The Long Cold Civil War –Part I

civil-war-550x381

INTRODUCTION

Recent comments on this blog ventured into describing the American character, versus the Russian character. Though not an expert on the Russian character, I feel emboldened to comment on the American one. What follows is an overly-long—but hopefully not boring—essay on the ingrained nature of the American polity.

I will attempt to show why the centralized nationalism of the past seventy years is doomed to failure, no matter who is president. The reasons are two-fold in my opinion. First there is the fact that the Federal government is a creature of the many States. Second, there is something intrinsically different about the different American “characters” that make amalgamation unworkable. We will consider the second aspect first.

THE LONG, COLD CIVIL WAR: ENGLAND’S DIVISIONS IN THE NEW WORLD

The title for this essay comes from John Derbyshire, British immigrant, mathematician, essayist, erudite cultural observer, and Sinophile.

One of of his observations about America was the cultural divide that exists within the white majority. He named it “the Long, Cold, Civil War.” This was in order to distinguish it from the actual War Between the States. Unlike that actual war, the Long, Cold, Civil War has existed from the inception of the Republic until today.

According to Derbyshire, the cultural divisions that accrued in America were due to variations in ethnicity from the Old Country. We know of course the obvious differences when we consider the North American continent its entirety and recognize the divisions that exist because of French, Spanish and Dutch colonization. You don’t have to be an ethnographer to see the differences between the French culture of Louisiana with its parishes, the Castillian ethnicity of New Mexico’s ruling class, or the Scots-Irish clannishness that epitomizes Appalachia. The most famous of course is the Brahmin demography of New England, probably the most influential “ethnicity” (for want of a better word) in these United States.

Being a foreigner, Derb (as he is affectionately known) acknowledges these differences within the native American stock, not just between Anglo-Saxons and French, for example. These differences have profound socio-cultural implications today, hence the Red-state/Blue-state divide.

How did they arise? The reasons are because of patterns of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Celtic migration during the initial settling of the American colonies; patterns that were necessitated in a way by ethno-cultural differences rooted in Great Britain itself. (If you’re interested in reading more about it, I recommend David Hackett Fisher’s Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America and James Webb’s Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America.)

The thumbnail sketch is that the original thirteen colonies were settled by four different ethno-cultural groups from Great Britain: East Anglia (the remnants of the Danelaw), the Cavalier culture of the South of England (which was somewhat more Norman), the Northern Midlands, and the Borderlands (essentially the Scots-Irish from the Ulster Plantation with a heavy admixture of Northumbrians). All were Anglo-Saxon in origin but as noted, each had significant admixtures from foreign invaders. Religious strife played a role but it was mostly intramural Protestant sectarianism, not the traditional Catholic-Protestant divide that had done much to decimate the Catholic Highland culture of Scotland and laid waste to the Catholic culture of Ireland.

PURITANISM: CALVINISM ON STEROIDS

The Easterners (also known as Puritans) settled in what they called New England. Their ideal figures were the Adamses of Massachusetts and Ben Franklin. They were the most industrious and educated of the Colonists. The Cavaliers transplanted their erstwhile, easy-going aristocratic culture in Virginia. Think of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. The Scots-Irish/Northumbrians were left with Appalachia. A hardscrabble bunch, they had been imbued with a predisposition to immediate violence thanks to their incessant fighting with the native Irish back in Northern Ireland and then the Indians of the frontier. Their exemplars include Andrew Jackson, Daniel Boone and Sam Houston. Those from the Northern Midlands settled in Delaware.

Religiously, the New Englanders were the least orthodox of these settlers and the most receptive to Unitarianism. In truth, the Puritans had long before embraced iconoclasm and heterodoxy and had given fits to the Stuart dynasty. Their hero was Oliver Cromwell who led a bloody revolution against Charles I and subsequently ruined England with his policies. In time, they gradually and quietly gave up Trinitarian orthodoxy and embraced Enlightenment ideals as well as Freemasonry, which they viewed as a bulwark against Catholicism. Many of them embraced fanciful notions that they were descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel and were thus predisposed to actual Jewish immigration to England (which Cromwell initiated) and thus mercantile pursuits. New England proved fertile soil for their heretical belief system. In time actual Arian, Judeo-influenced religions based on racial origin such as Mormonism would arise out of this demographic.

Unfortunately for us (and the rest of the world), the descendants of the Puritans did not replace a Christian—albeit attenuated—dogmatism with Whig tolerance. In fact, quite the opposite. It should be remembered from the outset, that despite its propensity for education, New England was the most religiously intolerant of all the American colonies, as Roger Whitaker and others could attest. With the attenuation of Puritan theology, their impulse was replaced by a militant Universalism, a toxic doctrine that soon took over the American body politic—with disastrous consequences.

Just how militant are we talking about? Militant enough that in examining the causes of the War Between the States, we can spot an exterminationist—one could almost say, genocidal—mindset that imbued many in the Northeast.

