Spoiling for a Fight - and back again: Trump Masterfully Pulls Back from Precipitate Brinkmanship with Iran (in the very nick of time)

Trump Administration cabinet members Bolton and Pompeo seem increasingly spoiling for yet another war in the Middle East - and potentially the worst yet (in terms of regional/global geopolitical consequences) - seemingly, as if for no other 'good' reason, than simply to fulfil their own eschatological view/understanding of endtime events...

This worrisome trend (about which I've written in (recent) times past) got kicked into gear bigtime during the tenure of George W (with his 'neo-cons'), and appears to have now gone into overdrive under his far more contentious (second) successor Donald J Trump...

But let's pause and give 'the Donald' a modicum PLUS of credit, he hasn't and didn't start(ed) a Middle Eastern WW111 - thus far, anyway...but has evidently put the Iranian leadership upon notice that he and his Administration mean business, and won't brook any more funny business from Tehran...

Though surely it'd have been far more worthwhile to have pursued President Obama's nuclear agreement with the Iranians, however fraught and problematic they may well see it to have been. Something was better than nothing, even if all it did was buy some needed time for the world, so that it might once again pull back from the final few minutes upon the Doomsday Clock...

Was DJT's reaction/non-reaction all just a stunt and empty bluster, as per usual? Somehow I doubt it, but (returning to my third para above) it does indeed seem to have been done in order to call the Iranian Administration's bluff...

But tread exceedingly careful, Mr Trump - and (even more so) 'associates' - hornets' nests have been well and truly stirred up over a heckuva lot less. And if you're seeking to take a leaf out of JFK's own (in)famous brinksmanship over the Bay of Pigs/Cuban Missile Crisis, beware what you (inwardly/ secretly) 'wish for', once the genie's out of the bottle it's awfully hard if not impossible to bring it back...

But if you're determined and bloodyminded enough to keep on keeping on courting an all-out war with Iran, methinks you'll eventually secure such...

...with all its horrific consequences, not least of which will be Tehran's all-out assault upon Israel, yes, as long foretold in the sacred scriptures...

But don't expect to earn any brownie points with the One Above for prematurely seeking to bring about His prophecies, it's called presumption/presumptuousness and for such there's never ever been any biblical sanction whatsoever...  

Coming Out Once Again - No, this ain't what you're supposing - Why I am no longer able to consider myself a left-winger

There comes, so 'they say', an opportune moment in the history of individuals, which, when seized/taken 'at flood-time' (as per the legendary Robin Williams' 'carpe diem' motto - in his inimitable role in the late, great Dead Poets Society), 'leads on to victory' (or success) in one's particular venture (or undertaking).

Sadly - for me, anyhow - that, or more aptly those, moment/s, have rarely been grasped in time...

Nevertheless, as per the equally classic hit, 'What a Wonderful World' (I believe it's called),
though I might not know much about [the duplicitous ways of the world, and so-called relationships and the like]...

one thing I do know...

...is my own mind. And though that might not strike anyone as especially profound, 'know thyself' is a dictum with credentials going way back (into times of antiquity, such as the days when Greek and Roman philosophers expounded their mental wares - as the Apostle Paul so aptly depicted when engaging with such upon Mars Hill in Athens as he crisscrossed ancient Europe - and 'Asia' - to share the gospel of Christ Jesus with an unbelieving world he and associates were accused of having "turned upside down").

A truism which has well and truly not only survived but even come down to our own day and age in the equivalent notion that 'the unstudied life is not worth living'. Moreover, ever believing that one needs 'to one's own [true] self be true'...

I must, without further ado...upon this my 418th blogpost across my two blogsites - 341st on this site, alongside my 77 already posted upon

http://Nuff Said:Consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com)

i.e. 4 +1+8 (=13), or 3+4+1[8] + 7+7[14] (=22), or 8+1+4 (=13)...for this biblical numerology buff (and one-time would-be numerologist cum professional astrologer (of either the 'western' zodiacal or Chinese animal variety)), an interesting if not especially 'lucky' (as in propitious) numeral...

