27 August 2011. Tea Party’s Lustre Fades… GOP Wants to Shift Burden of Taxation to the Middle Class and Poor to Spare the Five Percenters…

Here’s the GOP’s wet dream… they want the VAT model without rebates. That is, the lower your income, the higher the proportion of your income that you pay in taxes! This is Satan’s own economic policy, and we must state it as such and fight all those who attempt to bring such demonic shit into the Church…

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Read this:

http://news.yahoo.com/republicans-really-want-cut-taxes-wealthy-raise-them-195953031.html

Note this:

Still, the results are dramatic. On average, such a levy would raise the share of taxes paid for all but the highest-income households, who would pay far less than they do today. A consumption tax without any rebate to protect low-income people (the red bar in the graph) would be extremely regressive. In other words, the more you make, the lower your tax burden, and the less you make, the higher… a mirror image of today’s moderately progressive tax system.

THIS is why all progressive forces should come together to defeat the rightwingers. All major religious leaders (such as Patriarch Kirill and Pope Benedict) condemn the specifics contained in the GOP programme as evil. We Orthodox have to fight such rightwing sludge as Paffhausen, Dreher, Webster, Potapov, and Mattingly. They’re attempting to bring this demonic imposture into our midst, and we can’t allow that to happen! I’d join forces with an honest atheist before I’d defend a dishonest Christian, and that’s that. I’d stand by a pro-choice person who’s for justice before I’d stand with a “pro-lifer” who wants to stamp their boot-heel maniacally into the faces of the poor. We CAN do something about it…

Read this:

http://news.yahoo.com/tea-party-rage-dies-010800431.html

Note this:

But if Graham’s [US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC)] job depends on winning over the Tea Party entirely, he didn’t act like it. He told the Charleston group that he still wants to work to pass comprehensive immigration reform and defiantly declared that he’s “for clean air and clean water”… a position that hardly seems radical among mainstream voters, but triggers alarm among conservatives who want to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency and dispute the science behind climate change. Graham also told The Daily Beast that Tea Party activists must do more than simply oppose ideas to if they want their movement to last. Graham said, “The question for the Tea Party is, ‘What’s your vision?’ I buy into their vision of limiting the size and scope of government. I’ve been doing that for years. The problem that parties have, Tea Party, Republican Party, Democratic Party, is you can disconnect yourself from the people. The Tea Party has got to convince people that you can find common ground”.

The Tea Party WON’T find any common ground with anyone. Their only goal is to act as a stalking horse for the Five Percenters… and we must work hard to defeat them next year. Their ideology is evil and their programme is nasty… all decent people must fight it, or the lights WILL go out for our generation, at the least.

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Saturday 27 August 2011

Albany NY

27 August 2011. Some Vox Pop on the Sobor Attendance…

One of my regular sources said the following:

The meeting in Seattle is only a few weeks away. If they’d rolled out a new formula for attendance, we’d have heard about it. Therefore, my guess is that most of those who’re eligible to attend the Sobor chose not to go. Granted, times are tough, but for half of the delegates to stay home as compared to ’08, it may well indicate uncertainty about whether a trip to the Pacific Northwest is… well… worth it. Some don’t want to go to a meeting where there’ll be dissension and strife; others don’t care to engage in patently hollow exercises. The only ones who’ll actually go are those who must do so or face unpleasant consequences… or, those who feel that they can, by their presence and voice, make a real difference in the direction of the OCA… that number’s dwindling daily, I’d imagine.

‘Nuff said… and said better than I could say it. Kudos to my friends… God has truly blessed me…

BMD

Archbishop Mark Golovkov of Yegoryevsk Dedicated a Monument to a Past Rector of the Russian Church in Karlovy Vary (Nina Dimas Handled This BADLY on the “Orthodox Forum”)

Izhe Kheruvimy (We, the Cherubim…)

Sergei Bychkov

Undated (2000s?)