SLAVERY: AMERICA’S ORIGINAL SIN

Many of us today forget that slavery was not a phenomenon that was peculiar to the South alone. All thirteen colonies had slaves at one time or another. Most British immigrants themselves came over as indentured servants on voyages that were only marginally better than those that brought over black Africans. One of the first slave-owners was himself a black man, named John Anthony, who sued a white man named Richard Parker (who took his slave from him) back in 1654. Brazil had three million slaves, Mexico tens of thousands. The British had close to a million in the West Indies. France still had slavery on the books. Yet Britain, Portugal, Mexico, and France all freed their slaves with the stroke of a pen.

So why didn’t America do the same? Because in 1804, Toussaint L’Overture, a black rebel in Haiti and self-styled Napoleon, led an armed rebellion which massacred five thousand French civilians—men, women and children—in Santo Domingo (Haiti). This horrified the United States, Southerners especially, and more than anything else, put the brakes on any peaceful resolution to this problem. The dread fear of African rebellion intensified over the decades when it became apparent that the newly-freed Haiti quickly degenerated into a hellhole of poverty, ignorance and cruelty from which it has still to recover. Further rebellions closer to home, such as Nat Turner’s in 1831, only steeled the resolve of most Southerners, especially when it was proved from Turner’s own testimony that he had been well-treated by his master.

The lingering effects of L’Overture’s rebellion left a lasting impression on those states that had significant African slave populations. This cannot be overstated. Violent, apocalyptic Abolitionist rhetoric was not lost on Southerners, the vast majority of whom did not own slaves. Worse, it was widely believed that many in the North not only advocated violence against the South but had actually planned for it.

Exhibit A was the religious fanatic John Brown, who murdered innocent civilians at the Pottowatamie River in Kansas, a territory in which the Free Soil/Slave Soil debate was most intense. Brown murdered five men in cold blood in front of their wives and children and then ordered his sons to hack their bodies to pieces with broadswords(!). The irony that his victims owned no slaves themselves was lost on Brown and his sympathizers. Brown knew this but didn’t care. His intentions were to start a race war in America and he had the plans, the military intelligence, and the resources to do so. All he lacked was the manpower. For this he looked to the slave population of the South.

This atrocity stunned the nation. Fortunately, he was brought to heel by Col Robert E. Lee and the United States Marine Corps. At his trial, his plans to take the Federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, and distribute 100,000 rifles to black slaves horrified all in the South (and not a few in the Midwest). His military intelligence was staggering: In his luggage were discovered carefully detailed maps of counties throughout the South in which the African population outnumbered the whites.

This was significant and alarmed many. But did he have the resources to pull off this audacious plan? The answer is yes. In addition to these maps Lee had found letters among Brown’s effects that were written by six very wealthy Northeastern businessmen. They had not only given him the rifles which he used to commit his atrocities but the promise of more money should he succeed in fomenting a slave rebellion. These men wanted nothing less than another Haitian-type of bloodletting writ large, with the South in tatters.

Brown—clearly a madman—did not operate in a vacuum. Nor was not alone in his hatreds. For example, Governor John Albion Andrew of Massachusetts earlier declared that the South had to be conquered, “though it cost a million lives.” Others stated that “without the emission of blood,there is no forgiveness for [the sin of slavery]. After Brown was hanged, Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote that he was “the equal of Jesus Christ.” One of Emerson’s friends had said that compared to Brown, Christ was “a dead failure.” (Blasphemies aside, all of these quotes are from Thomas Fleming’s A Disease of the Public Mind: A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War.)

Outrageous statements such as these did not abate and only fueled the flames further until the actual effusion of blood became unavoidable. Blasphemous idolatry of Brown animated Federal troops as they were mowed down by Rebel fire and justified their war-crimes later as Sherman conducted his rampage throughout the South. “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” was originally a paean to Brown and viewed him as a Christ-figure.

So how did the Puritan temperament play into this? There were many reasons, not the least of which was the overweening disdain of New Englanders for the South in general. With the defeat of John Adams (a Northerner) by Thomas Jefferson (a Southerner) in 1800, the latter had imposed an embargo on foreign goods. This was an economic disaster for the North and only generated more hatred for Jefferson and the Southern aristocracy. When Madison succeeded Jefferson and prosecuted a war against Great Britain, many in the North called for secession. That Jefferson, Madison and Monroe (the fifth president) continued to hold slaves only exacerbated their contempt for the South.

To the South’s discredit, the idea that Southern presidents and economic interests were behind the expansionist designs behind Manifest Destiny, only solidified hatred in the North for the South and its “peculiar institution.” The idea being that Manifest Destiny was simply a ruse to create more slave-holding Territories and States in order to redress the electoral imbalance between the North and the South.

In no time at all, the Abolitionist creed was born and it became unremitting in its mission. So tenacious in fact, that it could not countenance a peaceful resolution to the slavery issue, even when moderates like Abraham Lincoln proposed them.

ABOLTIONIST ABSOLUTISM AND ROBERT E. LEE

The most reasonable measure would have been compensating slave owners and then repatriate the freed blacks to Africa and/or the Caribbean. England did this in 1807 and there were no repercussions. Other schemes involved settling blacks in mostly unpopulated Western Territories (Oklahoma being the most choice location). The Abolitionists unfortunately would have none of it. They wanted nothing less than the submission of the South and its utter destruction.

