Beyond outrage

I'm still trying to figure out why the MAGA movement, which is not conservatism, per se, although it does incorporate authoritarianism, also incorporates denial of scientific facts including the fundamental facts about disease and public health. There doesn't seem to be any coherent ideological basis for believing that vaccines are harmful and remedies that don't work are effective. It's just an arbitrary requirement for club membership.

Which brings us to the insanity of nominating Robert Kennedy Jr. to be secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy's lies, or delusions -- there's no telling which -- are directly responsible for the deaths of seventy children in Samoa, which suffered a measles outbreak after Kennedy's grotesquely named organization Children's Health Defense campaigned against vaccination in that country. Trump called Kennedy a "radical left lunatic" earlier this year, but was happy to bring him on board when Kennedy kissed his ass. Kennedy has said he will advise against fluoridating drinking water, fire 600 NIH employees, stop the FDA from condemning useless Covid-19 remedies, and prosecute medical journals for publishing scientific findings of which he disapproves. He has insinuated the HIV is not the cause of AIDS, that gender dysphoria is caused by chemicals in drinking water, and that Wi-Fi causes leaky brains (whatever that means). He is in short completely fucking nuts.

Can we find four Republican senators who refuse to murder their constituents? We'll see.

Wednesday Bible Study: False Prophecy

It is a great mystery why anybody takes the Book of Isaiah seriously, since he makes a whole lot of prophecies which quite evidently turned out to be false. Damascus was never destroyed. It is today the capital of Syria and is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities on earth. Whether Cush (today Ethiopia) suffered some sort of catastrophe (exactly what's supposed to happen is vague), and/or sent gifts to Jerusalem at some time after Isaiah wrote this I cannot say but nothing major of that nature happened. Perhaps he is recalling the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon (also a name for Ethiopia) and expecting it to happen again? Anyway this is just silly.

17 A prophecy against Damascus:

“See, Damascus will no longer be a city
    but will become a heap of ruins.
² The cities of Aroer will be deserted
    and left to flocks, which will lie down,
    with no one to make them afraid.
³ The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim,
    and royal power from Damascus;
the remnant of Aram will be
    like the glory of the Israelites,”
declares the Lord Almighty.

⁴ “In that day the glory of Jacob will fade;
    the fat of his body will waste away.
⁵ It will be as when reapers harvest the standing grain,
    gathering the grain in their arms—
as when someone gleans heads of grain
    in the Valley of Rephaim.
⁶ Yet some gleanings will remain,
    as when an olive tree is beaten,
leaving two or three olives on the topmost branches,
    four or five on the fruitful boughs,”
declares the Lord, the God of Israel.

⁷ In that day people will look to their Maker
    and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.
⁸ They will not look to the altars,
    the work of their hands,
and they will have no regard for the Asherah poles^[a]
    and the incense altars their fingers have made.

⁹ In that day their strong cities, which they left because of the Israelites, will be like places abandoned to thickets and undergrowth. And all will be desolation.

¹⁰ You have forgotten God your Savior;
    you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress.
Therefore, though you set out the finest plants
    and plant imported vines,
¹¹ though on the day you set them out, you make them grow,
    and on the morning when you plant them, you bring them to bud,
yet the harvest will be as nothing
    in the day of disease and incurable pain.

¹² Woe to the many nations that rage—
    they rage like the raging sea!
Woe to the peoples who roar—
    they roar like the roaring of great waters!
¹³ Although the peoples roar like the roar of surging waters,
    when he rebukes them they flee far away,
driven before the wind like chaff on the hills,
    like tumbleweed before a gale.
¹⁴ In the evening, sudden terror!
    Before the morning, they are gone!
This is the portion of those who loot us,
    the lot of those who plunder us.

Footnotes

1. Isaiah 17:8 That is, wooden symbols of the goddess Asherah

18 Woe to the land of whirring wings^[a]
    along the rivers of Cush,^[b]
2 which sends envoys by sea
    in papyrus boats over the water.

Go, swift messengers,
to a people tall and smooth-skinned,
    to a people feared far and wide,
an aggressive nation of strange speech,
    whose land is divided by rivers.

³ All you people of the world,
    you who live on the earth,
when a banner is raised on the mountains,
    you will see it,
and when a trumpet sounds,
    you will hear it.
⁴ This is what the Lord says to me:
    “I will remain quiet and will look on from my dwelling place,
like shimmering heat in the sunshine,
    like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
⁵ For, before the harvest, when the blossom is gone
    and the flower becomes a ripening grape,
he will cut off the shoots with pruning knives,
    and cut down and take away the spreading branches.
⁶ They will all be left to the mountain birds of prey
    and to the wild animals;
the birds will feed on them all summer,
    the wild animals all winter.

