Category Archives: Pols and Pundits

Surveillance Psychosis Theater

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Yet another act in the ongoing theater of the International Surveillance State:  “Wikileaks names US cell-phone spy target as Afghanistan, claims Google”(h/t Wenzel@EPJ)

The protagonists are well-known by now:

Wikileaks, Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden,  and Paul Watson (from Infowars, Alex Jones’ site).

They’ve already established their “street cred” (credibility at the grass-roots) with their activism, so their words are taken at face-value:

Earlier this week, Pierre Omidyar’s national security blog, The Intercept, reported that the US is recording all telephone calls made in and out of the Bahamas and one other unnamed country.

The story, co-bylined by Ryan Devereaux, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, explained that the Intercept had decided not to name that second “country X” due to the risk of increased violence in response.

As I wrote at the time, this decision prompted a furious response from former allies Wikileaks, which “condemn[ed] Firstlook for following the Washington Post into censoring the mass interception of an entire nation.”

Upping the stakes, Wikileaks also promised to name the redacted country within 72 hours.

Late last night the organization made good on its promise, issuing a statement claiming that “country x” is Afghanistan…

“Country X”! I’m surprised Greenwald didn’t put on a V for Vendetta mask and hiss “Psssst” from the bowels of a seedy bar.

As I’ve written here and here and here and here, and even back in 2005  in “Language of Empire,”  the government has been spying on all our calls and emails, without a warrant for a while now.

Even the mainstream press has reported this a long time ago.

That fearless dissident voice, The New York Times, published the following only a decade ago:

“Bush lets US Spy on Callers Without Courts,” James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, NY Times, December 16, 2005.

Let me call your attention to this line:

While many details about the program remain secret, officials familiar with it say the N.S.A. eavesdrops without warrants on up to 500 people in the United States at any given time. The list changes as some names are added and others dropped, so the number monitored in this country may have reached into the thousands since the program began, several officials said.

Except for the suspiciously low number of people the government admits to targeting,  what did this piece really hide?

Here is a leading establishment organ substantiating what activists and immigrants have known since 9-11:

Every call overseas, every email, is subject to government monitoring.

Now, I don’t know what other people take to be monitoring. But, by 2004 many immigrants like me were generally aware that the government was listening to all our calls and emails abroad.  We even joked about it.

It was in 2010, when I was browsing Cryptome’s archives, that I realized that calls and emails directed abroad were also being taped and archived.

That part, I admit, was a shock.

 

 

Conservatives cozy with the establishment

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The infiltration of conservative and paleo- libertarian circles by progressives continues apace, writes the paleo-libertarian blogger at MoreRight.net:

“Why does a self-admitted liberal have a regular column at a website called The American Conservative, founded by Pat Buchanan, and his column is passed off as a conservative voice?”

It should make anyone wonder about several conservative pundits. Some of them seem to be more interested in their media presence than in supporting traditionalist positions.

Whether they are simply naive or actively working to undermine social conservatism is the question.

MoreRight.net continues:

” If you dig into the archives of this magazine, you see the same refrain again and again:

And what issue is more important than life? As a practical matter, conservatives would probably do better with voters by becoming less rigid on social issues where Americans are becoming more liberal. But they also stand to gain by doubling down on the issue that should matter most.

Translation: we ought to give up on social conservatism because no one will vote for it, let’s just focus on stopping abortion and forget the rest.”

The blogger gets a part of the picture right, although I think there are other reasons for someone to focus on abortion, as recently I have begun to.

He then points out evidence of conservative pandering:

“What else? Articles written by the left-libertarians from the Cato Institute, fawning over Jim Morrison (who was found dead in a bathtub from a heroin overdose), bizarre apologetics for Communist folk musician Pete Seeger, and other one-off oddball articles.”

Lila Rajiva:

I can point out even greater pandering and compromise on paleo-libertarian sites:

  • Using the same scatological and vulgar personal attacks that the left favors
  • Constantly mocking conservatives, right-wingers, and  Republicans (admittedly these aren’t all the same thing), without anywhere near equal time for their opposite numbers, thus doing the left’s work for it
  • Promoting  disinformation sources, such as  Robert Morrow and John Loftus.

MoreRight than traces some  direct links between traditionalists and neo-reactionaries with progressives.

Last year, I  came to the conclusion that Neo-reaction (also called the Dark Enlightenment)  was some kind of leftist/government ploy, but given the anti-Catholic slant of the term “Cathedral,” I also have to wonder why this blogger uses it.

Deep waters indeed….

Imagine the reaction if one were to term the establishment the “Synagogue” or the “Temple”?

Of course, it shouldn’t be fear of reprisal that stops someone from using either of those terms.  It should be the clear evidence that the establishment uses all sides of the debate against each other, Catholic and Jewish among them.

The people who are supposed to be standing up for traditionalists in the “new media” sphere are not-so-subtly stabbing them in the back, not just in their associations, but in their heartfelt beliefs.

In the DC/NYC new media milieu, credibility emanates directly from the center of the Cathedral, that is, The New York Times. Everyone is angling for a spot at the trough, including so-called “traditionalist” conservatives.

Lila:  I was cited by the New York Times a couple of times, a while back. I daresay could have cultivated that route had I the stomach for dissimulation needed for it. Frankly, I don’t.

[Josh] Barro is part of the “media/liberal thought elite,” which includes other mediocrities and Cathedral mouthpieces such as Ta-Nehisi Coates, Anil Dash, Dave Weigel, Matt Yglesias, David Brooks, Paul Krugman, and so on.

