This is a famous quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:
He was a great reporter of the facts he observed but not a profound thinker. But this quote is great illustration of the Russian paganism we discussed recently. “There is no rain, I must have done something wrong”, “I’m sick, I must have done something wrong” – these are some of the earliest manifestations of the humanity trying to understand its condition and gain a measure of control over a confusing, terrifying world.
Contrast this with the Christian worldview in its daring departure from the childish narcissism of “I triggered the hurricane because I misbehaved.” There’s an acceptance that terrible things will happen even to wonderful people and we’ll never understand why beyond knowing that this is what human life is supposed to be. Living in the world that is bigger than superstition, infantile bargaining, or the narcissism of looking for answers to anything in your ever-precious self requires more strength and gives more freedom. It’s a great gift but also a great limitation for the reach of the insatiable human hubris.
“Thy will be done” is a terrifying proposition for people who haven’t evolved to accepting that they don’t control God. To those who can relinquish the superstitious illusion of control, it’s a path into true freedom and great calmness.
Clarissa's Blog 
This doesn’t really apply if you belong to a church that pushes prosperity gospel, like many people in the US do.
“Why does God let bad things happen to good people” wouldn’t be a quandary to be addressed by many Christian theologians either.
I appreciate that Orthodox Christianity doesn’t push “the mark of God’s favor is that you are rich.”
Poor Solheitzyn. Would reincarnation and karma reassured him or would it have sent him into further fits of guilt?
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“Thy will be done” is a terrifying proposition for people who haven’t evolved into accepting that they don’t control God.
This is beautiful: I will be using it as my inspirational slogan for next week. Thank you.
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The classic Jewish response to Xtian missionizers: “Simply not our responsibility to hold your dick while you learn to pee in the toilet.”
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There would be no Israel if Christian American taxpayers didn’t magnanimously donate extraordinary amounts of money every year to Israel’s defense.
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By the way, did you know that Jews in Europe were demonized the same way Haitians are being demonized today? Does it give you any pause?
https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1835072178498551949?t=9VZpOq0bw9mMNaZtvloWHg&s=19
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“did you know that Jews in Europe were demonized”
Jews????? ……. demonized??? When did that happen? How come I’ve never heard of this before????? I guess you learn something new everyday….
“the same way Haitians are being demonized today?”
You mean they were shipped en masse into cultural and linguistically foreign environments by a government that did not seem to care what the citizenry wanted?
You mean they were mostly uneducated and prone to activities that alienated citizens who were told to shut up and take it by their governments?
Wow! Plus ça change…. huh?
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I highly recommend you read a few articles about what’s going on in Haiti. Use ultra-liberal publications, if you want.
Read them and ask yourself, do I want to live in the midst of this?
This is all that anybody is asking you to do. Just try. What have you got to lose?
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Agree–Anonymous will benefit from checking out Haiti. That will illuminate the real problem behind…
Well, I, in turn, advise everyone to check out Dana Bash talking to JD Vance today, where JD admitted that he created the cat and dog stories. You can even see the “oops” look on his face as he asks Dana to repeat the part where she says, “You just admitted it.”
So again–real immigration problem. The right–we need attention on this problem right now. What’s the best way to get attention? Hysteria, bigotry, and lies! Let’s do it!
The left: Uh, wait a second….
And once you’ve got that, you’ve graduated from Right University–you Understand the Right. The failure of the Right–let’s start the hysteria and the dehumanization. The failure of the Left–not offering an alternative. You can mail my diploma to me at my school’s address.
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No, the failure of both left and right is that the politicians on both side aggressively promote massive immigration and the erosion of welfare that happens as a result. And the voters on both sides are so obsessed with their partisan fee-fees that they can’t notice what is being done to them.
How does this cat story not being true or being true help you personally? How is it good for your community? Your welfare protection? How is this competition on who’s got a dumber politician running on their side helpful to us?
It’s not. We are being had and we play into it because it feels good to belong to an imaginary side of higher morality. THEY DEHUMANIZE! THEY ARE EVIL! It’s words without meaning. Dehumanize means nothing. It changes nothing. But righteous indignation has been whipped on both sides and nos everybody feels more moral while every day more migrants are being shipped and more money gets diverted away from our education, roads, policing, etc.
Congratulations, we’ve all won the morality competition. And lost everything else.
