One of my favorite blogs is The Vineyard of the Saker. It’s decidedly pro-Russian/traditionalist and anti-globalist/American Empire. I can’t say that I agree with a lot of his assessments but this one (which I link below), is worthy of a read.
https://www.unz.com/tsaker/the-systemic-collapse-of-the-us-society-has-begun/
I’m particularly encouraged (in a disheartened way) by the following video which he inserted into his essay:
https://news.yahoo.com/peaceful-protesters-indiana-marched-armed-235502416.html
I’m encouraged because it’s good to see Red-Staters who are not buying into the false consciousness that America is a “failed experiment” or an “irredeemably racist” society. Nothing wrong with normal Americans arming themselves and telling the “mostly peaceful protesters” to “have a nice day, just don’t get any ideas”.
I’m discouraged because we are now at that point where the police cannot protect ordinary citizens. I can hardly wait for Blue city mayors to start “defunding the police”. The good news is that real estate values in Red states will skyrocket. The bad news is that we’ll be flooded with Yankees. Hopefully, they’ll have the liberalism kicked out of them by the time they move here. One can dream.
And please spare me the tripe that this is about police brutality. If it’s one thing I’ve learned about liberals and progressives it’s this: the issue is never about the issue. It’s always about getting power. And holding on to it. We’ve seen this with the #metoo movement which the Joe Biden candidacy has all but destroyed.
Oh sure, there are still some ideologues who really believe that America has a “rape culture” and that all women are victims of it. Bad Patriarchy! But given the fact that powerful female politicians have all but given a pass to the credible sexual assault allegations against Creepy Joe —even though they admit they’re probably true--that movement has been exposed for what it always was: a club to beat RINOs over the head with. As for the True Believers in that movement (like Rose McGowan), they’ve been exposed as useful idiots.
The hypocrisy is laid bare on all fronts. Someone owes Roy Moore an apology. Everything the Left has peddled is a lie. All that matters is dragging Biden over the finish line. End of story.
As for the “mostly peaceful” protests, if memory serves, Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC was “mostly peaceful” the night Lincoln was shot. Only one man –John Wilkes Booth–was violent, everybody else was peaceful.
We didn’t ask for this. The people on the Right have overwhelming believed (as well as anybody to the right of Jimmy Carter for that matter) in the Civics 101 version of ‘Murica’. I certainly did. But the Obama Administration, which weaponized the Federal bureaucracy against conservatives, beat that illusion out of many of us. The George Floyd “protests” woke the rest of us up. Think of it as the cherry on top.
So here we are: We, on the Right, still believe in elections and peaceful transfers of power in the ideal, now see that they don’t. And if they ever get their hands on the presidency, they’ll make damn sure we get what’s coming to us. As Lenin said in another context, “you may not be interested in the war, Comrade, but the war is interested in you“.
This video shows that there is still enough turbulence in significant swaths of the American people, that we no longer believe the Left when they caterwaul about “dialogue” and “tolerance”.
And that we ain’t gonna put up with this crap for very much longer.
Lesson learned. As Gandalf told Frodo in the Mines of Moria: ” you gotta fight the fight that you’re in, not the one that you want” (I paraphrase). We didn’t start this battle, but you can damn well be certain we’re damn sure gonna finish it.
Defund the police = Remove the police
If you want to consider what a modern society without police will look like,
consider what happened in Montreal in 1969 when the police went on strike.
https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/1969-montreals-night-of-terror
And this was in Canada – nice, polite, boring Canada…
What will it be like in Blue US cities armed to the teeth?
If the police forces get defunded, then we’ll have a nice little full-on AnCap society in our hands, with only those warlords with enough capital to pay for a private police force having any protection from the raging hordes of marauders that roam the land.
I, for one, think that this would provide great opportunities for evangelism* and think that we should follow Elpi’s lead in embracing it.
EMBRACE IT.
* Not necessary evangelism for Orthodox Christianity. Maybe Black Bart already knows what name the NWO is giving its future religion.
In 2017 the Espirito Santo State police in Brazil went on strike. There were over 200 murders in three weeks.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Military_Police_of_Esp%C3%ADrito_Santo_strike
Let’s pray Archangels ?send army of Angels give strength to All genuine Orthodox priests across America, too muzzled to express what they truly feel to AB Elpidoforos…
It wasn’t enough a virus pandemic held us hostage, now a Leftist pandemic with a Judas Betrayer at the Orthodox helm … the faithful are weeping copious tears
America has been in slow motion dissolution since roughly 1830. The reason: slavery. The high point of our Constitutional Republic AND the signs of its failure occured with the Presidency of Andrew Jackson. Not much but blood has occured since with regard to the legacy of slavery sin. That history shows us that there is NO political solution to the ravages of slavery because our hearts are not changed. 99% of the commentary here attests to that truth including my own.
The only person I have known to witness to both the horror of slavery and to a healing solution is Father Moses Berry. He has a number of You Tube videos available on line if you search his name.
I have been blessed to have known him since 1973. He carries both the wounds of slavery and the wounds of Christ in his own heart. He has taught me that submission to Christ in real repentance is required. Repentance for the personal and collective hardness of heart, violence and destruction wrought because of slavery. Not just white repentance either.
Without God’s mercy and forbearance our country would have dissolved long ago. There is still hope but it is likely a forlorn hope.
Let us all pray for Fr Moses, for his ministry but also for his health issues.
… sometimes Divorce IS the answer –
it’s obvious humans are primordially Tribal in nature + don’t mix with differing tribes. It’s even in holy bible.
Michael,
The whole slavery canard is a crock. Slavery was approved in the Bible and Fathers, practiced throughout the Christian Roman Empire and the Russian Empire up until 1865 when serfdom was abolished. The moral consensus changed and so now everyone feels entitled to criticize the old consensus without ever having walked in those people’s shoes. There is no shame – cheap virtue signaling.
Will we eventually say that having pets was horrid? Eating meat? Spanking children?
The situation is complicated by race, to be sure. But either slavery has been morally acceptable or it has always been wrong. The latter opinion is excluded by the witness of the Church over the ages.
Slavery as practiced in many ancient societies was different from what was practiced in the Americas. Here, it was a horrible chattel slavery that was imposed on a racial basis, at least it ended up that way.
Traditional slavery was chattel slavery. It existed from ancient times right up until 1981 when the last country in which it was practiced (Mauritania) officially ‘abolished’ it – though it was not ‘illegal’ to own slaves until 2007.
Despite the ‘law’, slavery still exists in Mauretania. Mostly it is ‘Black’ Moors who are owned by ‘White’ (Arab or Berber) Moors, though the practice also exists within the Black African population in the south of the country.
Correct, my bad. What I meant was that skin color being a condition for slavery.
?Salient points Misha — and truth be told, all of us are slaves to something outside our True self
Misha, you do not know what you are talking about.
Michael,
If you wish to wallow in liberal white guilt, be my guest. I refuse to and will defend that refusal.
Michael Bauman:
According to psychology + C.G. Jung, having self hatred toward one’s own race, one’s own gender, even toward one’s country is Sign of Mental Disorder.
I suggest listening to Misha’s salient points.
Have a nice day
Sage Girl,
I realize you are somewhat new to this blog, and I do enjoy your being here; but it’s rather obvious that you don’t know Michael Bauman. That’s the limitation of blog comments. It’s easy to dismiss what someone writes with assumptions about who they are and where they are coming from – particularly when the subject at hand is inflammatory by its very nature.