What of the connection with “paleo”-conservatives? Jonathan Coppage, associate editor of The American Conservative, is friendly with Barro. They’re both connected to Forbes writer and former Business Insider analyst Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, who acts clueless about the decline, calls himself a “former reactionary who now embraces the Enlightenment,” and tells us about how great economic and social equality are. They’re connected to Michael B. Dougherty, another “surf the decline” conservative who openly mocks reactionary politics and argues in favor of “pragmatic” policies such as embracing immigration amnesty.

All these guys are very friendly with left-libertarians like Jason Kuznicki, Cathy Reisenwitz, and Josiah Neeley, who are doing their best to turn movement libertarianism into a subdivision of Frankfurt School progressivism. They’re in turn connected to witch hunters for liberal purity such as Julian Sanchez, also at Cato, and open borders enthusiasts such as Bryan Caplan (Cato), Eli Dourado (Mercatus), and Dylan Matthews (Vox). The relationship between so-called “paleoconservatives” and these left-libertarians and progressives is far too close for comfort.”

 

Blogger arrested for invasion of privacy

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A blogger was arrested for invading the privacy of a relative of a political candidate:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/politics/mississippi-gop-primary-arrest/

“The arrest of a man who allegedly obtained an image of a senator’s bedridden wife has shaken up an already intense Republican primary battle in Mississippi.

Political blogger Clayton Kelly was arrested Thursday, accused of exploiting a vulnerable adult and illegally and improperly obtaining a photo of her without her consent for his own benefit, according to the Madison Police Department.

Donald Clark, an attorney for Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Mississippi, and his wife, Rose, told The Clarion-Ledger newspaper that the woman in question is Rose, saying the Cochrans’ “privacy and dignity have been violated.” Rose Cochran suffers from dementia and has lived at St. Catherine’s Village, the nursing home where Thursday’s incident took place, for 14 years, according to the newspaper.”

The usual suspects will cry foul.  Journalists – even bloggers –  should always be free to say anything they want to about the political class.

On its face, of course, the arrest is a prior restraint, since no one has established the blogger’s guilt in a court of law.

However, this is not the first case of this type. Last year, the Legal Schnauzer blog,  which admittedly published defamatory material, was shut down before a court could adjudicate:

It’s clear that Southern courts are taking an aggressive position on the issue.

Frankly, constitution or not, I can sympathize with the victims. If political bloggers cannot tell the difference between a public issue and a private, they might need a severe shaking-up to find out.

On the other hand, the whole business worries me a lot.

While the first use of the law to pre-emptively discard public speech might be exerted on an obviously unsympathetic figure, it doesn’t follow that every other use will be.

For instance, there was another recent case of an outspoken blogger with powerful enemies being arrested, without a search warrant, for having child-porn on his computer.

Here,  the charges do in fact look trumped up and motivated by resentment of the blogger’s political speech:

These days, with the government privy to every move you make on the Internet, how hard would it be for someone to get a friend in government or a former government employee or contractor to download something onto your computer?

Not very hard, said a counter-terrorism expert I spoke to, although an FBI agent told me the FBI could always determine how any material was downloaded.

Still, if you’re a political blogger, the chances are you don’t want to be relying on the good offices of the FBI to avert a long stay in jail.

Virgin Birth – the product of Kriyashakthi

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UPDATE

The long excerpt I posted below, supposedly about a woman who had the experience of virgin birth, is intended to bolster my argument that such things have been recorded throughout history and that religious texts outside Christianity have described them.

However, I don’t subscribe to the author’s eco-feminism and gnosticism.  I should add that I’ve noticed not a few blogs recently that are essentially Gnostic, not Christian,  advocating radical celibacy. They might have been around all along, of course.

There is a strong radical celibacy movement that derides human sexuality, originating from Putin’s Russia (more on that later).

Caveat lector, as always.

ORIGINAL POST

The Virgin birth is the central mystery of Christianity, inseparable from the Cross and the Resurrection.

Nor -in a more generic form –  is it unique to Christianity.

From the pregnancy of Kunti with Karna (in Hinduism) to the birth of the Buddha from Maya, virgin birth has been described and sanctified across cultures.

Moreover, any study of yoga will tell you that such a thing is not an impossibility, within the frame of reference of yoga.

Shakti (energy) creates spontaneously, when the attention is powerful.

That observation is the basis for the popular “Law of Attraction” but it is a foundation of Hindu belief, finding its confirmation in Christian doctrine. On the other hand, Incarnation is denied both in Islam and  some forms of Judaism.

HInduism  affirms both incarnation (avatar) and the Trinity (the law of three – creation, preservation, and destruction).

One reason I came to Hinduism spontaneously while quite young and while in a thoroughly Christian atmosphere was my experience of Kriyashakthi, which until then I thought was my personal secret.

I experienced spontaneous precognitive experiences, as well as experiences of repeated synchronicity and “attraction,” which made me doubt the “scientism” around me.

The explanation for these experiences I found only in yoga texts, which is what drew me to a syncretist Hindu-Christian belief I retain to this day.

It was in Hinduism that I found the teaching that let me understand and accept the doctrines of Christianity unproblematically and without the sterile speculations of modern deist and atheist Christians like Tillich and Kung.

This understanding differs from the mainstream teachings of both Judaism and Judaism’s cousin, Islam.