- and no, I don't believe Jesus' betrayer, Judas, has been given the bad or 'bum' rap that some biblical revisionists have been all too eager to bestow upon him -

(I must, I say) declare the following...

When I look around me these days, in as objective a fashion as I am able...at the various fads and fashions of our political life and times...

I can unashamedly and unequivocally state that it is not the likes of Mao Tse-Tung, Josef Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky et al whose political theorems and dictums captivate and win me over...

but the lonely band of once were fellow travellers...such as Eric Blair (better known as George Orwell of Animal Farm and 1984 fame)...Malcolm Muggeridge, a contemporary of Blair's...the peoples of the old Eastern Bloc nations and former Soviet Union (or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics)...New Zealand's own John A Lee...among whose ranks I've little doubt 'the hero of our nation', 'Big Norm' Kirk, would be found today...even Australia's Mark Latham, now evidently a federal senator for One Nation in the Australian Parliament...and America's own Robert Kennedy, I've more than an inkling...

For when I look - as objectively as I am able - 'around about me' these days...

...and cannot but help seeing legions of ropable, almost possessed groups of (especially) youth - and well-educated, professional, middle-class 'warriors' (wo)manning the barricades across the Western front...with the kind of zeal and yea, fanaticism, once reserved for and ever and always exclusively associated with 'religious fundamentalists' and their fellow-travellers...

...when I hear the incessant calls and catchcries to shut down legitimate debate and discussion - and even, moreover, upon that longtime bastion of free speech, the college/university campus; of the nonstop entitlement-fuelled-demands for 'rights, rights, rights' - with nary a whisper or murmur for equivalent or commensurate responsibilities; of the depiction of opponents of such as hatemongers and 'phobes' (of various distasteful varieties) simply for having the audacity, the nerve, the sheer, unadulterated gall to utter an unpopular opinion or express a genuine, heartfelt conviction...

I simply cannot help but be inexorably reminded of the two aforementioned classic tomes...

which, alongside the equally classic, if altogether different (but philosophically akin) scholarly lifework of a certain psychologist by the name of Dr James Dobson, Dare to Discipline,

pretty well sum up the disastrous Western social experiment which is (not so much the early 20th Century's socialist/communist surge (even in the West), but) the 'new' (ideologically-saturated, revisionist, 'postmodern', yes, even culturally ('Gramscian') Marxist) 'morality' of the 1960s and beyond...

But 'those who learn nothing from history are doomed to repeat it'...that is, if they get the chance to.

No, my beef is not with those clamouring, no doubt justly and honestly, for urgent action worldwide upon climate change - to provide one salient illustration of my aforementioned remarks; it is indeed an honourable thing to have a passion for life and the living, for ecological survival, or, as it's now termed, (an ethic of) 'extinction rebellion'...

But when you caricaturize your opponents as subhuman, when you not only belittle them as people and deny them the right to put an alternative perspective but you insist that your view is the only legitimate one and it's your way or the highway, when you begin to shout them down and hound them from the public square (or its equivalent in the digital era), when you characterize them as evildoers and inveterate, incorrigible despisers of the so-called 'progressive, enlightened' values you so assiduously champion and vehemently, even vociferously propound and propagate...

...when you distort and misrepresent, then mock and ridicule (your mischaracterization of) their deeply held convictions, then hold them out as some sort of public pariah -

 (as one salient example thereof, but far from the only one by a very long shot): no, not only hateful white supremacists but also 1080 opponents, 'anti-vaccers', and - believe it or otherwise - even (generally quite) thoughtful anti-fluoridationists...among those now excluded, evidently, from Facebook et al...i.e. from legitimately engaging in legitimate public debate...