Brian,
Good point, I made assumption that MB suffers self contempt – not fair of me; he’s probably an illumined Master, anchored in his Nous … however if the shoe ? fits…
Where is slavery approved in Scripture and Fathers? What witness of the Church that slavery is morally acceptable?
Slavery is mentioned in Ephesians 6:5 and Colossians 3:22
St Paul was not in the business of openly overthrowing the institution of slavery and hence the whole economic basis of society at a stroke. He was in the business of getting everyone to realise they were all brothers and sisters in Christ.
So, while he did say [Eph 5-8]:
” Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ;
not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;
with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men:
knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.”
he also said [Eph 9]:
” And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him. ”
And who will keep his brother enslaved?
I was just pointing out where slavery was acknowledged in the Gospel for Theo. My intent wasn’t to point out what was said only to point out where it was.
Indeed. We also forget that in pre-Industrial times, there was very little liquid capital. All wealth was in property. When Jacob worked for Laban for seven years, he did so as an indentured servant. He was “paid” in room and board and the promise that after seven years he would wed the beautiful Rachel.
Technically speaking, because no capital changed hands, he was a slave.
Rachel changed hands…
I wasn’t attributing anything to you, Gail.
I merely seized the opportunity to expatiate on
the Apostle Paul and his response to slavery:
that it is not ultimately acceptable.
Misha, with all due respect,
can we compare Slavery in the Bible with wholesale kidnapping of 17mln people from Africa and putting them down below in specially designed “slave ships”, chained flat on the planks to 50cm wide slots where the ate and did all bodily functions in situ, for many months depending on the wind, to reach America? Let alone what happened to them afterwards. And what about the dramas of the relatives left behind in Africa?
How can we possibly get away with that?
…..
To be sure, I am not justifying the riots and the escalation.
Lord have mercy!
Ioannis ,
you forget blacks sold slaves too…
+ other races suffered same plight or worse in those ships but they don’t burn down the town
Ioanni, what you say is true. The transatlantic slave trade was horrible. But so was the Islamic slave trade of mostly Southern and Eastern Europeans.
Nor should we forget that it was other Africans who were selling the weaker tribes to Arab slave-traders who then sold them to European and Sephardic Jewish ship-owners. They were the ones who transported them across the Atlantic.
Not saying the Roman period was always great in society even though you could be free. Lots of slaves were gladiators. The left didn’t hit Roman statues though. In fact picture this, the left complains about racism and takes power and beats on christians. Its always possible since outside of some progressive churches the left hates christians more than muslims or jews.
We can and I did. Interesting rhetorical device though.
I did because Biblical slavery was also based on ethnicity and, though inland so the transportation story was different, one should not downplay the hardships of slavery under any regime.
Also, your rhetorical device leaves a bit to be desired. Many of the slaves brought here were not kidnapped but bought from their own African people who also practiced slavery. The very same predicament existed in Arab Muslim black slavery and the mortality was probably higher among them if accounts are to be believed. Criticizing this or that aspect of our slave system is different than criticizing the legitimacy of the system itself. Most certainly, due to fallen human nature and the technological limitations of the time, it was pure awful at times. No argument here.
As for the rest, that is part and parcel of the same system defended by the Church for centuries. Yes, we can “get away with that” and you are “trying to justify the riots”. But that’s ok. As of this moment it is a free country and you can still do that. However, kneeling to the insatiable BLM is a recipe for tyranny.
I should make one point though: I am not at all making a case for the re-institution of slavery. I find it unsavory and better left to the history books. What I am defending is the legitimacy of the perspective of white American slave owners in context. Accusing them of some great moral abomination is wrong given the state of morality during those times.
Morality sometimes changes over time. It is very tempting to judge those who lived in the past from the convenient and comfortable perch of someone raised in the NewThink. That is to be avoided, as is somehow taking that false condemnation upon ourselves to rationalize the reallocation of entitlements in the present political system composed of those for whom the old order is nothing more than a history lesson.
It should also be pointed out that black slaves in the Muslim world were invariably castrated and any mixed-race babies born to African women were killed. White slaves however were prized and inter-ethnic relations were encouraged. That’s why if you travel the width and breadth of the Islamic world you will hardly find any black or mulatto slave-descendants but you will find scads of European-looking Arabs pretty much everywhere you go.
If I seem adamant, George, it is for this reason:
The Entirety of the Problem is that blacks have been ideologically programmed for dependency and resentment.
Quit buying drinks for the alcoholic.
The last slaves in America were freed over 150 years ago. That’s about six generations. It has been over 50 years since desegregation. There is no gaping wound to heal other than the gaping wound in the pride of black Americans created by the Democratic Party by telling them that all of their problems are the result of slavery and Jim Crow.
Yet let us consider how black Africans fare in Africa. Is there some basic problem with black American performance or is it just par for the course when compared with the experience of black Africans?
I do not suggest that genetics are destiny. There are two reasons to tell blacks they should be angry and entitled. The first is to keep them dependent; the second is to make them the vanguard of a revolutionary push. Either way I’m not on board.
Misha,
“Yes, we can “get away with that” and you are “trying to justify the riots””
I already said it at the end, but obviously not clearly enough:
“To be sure, I am not justifying the riots and the escalation.Lord have mercy!”
I repeat it here, I am not justifying the riots!
I am sorry if you understood otherwise.
What I am implying is that the cases of the Africans and the American Indians are having an influence on the life and “soul” of the US and it will be difficult to get rid of it, it will need more time.
If you like, it is like a basic error in the design of a house, e.g. wrong neighborhood, wrong choice of cheap building materials, wrong orientation, wrong foundations, wrong paying price and loan interest rate or what have you, and these factors have negative effect in the smooth living in that house. One can criticize or justify the subsequent actions of the owners and the neighbors but the truth of the matter is that the house has “inherited” some “design errors” which just make life difficult and promote bad everyday actions.
I do not know what the solution is for the US, God knows and He can certainly help. “His will be done”, not ours. I can only think that maybe a comprehensive and honest discussion could take place e.g. between Trump and the black leaders and sort out hard feelings, and stop rioting.
BTW I like the way Michael Bauman addresses the subject, and it does cover me for a large part.
Ioannis,
Some of us are a bit naive. “BLM” ostensibly stands for “Black Lives Matter”. That is a tactical device, however. BLM is actually a revival of the Black Liberation Movement of the sixties and early seventies. They use the phrase, “black lives matter” because it garners sympathy. In peacetime, always attack with your shield.
The only difference between the current BLM and previous black liberation movements is the inclusion of LGBT’s as full members in the mix: https://blacklivesmatter.com/herstory/
The goal is not equality, which they have. The goal is Black Supremacy to replace a perceived White Supremacy.
And that is yet another reason that I believe that it is better for contrasting ethnic/racial groups to have their own home rule on their own territory rather than the multikulti debacle that is disintegrating around us.
Could be. The left is ino white privilege, and even if you as a black person are a million and a white a homeless person then the white will be the dominant culture. Blacks or Asians can’t be racist in a white privilege world. As stated, the left might The problem with the hard left is whites can sin but blacks or Latinos can’t.
Misha, forgive my uncharitable responses. I am white Anglo-German but I am neither a liberal nor feeling guilty. I am certainly not apologizing for me or anybody else.
I have however had the opportunity to see the reciprocal shame that is at work in black-white interrelationships during my 72 years. I know it is a real thing. Unacknowledged and unaddressed shame is what caused Adam to cry out “This woman YOU gave me ..” when confronted by God over his consumption of the forbidden fruit. Unacknowledged and unaddressed shame leads to personal violence, wars and tryanny.
