Posted on 01/28/2018 11:02:24 AM PST by GoldenState_Rose
“I offer my deepest condolences to you and the entire Cuban nation over the death of your brother, the leader of the Cuban revolution Fidel Castro.
The name of this remarkable statesman is rightfully viewed as a symbol of a whole era in modern history. Free and independent Cuba built by him and his fellow revolutionaries has become an influential member of the international community and serves as an inspiring example for many countries and peoples.
Fidel Castro was a sincere and reliable friend of Russia. He made a tremendous personal contribution to the establishment and progress of Russian-Cuban relations, close strategic partnership in all areas.
This strong and wise man always looked into the future with confidence. He embodied the high ideals of a politician, citizen and patriot who wholeheartedly believed in the cause, to which he devoted his life. Russians will always cherish his memory in their hearts.
In this mournful hour, I ask you to pass on my words of sympathy and support to all members of your family. I wish you courage and tenacity as you face this irreparable loss.
(Excerpt) Read more at en.kremlin.ru ...
tough to lead when the nitwits don’t have the sense to follow.
Betsy DeVos ran away from eliminating Common Core. Her past alignment to Jeb Bush won the day. Sure, she said “Common Core is dead”, but the schools still use it and the government intrusiveness that comes with it. She got scared and ran away.
Do you know how sinister CC is and what it does to the minds of the young? I didn’t think so.
As far as Russia, you are falling into the propaganda trap set by the NeoCon nutjobs. Notice how the US is stuck in the ME now spending trillions and getting our soldiers killed and maimed?
Do some research, buttercup.
Hey, I voted for Trump - and loved that he was against the Iraq/Libya/et al. debacles from the get-go.
Russia doesn’t copy anything America does right, it does all the “Neo-Con” stuff only WORSE and with far weaker economic means.
Maybe its the “conservative” part of “neo-con” Paulie doesn’t like. Some of these that like to throw out the term “neo-con,” are libertarians and such like. They are not conservative, so of course they are against anything that has the word “conservative” contained in it, bonafide conservative or no.
As for myself, I was conservative before the term “neo-con” was invented...and still am.
You posted:
Stalin was just as responsible for starting the war as Hitler.
And the Russian Revolution did just as much to spawn the hellish events of the 20th Century — and ended up taking millions more victims than Nazism.
>Spot on. But be careful, you are liable to be tagged as an old fogie still stuck in the cold war...and a “neo-con” to boot. Some millennial Putin-bot FReeper made this assertion a month or so ago on one of these threads.
Not surprised Obama tows the Soviet Party line on this one.
Why would anyone expect Putin to react any other way to the death of an old communist?
The whole world isn’t America. They are not going to behave the way we behave.
Little girl - you need to do more research.
I know, just read a thread on this demon and you’ll see them come out. They will rot eventually.
God is done blessing the USA too.
Those who think Putin is a Christian don’t even know what one is.
Hyperbole, but it is sad to see many conservatives fawning over him or defending him, and failing to see he opposes historical American distinctives, and attacks the very faith that it needs to get back to.
He is anything but Christian.
Worth repeating.
But Putin does, since the devil does, and attacks them.
Christians are Severely Persecuted in Putin's Russia – But That Could ...
Christian Persecution Increasing in Russia - Christian News Headlines
Report: Non-Orthodox Christians Face 'Strong Discrimination' in Russia
Russia, other former Soviet republics persecuting Christians, new ...
Moscow church destroyed in sign of new Russian repression Posted on Sep 26, 2012 | by Jill Nelson
MOSCOW (BP) -- It was in the early hours of the morning on Sept. 6 when Pastor Vasili Romanyuk's phone rang. A group of men backed by local police were demolishing his Holy Trinity Pentecostal Church, housed in a three-story building nestled in a Moscow suburb. As word spread, congregants arrived at the scene hoping to save the building, but their efforts were futile. By dawn the church was in ruins and some of its most valuable contents were missing.
