Demian@95
The unique connection that Orthodoxy has with Russian statehood is language, because it was the monks Cosmos and Damian (heh) that gave the Slavic language its written, Cyrillic form, and monks who compiled the chronicles which were a record of the early times. When western populations were still listening to (and reading if they could) Church documents and services in Latin, Russians and other Slavs were hearing and reading (if they could) those texts in their common tongue. But as the language changed and the old Slavonic became like Old English for us, that connection was broken and Europeanized Russia actually brought in Latin studies instead of the Slavonic in schools and even in the texts they studied, such as St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, and even Protestant writings, although the liturgical practice remained the Eastern one.
It was only on the eve of the Revolution that intellectuals began to research and discuss the Greek roots of the faith, in a return to the Fathers of the Church on the Eastern side. You can see that also in the iconography – some icons are very western looking, but around the Revolution time the older tradition was being rediscovered, and mostly it is that tradition which is followed today. That is actually a very intellectual tradition, though the simple peasant faith was always given great respect. Many of those intellectuals were forced into migration by the Communists, and some died in the gulag also. Bulgakov remained, but he kept “The Master and Margarita” in a drawer, and not just because he was modest.

Posted by: juliania | Oct 17 2015 6:49 utc | 104

Evidently another person is leaking US information and this time it is about the drone killing program. Is is being reported at The Intercept and here is the direct link to the Drone Papers https://theintercept.com/drone-papers
I truly hope the people committing war crimes are brought to justice in my lifetime. I abhor the actions of my country and apologize to the world for our immorality.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 17 2015 7:01 utc | 106

100
The real importance of money is well-illustrated here. $500 billion for ‘peace’ (sic) and $90 billion for war, and you can go here, for the latest news of what’s selling over at Peace:War Central, where 30 cars and 45 houses and 6 jets is never enough for the Chatham Housers.
Raytheon Co. Integrated Defense Systems, Woburn, Massachusetts, is being awarded a $200,000,000 modification to an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract HQ0147-12-D-0005, increasing the total contract value from $710,460,000 to $910,460,000.
A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money.

Posted by: NoReply | Oct 17 2015 9:34 utc | 108

108
Your ‘money’ link – http://www.your-poc.com/overseas-contingency-operation/
“For FY2016 Legislators are still hashing out the details,
but the US House and Senate have approved funding of now
$90 billion for overseas contingency (war) actions,
$38 billion more than the Pentagon had asked for.”
That $38 billion spread is exactly $38B Kerry-Kohn
pledged to backstop those ZiMF loans to the Kiev Junta,
loans which were ponzi’d up into $10s of Bs of illegal
junk bonds, being used to privatize Ukrainian resources.
A Kiev Junta which has just defaulted on its first loan
repayment, and thus will trigger seizure of the Ukraine
citizens’ $38B in gold bullion, looted by Poroshenkims
and held in private NY banks, as well as redeeming the
ZiMF loans with public taxpayer funds, channeling them
in ZiMF partner banks, and global investment partners.
It’s called ‘bicycling’. Learn, …or not! It’s your
last life savings, that are never coming back again!
The USAryan Congress, raising the war budget for Zion,
and lining the fat cats pockets along the 0º meridian!
You may now return to your fatuous adoration of St Putin.

Posted by: Chipnik | Oct 17 2015 10:13 utc | 110

@Chipnik – watch your language. If you continue to call others “trolls” or whatever because they do not have your worldview you will be banned.

Posted by: b | Oct 17 2015 10:35 utc | 112

“The story of Putin shows that the true deep state in Russia is more powerful than oligarchical interests. It may be in some kind of frozen conflict or temporary stand-off for the moment, but if the Russian communal heart decides to crush all vestige of capitalism, it will happen.”
Que?
[sfx] cue ‘Dr Zhivago shivering balalaika serenade’
[vfx] cue closeup Omar Sharif’s dark puppy-dog eyes
Roll Camera B – Little Tom, the Capitalist: Please sir, may I have some more!
Headmaster Putin, the Rainbow Farter: “For MORE!’ said Mr. Putin. ‘Compose yourself, you little capitalist swine, and answer me distinctly. Do I understand that you asked for more, after you had eaten the supper graciously allotted by the mafia bosses?’
“I never was more convinced of anything in my life,’ said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, as he knocked at the gate and read the bill next morning: ‘I never was more convinced of anything in my life, than I am that that boy Tom will come to be hung.”
You may now return to your sychophantic bleeting .

