Posted on 10/06/2021 7:06:45 PM PDT by arthurus
When the Bolsheviks seized control of the Russian state during the October uprising, it set off what would come to be known as the Russian civil war. It lasted from 1917 to 1923, when the Bolsheviks finally crushed their opposition. That is the most overlooked, but most important, part of the story. The czarist system had collapsed and in the wake of that collapse came a battle over what would replace it.
The two sides in the civil war were the Bolsheviks led by Lenin and the anti-Bolsheviks, an incoherent collection of army officers, property holders, various right-wing political groups, and socialists. They were united in their opposition to the radical restructuring promised by the Bolsheviks. This dichotomy would actually survive the civil war until Stalin put an end to it in the 1930s.
(Excerpt) Read more at takimag.com ...
a couple thoughts there, and they might appear contradictory.
Your own mental health and spiritual well-being is important. Being distressed is not good. Low distress based on earthly things is an illusion - maybe comfortable, and no arguing that low distress is low distress. But we all die in the end. True peace is elsewhere. Find a church. It matters what kind.
The other point, well, we little people don't control the world. Bible says we are not in a battle with flesh and blood. But I am not so sure that having a right mind and being bold with it is "not much." Bannon says "courage is contagious," and it is.
I hope and pray the things in your personal life turn out for the better, and don't overwhelm your or anybody in your orbit.
MUST READ-——America and ‘The Dying Citizen’
Townhall.com ^ | October 7, 2021 | Victor Davis Hanson
FR Posted on 10/7/2021, 7:27:47 AM by Kaslin
Only a little more than half of the current world’s 7 billion people are citizens of fully consensual governments. That lucky 50 percent alone enjoys constitutionally protected freedoms. Most are also Western. Or at least they reside in nations that have become “Westernized.”
Migrants, regardless of their race, religion or gender, almost always head for a Western nation. And most often their destination remains the United States. The more it is now fashionable for Americans to take for granted or even to ridicule the idea of their own country, the more the non-American global poor risk their lives to crash America’s borders.
Constitutional systems easily perish because they ask a lot of their citizens — to vote, to be informed about civic and political issues, and to hold elected officials accountable. That responsibility is perhaps why, of the world’s true republics and democracies, only about 22 have been in existence for a half-century or more. We are seldom told, then, that America is a rare, precious and perhaps even fragile idea, both in the past and in the present.
American citizens are clearly also not the custom of the past. Unlike history’s more common peasants, citizens are not under the control of the rich who, in turn, seek undue influence in government through controlling them.
Instead, viable citizenship has always hinged on a broad, autonomous middle class. Those Americans in between lack both the dependence of the poor and the insider influences of the elite. Suffocate the middle and we know that a binary feudalism will soon replace it. We are seeing just that medievalization in contemporary California.
Nor are American citizens mere migratory residents who drift across nonexistent borders in expectation of receiving more rights than meeting responsibilities. Forfeit a sacred national space, a place where common customs,
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
It's too late for battles over ideological purity. Weakening and decentralizing government power is the common goal - that goal must be identified, widely advertised, and fought for - hard.
“Extremism in defense of Liberty is no vice.” Barry Goldwater.
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There are normal cycles of society and civilization, and failure is baked into human nature. Might as well say we allow disease and accidents. They are all inevitabilities.
Not meant to be defeatist, in fact the opposite. Individuals need to be a little more willing to assert their individuality and oppose instructions from even well-meaning others. Even if only in giving them a little bit of lip.
Hopefully leaders will emerge that properly educate and channel energies.
A HUGE thing these days is to stand opposed to "fear." The government has been creating and amplifying fear as a means to control. Very out of proportion and balance, and I'll toss in deliberate malfeasance is in the mix, too. I am of a mind that the powers that be do in fact mean harm to the populace. It's up to them to back down and get things straight - but i do believe they itch for greater chaos and violence. This we should resist giving them. The Declaration of Independence has some great points and lessons, and the resistance didn't escalate to shooting until the bad guys tried to disarm the good guys.
Just rambling here ... continue being thoughtful and persistent in the things you do. we should at all times and in all places give thanks to God.
Maybe it starts at the school boards.
Thank you for posting this amazing piece.
That is the problem always looking for someone else to fight and not standing up and fighting for ourselves
We can still fight for ourselves where we can. But we have wanted for a long time to elect real conservatives who are not always trying to place nice with the libbies who hate and scorn them (and always will).
I don’t know. What’s the solution? I maybe read too fast.
The solution is that the conservatives better fight their corner as hard and relentlessly as the libbies do.
Go Cardinals!
Thank you very much for your kind and thoughtful advice!
bump
“Best site on the web.” Indeed.
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