Laigle’s Forum

Russia, the West and persecuted Christians

 

by Don Hank

 

There is evidence that Russia is, for whatever motive, interested in protecting Christians. One article in Interfax bears the title “Putin vows Russia will defend persecuted Christians abroad.”

So how sincere are the Russians? There has been a plethora of commentaries on the subject here in the US, mostly attacking Russia for defending her own interests under the pretext of Christian concerns. Who knows?

But here are some things to contemplate:

1–Even in the atheistic Soviet Union, churches that had been bombed out in the war were lovingly and painstakingly restored, at enormous cost to the nation, as were other places of cultural value. The Russian government may have publicly criticized Christianity, but the Russian people would not have stood for the physical destruction of Russian Orthodox churches. Now, I did visit one such church in Leningrad (name now reverted to Petersburg), which was, sadly, converted to the so-called Museum of Religion and Atheism, a deplorable example of desecration and unveiled blasphemy. But the entire building and its furnishings, including the icons, were in mint condition. Unlike in Mao’s China, traditional things and antiques were not destroyed, quite the opposite.

2–The Russian opposition to Western intervention in Kosovo was also culturally/religiously rooted. The Slavic population there is and was mostly Russian Orthodox, with church services generally being held in Old Church Slavonic, an archaic Slavic dialect universally understood by the clerics. Let us recall the themes of Christian repentance in the novel Crime and Punishment, and the pro-Christian message of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Both books were printed and published in the Soviet Union and were available to the public at low prices throughout much of Soviet history (I know because I bought my copies directly from the Soviet Union, and for a pittance). The name Raskolnikov, the protagonist of the former novel, comes from “raskolniki,” a persecuted Christian sect of 17^th Century Russia which stoically suffered excruciating torture for their faith. The Russian soul empathizes with persecuted Christians, particularly those of its own brand, but by extension, with all confessions of Christianity.

4–In both Moscow and Petersburg, mayors have opposed “gay” parades, refusing to issue permits and even arresting those who defied the law to hold the parades. This is as much cultural, related as it is to the Slavic variety of “machismo,” as it is religious. It is difficult to separate the Paulian doctrine on homosexuality (which has never died among the people) from a purely cultural phenomenon, but in denying permits for homosexual events, the local governments were without a doubt appealing to the Russian people’s respect and love of traditional family. Contrast that to Western schools that sell filth and perversion as if they were something divine and cherished.

5–Russia opposed Western intervention in Egypt, Libya and now Syria, specifically voicing concerns over the fate of the Christian population there.

Now you can argue that Russia is only concerned with its own Realpolitik, fearful of its own restless Muslim population and how they will respond to the Syrian outcome, or with economic issues or the like. There might be some truth to that.

But one thing is certain. While Russian officials have had the courage to publicly deplore the plight of Middle East Christians, officials of our own “Christian” nation have said nothing about it during the last 2 decades of Western military intervention and the resulting persecution, banishment and murder of Christians abroad.

For whatever reason or motive, the first is now last and the last is first.

 

Further reading:

http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=dujour&div=157

http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=9070

 

[This is adapted from a much longer essay by Laigle's contributor Anthony Horvath, which can be read here. Anthony is a pro-life speaker and the president of Wisconsin Lutherans for Life.]

Former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson has set the pro-life blogosphere on fire with her posting of the ‘Jaffe Memo,’ a memorandum written by Frederick S. Jaffe, former vice-president of Planned Parenthood.  Jaffe apparently was in charge of PP’s population control agenda.  The memo was written in 1969.

The memo appears to be legit but I haven’t been able to find its original source.  Read it.

This memo has all sorts of blood chilling suggestions- blood chilling if the culture of death does not run through your veins, that is.  Ideas on controlling world population include:

• Fertility control agents in the water supply
• Encourage women to work
• Require women to work and provide few child care facilities
• Compulsory abortion of out-of-wedlock pregnancies
• Compulsory sterilization of all who have two children- except for a few who would be allowed three
• Discouragement of private home ownership
• Allow certain contraceptives to be distributed non-medically
• Make contraception truly available to all

Some of my more predictable readers will go through that list and their eyes will simply glaze over for most of it.  With their eyes in a fog as they instinctively declare the above as merely an instance of “Godwin’s Law” but their blood started boiling when they saw on the list “Encourage women to work.”