Posted by: Chipnik | Oct 17 2015 10:45 utc | 114

upchuck, er, Chipnik says:
I am in friendly communication with two RU businessmen, in RU, that we did a contract with on the Soviet Navy Ship-Breaking deal…
And I work with a US businessman in oil and gas, my speciality, who did many contracts in RU
repent, cabron, Repent!

Posted by: john | Oct 17 2015 10:58 utc | 116

b @112,
but b, some of his rants are truly inspired – “Can’t we all just get along with the jackboots stomping our faces…forever?” is pure poetry!
Maybe just temporary time out in the corner?

Posted by: sillybill | Oct 17 2015 13:05 utc | 118

@juliania #104:
It was only on the eve of the Revolution that intellectuals began to research and discuss the Greek roots of the faith, in a return to the Fathers of the Church on the Eastern side.
That’s very interesting. I had no idea. I will have to try and see if I can read up on that. My understanding is that a major difference between Western and Eastern Christianity involves the latter basically ignoring Augustine, so it did not pick up the centrality he gave the doctrine of the transmission of original sin (a problem Luther solved with salvation by grace alone).
My impression is that Russian Orthodoxy in the US tends to be almost exclusively reactionary. (One things of people like Alexander Schmemann.) Am I wrong?
@Grieved #107:
you’re suggesting the west in its deep thinking is now turning to Russia to help it
I don’t think the West is turning to Russia at all, yet in any case. I was using the term “the West” in the sense of Europe plus the Anglosphere, what used to be called “Western civilization”. Russia is part of that, although anglo idealogues use Cold War propagandist stratagems to pretend it doesn’t. If western Europe falls into barbarism, as it is now doing with its tolerance for fascism, Russia will carry on the flame of Western civilization.
The Sheikh gave an extremely lucid description of how rising materialism in the west (and the Christian world of Rome) drove out the sacred.
Yes, I started to watch that. That’s exactly what I was getting at.above. I’ll try to watch that again.

Posted by: Demian | Oct 17 2015 13:24 utc | 120

@Sillybill #119:
Young Stalin’ by Simon Montefiore has a great story in the prologue on a bank robbery organised by Stalin
That’s like Muhammad. Muhammad was a highway robber before he became a prophet.

Posted by: Demian | Oct 17 2015 13:36 utc | 122

@117, you’re being unreasonable to the characters of Idiocracy by comparing them to current politicians

Posted by: bbbbb | Oct 17 2015 13:59 utc | 124

@MMARR@52
I think that Russian goals in Syria focus mainly at preventing the genocide of the Alawites and securing military foothold in the Mediterranean. Since Alawites will never trust their Sunni neighbors or the West, they’ll solicit Russian protection. In fact, today Syrian government said they’d welcome full-scale Russian military facilities.
Russian intervention in Syria has different motivations and multiple objectives beyond purely military gains.
Geo-strategically, the main goal is to confront the destructive policies of the US and its allies in the region, an issue that has been utterly debated recently in former threads. Syria was to be where this confrontation would take place, but it could have been Libya, if pretty-boy Medvedev wouldn’t have been a servile idiot to the West.
Geo-politically, Russia has been a Syrian ally for decades, and true to their word, they had come to the aid of whoever was in power in Syria. Putin is not supporting Assad, as the West lies, Putin is fulfilling a responsibility with an ally he couldn’t forsake, due to the regional and geopolitical implications.
The way I see it, Russians don’t need Syrian gas, they’ve got the world’s largest reserves already.
The issue is not needing gas, not even control of gas sources, but control of pipelines. Assad refused to sign a Turkey-Qatar pipeline crossing Syria whose main goal was to damage Russia, and the “Friends of Syria” were born soon afterwards. The internet is full of info about the conflicting pipelines, i.e., Iran/Iraq/Syria and Qatar/SA/Jordan/Syria/Turkey (the latter countries all members of the “Friends of Syria” cabal)but here you have a link from “Zero Hedge” to start with.
Competing Gas Pipelines Are Fueling The Syrian War & Migrant Crisis
If Gazprom develops something there, most of the revenue will go to the Alawites. Otherwise, Moscow will squander a lot of the good will, and
will get blame for whatever economic problems may develop.
Well, there is no such a thing as a free lunch, and Syria has conceded Russia offshore exploration and exploitation rights for gas and oil for 25 years, a contract signed in 2013 with Soyuzneftegaz.
Syria signs offshore oil and gas exploration deal with Russia
Coincidentally or not, Block No. 2 of exploration in Syrian territorial waters, lies between the port of Tartus, where the Russians have a naval facility, and the city of Baniyas, both on Tartus Governorate on the Mare Nostrum.

