Posted on 11/21/2017 1:12:37 PM PST by NRx
...Vladimir Vladimirovich is not the president of a feminist NGO. He is not a transgender-rights activist. He is not an ombudsman appointed by the United Nations to make and deliver slide shows about green energy. He is the elected leader of Russia—a rugged, relatively poor, militarily powerful country that in recent years has been frequently humiliated, robbed, and misled. His job has been to protect his country’s prerogatives and its sovereignty in an international system that seeks to erode sovereignty in general and views Russia’s sovereignty in particular as a threat...
...When Putin took power in the winter of 1999-2000, his country was defenseless. It was bankrupt. It was being carved up by its new kleptocratic elites, in collusion with its old imperial rivals, the Americans. Putin changed that. In the first decade of this century, he did what Kemal Atatürk had done in Turkey in the 1920s. Out of a crumbling empire, he rescued a nation-state, and gave it coherence and purpose. He disciplined his country’s plutocrats. He restored its military strength. And he refused, with ever blunter rhetoric, to accept for Russia a subservient role in an American-run world system drawn up by foreign politicians and business leaders. His voters credit him with having saved his country...
(Excerpt) Read more at imprimis.hillsdale.edu ...
——So that is what is driving China-—
I would argue there is a very powerful latent force providing both pressure and direction. That is or perhaps are the young people that not only do not feel the old communist ways but see a modern world to which they can be a part. They will not be kept down.
How ya’ goin to keep them down on the farm after they’ve got daisey mae’s?
I was also an Engineer with a wide and solid foundation in the physical sciences, so objective observation came early and easily.
From that point on, I easily concluded that the problem was Communism per se, not "Russians".
Further investigation (History) revealed that The Marx (unworkable) Economic Philosophy of Communism was weaponized in Western Europe (primarily France, England and Germany) and sent to Russia to compromise Russian military strength and population advantage.
In short, Communism was used as a weapon of mass destruction against Russians to prevent Russia from being the deciding factor in the outcome of constant European wars.
It didn't take long after figuring that out to deduce that Russians themselves were just normal people like everybody else.
It might be worth noting that Russians did not have the opportunity to inform themselves about Communism because there was no track record of it in 1917, and Lenin sold 'em out. No other Communist group can claim the facts weren't there, and no other Communist group has effectively ended Communist rule.
Russians? They're just like everybody else except for one thing, they pretty much got rid of Communism.
My wife and I were in China last year for 2 weeks on a tour, and frankly there is little evidence it is a communist country, at least at the every day level. Many Chinese TV stations which seem to broadcast whatever they want (they have a lot of business and economic type programs), unbelievable amounts of money (in Beijing and Shanghai you see people driving around in Lamborghinis and Rolls Royces, etc.) Massive traffic jams because so many people now have cars. Also, all the old is being torn down in favor of the new. A major sight throughout China is seeing piles of rubble where old residential neighborhoods have been bulldozed, and 40 to 60 story condos are going up in their place.
Just as an example of how wealthy the Chinese are now, one evening when we were in Beijing, several of us decided to check out the market down the street which was a Chinese version of Whole Foods. So we went in there, and found the market was mostly imported food from Europe and the U.S. One of the things that caught my eye was the wine department. I saw one of the bottles of wine on display and said, “that isn’t what it looks like, is it?”
Racks of Chateau Latour and Chateau Lafite de Rothschild. Given they were displayed behind plexiglas, but there must have been 40 or 50 bottles. And then I looked at the prices in yuan and then looked at my currency calculator. Each one of these bottles was being sold for around the equivalent of $10,000 U.S.
On your girlfriend’s background. Our guide in Xi’an, an intructor at the local university and very involved in the terra cotta soldiers from an early time, told us his family history. His family was actually Mongolian, but lived in China. They apparently were wealthy landowners at one point. His father was educated in England before the Communist Revolution, became a medical doctor, and had a successful practice in London. At some point during the Korean War, after China entered and its soldiers were taking a lot of casualties, Mao sent out a plea to Chinese doctors around the world, asking them to return and help take care of the wounded. Apparently his father and a lot of other doctors were fooled and made the mistake of coming back.
Things were ok for a while and they were allowed to have nice houses, servants, etc. But when the Cultural Revolution came, his father and many other medical professionals were then arrested and thrown into camps, where he eventually died in prison and his mother then had to raise our guide and his siblings on her own, so they then had a tough life. Mao totally destroyed the medical profession in China, then leading to the necessity of having to have “barefoot doctors,” people essentially untrained in medicine but having to be the frontline medical care.
So our tour guide hates Mao Tse Tung and the hardline Communists, and wasn’t afraid to tell everyone on the tour that. He instead has respect for Deng Hsiao Ping, who took over after Mao’s death and apparently was a pragmatist who tried to undo most of what Mao did.
