6 March 2013. You Can’t Make Up Shit Like This… THIS is What the Rightwing Crazies Believe In… Mark It and Oppose Them

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Look at the above image. I found it whilst I was searching for images today. It’s disgusting and untruthful, isn’t it? However, not only do the rightwing kooks in general eat this shit up, but the Orthodox konvertsy are even worse… they’re some of the most unhinged righties that I’ve ever met, bar none. Many of them are on the Monomakhos site… others came out of the looney-tunes “Continuing Anglican” movement (as typified by a reactionary site called Stand Firm in the Faith)… they believe that Coolidge‘s nutty squirrel laissez-faire economic policies (which led directly to the Great Depression) are the ne plus ultra of economics and that they’re a beleaguered minority beset by a voracious “socialist” government (actually, the government doesn’t give a rat’s ass about them, but that’s attending to reality, and these sorts would NEVER do that).

Take a good look at the above… that’s the sort of shit that’s peddled by the likes of Potapov, Paffhausen, and Whiteford (the last-named is the least-culpable, as he’s the most ignorant). It’s nasty, isn’t it? However… if you march in a March for Life, that’s what you march for. Not quite what you thought, was it? I’d say, “Don’t march in a ‘March for Life’ until it disassociates itself explicitly and completely from Hard Righties such as Rick Perry, Darrell Issa, and Franklin Graham“. If it doesn’t, you’re responsible for their evil agenda. Sad to say, but there’s no “clean” option here. You can stand for social justice, but if you do, you have to stand with those who believe in legal abortion (that’s the way of it in the real world… you can’t choose your family and you can’t choose who stands for what).

If you stand for “Pro-Life“, you also stand for the promiscuous use of the death penalty, unending warmongering in foreign parts, the gutting of the American economy, generous tax cuts to the rich (and Scroogish cuts to social services), and the continuing rape of the working-class to enrich the corporate oligarchs (that’s the agenda of “Pro-Life” politicians such as Chris Smith and Willard Romney). Weigh both in the scales… neither are “clean”; both are “grey”… I have. I stand for social justice… the Left may stand for legal abortion, but it also stands against the Anti-Life agenda of the Hard Right. It’s NOT an easy or simple decision (unlike the cartoonish and mawkish arguments brought forward by the “Pro-Lifers”), but one HAS to go where the least evil’s being wrought. An anti-abortion plank doesn’t mean that an agenda is Pro-Life… NEVER forget that. It may be just the exact opposite… Satan laughs…

BMD

1 December 2012. Here are Those Muslims That the Rightwingers are so Hot n’ Bothered About… Friday Prayers at the Mosque at the VOV Memorial on Poklonnaya Gora

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This is Friday Prayers at the mosque at the VOV Memorial on Poklonnaya Gora. The imam preaching used a loudspeaker system to reach all the congregants. He spoke about the commandments, “If you ask a Christian about the Decalogue, how many will be able to list them, and how one complies with them? It’s important to remember them all the time”. The imam went on to say that God commands us not to murder, rob, or commit adultery. That doesn’t sound very terroristic or subversive to me.

In case you forgot, the Decalogue is:

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy
5. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee
6. Thou shalt not murder
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery
8. Thou shalt not steal
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

Islam holds to the Decalogue as much as Christians and Jews do. To judge all Muslims by Islamists is wrong. It’d be like condemning Christianity for the excesses of wackos like Franklin Graham or Sarah Palin… real Christians don’t act like unhinged Evangelical sectarian fruitcakes. In like manner, mainstream Muslims don’t act like fire-breathing Islamist nut jobs. A little bit of good sense, alert observation, and common decency allow one to tell the plug-uglies without a scorecard… I think that most would agree with me on that one.

BMD 

21 November 2012. Is Terrence Mattingly Stating an Orthodox Viewpoint? Or, Is It Just Heterodox Vapouring in Pseudo-Orthodox Vesture?

