Shame on the Republicans: They Support Neo-Con Wars… They Want to Cut the Safety Net to Ribbons…

This is what Mich McConnell wants for the country… shame on you, sir! The greed-driven American society of today is not the America I grew up in… the conservative America of Dwight D Eisenhower morphed into the vicious monster we see today… and President Eisenhower warned us of it, fifty years ago. You can have the smarmy self-righteousness of Mr McConnell, Sarah Palin, and the teabaggers… or you can demand a return to Ike’s good sense and square dealing… it’s your choice.

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Senator McConnell’s self-serving and nasty statement after the Senate passed the extension to unemployment benefits floored me by its obtuseness, nastiness, and vacuity. He supports war around the globe and tax cuts for the richest Americans… and he bleats about the deficit. Let’s have a reality check… the present Great Recession started in 2007, but the Bushies lied about it for a year to try to elect McCain/Palin. After that failed, they said, “Oh, we lied… the country has been in a recession for a year”. Mr McConnell was one of those who consciously lied to the country. Now, he bleats about the deficit.

Am I the only person to have noticed this bait-and-switch? Mr McConnell… end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq… end the tax cuts for the rich… then, you will find that the deficit will go away… without cutting aid to the most vulnerable Americans. America should emulate Russia’s example… PM Putin is not afraid to muscle the rich and make ’em pay up (it’s why the Russian unemployment rate is below that in the USA). That’s the REAL reason why the Western Corporate Media hates him… he’s not an entrepreneurial crapitalist. You can follow Mr McConnell or you can follow Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev. His Holiness said:

However, what has the Church stood against, what does it stand against, and what will it always stand against? It opposes what the Fathers called the “lust of the flesh”, when mankind is dominated by consumption. At that point, lust (and lust is a disease that’s a violation of internal balance) becomes dominant in a person. Such a person cares only about materialism; they have no spiritual dimension. It is important that people, especially today, remember the overwhelming words of Our Saviour, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?” We must write this in gold letters, and hang them in every room, especially the rooms of rich people. For what shall it profit a man to gain the whole world, but destroy his own soul? That is why the Church must set itself into people’s minds, and why it must say what it must naturally, with love, not stepping back, not looking down on those who live in poverty, but in solidarity with poor people, to proclaim moral values. Then, nobody would accuse the Church of sanctimonious hypocrisy, but would attend to the preaching of the Church. This exhortation is now crucial for the survival of our civilisation; the consumer psychology and the lust of the flesh are not viable… they destroy the spiritual dimension of life, and turn human beings into animals.

America has turned into a bestial den of hedonism… we can either turn away from such, or we can destroy ourselves. Neither the “conservative” teabagger or the “liberal” progressive has the key to the situation… both are godless wretches. It’s why I oppose the konvertsy so firmly. They wish to bring this godlessness into the Church… and they are so blind that they can’t see it. There is no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans… both have broken faith with the American people. I don’t know what to do or what to tell you. However, I know this… to put people through hell for the sake of the dividend cheques of lazy rentiers or the bloated egos of “activists” is beyond the pale.

Think on His Holiness’ words… then, I challenge all Russian Orthodox Christians in the USA to notice that our leadership (both OCA and ROCOR) has been silent… they have been issuing forth “happy talk”. After all, there are Cadillac Escalades to be paid for and ecumenical projects that need funding… let God see and judge… it’s really too much, isn’t it?

It does take all kinds… and I know that the world isn’t fair. But must it be so glaring? It makes atheism look attractive (and I am not arguing that atheism is true…). God help us all…

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Tuesday 20 July 2010

Albany NY

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20 July 2010

Voice of Russia World Service

http://rus.ruvr.ru/2010/07/20/12819618.html

20 July 2010. Sergei Yolkin’s World. Xiphactinus… Shelf Life, 80 Million Years

Xiphactinus… Shelf Life, 80 Million Years

Sergei Yolkin

2010

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Canadian palaeontologists are overjoyed over a new find. They unearthed the bones of a Xiphactinus in the western province of Manitoba. Xiphactinus was a large predatory fish, this specimen was 6.5 metres (slightly over 21 feet) long, and it lived in the prehistoric sea that covered central North America 80 million years ago along with mosasaur and other oceanic dinosaurs. At the end of last year, according to CA24, palaeontologists found bone fragments. They found a piece of the jaw of Xiphactinus lodged in the bones of a fin from a mosasaur. In the summer, excavations were resumed, and palaeontologists continue to find new remains of the sea giant.

In case you wuz wondering… here’s Xiphactinus…:

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And here’s a Mosasaur with two Ichthyosaurs:

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19 July 2010

Sergei Yolkin

RIA-Novosti

http://eco.rian.ru/ecocartoon/20100719/256249210.html

A Photo Essay. Patriarch Kirill in the Ukraine: One Faith… One People… One Church… Together Forever!

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If you look at the photos, they tell the story of a people’s church, a national church, a church with a mass following. Such a church cannot hide from the glare of publicity… it is just too large and too visible. We don’t have that in American Orthodoxy… oh, there are one or two exceptions to the rule… I’m thinking of Mayfield PA and San Francisco CA… but it’s much more common to find our parishes following a sectarian, rather than a Churchly, pattern.

Here’s what’s disturbing… there are American clergy who like it that way! You see, if there was a “people’s church”, they’d have to answer questions, they’d have to think quickly under the glare of the TV cameras. It’s much easier the way it is… and let’s strike off the heads of all who dare to question us or who dare to “peek behind the curtain”. Let there be no mistake on it… the rot is present in the ROCOR, just as it is in the OCA. Yes, you can find it at SVS… but it can also be found in certain factions in Jordanville, too.

We are living in a time of an interregnum, of a “sede vacante”, if you will. Both the OCA and the ROCOR models of the past generation have been found to be failures. Look at the title of this essay… “One Faith… One People… One Church… Together Forever”. That’s what the bulk of American believers want. Reflect well on the fact that there are clergy who don’t want such.

You can call me names… you can expose my past… you can kick me as you will… but I observe…

E pur si muove!

The desire for a united Russian Orthodox Church in the Americas is there, and no cleric can kill it. They can silence it… they can force it underground… but they cannot strangle it. In the end, it’s our game… do we want a truly united Russian Orthodox Church in the USA under the banner of the MP, or do we want to remain disunited, the plaything of a small arrogant cabal of archpriests and monastics (I should add that such are not, by any means, a majority of either the secular clergy or monastics… but they are the majority of those found as “apparatchiki”)?

I believe it’s the former… shall we pay the price, though? Nothing worth possessing is free… and the Church is no exception…

BMD