⁷ At that time gifts will be brought to the Lord Almighty

from a people tall and smooth-skinned,
    from a people feared far and wide,
an aggressive nation of strange speech,
    whose land is divided by rivers—

the gifts will be brought to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the Lord Almighty.

Footnotes

1. Isaiah 18:1 Or of locusts
2. Isaiah 18:1 That is, the upper Nile region

 

Cleaning up Brad DeLong

Don's comment on my previous post quoting Brad DeLong was particularly interesting because it's more or less what Brad himself said before he somehow switched gears. Yes, Trump voters do generally believe a lot of crap that isn't true, but on the other hand there are legitimate reasons why many Americans are unhappy with the state of the nation. Obviously they've misplaced the blame and misdiagnosed the problem, but that doesn't mean Democratic politicians have nothing to answer for.

To summarize the history of the world, ever since the neolithic revolution the vast majority of Homo sapiens have lived on the edge of subsistence. The only way to escape that was to be a priest or a warlord and extract whatever surplus was available by force or fraud. So you have a small upper caste living large by oppressing everybody else. Of course they fought over the scraps and spent a lot of effort on making war and killing each other, which just made the masses all the more miserable.

Then things started to change, slowly at first but accelerating in the 19th Century. It became possible to gain affluence by invention and investment, not just force and fraud, and humanity escaped the Malthusian trap. There was still enormous inequality, but living standards for ordinary people in the United States and western Europe really did improve, quite notably by the early 20th Century. After World War II, inequality was also much reduced. Great fortunes had been destroyed, but rebuilding was more equitable. Labor unions were strong, and the productivity gains from technological innovation were shared more broadly than in the past. We had progressive taxation, and substantial investment in education and public amenities.

Sadly, plutocrats regained control over public discourse in the 1980s, creating what was called the neoliberal consensus. This was essentially a return to 19th Century laissez faire capitalism, and yes, the Democratic party bought into it -- with Bill Clinton hook, line and sinker. Living standards for people without advantages of inheritance or expensive education (and state universities were no longer cheap) stagnated and even fell. People don't compare their circumstances to their long dead ancestors. Telling them that they are in fact richer in many ways than Henry II isn't going to cut any ice.

What they see instead is the fabulous wealth of the very few, while they feel their own lives and the lives of their children are stuck in neutral. Sure, Republican policies are even worse for them but Republicans have messages they can understand. The "They" who are getting over on you aren't Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, who are rich because they're smart and industrious; it's people who aren't like you and who are getting what they don't deserve but you do. Now, this is 100% bullshit but we have to ask why people are so eager to believe it. They want change and Kamala Harris was precisely not offering that. She ran a campaign based on Liz Cheney and protecting existing institutions. And I'll be the first to tell you that our existing institutions need to change. They definitely don't need to change into what the president-elect wants, but that's much too complicated of an argument for most people. So this is our dilemma.

Sunday Sermonette: Let the trashing begin

With Chapters 15 and 16, Isaiah starts predicting the ruin of all the neighboring people. These have mostly been people who Judah has often been at war with, and the Assyrian empire did as a matter of historical fact destroy their nations. The Moabites, the subject of chapter 15, have been a subject of particular derision and hatred throughout the Deuteronomistic history, so it's no surprise to see Isaiah fantasize about their destruction. (Actually I think the Bible has already had them exterminated three times, but here they still are.) The theological significance of all this to modern people I will leave to your own imagination.

15 A prophecy against Moab:

Ar in Moab is ruined,
    destroyed in a night!
Kir in Moab is ruined,
    destroyed in a night!
² Dibon goes up to its temple,
    to its high places to weep;
    Moab wails over Nebo and Medeba.
Every head is shaved
    and every beard cut off.
³ In the streets they wear sackcloth;
    on the roofs and in the public squares
they all wail,
    prostrate with weeping.
⁴ Heshbon and Elealeh cry out,
    their voices are heard all the way to Jahaz.
Therefore the armed men of Moab cry out,
    and their hearts are faint.

⁵ My heart cries out over Moab;
    her fugitives flee as far as Zoar,
    as far as Eglath Shelishiyah.
They go up the hill to Luhith,
    weeping as they go;
on the road to Horonaim
    they lament their destruction.
⁶ The waters of Nimrim are dried up
    and the grass is withered;
the vegetation is gone
    and nothing green is left.
⁷ So the wealth they have acquired and stored up
    they carry away over the Ravine of the Poplars.
⁸ Their outcry echoes along the border of Moab;
    their wailing reaches as far as Eglaim,
    their lamentation as far as Beer Elim.
⁹ The waters of Dimon^[a] are full of blood,
    but I will bring still more upon Dimon^[b]—
a lion upon the fugitives of Moab
    and upon those who remain in the land.

