Most influential man in the world?
And now he’s added another salient on the front against the Neocons. This one’s brilliant actually. As you can see from the video below, he recently hosted a high-level meeting with several rabbis, including one of the two Chief Rabbis of Israel. What he’s proposing is audacious. Not only is he trumpeting traditional moral values that have endeared him to Christians, Muslims and other cultural conservatives, he’s now placing himself as the chief defender of international Jewry against resurgent Nazism. It’s a brilliant stunt of judo (he’s a black belt in case you didn’t know).
Will it work? Why not? The Ukrainian junta is being propped up by gangs of ultra-nationalist Nazi sympathizers. Even David Goldman (of Spengler fame) –an ultra-Zionist if there ever was one– predicts that the Ukrainian junta is going to make a hash of things. The way he sees it, Putin doesn’t have to intervene militarily in the breakaway regions, he’ll just come in an pick up the pieces once the Maidan regime collapses. Anyway, as things go from bad to worse there the situation for Ukrainian Jews will become dicier.
Putin may be a lot of things, but he’s no anti-Semite. Although some of the older, Yeltsin-era oligarchs (all of whom were Jewish) took it on the chin when Putin came to power, that’s not the case now. Estimates indicate that perhaps 20 percent of the present bunch of Russian mega-billionaires are Jewish. In case you were wondering, that’s one of the reasons that American Neocons have been frothing at the mouth at the mere mention of his name. He kicked out The Harvard Boys and their ilk after they had plundered close to one trillion dollars from the Russian economy during the Yeltsin years. (You know, when things were really democratic and all.)
When you combine this with the fact that Russia has been the primary source of energy imported to Israel (what? you think they got it from the Arabs?) then you can rest assured that Putin has a lot more aces in the hole. All we can say at this point is that we live in interesting times.
View the video here.
If you look at Hitler’s game plan, you’ll see that Putin follows it pretty well. Time is not on Putin’s side. As more and more sanctions come down on him & Russia, the oligarchs are being seriously squeezed. They’ll take him out or one of his own. Stalin was poisoned and it took days for him to die. Some say Putin is Stalin’s illegitimate child and maybe he’ll die the same way. Putin is digging his own grave and making Russia a pariah state. Russia will continue to be stagnated and it’s poor people suffering for this KGB dupa.
not true
Ukrainian Journalist Openly Calls for Genocide on Hromadske TV, Financed by the US and the Netherlands.
Hromadske TV is now officially the Ukrainian version of Rwandan RTLM. Just like RTLM called for the extermination of the Tutsi, calling them Inyenzi, or cockroaches, so now Hromadske TV is legitimizing the genocide of the population of Novorossiya. From Inyenzi to Colorados, we have come full circle. Hromadske TV, this mouthpiece of Ukrainian genocide, is financed directly by US and Dutch embassies. The blood of the population of Novorossiya is on all our hands – we have allowed this to happen. Please circulate this as widely as you can and stand witness to this Holocaust.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9SOVarOFJk
Translated:
“Bogdan Boutkevitch: Ok, you ask me ‘How can this be happening?’ Well, it happens because Donbass, in general, is not simply a region in a very depressed condition, it has got a whole number of problems, the biggest of which is that it is severely overpopulated with people nobody has any use for. Trust me I know perfectly well what I am saying.
“If we take, for example, just the Donetsk oblast, there are approximately 4 million inhabitants, at least 1.5 million of which are superfluous. That’s what I mean: we don’t need to [try to] “understand” Donbass, we need to understand Ukrainian national interests.
“Donbass must be exploited as a resource, which it is. I don’t claim to have a quick solution recipe, but the most important thing that must be done – no matter how cruel it may sound – is that there is a certain category of people that must be exterminated.”
Hromadske TV Annual Financial Report, 2013 and 2014, US and Dutch embassies and George Soros implicated:
http://www.hromadske.tv/files/6/a/6aabd00-annual-fin-report—eng.pdf
http://www.hromadske.tv/files/0/3/03a3531-1q-2014-fin-report—eng.pdf
Panikhida:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QHMWdUgedw
Ukraine Crisis – What You’re Not Being Told:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWkfpGCAAuw
Now, you know, and ignorance can no longer be an excuse for your support of Nazi genocide if you can continue in it. (I’ll just mention in passing Obama’s support and funding of the cannibal Al Qaeda groups murdering whole towns of Christians in Syria, which spilled over into Iraq, his support of the Muslim Brotherhood which persecuted the Coptic Christians in Egypt, his campaigning for and other aid to his cousin Raila Odinga’s in Kenya, etc.)
Time IS on Russia and Putin’s side, every day Russia and China get stronger, every day the USA crumbles a little more. It is the USA that is facing collapse and willingly to do anything and everything to buy time.
And we wonder why the Eastern Ukrainians are in open rebellion? You’d have to be a complete moron to trust your fate to Svoboda.
Obama is quickly making the US a pariah state and a very dangerous one. Putin has maintained a distance from the Ukrainian conflict and it is paying off. Today, Transcarpathia announced that it will not obey orders from the fascist uniate junta in Kiev.