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A few thoughts: if we’re saying racism and dehumanization are meaningless words, I’d like to add “indoctrination” to that list. Gets thrown around a lot–if you use a toilet to do your business, congratulations, you’ve been indoctrinated.
Also, I’m of two minds about knowing the truth or lack thereof about, in this case, the cat story. On the one hand, I’m a big believer in that need to see the man behind the curtain in order to move forward. Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Lion weren’t able to see that they had the means and capability to help themselves until they saw that the Wizard was a humbug, and I think that model holds up in many cases.
However, claiming the moral high ground is a place where we tend to get stuck on the way of actually achieving something. One of your nastiest and most rude readers once accused me of being “holier-than-thou,” and well, he’s pretty easy to be holier-than. (He also referred to one of your other readers as a “befuddled twat,” which might well be the most vile and despicable thing I’ve seen on a blog, but I digress.)
So yes, I just have to get up in the morning and go about my day, and I’m holier than this guy. Not a great achievement. And I think something similar happens in a case like this, I have to admit. I mean, we say, “See? We told you they were lying!” And we feel that’s enough, and we stop moving forward. The tough part, I’m (slowly) learning, is reaching across to the adversary and saying, “Look, here’s the problem that needs solving. You see it a certain way, I see it differently, but the problem is there. What insights can we offer each other?” Politics CAN work that way, sometimes. Doesn’t look as if it’ll work that way this year, though.
In the meantime, another assassination attempt. Bad stuff.
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“Do I want to live in the midst of this?”
Obviously, they don’t want to live there, which is why they’re here in America. So why are you demonizing them here as well? When Jews were dealing with hell in Europe, did we use the horror of what’s happening TO THEM to demonize them or to help them???
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Problem is, we don’t want to live in Haiti, either. I assume that neither do you or you’d have moved.
Jews didn’t have a country of their own in Europe. Haitians do have a country of their own. You can’t say that your country is happening to you. That makes no sense.
Is this clear now or should I use simpler words?
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This is a terrible and unpersuasive argument, and you’d know that if you only add Ireland, Poland, Italy to the many countries from where we’d brought people in — when they were down on their luck. When the Irish had famine in 1800s, you didn’t want to live there either, yet we let them in, because the values that undergird immigration is not small-mindedness.
More importantly, having or not having a country was not why Jews were allowed in. For all intents and purposes pre-WW2, German WAS their country. Einstein was a German. Most were let in because they were down on their luck — the same reason we let in all the others I mentioned, and all the others that have come since, be they Somali, Hmong, Ukrainian, Polish, Cuban or Liberian. This is the American spirit.
If you have a problem with that ideal, again, why draw the line now. Should we deport all the previous ones? And what legitimacy do you have, as an immigrant, to demonize others?
Is this clear or should I say it in Spanish/Ukranian/Yiddish?
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More word soup. OK, then. Maybe you’ll have a better day tomorrow.
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If the idea is that only those without a country should be let in, why don’t we start with Palestinians then? You see where brainless xenophobic arguments lead you?
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No, that’s not the idea. Please keep trying. It’s not that hard. You can do it!
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Do you have a coherent philosophy regarding who should, and who should not, get to be an American? Is it anyone who can make it through the border? Anyone suffering anywhere in the world?
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It used to be anyone who can commit to the civic duties of being a citizen. Looks like Clarissa wants something else.
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This is the weirdest comment I’ve seen in a while.
“Used to be the alphabet consisted of 3 letters but Clarissa’s apparently wants something else.”
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Apparently, now a citizen is whoever agrees to vote. And I’m weird for believing it’s not a great plan.
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Only citizens vote. That has not changed. No non-citizen will risk being deported to go vote or register to vote.
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Oh, deported, eh? Really funny.
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Anonymous wrote
“It used to be anyone who can commit to the civic duties of being a citizen.”
Does this refer to an oath of citizenship? (I am not American and don’t know the history)
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What diplomatic consequences of Israel breaking off all diplomatic relations with the United Nations and expelling the UN from all post 1967 lands and territories?
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Moshe Kerr
Breaking off all diplomatic relations with the UN would drastically reduce European powers to dominate the balance of power in the Middle East.
In the 1956 and post 1967 War, Britain and France attempted to treat Israel as a political pawn on the international chess board of Great Power domination of the Middle East states. Essential to grasp British and French strategic interests to seize the Suez canal in 1956. Had their plans succeeded Britain and France would have shared a domination in the balance of power in the Middle East as equals together with the US and USSR!!!