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Oct 17 2015 14:06 utc | 126

@juliania@89
I’m definitely no economist, but as far as who is paying for what, this article may give some idea of the shifting sands financially speaking:
“>http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/10/wolf-richter-debt-fueled-stock-buybacks-now-eating-into-earnings.html
Good you’re not an economist, main promoters of the “figure lies, and liars figure” adage. 🙂
Thinking purely in terms of investment, I remember that Russia was calling on its own oligarchs to return to support the country as the sanctions began to kick in, and now perhaps others are finding the pickings mighty slim in the world at large. Belt tightening plus national pride may be looking very attractive compared with what Wall Street has to offer.
And it has worked wonders for the Russian economy at all levels, a vast import substitution enterprise starting with engines built in Ukraine for multiple military purposes (airplanes, submarines, rockets), going through import cheeses from France, salmon from Norway, and all kind of other products and delicacies.
The sanctions awoke a side of Russia that was totally unexplored, self-sufficiency, since there was a historical tendency to believe foreign was better. Now, mom-&-pop farms all over Russia cannot keep up with the demand for eggs, pork, milk, and Russian made cheeses. I watched a video the other day about this new trend in Moscow where many fancy international cuisine restaurants have gone totally “national,” and the menu is an exploration of Russian regional foods, a real treat.
Russia thinks of this conflict as a necessary one to protect its own borders, and a suggestion I read from Mike Whitney (also at Counterpunch) was that Putin may have had to act now since the US was about to institute a no-fly zone which would have enabled Turkey to invade from the north. True or not, that no-fly tactic has been tried in the past, so it has the tang of truth to it.
There were geo-strategic and geo-political implications to the Russian intervention, no less the one you mentioned. The “Friends of Syria” gang was getting ready for the kill, and the “no-fly zone” was only part of it. Russia joined the fray just in time to stop the West from turning Syria into another Libya, warned as it was by Iran, a close observer of Syrian developments, and a supporter of the Syrian regime for very much similar reasons than Russia.
Thanks for the link.

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Oct 17 2015 14:40 utc | 128

@Lone Wolf #128:
The sanctions awoke a side of Russia that was totally unexplored, self-sufficiency
Not entirely unexplored. There is a whole economic literature on “autarchy”. The Soviet Union needed to become more or less economically self-sufficient, because the West didn’t want to trade with it. All of this has happened before. Only this time, the cover of a struggle between two different ideologies isn’t available to the Western propagandists. So they resort to false flags like MH17.
a vast import substitution enterprise starting with engines built in Ukraine for multiple military purposes (airplanes, submarines, rockets), going through import cheeses from France, salmon from Norway, and all kind of other products and delicacies.
Good. That’s exactly what I and many others hoped would happen.

Posted by: Demian | Oct 17 2015 14:54 utc | 130

@ 124 bbbbb…
I am not an oligarch, and so take no affront to your viewpoint. Just ask you to remember that people are mostly the same everywhere, and so is business. When the parasite classes get big enough, externalizing costs happens rapidly and this is how oligarchs, banks, governments make their cut off of our labors in exchange for roads and bridges and security against other groups of bankers and oligarchs and governing bodies.
I do business with smaller companies and their goal isn’t to own the world – just to make a living. Growth is another reason we are where we are, as it cannot go on eternally without limitless resources or rampant externalization of costs (where we are today is collision of both).

