but not for long.  Soon, I will be forgotten, as I have forgotten myself.

Believing in heaven is the blessed  curse.  It doesn’t keep me rooted.  It makes me want to go, sooner rather than later.

There is no good reason to stay.

If you are now or have been considering suicide, please call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.

Or talk to a friend, a loved one, even a complete stranger.  But whatever you do, please do not harm yourself.  Reach out, get help, even as you feel that no one can help you.

There is a God who loves you desperately.  His son, Jesus Christ, can and will heal you and make you whole.  He has done it for me.

How Bad Theology Can Lead to Spiritual Masturbation

I stumbled upon a good collection of articles discussing the gruel-thin, emotional foolishness that characterizes so much of the music and singing that passes for “worship” in many evangelical churches today.

The articles are listed below, all making good points:

“3 Reasons Contemporary Worship IS Declining, and What We Can Do to Help the Church Move On“

“8 Reasons the Worship Industry Is Killing Worship“

“Masturbatory Worship and the Contemporary Church“

“’M’ Worship, Exhibit A: Bethel Church Worships Themselves” (complete with an accompanying video to illustrate the problem)

Allow me to add a few observations of my own.

  1. Much of the problem, I believe, is due to deliberate theological ignorance among church leaders, especially so-called “worship leaders” (typically, a person who couldn’t give you the Biblical definition of worship or praise if his/her life depended on it; sadly, their employment status never seems to depend on it).  When Biblical and theological foundations are abandoned, foolishness always ensures with predictably damaging consequences.  You can count on it.
  2. I have made my own humble attempts to address these problems by offering occasional studies in the Biblical theology of praise, worship (here, here, here, here and here) God’s holiness (here, here, here, here, and here), and few book reviews discussing the “juvenilization” of the American church (here and here).
  3.  A widespread, disastrous confusion about both the goals and the distinctly different, intended audiences of (a) seeker-targeted services vs. (b) seeker-sensitive worship (an absolutely horrible idea, regardless of its apparent “effectiveness”) has been a main driver of these problems.  See my post addressing the issue here.

 

How the New Captain Marvel Illustrates Both Toxic Feminism and Original Sin

Michael McCaffrey has an interesting op-ed on the RT Question More

The next generation’s Captain Marvel

website entitled, “Toxic femininity: ‘Badass’ US women demand right to torture and kill for Empire… just like men.”

McCaffrey provides a good analysis of where and how mainstream feminism has gone wrong through its blind endorsement of America’s cultural/economic status quo.

I have copied an excerpt below and encourage you to read the entire piece.

First, however, I want to add what I believe is a more fundamental problem that has always dogged the heels of secular feminism — the Biblical doctrine of original sin.

Yes, woman are and always have been as sinful as men.

That means that women are as prone to selfishness, violence and destruction as men continually show themselves to be.  They may pursue their goals by different means, at times.  But the corrupted ends remain the same.

The oft repeated refrain, “If only women were in control of the world, THEN we would see the end of war, famine, and all manner of evil!” has always been a patronizing Utopian dream, as ignorant as it is blind.

Didn’t these feminist champions pay attention to the presidencies of Golda Meir in Israel, or Indira Gandhi in India?  How about Hillary Clinton’s gleeful laughter over the brutal murder of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi at the hands of an angry mob?

Have they willfully ignored the current debacle of president Aung San Suu

Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Prize winner turned patron of Rohingya genocide in Myanmar

Kyi in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) as she blesses her military’s Rohingya genocide?

Below is the excerpt of McCaffrey:

“Thanks to a new wave of feminism and its call for equality, it isn’t just toxic men who can kill, torture and surveil in the name of US militarism and empire, women can now do it too!
“This past weekend was the third annual Women’s March, which is a protest originally triggered by Donald Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election that encourages women across America to rise up against misogyny and patriarchy.

“As sincere as these women are in their outrage, in their quest for power they are inadvertently reinforcing the immoral and unethical system that they claim to detest. This is most glaringly apparent when this new feminism boldly embraces the worst traits of the patriarchy in the form of militarism and empire.

“The rise of #MeToo, Time’s Up and the anti-Trump Women’s Movement, has brought forth a new wave of politically and culturally active neo-feminists. This modern women’s movement and its adherents demand that “boys not be boys”, and in fact claim that the statement “boys will be boys” is in and of itself an act of patriarchal privilege and male aggression. The irony is that these neo-feminists don’t want boys to be boys, but they do want girls to be like boys…

“…Other toxically-masculine women in government are also being hailed as great signs of women’s empowerment.

“Gina Haspel is the first female director of the CIA and women now also hold the three top directorates in that agency. Ms. Haspel proved herself more than capable of being just as deplorable as any man when she was an active participant in the Bush-era torture program. No doubt the pussy-hat wearing brigade would cheer her “competitiveness, dominance and aggression” when torturing prisoners… most especially the traditionally masculine ones.”