Dear God, who could be against that? And who could be against making contraception available to everyone?  Clearly, this blogger is a bigot.

I included that item in order to make a very important point. Read the rest of this entry »

You can’t have it both ways. Either you want to stop the tyrant or you want to assist him.

 

by Don Hank

 

Pat Condell has a unique way with language, as a recent video shows.

Look at this delightful phrase: ” [the EU]…will collapse under the weight of its own illegitimacy.”

It occurs to me that, due to their opposition to tyranny, atheists like Pat are actually in the same boat as biblical Christians, though seemingly at opposite poles, and our plight –  as well as our tragic inability to grasp it – is as described by Martin Niemöller in that famous quote

“In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist…[etc]“

A sincere and questioning mind will, absent bias and external obstructions, come round to the truth. Atheism can be a painful first step in questioning received wisdom, but it may never be the last.

National unity means joining in common cause with everyone who opposes the common enemy, at least in the opposition to that enemy and until he is vanquished. There are no superiors or inferiors in that struggle, just people yearning for their share of the rights and voice that are rightfully theirs. Their God-given rights as we say. The term “God-given” may offend some people with claims to “higher enlightenment,” but consider that it was precisely the notion that man can create rights out of thin air that gave birth to the despotic EU – just as the corollary notion that central banks – part of that same entity — can create money out of thin air contributed mightily to our current financial malaise. Those perverse ideas are twins.

I doubt it has ever occurred to Pat that his militant atheism is part of the cultural Marxism that has been foisted on Europe for generations by the very elites he rails against. After all, the Fabian Society was founded (in London) for a twofold purpose:

1. to spread socialism, and

2. to eliminate Judeo-Christian culture.

Today’s elites are the spiritual and ideological heirs to that agenda, and yet, many of their putative opponents are unwittingly assisting them in their quest to destroy our Western culture and heritage by assailing Judeo-Christianity.

Pat is part of our landscape, his words are too powerful to ignore, and he is absolutely right that the EU has stolen from Europeans. But he needs to understand that opposing only the political agenda of the Imperial Powers he rails against is an incomplete task — even a futile one — unless we oppose their social agenda as well. Opposition to the enemy’s destructiveness is a vital first step. Railing against constructive faith that ultimately can replace what that agenda has torn asunder negates that opposition.

This is because a vital second step is restoring what the enemy has destroyed, and the will to restore it comes in no small measure from our inner spiritual resources invested in a common vision of national health and prosperity.

The myth that atheism was a vital component of the Enlightenment is false. There were in fact two Enlightenments, one that sought to reconcile the thought of Aristotle, for example, with Christianity, as Lawrence de Medici had done in Florence, and the other Enlightenment – embodied, for example, by Voltaire, which taught that religion itself had held back progress and needed to be abolished. Devotees of the latter branch cite, by way of support, the difficulties that some scientists like Copernicus and Galileo, have encountered with the Vatican. Yet they seem unaware that Roger Bacon’s pioneering work on the scientific method was in fact sponsored by Pope Clement IV.

Those spiritual resources we will need to rebuild our civilization once the enemy is overcome are, to paraphrase Pat, like the air we breathe and the water we drink.

We can’t afford to throw this baby out with the bath water.

http://kleinverzet.blogspot.com/2011/11/dose-of-cold-hard-truth.html

And now they’re coming for you

 

Don Hank

 

Matt. 25:45 Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

A few weeks ago, PayPal cut off service to Julio Severo because Julio says on his blog that he agrees with the New Testament on homosexual behavior. They did this at the behest of a homosexual activist group.

Effectively, PayPal, as the only service of its kind, unilaterally decided to try and ban Julio’s blog, which has played a key role in stopping utterly totalitarian-style legislation in Brazil that would have banned speech perceived as offensive to homosexuals. Since PayPal is effectively a monopoly, they have threatened Julio’s livelihood in objection to his faith, which they want to see banned everywhere in the world.

