5 November 2011. A Tale of Two News Reports… Most of the Unemployed Have Exhausted their UIBs… Schuller Asks His Congregants to Send His Family Food Via His Chauffeurs Because They’re “In Need”

“Whee! I don’t owe anybody anything! It’s ALL mine! The Invisible Hand of the Market rewarded me ’cause I’m one of God’s Elect. Pat Robertson and Rick Perry said so…”

______________________________

Read this and this. Ponder this… the Republican Party wants to CUT extended UIBs to benefit the richest Americans. They’ve waged an open and vicious class war against American working people since 1981, with the result that the richest 1 percent now have 250 percent more than they did in 1980, (in real terms), whilst the rest of us have only 85 percent of what we had in 1980 (in real terms). Besides that, this averaged-out figure hides the fact that the 4 percent below the top earners has also made out like bandits, which means that ordinary people have taken a bigger hit than the figure suggests (it may be as low as two-thirds of the 1980 figure in real terms). There’s a reason for “Occupy Wall Street”… the above figures tell you the story. The oligarchs (and their political running-dog lackeys in the GOP) are being pushing ordinary Americans to the wall; they’re being forced to give up the fruits of years of labour to subsidise the drones and parasites of our society. Guess what? People ARE pushing back.

As for the story about Schuller asking his congregants to send his family food aid via his limo drivers… that’s disgusting (isn’t that a perfect ilustration of the attitude taken by JP and Bobby?). Yet, that’s the mentality of the Five Percenters… they scream when a relatively minor crisis hits and demand “aid”, but when anyone asks for help in their distress… they slam their heel full-force into their faces. “Die! And decrease the surplus population! I REFUSE to pay one more dime in taxes. I earned it… I’m keeping it… and I don’t bloody care about anyone else”. Reflect on this… most of those who advocate cudgelling the poor so that they can afford their country club dues and larger McMansions claim that they’re “Christian”. That, I submit is obscene beyond all measure.

A Special Note to Orthodox Christians:

Paffhausen, Lyonyo, Potapov, Whiteford, Webster, Dreher, Reardon, and Mattingly, all support the Republican assault on the poor in the name of enriching the plutocrats. Have they forgotten “You are your brother’s keeper?” Did they EVER know it? Such people sign themselves, “with love in Christ”. Such hypocrisy and dubiousness turns my stomach… and I believe that I’m NOT alone in that…

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Saturday 5 November 2011

Albany NY

19 July 2011. JP and Michelle Bachmann… Two Peas in a Single Diseased Pod

You don’t need Social Security, Medicaid/Medicare, Unemployment Insurance, welfare cash payments, bank deposit insurance, public schools, or workplace regulations… Michelle Bachmann and Jonas Paffhausen say so! What you really need are foreign wars, more tax cuts for the wealthy, more givebacks from you, more TSA agents to grope you as you board your plane, bus, or train, and more overseas torture centres. The Invisible Hand of the Market will take care of you (in more ways than one)!

_____________________________

Who’s the greedy man? One for whom plenty does not suffice. Who defrauds others? One who keeps for himself what belongs to everyone. Aren’t you greedy, don’t you defraud, when you keep for yourself what was given to give away? When someone steals a man’s clothes, we call him a thief. Shouldn’t we give the same name to one who could clothe the naked but doesn’t?

St Basil the Great

******

I’ve experienced two dictatorships in my life, those of Hitler and the Communists. I don’t wish to experience a third, from America.

A Russian Orthodox bishop

******

More and more I pray for the Prodigal Son’s brother. A persistent contemplation prods me… the Prodigal awoke from his life of sin… as for his elder brother, will he awake from his life of virtue?

Dom Hélder Pessoa Câmara

******

In such a Church, the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the living Word of God, in fact, it’s a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God.

Dietrich Bonhöffer

******

Read this:

http://theweek.com/article/index/217387/michele-bachmanns-hardline-stance-on-gays-a-boon-in-2012

Note this:

Oliver Duggan at Britain’s Independent said, “For every politician and pundit who shuns Bachmann’s front for religious proselytising, and every Republican who looks to distance themselves, there’s a handful of powerful and unacknowledged voters that rejoice in it”. Last week’s ABC News expose actually validated these voters’ feelings about homosexuality, and Bachmann’s “ultra-conservative, ultra-Christian” base “will coagulate around her as her candidacy is bloodied from all directions” over her views on homosexuality. 

Firstly, in the above quote, “Christian” means “Radical Sectarian”, and “conservative” means “Radical Neoliberal”… these slimers bear no relationship to real Christians and real Conservatives. They’re certainly not like Dom Hélder Pessoa Câmara, Dietrich Bonhöffer, or Aleksei Rediger, nor are they akin to Disraeli, Bismarck, Stolypin, Dief, or Ike. Yet, both JP and Bachmann style themselves “Christians” and “Conservatives”. Neither one is the latter, nor is JP the former save in the most formal sense (it’s clear that he never converted in his heart-of-hearts from Broad Church Anglicanism). DO reread the quotes I placed at the head of this post… they prove that JP and Ms Bachmann are enemies of the Lord Christ, no question on it (especially, the quote by Bonhöffer… it’s a classic description of the godless and anti-Christian Sectarian conventicle). The diseased credo pushed by Michelle Bachmann is the most common one found amongst Orthodox konvertsy, and they don’t care that it’s against the true social teaching of the Church, and they don’t care that they spit on His Holiness every time that they repeat any of the Tea Party/New GOP nonsense. In fact, they want to contaminate the Church with this corrosive ideology… both rightwing political Corporatism and Radical Sectarian heresy. I don’t care whether Sectarians do this or that… we’re the Church, we’re different from them, so, we don’t do things the same way that they do. Most particularly, we don’t do “mission” as the “born-againers” do… Our Lord Christ isn’t a box of soap powder that we market using the latest methods of Madison Avenue. Like it or no, God DOES “give the increase”… and He does so only if we’re faithful to our roots (and don’t use slimy and false Sectarian methods).

Yet, the most important thing to take away from all of this is that not only are Michelle Bachmann and Jonas Paffhausen total strangers to True Christianity and True Conservatism, they’re purveyors of pure and undiluted hate and bigotry. That tells us volumes about all the konvertsy… Whiteford, Nelson, Freddie M-G, Mattingly, Reardon, Dreher, et al. HATRED motivates what passes for “religion” amongst them… they’re “culture warriors” attempting to use Christ’s Church for their petty and narrow-minded fanatical ends. Not all converts are konvertsy… Frank Schaeffer comes to mind, for one. Unfortunately, you can smell the rank ordure of undisguised Anglicanism and Sectarianism in most konvertsy… they refuse to take the time necessary to convert in their souls, and, then, they have the damned gall to sit in judgement of Orthodoxy! Don’t argue with them… know that they applaud such bigots as Ms Bachmann, and simply let them be. Oppose them, don’t let them run rampant, but don’t argue with them… they’ll refuse to listen, ESPECIALLY if you inform them of the actual teachings of the Church as they’re spoken by our leaders (JP doesn’t count as such… he’s only an incredibly minor and mud-ignorant backwoods bishop of no standing whatsoever). They’ll block their ears and keep shouting their rightwing shibboleths at you. Don’t frustrate yourself… pray for them; it may do them some good. Arguing with such sorts won’t do them… or you… any good at all.

It’s certainly not boring… pass me the jug, yes, I know that the world’s crook, but must it be SO crook? Have a friendly swaller, yourself…

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Tuesday 19 November 2011 Albany NY