Posted by: BOG | Oct 17 2015 15:04 utc | 132

@BOG #131:
A different system has to be found than either socialism or capitalism
Both capitalism and socialism are abstractions. Each uses the same basic building blocks: money, prices, budgets, and so on. The USSR experimented with giving plant managers more autonomy, and even American capitalism involves what used to be called a “mixed economy”.
No new economic concepts or theories need to be developed. All that needs to be done is that the tools of capitalism need to be used more democratically and transparently, something that seems to be happening in Russia.
The same goes for political theory. For a people to be free, the decision making of the state must be transparent, the leaders accountable, the press free, universities not dependent on corporations for funding, and the people educated and informed. No new ideas needed.
Instead, what we’ve seen in post-WW II Western political science is innovative ideas such as declining voter participation indicating a growing satisfaction of people with their government.

Posted by: Demian | Oct 17 2015 15:17 utc | 134

“…declining voter participation indicating a growing satisfaction of people with their government.”

…or indicating a growing voter dis-satisfaction with their government as they realize their vote doesn’t matter and they will get screwed no matter who gets elected, so, why bother?.
I can’t think of any government policy since the enactment of Medicare that has made anyone’s life better.

Posted by: paulmeli | Oct 17 2015 15:34 utc | 136

tom at 5. The official version: Moscow pays. I read somewhere that you can see the expense in the R budget, but that was not credible. I suspect, even if it’s not closely related, that Moscow has been planning this Syria shock-n-awe contra-terrorist sortie for a long time, at least since their intervention after the false Ghouta chem attacks, which worked, in the sense of halting US-W ‘invasion.’
Russian action in Syria was postponed, delayed, by a) the Iran accords which dragged on and on, b) Ukraine, where it was necesserary to get Minsk II signed, to trap and pin down Poroshenko, get Merkel and Hollande on board (in their best interests) and let them see – or be incapable of denying – that Poro / Kiev Gvmt. is full of it.
Demian at 6. Counterpunch is awful, I got into an argument about that some time ago with iirc rufus (if not sorry don’t remember…) They do publish a few good articles (Diane Johnstone for ex.) but for the rest ..stooge ‘left.’ Cp really isn’t worth the attention. Now showing their true colors in a blatant way, as are some others, ha ha, and not only Anglos (as per your post 27) but in France…from the Gvmt. Socialists / other ‘left’ / greens / center…(see BiffaBacon at 39.) In France though the anti-Russian attitude (which is anti-Putin and all lovey-dovey regretful re. Gorbatchev) is merely pro-atlanticist, pro-US, pro-EU/NATO, followers, and not rooted in ancestral hate or attitudes towards communism (considered a dead horse by all), etc.
james at 12. I read that, was going to post it, indeed good.
guest77 at 72. I read that about 50% of Russian ppl are for commemorations and thus acknowlegement of ‘horrible’ Stalin-era crimes / deaths, thus the long-time planned museums, exhibits and so on, instigated by the Putin / Mevdevev Gvmt., while 50% are against. But who knows, 50/50 is an easy call. It seems to be that these controversies around Stalin are quite divisive?

Posted by: Noirette | Oct 17 2015 15:35 utc | 138

@ 135 woog
I think that is Plan B, as the Stans have are a respectable economic bloc, and perferred path (A) would link all quickly. The key is the Chinese HSR, which (having traveled myself) is rollicking better than commercial air and light-years ahead of what the US calls ‘passeneger rail (which is equivalent to what I have traveled in India, sans the chickens and over-the-handrail facilities). The perspectives in China and Russia are different than in the west, but we all have similar issues with governance.

Posted by: BOG | Oct 17 2015 16:05 utc | 140

@ 134 Demian
I do not disagree, however the issue with both of these systems is the gallumphing size of the governance and the fact that in large countries, representation is extremely diluted and calcified due to the move from rural to urban.
One size does not fit all, and this is where a confederation of republics makes much more sense, albeit the taste of that term is sour in America. Russia, Brazil, India and China have exactly the same issues within their large areas. Australia not so much as the coast is nearly everything due to climate. The EU is no model, as their only linkage is financial and fictional.
In our kids future, things will be different as they head towards the wall on resource depletion (economical, not total depletion – like copper requiring 134 loads to eke out a ton instead of 3 loads, and the pit 4-5 times as deep).
Local governance can be controlled by the populace, whereas remote governance is not controlled effectively due to dilution. Lack of local context and criticality of the issues stymies remote solutions. It also makes changing anything a gargantuan task, as too many people are involved that are removed from the criticalit and context.