IF the US. is called a pariah state, the main case was established long before the Presidency of President Obama. Try reading Chalmers Johnson or Noam Chomsky, among many. And Antonio, where does Transcarpathia make its announcements? Is that a nation? Will it now obey orders from the junta in Moscow?
Aw. c’mon now, George
This about sums it up!!!
This about sums it up!!
Click the link below
! I need a man like Putin
I lost the thread of your argument at “defanged the neocon warmongers in the Ukraine.” No idea what you’re talking about.
Seems like Putin has our evangelical friends thinking he is the next antichrist….
How could this be, I thought Obama was?! ;o)
Christopher inquires, “Seems like Putin has our evangelical friends thinking he is the next antichrist…. How could this be, I thought Obama was?!”
The Antichrist, when he does appear, will have better ratings than Obama.
Putin is a MASS MURDERER; end of story. No better than his father, Stalin.
Please define “mass murderer.” And exactly how many people has he murdered? Would our own president qualify as a “mass murderer” what with all the drone strikes and all?
Mme. Hashtag is just putting her emotions out there for us all to behold. Someone else might opine that Mme. Hashtag is herself a mass murderer relative to those masses who are starving, persecuted, and homeless all around the world and in the U.S.A., She or he should go work for the Quakers, or IOCC or the Red Cross, etc. instead of feeding her own self-concept by ranting here,like Art.
It’s amusing to read this
And this
in the same day
It’s a long game Nate. Just yesterday the FT reported that US sales to Russia have increased every month since sanctions were announced. The reason give by the reporter is that the Russians are stockpiling American goods against the day when and if more sanctions comes. That way they can increase the price of energy to Europe. If true, you can be sure that whatever sanctions do come out of the West, the EU will do what it can to defang them.
On another front, Russia is leading the way in creating a rival to the IMF based on the BRICS countries raising $100 billion. BRICS = Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Russia really doesn’t have anything to worry about. Probably the best thing is if the US and EU unleash some sanctions that actually bite. At that point Russia has no disincentive to move a “peacekeeping force” into Eastern Ukraine. That may be what they are preparing for at this point. If so, once a new border and a new equilibrium is established, sanctions will “wear off”. That would be the pattern from the Georgia adventure. I just wish they’d get on with it. However, we all seem to be playing on Putin’s timetable. I’m sure he has his reasons.
Suffice to say we disagree whether Putin is ‘playing a masterful long game full of brilliant strategic moves’. Personally, I don’t think history will be terribly kind to that assessment. But then, that’s the fun thing about looking back on these kinds of posts in several years with their confident, assured, assessments and predictions! In the short-term, it will be interesting to see if the increased sanctions and separatist setbacks result in a Russian invasion of Eastern Ukraine.
This is has been in the works for a while, and is less interesting than it appears. Saying Russia is “leading the way” is also a bit eye-rolling.
Perhaps. But the facts on the ground show increasing friction between the US and the EU. If the GOP takes the Senate (which seems likely at this point) and Sen Corker pushes through his anti-Russian bills, one of which mandates the placing of Pershing II missiles in Europe, how do you think the Germans will feel when Putin puts Russian missiles in Kaliningrad (the former Konigsberg, Prussia)? Pat Buchanan alerted us to the tits-for-tat that will likely happen should we continue to go down this Russopobic path.
Come now, Corker’s bill is pure political grandstanding. Let us run through the various details:
1) It’s not going anywhere in the current Congress, which you pretty much seem to concede right off the bat
2) Even in a GOP controlled Congress, I’m not sure it’s going to even get 50 votes in the Senate much less the de-facto 60 that are required these days
3) It isn’t going to get enough votes to override a presidential veto.
4) The German government really wants to get rid of the last of the B61’s in Büchel, no German government is going to acquiesce to new nuclear weapons on German soil. It’s hard to overstate just how anti-nuclear the German public is. As far as other potential countries, I’m not even sure Poland would actually want to host such theoretical missiles.
5) The Pershing does not exist anymore and hasn’t for more than two decades. They weren’t mothballed, they were destroyed when sanity prevailed via the INF treaty, because deploying intermediate range strategic weapons was insanely dangerous.
6) In a certain sense, this whole ‘bring back the Pershing’ business is a tit-for-tat in response to Russia. They’ve been violating the INF with the evolution of the Iskander for a while, but it’s only now that the US government is beginning to complain about this publicly. The problem with this is it tends to bring out the grandstanding in Congress.
Corker’s bill is going nowhere for the moment. Come Jan, should the GOP take over the Senate, and given the hysterical anti-Russian propaganda put out 24/7 by the MSM, it could be easily revived. Remember how 9/11 led to the Iraq War? There was non-stop anti-Iraqi coverage and even liberals like Sens Clinton, Rockefeller, Kerry, etc. felt that they had no choice but to risk American blood and treasure to remove Saddam. (Not that I’m crying, Saddam was a bad apple but let’s be honest, it’s only bad apples that can rule the majority of Middle Eastern nations.)
In your doomsday scenario things would be dire indeed: you’d have to grit your teeth and give thanks that Obama was in office with a veto pen rather than Mitt “Number One Geopolitical Foe” Romney.