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Terrence Mattingly got up on his soapbox and admiringly quoted a Far Right papist source, to wit:

One thing the Democrats really stand for, however, is abortion… abortion on demand, abortion without restraint, abortion paid for by all of us, abortion for the poor of the earth. I am not a one-issue voter, but they have become a one-issue party. … If traditional Democrats who are disillusioned with the selling out of the working poor and the unborn simply became registered Independent voters, would not more attention be paid?

This is utter rubbish from stem to stern. The single-issue party isn’t the Democrats… it’s the Republicans. They signed on to all of the sectarian “Moral Majority” twaddle, including approving bans on abortion that even the Church balks at. Oh, I’m sorry, the Grand Olde Perverts are a Threefold Truth Party:

• The state must use its coercive power to smash down all those who aren’t “conventional” and “respectable”… the state must smash all the opponents to the oligarch backers of the GOP, with violence and force, if necessary
• The state shall place no restraints upon the Oligarch Crapitalists and their Affluent Effluent cronies… investment to be taxed at far lower rates than earned income… wages to be kept at the lowest-possible rates
• The state shall engage in permanent warfare in foreign parts to enrich the Military-Industrial Complex… Halliburton is more important than the people next door… healthcare and education don’t count as much as bombs and drones do

In short, Mattingly’s contention is crank, crackbrained, and completely out of line. However, such prelest-ridden bloviation is common amongst the konvertsy. Does it surprise you to find out that Mattingly is a close partner in crime to Freddie M-G and Rod Dreher? They support such godless imposters as Darrell Issa and Allen West (thank God, West went down to deserved defeat). In fact, what’s happening now is that the major Grand Olde Phony candidates for 2016 are lining up and shouting how they’re all in favour of so-called “Creationism” (click here)… that means that the GOP’s slipping further into irrelevance and toadying to knuckle-dragging “Evangelical” yahoos. One of the best things that came out of the OCA Holy Synod shitcanning Paffhausen was that it ended his effort to ally us with “Christian Atheists”… as a Russian bishop called “Evangelical” phonies.

This means that Mattingly lines up with such amoral troglodytes as Todd Akin and Franklin Graham. Click here for a story on a sad case in Ireland. I asked three Orthodox MDs about such cases… there was a consensus… “If there’s a miscarriage, the pregnancy is over; our only responsibility is to safeguard the woman’s health”. That seemed straightforward enough to me. Yet, what about the moral dimension of this dilemma? I asked a priest in Russia about this… it took several days for his response to reach me (he was thinking it over… that’s the sign of a trusty source). He wrote:

There are hard moral cases… the Church NEVER blesses abortion, but there are cases in a fallen world where the only choices are bad ones. In that case, you choose the “least bad” option… but the Church doesn’t bless it… it accepts the reality. However, this was a case where the pregnancy was over. In that case, the Church advises its children to heed the Apostle and follow their doctor’s advice. Nevertheless, pastoral oikonomia in particular cases never sets aside the general rule. Never forget, there are sins greater than abortion.

Terrence Mattingly’s hardline stance isn’t worthy of a decent human being, let alone that of an Orthodox Christian believer. His rightwing fanaticism is clear… this is what the konvertsy are, kids… they want to put this madness in as the driving ideology of Christ’s Church. God do spare us…

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Wednesday 21 November 2012

Albany NY

8 November 2012. Get Down On Your Knees and Thank God for GOP Racism… It Re-Elected the Prez!

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“Keep the White House white”… Willard Romney and Lyin’ Ryan never condemned such sentiments. Ergo, people concluded that they shared such obscene thoughts. In consequence, non-Anglo non-Evangelical Americans voted against Willy. The people did speak…

By the way, the alliance of Anglo Evangelicals and Mormons in this election proves that Anglo Evangelicals are about as Christian as Mormons are… that is, not at all. It ain’t Billy Graham‘s church any more… it’s Franklin Graham‘s conventicle… and we’re all poorer in consequence. Billy believed in Almighty God… his son Franklin believes in the Almighty Dollar… how do you spell D-E-G-E-N-E-R-A-T-I-O-N?

BMD