Well, that was an exciting year, wasn’t it?
Below in video format, are my thoughts on two of the biggest items from the year, in my humble opinion. First, yours truly talks about the impeachment (or is it non-impeachment?) of President Donald Trump. The next item is the growing schism engineered by the West under the unfortunate auspices of Patriarch Bartholomew. As I explain below, it’s impossible now for us to separate Church from State. I give my reasons. (Short answer: I think it has probably never been the case and those of us who believed so were basically chumps.)
There were or course other huge issues and news-stories that took place during 2019. All of them solidified in my mind the fact that we are living under an entrenched oligarchy and that most of the controversies that envelope us are engineered and/or encouraged by the elites. Think of it as a grand, geopolitical kabuki theater whose purpose is to keep us divided.
Here are my Top Ten in no particular order:
1. Jussie Smollett. St Smollett proved that the establishment wants to exacerbate racial tensions and they’ll use any threadbare, glaringly-obvious ploy to do so. Why? Because President Trump is gaining in popularity among African-Americans. Recent polls have him at 35 percent. He won in 2016 with just 8 percent of the vote. If he gets anything above 15 percent, then he keeps Michigan and flips Minnesota. Twenty percent and he flips Illinois.
2. The Kovington Katholic Kids. These kids exposed once and for all that the anti-Christian elites that run our country are more than willing to throw traditional, white Christians under the bus, even if they’re innocent. Worse, it exposed how utterly corrupt the American Catholic Church is: the Kentucky diocese that these boys belonged to were among the first to pounce on them in order to prove their leftist bona fides. Rushing to Judgment should be an Olympic event as far as our major institutions are concerned, not just the media. (Provided that the “victim” belongs to some approved minority group).
3. Richard Jewell. Go see this movie. If it doesn’t prove that Clint Eastwood (who’s pushing ninety) isn’t the greatest American auteur of the last half-century, then nothing will. (Regardless, he has a lot to fall back on if you don’t agree with me.) Moreover, Richard Jewell came out at just the right time: it is a perfect capstone to how the government and the Fake News Industrial Complex (FNIC) conspires to manipulate critical information to their advantage. They did the same thing with Weapons of Mass Destruction some six years later and they’re doing it again with the whole Russian Hoax narrative. Jewell was vindicated in the end but only at great personal cost to himself and his long-suffering mother.
4. Little Rocket Man. According to Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame), Donald Trump is a “Master Persuader”. Essentially, a wizard who by certain verbal tricks and simple messages, can create a successful movement. I can see where Adams is going with this, after all, it got Trump the Republican nomination from way more experienced and well-spoken GOP office-holders; he did it when All the Right People told us it was impossible. I would go further however and say that he’s a Master Disrupter. Ever since he came down that escalator on June 16, 2015, he’s has completely upset the political, social and diplomatic applecart in so many ways that I’ve lost count. The phrase “Little Rocket Man” to me best encapsulates the formula which explains his foreign policy successes.
5. Get Woke, Go Broke. This will be remember as the year in which the entire PC enterprise (and especially its transgender subdivision) officially “jumped the shark”. Movies and other entertainment venues (e.g. CNN, MSNBC, the Episcopalian Church) saw their brand decline. Why? Because nobody believes the fabulous nonsense that passes for orthodoxy these days. You know, like, there aren’t 38 “genders”. And men can’t have abortions. Things like that. Still, it’s not for lack of trying. Hollywood, Academe and the Bureaucracy will continue to spew out its baseless propaganda because the ruling elites need us to hate traditional values. The oligarchy views such enterprises as loss leaders. Sure they lose money but as long as it weakens the moral fabric of society and the critical thinking skills of the plebs, then it’s worth it in the long run. Trouble with this line of thinking is that there’s only so much money that can be thrown down a rat-hole; eventually even the oligarchs will tire of not realizing a return on their investment. Eventually. (I know, be patient, but reality always wins out in the end.)