You do have a point there. Both McCain and Romney (both of whom I voted for) were far more hawkish on Russia. The question however is what would (could?) they have done. Also, we should remember that it was the two greatest Cold Warriors from the Right (Nixon and Reagan) who made peace with China and the Soviet Union, respectively. I don’t like to play hypotheticals but had either of these men won, would it have been possible for them to pull a Nixon? (McCain, probably not I’ll grant you.)
I was banned from a conservative website back in 2008 for pointing out that assessments that the Red Army was finished and that the Georgians would win were way off, as well as for the observation that the conflict was initiated by Georgia and that there was really little if anything the US could do about it that close to Russia. We were reduced to airdroppimg Condi Rice into Tblisi as a human shield in order to save the Saakashvili regime.
Moreover, predictions that Abkhazia and South Ossetia would eventually be turned back over to Georgia because of economic pressure were also in error. It all just faded into the background and everyone moved on, even the Georgian patriarch (but not our dear Francis).
The variables to watch are: 1) exactly how harmful are the sanctions being imposed by the West and 2) how might Russia retaliate given Europe’s energy dependence on it, as well as other cooperative efforts it engages in with the West. Russia has a lot it can do to take the wind out of Europe’s sails if it wants to. I suspect the game is to see how close each side will come to the brink of mutually assured economic misery.
The misperception in the West is the nature of the conflict from the Russian perspective. For Europe and America, this is a conflict of choice regarding expansion of the Western economic (and ideological) empire. For Russia it is an existential conflict. Russians simply refuse to let potentially adversarial powers that close to them. History has not been kind to them in this regard. They will fight over this. Believe it. I mean, seriously, you have Russians crossing the border into Ukraine of their own accord to fight the Kiev government (in addition to any “unofficial Russian military forces”). I’ve heard the reports. As a society, they seem committed.
And the West will eventually accept it (if they have an ounce of sense). From a sane American perspective, we should be encouraging regional hegemons to take over our policing activities in the world, trade and operate with and through them, and quit trying to tell people how to morally organize their societies. That is a prescription for peace, not the endless war advocated by both the neocons and the “moral interventionists”. American blood and treasure are too precious for the adventures that delight some of our elites.
Besides, we’re bankrupt. It’s really a foregone conclusion anyway. We are busy devaluing our currency printing money in order to fund our welfare state as well as our bank breaking adventures. The welfare state isn’t going anywhere. You can’t get a political consensus behind cutting it back. At most, for brief periods of time, you can manage a consensus to curb its growth.
“The stars might lie but the numbers never do.”
PS: Pat’s take: http://buchanan.org/blog/gop-ultimatum-vlad-6757
PPS: Biting sanctions?: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/07/29/west_sanctions_moscow_with_caveats
Perhaps the Anti-Christ likes to sleep about?
I’m not sure how much of an economic power Russia is. I mean, all the US needs to do is drill.
I think Obama has done enough with the NSA and tapped cell phones to sever relations with the EU. We don’t need Putin to do this.
Obama and Putin seem to compliment each other pretty well.
Oh boy. Here we go.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/bob-corker-takes-the-gop-back-to-bush/
If one is familiar with the writings of some Church Fathers they say that the Anti-christ will be a highly moral man, unmarried, with a pleasing personality, an incredible abilty for persuasion, an excellent politician, and among other things a religious instinct which will prompt him to declare himself to be Christ and so will set himself up as a divine being in a rebuilt Jewish Temple. This hardly sounds like someone who “sleeps about”? Please show a little respect.
Do LaHaye and Hagee count as church fathers?? 😀
Interesting story about scions of the Russian elite…living in the West:
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/08/08/educating-their-children-abroad-russian-elites-guilty-secret-261909.html
Here’s the low-down on Putin, the latest in a long line of Russian-Soviet-Russian imperialist dictators: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/vladimir-tismaneanu/from-andropov-to-putin-the-last-spasm-of-a-decrepit-dictatorship/
I take a lot of what Frontpage writes about Russia with a ton of salt. I respect Horowitz’s conversion from Communism to Conservatism but like most all Neocons, he still can’t shake his Trotskyite universalism. That’s the same BS that got us involved in Iraq.
Horowitz and Neocons in general operate from one of two principles: 1) they believe in the fundamental sameness of all cultures (Jacobin egalitarianism) or 2) they are warmongers who know better than that and believe instead that American military actions benefit the economy.
Besides, who cares if Russia has a strong man at the center? It’s their business. Putin for all his supposed dictatorial powers has no designs on the US or any of its interests. The present diminished state of the Russian Federation makes it impossible even if he had those desires.
Germany too was quite diminished after W W I, but that didn’t stop Hitler, or perhaps it caused Hitler. I maintain that Putin and this dispute is a major threat to world peace. I agree to an extent on Horowitz, although I followed the same political path as he. I questioned Frontpage’s ignoring Turkey’s transgressions against Christians and Greeks, until Israel split with Turkey when Erdogan insulted Netanyahu a couple of years ago, and sent the ship to run the Gaza blockade. Once Israel had this dispute with Turkey, all of a sudden Frontpage started writing critically about Turkey. Nevertheless, Frontpage is a good source for good articles.