Footnotes

1. Isaiah 15:9 Dimon, a wordplay on Dibon (see verse 2), sounds like the Hebrew for blood.
2. Isaiah 15:9 Dimon, a wordplay on Dibon (see verse 2), sounds like the Hebrew for blood.

16 Send lambs as tribute
    to the ruler of the land,
from Sela, across the desert,
    to the mount of Daughter Zion.
² Like fluttering birds
    pushed from the nest,
so are the women of Moab
    at the fords of the Arnon.

³ “Make up your mind,” Moab says.
    “Render a decision.
Make your shadow like night—
    at high noon.
Hide the fugitives,
    do not betray the refugees.
⁴ Let the Moabite fugitives stay with you;
    be their shelter from the destroyer.”

The oppressor will come to an end,
    and destruction will cease;
    the aggressor will vanish from the land.
⁵ In love a throne will be established;
    in faithfulness a man will sit on it—
    one from the house^[a] of David—
one who in judging seeks justice
    and speeds the cause of righteousness.

⁶ We have heard of Moab’s pride—
    how great is her arrogance!—
of her conceit, her pride and her insolence;
    but her boasts are empty.
⁷ Therefore the Moabites wail,
    they wail together for Moab.
Lament and grieve
    for the raisin cakes of Kir Hareseth.
⁸ The fields of Heshbon wither,
    the vines of Sibmah also.
The rulers of the nations
    have trampled down the choicest vines,
which once reached Jazer
    and spread toward the desert.
Their shoots spread out
    and went as far as the sea.^[b]
9 So I weep, as Jazer weeps,
    for the vines of Sibmah.
Heshbon and Elealeh,
    I drench you with tears!
The shouts of joy over your ripened fruit
    and over your harvests have been stilled.
¹⁰ Joy and gladness are taken away from the orchards;
    no one sings or shouts in the vineyards;
no one treads out wine at the presses,
    for I have put an end to the shouting.
¹¹ My heart laments for Moab like a harp,
    my inmost being for Kir Hareseth.
¹² When Moab appears at her high place,
    she only wears herself out;
when she goes to her shrine to pray,
    it is to no avail.

¹³ This is the word the Lord has already spoken concerning Moab. ¹⁴ But now the Lord says: “Within three years, as a servant bound by contract would count them, Moab’s splendor and all her many people will be despised, and her survivors will be very few and feeble.”

Footnotes

1. Isaiah 16:5 Hebrew tent
2. Isaiah 16:8 Probably the Dead Sea

 

Many moving parts

I'm on Brad DeLong's email list, and I find the Berkeley prof of economic history often has worthwhile insights. Here's a link to a recent post of his which needs copy editing and also consists of a grab bag of disparate thoughts that don't always work together very well. Still, it gives us some starting points for trying to figure out what exactly is going on right now. Yes, people who believed things that simply are not true voted for the Dumpster, whereas people who believed true facts voted for Harris. We've been there before but here's a highly edited summary from BD:

 

Violent crime rates are about the same as they were in the 2010s, and perhaps 1/3 of what they were in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet many [The Reuters/Ipsos Core Political Survey] believed crime rates were at or near all-time highs. They supported Trump 26%-point margin. Those better informed about the actual crime statistics, by contrast, broke for Harris by a 65%-point margin.

The United States achieved its “soft landing” with respect to inflation some 18 months ago. The inflation problem caused by the plague and the rapid-recovery ... is no longer a significant issue. Yes, overall prices are about 20% higher because of the inflation episodes, but so are incomes. And no big redistributions of wealth were generated by the process. The key and salient indicator of gasoline prices has returned to its pre-plague levels. Those who undersood that the inflation rate has fallen back to near-normal supported Harris by a margin of 53%-points. Those who believed inflation remained high broke for Trump by a 19%-point margin.

The American media report on the stock market multiple times a day. They have decided it is the summary scoreboard for the economy as a whole—god alone knows why. Over the past nine months, the stock market has reached an all-time high on about one out of every four days. Near ubiquitous coverage of the stock market's performance should makes it difficult to avoid being aware of this. Those who had listened and remembered at least once broke for Harris by a margin of 20%-points. Those who were misinformed went for Trump by a 9%-margin.

And then there is the border: those who knew that unauthorized border crossings were at a low relative to the past few years gave a 59%-point edge to Harris, while those who thought that claim was false gave a 17%-point edge to Trump.