6. Patriarch Bartholomew, call your office. Your Ukrainian gambit is blowing up in your face. Big time. Mike Pompeo has nowhere near the skill to provoke the Russkies that Zbigniew Brzezinski had. If you’re going to do something this egregious and provocative, you need a real Sith Lord like Zbig calling the shots. We’re talking the Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight here. Even worse, the slow-motion schism which is being executed in your name has alerted the other Orthodox Churches as to your plans. Even the Greek-speaking local Churches are having serious heartburn. The Church of Greece can’t even get their version of the Diptychs to reflect your wishes.
7. Patriarch Kirill, you’re a skilled player. And you’re playing Bartholomew like a Stradivarius. I’ve always said that the Russians play the long game: the twelve-year-old reunion with ROCOR is now paying dividends. How so? Because Kirill has broken communion with Bartholomew, he has let it be known that any bishop, priest, parish, diocese or exarchate that wants to join Moscow (via ROCOR) can do so without a formal release from any of the local Churches that accept the faux autocephaly of Ukraine. That should give the other Churches that haven’t signed up with Bartholomew some pause. For one thing, Kirill has the resources to set up rival dioceses in their countries. For another, many of these countries have Old Calendar archdioceses in them, none of which are in communion with them. That’s a mighty juicy carrot that Moscow can wave in front of the OC’s faces if you ask me.
8. Greta Thurnburg. If there’s anything that exposed in brilliant Technicolor fashion how manipulated the “news” is, it’s this silly little twinkie who came literally out of nowhere and was forced down our collective throats as the Second Coming of the Dalai Lama. I mean really, where the hell did she come from? Was she some child prodigy who was busy curing cancer or winning the Van Cliburn competition? Was she studying at the feet of some guru in India and can now levitate? How dare she lecture people two and three times her age about what is “right”. Did you catch that time in which she said that those leaders who did nothing about climate change should be lined “up against a wall”? (I guess fascism is now OK: lemme know since I didn’t get the memo.)
9. Believe it or not, the Swamp may be in the process of being drained. I know, I know, these people are shameless. Their grip on the levers of power is vise-like. But have you noticed that for all the monkey-poo that the Swamp Creatures have thrown at Trump, it’s their people who are being taken down? Names like Comey, Brennan, McBride, Stzok, that naked chick in Congress, etc? As for Pelosi, she’s either drunk or taking locution lessons from Foster Brooks. Many of the Swamp Creatures have either lost their jobs, been arrested or are seriously lawyering-up. That costs serious coin. Some will actually spend some time in the pokey. Others will no doubt come down with a case of Arkancide. (Oh yeah, I forgot: Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself and Eric Ciamarella is the so-called “whistleblower”.)
10. Brexit/Trump. The Special Relationship between Great Britain and the United States seems to be a thing after all. On more than one occasion, Old Blighty has been an electoral harbinger of things to come in the States. It seems that the electoral Richter scale starts its rumbling over there but causes damage to the ruling classes over here. The election of Margaret Thatcher was one such example, Brexit another. Furthermore, it proves that there are certain inexorable forces at work which cannot be derailed, no matter how much the ruling elites wish it were otherwise. Brexit happened in June of 2016 but the British Establishment did whatever it could to derail it. The result was Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party becoming the largest in the European Parliament and Boris Johnson’s Tories shellacking Labour like a red-headed, bastard step-child (even in Labour’s traditional strongholds).
Anyway, I’m sure we can think of more. As for the video, it was filmed with the Kiamichi mountains as a backdrop.* I hope you enjoy it! As always, comment, criticize and commiserate as you see fit.
*I forgot to mention in the video that another claim to fame for Leflore County is the famous Runestone which is located in Heavener, Oklahoma. According to local legend, this giant stone was found by a Choctaw hunting party back in 1830. On it are several runes which according to one source spells out the words “Glome’s dal” (or Glome’s valley). Its authenticity is still an open question. (How did the Norsemen get all the way here in the middle of the continent with their longboats for example?) Regardless, there are many other glyphs throughout Oklahoma, some which indicate pre-Columbian Celtic and Phoenician influences as well.
Good write-up!
You should do a post on your 2020 predictions. Both political and ecclesiastical
Thank you!