Shame is a toxic spiritual condition that has no direct relationship to guilt and makes “apologies” nonsensical.
Repentance, at least in the Orthodox Church, is a different matter. “Know that you confess not to me, a sinner, but to God Himself.”
Repentance/forgiveness is the best tool for overcoming shame. Perhaps the only tool.
True empathy for the shame other people is a fruit.
If I were as you say, I would likely be on the barricades seeking justice but I know all to well “that in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation.”
Repentance and forgiveness is not about justice real or imagined. It is about the healing mercy of Christ that overcomes and transforms death into life.
So I ask once again your forgiveness for my wrong headed and intemperate replies to your comments.
Glory to God and may His mercy endure forever.
Michael,
Forgive me, too, a miserable sinner. We have spent some time here together. I try not to offend too much but am a bull in a china shop often. I take no offense at anything you have said. I know you have a gracious heart.
Michael,
Greeks forgot Christ in the 14th century and Christ did not protect them from the Turks. Greek Church is now struggling to remain Orthodox.
….
Similarly, American history has black pages about millions of African slaves and American Indians. Only the Lord’s forgiveness and His mercy can help the US and any other nation.
….
BTW I am glad to read you again after your absence of more than a month. I pray everything is OK with you and your family.
Ioannis I am here temporarily because I feel so strongly about the situation and I felt I had knowledge and experience that not many have.
That’s why we need you here Michael.
I mean it.
As do I.
Michael Bauman!
Please send me your email address so I can respond to your message!
My email address is r.wintheiser@comcast.net!
I would like to know what repentance for slavery looks like. Kneeling before rioters? Marching around in chains? Reparations? Many people say this but it comes across as platitudes when there’s no specifics, and when one tries to deconstruct specifics, the goalposts get moved.
Tell me specifically what white people can do that will stop the grievance.
Because I don’t believe anything will ever be enough. So the refusal to forgive an imaginary affront is the actual problem here, as I see it.
AS, great question. Here is a possible answer. It has certainly born fruit in my life:
At this point repentance, unless it is a shared national repentance, will not stop the riots or heal the land. But one thing must be understood, it is not exclusively a racial problem not even mainly a racial problem. It is a problem of shame. Unacknowledged shame that has metastasized and become hidden behind race. It is the human shame of being enslaved and the human shame of enslaving that is at work.
In the old days, when there was a national or tribal shame the king could personify it and repent on behalf of himself, the nation and each person in it. (That is a small version of what Jesus did). We no longer have access to that reality so our repentance must be deeper and more personal. For some perspective please read this: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2020/06/04/the-sins-of-a-nation-3/
Repentance does NOT involve any of the political mechanisms to which you refer: show trial public confessions, violence, rioting and insurrection. All of those just deepen the shame and make it more intractable. Shame is not guilt. In fact guilt is just another way of not acknowledging the shame. Guilt often, even personally, prevents actual, deep repentance. Embracing the Cross.
I have had the blessing to twice stand next to Fr. Moses Berry as he held up the iron slave collar his great-great uncle was wearing when Union soldiers freed him from slavery. Fr. Moses put the collar around his own neck as he completed his narrative. Then he offered it to anyone to put on. Twice I did so. It was very heavy, about 25 pounds, rough and would have severely chaffed the neck and shoulders of anyone working in it. That collar is still around our necks but much, much heavier
Fr. Moses has the family artifacts of slavery because his great-great grandmother was a slave mistress of Nathan Boone. By grace, Nathan actually cared for his slave mistress, Ellen. Fr. Moses even thinks that there may have been love there. When Nathan freed Ellen after the Civil War, he gifted her with a large, fertile plot of land on which the Berry home, the Unexpected Joy cemetery (which Ellen started to bury the blacks, Indians and other undesirables) and the parish of The Theotokos, Unexpected Joy are to this day.
That gift allowed the family to grow and flourish and retain the artifacts of their history. Unusual. The lack of such ability also contributes to the continued shame. No roots—physical, spiritual or emotional.
Both times when I put the collar around my own neck, I cried. Even now, 10 years later, the tears come. They are the tears of repentance both bitter and sweet. Tears crying out to God to forgive us all and heal our land and our souls.
I was blessed, I cannot say how anyone else can do it. The museum is no longer open, and Fr. Moses is in poor health. Personally, I think his poor health is related to his taking on of the shame but that is a purely personal opinion.
Fr Moses has a family history of addressing the reciprocal shame of slavery by serving others, especially white folk. It is small and local. Father Moses brought that into the Church which is a tremendous offering we have yet to fully acknowledge. However, by the grace of God, it is here which allows our personal addressing of the shame more easily.
My own reaction, which is also familial, is to try to be more empathically open to black people I meet. I have a close friend because of that. He became Orthodox, in part, because of that. Unfortunately, his grandson was shamed publicly at one of our big dinners and, while my friend is still Orthodox and supporting of the parish monetarily, he never comes any more. His grandson, who was considering the Church faces a much longer road now. They have not yet acknowledged their own shame. It is too easy to put it off on whitey alone. Indeed, I had not seen that part of it myself until writing this. Thank you.
Wonderful words. Thank you, Michael.
I believe that we need to acknowledge that our economic system is still based on slave labor. The coffee, sugar, and chocolate that we eat; the cobalt mined for our smart phones, assembled by enslaved Asians; our clothing and shoes reliant on child labor; etc.
The shame runs so deep that in the midst of BLM movements, we are wholly unable to articulate how and why we allow ourselves to profit from the very cheap labor of people we will conveniently never need to consider.
Forfeiting sugar and coffee is EASY and would do more toward acknowledging the present state of inequal race relations than any of BLM’s proposed measures.
If, say, the Orthodox Church or a broader group of American Conservatives were to start a campaign to only purchase “free trade goods made in America” for the purpose of ending “systemic racism,” that would completely neutralize the threat of of the anarchist BLM movement.
We would shift the frame from blacks in America to actual slave labor overseas, and we would offer a campaign of divesting our personal funds from those inequal labor practices, as an alternative to defunding the American police.
Any GOA bishops interested?
Very good thoughts, Michelle, and ones with which I agree. We should recognize that the free-market capitalist economic system does indeed create slavery everywhere, a slavery far worse than anything that existed in the past. Debt slavery here in the West for all of the average Joes being ground down by this system, and industrial slavery for all those working in the foreign sweat shops that supply us with our essentials – whether they be food, clothes, tech, etc.
If we limited ourselves to locally-sourced goods from independent and family businesses, we would do more towards creating a fairer and more just system in which to live. Sure, we wouldn’t have those nice exotic foods that we need to import from somewhere else, but, then again, our ancestors were nourished quite sufficiently by the fat of the land, our land.
Less materialism, more simplicity, no more usury, no more Federal Reserve, no more reliance on imported goods, an end to monopolies and big businesses, and more homesteaders, small landowners, and small independent businesses with a wider distribution of capital.
This isn’t even utopian; it’s just the Middle Ages.
Ahh…!!!! The Middle Ages…!!!!
Serfdom. Illiteracy. High child mortality. Low life expectancy.
Poverty. Malnourishment. Feudalism. Crop failures. Mass starvation.
What’s not to like…???
Brendan,
People can “read” and continue to be illiterate, in that they are unable to articulate or understand the concepts behind the words. Forgive me. My writing is not particularly clear.
If WE do not take on the issue of slavery, BLM will; and they will “rework” our first amendment rights, too.
Moving manufacturing to the USA in the name of ending slavery is a good idea.