The recent election was extremely close. In such a close vote, each small factor made the decisive difference. But misinformation and its correlation with voting intentions is not a small but rather a very big factor.

It may be that beliefs about the world shape who people decide to vote for. But it also may be that people hold beliefs because of who they have already decided to vote for. If the second is the case—if people decided to vote for Donald Trump because they liked his presentation-of-self on The Apprentice and since as a real asshole, and concluded that he would as president be mean to people and they liked that—then the present and future of the United States and indeed of the world is very depressing indeed.

But I think that is unlikely. I think people voted for Donald Trump because they believed what Fox News and others of that ilk put in front of their eyes on their screens. They knew that their one's own neighborhood and personal circumstances were relatively good, with low crime rates, gas prices at normal, and their incomes having kept pace with inflation. But they were shown that a lot of people were struggling, that the system was broken, and that we needed to do something to shake government into a better configuration—and the driving asshole boss that the Reality TV film editors on The Apprentice created out of a mass of low-quality footage appeared to be what America needed. Voting for change, not out of personal necessity but out of concern for the greater good, demonstrates a commendable civic-minded perspective focused on solving societal challenges, rather than just focusing on one's own immediate situation that case, the state of the American voter is good. 

 

Well, I'm afraid I don't agree with his conclusion. And that's because what he argued before all this convinces me that it is wrong. That's for next time.

 

Wednesday Bible Study: It gets complicated

Chapter 14 contains some famous language, but it's pretty much universally misrepresented. First, I need to correct what was apparently a mistake in my previous post. When Isaiah refers to Babylon, as he does here and in the previous chapter, he really means Assyria. Sargon, the Assyrian king, established his throne in Babylon in 710 BC. At the time, Babylon was a tributary kingdom of Assyria. The tables were turned later. So this probably was written at about that time. 

The entity described beginning at verse 12, called Lucifer in the KJV and "morning star" in the NIV, is presumed by Christians to be Satan. However, this is actually a reference to a Canaanite myth of the gods Morning Star and Dawn -- two different beings -- who fall from heaven as a result of a rebellion. Isaiah also prophecies that other peoples will become slaves of Judah. That never happened, obviously. Finally, Isaiah warns the Philistines, Judah's perennial enemy, not to celebrate the death of king Azaz, because Judah is going to defeat them anyway. So, once again, this is all about current events in the Levant. It is not about a Messiah coming 700 years later.

14 The Lord will have compassion on Jacob;
    once again he will choose Israel
    and will settle them in their own land.
Foreigners will join them
    and unite with the descendants of Jacob.
² Nations will take them
    and bring them to their own place.
And Israel will take possession of the nations
    and make them male and female servants in the Lord’s land.
They will make captives of their captors
    and rule over their oppressors.

³ On the day the Lord gives you relief from your suffering and turmoil and from the harsh labor forced on you, ⁴ you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon:

How the oppressor has come to an end!
    How his fury^[a] has ended!
⁵ The Lord has broken the rod of the wicked,
    the scepter of the rulers,
⁶ which in anger struck down peoples
    with unceasing blows,
and in fury subdued nations
    with relentless aggression.
⁷ All the lands are at rest and at peace;
    they break into singing.
⁸ Even the junipers and the cedars of Lebanon
    gloat over you and say,
“Now that you have been laid low,
    no one comes to cut us down.”

⁹ The realm of the dead below is all astir
    to meet you at your coming;
it rouses the spirits of the departed to greet you—
    all those who were leaders in the world;
it makes them rise from their thrones—
    all those who were kings over the nations.
¹⁰ They will all respond,
    they will say to you,
“You also have become weak, as we are;
    you have become like us.”
¹¹ All your pomp has been brought down to the grave,
    along with the noise of your harps;
maggots are spread out beneath you
    and worms cover you.

¹² How you have fallen from heaven,
    morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
    you who once laid low the nations!
¹³ You said in your heart,
    “I will ascend to the heavens;
I will raise my throne
    above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
    on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.^[b]
14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
    I will make myself like the Most High.”
¹⁵ But you are brought down to the realm of the dead,
    to the depths of the pit.

¹⁶ Those who see you stare at you,
    they ponder your fate:
“Is this the man who shook the earth
    and made kingdoms tremble,
¹⁷ the man who made the world a wilderness,
    who overthrew its cities
    and would not let his captives go home?”

¹⁸ All the kings of the nations lie in state,
    each in his own tomb.
¹⁹ But you are cast out of your tomb
    like a rejected branch;
you are covered with the slain,
    with those pierced by the sword,
    those who descend to the stones of the pit.
Like a corpse trampled underfoot,
²⁰     you will not join them in burial,
for you have destroyed your land
    and killed your people.