Now weigh upon the opposing scales French strategic interests which caused that loser of WWII to assume it possessed the authority to write the UN 242 revisionist history, which coined the political rhetoric propaganda of land for peace, occupied territories, and the absurd notion that territory – not acquired through war. This revisionist history negates the whole of French and British imperialism throughout the Ages.
Just and lasting peace … simple political rhetoric word salad propaganda. UN 242 attempts to force Israel to return to its 1948 Auschwitz-Birkenau borders. Just and lasting peace rhetoric word salad.
Shalom a verb, while peace a noun. Big difference. Shalom requires trust. No trust No Shalom. Just that simple. In 1967 Arab States with their famous Three NOS to Israel clearly Israel and Arab countries did not trust one another.
Therefore the peace in the Middle East propaganda rhetoric word salad … just propaganda and nothing more than propaganda which seeks to radically change the post 1967 balance of Power in the Middle East away from Israel as a great power in the region, back to being a political pawn. As prevailed in 1948, 1956, and before the June war in 1967.
Just and lasting peace rhetoric word salad: Shalom a verb, while peace a noun. Big difference. Shalom requires trust. No trust No Shalom. Just that simple. In 1967 Arab States with their famous Three NOS to Israel, clearly Israel and Arab countries did not trust one another.
Therefore the peace in the Middle East propaganda rhetoric word salad, just International great power propaganda. And nothing more than propaganda which seeks to radically change the post 1967 balance of Power in the Middle East away from Israel as a great power in the region back to it being a political pawn, as in 1948, 1956, and before the June war in 1967.
If Israel broke off all diplomatic relations with the UN all UN Resolutions 242,, 338, 446, 2334 etc would become null and void. Would Britain or France or both break off diplomatic relations with Israel?
Why? Because by Israel expelling the UN from the Middle East this would relegate France and Britain as minor pawns in the balance of power-sharing in the Middle East.
By expelling the UN, Israel could undermine the legitimacy of multiple UN resolutions that have sought to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, potentially leading to a vacuum in international law and norms. The absence of UN presence could exacerbate humanitarian issues in the region, as the UN plays a crucial role in delivering aid and monitoring human rights.
Egypt and Israel have a longstanding peace treaty (Camp David Accords of 1979), which has maintained a level of stability in their relationship. The expulsion of the UN could be seen as a provocative act, potentially heightening tensions in the region. Egypt might respond by reassessing its diplomatic stance, particularly if it feels that Israel is undermining regional stability. Egypt has strategic interests in maintaining a relationship with Israel, particularly regarding security cooperation and economic benefits. Breaking off relations could have significant repercussions for Egypt’s security and economic situation.
While Egypt might not immediately break off diplomatic relations with Israel, the expulsion of the UN could strain their relationship. The decision would ultimately depend on a complex interplay of domestic pressures, regional dynamics, and strategic interests. While Egypt might strongly condemn Israel’s actions, it is unlikely to break off diplomatic relations. The peace treaty with Israel is too important to Egypt’s security and regional interests, and the consequences of breaking off relations would be significant.
Britain and France have not taken such drastic measures, as have Jordan, Bahrain, Turkey, Bolivia, Colombia, Honduras, Chile, Belize, Brazil, South Africa and Chad have recalled their ambassadors to Israel or severed ties altogether in response to the conflict. Unlikely that either Britain or France will do likewise in the future.
Britain and France have diplomatic relations with Israel, and both countries have strong economic ties with the country. Annual bilateral trade between Israel and the UK exceeds £6.1 billion, and over 300 known Israeli companies are operating in Britain. France is Israel’s 11th-greatest supplier of goods and represents Israel’s ninth-largest market.
In April 2024, at least 130 British lawmakers wrote to Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch calling on the British government to halt arms sales to Israel. Pressure for an arms embargo has increased after an attack on a World Food Center convoy in Gaza, which killed seven aid workers, including three British nationals.
Britain’s readiness to impose a ban is partly linked to Israel’s refusal to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit the Sde Teiman detention center, where Palestinian prisoners are held. The Red Cross has yet to visit stolen Israeli Oct 7th hostages in accordance with its mandate obligations. Britain’s readiness to impose a partial arms ban upon Israel, partly linked to Israel’s refusal to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit the Sde Teiman detention center, where Palestinian prisoners are held.