Abolishing the Federal Reserve and making usury illegal would change our economic system to one similar to that of medieval Europe’s. As serfs, would it really be so terrible to pay a yearly 10% tithe to the King (when we are now paying 8% sales tax in NY in addition to federal and property taxes, DMV fees, etc.)? Serfs were “bought and sold,” yes, but modern Americans are also moved across the country on a whim for corporations.
No one said we must give up antibiotics or combines.
Agree with you on all points Michelle.
Seriously, the idea of “equal protection under the law” and “all men are created equal” is more myth than reality. Or, to be charitable, it has outlived its usefulness. Thanks to BLM, we are very much on the road to codifying a new caste system in which white policemen will not be able to legally rrest black men. What this will result in is that minorities can only police other minorities. This will result in separate court systems for the various “estates”, just like what happened under Medieval servitude.
We see this happening right now in CHAZ: they set up vegetable gardens only for blacks, another one for indigenous people and so on. One of their demands was that black people be given immediate, free health-care, provided for only by black medical personnel.
Folks, this is the very essence of Jim Crow (albeit with government-subsidized health care).
I see some hope on the horizon. Mainly that some black intellectuals, mostly on the Right but some (like Leo Terrell) on the Left, realizing what all this mayhem instigated by the 98% white Antifa will eventuate: the continued destruction of black neighborhoods. And add into this mix the mass resignations of policemen and the augmentation of the Ferguson Effect, then the majority of the black denizens living in these areas will be cowering in their domiciles 24/7, never venturing to go out.
In a previous post I said that this is how Minneapolis becomes Mogadishu but that’s not totally fair to Mogadishu. At least there they have warlords who are actually bringing some sense of order to the areas they control.
“To emulate the good things about a previous time, by necessity you must also emulate the bad things.” – Brendan
That’s a weird genetic fallacy you have there.
Talking about not seeing the wood for the trees. Michelle understood perfectly what I meant, so I don’t have to further explain myself.
“Serfdom. Illiteracy. High child mortality. Low life expectancy.Poverty. Malnourishment. Feudalism. Crop failures. Mass starvation.”
Serfdom was an advance over the slavery of Classical paganism. Low life expectancy was just high child mortality, because children dying young drags the average down, and for Christians, death in childhood is a great blessing. Feudalism, is a superior form of government, society, and economy to our current Western democracies, which we’re watching go insane and fail in real time. “Regressing” only back to feudalism would be an optimistic scenario for our Mystery Babylon, human Mouse Utopia.
All true, Myst. Also if I may add my own response to Brendan, all the parade of horribles which you describe were applicable in ancient times as well. They are applicable to the Third World today I might add.
Serfdom did not succeed slavery. Serfdom succeeded a free peasantry. The Emperor Basil II tried to maintain the freehold peasantry on the Anatolian frontier. Had his successors followed his example, the Empire might still stand. Instead, the vast estates expanded still further until the land was populated by people who had no stake in it and who, therefore, would not fight for it. Then the Turks came and the great recruiting grounds of the Empire were lost forever.
Almost contemporaneously in England, the free English peasantry became serfs under their new Norman masters after a titanic struggle and Romanism supplanted Orthodoxy in the West.
A thousand years before, in Italy, a land that had once raised army after army of free citizens to oppose Hannibal (and Philip V and Antiochus the Great and Mithradates Eupator etc) saw the free peasants replaced with huge latifundias worked by slaves. Then the corruption spread to Gaul and Spain until, eventually, the West relied on barbaric German mercenaries to protect it from (guess who?) barbaric Germans. Thus was it doomed.
As for feudalism being a ‘superior’ form of government, feudalism is what happens when a sophisticated central system breaks down and various big thugs seize control of parts of the whole and employ lots of little thugs to maintain control – just as is beginning to happen in America now.
And what percentage of the population will have to die and not be replaced when feudalism takes over, do you think?
“Serfdom did not succeed slavery. Serfdom succeeded a free peasantry. The Emperor Basil II tried to maintain the freehold peasantry on the Anatolian frontier.”
Slavery was legal and existed until the end of the Byzantine empire, it became less frequent because Christians had an avoidance for slavery, especially other Christians. The slave trade from the Rus was still crucial (thus slave/Slav), and when the Rus became Christians and stopped enslaving and voluntarily selling their own people (and related surrounding groups), then the steppe nomads began raiding to capture such. So, yeah, slavery to serfdom was an advance.
“A thousand years before, in Italy, a land that had once raised army after army of free citizens to oppose Hannibal (and Philip V and Antiochus the Great and Mithradates Eupator etc) saw the free peasants replaced with huge latifundias worked by slaves.”
Your glorified army after army of “free citizens,” were themselves, (until after the reforms of Marius), almost to a man slave owners, and the latifundias were just the concentration of existing slave run estates during the Mid to late Republic.
“sophisticated central system breaks down and various big thugs seize control of parts of the whole and employ lots of little thugs to maintain control – just as is beginning to happen in America now.”
You’ve pretty much described all human government, not just feudalism, it is all based on force ultimately, as George Washington and other Founding Fathers noted.
“And what percentage of the population will have to die and not be replaced when feudalism takes over, do you think?”
You should be familiar with enough dystopian literature, movies, etc, to know there’s far worse scenarios than medieval feudalism. We can fall much farther than that, even without losing technology.
Truly. During the so-called Dark Ages, great strides in architecture, literature and the sciences were taking place. The scientific method itself was pioneered by Franciscan monks in England. Then there was scholasticism. All in the West. In the Byzantine East, these ages were far from “dark”.
Feudalism as an economic system worked for the most part and restrained the hands of absolutist monarchs. Wars fought during these times were smallish affairs because the economic system could not sustain them. They were fought as well by strict rules of engagement, all of which went out the window after the Industrial Revolution.
Count me in.
And yes, we need to abolish the Federal Reserve.
Agreed. The entire central banking system of all sovereign governments should be abolished. Along with usury.
…unless, of course, your lending institution happens to be registered in the state of Delaware, the safe haven for all credit card companies and longtime home of Senator and stalwart advocate for the middle class, Joseph Biden, where any usurious rate can be charged.
Why does someone who comes from a culture that had no episode similar to this—at least not along the same ethnoracial lines—have to pay for the sins of another group that, because of skin color, he is lumped together with?
I wonder what the American reaction would be to a BLM-style movement carried out by Greeks and Armenians against Turkey.
Or if Serbs did the same against their Muslim and Catholic neighbors. Oh wait, we know how that one turned out.
Blowing up Orthodox Churches on Pascha, that’s how Americans would react.
@Antiochene Son:
My point exactly.
Indeed.
The issue is never the issue. It’s just a club to hit Americans and traditional Christians over the head with.
But George, we did start this fight. Actually not quite true–the fight began in simple lust for power. That is why there is NO political solution only repentance by all. Of course many will say “Why should the victims repent, how can we?”
Each of us and all of us are victims and perpetrators: black, white, yellow, red and orange. (Just different shades and hues of the same basic color BTW)
That does not mean succumbing to show trial public confessions or allowing the continued breach of social order.
The political/ideological spectrum is divided only by differences as to how to seek, gain and exercise power.
I visit Saker from time to time. He is a bit out there for me but there is a lot of good data and analysis on this or that issue on his site and related sites.
Implosion? Perhaps. If you look at the wedge issues, the ones most likely to arouse the passions, you will see class, race, gender (in the sense of patriarchy vs. feminism/semi-matriarchy) and perversion (LGBT).