Let the offspring of the wicked
    never be mentioned again.
²¹ Prepare a place to slaughter his children
    for the sins of their ancestors;
they are not to rise to inherit the land
    and cover the earth with their cities.

²² “I will rise up against them,”
    declares the Lord Almighty.
“I will wipe out Babylon’s name and survivors,
    her offspring and descendants,”
declares the Lord.
²³ “I will turn her into a place for owls
    and into swampland;
I will sweep her with the broom of destruction,”
    declares the Lord Almighty.

²⁴ The Lord Almighty has sworn,

“Surely, as I have planned, so it will be,
    and as I have purposed, so it will happen.
²⁵ I will crush the Assyrian in my land;
    on my mountains I will trample him down.
His yoke will be taken from my people,
    and his burden removed from their shoulders.”

²⁶ This is the plan determined for the whole world;
    this is the hand stretched out over all nations.
²⁷ For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him?
    His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?

A Prophecy Against the Philistines

²⁸ This prophecy came in the year King Ahaz died:

²⁹ Do not rejoice, all you Philistines,
    that the rod that struck you is broken;
from the root of that snake will spring up a viper,
    its fruit will be a darting, venomous serpent.
³⁰ The poorest of the poor will find pasture,
    and the needy will lie down in safety.
But your root I will destroy by famine;
    it will slay your survivors.

³¹ Wail, you gate! Howl, you city!
    Melt away, all you Philistines!
A cloud of smoke comes from the north,
    and there is not a straggler in its ranks.
³² What answer shall be given
    to the envoys of that nation?
“The Lord has established Zion,
    and in her his afflicted people will find refuge.”

Footnotes

1. Isaiah 14:4 Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagint and Syriac; the meaning of the word in the Masoretic Text is uncertain.
2. Isaiah 14:13 Or of the north; Zaphon was the most sacred mountain of the Canaanites.

For your enlightenment, presenting Mr. Fallows

 He's giving this away, so read it. After discussing the sanewashing  compulsion of the corporate media:

But let’s move beyond the things that editors and headline-writers might directly influence. Let’s move on to the much larger threat—which is apparently beyond control by anyone who might want to change it in a positive way. That threat is the death-cloud of misinformation, ignorance, lies, myths, fears, stereotypes… or any other terms to describe the gulf between “reality” as human beings have evolved to understand it, and the artificial reality playing out in the minds of citizens. . . .

In essence, “news” is everything you don’t see or experience yourself. And with each passing year, a growing share of the “news” on which people base their sense of reality has come neither from personal experience2; nor from “regular” news organizations, flawed as they may be; but instead from the surrounding climate of social media and other sources that have been skewed in a nihilistic, suspicious-and-hostile direction. A large part of that skewing is intentional—a supercharged version of Fox News, as those I’ve linked to above all argue. Part of it just comes with the technology. And evidence suggests that in 2024 this mattered more than anything the official news media did.3 People had “heard” that the economy was terrible and no one could find a job and illegal immigrants were everywhere and Kamala Harris was an affirmative-action cipher. And they could see that eggs were expensive—and that Donald Trump had come up, fist-first, after the bullet whizzed by. No contest.

The result explains a lot about these past week in public affairs. If nothing matters, if everything is terrible, if elections are just about swapping one liar for another, why not just shake it all up? Or burn it all down? At least it will be entertaining along the way.

 

I know this leaves people feeling helpless.  Don't. Keep communicating. Keep organizing. The truth will penetrate more minds in time. I'm still working at it. So should you.

Sunday Sermonette: Cut and paste?

Chapter 12 is a mercifully fairly brief song of praise, something that could have been found in Psalms. Whether the original author decided to insert it at this point, or some scribe did later on, we cannot know. But generally, the book seems to be something of a patchwork -- we've seen what look like variant versions of metaphors or prophecies. 

 

Although I haven't come across any scholarship that affirms it, to me it seems pretty obvious that Chapter 13 is a later interpolation, written after the Babylonian exile along with the latter part of the book. Since they tacked stuff on at the end, they could just as easily have stuck this in the middle. Up until now, Isaiah has been talking about the Assyrian empire; he wouldn't have had any reason even to think about Babylon, which at the time was under Assyrian dominance. It wasn't until the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, more than 100 years later, that Babylon overthrew Syrian dominance and then sacked Jerusalem and took the Judean royalty into captivity. Since this has the Medes (Persians) as the instruments of Babylon's fall it must have been written in the post-exilic period.