More below about Kriyashakthi and Virgin Birth (I don’t subscribe to the blogger’s feminist theories):

“In the early 70’s I read and wrote a review for a book about the Ojibwa or Chippewa people. (Sorry, I can’t remember the title.) The author spent a decade re-searching oral stories from the Ojibwa’s old traditional speakers that existed before the coming of the Whiteman. One story was that wise-women of the tribe looked for certain young maidens that possessed grace, intelligence and compassion. Sometimes a candidate for conceiving and giving birth this way wouldn’t show up for a generation or two. Nevertheless, these wise-women kept an eagle-eye open for her. When found, men were not allowed to court her. When she reached the age of fertility, her first period, she was instructed to fast for several days and, if willing, was required to dance around a fire in a sacred women’s lodge built far away from the village. This ceremony occurred while she was ovulating. Ideally a state of bliss or ecstasy was reached during which, according to hidden wise women knowledge, it would be possible for her to conceive and give birth in the “old Way”. They also knew that a child born this way would be blessed with gifts of healing, clairvoyance or leadership. The Great Spirit would give to the child whatever tools the tribe might be in need of. I believe this is what happened among The Essenes along The Dead Sea over 2,000 years ago. Jesus was the result. It’s my guess that they planned it. Also, I might venture to say that this “old way” of conceiving and giving birth was considered a no-no during a time when patriarchy was firmly established. Was this why King Herod felt so threatened, enough to try and have all the new born males put to death in his kingdom?

It’s assumed that the law of parthenogenesis results in the birth of females only. This has been shown to occur in animal, insect and microscopic species but it may operate differently among humans, for there is a visionary power us humans possess. The Sanskrit term for it is Kriyashakti or, in short, Shakti; the mysterious power of thought which enables us to produce external, perceptible, phenomenal results by its own inherent energy. Any idea will manifest itself externally if one’s attention is deeply concentrated. If a woman envisions a boy it’s quite possible she will give birth to one. “In the Mother Cell begins all living things. The Creative Principle is feminine. The highest divine mystery is Brahamana, the feminine of Brahma.” (according to Hindu mythology) If I haven’t scared the reader off by dipping into religious lore, one might ask the biological reason for the presence of the hymen in women. I believe only one species of whale has a hymen but it is to keep sea-water out. Among us humans the hymen remains a “medical mystery”. Some folks think it’s there merely as fodder for comedians. Is it there because Nature, the great conservative, has a higher form of conception and birth in mind for women? One might also inquire about dermoid cysts—-or certain types of them.

Looking up dermoid cysts in Chambers Medical Dictionary, under Medio-logical Records, one finds; “dermoid cystic growths; embryonic growths or tumor-like formations found in women which are of congenital origin, containing evidence of being dejecta membra, or the remains of pregnant growths, in the embryonic fetal period of gestation, somewhat akin to the primary state of being with child.” Some of these dermoid cysts, sometimes mistaken by surgeons for tumors, but really are embryos, are similar in all respects to the products of female gestation, containing bones, hair, teeth, flesh, glands, portions of the scalp, face, eyes, ribs,—–in short, all the organs of the human body—what else could they be but virgin embryos in the process of development? The following is from a recent news item (as of Oct.’09) : A dermoid cyst, also known as benign cystic teratoma, which develops “from germ cells which are primitive cells that are capable of producing eggs and all human tissues,” Dr. Judith Reichman says on MSNBC’s Web site, www.msnbc.msn.com. “A dermoid cyst is formed if the germ cells multiply bizarrely without fertilization, forming an encapsulated tumor that contains hair, sebaceous or oil materials, cartilage, bone, neural tissue and teeth.”
In a lecture delivered before the New York Academy of Medicine in 1933, on “Immaculate Conception—a Scientific Possibility”, Dr. Walter Timme, eminent endocrinologist, presented evidence to prove that Immaculate Conception is physiologically possible. The parovarium of the female reproductive organs, he claims, in some cases can produce living spermatozoa capable of impregnating eggs in the same body, causing them to develop without male fertilization.
They’ve been known to appear in young girls from 8 to 16 that have their hymens intact. Unbeknownst to them, one of their eggs had parthenogenetically been fertilized and then had stopped developing and, typically getting trapped in their fallopian tube, had to be removed, as the failed embryo had become toxic. There is reason to believe that parthenogenesis was the primordial form of re-production for all life, while sexual generation (epigenesist) arose later as a result of inferior environmental and nutritive conditions resulting in diminished fertility. In other words, males develop in order to insure the survival of the species. [Lila You could also say that sex developed after the Fall, which created an “inferior environmental and nutritive condition….”]

Anthropoid apes, our closest biological cousins, have a monthly period while in captivity and on a artificial diet.

[Lila: By restricting the diet, for instance, menstruation can be controlled.]

“When returned to their natural habitat and diet they will bleed in the Spring and Fall like most mammals. Back in 1969 I used to live at Hippocrates Health Institute, in Boston, where everyone drank wheatgrass juice, ate raw sprouts, fruits, nuts and vegetables and nothing else. That means, no bread, grains, meats, or dairy products. The root philosophy at Hippocrates is that “Life Comes Only From Life”. After a month or two on this living food diet some women would have their periods lessen in the amount of blood-loss; and the overall discomfort and cramps they usually experience practically vanished. One woman in particular, who I got to know as a sister, lost her period completely and enjoyed total health. I also met several women who experienced extended fasts of one month or more. They had no periods as well. It’s also quite common that many women athletes lose their periods. Non-menstruating women, providing they are on a (super)-natural diet, faithfully practicing yoga or getting lots of vigorous exercise, like women athletes, enjoy a superior, overall health with a robust vitality. They’re able to re-absorb vitamins, minerals and hormones otherwise lost during menstruation. I should say that women on a normal, civilized diet should have their period. This is nature’s way of cleaning house. We can’t all be raw-fooders. Frankly, most of us can’t even imagine wanting to be a super-natural-health-nut. I do not encourage going in this raw-food direction unless one truly studies the subject in depth with experienced teachers. A commitment to this lifestyle is taxing—-at least until one eliminates the accumulations of a toxic, civilized diet. There are artistic depictions of Mary standing on the Crescent Moon. Did our ancestors know that women had to rise above the moon (menstruation) in order to immaculately conceive? Indeed it seems obvious, from what we’ve observed thus far, that a clean, living food diet is necessary for eliminating wasteful monthly menstruation and is the foundation for the process of parthenogenesis. Part of the condition required for a virgin birth is alkalinity. A proper raw-food diet alkalizes the blood. In a way we are like alkaline batteries—80% alkaline, 20% acid—which allows us to hold our life-force completely. If this balance is upset, as in a “civilized” diet, the life-force fails to fill the body and illness results.

