After SNC Visit to Moscow Western Media Shows Signs of Better Understanding Russia’s Position

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The media circus around the recent visit to Moscow of the Syrian National Council’s delegation revealed some important cracks in the “anti-Russian front” of Western press reports on Russo-Syrian relations. The simplistic picture created by the mainstream US and EU press for months, that Moscow’s “shielding” Bashar al-Assad while denying its people objective information on Syria, simply doesn’t correspond to reality. If Moscow’s “shielding” Assad, then, why does Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov receive his bitterest enemies? If Russia’s unwilling to inform its own people, then, why did it give the leader of the SNC, Mr Abdel Basset Sayda, an opportunity to speak to dozens of reporters from all Russian media during a press conference at the state-owned news agency, RIA-Novosti?

CNN’s website summed up this more convoluted reality, suddenly revealed to Western reporters, in the lead to its recent article, suggestively headlined Russian Views on Syria More Nuanced than They May Appear. The author, Tom Watkins, having followed some of the recent events, came to a conclusion that seems heretical when seen against the background of Mrs Clinton’s recent statement about Russia “having to pay a price for its support of Assad”. He wrote, “The Russian government shares many of the US concerns about the continuing violence in Syria, but Moscow’s reluctant to embrace Washington’s proposals to solve them because it is wary of its motives”, thus, revealing a whole new world to the average reader of the Washington Post or the New York Times. To support his point, Watkins quoted Jack Matlock, the former US ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1985-91, now seen as the most successful American envoy to Russia since 1917, who said, “People at the embassy characterised our positions [i.e. the positions of the Russian and American side on the violence in Syria] as 95 percent the same. They haven’t been giving [Syria] offensive weapons; they’ve cut way back on weapons’ supplies… the point is that their position isn’t primarily motivated by trying to protect Assad in Syria”.

Mr Matlock’s sober assessment of the situation is a stark counterpoint to the reaction of the mainstream media on both sides of North Atlantic, which concentrates on venting the anger and frustration of Syria’s armed opposition about their leaders’ failure to elicit Moscow’s 180 degrees change of course. It is interesting to note that, for example, the French newspaper Le Figaro continues to ascribe only the most unseemly motives to Moscow’s seemingly-risky moves in the Syrian conflict, as it commented, “Being sure that Washington won’t dispatch, at least in the near future, any troops to Syria, the Kremlin’s getting active on the diplomatic front, satisfying its obsession to stay in the middle of the fray”. Since the beginning of the crisis, all kinds of egotistic motives were ascribed to Moscow’s actions… a desire to see a dictator in power, worries about the fate of its naval base in Syria, the wish to be unpleasant to Washington, etc. Now, it’s the “obsession” with diplomatic hype.

Dmitri Simes, president of the US-based Center for the National Interest, offered a somewhat less negativist explanation on CNN earlier this week, “Russia’s halt to arms sales to Damascus may have had nothing to do with international pressure. The Assad régime has no money to pay for Russian weapons… the Russian position, basically, is that if NATO and the USA want to interfere with Syria, Russia isn’t going to stop them, but Russia is not going to support it either”. Simes also called Hillary Clinton’s assessment of Russia’s position as a position of a state that is “standing up for a tyrant” as being “unhelpful”.

What happens if the USA does interfere in Syria… not covertly, via CIA agents supplying weapons to the rebels, as it’s doing now, according to the New York Times’ recent report… but overtly? Ambassador Matlock offered a pessimistic scenario, saying, “If there’s overt, external intervention, it’s going to just make matters worse. In the final analysis, if a country’s determined to have a civil war and we can’t prevent it, getting in the middle of it and killing more people doesn’t really help things”.

One could not agree more.

12 July 2012

Dmitri Babich

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_07_12/Russia-position-SNC-visit-to-Moscow/

12 July 2012. Some Vox Pop on the Manton Six… The Cabinet Agrees that They’re Nutters

Here’s what reasonable folks think of the Manton Six…

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Here’s what a friend sent me on the Manton Poseurs:

Excellent! It tells it like it really is, not like the konvertsy want to make it to be. The Serbs are fools if they take these clowns in permanently.