This hatred was a disaster of the first order in that it proved the turning point in Lee’s decision to refuse Lincoln’s offer to command the Federal forces.

We forget that with Lincoln’s election, only seven states had decided to secede from the Union. Lee’s Virginia had at that point chosen not to do so. Lee’s devotion to the Union was so great that before Lincoln’s offer, he had decisively refused an offer to lead the rebellion. This was significant in that his initial refusal had momentarily stalled Virginia from seceding, so great was his stature.

Like the other Southern States, Virginia had summoned a convention to decide what to do. Many of the delegates stated that their decision was contingent on what Lee would do. Lincoln as noted, had offered the supreme command to Lee; so great was Lee’s reputation that General Winfield Scott said that the Virginian was “worth 50,000 men.”

So why did Lee refuse Lincoln’s offer despite his own misgivings about slavery secession? Lee had, after all, emancipated his own slave six years earlier. In Fleming’s words, it was the most agonizing decision of his life. The reason was the incessant campaign of slander and insult against the South, the very hatred the Anglo-Celtic culture by many in the North. The contempt of the capitalist/industrialist for the agrarian way of life played a role as well. Nor should we ignore the economic competition between the free-trade South and the tariff-financed North. When coupled with the apocalyptic ravings of Abolitionists, it was clear that many in the North were itching for a quasi-religious war. At least it appeared that way to many in the South.

Lee’s discovery of Brown’s genocidal plans, and the knowledge that the latter had immensely wealthy industrialists backing him in his meticulously planned (but aborted) murderous rampage across the South, “ravaged his loyalty to the Union.” Fleming goes on to write: “He [could] not see how he could command an army full of men who hated southerners. After two more tormented days and nights, Colonel Lee resigned from the US Army. Virginia…seceded and he became commander of her forces.”

The rest of course, is history.

Hostilities ended at Appomattox Courthouse, when an erect Lee turned his sword over to Ulysses S. Grant, General-in-Chief of the Union Army. Unlike the Abolitionists, Grant had no hatred for the South, nor did Lincoln for that matter. (Upon hearing that the South had surrendered, Lincoln ordered a military band to play “Dixie.”) The tragedy is that Lincoln did not live to oversee the reinstatement of the South under reasonable terms. Because of his untimely assassination, the Radical Republicans, whose hatred of the South was unremitting, took over Reconstruction and unleashed a wave of terror upon the Confederacy that only solidified Southern resolve.

CONSEQUENCES: THE STATES REASSERT THEMSELVES

We are living with the consequences of that bloody epoch to be sure. But it also gives us insights into the American character. Despite misrule by the Radical Republicans for ten years, the states regressed to their mean. The best efforts at nationalizing the states under a centralized government failed abysmally. The South for its part was able to extract a major concession from the Federal government in the election of 1876 when four States promised to give their Electoral votes to the Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes in return for the removal of Federal troops from the South.

Despite the best efforts of the Radical Republicans to permanently subjugate the South they failed. Still, bad ideas die hard. Later, the Progressives (ca 1890-1920) set out to create a centralized European type nation-state on this continent. Ironically, two of their greatest proponents—Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson—only made things worse for that cause, for reasons too complicated to go into here. Franklin Delano Roosevelt would have greater success, mainly because of the Great Depression and the Second World War, but also gave up something significant to the Southern allies he needed in order to get (and stay) elected: the entrenchment of segregation in the South.

Today of course, the centralized government apparatus has the engine of the Federal Reserve System in place as well as Social Security and the various accoutrements of nationalized welfare. In many ways the various States appear to be mere appendages of Washington, DC. Still, the DNA of these States cannot be quashed. All of them are reasserting themselves in ways which does not bode well for the continued existence of the present unitary continental state.

Examples include so-called Sanctuary Cities, state militias, the Minute Men and sovereignty laws. Much of this has been exacerbated by the demographic pressures of illegal immigration, white flight and the erosion of the white working class.

Like water finding its own level, the continuing crises that plague us are finding natural outlets for redress in the various States. This is all to the good and can result in a peaceful resolution for many of our problems.

The question before us is simple in a way: Will the centralized government allow this natural process to continue, or will they behave as the Radical Republicans did in the aftermath of the War Between the States?

Time will tell.

NEXT: PART II: THE EROSION OF MIDDLE AMERICA

Comments

  1. Carl Kraeff says

    A very interesting essay and I hope a brilliant start of a proposal to address the political, religious and indeed civilizational chasm that now exists in the USA. I hope it will culminate in a call for a Convention of States under Article V.

  2. Very well said.

  3. Very well done, George!!!

  4. A Non-mouse says

    This. This is fantastic!!! Bravo!

  5. The experts said Trump’s campaign was “doomed to failure” as well. Better to leave off soothsaying.

  6. Tim R. Mortiss says

    Well, at 68, I’ll be putting in for my Social Security pretty soon.

    Some of these things have more impact if you’re from Old Virginny…

    I’m the son and grandson of immigrants…but my wife (both of whose maternal grandparents were born in Croatia) says that British Columbia doesn’t count!