America has no poverty like that of less developed countries. It is possible here to live, eat and be clothed on nothing. Believe me, I know and have actually done so for extended periods of time. Thus class is a factor, it always is since there is envy, but it is not enough of a wedge issue to really inspire a revolt.
The gender questions are mostly dormant at this point. Men have not really awoken to the horror that is modern feminist America. We are mostly too beta and soft hearted to look at it clearly in historical terms. Feminists themselves have no place to go at this point. The ERA comes up from time to time, but mostly these days they are on the defensive. And with Biden at the top of the Democrat ticket, the Women’s march will not likely be repeated due to the possibility of unintended consequences.
LGBT? Not an issue that gets a lot of broad support. Not enough for a revolt.
Thus you are left with race:
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/IPE120218
At present, Latinos outnumber blacks in the US by a healthy margin (about 5%). The psychological effect of this has not yet set in to many white Americans who still think of America in terms of black and white. So now we have the abbreviation POC (people of color) and the attempt to fold Latinos into the current insurrection.
The current instability probably seems like the safe play to the Soros led crowd in that they are mobilizing people with little real power. It is backfiring, however. It is sketching the specter of nationwide racial turbulence in the minds of whites throughout the country. Even some blacks are starting to become alarmed by it.
Whites have nothing for which to apologize. It was our vision and resources which conquered and built this country. We used working class labor and slaves for much of this but these people neither designed nor financed anything. Slavery was par for the course up until it was abolished here. Even Lincoln famously said that he would extend slavery if it was necessary to preserve the Union.
As far as Jim Crow, faced with the prospect of large numbers of hostile foreigners in our midst due to the outcome of the Civil War, Southern whites did the best they could to preserve what was left of their culture and resist forced assimilation and association with those imported from Africa as slave labor, which would have been unthinkable to them.
I do not weep for African Americans. They have it better here than they have ever had it in Africa or any other place on earth. If you consider what has happened to the black family since the 1960’s (see the Moynihan Report – https://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Moynihan's The Negro Family.pdf) you will find the source of the problem. Public assistance destroyed what was a viable black culture and replaced it with the monstrosity we see today.
Only black responsibility can heal black culture – not more of the same bs as is being demanded by BLM.
Misha, absolutely spot on analysis. ?
Whites have nothing to apologize for to Black community … looks to me, especially Now, it’s they who must apologize for burning down the town + threatening our Police protection.
I recall reading in books by the 1800’s Early American author, Henry David Theroux + his mentioning that many wealthy White landowners had generously given property to their freed slaves. They also taught them skills.
Compare that generosity to celebrity wealthy Blacks, you never hear they adopted poor White babies from Appalachia, but you do hear plethora of wealthy White celebrities adopting Black babies – (as their liberal souvenirs).
The enormous uplifting of Black race by Whites, especially by British + Americans cannot be overstated – they gave to Blacks everything under the Sun ? that they could never give themselves: a Civilization.
This is the most racist thing I have read on this blog. Thanks for showing your true colors.
AnonOCA, you apparently need a refresher course on the definition of racist. A racist is a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another.
If I believed I was superior to other people, would I expect from other people what I expect from myself?
Color ONLY matters to the people who refuse to let it go. And that would be you, my friend.
Sorry Gail…
“The enormous uplifting of Black race by Whites, especially by British + Americans cannot be overstated – they gave to Blacks everything under the Sun ? that they could never give themselves: a Civilization.”
No, we did not give them “Civilization” — we gave them rape, torture, death, destroyed and split families, and the humiliation of slavery. And people wonder why the phrase “Black Lives Matter” — the phrase, not the org — is so important to many.
Maybe this quote from Saint Tikhon of America and Moscow could help some folks’ perspectives:
“It is not civilization at all–which is shamefully preached by some—wherein the sole idea is that the white race must not only dominate the world, but must wipe out the other ‘colored’ races… True civilization consists in giving as many people as possible access to the benefits of life… Since all people originate from one man, all are children of one Heavenly Father; all were redeemed by the most pure blood of Christ, in Whom ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free.’ All are brothers and must love one another–love one another not only in words, but in deeds as well.”
(From his sermon preached in San Francisco on June 10/23 1900)
What’s this got to do with you calling me a racist because, horror of horrors, I think black people are equally capable of making their way in the world?!
I have a lot of black friends and none of them are mentally or physically impaired. They would be mortified if I bowed down to them to apologize for being white. You won’t find these people out there looting and burning down buildings. When people look at the people who throw bricks, break windows and set fires, they don’t think black lives matter: They think look how em>evil those people are. Just saying. . .
If someone is “preaching civilization” on this blog, direct your comments to them and stop with the name calling. I see it again and you’ll be gone. – I’m done discussing what a racist you think I am.
AnonOCA, as much as I revere St Tikhon, if he did indeed say the above statement, it was an example of the straw-man argument. I have studied this issue deeply, especially Darwinism, and the issue for the original white supremacists was never the extermination of any race at all. Domination, yes, but not extermination. Even the Third Reich did not want to exterminate the Jews or Slavs but to remove them from the so-called Lebensraum the “living space” that the growing German population desired.
The hallmark ideal of all ethno-nationalists has always been to segregate the races into their respective homelands. I was shocked to find out that the African-American intellectual (and leftist) W E B Dubois had visited Nazi Germany in 1935 and was convinced that the national-socialist model was what was needed to be implemented for black people in America.
Getting back to St Tikhon, it is possible that he knew of some agitators who desired genocide but to my knowledge, I could find no example of such people operating around the same time as he was in America. Even the KKK was not exterminationist but only wanted to enforce a system of legal segregation between the races (as well as immigration restrictionism).
This is not to excuse the Klan or the Third Reich or people like Lothrop Stoddard, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, et al, but to merely set the record straight.
Could we get a link to the full text of this sermon, for context?
“It is not civilization at all–which is shamefully preached by some—wherein the sole idea is that the white race must not only dominate the world, but must wipe out the other ‘colored’ races… True civilization consists in giving as many people as possible access to the benefits of life… Since all people originate from one man, all are children of one Heavenly Father; all were redeemed by the most pure blood of Christ, in Whom ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free.’ All are brothers and must love one another–love one another not only in words, but in deeds as well.”
Because without the abridged text, St. Tikhon, all it tells us is that he was opposed to genocide, but could easily have been very pro European colonialism, just based on “giving as many people as possible the benefits of life.”
As far as:
“No, we did not give them ‘Civilization’ — we gave them rape, torture, death, destroyed and split families, and the humiliation of slavery. And people wonder why the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ — the phrase, not the org — is so important to many.”
Why don’t other races owe whites an eternal debt because they enslaved whites? Black Lives Matter (More) is ultimately a Black Supremacist mantra, expanding upon the already existing caste system, with whites at the bottom, being legally discriminated against in education, employment and law enforcement and legal system. All Lives Matter, “It is Ok to be white,” and “Islam is right about women,” all send the racist Left into murderous rages, because these phrases trigger cognitive dissonance, from their unresolvable contradictory beliefs.