PayPal is therefore what I call a NGE, or Non-Governmental Enforcer, of an unconstitutional speech code, circumventing the law by using methods that would be politically impossible for government to use.
And yet you will note that government has been glaringly silent and will do nothing to help Julio barring a lawsuit. And it is far from clear whether our leftist-packed judiciary will do anything to intervene on behalf of freedom of speech.

Now, not much fuss was made over Julio’s plight outside Christian activist circles, apparently because religious freedom is now being supplanted in Western minds by sexual freedom, a favorite platform of libertarians.

Yet, I have tried to warn that when you allow government (or its proxy) to tell Christians they may not speak out against what they perceive as evil, the totalitarian system will soon direct its fury against you, in what could be called the “Niemöller effect,” even if the government per se is not directly involved in this assault. Because you see, the far left (as exemplified by the Fabian Society, which has lost no time in stealthily removing your freedom since the 1880s) has always used stealth tactics to enforce laws, even laws not yet on the books. They believe they are on the side of History, and I write that with a cap because for them history is God.

Now, the West has gradually accepted the mindset that religion is nothing but a throwback and has no place in public life. In fact, they portray Christianity as a sinister system designed to enslave people. Yet when large corporations in league with corrupt government (crony capitalism) overtly take steps to eradicate Christian speech in public, then those liberty-minded individuals who generally ignore the plight of Christians, also considering us to be knuckle dragging Neanderthals, are unwittingly cutting their own throats, because if groups of bullies can tell Christians to shut up with impunity, then they can tell you to shut up as well. It is only a matter of time.

A few scant weeks have passed since PayPal censored Christian blogger Julio Severo and now, those who sat silently by are seeing the censors moving into their own territory. For libertarians generally believe that any censorship is bad and cuts into liberty. Yet, as suggested above, they foolishly look away when Christians are censored, particularly Christians who flout the Ruling Class purportedly on the “side of history.” What they fail to see is that the censorship of Christian speech is a harbinger of much bigger things to come. Because the Ruling Class despises Judeo-Christian values (as exemplified by their behavior in Europe where they import Christian-hating Muslims by the millions, and in the Muslim World, where each war they engage in invariably has the outcome of Christian persecution and decimation of the indigenous Christian populations).

This lack of compassion for Christian speech on the part of the “freedom minded,” including numerous nominal Christians, is a classic example of the “Niemöller Syndrome” as expressed in the famous statement by Christian leader Martin Niemöller:

“When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.”

And then he goes on to say they came for the social democrats, and then the trade unionists, the Jews and so on and he said nothing each time and then finally:
“When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.”

We are at that point now, my friend. You didn’t speak out for Julio because you bought into the left’s propaganda that only homosexuals can be victims, never Christians. The far left in league with the New World Order taught you that Christianity is the enemy of freedom and compassion, when in fact it represents the only real freedom and compassion one can ever hope to have.

Now we are here:

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2011/10/25/248252/Wikileaks-turns-to-fundraising-as-US-finance-companies-cut-off.htm

He [Assange] claims that since Wikileaks began publishing thousands of secret US government files and diplomatic cables online, an “arbitrary and unlawful financial blockade” has been imposed by Bank of America, Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and Western Union.

Each and every one of those corporations are nothing more nor less than partners in an unholy alliance with the most radical political apparatus we have ever seen in America. Along with many others, I had said many times before that there is no longer free market capitalism in America.

But loss of economic freedom is never alone. Loss of religious freedom and loss of political freedom are never far behind.

We are now officially in that latter phase when the right to freedom of speech has been abridged and soon will be completely abolished unless you and I have a change of heart.

Did Assange complain when Julio Severo was cruelly denied a living for his family, including 4 children?

I didn’t hear his protests.

And I didn’t hear yours either when WorldNetDaily alerted you to this outrage.

So don’t protest when they muzzle you and take away your voice and your vote.

Welcome to Gulag America, a prison of your own making, through your silent complicity.