    My forebears were Presbyterians though, so you’re right: we fight at the drop of a hat! (I hasten to add that I was a Presby for only 65 years…..)

  7. Very well written and I’m anxious to read part 2. That said my only criticism would be that to draw such a contrast between Brown, who lead a failed rebellion for a moral cause that would have resulted in massive casualties, as a mad man, and Robert E. Lee who lead a failed rebellion for an idealistic cause that actually did result in massive casualties, as a hero, requires much more explanation.

    • I think the biggest difference lies in that Brown was an instigator, motivated to violence by twisted religious fanaticism, while Lee was a rational person providing ordered leadership to protect his neighbors once conflict was eminent.

      • That seems to just be a narrative. If you were a black slave wouldn’t Brown seem heroic as a white man willing to risk all to free you. How is succession a right worth fighting for, yet freeing slaves not?

        Are we not morally outraged when ISIS enslaves Christians in the middle east? How outraged must Brown have been to see Americans enslaving Christians? That doesn’t seem irrational to me.

        • George Michalopulos says

          Kelly, you have hit the nail on the head –i.e. “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom-fighter.” If I were a black slave I would indeed have lauded John Brown for his actions and intentions. Leaving aside the fact that his atrocities only steeled the resolve of the average Southerner, the fact remains that they made a peaceful resolution of the bondage issue impossible. From thence followed the horrors of Reconstruction and then Jim Crow.

          My thesis is that the Northern abolitionist-industrial complex had no intention of settling the issue of slavery peacefully. Their apocalyptic mindset made it impossible to think in terms of buying slaves outright from their masters, settling them peacefully in the Midwest/Plains states (the old “forty acres and a mule” gambit) and/or repatriating them to the Caribbean and/or Africa (the “colonization project” which Lincoln advocated).

          Of course some would say that the Southern slaveholders as a class would not accept compensation for their slaves but that’s a crock. A lot would have, especially the vast majority of those who had fewer than five or six slaves. The Federal government had it within its power to sow division within the Southern aristocracy by using this gambit but it chose not to, probably for moralistic reasons.

        • I think the only narrative is that Brown was anything other than a sociopath. The same sort of twisted fanatic who shoots up abortion clinics. The first casualty of the raid was a free black man murdered in cold blood by Browns party. As for Lee “Fighting for Secession”, I’d say he was fighting for regional self determination. Remember, Virginia had already been trying to get rid of slavery’s curse for years, the institution no longer even profitable in the depleted farmland. Nat Turner delayed manumission by a generation, and Brown by another.

  8. George, I see that you, like me, are a real sicker for a long lost cause…

  9. Peter Millman says

    Robert E. Lee said he refused Lincoln’s offer because he could not raise his sword against his native Virginia. The South had a right to secede from the Union, and in fact became a separate country; a nation cannot blockade itself.
    Lincoln was a tyrant and a dictator, the only President to ever suspend habeas corpus, and shut down newspapers. Six hundred thousand Americans died under Abraham Lincoln. It’s mere speculation to say what Lincoln would have done in his second term. The War between the States plunged the American South into one hundred years of darkness. Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency was an unmitigated disaster. The war was not fought to end slavery, and the Emancipation Proclamation was a cynical ploy to prevent Great Britain and France from recognizing the Confederacy. Let’s remember the Emancipation Proclamation freed no one.

    • Those who loudly demand “reparations” for their suffering as slaves fail to recognize that thousands of white Union soldiers already paid their reparations — with blood on the battlefield.

  10. Tim R. Mortiss says

    “The South had a right to secede from the Union”. That settles that, then.

  11. Fr. Hans Jacobse says

    I will never hear “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” in the same way again. Seriously.

  12. Martin Pryor says

    An excellent article, God Save The South!

  13. Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

    How did George manage to leave out the Germans in his attempt at a survey of our early national culture? After all, German was such an important rival of English that it came within a hair’s breadth of being our official language! Read up on your history of Pennsylvania and such leading lights as Pastor Muhlenberg. Don’t forget not only Von Steuben in the Revolution, but Carl Schurz the German that learned enough English to pass the Bar by reading newspapers, and became a leading Diplomat in ABRAHAM LINCOLN’s administration. Google him or look him up on Wikipedia! How could a TEXAN overlook this weighty German influence on our society?
    [From Wikipedia] “Carl Christian Schurz (German: [ˈkaʁl ˈʃʊʁts]; March 2, 1829 – May 14, 1906) was a German revolutionary, American statesman and reformer, U.S. Minister to Spain, Union Army General in the American Civil War, U.S. Senator, and Secretary of the Interior. He was also an accomplished journalist, newspaper editor and orator, who in 1869 became the first German-born American elected to the United States Senate.[1]

    • George Michalopulos says

      Your Grace, the Germans are perhaps the largest ethnicity in these United States. However my task was to educate on the most influential ethnicity (the British) and the subdivisions within that group. I simply wanted to comment on the dominant American cultural expression, which is the Northeastern, Yankee one and how its universalist credo drove the engine of the American Empire over and above all others.