And doubtless we should not emulate these new restrictions on bloggers:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/russian-blogger-law-puts-new-restrictions-on-internet-freedoms/2014/07/31/42a05924-a931-459f-acd2-6d08598c375b_story.html
The Anti-Christ are all those who reject Christ. The Jews; the Muslims and all of those who say they believe in Jesus Christ (Putin) and act like the devil. “We will all be judged by our actions” – Revelations. The END is near!
‘The END is near.’ And so it has gone for 2,000 years……
But the end for each of us individuals is certainly closer than the END!
Humanity has been borrowed time since the first nuke was exploded, and the Jews returned to Zion. It should be easy for you to live in Apocalyptic anticipation (all of creation cries out for it) now, as saints have always looked forward to the possibility of it happening in their lifetime, but if you prefer a modernist snide attitude, carry on.
I don’t think my attitude is snide, and as to “modernist”, I don’t really know what that means, except as sort of an all-purpose, relatively low-grade rebuke here. It is true that I am a worldly man, and the world I live in is the modern one.
The “signs of the end” all always present to those of apocalyptic temperament. What would really be interesting is if there were some student of apocalyptic bent who, after diligent study of the texts, predicted the End as being 200, 400, 1,000, or even 50 years off. But no, the event is always predicted to be in the near future.
As for the ‘snide’ part, the fact is that every expectation of the imminent End (and there have been countless ones) for nearly 2,000 years has failed to eventuate. I think we can safely say that the Apostles would have been surprised, during their earthly lives, to have learned that it still had not arrived after 2,000 years.
On the other hand, we will all die in the proximate future, and face judgment. This is certain.
Tim, the answer was written by The Bard:
“If it be now, ’tis not to come; if is not to come, it will not be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.”
This applies equally to our own sure and certain death and to the end times. We need to live in remembrance of both, not out of fear, but in a way that leads us to deeper repentance and greater mercy.
Nina Hashtag says:
The END is near!
Inshallah.
The end is always near, as anyone who regularly drives on L.A. freeways may attest.
Sorry, Nina, anti- is Greek for ‘other’, as in ‘alternative to’, not ‘against’ as in versus.
Anti- does not mean merely “other”; that would be allo-, as in allonym (an alias or pen name).
Anti- means “instead of” but also “opposite” and thus sometimes “against,” as in antizelos (rival, adversary), antistates (opponent, adversary), and antidoton (antidote, something given to counteract a disease).
“Anti-Christ” is often used to mean “enemy of Christ,” but it originally meant an impostor, a false Christ, someone pretending or presuming to be Christ who leads those who worship him astray.
No, Mme. Hashtag. You are dead wrong. The Anti-Christ is not a bunch of people of any kind at all, but one evil entity Get it now?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11000642/Not-talking-to-Vladimir-Putin-signals-impotence-not-strength.html
The author makes some good points. The one that stands out to me is that the winter will have an impact on the Ukrainian and European position if matters are not resolved by then.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/land-for-gas-secret-german-deal-could-end-ukraine-crisis-9638764.html
The Independent is reporting on negotiations between Germany and Russia which would resolve the situation by giving Crimea to Russia, ensuring that Ukraine would not become part of NATO, “devolve” the economic and political status of Eastern Ukraine and end the Ukrainian resistance in the East. Russia would compensate Ukraine for the loss of its rent for Crimean military bases and renew its supply of gas before winter.
Seems workable. No one wants to see what Ukraine will look like in January if this isn’t resolved. Merkel will be painted as Chamberlain, of course. But it is a pragmatic deal.
http://www.rferl.org/content/power-vertical-putin-exit-strategy/25475752.html
Perhaps Putin will change back off:
“”If at some point it becomes evident that the insurgents had some connection to this, that would radically change [Putin’s] attitude toward them — even if it was a fatal mistake,” Kolesnikov wrote. “Children who died for nothing, as well as adults and elderly people, this is a red line he will not cross. He will not cover up for those who did this if he knows they did it. He will not have this sin on his soul.”
Kolesnikov’s argument should by no means be taken at face value. Who really believes that Putin is suddenly shocked that the separatists he has been sponsoring could have shot down a civilian airliner? And does anybody really believe civilian deaths are a red line he will never cross?
But Kolesnikov doesn’t write anything by accident. And it’s safe to assume he doesn’t write anything that is not Kremlin-approved. So with his July 29 column, he is clearly either floating a trial balloon or delivering a message from Putin to the elite that a change of policy is imminent.”
In regards to the final days it appears that some speak in generalizations. While the Church, the teaching of the Holy Orthodox Church, indicates that there are very specific things which should be watched for re: the Times and the Person of Antichrist.
Below is one version of what Orthodox Christians might want to have in mind re: the rapidly developing events and persons who will enter upon the world stage in the final days of human history. Your mileage may vary.