It’s obvious that the human race is over-sexed. The earth has amassed way too many bodies that don’t know how to get along with each other and are straining the earth’s resources.

[Lila: Here the author’s eco-feminism is unnecessarily tacked on.]

This is old news. But sex is beautiful and deemed necessary by almost everyone I know. I’m the last person to say it is wrong or evil. Still, 50% of marriages end in divorce. Think of rape, disease, un-planned pregnancies, over-population and the endless battle of the sexes. Oh well, we must pay the fiddler for our modern lifestyles. I do. In almost every culture on earth and in almost every major religion stories of The Virgin Birth abide. The following is an old Fijian legend: “There was a great chief in Tonga who had an exceedingly beautiful daughter. He hid her from the eyes of men, for he had never seen one worthy to be her husband. Down on the sea-beach he built a fence, thick, strong and high. Here she used to bathe after which it was her custom to lie down for a time upon the clean white sand within the fence, that she might rest a while, and that her body might dry. So it came to pass that the Sun looked down upon her, and saw her and loved her; and in the course of time a child was born to her, whose name she called Sun-child”.

Oliver Twist: Once Anti-Semitic, Now Universal?

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Scena.org:

“A new study by an Australian academic, John Waller, argues that Dickens took his story from the memoirs of a poorhouse boy, Robert Blincoe, published in 1832, five years before Oliver. The Real Oliver Twist (Icon Books, £16.99) may have uncovered a source of Dickensian detail, but no affinity of character.

As for Fagin, there is no telling where he came from. Dickens admitted that he knew no Jews at the time. Yet, like Shakespeare before him, he allowed the villain a certain endearing avuncularity. One feels Fagin’s sorrow as gives up Oliver to the custody of Sikes. Rachel Portman’s attractive score studiously underplays the accompaniment of Jewish music to Jewish misery.

Ben Kingsley endows the villain with tragic inevitability: a lonely old man, scrabbling for trinkets of security and a little human warmth. The story ends in his prison cell, gallows rising in the square outside. Instead of Dickens’ happy ending, showing Oliver’s acceptance into polite society, the apotheosis is cruel and appropriately sanctimonious. In this, and most other ways, the film is true to the spirit of the story and of the author’s ambiguities: for the blurring of anti-semitism is something in which Dickens himself ultimately conspired.

In 1860, Dickens sold his London home to a Jewish banker, James Davis. ‘The purchaser of Tavistock House will be a Jew Money-Lender,’ he told a friend. Some time later he added: ‘I must say that in all things the purchaser has behaved thoroughly well, and that I cannot call to mind any occasion when I have had money-dealings with anyone that have been so satisfactory, considerate and trusting.’

He took quite a shine to the banker’s wife, Eliza Davis, who reproached him in a letter of 1863 for the ‘great wrong’ he had committed in Oliver Twist. Two years later, Dickens created in Our Mutual Friend the noble character of Riah, an elderly Jew who finds jobs for downcast young women in Jewish-owned factories. ‘I think there cannot be kinder people in the world,’ exclaims one of the girls. ‘There is nothing but good will left between me and a People for whom I have a real regard and to whom I would not willfully have given an offense,’ wrote Dickens to Mrs Davis.

He set about revising Oliver Twist in light of her criticisms, removing almost all mention of ‘the Jew’ from the last 15 chapters. In one of his last public readings in 1869, a year before his death, Dickens cleansed Fagin of stereotypical caricature. ‘There is no nasal intonation; a bent back but no shoulder-shrug: the conventional attributes are omitted,’ or so the reports have it.

This attempt to make amends redeems Oliver Twist, for me, from the index of anti-Semitic English literature, a list that stretches from Chaucer through Marlow to Trollope and Belloc, Agatha Christie and T S Eliot. It was certainly Dickens’ final intention that ‘the Jew’ should be incidental in Oliver Twist and in his film Polanski has given the story a personal dimension that renders it irreproachably universal.“

The political use of “anti-Semitism” in the Ukraine

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Tablet Magazine:

“It’s use the Jew day in Ukraine—again. For millennia, treatment of a country’s Jews has served as the canary in the coal mine, and now the canary is tweeting all over the American and Israeli media. According to reports, a leaflet, now basically debunked and yet still inspiring fury all over Twitter, was handed out in Donetsk, the heavily Russian-speaking town in Eastern Ukraine, instructing Jews to register with authorities.

According to Ynet, the flier read as follows:

“Dear Ukraine citizens of Jewish nationality, due to the fact that the leaders of the Jewish community of Ukraine supported Bendery Junta [Stepan Bandera] and oppose the pro-Slavic People’s Republic of Donetsk, (the interim government) has decided that all citizens of Jewish descent, over 16 years of age and residing within the republic’s territory are required to report to the Commissioner for Nationalities in the Donetsk Regional Administration building and register.”