A blessed Sunday of All Saints to All! The words of St. Tikhon referred to by AnonOCA were indeed from a sermon given in San Francisco on June 10/23 1900 in reference to the native people’s of Alaska. Saint Tikhon had just returned from a visit to Alaska and was asking for Orthodox to help the suffering natives and he mentions the plight of the people he saw among other things among “the inhabitants of the far North..” some of what he calls ” sicknesses and social diseases which were brought there by white people and from which the natives die quickly.” Two paragraphs later St. Tikhon gives what is quoted by AnonOCA. The text of the sermon can be found on pages 45-47 in, Saint Tikhon of Moscow: Instructions and Teachings for the American Faithful(1898-1907, Saint Tikhon Seminary Press 2016
AnonOCA, you sit on a perch and from your anonymity, call my wife and me “racists” when clearly we are not. If you had the courage of your convictions you would sign your name and engage in a real debate instead of reverting to ad hominen attacks and straw-man arguments. Likewise, your appeals to authority (in this case St Tikhon) are threadbare given the historical context (as well as the possibility that the revered saint was mistaken in his estimation of the Progressives [who were all racialists] at that time).
You are no longer welcome here.
AnonOCA:
you remind me of what a great Sufi teacher said:
“In this world the Truth is Not allowed “. Sorry, pal but the Truth isn’t always pretty + it sure as hell is Not politically correct. PC crowd has zero interest in Truth or Illumination, they operate from this bible truth:
”Vanity of vanities, all is Vanity”
I guess my reply didn’t fit in your echo chamber. I’m going to have to leave this blog, as it is clear dissent is unwelcome. I hope you find some happiness with George, as you two are clearly of like mind. But I also hope your worldview should never prevail, as I don’t believe there would be room in your world for the rest of us. Be well, and watch out for the extremists in your midst who will gladly turn on you when you don’t far enough for their fantasies.
You hold up yourself when you call people names. You’re still here though!
AnonOCA, as much as I revere St Tikhon, if he did indeed say the above statement, it was an example of the straw-man argument. I have studied this issue deeply, especially Darwinism, and the issue for the original white supremacists was never the extermination of any race at all. Domination, yes, but not extermination. Even the Third Reich did not want to exterminate the Jews or Slavs but to remove them from the so-called Lebensraum the “living space” that the growing German population desired.
The hallmark ideal of all ethno-nationalists has always been to segregate the races into their respective homelands. I was shocked to find out that the African-American intellectual (and leftist) W E B Dubois had visited Nazi Germany in 1935 and was convinced that the national-socialist model was what was needed to be implemented for black people in America.
Getting back to St Tikhon, it is possible that he knew of some agitators who desired genocide but to my knowledge, I could find no example of such people operating around the same time as he was in America. Even the KKK was not exterminationist but only wanted to enforce a system of legal segregation between the races (as well as immigration restrictionism).
This is not to excuse the Klan or the Third Reich or people like Lothrop Stoddard, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, et al, but to merely set the record straight.
AnonOCA:
go ahead – split already —
you can bloviate your lefty delusion + whiney broken record with 90% leftist media/blogs out there —
unlike us few seekers of Truth !
I don’t think some people realize that no one makes them post here.
“…they gave to Blacks everything under the Sun”.
That is the problem. Listen to Thomas Sowell on
the Myths of Economic Inequality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS5WYp5xmvI
This is all a little confusing. ? Let me see if I can get this straight. “Sage Girl” ? seems to have ruffled the feathers of “AnonOCA” ❓ with a comment that included the statement that black people were not capable of civilization ?️ without the help of white people. “AnonOCA” called the comment racist.
Gail Sheppard then responded by giving her definition of racism to “AnonOCA”. My first piece of confusion comes from “Sage Girl’s” post pretty directly running afoul of Gail Sheppard’s definition of racism ?. But rather than agree with “AnonOCA” or rebuking “Sage Girl”, Gail Sheppard seems to have taken “AnonOCA’s” comments as being directed at her personally. ?
Unless there is some message we haven’t seen, while “AnonOCA’s” responses seem rather inflammatory ?, I don’t see where he/she calls either Gail Sheppard or George Michalopulos racists, which further adds to my confusion.
I wouldn’t pay attention to the order of anything here. People go in after people have responded and delete their comments which throws everything off.
Why would anyone want to take the time to characterize who said what to whom on a blog? Should we now spend our time saying, “No, I didn’t say that. She said that.” To which the other would reply, “No, that wasn’t me that was her.”
I realize it’s easier to sidetrack a discussion, but it’s infinitely more fun to dissect an argument. Could help with your confusion to change your focus. Yes??? I know you have it in you.
Flavius, AnonOCA’s argument is flawed. First, because he appealed to authority, in this case St Tikhon’s observation. The problem is that I don’t know where that statement came from, whether St Tikhon made it or not, or whether it’s just apocryphal. A citation would be appreciated.
Secondly, whether it was authentic or not, I showed that this observation was flawed in that it was a straw-man argument. (And historically illiterate.)
Now, the implication of his statement “George & Gail’s worldview” in the context of the whole racial angle is that we are both racists. Clearly, we are not. To castigate a person as such, to defame him or her is not only wrong, it’s intellectually lazy.
In fact, if you read Gail’s definition of what racism actually is and more, if you understood what she said about the fact that minorities are set up to fail, you would have seen that she is not a racist.
Of course, like all good progressives, even Merriam-Webster Dictionary is redefining racism. The goalposts constantly are moving. So much so that we are rapidly approaching the singularity, when Godwin’s Law and Warhol’s Observation meet: “In the future, all people will be Adolf Hitler for 15 minutes”.
Flavius:
?♀️yes I stand by my words — don’t believe me? Just listen to daily news + read history. Have a nice day.
p.s. never heard of “AnonOCA”
Is anyone else throwing up over some churches blocking our Free Speech to condemn Archbishop for stupid march with violent BLM & Antifa? My comments were blocked on live chat from my own church … then I turned to hear a priest friend’s church in Georgia & another priest read statement by Synod bishops coddling that Criminal Floyd who put gun on pregnant woman’s stomach & ransacked her home! The insanity is satanic
Hypocrite MI Gov Whitmer Keeps Business in Lockdown Encourages Bolsheviks to Protest, Joins Them!
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/06/hypocrite-governor-gretchen-whitmer-keeps-business-lockdown-encourages-leftists-protest-streets-joins-video/
‘Stop it! It’s Sick! It’s Demonic!’ – Black Women UrgeWhite Liberals to Stop Kneeling Before Black People
http://www.stationgossip.com/2020/06/stop-it-its-sick-its-demonic-black.html
Not the Onion: BLM Protesters Vandalize Abraham Lincoln Statue In London
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/not-onion-blm-protesters-vandalize-abraham-lincoln-statue-london
As social media like Twitter become Leftist echo chambers, the Left is left alone to increasingly eat itself:
https://variety.com/2020/film/news/jk-rowling-transphobic-tweets-controversy-1234627081/
“If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth,” she wrote. “The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they’re vulnerable in the same way as women — ie, to male violence – ‘hate’ trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences — is a nonsense.”
[…]
Rowling has come under fire for voicing similar opinions before. In December, she received backlash for supporting a researcher who lost her job after saying a person cannot change their biological sex. GLAAD had issued a statement in response to Rowling’s previous tweets.
“J.K. Rowling, whose books gave kids hope that they could work together to create a better world, has now aligned herself with an anti-science ideology that denies the basic humanity of people who are transgender,” said Anthony Ramos, head of talent at GLAAD.
Myst, it’s not just the Lincoln statues which have been vandalized, these bozos vandalized the 54th Regimental Monument in Boston, the one made famous by the movie Glory. The first all-black regiment that fought for the Union.
What we are seeing is Saturn eating his children: the metaphor for all revolutions.
I’m also very happy to see Leftists eating other Leftists in the pages of the various big-city American newspapers. The autophagy continues.