An isolated incident? A misunderstanding? Analysts watching the current climate in the former Cold War country don't think so: "This destruction of the church is about as concrete of evidence as you can get that something very bad and very troubling is taking place," said Katrina Lantos Swett, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. "This could not have happened without the backing, support, and implicit blessing of the police."
The incident is just one sign of deteriorating freedoms in Russia, and behind the scenes a cozy relationship between the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church has raised more than a few eyebrows. As President Vladimir Putin digs into his third term, a number of Kremlin crackdowns involving vague interpretations of the country's extremism law and other human-rights abuses are troubling signs that the country has slipped into a familiar, repressive era.
"When you have unknown people backed by the police coming out at midnight to begin tearing down a church, you know something doesn't smell right," Lantos Swett said.
Officials evicted Holy Trinity Church from its original building in 1995 and relocated the church to the eastern Moscow suburb. The congregation used its own funds to construct a new building and repeatedly battled officials over permits. The church demolition and its history reflect an emerging pattern: Authorities confiscate land from non-favored religious communities and force the congregation to relocate to a remote suburb, the religious leaders apply for permits that are subsequently denied, and officials confiscate (once again) or demolish the relocated congregation, citing lack of proper documentation.
Pastor Romanyuk and a small group of the church's 550 congregants arrived on site around 3:30 a.m. as about 45 men claiming to be civil volunteers blocked them from the building and threw stones. "When I arrived, I just burst into tears," 25-year-old Natalya Cherevichinik told The Moscow Times as she surveyed the destruction. "I couldn't believe that something that had been built over several years could be destroyed in a few hours."
Russian Evangelicals Leery of Orthodox Church, Friday, December 30, 2011:
class="adjusted">MOSCOW, Russia -- For decades, the Russian Orthodox Church was persecuted under the Soviet Union's Communist Party.
Since the early 1990s, the church has grown in size and influence as its relationship with the Russian government has improved significantly.
However, that cozy relationship worries the country's evangelicals.
Threats Against Evangelicals
For eight years, Yuri Sipko ran one of the largest Baptist organizations in Russia. Now, 20 years after the fall of Communism, he worries about the growing threats against the country's evangelical movement.
"The collapse of Communism was supposed to usher in an era of greater religious freedom, but I'm concerned we are moving in the wrong direction," Sipko said.
What makes the Russian evangelicals very concerned is an emerging relationship between the Russian government and the Russian Orthodox Church.
"For example, the government recently introduced religious classes based on the principals of the Orthodox Church in public schools," Sipko said.
"Then late last year, the Russian president announced an initiative to appoint Orthodox chaplains to all army units," he said. "Our constitution clearly states no religion can be the state religion."
Russia Church-State Relations
Russia watchers credit two men, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, for elevating the church's prominence. The state media has also played a key role, often showing the leaders attending church services.
Sergey Ryakhovski knows both men well. As head of Russia's Pentecostal Union, he meets regularly with top government and Orthodox Church leaders.
Ryakhovski worries that the Orthodox Church's influence is coming at the expense of religious freedom, especially for minority groups such as Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists.
"There are so many laws and by-laws that regulate religious life in Russia," Ryakhovski said. "For example, evangelical Christians just can't go out and buy a church building or buy a piece of land to build a church."
"Plus, criticizing or challenging the Orthodox Church is not a task for all," he added.
Orthodox Church Revival
The Russian Orthodox Church on the other hand has had it easy in recent times after decades of state persecution.
Church buildings that were destroyed during the Soviet era have been rebuilt with Russian taxpayer money. In the past 20 years, the government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars restoring some 23,000 churches.
Most Russians say they belong to the Orthodox Church. Yet CBN News found mixed reactions on the streets of Moscow to the growing bond between church and state
At Expense of All Others, Putin Picks a Church
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY Published: April 24, 2008
STARY OSKOL, Russia —
It was not long after a Methodist church put down roots here that the troubles began.