So a lot of the Communist totalitarianism is now gone (evidenced by our guide who had absolutely no compunction about not being frank and honest about everything going on in China), but there are still consequences. Because of his history, he has refused to join the Communist Party although that is expected. His wife did join the Party and is now a full professor and dean at the university. But he is essentially blackballed and remains just an instructor. It seems like most of the time he now just leads tours instead (and probably makes more money). In addition to Xi’an (where he lives), he takes people on independent tours on the Silk Road, Gobi Desert and to Tibet going through the Chinese side.
“I actually applaud Russia for protecting their children from the gaystapo and other destructive Western influences. Pedophilia is deeply frowned upon in Russia and Eastern Europe, yet is becoming mainstream in the West.”
The western media downplays the fact that Obama, against Putin’s direct request, unilaterally met with the “LGBT rights” representatives in St. Petersburg, who were actually the pornographers spreading the filth that Russia was trying to stop. Obama went on and on about their human rights and they should have freedom of expression, etc.
Putin then banned Obama from ever again entering Russia. (Later extended to Obama’s acquaintances, see http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37957097). Obama countered by issuing sanctions (ostensibly in retaliation for the Ukraine situation) aimed not at Russia directly, but against those in the Russian parliament who had been sponsors of the anti-pornography law.
Obama was an arrogant international asshole of the worst variety; we really cannot fault Russia for responding accordingly.
>>I will correct you. You should have said “What Stalin did to Ukraine”. BTW, Stalin was Georgian, not Russian.<<
Yes, although it’s basically a matter of semantics, I do take your point. “Stalin” would have been more accurate. And yes, I am aware that he was a Georgian, however, he also became the Soviet dictator upon the death of Lenin, and he ruled the Soviet Union for two decades.
Good points. Thank you.
Yet another example of the massive disaster and embarrassment that was the Obama regime.
You are spot on. I grew up in the 80’s and had no love for the Soviet Union or Communism.
Fortunately, the Soviet Union is no more and I wish the Russian people the very best.
Rather eloquent, but had to look up Duginist, ideology of Aleksandr Dugin , Russian political analyst, strategist and philosopher known for his fascist views, leading organizer of the National Bolshevik Party, key member of the ruling United Russia party Sergei Naryshkin, of author of more than 30 books, and who calls to hasten the "end of times" with all-out war.
Now wonder we see stories like Dugin's Evil Theology - | National Review
I write as an American with some Russian ancestry on my paternal side, who lived there as an expat shortly following the Crimea annexation.
Foreigners have it better than average Russians as we’re usually paid in foreign currency (not rubles) if employed, we’re there of our own will, and receive preferential and friendlier treatment in general. Being American carries more panache than every other nationality.
Russians don’t expect outsiders to be acquainted with all the baggage they share between themselves in terms of their interactions with each other, their deep-seated frustrations with life under the regime, etc...These are things I become acquainted with once I left the expat bubble and started speaking the language more.
The biggest conclusion I came to was that while the Soviet Union may have collapsed territorially and economically (and not that long ago at that), it has not collapsed psychologically or spiritually in the minds and hearts of the people. And rather than help Russians move forward, Putin has capitalized on his own people’s vulnerabilities to sell them a bag of short-term goods, which have contributed to their long-term harm and decline. Spiritually and Economically.
Putin knows this, which is why uses things like Crimea, Syria -to distract Russians from their own inner insecurities and turmoil. To make Russians feel confidence in their nation. The state-run news media diverts attention away from problems at home (like the tensions resulting from massive inflow of Muslim migrants to Moscow from former Soviet states in Central Asia, who make up for the labor shortfall posed by ethnic Russians’ demographic crisis, or the rising disputes over language-policy in the Russian republic of Tatarstan) —> onto sensationalized stories of Western chaos, and the sham that is American democracy or what have you...But, despite all this, the patience of Russians, particularly young Russians, is wearing thin.
Putin needs an unstable Ukraine so as to discourage the same Euromaidan-style revolution from happening within his own borders. Lest Russians demand a democracy of their own.
With regard to “Christian values” - while faith is alive and well in the hearts of many: banning gay propaganda and wearing crosses have not done enough to put the country on a strong social footing. Russia currently suffers from intense HIV rates and Soviet abortion culture has only recently started to be tackled. (Highest rates in Europe second only to Romania.) Divorce, domestic violence, fatherlessness — are more a general rule of life than the exception. Some of this is still fallout from the trauma of the collapse and the turmoil of the 90s. Some of it endemic. A Russian proverb says: “If he beats you, he loves you.”
And The Orthodox Church has reverted back to old habits of catering to the State at the expense of God. Some remain passive or even actively support of the Putin government’s efforts to rehabilitate the image of Stalin, who was responsible for the deaths and purges of millions of believers. Priests live in posh, lavish luxury while criticizing the so-called decadence and materialism of the secular West.
Lenin’s body remains unburied, and lies in full display at the center of Red Square. Efforts to question the historical record concerning horrors perpetrated on Russians by the Soviet State are repressed or punished, as Putin is present for near every single installation of a tsar statue — including that of Ivan the Terrible. Portraits of Felix Dzhervinzky hangs in police stations. (And all of these images often hang alongside Orthodox icons of Jesus, the saints, etc...an ode to the conflicted state of modern Russia as a whole.)