      In truth, had the Germanic (and by this I include the Scandinavians) ethos had prevailed, the Great War would not have taken place. This is surely ironic to believe that the Germans were more pacific as opposed to the Northeastern aristocracy which agitated for war against Spain and then Germany, but there you have it.

      • Tim R. Mortiss says

        Don’t forget Hans Breitman. Funf hunnert rebels couldn’t holt him down!

      • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

        Mr George Michalopulos, Please enlighten us on this “German ethos” which you opined might have obviated WW I! My great grandfather, Friedrich Kaeding, was a Lutheran pastor from Fredersdorf, near Berlin, who immigrated with Bishop Stefan and Pastor Johann Walther up the Mississippi to St Louis Missouri where the same Walther founded the Missouri Synod (after Bishop Stefan absconded with someone else’s wife). My great grandfather went on to pastor the German Church in Perrysburg, Ohio. I learned my bedtime prayers and grace before meals in German. I also matriculated two years at Saint Olaf Lutheran College, I majored in German, I, George, have never ever heard of a German ethos.
        I am tempted to think you omitted mention of German influence on the formation of our “American Empire” because it doesn’t support your MUSINGS on the topic!

        • George Michalopulos says

          Your Grace, I think you misunderstood me. I clearly wrote that the Germanic ethos as it existed in America was a pacific one, not a militaristic one (or words to that effect). If anything, I applauded it and wished that it had prevailed over the militarism of the Anglo-Saxon Progressives who salivated at the prospect of sending American Doughboys to fight in the trenches of Europe in the Great War.

          The problem is that this irenic ethos has never succeeded in becoming the majority ethos of the America polity. The militant, apocalyptic abolitionism of the mid-nineteenth century gave way to the reformist, progressive militarism of the Progressives who wanted to kill foreigners in the name of the Founding Fathers. Today, this same militancy manifests itself in a weird amalgam of ZioChristian heresy wedded to Wilsonian “end-of-history” triumphalism which mandates that we try to remake Moslem nations in our image.

          • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

            I appeal to Michael Stankovich! Michael! Read George’s 2nd paragraph above, beginning with “this irenic ethos…” It seems to be very much in the style of M. Warren, no?

            • M. Stankovich says

              Well, Vladyka, the first question I asked myself was prompted by an old cartoon in the New Yorker, depicting a grumpy old king asking himself, “Who the hell do I I think I am anyway?” Secondly, if I may assume the calm, object demeanor of the Ethicist of the NY Times, allow me to verbalize the dilemma posed by Leon Russell (who saw that coming?): offend the hand kissed to reverence the office declared by our Father Chrysostom as “greater than the angels,” or offend the gracious and (generally) tolerant host of this shindig. What to do, what to do? Before I, at least, venture further, Vladyka, several concepts that may help clarify the matter.

              1) You probably have seen me refer to “jingoism,” and it is significant to this dilemma. It is an evolved 17th century word, according to the OED, that later came to be associated with political movements said to be summed up in the modern expression, “My country, right or wrong, my country.” Whatever… For our purposes, “jingos” [not, however, to be confused with the “Jingo” of Carlos Santana, with special guest, Eric Clapton] have also come to mean expressions peculiar to “edgier” politics, e.g. the “Birthers,” who claim President Obama is impeded constitutionally from being president because he was not born in the US, a constitutional requirement. The use of such “jingoisms” are a point of philosophical, but more importantly, social “adhesion,” unity & control. Blah, blah, blah, you know the routine.

              2) Perseveration, as defined in Kaplan & Sadock’s, Synopsis of Psychiatry: Behavioral Sciences/Clinical Psychiatry, 11th Edition. (2015), as (1) Pathological repetition of the same response to “different stimuli, as in a repetition of the same verbal response to different questions. (2) Persistent repetition of specific words or concepts in the process of speaking. Also related is Verbigeration or “meaningless and stereotyped repetition of words or phrases.”

              So there you have some tools, Vladyka, I believe, useful for you to continue to evaluate the situation for yourself. I will say this quite emphatically: I would not wish the task of moderating continuously limit-testing individuals such as myself, soothing egos, and occasionally saving participants from themselves. While I do not necessarily agree with Mr. Michalopulos, I do respect him & admire what he accomplished here.

              • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

                Well, I’ve always loved Leon Russell, so I’ll leave it at that. I only asked for a yes or no.!

  14. M. Stankovich says

    Mr. Michalopulos,

    I do not feel knowledgeable enough to contribute to this discussion, so I have only been “lurking.” But since you and I are around the same age, I have been meaning to ask if you shared the elementary school music class experience of singing, “John Brown’s body is a (I recall “molding,” but other Northeastern Yankees recall, “moldering”) in his grave…” set to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic and having many verses, none of which I recall. Was it intended to be sarcastic, supportive, eulogy? If anyone shared in the experience, I would like to know.

  15. Tim R. Mortiss says

    “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” was sung at my grandmother’s funeral in 1994 at her express and longstanding request. She was 96 at her death.

    She was born in Kentucky in 1898, and grew to adulthood there. She had family members who had fought on opposite sides in the Civil War. She was entirely free of Confederate sympathies, but considered herself a Southerner.