*******************
The Antichrist
by Archpriest Father Boris Molchanoff
The Lord Jesus Christ said, “….I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (St. Matthew 16:18). What do the gates of hell signify?
The Jews had the custom of gathering under the leadership of their elders, by the city gates, for the discussion of political, legal and social questions. These meetings were the last appeal of all litigation, and here all divine commandments were announced. They were vested with a definite authority among the people. This Jewish custom of meeting at the city gates is mentioned in the Book of Ruth (IV:1,11). A description of an active wife in the Book of Proverbs (31: 23) says that, “Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land.” He is invested with the trust of society and takes an active part in important meetings. (Prof. V.V. Bolotoff).
The “gates” of hell” signifies not only the forces of hell, but in general staff of Hell’s power. Their most important meeting is dedicated to developing a plan for a general battle with the Church. The Church and Hell are represented as two warring powers. And in this war with Hell, according to Christ’s words, the Church will remain invincible.
Hell’s war plan with the Church is called the “Mystery of Iniquity” in the Holy Scriptures (2 Thessalonians 2:8). The iniquity has been working for centuries and will have its culmination in the appearance of the Antichrist ( 2 Thessalonians 2:8). The Antichrist can come only as a result of universal Apostasy, that is, the abjuration of the people from God and His paths, when God’s grace will withdraw from the people.
“And in the latter times of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.” (Daniel 8:23)
“Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders….” (2 Thessalonians 2:9)
All of the evil in its fullest strength which human nature can accept and endure will be concentrated in the person of the Antichrist. Thousands of years were required to develop and perfect the kind of human seed that was required to receive the purest most perfect Fruit of the human tree in the person of the Most Blessed Virgin. Comparably, for the appearance of the most depraved fruit, capable of containing within itself all Satanic malice, an entire line of human generations will be demanded in the direction of greatest corruption and defilement of human nature, based upon mad hatred towards Christ and war against His Church. “It can be admitted,” says Pro. Belyaeff, “that innate and acquired evil, gradually accumulating in a long line of ancestors of the Antichrist, transmitted with each new generation, will reach such a degree of force in the Antichrist himself, which human nature is capable of containing, revealing and enduring. The evil which lives in mankind, will reach the highest limit of its development in him.” (Godlessness And The Antichrist, Vol. 1. p. 193).
Of course, to the degree that evil strengthens in man’s will, diabolic activity within man will increase also, as the devil thus receives greater access to man’s soul. Inasmuch as the Antichrist’s personal evil will and its corruption will reach the limit of its greatest growth, the relationship of the devil to him will reach the limit of maximum nearness, which will be expressed in the devil himself continuously acting in the person of the Antichrist, “God”, says St. John of Damascus, “Foreseeing future depravity of his will (the Antichrist’s) will allow the devil to inhabit him.” (“The Exact Exposition Of The Orthodox Faith”, Book IV, Chapter 26) St. Cyril of Jerusalem teaches the same. (Teaching, V. 14). St. Andrew of Kessary says that the Antichrist “will come out of the gloomiest and remotest lands of the earth to which the devil is banished.” (Interpretation of the 11th chapter of the Apocalypse, 30th chapter.) Blessed Theodore writes, “Man’s enemy, clothed in human nature, God’s adversary, the demon, usurping God’s Name, will appear in the world before Christ’s coming.” (“An Exact Exposition Of Divine Dogma”, chapter 23, printed in “Christian Readings”, 1844, Chapter IV, page 355.) Laktancy, Gezihy of Jerusalem and Blessed Heronim, call the Antichrist the son of Satan.
In agreement with such teachings of the Holy Fathers, the life of the Antichrist cannot admit one moment free from satanic action. It must already appear in the very birth and even in his conception, peculiar and exceptional in its depravity. “From a defiled virgin will actually be born his (the devil’s) weapon.” says St. Ephrem the Syrian. This is also confirmed by St. John of Damascus. “A man (the Antichrist) will be born from fornication.”
The Holy Fathers Iriney (“Against Heresy”, Book V, chapter 30), Ippolit (Legends about Christ and the Antichrist), and also Ilariy, Ambrose, Ieronim and Augustus, remark that the Antichrist will be of Jewish ancestry, from the tribe of Dan.
In the Synaksare, stated in the Week of Lent without meat, we read that, “The Antichrist will come and be born, as St. Ippolit of Rome declares, from a depraved wife and self-styled virgin, which is from the Jews, from the tribe of Dan.” (Lenten Triod) Such indications in God’s Word have several foundations:
In the prophecies of Patriarch Jacob about each of his sons becoming the progenitors of the tribes of Israel, the fate of Dan’s ancestors is depicted in such a way that can only be ascribed to the Antichrist. “Dan shall be a serpent on the way, an adder in the path…” (Genesis 49, 17)
In the prophecies of Ierenim: “From Dan himself…(Ierenim VIII,16)
In the prophecies of the Apocalypse, enumerating the remainder of all the tribes of Israel, marked by the Angel for salvation, the tribe of Dan is absolutely excluded. (Revelations VII, 4-8).