First came visits from agents of the F.S.B., a successor to the K.G.B., who evidently saw a threat in a few dozen searching souls who liked to huddle in cramped apartments to read the Bible and, perhaps, drink a little tea. Local officials then labeled the church a “sect.” Finally, last month, they shut it down.
There was a time after the fall of Communism when small Protestant congregations blossomed here in southwestern Russia, when a church was almost as easy to set up as a general store. Today, this industrial region has become emblematic of the suppression of religious freedom under President Vladimir V. Putin.
Just as the government has tightened control over political life, so, too, has it intruded in matters of faith. The Kremlin’s surrogates in many areas have turned the Russian Orthodox Church into a de facto official religion, warding off other Christian denominations that seem to offer the most significant competition for worshipers. They have all but banned proselytizing by Protestants and discouraged Protestant worship through a variety of harassing measures, according to dozens of interviews with government officials and religious leaders across Russia.
Russia's De-Facto State Religion : Persecution : http://www ... www.persecution.org/?p=9350&upm... International Christian Co... Putin frequently appears with the Orthodox head, Patriarch Aleksei II, ... Baptists, evangelicals, Pentecostals and many others who cut Christ's robes like bandits, ...
Government Returning Land to Religious Organizations to Favor Orthodox Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009: An ambitious draft law on the transfer of property of religious significance to religious organisations may reignite a process begun in 1993.
Pentecostal Seminary Targeted for Liquidation
Pentecostal Church Forced to Meet Outside in Moscow Winter
Russia: Governor Orders Church Land Grab
Don’t you find it hard to breathe with you head up your ass all the time?
I don’t know where you think I’m disputing this.
Rewind the tape here and go back to my original statement. I responded to Rosie by saying that nobody on FRepublic ‘worships’ Putin. I think people admired him because he was such a contrast to 0bama. But worship?
It seems you think that equates to me saying Putin is some kind of a Saint. I don’t think that and I never said that. Nor did I allude to it.
You and others are reading way too much into what I said.
I also suggested that this article was to garner public support for war with Russia. Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, but I suspect it is. This information has been known for two years, why else bring it up now?
I’m no pacifist, but I’m no big fan of war either. Not having an appetite to risk nuclear exchange with Moscow in no way means I ‘worship’ Vlad Putin.
I think you're exaggerating. On the other, there ARE people who understand that the Soviet Union collapsed, thus ending the international threat of Communism, at least from Russia (but not from America's own college campuses). Also, that ramping up the Russian bogeyman as a new Cold War threat plays right into the hands of America's statists and progressives. As exhibit 1A, I give you Robert Mueller and his so-called "investigation."
Thus i called it hyperbole myself.
It seems you think that equates to me saying Putin is some kind of a Saint. I don’t think that and I never said that. Nor did I allude to it. You and others are reading way too much into what I said.
That seems to be the case.
Actually Putin would be less likely to risk nuclear exchange with a President that he thinks is likely to respond with this. Thus it seems the bomber missions are less heard of, while Putin works geopolitical forces.
Yes, the USSR collapsed. But the cold war didn’t end with its collapse. I would argue that the period of time since that collapse has been characterized by the cold war.
There has been a steady red subversive march since WW2: China, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia (Pol Pot), Venezuela, and others. The nuclear arms race, and such major wars as the Korean and Vietnamese wars, characterize these times.
The second video of the “Cold War” youtube series, notes how Stalin used Kim il Sung to “open up a second front in Asia of the Cold War.” A communist state created by Stalin and Kim il Sung against America and South Korea. The Korean War was Stalin’s “proxy war” against America, it was he who gave approval for NK to invade SK, he sent his Soviet advisors with the invading NK army.
So, yes, Stalin is dead, but his “second front in Asia of the Cold War” lives on. The Korean War never officially ended.
One man’s opinion.
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