    On the ethnic “issue”, which looms so large in George’s thinking, she was German; her family was of that long-standing colonial German stock that Bp. Tikhon talks about.

  16. Peter A. Papoutsis says

    This is the new Hereti..er…Opinion statement that was issued by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America to the United Nations on the so-called “Sustainable Development” and the “Self-Determination” and “Gender Equality” of Women at the United Nations under their 2030 Sustainable Development policy:

    The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and the Salesians of Don Bosco’s Statement to the United Nations 60th Commission on the Status of Women officially accepted

    This, as was stated to me by a priest I highly and Deeply Respect, is nothing more than a thinly veiled support for Abortion. The more I read this document the more I am convinced that that is the case and the GOAA has now officially endorsed a “Pro-Abortion” policy via the U.N.’s “Sustainable Development” (i.e. Population Control). This is hidden behind all the nice and highly-laudable language of protecting women and girls, eliminating sexism, etc., but once you get to the recommendations a very different plan is revealed.

    I hope I am wrong on this because if I am not this is so huge that it could drive people out of the GOAA once they understand what the GOAA just did. IF the GOAA has just endorsed Abortion and other forms of impermissible contraception then it is time to call out the GOAA on this and demand an explanation. If this turns out to be what I think it is then it is nothing short of heresy. I hope I am wrong.

    Please look at this document and let me know your thoughts.

    Peter A. Papoutsis

    • George Michalopulos says

      Oh dear…

    • It does read like it could have been written by ECUSA. I’m curious as to how long the rest of Orthodoxy will allow GOARCH, etc. to skirt the edge with impunity. Surely the rest of Orthodoxy understands the effect this has. It even praises reduced fertility. Lord, have mercy!

  17. Michael Kinsey says

    The North won the Civil War, but the South won Reconstruction. The illness of mind which drove beasters( to live for bread alone, ignore the Word of God, except whenever it appears convenient for self serving: still moves in the hearts of most Americans. Our history of genocide of the Indians, and our own children, and all the manufactured wars we won in between is a story of deceit prospering. Human rights are derived from the human spirit, not any arbitrary aspect of bodily existence. The Way of Peace, the Vision, gien by the Lord Jesus Christ, so the people do not perish, is His Responses to the the temptations of the Devil. Obey as He did, and spiritual life will remain in the spiritual relationships of man to man, God to man, and man’s spiritual nature to his physical nature. THIS IS THE WAY OF PEACE, as the Messiah, showed us , He is the Prince of Peace. Amen

  18. Pat had another good one. This time about the pow-wow in Georgia to stop Trump. It is interesting that he compares AEI’s actions here to NGO actions in “Color Revolutions” abroad. Hope some of this is getting through to the faithful.


    link

    • Peter A. Papoutsis says

      Well I guess we do not live in a Democracy! If the oligarchy get’s threatened they remind us poor plebs that THEY are in charge of the rules and THEY can change the rules to fit their needs:

      Voter’s don’t pick our nominee, we do!

      I guess Mark Twain was right: “If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.”

      Guess what they are NOT letting us do it. Wow!

      Peter

      • Michael Bauman says

        Peter, we have never lived in a democracy and we never will under the Constitution. The government of this country was set up as a constitutional republic which means ala Burke that we choose representatives we know based on character and the ability to make decisions and then let them do it.

        If we don’t like what they decide, we don’t re-elect them. That is what keeps it from becoming a oligarchy. We have lost much of the context that allows us to make knowledgeable choices about those who represent us. The rise of the professional politician and the cost of running a campaign was the demise of genuine representative government. The success of such a form of government depends on a lot of factors which we no longer have some of which include an engaged, knowledgeable electorate that is relatively homogeneous.

        We have apathy, ignorance and a heterogeneous polity–that always leads to the demagogy and populism we see so much of today.

        Populists do not rule in a participatory way no matter what their ideological base.

        Whatever else Trump may be, he is clearly a populist in style, not unlike Obama, IMO, just a different ideological foundation.

        • Peter A. Papoutsis says

          Michael, I think you are missing the point, when I say democracy I do mean a constitutional Republic. We do not have that. We do have an oligarchy. That’s what this election is proving, and it’s getting worse every single day. The mask is coming off. The question is will the American people do anything at the poles to affect real change?

          • Michael Bauman says

            We do have an oligarchy. It is long past the time that any actions within the system will affect positive change. Something that seriously disrupts the normal decision making of the power brokers.

            I personally don’t think, for instance, the Republicrats denying Trump the nomination would be enough. Something similar would have to happen on the demo side such as Hillary being indicted and still getting the nomination.

            State governments may have some role in simply saying no to the Feds.

            • Peter A. Papoutsis says

              I agree with you, but the best part about this is the unabashed truth of it all. The spin is gone and the oligarchs are just showing themselves, and plainly and clearly saying “we rule not you.”

              Trump is not the Answer, the American people are the answer. Now that we have woken up, what are we going to do about it?

              I just don’t know.