Combining the possibility of Israel expelling the UN from the Middle East with the US terminating its NATO alliance in return for Russia withdrawing from Ukraine and Crimea presents a complex scenario with far-reaching consequences for global politics.
European countries would face heightened security concerns without the US security guarantee provided by NATO, potentially leading to increased defence spending and a more assertive foreign policy. The US America First withdrawal from NATO would weaken Western unity and could lead to a more fragmented international order.
The combination of these events could lead to increased regional instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, as power vacuums emerge and actors seek to exploit new opportunities. The global order could see the formation of new alliances, potentially shifting away from the traditional US-led system. While it could potentially lead to a resolution of the conflict in Ukraine, it also carries significant risks for global stability and security. The interplay of these events could have profound and long-lasting consequences for the international order.
The US withdrawal from NATO and Israel’s expulsion of the UN could create a vacuum in the region, potentially leading to a closer alliance between Iran and some Arab states. This could be driven by shared resentment towards the US and Israel, along with economic and political interests.
The US withdrawal from NATO could push the EU to seek closer ties with Russia, particularly in areas like trade and energy cooperation. This could be driven by the EU’s desire to maintain stability in its neighborhood and its dependence on Russian energy resources.
Eastern European countries, feeling vulnerable without US security guarantees, could form a new security bloc, potentially including Turkey and Israel. This could be driven by shared concerns about Russian expansionism and a desire to maintain their independence.
China, with its growing economic and political influence, could potentially mediate between Russia and the EU, forming a trilateral alliance. This could be driven by China’s desire to expand its global influence and its interest in securing its own economic interests.
The scenario presented could lead to a complex and dynamic realignment of alliances in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The formation of new alliances would be driven by a combination of factors, including shared interests, strategic concerns, and the shifting balance of power. The outcome of this realignment would have significant implications for global security and stability.
Britain and France would likely struggle to maintain their traditional roles as power brokers in the Middle East. Their economic ties with Israel might not be enough to counterbalance the strategic shifts resulting from Israel’s actions. The US withdrawal from NATO could result in a fragmented approach to global security, with individual countries pursuing their interests, leading to potential conflicts and instability.
This scenario suggests a highly complex and volatile geopolitical landscape, where the expulsion of the UN by Israel and the US’s withdrawal from NATO could catalyze significant shifts in alliances and power dynamics. The interplay of these events would likely lead to increased instability, necessitating careful navigation by all involved parties to mitigate potential conflicts and foster new forms of cooperation.
If significant geopolitical shifts occur—such as a major power like the US withdrawing from its commitments or if member states begin to disregard UN resolutions en masse—this could erode the UN’s authority and operational capacity. The UN’s ability to effectively respond to global crises is crucial for its legitimacy. Continued failures to address major conflicts or humanitarian issues could lead to calls for reform or alternatives to the UN system.
By removing the UN, Israel would effectively remove the international framework that allowed Britain and France to exert influence in the region. This would reduce their ability to act as power brokers and leave them as minor players in the Middle East.
Before the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel was indeed in a vulnerable position. It was surrounded by hostile Arab states, and its security was precarious. The 1956 Suez Crisis, where Britain and France attempted to use Israel as a pawn, is a prime example of this vulnerability.
The 1967 war significantly shifted the balance of power in the Middle East. Israel emerged victorious, gaining control of the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. This victory significantly strengthened Israel’s military position and regional influence. Therefore, the expulsion of the UN would likely strengthen Israel’s position, not weaken it. It would remove a significant source of international pressure and allow Israel to operate with greater autonomy.
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Do you think non-believers wonder why bad things happen to good people? This is only a problem if you think there is a benevolent god.
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Everybody wonders. “Why me?” is the first thing people ask when really bad shit happens. Only the very religious don’t ask.
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Not in my experience, personal or through other people. There’s a mix.
Also, is the “why me?” question in those circumstances really a philosophical question or a way to express pain?
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I agree that some people lead such bovine existence that they don’t try to comprehend reality and generate a worldview. I’m not writing for or about them.
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Why not me?
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“It used to be anyone who can commit to the civic duties of being a citizen”
As affirmed by not crossing borders or working illegally and doing a bunch of paper work and swearing an oath.
But apparently you have something else in mind…. what is it?
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