The media response was predictable. USA Today, the Jerusalem Post, and others were quick to proclaim “Jews ordered to register in Ukraine!” cleverly omitting one important question: By whom? The word “Jews” is even trending on Twitter.

The flyer is both real, and not. It’s important to see this in the context of how the Jews have been used from the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine: as fodder for the provocation machine. Indeed, Julia Ioffe at The New Republic reached out to the Donetsk Jewish community, who dismissed the flier as an attempt by Western Ukrainians to delegitimize the pro-Russian sentiment in the Eastern part of the country, just as the Russians used accusations of anti-Semitism to delegitimize the Maidan revolutionaries.

As Ioffe puts it, “This may be just another tactic to smear the so-called anti-Maidan in the east of Ukraine: you think we’re fascists? Well, take a look at these guys.” The Jews of Ukraine are not registering.”

Vladimir Putin: The NWO’s man in Russia?

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UPDATE:

Zahir Ebrahim in the comments questions the figure $75 billion.  Well, I used the term “apparently” because there’s not much concrete to go by, but that is the figure (or $70b) given out by critics.

How credible is it? No way to know for sure, but besides the Gazprom shares, Putin is said to secretly own shares in many other companies:

“While many previously state-owned industries were privatized, Putin allegedly has used his power to build large secret ownership stakes several multi-billion dollar commodity firms. His most vocal critics assert that Putin has leveraged his power to acquire a 4.5% ownership stake in natural gas producer Gazprom, a 37% stake in oil company Surgutneftegas and 50% stake in Swiss oil-trader Gunvor. Gazprom alone does over $150 billion in revenue annually, Guvnor does $80 billion and Surgutneftegas over $20 billion. Using their most recent market capitalizations, Putin’s combined ownership stakes would give him a personal net worth of $70 billion!So what evidence is there of Putin’s secret obscene fortune? Let’s start with the small stuff. Putin is known to sport a $150,000 Patek Philippe watch on most occasions and his total collection has been valued at $700,000. He also has full access to a $40 million ultra-luxury yacht that features a wine cellar, Jacuzzi, helipad and outdoor barbecue area. In terms of living accommodations, Putin has access to 20 mansions throughout the world including a lavish ski lodge and Medieval castle. The crown jewel of his property portfolio is a $1 billion palace overlooking the Black Sea that he allegedly owns through an anonymous trust. Furthermore, Putin makes frequent use of 15 Presidential helicopters and more than 40 private jets, many of which feature gold plated interiors.”

The reports are  based on an interview given by Stanislav Belkovsky to Die Welt, also described here.

Some other related links about Putin’s associations with the oligarchs:

Roman Abramovich once had close and privileged ties to Putin.

Abramovich fell out with one-time associate Berezovsky but stayed friendly with Putin.

Oligarchs like Abramovich, Fridman, and Miller are close to Putin.

The second plundering of Russia, according to Stanislav Belkovsky

More here about Putin’s business dealings.

Corruption alleged by Boris Nemtsov, Deputy PM under Yeltsin and an Opposition leader.

NOTE: I’m going to do another post about Putin because I think I might have swallowed some disinformation put out.  I didn’t realize that the $70-75b. figure only came from that interview, because I saw it repeated by another investigator, but I’m wondering now if there is some disinfo  in all this.

ORIGINAL POST

It’s been interesting to me to see the right regarding President Putin as some kind of Christian hero

Even Bill Lind has joined the chorus.

It’s certainly true that Putin says a lot of things that conservatives want to hear.

He’s outfoxed the Bolsheviks of the US State Dept.

But, as I’ve pointed out before, there’s plenty of  evidence that Putin himself is beholden to the right wing of the New World Order.

One can accept the secession of Crimea as a relatively peaceful process and an understandable reaction to the US’s own belligerent posturing and meddling in the region, but it doesn’t follow that one should then swallow the narrative of Patrick Buchanan that Putin stands for Christianity.

These are deep waters. Nothing is as it seems. Anyone who subscribes to black-and-white narratives can be easily manipulated by the powers-that-be.

A lengthy article on the Russian Orthodox church since the fall of communism argues that the Moscow Church was completely under the Soviets and acted as an agent of the KGB; that the transition to “democracy” in the 1990s was only a transition to criminality and a change in rhetoric not substance; that there is little real orthodoxy left under the Sovietized Orthodox Church; and that simony, occultism, paganism, and ecumenism reign in the present-day Russian church, not traditional belief.

The blog La Russophobe has a list of  what it calls “Putin murders” – assassinations of civil society figures – journalists and activists.

That list would be the Russian equivalent of the Clinton body count.

In India, The Hindustan Times points out that no world leader annoys America’s belligerent leadership more.

But the enemy of my enemy is…sometimes….just another enemy:

The red flags are there to see:

1. Vladimir Putin to revive Soviet Hero of Labor award (Daily Telegraph, Dec 11, 2012)

2. Vladimir Putin compares Lenin to holy Christian relics (Daily Telegraph, Dec 12, 2012)

3.  Vladimir Putin’s net worth

I am going to retract this assessment of Putin’s  net worth. The reason is that the origin of the figure comes from an interview by a Putin biographer, Stanislav Belkovsky, in Die  Welt, who claims Putin has never sued him. The estimate seems to be based on Belkovsky’s book on Putin’s finances and his research as head of a Moscow think-tank. It’s not improbable, given Putin’s career as a close associate of several oligarchs, himself a KGB chief, and allegedly involved in corrupt dealings following the death of Yeltsin, who passed on power to him.

However, I went back to look more closely and came across a retraction by the Economist of one of Belkovsky’s claims, on threat of suit.