Another friend was more prolix, but agreed with us, too:

I always had a sense of what the Church calls oikonomia. It’s a first-cousin to common sense. It’s reasonableness, armed with practicality, and infused with compassion. It’s justice tempered with mercy. It is a person at the office in a soulless bureaucracy who says, “Well, I’m not supposed to do this, but go ahead… sounds like you could use a break”. So, Abbot Mel followed oikonomia, rather than the “letter of the law” and incensed some tight-ass monks. What, I should let my dinner get cold over this??

What more is there to say? It’s time we told these jabronies, “Get with the programme, or get gone”. That’s the only language that they understand, I fear.

BMD

12 July 2012. What’s the MOST Popular Whiskey on the Territory of the Former USSR? It’s BUSHMILLS… Made by Your Friendly Neighbourhood Orangemen…

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Bushmills is THE whiskey of choice amongst discriminating drinkers in the old Soviet Union. It IS the oldest distillery in the world (dating from 1608)… and its the product of proud Orangemen. After all, would Russians steer you wrong when it comes to drink? Raise a glass and cheer!

By the way… Bushmills was my Nicky’s father’s favourite tipple…

BMD

12 July 2012. A Multimedia Presentation. Have an ORANGE 12th of July… Not Everyone in Éire is a Papist…

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The Hegira of the Manton Six: Zealotry Without Knowledge

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Our starting point is always wrong. Instead of beginning with ourselves, we always want to change others first and ourselves last. If everyone would begin first with themselves, then, there would be peace all around!

Elder Tadej Štrbulović of Vitovnica

Our Thoughts Determine our Lives

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Save your own soul, and thousands will be saved about you.

St Serafim Sarovsky

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By now, most of you have heard of the six monks who up and left St John of San Francisco Monastery in Manton CA because they disliked the pastoral dispensation that Meletios Webber gave an individual (note well who took them in… the rather questionable bunch at Platina… Podmoshensky‘s old haunt). Here’s what passed between a friend and me (I’m in italics):

That’s what I was alluding to in my latest post. Transgendered, ungendered, supergendered… it’s no one’s business. If the Church extends oikonomia, they should shut up or go to the bishop. It’s that simple.

I’d agree. Those monks who left are the bad guys in this latest.

The main actor in this little Kabuki play is one Martin Gardner. It’s another konvertsy melodrama (just like the Toll Houses and an obsession with homosexuals)… it’s turning out to be the same ol’, same ol’, kids. The only thing to say is, “Gad, sir, that ain’t Orthodox!” Virtually all Anglo-Saxon converts are addicted to akrivia of one sort or another, especially former Episkies. If a bishop or priest shows pastoral oikonomia towards anyone, they all crawl out of their dustbins and caterwaul about how the Church’s going to hell in a handbasket, and they “know” what they’re talking about, ‘cause they saw what happened to PECUSA. If they were to ask a real canonist like Alexander Lebedeff, he’d tell them, “Read the canons! It says, ‘or as the bishop shall prescribe’… that’s the Orthodox way!” Indeed, we drive the papists absolutely nutso at times…

But X agrees with us!

Yes, they do… it’s their opinion.

You mean that you don’t agree with it?!?

No… the Church doesn’t define it… it’s not central to salvation.

That’s the Orthodox way. Orthodoxy is fond of giving people the “second chance”… hell, it loves giving people “third” and “fourth chances” too. We’re willing to bend the rules, if it’s going to save a soul. Mind you, oikonomia does carry a “price tag”. Second marriages are “allowed”, not “blessed”. Someone married twice may not become a priest (as the Church recognises civil marriage, unlike the RCs, Matthew Tate has to be defrocked immediately, as he’s a divorced man). Homosexuals are not driven out of the Church (click here for the bio of Nikon Mironov, a gay bishop (who got into trouble for personality problems unrelated to his sexual orientation… however, do note that the Church doesn’t make an issue of his orientation as Mironov supports the public teaching of the Church))… all the former Episkies bloviating on “gays” are full of it and should shut up. The Church opposes homosexual propaganda and the notion that homosexuality and heterosexuality are equal.