The more they keep this up, the greater the chances of Trump winning reelection. Even ultralibs like Andrew Sullivan have had enough of all this Maoism. We haven’t reached the tipping point yet but things are accelerating in that direction.
Now “Defund the Police” has taken control of the Leftist narrative. Can you imagine Trump turning to Biden in a debate and asking him point-blank if he will defund the police? If Biden says “No, I wrote the 1994 crime bill [which put many black men in prison]”, then he will have lost the SJW vote. If he says “Yes”, then he will lose the suburbs. Either way, he’s caught on the horns of a dilemma.
Very good point.
It is fortunate for the Republican party that they have no such parallel behavior. Imagine if, for example, the previous Republican president declined to support the re-election of the incumbent Republican president!
Flavius, while I agree with you that Republicans can turn on each other, it is invariably Leftists who are revolutionary. I’d say it’s roughly a 10%/90% split.
“…it’s invariably Leftists who are revolutionary”?
“…it’s roughly a 10%/90% split”?
Err…????
Revolution is leftist by definition.
“The terms “left” and “right” appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president’s right and supporters of the revolution to his left. One deputy, the Baron de Gauville, explained: “We began to recognize each other: those who were loyal to religion and the king took up positions to the right of the chair so as to avoid the shouts, oaths, and indecencies that enjoyed free rein in the opposing camp”.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left–right_political_spectrum
The right-wing equivalent to revolution might be restorationism or something.
The left will cry in their milk. About 2 years ago, they complain about Latinos in cages, but since the Latinos are less loyal to Democrats then blacks they pikced the prefect moment to protest.
In Star Trek: The Return of the Archons, Captain James T Kirk argues that the Prime Directive (prohibiting Starfleet personnel and spacecraft from interfering in the normal development of any society) ” …refers to a living, growing culture”.
Would this excuse Archbishop Elpi’s March for Mayhem?
“Ukrainian MP calls on schismatics to canonize police brutality victim George Floyd”
Verkhovna Rada Deputy Iliya Kiva: “Please consider including Floyd in the list of the Heavenly Hundred, as the man who began the ‘revolution of dignity’ in the United States of America!!!”
Ukrainian MP? ?Serious delusion!Those initials = Mental Patient
Cult mentality.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/tucker-carlson-says-beware-those-inciting-racial-division-tribal-conflict-will-destroy-our-country
A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, “You are mad; you are not like us.”
– St. Anthony the Great
It is all going as I have foreseen:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2020/06/09/antifa-militants-seize-seattle-police-hq-set-up-autonomous-zone-n512621
Washington State turning Red in November? In any event, the Hard Left are destroying the liberals, their institutions and their cities.
As Montgomery Burns would say “Excellent!”
Here’s a compilation of Mr Burns saying “excellent!”
https://youtu.be/ch6Q7IL7hDM
https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/blog/u-s-riots-a-guide-for-foreigners/
This is Srdja Trifkovic being interviewed on a Serbian morning daily program trying to explain the riots to Serbs. He is very frank and accurate.
https://russianamerican.org/tpost/sgscipegyp-russian-americans-denounce-calls-to-defu?fbclid=IwAR0Qpez3Z39_OFCBeuTgmxM2wSg01OxUfzggqDZcVoHw5AcqLanWaw9gY7w
https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/06/10/hilarious-story-of-the-day-radical-leftists-in-autonomous-zone-in-seattle-already-have-a-huge-problem/
I’m trying to cut back, but I had to post this, it being too precious.
Perhaps you have heard of CHAZ? That is the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle. Radical leftist rioters took over a piece of territory (amounts to about six blocks) in Seattle from authorities and are attempting to go it on their own, so to speak.
They started out with a stash of food which they offered out as free. They also took in a sizeable homeless contingent. And that has become a problem.
Some of you know that I spent over five years in a homeless shelter. Best thing that ever happened to me, in retrospect. However, I could have told you that the boo boo was going to hit the fan. The homeless don’t think like the average shopper at Kroger, taking just one sample from the tray. They grab and hoard. So now the food’s gone and the “autonomous zone” is begging for food donations.
They prefer vegan (lol, I’m serious, read it).
Once again, the FBI shows what side they’re on.
https://nypost.com/2020/06/10/supremacists-racist-terrorists-greatest-risk-of-violence-fbi-memo
Also the cucked Republican Armed Services Committee recommended renaming bases named after Confederates.
The people who hate this country are innumerable and are tipping their hand. Take notice!
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/11/nancy-pelosi-silent-on-own-father-who-oversaw-dedication-of-confederate-statue/
I wonder how Mdme Pelosi is going to answer for this historical crime?
I’ve never been a fan of the “Dems are the real racists” line of attack (because it accepts their premise and doubles down on it), but this is pretty amusing I must admit.
For that matter, I wonder if bridges and tunnels named after Grand Kleagle Sen. Robert “I’ve seen a lot of white ni**ers” Byrd are on the chopping block? He disavowed his KKK membership, but racism is the unforgivable sin, so it matters not.
“racism is the unforgivable sin, so it matters not.”
Not if you’re a Leftist, then it just gets filed away, like blackmail material, to be used if the offender doesn’t march completely in step with the Left. People like the current governor of Virgina, the Justin Trudeau the PM of Canada, etc, have had pictures of them in blackface come out. All kinds of racist gaffes from Biden, Clintons, and more are always passed over, unless pressure needs to applied for some reason. The Left makes racism appear out of nowhere, and vanish in plain sight, like a illusionist doing a stage show.
We lost the Supreme Court ruling on transgenderism.
I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach.
Enforced pronouns coming soon.
https://www.axios.com/supreme-court-gay-transgender-workers-title-vii-20ca6b21-a662-4111-bebd-9be2c4dbd6ea.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=organic&utm_content=1100&fbclid=IwAR1TrEz8ooDTWfY2Fs50UKck2v4eZfISfpXvdBpzRvvfTfWIMz6MEryZ6gA
Michelle, I see a silver lining in all such legal abnormalities and it is this: “when something unreal is made into law, all efforts to enforce it, will accelerate its demise.” (You can call this one of Michalopulos’ Laws.)
Corollary to above law: “If the legal force of said unreal law is mitigated by custom or a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ to ignore it, then its observance will be attenuated over time and eventually, extinguish itself”.
P.S. regarding T-Town’s mayor, I was wrong. —mea culpa. However he is a squish Republican of the worst sort. The reason I thought he was a Democrat was because the local Democrat pooh-bahs recognized a grade-A RINO and groomed him for the mayoralty. They threw considerable resources to his campaign.
In any event, the recent SCOTUS ruling will accelerate the demise of the whole Title IX process and will cause much mayhem in the larger corporations who will now be bombarded with innumerable lawsuits every time a transexual is fired.
It will also demolish women’s sports. Which in turn will help decrease the cost of college by diminishing the number of useless bureaucrats.
I imagine there will be many more such unintended consequences.
I do hope so, George. Thank you for trying to cheer me up.
“Keep thy mind in hell and despair not.”
I’m not sure what else any of us can do.
Michelle, one thing to remember is that the Lord in His mercy is allowing all this evil to appear in order for good men to not only stand up but for all of us to see things more clearly. It’s good to be able to finally see evil for what it is and that it is all around us. It is in fact present in our Churches and in our governments.
This knowledge allows us to “live not by lies” and further, to prepare ourselves accordingly.
Yes, you’re right. Thank you for the reminder, George.
Roberts is trash.
Gorsuch is trash.
Kavanaugh likes the result but not the means.