($75 billion $40-70b, apparently from shares in companies including his 4.5% shares in Gazprom revenues). That makes him the richest man on earth

[Lila, added  on 4/8): He is said to own shares in several other companies, the total of which at market valuation in 2007 was $40b. I assume the $70-75 is accounted for by the valuation since then, but I didn’t calculate it myself.]

4. Vladimir Putin’s Jewish embrace: Is it love or politics?

QUOTE: “Putin has carefully cultivated relationships with Russia’s many subgroups and regions as a means of projecting his government’s authority.”

QUOTE: “Under Putin, harsh laws have led to a crackdown on ultranationalist groups that once had flourished in Russia.”

QUOTE: “Putin may be good for Jews, but he’s bad for Russia,” said Michael Edelstein, a lecturer at Moscow State University and a journalist for the L’chaim Jewish newspaper.”

QUOTE: “Freedom of expression has been severely restricted and politically motivated prosecutions remain widespread under Putin, according to Amnesty International’s 2013 report on Russia.”

QUOTE: “The preferential treatment of Chabad by Putin’s government “is creating a monolithic Jewish institutional life and preventing grass-roots development, which is the real key for Jewish rejuvenation,” said Michael Oshtrakh, a leader of the Jewish community of Yekaterinburg.”

5. Putin targets foes with zombie guns, which attack victim’s central nervous system

‘Such high-tech weapons systems will be comparable in effect to nuclear weapons, but will be more acceptable in terms of political and military ideology.” (Exactly the same rationale used by the CIA to justify “torture-lite,” radiation weapons, microwave weapons, etc.)

7. Putin is alleged to have been a Royal Arch Mason who trained with MI6, according to The Big Breach, a memoir by a disgruntled MI6 officer, Richard Tomlinson.

The relevant material is summarized at this blog.

8. 9/11 insider job “impossible to conceal” says Vladimir Putin (Russia Today, August 2, 2011)

Why does Putin deny that 9/11 could have been an intelligence coup?

Perhaps, because he himself came to power in just such a KGB/FSB coup and has too many skeletons in his own closet…

Perhaps, because one way to fight the opposition is to lead it….

BBC: loud on ambiguous nun-rape, silent on verified swami-murder

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Credit for the diagram of the dialectical struggle: http://www.al-ruh.org/hegelian.html

Note: I will be adding links to show the connection of the evangelizing of India to a long-term state-sponsored plan to Christianize India in the interests of Zionism and the global one-world government.

In this effort, Christian lobbies, like homosexual lobbies, are the shock-troops of  the global cartel (the New World Order), while their followers are dupes, set up to be the fall guys when there is the inevitable back-lash.

Gay “shock-troops” are one pincer leg of the culture-war; religious zealots make up the other leg.

I am not now talking of religious conservatives reacting to gay propaganda. I am talking about evangelicals who are actively engaged in political work.

Thus, in India, the Hindu right, reacting to the forced conversion of fellow Hindus,  looks to someone like Narendra Modi as their savior, whereas Modi himself seems to be in the thrall of the same Zionist billionaire to whom the entire Republican party leadership is beholden.

QUOTE:  “I would say that Sheldon (Adelson) has aligned himself with most Baptists in South Carolina.”

Thus the pincer analogy…..

ORIGINAL POST

On March 14, 2014, the BBC reported on the conclusion of the Orissa nun-rape trial:

“A court in India has found three people guilty in connection with the rape of a Catholic nun in Orissa state in 2008.

The nun was raped by a Hindu mob in Kandhamal district, days after riots between Hindus and Christian there.

Riots began after a Hindu religious leader was shot dead.

Although left-wing Maoist rebels in the state claimed responsibility for the killing, hard-line Hindu groups blamed the minority Christian community for the death.”

Comment:

No one would condone the heinous crime allegedly committed against the nun, but why gloss over the equally heinous and completely verified crime that provoked the rape of the nun?

[For the ambiguities and contradictions in the story of the raped nun, see reports here and here.]

Instead, the BBC reports blandly that a “Hindu religious leader was shot dead.”

Why doesn’t the BBC do the minimally ethical thing and report that  last October, seven Christians were found guilty of murdering the Hindu swami they mention, specifically because he spoke out against forced conversions?

For the same reason that the leftist media in India described the murderers  in its headline WITHOUT reference to their religion, although the body of their story showed that all seven were Christian and committed the murder because of their outrage at Hindu resistance to conversions:

“All of the convicts are Christians and they had committed the crime because according to them the swami was forcing Christians to convert to Hinduism, the lawyer said.”

Furthermore, why does the BBC depict the Maoists who took responsibility as simply “left-wing rebels,” while they depict right-wing Hindus with the  somewhat derogatory term, “hard-line,” and the addition of a religious label?

One would suppose that MaoIsts –  followers of Chairman Mao who killed some 45 million Chinese in the name of communism – would be better termed “hard-line” than a random mob of Hindus.

And Maoists who are Christians and allied with Christians are perforce “hard-line Christian groups,” aren’t they?

But no, this is the BBC, a known propaganda outlet of the West, so it must play semantic games.

Secondly, why not mention that Maoists are closely connected to the Christian churches and that many Christian leaders actively support them?

