Pope Leo XIV must state clearly and publicly – by name – that Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens do not represent Catholic teaching or Catholic values and that their antisemitism is sinful and dangerous.
Across the United States, antisemitism is not merely rising – it is metastasizing. It has taken on new forms, new platforms, and new proponents who weaponize modern media to amplify an ancient hatred.
Among the most toxic of these figures are Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens, two of the most influential and hostile anti-Jewish voices in America today. And there is an uncomfortable and undeniable fact that demands a response from the Vatican: both are fervent Catholics who routinely invoke their faith while also spewing bile and hate.
Fuentes, a self-styled “America First” agitator, has built a large online following by preaching rage, conspiracy theories, and unapologetic Jew-hatred. He has praised Adolf Hitler, admired Joseph Stalin, minimized the Holocaust, revived medieval slanders, and cast Jews as enemies of America and Christianity.
He calls for a “Christian nationalist” America that excludes Jews altogether. And Fuentes revels in extremist rhetoric while positioning himself as a defender of Catholic teachings and tradition.
Owens, meanwhile, peddles in the same toxins. Over the years, she has repeatedly used her social media platform to spread virulent antisemitic tropes about Jewish influence and power. According to the Anti-Defamation League, she has claimed that Judaism is a “pedophile-centric religion that believes in demons… and child sacrifice.”
Human beings are semiotic entities. We largely live in and react emotionally to semiotics. Virtually everything we think, feel, and believe is built on a foundation of signs and symbols—semiotics.
A recent German study elegantly shows that people with arachnophobia see spiders more quickly than people who do not fear spiders.
The authors of the study say that there probably is “an evolutionary advantage to preferentially process threatening stimuli, but these effects seem to have become dysfunctional in phobic patients.”
I would argue that “these effects” have also migrated into human semiotics and are similarly dysfunctional. That is, humans perceive some signs and symbols as more threatening than they are. For some of us these signs and symbols can seem so threatening we become “phobic” or neurotic about them.
For example, insecure people may become hypersensitive to signs of rejection. People who have been abused or tortured may perceive signs that seem ordinary to others as serious threats. If the person who tortures you also smiles, you will probably see human smiles as being dangerous when to others they indicate kindness.
Once a semiotic becomes associated with strong emotions, and this can happen in many ways, we will tend to see that semiotic as an emotionally charged sign from then on.
FIML practice is designed to interrupt our emotionally-charged responses to semiotics the moment those responses occur. By doing this repeatedly with the same sign, FIML practice can extirpates the neurotic response to that sign.
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Edit: Extirpating semiotic “phobias” or neuroses should be easier to do in most cases than extirpating phobias based on visual perceptions of things, such as the spiders discussed in the linked study. This is likely due to the more direct connection between emotional or limbic responses and the visual cortex. Complex semiotics are signs and symbols built on top of other signs and symbols, and thus their “architecture” is more fragile than direct visual perception and probably simpler to change in most cases. Human facial expressions probably fall somewhere between complex signs and direct visual perception. A good deal of what we call “psychology” are networks of complex semiotics. When a network becomes “neurotic” it is probably true that it contains erroneous interpretations of some or all of its semiotics. That said, a complex neurosis than involves many semiotic networks may be more difficult to extirpate than a straightforward phobia like arachnophobia.
Worldwide most citizens by far oppose mass immigration. In Japan, their government has been pretty good at respecting this. Japan is an important example for the world. Do not fear low birth rates or a shrinking population. That can easily be fixed. Replacing your population cannot. ABN
Two days ago I was contacted by a high-ranking employee of the French Government. After determining this person’s position and proximity to the French couple, I have deemed the information they gave me to be credible enough to share publicly in the event that something happens.
In short, this person claims that the Macrons have executed upon and paid for my assassination. Yes, you read that correctly. More specifically, that the green light was given to a small team in National Gendamarie Intervention Group. I am told there is one Israeli that is on this assasination squad and the plans were formalized.