              Peter

  19. Michael Kinsey says

    This seems an on topic addition. The 3 spirits like frogs, that come out of the beast, the false prophet and the dragon, are becoming fully formed. The coalesces of 3 spheres of power, all in opposition to each other, is firmly established. These are gathered together to take part in Armageddon . The Event, with it’s banking and alien deception, might well be the winner, who vanquishes the beast and the false prophet. The beast is the Western corrupt system, and the false prophet, is the Islamic world conquest claim.This would indicate the antichrist will set up his mark in the Event system, which the whole world is forced to submit to. Alien life religion is full antichrist and may well claim to be God. The beast, false prophet and dragon are fully deceptions.But, the world they create will be destroyed by fire. A flood basalt eruption would raise earth temperature 5 degrees, which would melt the vast methane deposits in the oceans, which would release overwhelming quantities of carbon 12. This is the mother of all green house gases, killing all life in the sea, and all life on earth as it did in the Permian extinction, before the dinosaurs. The methane would raise the earth temperature another 5 degrees. Everything dies. But, the Christ has said, not so, for the sake of His Elect.

  20. Peter A. Papoutsis says

    It would seem that the American College of Pediatricians is not buying the “Transgender Propaganda” of our overly sick and confused society.

    American College of Pediatricians

    Now if the American Psychiatric Association had the guts to do and say what they really feel about Homosexuality we could start the long road back to normalcy. Unfortunately, the intimidation and the lack of properly studied and approved Sexual Orientation Change Efforts will not lead to this any time soon. However, the APA did state this in their 2013 position paper titled: “Position Statement on Issues Related to Homosexuality” (2013) in which they denounced SOCE:

    “The American Psychiatric Association believes
    that the causes of sexual orientation (whether homosexual
    or heterosexual) are not known at this time and likely are
    multi-factorial including biological and behavioral roots
    which may vary between different individuals and may
    even vary over time
    . (You mean change!?)

    People, even scientists & therapists, know the truth, but are too scared or too politically and/or emotionally invested or correct at this point to change. As for us Orthodox Christians we fight and preach on:

    Victimized by Born Gay Lie

    Have a Great Lent everybody.

    Peter A. Papoutsis

    • M. Stankovich says

      Peter,

      Just to clarify, the American College of Pediatricians is not to be confused with the American Academy of Pediatrics which is the legitimate professional organization responsible for Board Certification of Pediatricians in the US. The American College of Pediatricians is a politico-religious body of pediatricians of the Christian Right, who affiliate themselves with James Dobson’s Focus on the Family and The National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality. (NARTH). I have consistently referred to them as charlatans & creeps media manipulators, purveyors of junk science, and engaged in unethical treatment processes. I stand behind my commentary. As to your second observation, there is no question that the final decision to remove homosexuality from the DSM was a brokered decision, nevertheless, the process to reach that point was not “bought & sold” by Gay, Inc. as many suggest. Not to belabour the point, but the issue is totally insignificant & moot in the brave new world of biogenetic medical psychiatry. As near as I can tell, nobody cares; the most likely reason being you cannot bill for its treatment.

      • Peter A. Papoutsis says

        I totally confused the two.

        As to the Gay inc part I will agree that there were and continue to be sympathizers (Pro Gay people) that worked with Gay, Inc. led to that decision. However, from an Orthodox point of view as the Gospel as our standard it really does not matter as the Gospel still offers freedom from this passion if people so choose to be freed from it by the Power of Jesus Christ.

        On a somewhat related note I have had a total of two people is the last two days inquire about Orthodoxy through me. One Catholic and one Lutheran. Love the work of the Holy Spirit.

      • “…the most likely reason being you cannot bill for its treatment.”

        Having worked in the medical field for over 35 years, I can vouch for this beyond any question. This is not to say all doctors, or even most, are greedy; but the investments and even protocols of health systems always mirror the ever-changing levels of reimbursement allowed by Medicare/Medicaid and private insurance payers. When tests/procedures pay well they suddenly become necessary for patient care. When they do not pay well they suddenly become unnecessary.

  21. Peter A. Papoutsis says

    While we are on the subject of the American Psychiatric Association not all were on board with changing the designation of Homosexuality out of the “Mental Illness” category:

    Homosexuality: The Mental Illness That Went Away

    Something tells me that with the current climate of frustration we are experiencing in American Politics that this might spill over into the scientific and psychiatric fields. Who knows? Only God knows, and I hope people start listing to Him again.

    Have a wonderful Lent!

    Peter A. Papoutsis

  22. Peter A. Papoutsis says

    Called it!

    Pope Emeritus Benedict Warns of Deep Crisis in the Church.

    This is why I wrote my essay some time ago. Basically the Benedict is criticizing and calling Pope Francis’ Universalist view heretical without calling Pope Francis a heretic. Wake up Orthodox, especially the GOAA and OCA, and drop the “Duel Covenant” Salvation Heresy as well as the Pan-Heresy of Ecumenism. It basically takes one Pope to criticize another Pope and take him to task. It’s about time.

    Peter

    • George Michalopulos says

      Indeed you did Peter!