Other highlights from today:
Supremes upheld California’s sanctuary law
Supremes upheld gun restrictions
They’ll probably uphold DACA on Thursday
Conservatives conserve nothing. I’m starting to feel like the GOP plantation works the same as the Dem plantation. The true Uniparty becomes evident when the “at least we have judges” paradigm starts to fall apart.
Pedophilia is next, although they’ll give the demonic fetishes a rest while they deal with race issues first. The Dems will champion the pedo lifestyle (they already are), and the GOP will pretend to fight it for a few years until SCOTUS upholds it, then the GOP will pretend they were always pro-pedo.
That’s exactly what they did with gays. Most Republicans are relieved the gay issue is now over, which is very telling from the deafening silence on conservative social media. I’ve been looking around and only Ann Coulter has even mentioned it. I guarantee the mainstream GOP will be pro-trans within 5 years.
I want to point out something that should be of interest to those of us who follow the dangers posed to Greece and other traditionally Orthodox countries by an expansionist Turkey. You see, the Saker website which stimulated this thread also strongly supports Russian efforts to have good relations with Turkey. In the Saker articles promoting a strong Russia-Turkey relationship I have not seen any mention of the outrages committed by Turkey against Christians in the past or the dangers it poses to them now.
Of course, I do not know if Putin ever reads the Saker, but nevertheless, I thought I should point this out.
I think the prophecies of Elder Paisios have something to say in this regard, and disregarding those, I think we could still say that Putin is (hopefully) playing a clever hand.
Finishing off where the First Crimean War left off, without British and French (or American) interference, inshallah.
Johann: Is Putin playing a clever hand? For several centuries, Russia’s clever hand often meant that the Greeks and Armenians were left to fend for themselves.
Please explain your comment further.
I see your point, John.
Question: what do you think the Russians owe Greece now that the Church of Greece betrayed Orthodox norms in recognizing the shismatic church set up by the West in Ukraine? Given the timorous give-and-take that went on for several months, you know that as far as the CoG is concerned, this was a hot potato from the get-go. They could have at least tabled it. But no, they decided to play their little gaymes and stab Orthodoxy in the back.
George, I’m just wondering what will happen next? “Metropolitan” Epiphany Dumenko of the pseudo church in Ukraine has been saying that he hopes to have Romania, Georgia some others recognize them in the very near future. I’m fairly certain the Georgia will remain strong, but Romania is always a wild card. God forbid—I can almost see the government of Romania pressuring the (Romanian) Patriarchate to recognize them—just to make the U.S. and NATO happy. (Unfortunately, large sums of money always seem to make people change their minds or play along!) I’m praying that this doesn’t happen.
I dunno. I think a lot of grace has left a lot of the Churches right now. Forgive me for saying this.
I’m hoping and praying that the Churches of Russia (and Ukraine-MP), Serbia, Jerusalem, and Antioch can hold the fort until the ship stops listing. There have been other periods in Orthodox history where a few of the Churches preserved the faith until heresies and troublemakers passed into oblivion. I hope that’s the case right now.
George, please let me know where grace still exists and what criteria you use to determine the existence of grace. Also, please let me know when you determine that grace has been restored.
Good question. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have written that. Still, the feeling is preponderant, is it not?
As to where it is, do you think it is in Protestantism? Or the pedophile=infested Catholic Church? Do you see my bewilderment?
George, I do not agree that the position you take about grace in the church is the preponderant position in the Orthodox world, even though I concede that it is the dominate position on your blog. Please do not be duped into believing that your blog is representive of mainline Orthodoxy. In fact, I believe that most posters on you blog represent a small group of individuals who think of themselves as “true Orthodox.” That being said, Orthodoxy as well as other faith traditions, are experiencing challenging times. Leadership that is faithful to the gospel would be refreshing.
If you are really worried about George, you shouldn’t be. The commentators on the blog represent a fraction of our readership. For every 1 commentator on any given day, we have 1,000 readers. With Ukraine, it jumped up to over 16,000 readers a day, but we’re currently around 11,000.
“Leadership faithful to the Gospel”?
It sure isn’t coming from Elpidoforos or Bartholomew… True Orthodoxy needs a divorce from these flakes
George,
There’s grace and there’s grace. Few would say the grace of the mysteries has already left any of the “canonical” local churches. But how filled are some of their clergy by the Holy Spirit? There seems to be a deficit in places. But I am no one to say for certain. I rather keep to what is and what is not sound doctrine.
No, George,?
no need of forgiveness, many are saying this of church right now; and with no Leader at the helm — forget it
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1886/12/the-dream-of-russia/522855/
The question is, why do the Greeks grovel before heretics and heathens instead of conspiring with their fellow Orthodox to take back what is theirs?
We get close, but inevitably there is always some turncoat that takes the thirty pieces of silver, the mess of pottage.
To Alex, George, Johann:
Many times over the centuries Russia has accepted arrangements that fell far short of helping the beleaguered Greeks and Armenians. Thus, it was a pattern that began long before the recent questionable actions of some ethnic Greek ecclesiastics. Moreover, I do not wish disaster upon Greece over this and Turkey is indeed a clear and present danger to Greece.
I don’t disagree at all John. Leaving aside the past, shouldn’t the Greek govt have thought about this before they forced this decision upon the ichurch?
What good did it do the Greek nation to do Bart’s bidding now that Erdogan is making Islamic noises about Hagia Sophia?
The Greek govt has wasted it’s own withering hand, has it not?
If this event truly happens without repentance and reconciliation with the Serbian Church, then all hell will break loose! (Would the EPC really be that foolish to anger the rest of the Orthodox world?!) https://orthochristian.com/131955.html
Why in the WORLD is this guy still the EP? He’s an agent for the globalists, and we’re no better than Catholics turning a blind eye to Pope Francis pretending he’ll just go away, and actions and words don’t matter.
“Why in the WORLD is this guy still the EP?”
Why are we still pretending that Istanbul is Constantinople? It feels like it should’ve been disbanded, or relocated to within Greece, a hundred years ago, at least.
Because they’re lemmings falling off a cliff ?
they choose to flock like pigeons — instead of joining eagles ?
“In the Saker articles”
The Saker has a huge blind spot towards Islam in general. It uses terms like “Islamophobia” unironically, as if hadn’t taken two Chechen wars (about 12 years) and ten years of Putin to get the Muslims grudgingly in line, until the next time they suspect weakness or sense an opportunity.
It’s bizarre. There’s a lot of guys on the dissident right (broadly speaking) that turn a blind eye to Islam. How can they ignore the fact that the Globalist-Zionist cabal is using waves of Muslim ‘refugees’ as their ground troops in the assault on Europe?
Alito’s dissent:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2020/06/15/alito-courts-preposterous-trans-ruling-threatens-religion-speech-privacy-and-safety-n532217
The supreme court knew that these things would happen. They thought it more important to pad their resumes (egos) with a reputation for ‘maintaining the letter of the law’ by interpreting title vii so strictly. Gorsuch said last August that he would rule this way and that he is aware that his ruling will cause “massive civil unrest.” He did it anyway.
Think of the thousands of children in America undergoing sexual and genital experimentation. Think of how America celebrates the public victims of this sexual interest in children (Jazz Jennings, Desmond, etc.). Things are about to get much, much worse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s8_zUyESlE
Turkey drew up plans to invade Greece and Armenia: It is believed that the plans were prepared as a contingency regarding developments in Syria, to maintain offensive and deterrence capabilities on the Western front while moving troops.
See: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/turkish-plan-to-invade-greece-leaked-in-secret-reveal-report-631641