This has been admitted by Marxists themselves, long ago:

Prakash Karat in “Naxalism Today” (The Marxist, 1985) writes:

“The S N Singh minority faction in its document makes serious charges against Vaskar Nandy and company. “In our organisation also, Nandy’s close associates established contacts with a foreign voluntary agency and a native voluntary agency financed by Western monopoly capital, keeping it secret from the POC and the general secretary of the party, S N Singh. They established contact with Rural Aid Consortium of Tagore Society which is financed by West European countries and the USA and with one Danish Organisation on the Plea of providing relief to the people of Gobiballabpur in West Bengal and some areas in Bihar. Lakhs of rupees were received for digging tanks, constructing school building opening a sewing training center and distributing chickens and cattle to the needy. It also came to our notice that money was being received by some of our leaders from the Lutheran Church. When it came to light to the PCC members, an intense ideological struggle burst forth in the party on this issue.” (Our differences with Nandy-Rana group, PCC-CPI(ML), p. 29)

It goes on to state: “We thoroughly investigated (among the cadres and people) in Gobiballapur and Bhargora, where relief work was carried on through money from the “Tagore Society”, Rohtas Channpatia and Mushhari, where schools were built up by the Dabes, and party and doubted our bonafides … Several cadres have been exposed to these agencies.” It concludes with the damming indictment: “It does not require intelligence of a high order to find out why some of the former members of the PCC adopted particular policies on the question of caste, tribe, Assamese and non-Assamese.” Following a blind anti-Soviet line, Satyanarian Singh found out a few months before his death that the majority of his PCC members sided with Nandy and company in whitewashing its links with the imperialist funded voluntary agencies, most having been, corrupted with foreign money.”

At a website called Kandhamal Justice, Sandhya Jain, a Hindu activist,  has argued credibly that the rape case was concocted as damage-control in the wake of the murder of a Hindu priest, who was targeted for his resistance to crass proselytizing by Baptist ministers.

Many of his converts were also Maoists, none of which is mentioned in the BBC’s slimy report.

Kandhamal Justice reports:

“It may be appropriate to put the anti-missionary violence in context. The Kandhamal violence broke out after the murder of Swami Lakshmananda, whose tireless efforts to uplift the tribal communities and protect their religion and culture against aggressive proselytisation infuriated the evangelists and Maoist goons (mostly converts). The Swami was severely injured in an attack on Christmas Eve 2007, and had then accused a Congress MP and World Vision chief for the attack. He alleged a nexus between Maoist terrorists and missionaries; which is why when Maoists claimed responsibility for the killings, public ire was directed at the missionaries. Certainly the murders had a purely religious motivation; Orissa has in recent years seen an influx of rich American Baptists, for soul-harvesting purposes.

[Lila: Indeed, there is a close connection between the Maoists and the church in India.]

Kandhamal Justice:

“Beginning on December 26, 1970, Swami Lakshmananda was attacked  eight times before he was finally struck down by AK-47-wielding assailants in 2008, according to the fact-finding commission chaired by Additional Advocate General of Rajasthan, G.S. Gill. Soon after the multiple murders in the ashram, state police arrested World Vision employee Pradesh Kumar Das while escaping from the district. Later, two men, Vikram Digal and William Digal were arrested from the house of a local militant Christian, Lal Digal, at Nugaon; they admitted having joined a group of 28 assailants.

Then, in July 2009, a Maoist couple, Surendra Vekwara and Ruby, also allegedly involved in the killings, surrendered to the Orissa police. One does not know how the state government intends to prosecute the cases against these persons, especially as the sensational rape case is silently falling apart!

However, as I have previously argued, the murder of Swami Lakshmananda closely resembles the murder of Swami Shanti Kaliji Maharaj in Tripura in August 2000. The latter was also shot in his own ashram by gun-wielding goons after several dire warnings against his anti-conversion activities in the tribal belt were ignored. Swami Lakshmananda’s murder prompted Biju Janata Dal MP Tathagata Satpathy to insist that there was an urgent need for an anti-conversion legislation as aggressive proselytisation was hurting the social fabric.”

Swami Lakshmananda Saraswati had, just before his murder, demanded a national debate on conversions and an end to the foreign funding to NGOs. This is an urgent imperative.”

Rabbi Shternbuch: We Have Begun Messianic Times

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NOTE: None of the interpretations below tallies with the evidence of history and archaeology that points to Gog and Magog being historical types that portend future actors:

Gog in history was the king of Lydia in Asia Minor.

“The erroneous belief that Russia is Magog can be traced back to a small group of 18th and 19th century theologians who wrote long before the primary evidence from the ancient Assyrian records was discovered, translated and made available to the public. Instead, they based their assertions on secondary sources, historical works written over 500 years after the time of Ezekiel, and to make matters worse some of these sources had come to be purposefully altered. These altered references include statements attributed to the first century AD Jewish historian Josephus, and first century AD Roman historian Pliny.”

You wonder if these discredited interpretations that surface in popular newspapers have something to do with the intelligence agencies of different countries stirring up the masses to support violent confrontations…

Lydia was the home of the Etruscans who emigrated to Italy and came to dominate Roman culture. The last Roman king, before Rome became a republic, was Etruscan.

So, Gyges of Lydia (Gog of Magog) is best seen as a historical type of a future ruler of the world, in the style of Rome.

Therefore, it’s plausible to argue that Gog = One World Government, or the New World Order, which is the popular name on conspiracy and right-wing sites for the corporate and financial powers behind NATO and the European Union.

Gog is not Russia at all.

Update 2: Here is a more complex interpretation, which considers Ar Rum (Rome) to be the one-world government. That suggests that the current dialectics in play (West versus East, US versus Russia;  Secular vs Orthodox) are working toward a more complex end.

Update 1: An Islamic interpretation of Gog and Magog. It doesn’t identify Russia with Gog and Magog, but identifies it with militant Zionism.

In this version, the subversion of the Ukraine was effected by Soros and Co. (corporate or economic annexation). Russia is instead identified with the defense of Christianity and with “Rum” (Rome) in the Quran.