      BTW, there’s this idea that’s been brewing in my head for the last year or so, that I just can’t shake. I know it’s going to sound off-the-wall but here it is:

      Is it possible that Benedict may come out of retirement and declare the election of Francis null and void? Now that it’s been proven that Benedict’s resignation was engineered by a coup, a case could be made for the former’s invalidity.

      I realize of course that this would cause a schism in the Roman church but it’s an interesting thought-experiment. Anyway, I’m just throwing it out there for consumption.

      • Peter A. Papoutsis says

        I have definitely heard this theory talked about. However, just as we have political and cultural elites running our country and the rest of the West, the same set of elites are running both Catholic and Orthodox Hierarchies. The position of both Catholic and Orthodox Hierarchies is so incredibly similar that coincidence and random synchronicity just don’t explain it.

        It looks planned, it feels planned and the very same ideas are used between Rome and Constantinople. I do believe the Global Elite are attempting at all costs to synchronize the two biggest Churches in the world. If this could happen, this “FALSE” union would cause such such a boon for the global elite that their grip of Global control over the rest of us would increase by exponential leaps and bounds. WHEN that happens politically, culturally and religiously THEN the future predicted by George Orwell will have come about.

        “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.” – George Orwell

        BTW this is not me being alarmist, this is just the truth of our present reality.

        Peter A. Papoutsis

      • In answer to a question in another forum, I remarked that from what I have seen recently, it is possible that Constantinople might peel away some part of Rome and join all of the above with Canterbury. It may sound crazy, but all of these players are committed to something they have coined Millennial Development Goals(MGD) and now, most recently since September, 2015, Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The resulting “ecclesiastical entity” would be the spiritual facet of their materialist project.

  23. Peter A. Papoutsis says

    It is amazing what the prospect of losing millions of dollars does to a man’s decision making! Gotta love the GOP Corporate elite/establishment.

    Georgia Governor Said He Will Veto ‘Anti-LGBT’ Bill

    Peter

  24. Peter A. Papoutsis says

    Well it would seem that the wicked Pre-Flood world of Noah (Noe) is coming back with gusto.

    Sacrilege

  25. Peter A. Papoutsis says

    Well, Rome just fell and will never return to any semblance of Christianity. The EP and MP better re-think their rapprochement efforts with Rome at this point and for the EP to re-institute the Anathemas against Rome.

    Pope softens stance on Sex and Marriage.

    Ok Orthodox go back to your in-fighting. Break!

    Peter

    • Peter A. Papoutsis says

      Why do we want to reunite with this?

      Now more than ever we need to hold fast to our Orthodoxy.

      Peter

      • Tim R. Mortiss says

        I found Linker’s article interesting. The concept of “reuniting” with the Roman Catholics has always been unreal; impossible.
        I admire the RC church in many ways and I feel anger and sorrow about this Pope and what he is doing. Any redoubt of Christianity in this wicked modern world, heterodox or not, is very important, especially the RCC, in my opinion, for a lot of reasons not needful to go into here.
        But as a Protestant leaving Protestantism (for me, a long journey), the Catholic “option” was always utterly impossible. There was a Reformation (even though it failed) for a reason: centuries of innovations, encrusting “Catholicism” with centralized power, practices, and doctrines that had nothing to do with the Apostolic Church.
        This fellow Linker joined the wrong church in the first place. People like him (and there are millions) are in an impossible position. In this era, any “reform” short of a return to Orthodoxy will bring it all crashing down.

        • Peter A. Papoutsis says

          I agree the 2nd Reformation needs to be a whole sale return to Orthodoxy. Full stop end of discussion. Anything short of this is complete failure.

          Peter

  26. Gregory Manning says

    Peter,
    I’m surprised Linker wrote this:
    “Stealth reform ultimately achieves the same reformist goal, but without inspiring the intense opposition that would follow from attempting to change the doctrine outright.” He should pay more attention to wider Catholicism. Intense opposition is certainly there.
    Stealth reform (a great term, BTW) certainly gets our attention PDQ. I’d wager stealth reformers within Orthodoxy regret the day so many former Protestants were received into The Church. As a former episcopalian who was present the day those awful “Trial Rite” prayer books appeared in our pews back in the 60’s, I’ve learned to pay very close attention to everything written by Fr. Arida types, and, thankfully, I’m not alone. “Stealth reform”! How appropriate.

    • Peter A. Papoutsis says

      I agree. Stealth reform is what is most probably going to happen in Crete at the Robber Council (yes you head me robber council). Although initially supportive, after seeing the 3 videos on you tube and all the Orthodox criticisms of the council’s proposed documents, with ROCOR’S being the latest and most authoritative for me, we MUST be on the lookout and immediately denounce and renounce stealth or any other reform. The Church does not need teform, and the Church never has needed reform. So why are we having this council? There is no reason for it, and yet there it is just like the RCC’S Synod on the family. RCC did not need that council and yet it did it’s damage. When there is no need for something that should tell you it’s wrong like the Calendar reform. Did not need that. Caused a schism we are still dealing with.

      So let us be sober and always vigilant to keep Satan out of God’s garden THE CHURCH!

      Peter