George have u thought about starting a fund for elpidophoros single ticket back to Istambul. To his play at monastery or his Halki school of SHADOW?? First class naturally.
There are petroglyphs in the Ogham Script in West Virgina which seem to have been carved by Irish monks centuries before Columbus sailed, and well before Lief Erickson reached Vinland.
One of these texts reads:
“At the time of sunrise, a ray grazes the notch on the left side on Christmas Day, the first season of the year, the season of the blessed advent of the savior Lord Christ. Behold he is born of Mary, a woman.”
See: http://appalachianmagazine.com/2014/10/05/evidence-the-irish-found-west-virginia-before-columbus-found-america/
It is an excellent video, George, with a lovely Latin tag to close…
for the benefit of Bartholomew, perhaps?
PS: Fr Andrew has posted a link to:
How the U.S. State Department is Breaking the Back of the Orthodox Church
Thank you Brendan. I was rather inspired by the scenery, the expanse of land and mountains behind me, just before dusk.
Just saw One on One interview with Rudy Giuliani. Great interview.
Giuliani really is a thug, and his supposed Greek relatives are Albanians. He got Albanians to protest at the Serb church in Manhattan while Kosovo was being bombed. Even the Albanians felt embarassed. And his homosexual “Greek” relatives probably helped burn down the same Serb church recently.
George,
in regards to point 7. Old Calendarists despise the MP. None of the Old Calendar Synods with any significance is close to joining them. ROCOR did go into communion with True Orthodox in Russia, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria and they are still paying the price because it resulted in various schisms that weakened ROCOR .
below is a link to the largest True Orthodox Synod in Greece (GOC-K), which united with the Synod in Resistance. They are in communion with ROCOR (A), a schism from ROCOR, in addition to True Orthodox Bulgarians and Romanians. See links below:http://hotca.org/pdf/TrueOrthodoxOppositionEcumenism.pdf
http://www.easternchristiansupply.biz/holytrinityoxnard/bin/Home/Entries/2008/2/25_Historical_Moments_in_the_Relations_Between_the_Russian_Orthodox_Church_Abroad_and_the_Holy_Synod_in_Resistance.html
Maximus, I am quite aware of how the “True Orthodox Church of Greece” feels about what ROCOR did when they reunited with Moscow. You are right: they went into schism from them.
However, that was then. I’m fairly confident that the other OC jurisdictions might reassess their antipathy towards Moscow in due season. After all, ROCOR did (and they were the equally antithetic to Moscow for decades).
Which Trues are you referring to? The True Romanians, Serbs and Bulgarians think likewise and worse. There are multiple Russian True Synods (RTOC, ROAC, ROCORa, ROCORv, etc.). and the one thing that unites them is the belief that the MP is pseudo-church established by Stalin in 1943. ROCOR was never as anti-MP on the whole; reason being is because these groups are composed of the virulently anti-MP element that used to be in ROCOR. They exist simply because ROCOR joined the MP in 2007.
What they may do in the future is conjecture, I’m only going by what’s on the books and in their discussions online. Plus, be careful what you wish for, ROCOR tried it and it was disastrous.
How so? ROCOR is a jewel of evangelism here in America.
I don’t think he means that ROCOR is the problem, but the ‘catacomb churches’ that they received into their synod in the 1990s, which turned out to be a disaster, because those ‘catacomb churches’ were nuts.
George,
When ROCOR reunited with MP the Synod in Resistance and ROCOR amicably separated. The one ROCOR bishop Agafangel of Odessa who refused the union remained in communion with SiR. The other Russian offshoot synods are anti-MP and are actually against most old calendarists. The reason for this is the SiR were blamed for something called Cyprianism (moderates which did not denounce world orthodoxy as graceless) which the offshoot ROCOR schismatics consider a heresy. The SiR merged with the GOC florintes a few years back (the largest group which also refused to recognize a heresy known as cyprianism during their talks) so the ROCOR offshoots have differences with most old calendarists. While the two have much which align they are actually two seperate movements.