Russia,  in this version, is seen as the defender of orthodox Christianity, which is seen as the true heir to the church of Rome. The inference is that the Vatican, having succumbed to materialism, atheism, and statism, is now allied with the enemies of the true church.

“Prophet Muhammad (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) prophesied that Muslims will make an alliance with Rum in Akhir al-Zam?n, and it appears to me that Tatar Muslims now have a historic role to play in the fulfillment of that prophesy.”

I suppose the Muslim allies of Gog must be Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Brunei, and similar states.

ORIGINAL POST

From Haaretz.com, some Apocalyptic thinking:

“Of course, if Gog is Putin, then we all know who the natural candidate for the Antichrist is. But let’s put that aside for now. In any case, there is a nuclear confrontation (“I will start a fire in the land of Magog and along all the seacoasts where people live undisturbed, and everyone will know that I am the Lord) and then a massive seven-month cleanup and a mass burial, somewhere in Jordan, it seems.

If you’re a Christian, the fun is just beginning: An army of “200 million” men will come from the East, according the Book of Revelations, and there’s only one country that can raise such an army. Then, in quick succession but in a sequence that is disputed by scholars, the End Times really get going: Armageddon, Desolation, Tribulation, Rapture, Redemption, the Second Coming – the works.

Jews, by the way, make do with just the war of Gog and Magog, after which messianic days are here and “swords are beaten into ploughshares” etc. Nonetheless, Christians aren’t the only ones who are getting excited about the standoff in Eastern Europe. According to a report catching fire over the weekend in the haredi press in Israel, the Gaon Rabbi Moshe Shternbuch told his disciples this week that the times of the Messiah are upon us. And who is the source for his amazing analysis? None other than one of the top Jewish sages of all time, the Vilna Gaon himself, the Gra, “the genius of Vilnius”, the famously harsh critic of Hasidic Judaism.

According to said Shternbuch, he is privy to a closely guarded secret handed down from the 18th Century Vilna Gaon through generations of revered rabbis: “When you hear that the Russians have captured the city of Crimea, you should know that the times of the Messiah have started, that his steps are being heard. And when you hear that the Russians have reached the city of Constantinople (today’s Istanbul), you should put on your Shabbat clothes and don’t take them off, because it means that the Messiah is about to come any minute.”

I don’t know if Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan knows about Russian designs on Istanbul, but if I were you, I would take your Shabbat clothes to the cleaners, just in case.

Finally, from Moshiach.com: The husband tells the wife, “The Rabbi said that soon we will no longer suffer from the Cossacks, the Messiah is about to come and take us all to Israel.” The wife thinks for a while and says, “Tell the Messiah to leave us alone. Let him take the Cossacks to Israel!”

Examiner.com has the Zionist Christian version of the End Times. Putin is still Gog, trying to expand Magog,  but in this version, the Messiah has some way to go.

More about the differences between Christianity, Reform Judaism, and Orthodox Judaism on the interpretation of this prophecy.

Here’s the relevant chapter – Chapter 38 in the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel.

Arvind Kejriwal: Plagiarist?

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[Note to long-suffering readers: I’m too busy to post right now or to respond to comments. I read all of them and greatly appreciate the input. Will be back soon.

POST:

It seems that  Delhi chief and self-styled anti-corruption crusader,  Arvind Kejriwal, might be guilty of some corruption himself – he stands accused of having plagiarized his book, “Swaraj” (- self-rule- a term popularized by Gandhi during India’s independence struggle):

The Facebook page of India Cause has the story:

“” Complainant Ajay Pal Nagar has alleged Kejriwal’s book Swaraj has copied contents in his book titled Bharatiya Raj Vyawastha. Nagar claimed that he had presented the book to Kejriwal in March, 2012 and he was appalled to see its content being copied in ‘Swaraj’ that was published in July 2012. The case has been filed before District Judicial Magistrate of Noida and the case has been accepted.

The author has said that he had released his book through a Delhi-based publication one year before the release of Swaraj and the plagiarism has been done intentionally by Kejriwal. “Kejriwal has illegally published my book in his own name and has added some Government documents to mislead the people,” the complainant.

Nagar, in his complaint before the court, has alleged that 80% content of Swaraj has been copied from his book which is a clear violation of Copy Right Act. Nagar said he wrote the book Bharatiya Raj Vyawastha in year 2011 and book was published in February 2012. Later, he sent a copy of the book to Kejriwal on March 26. In June 2012, when Swaraj was released with author name Arvind Kejriwal, Nagar found that Kejriwal has taken most parts of his book without his consent to do so. He found that many pages, paragraphs and lines of Swaraj are word to word of his book.

Earlier the author lodged a complaint in Badalpur police station in December 2012 but no action was initiated against Kejriwal and the matter was almost closed. Nagar then went to Chief District Magistrate Court of Noida where his application under Section 156 (3) of CrPc was taken up by the Magistrate. Complainant has also claimed that Manish Sisodia, close associate of Kejriwal and a Minister in Delhi Govt, has accepted that ‘the book is written by us but is amalgamation of different articles’. However, contrary to his claim, the book has the name of Arvind Kejriwal as its author.

“I wrote the book, Bharatiya Raj Vyawastha, with 10 years’ experience of my social life. I met eminent lawyers, socialists, constitutional experts and many more before writing the book. As I was impressed with Arvind Kejriwal and his team during Anna movement, I sent a copy of my book to Kejriwal but he took unfair advantage of it. I have moved court for action against him for exclusive theft and a case under Section 200 of CrPc has been registered against Kejriwal. The court could serve notice to him. If required I will move upper courts for justice,” said Nagar.”