The Russian Market: Satan Reigns There
Vasili Ostrovsky
2004
THIS is what Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin stand for… any questions?
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In a way, it’s sad that people like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage are today’s mouthpieces for conservatism. What a far leap they are from the quick-witted and smart Buckley. I think it’s fair to say that even Buckley’s ideological enemies admired him and respected him. That’s because Buckley was not a hatemonger; he was a serious-minded person who made reasoned and rational arguments for his cause. No apologies to Limbaugh, Savage, or their listeners and adherents… they’re no substitute for Buckley’s class and intellectualism.
Ward Sloane
“Good Night, Mr Buckley” (CBS News, 27 February 2008)
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The reality of the situation is that missions abroad to effect régime change in countries without a bill of rights or democratic tradition are terribly arduous. This isn’t to say that the Iraq war is wrong, or that history will judge it to be wrong. But it absolutely goes to say that conservatism implies a certain submission to reality; and this war has an unrealistic frank, and is being conscripted by events.
(About neoconservatives,) I think those that I know, which is most of them, are bright, informed, and idealistic, but they simply overrate the reach of US power and influence.
Scepticism about life and nature is most often expressed by those who take it for granted that belief is an indulgence of the superstitious… indeed, their opiate, to quote a historical cosmologist most profoundly dead. Granted, that to look up at the stars comes close to compelling disbelief… how can such a chance arrangement be other than an elaboration… near infinite… of natural impulses? Yes, on the other hand, who is to say that the arrangement of the stars is more easily traceable to nature, than to nature’s moulder? What is the greater miracle? Is it the raising of the dead man in Lazarus, or, is it the mere existence of the man who died, and of the witnesses who swore to his revival?
Truth is a demure lady, much too ladylike to knock you on your head and drag you to her cave. She is there, but people must want her, and seek her out.
The academic community has in it the biggest concentration of alarmists, cranks, and extremists this side of the giggle house.
Not all that is good is embodied in the law; and not all that is evil is proscribed by the law. A well-disciplined society needs few laws; but it needs strong mores.
William F Buckley
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There is all too much attention paid to trained media presenters such as Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and Glenn Beck. They fulminate against the media, yet they’re all trained media people… their only claim to fame is the ability to read copy off a Teleprompter with a patently false “sincere” look on their faces. They are nothing but actors of the worst sort; they aren’t journalists, they aren’t correspondents, and they aren’t political essayists. Mr Buckley was their complete antithesis… as was Barry Goldwater, George Orwell, Otto von Bismarck, and Edmund Burke.
I am saddened to see priests of our Church present Palin, Beck, and Limbaugh as figures to emulate. Mr Beck is an apostate from Catholic Christianity who converted to Mormon Sectarianism. Mr Limbaugh is a Secularist of no known religious convictions; he’s also a prescription drug abuser. Ms Palin is a rabid Pentecostalist, the most radical of the anti-Christian American Sects. I presented the above selection of quotes to show that Palin, Beck, and Limbaugh are NOT Conservatives… Conservatives, by definition, are Legitimatists, not Radical Corporatist Free Marketers.
Who were some REAL Conservatives? John Diefenbaker, Dwight D Eisenhower, Benjamin Disraeli, Edmund Burke, Richard Nixon, Otto von Bismarck, Francisco Franco Bahamonde, Robert Stanfield, and Graf Pyotr Stolypin (amongst others) come to mind. William F Buckley fit into that tradition exactly (he was not a cheerleader for the oligarchs, despite being from a wealthy background). These leaders stood for One Nation Conservatism, which is known in Canada as “Red Toryism”. They cared for the poor… they didn’t advocate shredding the social safety net, indeed, Prince von Bismarck instituted the first single-payer health insurance scheme in the world, in 1884. If anyone tries to tell you that single-payer health insurance is a “socialistic fraud”… laugh in their faces… for they’re ignorant of history.
Don’t attend to the extremist Corporatists… they aren’t “conservative” in the least. Their ideology is simple… the rich are to be allowed free rein to rape the country and its citizens in the name of Almighty Profit. There is a legitimate Left and there is a legitimate Right, but American “conservatives” are extremists and stand outside the mainstream of both these traditional ideologies… they are nothing but apologists for a plutocracy of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich… we forget that at our peril. Remember Citizens United… you only have as much freedom as you have money… that’s the “original intent”, after all.
Should Orthodox priests commend Palin, Beck, and Limbaugh? No, most definitely not. We hold nothing in common with their hedonist and nihilist ideology… and we certainly do NOT hold with the Sectarian error peddled by Palin and Beck. Take note of which priests pump up these sorts… then, ignore them, for arguing with them shall do neither you nor them any real good whatsoever (all it will do is roil things unnecessarily… do avoid that, if possible).
Barbara-Marie Drezhlo
Sunday 26 December 2010
Albany NY
Voices from Russia 
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