Again, this person provided concrete proof that they are well placed within the French government apparatus. Further to this point, this person claims that Charlie Kirk’s assassin trained with the French legion 13th brigade with multi-state involvement. Journalist Xavier Poussard’s life is also at risk.
This is deadly serious. The head of state of France apparently wants us both dead and has authorized professional units to carry this out. I ask that every person RETWEET and share this.
I do not know who in the American government can be trusted, since this source claims our leaders are aware. But I have more specific information which is definitively verifiable, should they care to reach out to me.
To the brave official in France who did this because they were so moved by the evil of Charlie’s public execution to risk their own life— May God bless you. Truly.
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Not implausible at all. It is right for her to report this.
She should go into hiding in a place she has never been before. And even that may not be enough.
I have my differences with Christians but I deeply respect their courage and honesty.
It’s possible the warning she received was designed to frighten her, but it’s smartest for her to take it seriously. ABN
Minnesota, under Governor Waltz, is a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity. I am, as President of the United States, hereby terminating, effective immediately, the Temporary Protected Status (TPS Program) for Somalis in Minnesota. Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing. Send them back to where they came from. It’s OVER! President DJT
The Second Lady was ringless during her visit to Camp Lejeune military base in Richlands, North Carolina on Wednesday with First Lady Melania Trump.
Photos show Usha, 39, getting off a plane with her left hand in full view – and the wedding band nowhere to be seen.
Second Lady Usha Vance was seen traveling to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune on Wednesday with her wedding finger noticeably bare
Additional images from Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station New River confirm the ring remained off throughout the visit.
The Vice President, meanwhile, was photographed wearing his wedding band during a speaking event in Washington on Thursday.
The image comes after weeks of nasty trolls whispering about the state of the Vance marriage, which began in October with the Vice President’s tight hug he gave to Erika Kirk during a memorial for her husband, the right wing activist Charlie Kirk.
The speculation about a possible rift between the Second Couple was fueled by the VP admitting that he has pleaded with his wife to convert from Hinduism: he is a Roman Catholic.
‘Therefore, O monks, do not brood over [any of these views]. Such brooding, O monks, is senseless, has nothing to do with genuine pure conduct (s. ādibrahmacariyaka-sīla), does not lead to aversion, detachment, extinction, nor to peace, to full comprehension, enlightenment and Nibbāna.[17]
This means that the Buddha did not have a rigid, verbalizable view of human metacognition.
The story above is silly for obvious reasons.
But it is a culturally clickbait-worthy story because both Christians and most Hindus hold rigid metacognitive ‘beliefs’ about their religions.
From a Buddhist point of view, rigid metacognitive beliefs or ‘views’ are:
‘Accompanied by suffering, distress, despair, & fever, and do not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation; to calm, direct knowledge, full Awakening, Unbinding…
‘Whoever speculates about these things will go mad & experience vexation’.
In like manner so it is with all rigid meta-cognitive views on the self, our analyses of ourselves, our understanding of others, our political views, our scientific views, our religious and spiritual views.
In Buddhism, all metacognitive views should be open, pliable, moveable, viewed as impermanent, viewed with a healthy skepticism that allows us to focus on what is of greatest importance — the attainment of liberation through wholesome practice.
Buddhism must be experienced to be understood.
A battle between opposing metacognitive views, such as the one being implied in the story above, is a waste of Usha’s time, Vance’s time, and everyone’s time, except insofar as this example may help others understand the futility and unwholesomeness of being rigid in any metacognitive view about ultimate matters. ABN
Cultures are made of and held together by semiotics. They are formed and exist within self-referential semiotic networks or matrices.
Semiotic cultural matrices exist solely because they work. This is why virtually all of the world’s cultures are based on falsehoods.
It doesn’t matter if something is right or wrong as long as the people within a culture keep buying the story. Once they stop buying it, the culture disintegrates or changes.