12 In that day you will say:

“I will praise you, Lord.
    Although you were angry with me,
your anger has turned away
    and you have comforted me.
² Surely God is my salvation;
    I will trust and not be afraid.
The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense^[a];
    he has become my salvation.”
³ With joy you will draw water
    from the wells of salvation.

⁴ In that day you will say:

“Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name;
    make known among the nations what he has done,
    and proclaim that his name is exalted.
⁵ Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things;
    let this be known to all the world.
⁶ Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion,
    for great is the Holy One of Israel among you.”

Footnotes

1. Isaiah 12:2 Or song

 

13 A prophecy against Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw:

² Raise a banner on a bare hilltop,
    shout to them;
beckon to them
    to enter the gates of the nobles.
³ I have commanded those I prepared for battle;
    I have summoned my warriors to carry out my wrath—
    those who rejoice in my triumph.

⁴ Listen, a noise on the mountains,
    like that of a great multitude!
Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms,
    like nations massing together!
The Lord Almighty is mustering
    an army for war.
⁵ They come from faraway lands,
    from the ends of the heavens—
the Lord and the weapons of his wrath—
    to destroy the whole country.

⁶ Wail, for the day of the Lord is near;
    it will come like destruction from the Almighty.^[a]
7 Because of this, all hands will go limp,
    every heart will melt with fear.
⁸ Terror will seize them,
    pain and anguish will grip them;
    they will writhe like a woman in labor.
They will look aghast at each other,
    their faces aflame.

⁹ See, the day of the Lord is coming
    —a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger—
to make the land desolate
    and destroy the sinners within it.
¹⁰ The stars of heaven and their constellations
    will not show their light.
The rising sun will be darkened
    and the moon will not give its light.
¹¹ I will punish the world for its evil,
    the wicked for their sins.
I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty
    and will humble the pride of the ruthless.
¹² I will make people scarcer than pure gold,
    more rare than the gold of Ophir.
¹³ Therefore I will make the heavens tremble;
    and the earth will shake from its place
at the wrath of the Lord Almighty,
    in the day of his burning anger.

¹⁴ Like a hunted gazelle,
    like sheep without a shepherd,
they will all return to their own people,
    they will flee to their native land.
¹⁵ Whoever is captured will be thrust through;
    all who are caught will fall by the sword.
¹⁶ Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes;
    their houses will be looted and their wives violated.

¹⁷ See, I will stir up against them the Medes,
    who do not care for silver
    and have no delight in gold.
¹⁸ Their bows will strike down the young men;
    they will have no mercy on infants,
    nor will they look with compassion on children.
¹⁹ Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms,
    the pride and glory of the Babylonians,^[b]
will be overthrown by God
    like Sodom and Gomorrah.
²⁰ She will never be inhabited
    or lived in through all generations;
there no nomads will pitch their tents,
    there no shepherds will rest their flocks.
²¹ But desert creatures will lie there,
    jackals will fill her houses;
there the owls will dwell,
    and there the wild goats will leap about.
²² Hyenas will inhabit her strongholds,
    jackals her luxurious palaces.
Her time is at hand,
    and her days will not be prolonged.

Footnotes

1. Isaiah 13:6 Hebrew Shaddai
2. Isaiah 13:19 Or Chaldeans

1.  

Psychoanalysis

As the president elect is manifestly insane, it behooves us to try to diagnose his motives and logic. Robert Kennedy Junior as secretary of HHS,  Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, and Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense are all completely ludicrous. While the expectation that they would be toadies of the Great Pumpkin may be a factor, it would be possible to find flunkies who are otherwise less absurd. 

In my unprofessional opinion, the real reason for these preposterous nominations is twofold. One is just the enjoyment of transgression and outrage. He can get away with anything, and that's fun. The second and probably more important motive is to force the Republican senators to demonstrate their absolute fealty by voting to turn the federal government into a clown car. I do believe that is a mistake, because it will be possible to find three or four Republican senators who won't go along with such a travesty. 

That's what gives me hope. The guy is so sick at soul that it renders him incompetent. Yes, slightly more than half the voters apparently like the idea of lunatic as president, but now that he's gotten the votes, he has to wield power. I'm thinking maybe he can't manage that.

Wednesday Bible Study: Let's be clear about what this really says

Chapter 11 is about the clearest messianic prophecy in Isaiah. Again, it is very clear that it is about the restoration of the power and greatness of the Kingdom of Judah. A couple of notes:

Jesse was David's father, so this is about a future king of Judah and it assumes that the Davidian dynasty will continue.