The Russian government bullies Poland and Ukraine for tearing down Lenin statues and Soviet monuments. So much for respect for sovereignty.
The Russian economy continues to hinge on oil prices and constricts innovation.
And the leftist movements here in America and abroad continue to be plagued by the Soviet values of secularism and socialism. Globalism is arguably a Soviet concept also. So Russia does the whole world a disservice by not acknowledging the lingering ramifications of the Soviet legacy.
As stronger leaders like Trump take hold of the West, Russia’s own contributions to Western corruption (like feeding millions to Hillary Clinton and clan) will unravel as well as the accounts of kleptocratic oligarchs having near-a-trillion-US-dollars stocked up in Western banks.
Trump will only be vindicated and Russia’s own domestic weaknesses and corruption will gradually become the forefront of global discussion as their March 2018 presidential elections loom, their fate in next year’s Winter Olympics hangs in the balance due to the (state-run) doping scandals, and as they host the corruption-ridden World Cup next summer while the economic conditions and living standards for most average Russians continue to tank and decline.
This is the short version. I am of the belief that Putin will not go down in history well. And once his regime crumbles, Russians will have to undergo the process of psychological de-Putinization as well the long-overdue postponed de-Sovitezation, and even de-imperialization from the toxic time of the tsars.
The body of Lenin will finally be buried, as well as the bones of the Romanovs. Reconciliation will be had with their Christian brothers and sisters in Ukraine. And Russia will embrace the struggle to build a free society on their own terms, and with faith in their own abilities to do so.
One wonders...... has Russia ever learned to manufacture panty hose?
Great posts by both of you, especially your post 64, Daniel. Wasn’t aware of Dugin and his bizarre eschatology either.
Speaking of which, I have read your posts off and on for several years now, Daniel, but can’t remember you posting anything about your millennial view, whether you are Pre, A, or Post millennial (I myself am pre). I think it is going to have something to do with the issue here - Russia.
Putin’s Russia may not be the Soviet Union, but, in my view, his church’s Amillennialism (the Russian Orthodox Church is Amillennial, just like the RCC) is just about as totalitarian. Both the RCC and the Russian Orthodox, due to their interpretation of the millennial, believe that they are supposed to be ruling the world. In the case of Dugin, his part of the world, at least. Dugin’s “Eurasianism” from “Lisbon to Vladavostok” seems to fit the scenario.
Thanks for the objective report, our FR reporter. The danger with the post-Putin problem is that of being condoned to think a "fatherland" fascist would be the answer.
I usually to do not get into debatable peripherals, but
I myself also see the “rapture”- which term is derived from the text of the Latin Vulgate of 1 Thess. 4:17—”we will be caught up,” [Latin: rapiemur]) - as being the first resurrection, (Rv. 20:5,6) which is only for the saved, “the resurrection of life, (Jn. 5:29a), the “resurrection of the just,” on the “day of the Lord, in which all the bodies of believers will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air at the ends of the Great Trib., and go on with Him to the battle of Armageddon.
“For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. “ (1 Thessalonians 4:14)
“Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. “ (1 Thessalonians 4:17)
“And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. “ (Jude 14-15)
Those who effectually believe on the Lord Jesus now have eternal life life, and if they die in the Lord they shall go to be with the Lord, (2Cor. 5:6-8; Phil. 1:23; 1Thes. 4:17) but their rewards or loss thereof are not given out until that “day of the Lord.”
Believers will be rewarded for their good works, (Lk. 14:14; cf. 1Cor. 4:5; Acts 24:15) in distinction to “the resurrection of damnation” (Jn. 5:29b) which evidently occurs 1,000 years after, (Rv. 20:5) and in which believers will be part of the jury in the judgement of men and angels.
“Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. “ (1 Corinthians 3:13)
“Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, “ (2 Thessalonians 2:1)
And on that “day” every believer shall “receive his own reward according to his own labour,” (1Cor. 3::8) including suffering loss of rewards:
“Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God. “ (1 Corinthians 4:5)
And will sit with Him in judgment of men and of angels:
“Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life? “ (1 Corinthians 6:3)
Those who die in their sins shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth upon them, yet their exact degree of punishment is not meted out until the Great White Throne judgment.
The “great and notable day of the Lord” ‘ Acts 2:20) culminates in the Great White Throne judgment in which the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire, (Rv. 20:11-5) with their degree of punishment being determined in accordance with how much light and grace was given. (Lk. 10:12-13; 12:47,48)
I’m sorry that you see the millennial as “peripheral.” I obviously, see otherwise, and believe it has much to do with the “How to Think About Vladimir Putin” subject of this thread, and Russia in general. I am, however, in total agreement with you on the “rapture” being the first resurrection of Rev. 20. Thanks for your post.
By “peripheral” I basically mean as regards it being held as necessary for salvation, or the integrity of the Bible, or as a distinctive of a church that claims to uniquely be the true one. Of course, some do make belief in the pretrib “rapture” an essential belief, and i fear many will be disillusioned in the midst of great tribulation.
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