 

Relevant:

http://laiglesforum.com/will-you-help-this-borther/2693.htm

http://laiglesforum.com/did-paypal-aid-and-abett-child-porn-sellers/2721.htm

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=346825

 

Western hypocrisy exposed

 

Don Hank

I have been debating with a friend over the issue of why Ghadaffi has been treated worse than other leaders of the same region. After all, what Muslim leader has not shown unusual cruelty in the course of his reign?

One thing that my friend brought up was that Ghadaffi had instituted Sharia law.

The problem is that, while Ghadaffi did in fact make a stab at using Sharia as a reference, or sort of Constitution, he soon found that it didn’t work in the real world, and he very shortly abandoned it (see link below).

On the other hand, Obama bowed obsequiously before King Abdullah during a visit not long ago but yet Saudi Arabia has one of the most inhumane treatments of prisoners of any country in the world – thanks to its reliance on Sharia law. So here you have Ghaddafi, who abolished cruel Sharia, vs. Abdullah, whose regime relies on Sharia, and whom do the Western elites (incl notably, Obama) call cruel?

Why, Ghadaffi, of course. (Not saying he wasn’t, but why single him out if other Middle East regimes are arguably more cruel?).

Then my friend, who avidly reads the MSM, said he had read that Ghadaffi had brought poverty to his nation. So I did some internet searches on Libyan poverty and found that the only articles claiming Libyans were poor had been written during the run-up to the Libyan rebellion, by reporters in countries whose leading politicians supported the ouster of Ghadaffi. Does anyone doubt that much of what the MSM reports, and the way they report it, is largely propaganda supportive of government policy, particularly that of increasingly authoritarian governments in Europe and the US?

On the other hand, I discovered that, in 2009, the year with the most complete reporting for all countries in the region, the average per capita income in Libya was several times that in neighboring countries, namely, $9,957 (up to $13,800 this year).

Here are some reference figures for average incomes in other countries that same year:

Afghanistan: $4,526

Iraq: $2,565

Kosovo: $3,080

Morocco: $2,808

Egypt: $2,699

Tunisia: $4,199

 

Now, you will note that Iraqis, who had been under US control since 2003, or about 5 years at the time of that compilation, had an average annual per capita income of only a third that of Libya, while Afghanis, who have been under Western Coalition control since 2001, or about 7 years at that time, earned less than half the income of Libyans. Kosovo, which was also created by the Western powers through war, had some of the lowest income in all of Europe, about one-third of what Libyans earned.

So it doesn’t look as though poverty is a viable argument against Ghadaffi, even though it was a favorite in the MSM in the run-up to his murder. After all, if impoverishment of one’s people is grounds for murdering a leader, then what should we do with the leaders (notably Western ones) responsible for countries poorer than Libya?

But when I articulated these arguments, my friend then said he thought it was more of an issue of wealth distribution, with Ghadaffi receiving vastly more than his share. However, the UN’s calculation of the Gini index, which is the best indicator of wealth distribution, was not collected for the countries that I wanted to study for my analysis, namely, Libya, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

So if there are no official data available, then apparently Western anti-Ghadaffi arguments were based solely on speculation and anecdotal evidence.  Yet, if you want to trade Libya anecdotes for Saudi Arabia anecdotes, for example, on the subject of wealth distribution you can swap stories ‘til you drop. Here’s a tofer for you, evidence of both human rights violations and poverty: A blogger was arrested this year in Saudi Arabia for posting evidence of poverty in that country. Not just a tad bit authoritarian? And not evidence that enough poverty exists that the government is scared word might get out.

You know what all this reminds me of?

A movie I once saw about a corrupt sheriff’s department in the south that stopped a car driven by a black northerner and tried to charge him but couldn’t think of a charge. They couldn’t get him for speeding because he wasn’t speeding. They couldn’t get him for drunk driving either because he was significantly more sober than a judge.

One of the deputies finally found a tail light out and they fined him on that flimsy charge.

That is the story of Libya’s Ghadaffi: a failed tail light and now he’s toast.

So what was the real motive behind the persecution and murder of Libya’s strong man, who had brought prosperity to his country and was apparently well enough liked that many of his countrymen laid down their lives for him?