Disintegration has been the fate of almost every culture that ever existed and there is little or no chance that any culture in existence today will survive for long.
Some culture can reasonably claim contiguity with an ancestral culture dating back thousands of years, but the two are never the same. In that sense, all of us can claim contiguity with “our” cultural pasts, just as we can claim genetic contiguity with the past. It is unlikely, though, that you would recognize any of the cultures of your distant ancestors, let alone want to be part of them or even like them.
The simplicity and falsity of culture can be seen in almost anything that communicates to large numbers of people, but especially when the thing being communicated is emotional.
An example in today’s USA might be the use of the word “offense” or “offended,” as in “I am offended by what you just said.”
If the speaker said something clearly offensive, like cussing out your mother, most of us would dismiss them as drunken fools and be done with it. Some of us might want to fight, but I bet no one would say, “I am offended by what you just said!”
Being “offended” is a semiotic that carries a special meaning and a special charge. It usually comes as a surprise to the speaker, causing them to hesitate and wonder what they have done wrong. It almost always seems to require an apology and the admission that the “offended” party stands on higher ground.
But how can you “offend” without doing so knowingly? I might not like it when you stepped on my toes, but I would be a fool to feel offended if you did it accidentally.
The truth is when most people claim to be “offended” they don’t really mean it. What they mean is “you failed to show me respect in the way I demand.”
That is a very different semiotic. It often works like an ambush or a trump card that gives the listener control of what has happened and will happen next. Reason should prevail in these instances, but it rarely does because the “offended” thing works better.
Rather than “offend” anyone by illustrating this point with some recent examples from the news, please recall your own. Imagine occasions when you have heard or read about someone claiming to be “offended” by what someone else said or did. Short of direct insults, which are rare, the “offense” will almost always reduce to “failure to show respect” for some code of speech or behavior that the speaker did not know.
Being “offended” is a powerful charge that amply reveals the tackiness of cultural bonds, for it works even among people who otherwise think of themselves as reasonable.
Working will become optional in just 20 years thanks to advances in artificial intelligence and robotics, Elon Musk has claimed.
The world’s richest man said the decision to work will become like a hobby such as sport or growing your own vegetables.
And, somewhat curiously for a man worth $360billion, he insisted that money will also become irrelevant in the future.
Mr Musk told the US-Saudi Investment Forum in Washington: ‘In ten to 20 years my prediction is that work will be optional. It’ll be like playing sports or a video game or something like that.
‘If you want to work, [it’s] the same way you can go to the store and just buy some vegetables, or you can grow vegetables in your backyard.
‘It’s much harder to grow vegetables in your backyard, and some people still do it because they like growing vegetables. That will be what work is like. Optional.’
Over 50 members from 20 countries have already agreed to ban Sharia in the EU. Now is the time for the rest of the European Parliament to stand up for Europe and dare to do the same. This is written by Charlie Weimers, delegation leader for the Sweden Democrats in the EU Parliament.
A proposal for a total ban on all application and enforcement of Sharia in the EU has been submitted to the administration of the European Parliament. The parliamentary initiative from the Sweden Democrats’ delegation has already been supported by over 50 MEPs from 20 different countries. Together, we demand that Parliament declare Sharia completely incompatible with EU law and fundamental rights.
Parliamentary consideration of the proposal will soon begin. All political groups – from left to right – will be forced to show where they stand: with European values or with parallel legal systems that discriminate against women, LGBTQ people, non-Muslims and people who have left Islam.
Unfortunately, this is no longer a theoretical debate. Sharia councils already exist today in Great Britain, where over 85 documented councils operate. The problem is also growing in the EU. In Sweden, over the years, both the Social Democrats and the Moderates have turned a blind eye to or even supported organizations that openly advocate Sharia. In Belgium, France and Germany, parallel structures are growing where women are forced to accept polygamy, child marriage and inheritance rules that give daughters half of what sons receive.
American Buddhist Net 