Ephraim is one of the 10 "lost tribes of Israel," in other words a synechdoche for tribes that inhabited the northern kingdom and were dispersed by the Assyrian conquest. The idea in verse 13 is that the enmity between Judah and the northern tribes will end. They will return from exile, the Davidian king, they will return from exile, and they will join with Judah to conquer the other nations of the region, the same old Moabites and Philistines and Edomites and Ammonites they were warring with throughout the Deuteronomistic history. And no, this has nothing to do with the appearance of some guy 700 years later who will do none of what is prophesied here.

The "gulf of the Egyptian sea" is the Red Sea. So far it has not been dried up.

11 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
    from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
² The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
    the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and of might,
    the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
³ and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.

He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
    or decide by what he hears with his ears;
⁴ but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
    with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
    with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
⁵ Righteousness will be his belt
    and faithfulness the sash around his waist.

⁶ The wolf will live with the lamb,
    the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling^[a] together;
    and a little child will lead them.
⁷ The cow will feed with the bear,
    their young will lie down together,
    and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
⁸ The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
    and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.
⁹ They will neither harm nor destroy
    on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.

¹⁰ In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious. ¹¹ In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the surviving remnant of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush,^[b] from Elam, from Babylonia,^[c] from Hamath and from the islands of the Mediterranean.

¹² He will raise a banner for the nations
    and gather the exiles of Israel;
he will assemble the scattered people of Judah
    from the four quarters of the earth.
¹³ Ephraim’s jealousy will vanish,
    and Judah’s enemies^[d] will be destroyed;
Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah,
    nor Judah hostile toward Ephraim.
¹⁴ They will swoop down on the slopes of Philistia to the west;
    together they will plunder the people to the east.
They will subdue Edom and Moab,
    and the Ammonites will be subject to them.
¹⁵ The Lord will dry up
    the gulf of the Egyptian sea;
with a scorching wind he will sweep his hand
    over the Euphrates River.
He will break it up into seven streams
    so that anyone can cross over in sandals.
¹⁶ There will be a highway for the remnant of his people
    that is left from Assyria,
as there was for Israel
    when they came up from Egypt.

Footnotes

1. Isaiah 11:6 Hebrew; Septuagint lion will feed
2. Isaiah 11:11 That is, the upper Nile region
3. Isaiah 11:11 Hebrew Shinar
4. Isaiah 11:13 Or hostility

 

What happens next?

Here's the thing. You don't know. Neither do I. Here Barry Ritholz is giving advice to investors back in 2016, but he's using decisions by movie studios and the primary elections of that year as his evidentiary basis. 

There is an enormous degree of serendipity and good fortune that goes into a blockbuster movie. The same seems to be true of just about everything in life, from marriage to careers to stock portfolios.

How easy is it to mistake good luck and randomness for skill? How readily do we convince ourselves we understand what is going on, that we are in control of our destinies, when nothing could be further from the truth?

 Consider this election cycle’s primary contests. Bernie Sanders, a 74-year old Jewish Socialist was widely expected to drop out almost immediately. Despite the delegate math, he’s still in the race. And almost all of the pundits had proclaimed — quite loudly, too — that Trump had absolutely no shot at winning the GOP nomination. You were admonished to beware their calls of “Peak Trump” last year, because (say it with me, people) nobody knows nuthin’.

 

I don't know what the next four years will hold, but there are likely to be surprises. One datum I do consider is Dump's obvious and apparently accelerating mental and physical deterioration. I certainly don't look forward to a Vance presidency, but I really don't know what it would be like. Nor do I know what will happen with an insane demented clown trying to be president. But as Ritholtz concludes:

 

We have discussed the futility of soothsayers trying to forecast too many times (see this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this). Attempting to accurately assess complex systems filled with random and interrelated variables, exogenous factors and unknown human behavior is a fool’s errand.

We don’t like to admit it, but nobody knows anything — and that includes me and you.

 

Sunday Sermonette: Summary

Chapter 10 essentially summarizes the basic idea of what Isaiah has been saying. He probably could have cut to the chase sooner. Remember that the Assyrian empire has been rampaging in the Levant. It has already destroyed many small kingdoms, and Judah is threatened. 

1) God must want this to happen. He is using Assyria as his instrument to a) destroy the idolaters in other kingdoms and b) punish the kings of Judah and the people for their errant ways. 

2) Although the Assyrian emperor is an instrument of God, he doesn't understand this. He's just doing it for the sake of his own greed.

3) So, once Assyria has carried out the program, God will turn on Assyria.

4) A remnant of the faithful will then rebuild Judah. 