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I didn’t have an image of the Karlovy Vary monument, but here’s another work by the same sculptor, who’s a big deal in the Orthodox art world at the Centre. Of course, all Orthodox Christians recognise that the text of the Liturgy inspired the title of the above sculpture…

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At present, Archbishop Mark Golovkov of Yegoryevsk, the head of the MP Directorate for Foreign Institutions, is on an official visit to Slovakia and Czechia. On 23 August, Archbishop Mark met with G I Oskoldovich, the RF Chargé d’Affaires to the Slovak Republic, in which they discussed the life of the Russian community in Slovakia and its spiritual care. Vladyki Mark also visited the Bratislava offices of Rossotrudnichestvo (RF Agency for CIS Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation) and met A V Chumakov, a spokesman of the Russian community in Slovakia. On 24 August, Archbishop Mark inspected the spiritual and cultural centre at the Russian embassy in Prague. Then, he met with Sergei Kiselyov, the RF Ambassador to the Czech Republic. They discussed the activities of the embassy’s chapel and the future of the spiritual and cultural centre. Vladyki Mark also visited the St George chapel at the RF Embassy.

On 25 August, Archbishop Mark visited the MP podvorie (representational parish) in Karlovy Vary. Vladyki Mark’s visit was in conjunction with the dedication of a monument to a past rector, Archpriest Nikolai Ryzhkov (who served during 1901-14), who was caught up in the events of the First World War. The dedication was part of the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the first visit to Karlovy Vary (then, Karlsbad in the Hapsburg Empire) by Tsar Pyotr Veliki. Metropolitan Kryštof Pulec of Praha and all Czechia and Slovakia, and Archbishop Juraj Stránský of Michalovce and Košice attended the festivities, along with Vice-Governor Jaroslav Borka  of Karlovarský Kraj, Mayor Petr Kulhánek of Karlovy Vary {both of whom are anti-Western in orientation, Borka’s a Communist, and Kulhánek belongs to a strictly-local party: editor}, and Sergei Shcherbakov, the RF Consul General in Karlovy Vary. Funds from the Система (Sistema) charitable foundation supported the construction of the monument; the project was on the initiative of V V Kopyev. Moscow sculptor Sergei Bychkov created the memorial ensemble. Archpriest Nikolai Lishchenyuk, the rector of the Karlovy Vary podvorie, and Archpriest Vladimir Abrosimov, the rector of St George chapel at the RF Embassy in Prague, assisted Vladyki Mark during the day’s activities.

26 August 2011

Patriarchia.ru

MP official website

http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/1605396.html

Editor’s Note:

Nina Dimas’ handling of this on the Orthodox Forum was lazy, slipshod, and beyond the pale. I NEVER post machine translations. I’ll run a quick machine translation, then, I put the Russian underneath, and I go through it all line-by-line and word-by-word. After that’s done, I check for grammar and usage, and double-check all names and places. I’ll be the first to admit that my reading comprehension is far better than my spoken abilities are, and that I keep the Russian-English dictionary handy. Nevertheless, I know that machine translations STINK… and that one can’t trust them. Nina Dimas fully deserves the Order of the Big Green Weenie (First Class with Rhinestones) for this charlatanish deception. Her reputation’s overblown and all out of proportion. She’s one of the SVS/Syosset mafia, and you must treat her accordingly. There be dragons, kids…

BMD 

27 August 2011. Mawkish Sentimentality and Criminalising Enemy Combatants… the Truth of the Afghan Quagmire

Read these:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/man-best-friend-mourns-death-175219915.html;_ylt=AlublMztHoOlSMLx5ur7t0Os0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNyM3E2dmc2BGNjb2RlA3dlaWdodGVkY3QuYwRwa2cDYWQ5MzNhNGQtYzNmNi0zODU5LWI0M2QtNGVmMGNkYjIzNmJhBHBvcwMxBHNlYwNtb3N0X3BvcHVsYXIEdmVyAzBjMTFjMjI0LWNmZmUtMTFlMC04MzAyLTAwNTA1NjE3NmI5MA–;_ylg=X3oDMTFvdnRqYzJoBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25zBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3

http://news.yahoo.com/john-walker-lindh-first-detainee-150000358.html

Note this:

Once John was in the custody of the US military, Donald Rumsfeld directly ordered the military to “take the gloves off” in questioning him. At Camp Rhino, he was stripped of his clothing, bound naked to a stretcher, with duct tape wrapped around his chest, and painful plastic restraints around his wrists and ankles. Blindfolded, he was locked, naked and bound, in an unheated metal shipping container that sat on the desert floor. Eventually he was removed to a Navy ship, the USS Peleliu, where Navy physicians observed that he was suffering from dehydration, hypothermia, and frostbite, and that he couldn’t walk. It was on the Peleliu that the bullet was finally removed from his leg, more than two weeks after he had been transferred to the custody of the US military. …

A court hearing was scheduled in July 2002, which would’ve included testimony by John and others about the brutality he’d suffered at the hands of US soldiers. On the eve of the hearing, the government prosecutors approached John’s attorneys and negotiated a plea agreement. John acknowledged that by serving as a soldier in Afghanistan he’d violated the economic sanctions imposed by President Clinton and extended by President Bush. John also agreed to a “weapons charge”, since he’d carried a rifle and two grenades while serving as a soldier. At the insistence of Rumsfeld, the plea agreement also included a clause in which John relinquished his claims of torture.

The punishment was by any measure harsh… 20 years of imprisonment. On 4 October 2002, the judge approved the plea agreement and sentenced John to prison. Before the sentence was pronounced, John was allowed to read a prepared statement, which provided a moment of intense drama in the crowded courtroom. “I went to Afghanistan with the intention of fighting against terrorism and oppression”, he began. He had acted, he said, out of a sense of religious duty, and he condemned terrorism as being “completely against Islam”. He ended by saying, “I have never supported terrorism in any form and never would”.

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John Walker Lindh NEVER bore arms against the USA… he bore arms against the Northern Alliance, quite a different affair. This is “justice” of the most perverted sort… a “justice” approved by the current political/media duopoly. Some of the Nazi war criminals sentenced after WWII served lesser sentences (or none at all). This is a travesty… this is a distortion of the “rule of law”. John Walker Lindh did NOT attack his country… he wasn’t a traitor. He served illegally in the armed forces of a foreign power, which merits, at most, a five-year sentence (that is, statutory law forbids American citizens from serving in the forces of ANY foreign power without official approval). The sentence is disproportionate… it bears no relation to reality. Why did it happen? It happened because Americans believe their own propaganda (always a dangerous thing). Why are Russians so different regarding such things? Firstly, Russia’s been invaded many times… Russians know that all kinds of screwball things happen under enemy occupation. Secondly, the USA has NEVER had hostile foreign troops on its soil since 1815… that’s a VERY long time ago. Americans feel invulnerable in their isolation from the World Island (democracy has nothing to do with it… two wide ocean barriers do).

As for the mawkish story about the dog and the dead soldier… it’s propaganda of the worst and most treacly sort. I’ve no doubt that the man’s death is a tragedy… every death is such. I’ve no doubt that his family and friends have the right to mourn in dignity and peace. Without hesitation, I’d cosh any of Fred Phelp’s people if they showed up to “protest” at the funeral… that’s something that no decent person does. I’d show nothing but the most utmost and sincere commiseration with the family. That being said, the story about the dog is pure hokum. It’s so saccharine that it sets my teeth on edge. We don’t care if Afghan civilians die as “collateral damage”… we do care about a dog… what a sense of priorities! The death of the SEALs wasn’t “tragic”… they were soldiers going into harm’s way; they knew the risks involved in it. Rather, it illustrated how very ordinary people got tied up in this insane military adventure that doesn’t advance the national interest of the USA in the least bit. It doesn’t diminish the family’s loss in the slightest (indeed, it adds a bitter edge to it, which decent people wouldn’t voice to the family members)… it doesn’t mitigate the lost space in the family circle. I’m saying that the news story cheapened the man’s death… THAT’S inexcusable.

It’s time to end this pointless and bloodsucking conflict. Bring ‘em home… bring ‘em home, now (and I’m NOT a knee-jerk pacifist)…

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Saturday 27 August 2011

Albany NY