'scuse me for saying so, but your own authoritarian, totalitarian, yea, even fascist, tendencies

are starting to show...and no, it ain't a pretty picture, folks, it most definitely is nothing of the kind!

Epilogue/Disclaimer/Postscript...See other blogsite (as above)...-you won't be disappointed!

Oui, Je Suis Ivan Golunov - We're With Ya, Buddy...

Je Suis HONG KONG: We're With You, Folks...if only in heart and soul...and earnest, heartfelt thoughts and prayers

Though, after the longest spell 'off-blog[posting]' since early last December...19 entire days, it's long past time I got my a into g (as per tonight's blogpost - and all the rest well and truly 'owing')...

I've almost gotten out of the habit of writing...

...and so I should've gotten on (here) first thing this morning...

...though another long-established - and personally deeply important - habit (or several) intervened...

That all - quite necessarily, in my view - being said...

let me simply say that the aforementioned (title) expresses my personal sentiments - and that of, I would dearly hope, many/most other kiwis -

-though you'd hardly guess or suppose so by our society's gatekeepers, the mainstream media, these days-

Could I simply refer anyone interested in the above to a blog I posted upon February the 20th entitled

'So What is a Self-Respecting Nation to do? Vis-a-vis the 'Peoples' Republic of China: Come Cringingly Under the Dragon's Beguiling, Hypnotic Spell...or Stand Free in Our God-given Liberty? It's a No-Brainer, Folks'

And ditto for those concerned about the plight of the Wega people...and the long-suffering Tibetans.

We gain nothing at all by burying our collective heads in the sand, people, looking the other way and somehow pretending that the re-nascent Dragon is as gentle, peaceful and well-meaning as ye proverbial siamese cat or panda bear...

No, we do so - or rather have been doing so for some considerable time now - at our collective peril.

Or to cite the tenor of the remarks of a fellow upon the local (Newstalk ZB) Country Show late last week, the time's quickly coming when we'll have to */**choose...between our longtime ally the US of A, and this re-emerging colossus/behemoth of a grand ancient civilization, whose present designs appear anything but tame and friendly... 

*Though this comment might seem to suggest that my previous blogpost was about this very topic, it was not at all on my mind at the time...

...which, in light of the sheer number and variety of worryingly problematic current global issues and developments, and the  absolute immensity of problems and difficulties afflicting humankind in these increasingly fraught times, makes the 'coincidence' of such terminology all the more poignant...

**Though the option of 'neutrality' (as I mentioned to a gracious hitchhike driver just two days ago) that the self-respecting Swiss peoples have long maintained (and indeed as New Zealand Inc has itself long since traversed ever since the heady days of our 'late, great' leader Norm Kirk) is perhaps another way we could choose to go...

...and without any apology or sense of shame to boot...

...though in the far more important matter of the long-term trajectory and home of our very souls, I understand that that is an option we will never have...

Yes, as Jesus' Older Testament namesake Joshua declared to a rebellious people after they'd finally arrived in and effectively 'set up shop' in their Promised Land, and were no doubt smugly congratulating themselves on how well they'd done and what a wonderful people they were to have been so bountifully blessed by 'Jehovah Jireh [their] Provider'...

...we too - each and every last one of us, in fact - need to decide, without a whole lot of further ado, to indeed choose...this day whom we will (ultimately) serve...

...for the consequences, folks, are well and truly eternal in scope and magnitude...

Yes,

None of [us] can by any
means redeem his brother,
Nor give to God a ransom for
him-

For the redemption of [our]
souls is costly,
And it shall cease forever-
That [we] should continue to live
eternally,
And not see the Pit[experience corruption]


But thank God that One Equal to Him - One Who was Very God of God Himself - Himself embraced our pitiful state and fully entered into our otherwise hopelessly, eternally lost estate...

taking on all its shame, agony and even - can you believe it - its prospect of eternal separation from (His own dear) Father-God Himself...

being prepared, if it had ultimately come down to it, to die eternally in our, the sinners', own place...