Posted by: BOG | Oct 17 2015 16:18 utc | 142

I see this tendency a lot here…

“By a quirk of historical bad luck, the American Left has gone two generations without understanding finance, or even caring to understand. It was the hippies who decided half a century ago that finance was beneath them, so they happily ceded the entire field—finance, business, economics, money—otherwise known as “political power”—to the other side. Walking away from the finance struggle was like that hitchhiker handing the gun back to the Manson Family.” – Mark Ames

Finance is Too Important to Leave to Larry Summers

Posted by: paulmeli | Oct 17 2015 16:22 utc | 144

“Remember this was the clique that was organising all the bank robberies, expropriations, and sabotage blackmail to pay for the rev.”
How do you know this? For the sake of argument, let’s assume that everything we are presently being told in the Official, “Legal”, Mass, “Free” media is a lie, or partly so, which is just as bad. But when it comes to Stalin, The Evillest Man Evah, we are being told the truth? We already know that our so-called leaders aren’t averse to a little mass murder. Do you imagine they’d balk at telling us lies?

Posted by: ruralito | Oct 17 2015 16:35 utc | 146

@Laguerre #141:
sheer bigotry
Is Fred Donner a bigot? Let’s see what he says in his Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam:

Islamic tradition provides a richly detailed narrative of the life of
Muhammad, the man all Muslims recognize as their prophet. This narrative is not contemporary but, rather, based on reports that were circulated and collected within the Muslim community during the several centuries following Muhammad’s death. As this chapter explores in more detail, these reports contain material of many kinds. (p.39) …
Muhammad sent a few Emigrants out as a raiding party, which ambushed a Mecca-bound caravan at the town of Nakhla. The booty gained was welcome (p. 45) …
A larger group of Muhammad’s followers attacked a sizable Quraysh caravan again at a place called Badr (year 2/624), overcoming the contingent of Meccans guarding it and taking much booty despite being outnumbered. This victory must have strengthened both the morale and the economic position of Muhammad’s followers and may mark the beginning of a virtual blockade of Mecca by Muhammad and the Medinese. It also evidently left Muhammad feeling secure enough to make the first open attack on Jews who opposed him. (p.46)

@paulmeli #144:
An excellent point. Thanks so much for the link.

Posted by: Demian | Oct 17 2015 16:53 utc | 148

Demian at 127
So it will of course not surprise you that I’m a big fan of not only Peter I, but his father, Alexis, as well. He appointed Nikon, more below. To compete with the West, Russia had to be equipped, physically and intellectually, as well as the West. See Gershenkron on the “advantages of the late comer,” as I think he portrays the silver lining of the dark cloud of late and/or half-hearted modernization.
Turgenev was an Hegelian, would have been a philosophy professor had that been possible in Nicholas I’s police state, so he turned to literature. Tolstoy would be more of a Slavophile, however. Levin the proto-Narodnik is the hero of “Anna Karenina,” rooted in the land and people of rural Russia, unlike the elite of the two capitals.
Dostoevsky was a former utopian socialist who got religion after a fake execution and exile late in the reign of Nicholas I. I always had the sensation of being beaten about the head while reading him. “Socialism, west, bad!” Whack, whack! “Christianity, good!” Whack, whack, whack.
Giving the devil his due, “Tale of the Grand Inquisitor” is deeply insightful, however.
Others have spoken of neo-tsarism, and perhaps juliania leans towards if not the autocracy, a certain appreciation for elements of pre-revolutionary Russia (e.g., the Zemskii Sobor, the “Assembly of the Land,” that ratified the Romanovs, or Novogorod’s veche). I see above your market-based solution.
juliania at 104 —
Sobornost’, “togetherness”, I believe it is. From sobor, an assembly or gathering; also a cathedral. I recall it referring to the sense of community enjoyed by the mir, the peasant village (and also “the world” and “peace”). It is rather the inverse of rugged American individualism.
The Eastern Church had to beef up it’s intellectual infrastructure. The Reformation energized both sides, who undertook to use scholarship and classical philosophy to beef up their positions. Medieval Catholicism was well down this path before this, and this attitude had in effect been pioneered by St. Augustine of Hippo.
Poles and Czechs both slipped between the reforming and traditional variants of Western Christianity. This turmoil on the borders made it especially critical for the Russian church to get up to speed, so hence the patriarchate of Nikon of Kiev. This lead then to the reforms that resulted in the split of the Old Belief.
That the Church became a department of the state I think crippled its spirituality for much of the Imperial period. But from my limited knowledge, I believe you are correct about the spiritual revival ca. 1900. You had folks like Berdayaev (and in his own peculiar way, Rasputin, the peasant staretz) active at that time.
Personally, I think the church and state are a little close in contemporary Russia. They were able to get a law passed restricting official religious status to a small no. of “historic” religions, if memory serves. But I would also say the link between the Religious Right and a number of states here is a bit too close, with I think even worse consequences.