According to the teachings of the Holy Fathers, the devil, exalting the Antichrist, will try to vest his coming with all the signs of the coming of the Son of God to earth. (See St. Cyril of Jerusalem, the 150th catechistic word; St. Ephrem the Syrian, the 39th word, in the Russian translation Blessed Theodore, “A Short Exposition of Divine Dogma”, Chapter 23, St. Ippolit, “The Legends of Christ and the Antichrist”)
Of course, some resemblance of the Antichrist to Christ will only be external and in essence deceitful, for the whole life and all the deeds of the Antichrist will be an incensed and blasphemous revolt against Christ and His Church. This false external resemblance to Christ will appear in the very birth of the Antichrist. Keeping in mind that Christ was born a Virgin, the devil will produce his weapon from a virgin, not from a pure virgin, however, but from one filled with every vice and satanic filth. Then, as the Lord until he was thirty years old remained in obscurity, so the Antichrist, we assume, will, until the age of 30, remain in clandestine solitude and obscurity. As Christ began His saving service with sermons of His Divine teaching and miracles, so will the Antichrist begin his completely destructive service with the delusion of the people with his false teaching and incredibly shameful, deceitful miracles. As it was pleasing for the Lord to reveal Himself to all the people as the Messiah by solemnly entering Jerusalem and into its Temple, so the Antichrist will reveal himself as the false Jewish Messiah, the international monarch, in him solemn ceremonial entrance into Jerusalem and his enthronement in the temple of Jerusalem, which will by that time be restored.
The Lord’s entry into Jerusalem, says Archbishop Innokenty of Herson, was “for all Jews a national declaration that Jesus Christ was veritably the Messiah. Indisputable proof of this are His own words, proclaimed before the gates of Jerusalem, saying: “If thou hadst known, even now, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace: But now they are hid from thine eyes.” (Luke XIX, 42.) “With this day, with the rejection of the Messiah, the fate of the Israelite nation was decided for eternity.” (The Last Days on Earth of Jesus Christ”)
On the day when the Antichrist shall enter into Jerusalem as the false Messiah, forever and irrevocably the fate of his contemporaries will be decided. Blessed are those who, on the last day given by God for the conclusive self-determination of the people, will see the Antichrist as Satan’s servant and the inescapable peril of all mankind which recognized him. Finally, as the Lord revealed Himself to the world and fulfilled His service as a Prophet, as King and as High Priest, so will the Antichrist concentrate all this triple power in his hands and complete his destructive service as the teacher of all mankind, as the monarch of an international monarchy and as the highest primate of all religions, demanding reverence for himself as God.
The entire life and activity of the Antichrist may be examined in three periods:
The FIRST PERIOD of the Antichrist from the day of birth to the moment of his social
appearance will pass in clandestine obscurity. St. John of Damascus says that,
“Antichrist will be raised secretly.” (The Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith”, Book
IV, Chapter 26.)
The SECOND PERIOD of the Antichrist’s life will be opened by his thunderous entry (on
the world stage – my addition) in the role of a universal teacher or “prophet”. It is very
possible that he will begin his activity during a world war, when people, enduring all its
horrors, will not see any way out of the calamitous dead end. All the concealed levers for
the solution will be in the hands of a secret society assisting the Antichrist.
The Antichrist will offer the most successful project for solving the world crisis from the perspective of political and social wisdom, which would establish a uniform political and social order in the whole world. Exhausted from the shock of war, spiritually blinded humanity will not only by unaware that this project is a cowardly trap, enticing it into the most degrading and merciless slavery, but on the contrary, will recognize it as a manifestation of scholarship and genius.
Universal advertisement about the Antichrist as a brilliant thinker, new leader, and savior of mankind, will thunder over all nations in the shortest possible period of time. “Evil spirits dispersed in the universe, will awaken a general, inflated opinion about the Antichrist in man, a general enthusiasm and an irresistible attraction for him.” (St. Ephraim the Syrian, 16th word.)
In this period of his activity, the Antichrist will not use any force and will try to win men’s trust and affection with his deceitful and hypocritical public mask of virtue. He, according to the expression of Vladimir Soloviev, “will throw a gleaming veil of kindness and truth over the mystery of iniquity.” “He will come,” said St. Ephrem the Syrian, “in an image which will seduce everyone. He will come as a humble, kind, hater of falsehood (as he will say about himself), rejecting idols, preferring piety and kindness, loving the poor, bearing extremely handsome features, constant, sweet to everyone, respecting especially the Jewish nation because they will be awaiting his coming…He will take sly measures to please everyone, will not accept gifts nor speak in anger, will not show an overcast countenance, but will entice the world with a decorous exterior until he is enthroned.” (See previous citation.)
From the great wealth of ascetical experience from our great men of podvig, it is known that when the black devil cannot overcome an ascetic, encountering unswerving opposition from him, a stronger devil comes as an “angel of light” (II Corinthians, XI, 14), attempting to awaken sympathy and trust towards himself in the ascetic, and easily charming him away to destruction. Thus, we can imagine how easily and quickly the bright image of the Antichrist will attract general sympathy towards itself after the filthy devil of Bolshevism.
