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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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gag order on Israeli nukes.

No need to bring something so obscure, things like anti-BDS laws are something completely surreal that can, unlike question of official recognition of Israeli nuclear weapons, affect normies in their daily lives.

The law came under fire in October 2017 from both Democrats and Republicans[citation needed] as Dickinson, Texas required Hurricane Harvey victims who applied for disaster relief funds to promise not to boycott Israel.

Try to explain to non-American (or to average normie American) compulsory pledge to do not boycott Israel - they will just refuse to believe it is real.

BTW, since this is another Israeli/Zionist thread, I recall you were once wondering about origins of Christian Zionism, about sudden and surprising replacement of traditional Christian attitude to Jews ("children of Satan") with modern one ("our beloved elder brothers").

In Protestant world, important figure was one Cyrus Ingerson Scofield, How he happened to be as influential as he was?

Being a “born again” preacher did not preclude Scofield from becoming a member of an exclusive New York men’s club in 1901, either. In his devastating biography, The Incredible Scofield and His Book, Joseph M. Canfield suggests, “The admission of Scofield to the Lotus Club, which could not have been sought by Scofield, strengthens the suspicion that has cropped up before, that someone was directing the career of C.I. Scofield.”

That someone, Canfield suspects, was associated with one of the club’s committee members, the Wall Street lawyer Samuel Untermeyer. As Canfield intimates, Scofield’s theology was “most helpful in getting Fundamentalist Christians to back the international interest in one of Untermeyer’s pet projects—the Zionist Movement.”

This man, Samuel Untermeyer. Very important person in his time, far from mere "Wall Street lawyer".

He figures prominenly in many wild conspiracy theories, was supposed to blackmail the president and be the mastermind behind American entrance into WWI.

https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/52658-two-us-presidents-among-many-celebrities-blackmailed

About a century ago, the 28th US President Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) was reportedly blackmailed by a noted lawyer Samuel Untermyer of Messrs “Guggenheim, Untermyer and Marshall,” who had tried to extort $40,000 from the American head of state in relation to an affair Wilson had with a fellow professor’s wife, while he was teaching at Princeton University.

The blackmailing lawyer had visited Wilson at the White House on March 4, 1913.

In his book “The History of the House of Rothschild,” author Andrew Hitchcock has shed light on how President Wilson had budged to the blackmailer’s demand of appointing a United States Supreme Court judge on his recommendation if he paid $40,000 out of his own pocket to the woman with whom Wilson had an affair.

Consequently, on June 4, 1916, a Jew Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) was appointed to the US Supreme Court by President Wilson as per his agreed blackmail payment to Samuel Untermyer three years earlier.

Justice Brandeis had gone on to serve the US Supreme Court from 1916 to 1939.

(Wilson's relationship with Mary Hulbert Peck is confirmed historical fact, the blackmail tale originates from Benjamin H. Freedman of dubious reliability.)

Now, back to Scofield. His only biography paints him rather unflatteringly, as typical American huckster and con man, not humble servant of Christ.

Still, the mind boggles how could such, unimpressive and obscure at the time, character be invited into such prestigious group.

The club’s purpose as noted in Article I, Section II of its Constitution, was: The primary object of this Club shall be to promote social intercourse among journalists, artists, and members of the musical and dramatic professions, and representatives, amateurs, and friends of Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts: and at least one third of the members shall be connected with said classes.

Since the theatre was taboo and worse in the circles where Cyrus had moved since 1879, we assume and we think rightly, that someone felt that Scofield could qualify in the literary catagory. But, that qualification could hardly have been on the basis of Scofield’s literary output up to that time. There must have been anticipation.

The club’s Literary Committee, when Scofield’s application was presented, included Samuel Untermeyer (1858-1941), a notorious criminal lawyer. Untermeyer’s accomplishments, described in Who’s Who in America9 take up more than two columns. There is not one activity listed which would suggest that Untermeyer could have appreciated either Scofield’s Bible Correspondence Course or his magazine The- Believer.9 Untermeyer’s life was so remote from the circles in which Scofield normally moved, that we must remain amazed that Untermeyer would have given Scofield the “whiteball” rather than the “blackball.”

...

Scofield kept up his membershp in Lotos until his death in 1921. The membership was not referred to in any obituary or eulogy. (The Dispensational community knew nothing of it!)

...

The selection of Scofield for admission to The Lotos Club, which could not have been sought by Scofield, strengthens the suspicion which has cropped up before, that someone was directing the career of C. I. Scofield. Such direction probably was motivated by concerns remote from fidelity to the person, work and truth of Jesus Christ.

Big if true. If confirmed, nothing else can be said than: well done, well played.