More along the lines of “Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself”:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/60-minutes-more-protocols-broken-in-epstein-death-two-nooses-found-note-found
This atrocity give me some hope in this regard: that few people take the FNIC seriously anymore. And more see that there is a moral equivalence between our Ruling Class and the old Soviet Union.
With the release of autopsy photos by 60 Minutes, it is now conclusive that Epstein was murdered. At this point, the only question is: how are those who still deny it benefiting from the false narrative?
One wonders. Still, it was good to see Ricky Gervais eviscerate the Hollywood crowd the other night. Their groans meant that the proles are mocking their betters at the latter’s expense. It means that we are at that point in a regime’s decline when the majority of the people stop believing the Ruling Class.
The jig, as they say, is pretty much close to being “up”.
Some reporter has officially declared the Trump Presidency an oligarchy with clear but unstated reference to “Russian Oligarchs” while suspiciously lacking any reference to the Democrats (Bidens, et. al)–because, you know, they are for democracy and “power to the people”.
I cannot think of one government in the history of mankind that has not been some form of oligarchy. Certainly, the early Constitutional period in this country was (despite Jefferson’s Yeoman Farmer myth). Andrew Jackson broke that up a bit but not for long. He disrupted the old system, but a new formation of the old ways of doing things reasserted itself after the Civil War. Just a new set folks filling the seats.
Government without hierarchy dissolves into chaos.
Michael, there was a German political scientist named Michaels (I believed) who formulate the “iron law of oligarchy”. They are inevitable. The only way they can be broken in a Republic (and then only for a little while) is with a once-in-a-lifetime figure like Andrew Jackson (as you pointed out). Otherwise, it takes an absolutist monarch (i.e. a tsar, emperor or hereditary king) to be able to bring them to heel.
Under those circumstances, an oligarchy becomes an aristocracy. By making that hereditary, you confound the plans of banking elites.
Still an oligarchy–one that gets less and less able but no less corrupt. That is why Jefferson opined that periodic revolution was necessary and good.
Theoretically the Church could escape that but fell under its sway when it became the favorite and Bishops became courtiers using the same type of delay, lie, divide and conquer method of diplomacy.
Take a wheel. Put it through a full revolution.
What is at the top at the end was at the top at the beginning.
As the old proverb says: It doesn’t matter how you vote.
It’s always the government that gets in…
The great Ronald Syme wrote, in his masterwork The Roman Revolution (1939):
“In all ages, whatever the form and name of government, be it monarchy, republic, or democracy, an oligarchy lurks behind the facade.”
I reread this fine book every 10 years or so, and have just completed another time through. Not the last word (nothing is), but packed with insights; immensely readable high scholarship of the old order at its best.
Another aspect regarding the Southern Border where we are winning:
https://issuesinsights.com/2020/01/06/trump-is-quietly-winning-bigly-at-the-border/
And here as well:
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2019/09/20/about-a-mile-of-new-wall-built-each-day-along-mexico-border-pentagon-says/
I’m beginning to believe that the Left is caterwauling about Impeachment and Soleimani because they’ve given up fighting Trump on the Border.
“Slow and steady wins the race”, Aesop.
And also that more info is going to come out on all the Western leaders (Obama, HRC, Pelosi, John Kerry, etc.) who were bribed to sign the nuclear deal with Iran in the waning days of the Obama administration.
That, my friends, explains the howls of outrage from the Democrat Party. This hit literally came out of nowhere and upset everybody & everything connected with Iran and the Obama nuclear deal.
I believe it will further derail Trump’s impeachment.
Why? Because Pelosi is in a box canyon: if she doesn’t proceed with the Articles, then the Left will be outraged. The Iranians on the other hand are pissed because Kerry met with them in Paris a few weeks ago promising them that Trump was going to be removed or neutralized. Think of them & the American Left as a mutual admiration society for all intents and purposes and everything begins to make sense.
If she does go forward then the Senate will acquit and Trump will be more powerful. Either way, the Dems lose as well as the Iranians. The Iranians will exact revenge against the Democrats at that point.