Posted by: rufus magister | Oct 17 2015 18:21 utc | 150

Someone spliced BBC commentary from the latest North Korean parade over footage from Queen’s birthday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pnt_uT5YzQ

Posted by: b | Oct 17 2015 19:16 utc | 152

psychohistorian @ 149
I understand your frustration with Naked Capitalism…I felt something similar during the Syriza beatdown in Greece a few months ago, and remain conflicted about donating this time around, which I have done in the past. Still, It’s an old post and in my view worth reading (Mark Ames is worth reading).
As far as you being one of the ‘hippies’ that cared about understanding finance the point is that not nearly enough did, they ignored it, so now we are where we are. You didn’t move the needle much, and nothing you could do would make up for most of your cohort that found finance not worth their time.
And nothing has changed.

Posted by: paulmeli | Oct 17 2015 20:21 utc | 154

144
wow! your Mark Ames quote is a real paean to capitalist hierarchy. and what a fucking bigot. i think the hippies understood ‘finance’ profoundly well…by the way that they decided to pretty much stop buying shit, go off grid, grow their own veggies, and homeschool their children. but what are, say, 10,000 pacifists gonna do in the USA? and there’s the rub…the ‘left’ in the USA is, aside from these people, some battered black folks, and an assortment of misfits and drop-outs, a mirage.
…
in 1945 the USA took a quantum leap when nuclear fission was weaponized and used to incinerate a quarter of a million innocent Japanese civilians.
it took them another decade or so to hook it up to the public power grid.

Posted by: john | Oct 17 2015 20:46 utc | 156

Lone Wolf at 151 — So highway robbery is OK, as long as it has a tribal sanction and religious tradition? As Church Lady used to say, “How conveeenient!”
I believe it is a matter of the historical record that Mohammed used the base provided by a convert to his ways at Yathrib, which became Medina, to raid the commerce of the Meccan traders. The loss of business forced them to accept his return and new faith.
Raids can be an excellent opportunity to show leadership and promote group cohesion, just look at the Myceneans and the tales of the Iliad.

Posted by: rufus magister | Oct 17 2015 20:57 utc | 158

john @ 144
I don’t see that but I’ll think about it. Before George McGovern the US had what passes for a ‘left’. They chose not to compete. Instead they became more like the opposition, which now has happened worldwide. Look at Labour in Great Britain…attempting to out-neoliberal the neoliberals by promising to cut the deficit…something the Tories haven’t done successfully despite their rhetoric and good thing or their economy would have collapsed.
Yep, ‘going off the grid’ kicked Capitalism’s ass…it’s rational to base your strategy on the majority of citizens choosing to live like the Amish.
Unfortunately that appears to be the only choice now for a lot of us, but with TPP and the like, these things can be made illegal.

Posted by: paulmeli | Oct 17 2015 21:13 utc | 160

@152 b
That is a great, great clip.
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”
― Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
Thanks for keeping us up to date … on Syria and along every other dimension.