That's it. However, it didn't exactly happen that way. Assyria did fall to Babylon, but then Judah did as well. Isaiah failed to predict the whole thing with Babylon, a problem that gets cleaned up with later accretions to the book. As I say, I'll skip ahead at some point as this gets repetitive.

10 Woe to those who make unjust laws,
    to those who issue oppressive decrees,
² to deprive the poor of their rights
    and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
    and robbing the fatherless.
³ What will you do on the day of reckoning,
    when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help?
    Where will you leave your riches?
⁴ Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives
    or fall among the slain.

Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away,
    his hand is still upraised.

God’s Judgment on Assyria

⁵ “Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger,
    in whose hand is the club of my wrath!
⁶ I send him against a godless nation,
    I dispatch him against a people who anger me,
to seize loot and snatch plunder,
    and to trample them down like mud in the streets.
⁷ But this is not what he intends,
    this is not what he has in mind;
his purpose is to destroy,
    to put an end to many nations.
⁸ ‘Are not my commanders all kings?’ he says.
⁹     ‘Has not Kalno fared like Carchemish?
Is not Hamath like Arpad,
    and Samaria like Damascus?
¹⁰ As my hand seized the kingdoms of the idols,
    kingdoms whose images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria—
¹¹ shall I not deal with Jerusalem and her images
    as I dealt with Samaria and her idols?’”

¹² When the Lord has finished all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for the willful pride of his heart and the haughty look in his eyes. ¹³ For he says:

“‘By the strength of my hand I have done this,
    and by my wisdom, because I have understanding.
I removed the boundaries of nations,
    I plundered their treasures;
    like a mighty one I subdued^[a] their kings.
¹⁴ As one reaches into a nest,
    so my hand reached for the wealth of the nations;
as people gather abandoned eggs,
    so I gathered all the countries;
not one flapped a wing,
    or opened its mouth to chirp.’”

¹⁵ Does the ax raise itself above the person who swings it,
    or the saw boast against the one who uses it?
As if a rod were to wield the person who lifts it up,
    or a club brandish the one who is not wood!
¹⁶ Therefore, the Lord, the Lord Almighty,
    will send a wasting disease upon his sturdy warriors;
under his pomp a fire will be kindled
    like a blazing flame.
¹⁷ The Light of Israel will become a fire,
    their Holy One a flame;
in a single day it will burn and consume
    his thorns and his briers.
¹⁸ The splendor of his forests and fertile fields
    it will completely destroy,
    as when a sick person wastes away.
¹⁹ And the remaining trees of his forests will be so few
    that a child could write them down.

The Remnant of Israel

²⁰ In that day the remnant of Israel,
    the survivors of Jacob,
will no longer rely on him
    who struck them down
but will truly rely on the Lord,
    the Holy One of Israel.
²¹ A remnant will return,^[b] a remnant of Jacob
    will return to the Mighty God.
²² Though your people be like the sand by the sea, Israel,
    only a remnant will return.
Destruction has been decreed,
    overwhelming and righteous.
²³ The Lord, the Lord Almighty, will carry out
    the destruction decreed upon the whole land.

²⁴ Therefore this is what the Lord, the Lord Almighty, says:

“My people who live in Zion,
    do not be afraid of the Assyrians,
who beat you with a rod
    and lift up a club against you, as Egypt did.
²⁵ Very soon my anger against you will end
    and my wrath will be directed to their destruction.”

²⁶ The Lord Almighty will lash them with a whip,
    as when he struck down Midian at the rock of Oreb;
and he will raise his staff over the waters,
    as he did in Egypt.
²⁷ In that day their burden will be lifted from your shoulders,
    their yoke from your neck;
the yoke will be broken
    because you have grown so fat.^[c]

²⁸ They enter Aiath;
    they pass through Migron;
    they store supplies at Mikmash.
²⁹ They go over the pass, and say,
    “We will camp overnight at Geba.”
Ramah trembles;
    Gibeah of Saul flees.
³⁰ Cry out, Daughter Gallim!
    Listen, Laishah!
    Poor Anathoth!
³¹ Madmenah is in flight;
    the people of Gebim take cover.
³² This day they will halt at Nob;
    they will shake their fist
at the mount of Daughter Zion,
    at the hill of Jerusalem.

³³ See, the Lord, the Lord Almighty,
    will lop off the boughs with great power.
The lofty trees will be felled,
    the tall ones will be brought low.
³⁴ He will cut down the forest thickets with an ax;
    Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One.

Footnotes

1. Isaiah 10:13 Or treasures; / I subdued the mighty,
2. Isaiah 10:21 Hebrew shear-jashub (see 7:3 and note); also in verse 22
3. Isaiah 10:27 Hebrew; Septuagint broken / from your shoulders