As a result of such deceit, “the need to invite the Antichrist will arise” within the very temperament of man’s spirit. “A beckoning voice will resound in man’s society, expressing urgent need for a genius of geniuses, who would raise material development and prosperity to the highest degree and establish affluence on earth”. (Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninoff. Vol IV, page 313.)
The hypocrisy of the Antichrist in this period will reach the point that he, even in his relationship to Christians, will not oppose them, but will appear ready to be their benefactor. He will try to imitate Christ in the external, showy side of his life. The majority of Christians, not guided by the spiritual wisdom of the Church, but by worldly wisdom, will not see this deceit, recognizing the Antichrist as Christ who has come to earth a second time. The monks of the Solovetsky monastery pass on the answer given by Righteous Zosima to his disciples when he was asked how the Antichrist could be recognized. Righteous Zosima said, “When you will hear that Christ has appeared on earth, know then that this is the Antichrist.” This answer is most precise. “The world or mankind will not recognize the Antichrist, it will recognize him as Christ, it will proclaim him Christ…..
(“Antichrist”, by Very Reverend Boris Moltchanoff published in 1976, by Archpriest George Grabbe, Department of Foregin Relations Synod of Bishops, New York., pp. 1-4.)
AP Analysis: Putin cornered over Ukraine
Associated Press By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
MOSCOW (AP) — For Russian President Vladimir Putin, there are few options left in the Ukraine crisis and they all look bad.
He is caught between a determined West demanding that he disavow the pro-Russian insurgents in Ukraine and increasingly assertive nationalists at home urging him to champion the mutiny and send in the Russian army.
The Malaysian plane disaster this week triggered another round of U.S. and EU sanctions, which for the first time targeted entire sectors of the Russian economy, severely limiting Putin’s room for maneuver. He may be eager to sever ties with the rebels, but he would need to find a way to do so that would allow him to save face — an exceedingly hard task amid growing Western pressure.
Bowing to Western demands would potentially spell political suicide for the Russian leader, who has built his popularity on standing up to the West. Under pressure, he may choose instead to escalate the crisis and risk an all-out confrontation.
Putin didn’t plan for it to happen this way.
Last fall, he used a combination of pressure and subsidies to prevent Ukraine from signing an association agreement with the EU and lure it into a Moscow-led alliance. When mass protests chased the Russian-leaning Ukrainian president from power in February, Putin saw it as a Western plot against Russia and quickly moved to annex Ukraine’s Black Sea peninsula of Crimea to head off what he said was the imminent threat of Ukraine joining NATO.
Putin then sought to maintain pressure on the West by fomenting a pro-Russian insurgency that flared up in Ukraine’s mostly Russian-speaking industrial east in April, apparently hoping that a slow-burning conflict would help persuade the West to strike a compromise that would allow Russia to keep Ukraine in its orbit.
View galleryShrapnel damage on Malaysia plane consistent with missile …
Children walk past a piece of wreckage from the Malaysia Airlines jet downed over Ukraine, in Petrop …
That strategy has failed. The West, especially Europe, long showed unwillingness to take a strong punitive stand against Putin. But the downing of the Malaysian passenger plane was the unforeseen event that overturned the dynamic, and compelled the West to act.
It appears that the Russian leader now is desperately looking for a way out from the crisis in hopes of containing the gravest threat to his rule to date. Here are some possible scenarios that may play out:
RUSSIA STRIKES COMPROMISE
From the start, Putin wanted to a deal with a West that would allow Russia to maintain its leverage over Ukraine, and he has steadily tempered his ambitions.
At the onset of the turmoil, Putin hoped that Ukraine would join a Russia-dominated economic alliance. When such hopes evaporated with the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych, Moscow began pushing for a “federalization” of Ukraine that would give broad powers to its provinces and allow them to deal directly with Moscow. Rebels later backed those demands by conducting independence referendums that both Ukraine and the West declared a sham.
The Kremlin then softened its rhetoric and started calling vaguely for a “dialogue” between the central government and the regions that would give the provinces a bigger say over local issues.
View galleryConflict in Ukraine
Ukrainian government army’s soldiers stand guard next to the cars of Convoy of the OSCE mission …
Now with his hand weakened by the plane disaster, Putin may be eager to accept any vague deal that would allow Moscow to maintain just a symbolic degree of influence. Such a deal, however, would have to involve concessions by both parties, something that is hard to achieve amid continuing fighting and growing distrust.
The West has demanded that the Kremlin disown the rebellion in eastern Ukraine. While Putin may despise the ragtag band of retired Russian officers and Moscow political consultants that have helped foment the mutiny, it would be hard for him to distance himself from them without denting his support base.
The Malaysian plane disaster, however, could offer a face-saving way of publicly condemning the rebel leadership. If an international investigation confirms that the missile that downed the plane on July 17 was launched by the rebels, Putin may say that Russia can’t support those who were responsible for the tragic death of nearly 300 innocent people. Such a statement could pave the way for talks.
MORE SANCTIONS PROVOKE TOUGH RESPONSE
Putin possibly fears that any concessions would only lead to more Western pressure and may choose to remain defiant. If he keeps refusing to distance himself from the rebels, the West will remain reluctant to engage in any talks. Fighting in the east, which already involves heavy artillery and rockets pummeling residential areas, will raise the pressure on Putin to intervene militarily.