Posted by: jfl | Oct 17 2015 21:20 utc | 162

@163 paulmeli
I guess I do believe in accounting but not bean counters……grin. Yes, my Homo-Sovereign nation can spend as much as their community can produce itself, bring in via exchange or get from others loan/gift from other nations, if their are any.
Of course I am generalizing to encourage discussion but feel free to question anything.
So Paul, I went my last year and got my BAin 1973 from a hippie college called The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. I worked with a group and an anthropologist for a year looking at the future. We focused our efforts around using a policy oriented engineering technology called Field Anomaly Relaxation, (FAR) for short. I produced a report about our efforts that I never got credit for and so didn’t quite finish perfectly in the days before word processors. It is in PDF form at this URL ( http://www.lettinggobreath.com/FAR/WholeSystemEarth.HTML ) We stopped studying the future around 1970 along with all the other devolutional decisions and social direction that the global plutocrats set at that time. We should be developing open source versions of the FAR technology and getting groups to explore the interactions between the various factors of our existence with an eye to moving from where we are to where we want to be.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 17 2015 21:48 utc | 164

Ruralito,
Sure the powers that be wouldn’t hesitate to lie to maintain power, but they literally can’t lie about everything. And meticulously documented and referenced history books are not the main stream medias propaganda outlet. Propaganda directed at the part of the population that sets policy, and at those who do propagandize us regular folks definately exists but why would they bust their ass to smear someone who is already long dead and has no real influence on the present?
You are correct that those of us that don’t speak Russian, and can’t go to Russia and the Caucasus to examine the archives are at a disadvantage – that is why historians put footnotes in books, other historians can cross reference to what they know, check original sources, and spend that grant money checking if that oxford tory asswipe got his story straight. And they get the chance to call them out if they find the story is wrong – thus leading to more grant money and a career enhancing controversy. It’s called peer review. Not as rigorous as physics but it’s what we got.
Also Montefiore was not the source of all the bank robbery stories. Lenin used to make jokes about it, the other groups who made up the Russian communist movement were constantly complaining to Lenin about the outrages being committed, robberies, bombings, etc.,and threatening to kick them out if they didn’t stop causing so much trouble for everyone else.
But you are right that a lot of knowledge is suspect, certainly upper crusty Brits have had it in for the Russians for a few hundred years now and doesn’t look like stopping anytime soon – just read the Economist or listen to the Beeb to see that.

Posted by: sillybill | Oct 17 2015 22:20 utc | 166

@167 paulmeli
Thanks for the link. A good read but I want to share what they didn’t.
In 2008 when we had the September crisis, the TBTF banks did not get taken out and the Fed loaded its balance sheet with the Maiden Lane I, II and III mortgage crap. They also set the Fed borrowing rate to the TBTF banks at ZERO (0) percent……and the printing presses started.
The bottom line is that the US dollar has been depreciated/inflated and all the holders of it or things valued in it are going to be screwed. The inflation numbers are lies.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 18 2015 0:42 utc | 168

talk is cheap.. it’s easy to paint the past number of different ways.. watch peoples actions, more then their words.. people are fooled too easily by words and you can read peoples acts on pages like this too..

Posted by: james | Oct 18 2015 3:09 utc | 170

Enjoyed “listening” to your conversation this evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Here’s a little act of defiance I thought you might enjoy.
I was reviewing the past 7 years events in Syria, Iran and Turkey, and I came upon this bit:
“Moscow has set up permanent consultative bodies at high diplomatic and economic levels with Damascus and Ankara, in contrast with the policy of the United States. Earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had ordered Syria to distance itself from the Resistance. In response, President Bashar al-Assad immediately appeared alongside his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and ironically signed a document titled “Treaty of reduced distance”. The meeting was convened short notice and Khaled Mechaal could not attend, but Hamas was nevertheless involved in the process. Following up on his threats, President Barack Obama has renewed economic sanctions against Syria for another two years.”
The more things change the more they stay the same. http://www.voltairenet.org/article165434.html Written in 2010. At this time Turkey is united politically w Iran & Syria at this time.