That being said, HH said, “We respect all human choices, including those involving sexual orientation. However, we reserve the right to label sin as ‘sin’”. This isn’t what the extremist konvertsy want to hear. For instance, the late Patriarch Aleksei Rediger of Happy Memory gave Nikon Mironov a high Church decoration and HH gave him a panagia in 2010… for Nikon is a defender of traditional Church order and Tradition. He burned Schmemann’s books on a public bonfire; he can’t be all bad! Note well how the Church dealt with Nikon… they sent him to the Pskovo-Pechersky Lavra to do penance for his abuse of the laity in Yekaterinburg (at the Lavra, the late Elder Ioann Krestiankin (a real saint) dealt lovingly with him). Then, the Church authorities allowed Nikon to settle near Moscow; the Church made him the honorary rector of a parish (he was NOT deposed from the episcopate; my understanding is that he agreed not to serve publicly). Therefore, one can see that the Church just doesn’t kick homosexuals in the arse and abuse them, as the former Episkies do (that’s why I contend that very few of them are converted-in-fact).

In short, Martin Gardner and his five confrères are not only chock full of beans, they’re prime candidates for punishment, as they made public a private pastoral matter. I only deal with “public figures”, “public occurrences”, and “public matters”. Private pastoral matters are not for us to publicise. If you have a “problem” with the pastoral oikonomia extended by a priest or bishop, go to the ruling bishop. I know what an old ROCOR priest said many moons ago about giving communion to a gay person (it was LOUD, trust me)… (heavy Russian accent) “If you have problem with this, go talk to bishop!!” Need I say that the person making the complaint didn’t go to the bishop? Fancy that…

That’s the way it is in the real Church. It’s the salvation station for every nation… and it’s more compassionate than the zealots wish to admit.

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The fact that Nikon Mironov is a “retired bishop” indicates that such a status is fully-canonical, and that those who question such a status aren’t in the mainstream of the Church.

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Thursday 12 July 2012

Albany NY

Why Do Cats Rule?

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OK, I’ll admit it, right off the bat… I’ve never been a cat lover… but there seems to be a lot of cat lovers around the world because any time you open Facebook, someone’s bound to have posted a cat doing something… or nothing. Moreover, everyone puts his “like” under the photo. Why? What have cats ever done? They’re pretty snobby if you ask me! Now, a dog on the other hand is always thrilled to see you when you come home at any time, wagging his tail, and trotting around you. The snobby cat just sits there and glares at you from afar.

I’m a true dog lover: any size, any breed (although I usually steer clear of some of the more aggressive ones like pit bulls). Dogs are fun, you can train them, they take great care of kids, and play an important part in raising a child. For many children, the dog is the child’s first best friend and guardian. Nevertheless, why have cats taken the upper hand, or more exactly the upper paw, when it comes to posting pictures on Facebook? I simply flip past those posts because it’s very rare that a little fuzzy stuck-up cat’s going to draw my attention to it, even if it’s a video. Now, if it’s a dog, I’ll always check those posts out, because dogs have “emotions” that they share with you. They sometimes show guilt, look happy with blazing eyes, seem to question by perking up their ears and tilting their head, and wag their tails. They respond to people. A cat just looks at you, sneers somewhat, turns around, and haughtily walks off.

I only have I think two friends on my Facebook who post pictures of dogs. All the rest of my friends seem to repost cats of friends’ cats and their friends’ cats… and the whole thing goes into an unending cycle. This is complete discrimination! Dogs have earned their place in the world! They save people, search for explosives, find lost children, sniff out drugs, take down bad guys running from the police, guard people and premises, guide the blind… and will even bring you a nice cold beer from the fridge if you train him right! Have you ever seen a cat do ANY of that? Nor have I! So, why all the hype on cat pictures? It’s beyond me…

I seem to share Alf’s opinion. Remember the little fuzzy alien from Planet Melmac back in the 1980s, who stayed at the Tanners home and was always chasing down the cat, Lucky? Alf loved cats… he especially enjoyed them broiled, but never missed the chance to try and shove one into his mouth for a quick snack. In my opinion, that’s about all a cat is good for. There was one cat in my early childhood life that did play an important role… Dr Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat. That was about the only cat with any brains. He wouldn’t eat green eggs and ham. Any other cat would pounce on the opportunity.

9 July 2012

David Burghardt

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/david_burghardt_blog/20120709/174490222.html