So what will they do? In order to stave off any further attacks by Trump (he’s got them rattled), they’ll start leaking like a sieve. Who exactly in America and the West was behind the Obama-Iran concord? The bribes especially. (All this talk about “democracy” from the Neocons is simply an emollient to grease the bombs as they leave the chute and/or to salve the consciences of the elites as they count their money.)
This will have the side-benefit by currying favor with Trump. All this talk about revenge is basically impotent howls of outrage. (Look for a change in regime in Iran to be able to pull this off.)
JCPOA was signed a little past midway through Obama’s second term as the result of a couple years of negotiations and work. Suggesting it was thrown together at the end of the Obama Administration as the result of bribery of American officials is completely lacking in any factual basis. There are no bombshells lurking about how the JCPOA came about or why it happened. All that is required is an understanding of pre-Trump USG foreign policy. Russia was involved in the deal, but you don’t seem to refer to it as the Obama/Putin/Iran nuclear deal, much less acknowledging China or the EU.
I don’t understand the thinking that the Iranians are going to exact revenge against the Democrats for a John Kerry meeting that never happened instead of against the sitting President of the United States who assassinated perhaps the number two political figure in Iran.
The Senate was always going to acquit Trump, the only question is how much damage the GOP was going to take from doing so. That is still to be determined.
Bravo! Don’t agree with anything you said, but I like the way you said it! Now, if only everyone else can learn how to disagree without it being personal, I’d be a happy camper.
As Polonius said:
“Though this be madness,
yet there is method in ‘t.”
[Hamlet: Act II, Sc 2]
I would like to see specific evidence of the John Kerry meeting.
Tim, and what will you do if you get it? Will Kerry and others ever face any consequences?
Uncle Billy Boy routinely got money from China to finance his campaign. He actually transfered critical weapons technology to China that was only legal because he said it was. Those transactions were widly reported at the time.
To all: it is now clear to me (as of this morning) that the killing of Soleimani was “disproportionate” only because we don’t know the full extent of what was going on behind the scenes. That is, what was being planned.
What Trump executed was a spoiling attack.
That is tangential to my point today, and that is the Democrat leadership –from Obama to Pelosi–is literally crapping in their pants because of what they fear the Iranians will give up in the form of documents and bank transactions.
Also, according to The Duran, the Russians are working overtime to deescalate the situation as far as the Iranians are concerned. Trump has completely upended the applecart and everybody is scrambling to adjust to the new equilibrium that has been established.
Michael, as to your earlier point re “consequences”, our elites here in the West have achieved that sweet spot in which no matter how badly they screw up, no matter how many innocent people die, nor how many children they molest, they suffer hardly any consequences, at all.
I mean, Susan Rice is still going around peddling that story about that video.
No consequences except suicide or death by mugging if they are considered dispensable or likely to give evidence.
The morality of the elites has always been bad. It is no different now. At least the lesser lights among the Trumpians are still alive last I knew.
“…was only legal because he said it was.”
Ah! The Nixon Doctrine: “It’s not illegal if the President does it.”
Aka: The Bartholomew Doctrine: “It’s not uncanonical if the EP does it.”
I won’t do anything with it. I’ll only know if it’s true or not.
Tim what standard of evidence are you using: beyond reasonable doubt, preponderance, clear and convincing?
Reminding me of this story, for, oh I don’t know, no reason at all really….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/justice-dept-winds-down-clinton-related-inquiry-once-championed-by-trump-it-found-nothing-of-consequence/2020/01/09/ca83932e-32f9-11ea-a053-dc6d944ba776_story.html
Indeed. The two-year investigation into Hillary Clinton by the Trump DOJ that promised to “lock her up” found….nothing. Meanwhile, Mueller’s two-year investigation resulted in 199 criminal counts against 37 people, six of whom are currently in prison. Guess we are draining the swamp.
But interestingly, no crimes against Trump. Hmmm…
George, you miss the point. There does not need to be a list of crimes against Trump for his accusers. Trump himself is The Crime.
As Mueller explained, the reason that Trump was not indicted for crimes is because of the Justice Department Legal Counsel rule that says no sitting president can be indicated….but it’s a different story when he is out of office.