Posted by: Penelope | Oct 18 2015 4:49 utc | 172

lone wolf at 151
“One doesn’t have to belong to any religion to have some sense of sacredness, and of respect for the meaning of sacred symbols for other people.
I find that in practical terms what this sort of demand for “respect for… sacred symbols” usually means “place my views about the Sky People above criticism, even as I attempt to impose them on you.” Because, religion.
Nothing says “religion of peace” like physically attacking those who question if your faith is all that peaceful.

Posted by: rufus magister | Oct 18 2015 10:15 utc | 174

Looks like we got a new Zionist troll with a computing background, since he treats the same names with different capitalization as the same names.

Posted by: Demian | Oct 18 2015 13:04 utc | 176

psychohistorian @ 168

“The bottom line is that the US dollar has been depreciated/inflated and all the holders of it or things valued in it are going to be screwed. The inflation numbers are lies”

This is an a part of the puzzle where we have a significant difference. Your statements implicitly assume that inflation is a function of the quantity of money. It is not.
Inflation is a function of spending.
Spending is a function of the increase in the quantity* of money (*for the anal among us quantity here means the level of financial assets in the non-government, other economic meanings notwithstanding), specifically government spending and bank lending.
It should be obvious to all by now that the Fed has failed completely to increase the level of spending in the aggregate and therefore inflation, regardless of hair-on-fire claims of ‘money printing’…buying up securities doesn’t change the level of financial assets in the non-government, only the composition. There is little evidence that changing the composition of assets induces an increase in spending.
Since it seems no one trusts the CPI, here’s an alternate measure of inflation…
The Billion Prices Index

Posted by: paulmeli | Oct 18 2015 13:48 utc | 178

@Noirette #178:
It disturbs my mind, which wants everything to be orderly, that both the DPR and USG don’t like MSF. Surely if the DPR bans MSF, USG should like them?
the MSF were so virulently pro-Maidan they did not treat ppl equally and sent along a bunch of psychologists who argued for the supremacy of stuff like self-determination, true democracy, you get the picture.
How can France produce psychologists who are pro-Maidan? To be a psychologist, you need to have a certain level of intelligence and sophistication.
This suggests to me that there is a strong strain of native French Russophobia after all (i.e., being currently against Russia not because of US/Atlanticist ideological influence). I thought it was just England, Poland, and Catholic Germans. (I added the last to that list just recently.)
I’d appreciate any explanations you might suggest. Is it jealousy of Russia for being a continental power, because France used to be one (indeed, it once invaded Russia)? (In the case of Germans, this is easier to figure out. Some Germans might just place Russians in the same category as Poles.)

Posted by: Demian | Oct 18 2015 14:13 utc | 180

Well, I must say, it’s a good morning.
It looks like my 174 prompted a mitzvah at 175. So I’ve already pissed off some religious fanatic, and before 9 am on a Sunday.
Isn’t it great to be alive? I feel like bursting into song, Hollywood musical style. Now for another for dessert….

Posted by: rufus magister | Oct 18 2015 17:04 utc | 182

Ad #183.
If I were a Yankee 0.1%-er I’d be hoping Xi (& Putin) don’t know my home address…

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Oct 18 2015 18:20 utc | 184

@Demian@173
So I suspect that your remark about having “respect for the meaning of sacred symbols for other people” indicates a lack of understanding of what authentic religion is like. If you worry about others respecting your “sacred symbols”, chances are you follow a false prophet.
I almost miss your response, you had me tied to another poster. Your knowledge of religion is as deep as your treatment of history. A false prophet can be many things, money, addictions, lust, consumerism, and in your case, worshipping your mind. Obviously you never experience a gap between two thoughts (I don’t think you know what that is), or had any glimpse at oneness, hence your fractured mindset. Your posts carry an arrogant subtext, by which you make sweeping generalizations and point fingers at what people are, or should be, according to your, ehem, “judgment,” most of the time, wrongly. End of discussion, case closed.

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Oct 19 2015 1:53 utc | 186

@Noirette #187:
Thanks for the very clear explanation. Yes, it’s a combination of scoundrels and people who are deluded like just about everyone else. I forgot that even the educated tend to accept dominant discourses without maintaining the required wariness.

Posted by: Demian | Oct 20 2015 1:21 utc | 188