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The following is an excerpt from No Way In, a novel written by Richard Fernandez that I just finished last week:
"I think," Alex said softly, "that all revolutions are about faith. In this case it's faith for its own sake, about religion without God. Yes, we are told there could be a paradise on earth. But we're not really convinced and we don't really care for as long as we have some religion and some paradise before us.
"This makes it a moral problem, because the paradise we don't really believe in has to be built with the bricks and mortar of people's lives. What everyone caught up in revolution wants to know is whether faith in Stalin or Mao or Antonio Moran Singson is enough to kill or be killed for? Because it would be really funny, now that we are talking about religion - now that it is clear that's what we are really talking about - to exchange Communism for Christianity and Trotsky for Moses. If you find your arms can't reach the heavens, what is the sense to worshipping a model in mud on the ground?"
"So what do you believe in, Alex?" Justine asked. "In the old ways?"
"In the unchanging ways, in the human condition. What condemns us to freedom is the chance that God might exist. And if salvation is real, then freedom is real too."
"Real freedom," Justine asked, "must include the right to choose slavery or even Hell, though I can't think of a good reason for anyone to choose it. Is that part of freedom?"
"It seems that deciding never to choose again is the one act that is forbidden to us," Alex said. "To do that would be to leave the circle of mankind forever."
***
It seems to me that this passage gets to the heart of the nature of choice, freedom, slavery and the contradictory condition of man. On the one hand, we quest for greatness, as our eyes gaze up to the heavens and ponder the stars. On the other hand, we strive for security and the easy predictability of plenty. We aspire to the former but are willing to give up much of our ability to be free to dream and do for the certainty of the latter.
Fernandez is the sole author of the Belmont Club, now at Pajamas Media. I've been following his writing for years. He has a unique ability to seamlessly blend strategic issues with human nature. His writing encompasses the whole of the human drama - from literature to poetry to film to history, war and common sense.
No Way In is a story about a middle aged professor named Alex Francisco who never managed to move beyond his work as a revolutionary in the underground movement to overthrow Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s. Now, as the action begins, he is thrown back into the world of intrigue, danger and life on the run when he inadvertently stumbles upon a secret about recently stolen presidential elections.
Often I find that writers have difficulty moving from one genre to another. Books by columnists often read like 250 page columns. Columns by novelists often read like something the author might have said better if he had 25,000 words.
But in No Way In, Fernandez succeeded in bringing all his passions, interests and knowledge to bear in a single, coherent, extremely well written and engaging composition. You learn about Philippine political history and about the Islamic threat to the country. You learn about modes of counterinsurgency.
You read about the loves and sacrifices of extraordinary people who hear the call to service and leadership.
Finally, you learn about the challenges of moving on from extraordinary chapters in our lives.
You learn all of this while captivated by a fast moving, thrilling story that transports you from Sydney and Canberra to the Australian Alps, to Manila, to the furthest reaches of the Philippine archipelago.
Since I am unfamiliar with all the terrain Fernandez covers here, as I read, I felt like I too was on an adventure, experiencing these unfamiliar places for the first time. I couldn't help comparing them to landscapes that I know and have travelled through and thinking about how the call to fight for freedom touches people everywhere.
No Way In was so engaging that I ended up taking last Wednesday afternoon off to finish it.
I urge you all to purchase the book. I don't believe you will be disappointed.
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These words written by a desert goat herder who stood up face to face against the most powerful, ruthless and brutal totalitarian dictator of his day with a stick and a Name,a dictator who assumed he had the last word and complete control over every living,enslaved Jew within his empire.
Moses understood who,what and where the real power was.
The most profound wisdom of the ages !
'Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were born
Or You gave birth to the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.
You turn man back into dust
And say, “Return, O children of men.”
For a thousand years in Your sight
Are like yesterday when it passes by,
Or as a watch in the night.
You have swept them away like a flood, they fall asleep;
In the morning they are like grass which sprouts anew.
In the morning it flourishes and sprouts anew;
Toward evening it fades and withers away.
For we have been consumed by Your anger
And by Your wrath we have been dismayed.
You have placed our iniquities before You,
Our secret sins in the light of Your presence.
For all our days have declined in Your fury;
We have finished our years like a sigh.
As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years,
Or if due to strength, eighty years,
Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow;
For soon it is gone and we fly away.
Who understands the power of Your anger
And Your fury, according to the fear that is due You?
So teach us to number our days,
That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.
Do return, O LORD; how long will it be?
And be sorry for Your servants.
O satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness,
That we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Make us glad according to the days You have afflicted us,
And the years we have seen evil.
Let Your work appear to Your servants
And Your majesty to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us;
And confirm for us the work of our hands;
Yes, confirm the work of our hands.'
Psalm 90
What a sublime and persuasive review. I, too, have admired the work of Richard Fernandez on www.pajamasmedia.com where I also blog. When you wrote that you were so captivated that you took off last Wednesday afternoon to finish his book, you described the kind of magnetic intensity an exceptional writer can generate. Your endorsement will resonate with serious and passionate readers everywhere. It certainly did with me. I just placed an order to buy No Way In. Thank you for your recommendation, and for your own powerfully luminous columns.
And did you see, C. Glick what one Manny Jakel wrote about you on the latest DANIEL GORDIS / COMMENTS PAGE - SHALEM CENTER. I SECOND.
Caroline, my heart resonates with the thought of G-d all around us, a firm yet compassionate Father who allows us the freedom of choice in how we live our lives amid the turmoil in the world today. Thank you for introducing me to Richard Fernandez. I've always highly valued your opinions and recommendations and will purchase the book this week.
I think you mean "the Austrian Alps" unless I am completely missing my guess.
Rabbi Dov Lior Arrested by Israeli Thought Police
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4087844,00.html
Freedom in Israel only applies to godless faggots and those who hate God.
EVIL FORCES RULE OVER ISRAEL
Lets not forget that the godless perverts of the Israel's godless left just had their queer day march in Tel Aviv just days ago.
There is much freedom in ISRAEL for the forces of perversion and darkness but the light of truth is being extinguished by the undemocratic,socialist,bolshevik police.
It's all coming to a head just in time for God's judgment on the wicked of Israel.
The missiles of Iran,Syria,Lebanon and Gaza are aimed at the heads of the wicked of Israel.
Also keep in mind that this is happening under the rule of the pseudo right wing Prime Minister Netanyahu.
His actions always proved beyond any doubt that he serves the globalist agenda.
Another devious and lying politician who makes war with the Holy One of Israel.
A Nonny Mouse, you are completely missing your guess. Please, do yourself a favor and buy and read this book, you will not regret it, Richard Fernandez always has something interesting and insightful to say. No Way In combines that with a thrilling story.
And speaking of revolutions I have long maintained that the creation of the State of Israel was the greatest of all the revolutions since the Cromwellian revolution got the ball rolling in the 1600s.
In the Zionist Revolution a people, persecuted for 2000 years, broke off their chains, shattered their shackles and took their freedom in their hands (again - they had done it before). Of course the counter-revolutionary anti-Semites on the right and left, and the Islamists and the High Church Christians, really do not want us to be free, they had grown used to their position as our overlords, it validated their beliefs about their superiority and our inferiority. Those who call for the creation of a Palestinian state and ipso-facto the destruction of Israel are merely reactionaries wanting to roll back the hands of time to the good-old days when they could spit on a Jew with impunity and without having to worry that he might be a black belt in Krav Maga.
But I seem to the only who holds this view, anyone out there want to join me in saying "T'Hi haMahapekha Tzionit!" or "Viva la Revolución Sionista!"?