But crimes can be admitted into the record for the House of Representatives to adjudicate. That’s what happened to Nixon and Clinton: both were implicated by Special Prosecutors and their writs were turned over to the House.
You’re grasping at straws.
As for Manafort, Flynn and Stone, those are clearly political prosecutions.
It’s gonna take some time to finally drain the Swamp.
But drained it will be, or else we will devolve into a banana republic.
https://www.theblaze.com/glenn-radio/journalist-sharyl-attkisson-former-federal-agent-admitted-illegal-surveillance-ring-during-obama-admin-lead-by-rod-rosenstein
George, the swamp of government will never be drained. A boil or two here or there may get lanced occasionally but the heart of the infection is in the love of power and the reliance upon individual will.
Sorry to say that even those who sincerely want change carry that infection with them.
Sooner of later, the Nietzschean outline in Thus Spake Zarathustra “On the Three Metamorphosis of the Spirit” remains the path.
Governments fall when the level of corruption caused by the love of power and the worship of the individual will becomes so toxic that they cannot continue. Thomas Jefferson thought that periodic revolution was necessary as the antidote to that. Wrong solution but understandable.
The Constitutional Republic that the founders established actually died during the Civil War.
Still, freedom remains as a core component of the New World. Our culture and the government that comes from it does not like freedom. Only continued enslavement to the passions is looked upon as a virtue.
Trump does not offer anything that is contrary to that vision. He is just in a different part of the swamp.
The Deep State was formerly known as Inertia and before that Praetorian Guard.
Would this be the same DoJ/FBI that “exonerated” Hillary after Jim Comey spent 15 minutes describing in excruciating detail her crimes back on July 5, 2016?
https://issuesinsights.com/2020/01/14/hillary-clinton-vindicated-on-corruption-charges-hardly/
Winning is contagious. If you keep doing it, it will snowball. When Reagan boomed the economy and Bush took back Kuwait, the soviets union collapsed in despair and everyone wanted to be like the USA. The 1929 and 2007 financial crises, however, inspired the rejectionists who were licking their wounds to rise back up. Everyone has a deep state, call it inertia or praetorian guard. Xi Jinping and his supporters were Maoist grandchildren waiting for to be vindicated just like Obama’s supporters were red diaper grandchildren and children of hippies and Putin’s granpa was Stalin’s chef.
As to regards, this is the positive assessment of a former military advisor to Obama (who is himself Iranian):
https://donsurber.blogspot.com/2020/01/obama-official-thinks-trumps-strategy.html
For one thing I went to school with countless Iranians (Muslim, Jewish and Bahai) who long to get their country back. When they invaded the Baghdad embassy and the invaders said they gave us a bloody nose, all I could do was remember the 1979 Teheran hostage crisis, which they also claimed was a bloody nose and which they deliberately did during an elections. These guys have strange oriental ideas about honor, and they don’t care bout party, only insults. And while we are at it, I hope Carlos Ghosn meets the tip of a drone so those nips stop trusting arabs.
Jim, I too went to college with a heavy Iranian population. Tulsa University had (still has, I believe) one of the top petroleum engineering programs in the world, so yeah, we had lots of Iranians, Iraqis, Saudis and Venezuelans. This was back in 1979 so I remember their fervor when the Shah was overthrown. You’re right: honor is big with them.
Having said that, the mullahs have degenerated into a theocratic fascism and have dragged their country down significantly. Perhaps not as bad as Venezuela but getting there.
The long and short of it is this: Trump has upped the ante significantly. Whatever they plan on doing, they must take into account that they are basically a one-trick pony. We can choke off the Straight of Hormuz and then their only cash-cow would be dead in the water.
The Pahlavi dynasty was founded by Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1925, a former brigadier-general of the Persian Cossack Brigade, whose reign lasted until 1941 when he was forced to abdicate by the Allies after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. He was succeeded by his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. The Pahlavis came to power after Ahmad Shah Qaja was removed from power by the parliament. In 1918, the overwhelming majority of the Assyrians of Persia were massacred, whereupon they joined the Oecumenal Patriarchum.