Putin is already facing scathing criticism in Russian nationalist publications and online forums for betraying Russian speakers in Ukraine by failing to send in the army.
View galleryMalaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash in Ukrain …
A Malaysian air crash investigator takes pictures of wreckage at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines …
At some point, fearing that the damage to his popularity could become irreparable, Putin may send more weapons to the rebels. More Western sanctions will not stop his hand, but rather may push him into a situation where any compromise would look like kowtowing to the West.
Pressed against the wall, Putin may even decide to send troops into Ukraine. They would likely crush the weak and disorganized Ukrainian military within days. The West would be unlikely to intervene militarily, but it would freeze virtually all ties with Moscow, sending the Russian economy into a tailspin. Living standards will plummet quickly, possibly spawning social unrest.
GROWING TURMOIL, UNPREDICTABLE CONSEQUENCES
Some in the West may hope that the sanctions will encourage members of the Russian elites as well as the broad public to demand a change of course.
However, the tightly controlled Russian political system leaves little room for dissent. Billionaire tycoons, some of whom have close personal links to Putin, stand to lose a lot from Western sanctions and would like Putin to soften his policy. But hopes that they may somehow persuade the president to pull out of confrontation seem futile, as the oligarchs are too scared to form any kind of united group, and official loyalties are closely controlled by Putin’s fellow KGB veterans who dominate the officialdom.
Many in Washington expected Putin’s businessmen friends who were hit by U.S. sanctions in March to push him toward de-escalation. The opposite has happened. Instead of encouraging a pro-Western opposition, more sanctions will likely further strengthen the Kremlin hawks, who may push Putin toward an even more confrontational and isolationist course.
In a sense, the Russian leader has become hostage to his own propaganda that has cast the West as an enemy of Russia.
Putin’s approval ratings so far have remained high, but if the economy starts collapsing under the brunt of Western sanctions his popularity would dwindle quickly. It doesn’t mean, though, that pro-Western democratic forces would have any chance to expand their presence on Russia’s political scene.
Amid the war in Ukraine and Western sanctions, the weak and disorganized Russian liberals have become increasingly marginalized, while extreme nationalist forces have strengthened considerably.
Economic meltdown would further allow nationalist groups to expand their sway, and Russian volunteers now fighting in eastern Ukraine may become an explosive element in a changing political equation.
The prospect of potential unrest could re-ignite fears that accompanied the 1991 Soviet collapse. Thousands of nuclear warheads, smoldering conflicts between a myriad of ethnic groups, separatist movements and crumbling industrial infrastructure that could lead to technological disasters make any instability in Russia deadly dangerous for the rest of the world.
___
Isachenkov has covered Russia and other ex-Soviet nations for the AP since 1992.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-the-rise-of-putinism/2014/07/31/2c9711d6-18e7-11e4-9e3b-7f2f110c6265_story.html
I am not a fan of Zakaria, however, he is insightful in this piece. I disagree with his attitude but agree that a new political philosophy is emerging. I wouldn’t call it “Putinism” but rather what Russians have called it for some time: “sovereign democracy”. The term is still held in opprobrium in some quarters but its contours are increasingly clear. I can’t say I’m opposed to it. It is not monarchy but it does solve some of the problems inherent in Western liberal democracy from an Orthodox Christian perspective.
Morality is raised above the level of popular passions as the Church becomes a sort of informal partner to government. The media is not allowed to become an independent, unelected branch of government. And a sort of limited ethnocentrism may help guard against the type of civilizational suicide we see operating in America and Western Europe.
Nonetheless, time will tell. I remain a bit skeptical. Even though the Western liberal beast is seriously ill, it still has quite a bit of fight left in it. Its opposition will be difficult to overcome.
I feel fairly confident that Putin will prevail in Ukraine. Russia holds too many cards and is utterly committed. However, that is only a short term matter. Russia’s relationship with China and its Eurasian projects will play a great role in deciding the success or failure of the philosophy. Western liberalism has decisively run aground and something will need to take its place. It is bankrupt and degenerating into a moral cesspool and Third World economics.
An excellent analysis by Asia Times correspondent , Pepe Escobar:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-02-010814.html
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/nouriel-roubini-maps-out-the-kremlin-s-plan-for-a-re-divided-world
This article is probably not too far from the mark.
fyi
Putin’s economic advisor reveals the massive militarization of Ukraine, intended not only to crush Donbass, but to re-take Crimea, and be the puppets to start another world war for further consolidation of the US hegemony over Eurasia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWT5HM_NMlI&list=PLHS4KH8qkEfbz57RrnjwbBnmjBLz_A7qU#t=18
also, for current events:
check out: http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-conflict-730-000-have-entered-russia-to-escape-fighting-1.2727574
So much for Western assertions that there is no humanitarian crisis in Eastern Ukraine. Now the UN is saying that much larger numbers of Ukrainians have fled into Russia than was previously admitted by the US and EU.