The hypothesis that holds up best to scrutiny is that the Western power elite despises Western culture, especially the Judeo-Christian aspect, and here was an opportunity to rid the Middle East of another secular leader who tolerated Christians and Jews (he imported blacks from southern Africa as laborers and he cooperated with the West in its policies regarding Israel). After all, why else would the Ruling Class import millions and millions of Muslims to Europe knowing that they would not assimilate, that they would cause trouble, and that they oppose Christianity and its trappings? And why did every conflict with Western involvement – Iran, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ivory Coast, Egypt, etc. — ultimately wind up with almost all of the native Christians banished from their homeland of generally about 2000 years?

I have shown copious evidence of this anti-Judeo-Christian motive in numerous articles, and with each move that the West makes in the Middle East I become more and more convinced of it:

http://laiglesforum.com/i-told-you-so-again/2697.htm

http://laiglesforum.com/my-government-is-killing-me/2159.htm

http://laiglesforum.com/spare-me-the-crocodile-tears-when-northern-africa-explodes/2215.htm

http://laiglesforum.com/how-western-powers-abet-christian-persecution/2513.htm

http://laiglesforum.com/us-media-cover-up-ivory-coast-massacre-details/2398.htm

http://laiglesforum.com/why-i-am-not-on-our-side-any-more/2174.htm

http://laiglesforum.com/the-far-left-connection-to-the-near-east-rebellion/2224.htm

http://laiglesforum.com/2286/2286.htm

 

Check out these links showing the West’s extreme hypocrisy in the Ghadaffi saga:

http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/africa/poverty-persists-in-libya-despite-oil-riches

Libyan average annual gross domestic product per capita has reached US$13,800 (Dh50,868) per year

(written after OBL killed, so very recent).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita

2009, Libya

 

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&idim=country:IRQ&dl=en&hl=en&q=gdp+per+capita+iraq

Iraq: $2090 in 2009

 

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&idim=country:AFG&dl=en&hl=en&q=gdp+per+capita+afghanistan

Afghanistan: $468 in 2009

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita

All 2009:

Average annual GDP per capita in Libya: $9,957

Afghanistan: $4,526

Iraq: $2,565

Kosovo: $3,080

Morocco: $2,808

Egypt: $2,699

Tunisia: $4,199

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

Wealth distribution:

Gini index: NO DATA for Libya, Iraq, Saudi Arabia

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/business/worldbusiness/17iht-inflation.1.15359629.html?pagewanted=all

A January wage increase of 5 percent for government employees disappointed those Saudis who earn less than 10,000 riyals, or $2,666, a month, especially after other Gulf countries moved more quickly to raise wages by larger amounts.

 

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/saudi-video-blogger-reportedly-detained-for-showing-poverty-in-riyadh/?scp=2&sq=saudi&st=Search

Saudi Video Blogger Reportedly Detained for Showing Poverty in Riyadh

A popular Saudi video blogger was detained this week, along with his crew, after his report on poverty in the kingdom’s capital, Riyadh, was viewed hundreds of thousands of times on YouTube, human rights activists said.

The blogger, Feras Bugnah, was arrested on Sunday with his colleagues Hosam al-Deraiwish and Khaled al-Rasheed, in connection with the latest episode of their online show, “We Are Being Cheated,” according to the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association.

 

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/more-saudi-women-record-driving-videos/?scp=28&sq=saudi&st=Search

Saudi women may not drive

 

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/saudi-arabia-executes-eight-bangladeshi-nationals-2011-10-07

Beheadings

The beheadings bring the number of executions in Saudi Arabia this year to at least 58, more than double than the 2010 figures. Twenty of those executed in 2011 were foreign nationals.

http://www.hrdc.net/sahrdc/hrfeatures/HRF133.htm

2005

And only those with a perverse sense of what constitutes justice would have approved of the news of an Indian man in Saudi Arabia facing the ‘punishment’ of having his eye gouged out.

http://lankapolity.blogspot.com/2011/06/inhuman-treatment-for-sri-lankan.html

6/07/2011

A Sri Lankan who was found guilty for selling liquor in a public place in Taif city Saudi Arabia while being drunk has been subjected to 430 lashes