Late last night I finished translating and posting “Russia’s Future Planning Decree -2030-2036”, which is the culmination of the work Team Putin performed over the 18 months prior to Putin’s Leap Day Address when this road map was put before the Russian people and its Federal Assembly. IMO, it showcases what a genuine Progressive-Conservative government would plan as it knows it can’t solve very longstanding problems rooted in culture and geography like poverty and the imbalance of equitability nationwide. But it does see those issues and puts forth goals to solve them. China’s wording for doing such things is modernization and continual development; here we see what that actually entails. I find it a fascinating document because the West produces nothing like it at all, and it was just this sort of planning that was vilified during the Cold War. I wonder how many Westerners if allowed to read the doc would want to be part of its agenda.

Posted by: karlof1 | May 8 2024 16:02 utc | 4

Posted by: karlof1 | May 8 2024 16:02 utc | 4
The reason why the West is so dysfunctional is largely explained in this medium-length article. It is too controversial to extract here, however. Funny how the truth tends to be that way. Also a circumstantial type of proof that the thesis has some merit.
In brief: the West is so dysfunctional because it has been deliberately and systematically undermined for a long time now. Which also happens to undermine Aurelien’s elegantly represented ‘it’s all just group stupidity not conspiracy’ argument.
https://www.unz.com/article/the-saddest-story-never-told/

Posted by: scorpion | May 8 2024 16:44 utc | 6

Gott mit Unz
Fascists are envious of a narcissistic tribe that worships itself as the primordial horde of “the blond beast.”
Logical, archaeo-logical
I don’t like this mixture of fascism with patriotism and biblical fascism.

Posted by: Simon | May 8 2024 17:26 utc | 8

The UK regime intends to issue *all* candidates in the general election which will be held in the next few months with instructions on what to think and un-think.
Which will make the next election even more of a farce than the previous one, in which hardly any serious policy of any kind was discussed or debated via mainstream media and politicians at all.
sub-heading quote :
** MPs and election candidates to be given guide about conspiracy theories covering topics such as 5G and the climate crisis **

Posted by: Cynic | May 8 2024 17:35 utc | 10

Posted by: james | May 8 2024 15:32 utc | 2 & 15:36 utc | 3
from the article b links to “The battle at Dien Bien Phu lasted 55 days. On 8 May 1954 the French government announced that France would withdraw from Vietnam.” that is 70 years ago today..
Vietnam/Norway Hip Hurra!
Exactly nine years before that, on this date in 1945, the Nazis capitulated in Norway, ending more than 5 years of brutal occupation.
Every summer I hike in a valley that was the south end of the Nazi’s scorched earth policy as they were being forced to retreat. The bastards burned everything and left a large uninhabitable area behind.
We remember that it was the USSR troops who drove the Nazis out of the north here where I live.
We also remember that the USSR troops went back home.
Sadly you wouldn’t learn that today listening to our poodle politicians.
Liberation Day in Norway

Posted by: waynorinorway | May 8 2024 17:36 utc | 12

@karlof1 | May 8 2024 16:02 utc.
Thanks for taking time to translate and post that material on Russia’s long-term social and economic plan.
Yes, I agree that many people – from the West and elsewhere – will want to participate in Russia’s future. What I like most about the plan is that it’s being formulated and implemented even in war-time.
Russia has not taken it’s eye off the ball (national development) during the tumult with NATO. And that’s what the West wanted most – to arrest Russia’s and China’s peaceful evolution.
This is what I find most objectionable about the West’s current strategy: it’s all about preventing others from being successful, instead of making ourselves successful.
I very much appreciate the efforts karlof1 is making to show the world what Russia’s up to: it provides such wonderful contrast to what the U.S. is up to.
For those of you the read my recent post on the Overton Window – this material Karlof1 is making available moves the window. It shows us what’s possible, and thereby inspires us to expect more from our own societies.
I’d say it’s unlikely that the New York Times newspaper is going to publish this report.
Just to give you a sense of the kinds of goals Russia is setting for itself, here’s a little tidbit from the report:

Section 2.k) reduction of the Gini coefficient (income concentration index) to 0.37 by 2030 and to 0.33 by 2036;

I don’t care if other people are more wealthy than I am. But it does matter to societal health if the disparity between rich and poor gets too wide. Then you get the “government for sale” problem we have now, and you get people being left behind.
Read the report. Then take a copy of it and send it to your congress critter, and say “The Overton Window has moved! I know what a healthy society aspires to do, and … here it is … you ain’t doin’ it!!”
Contrast:
U.S. government votes to stifle dissent about Genocide, while …
Russian government resolves to make incomes more equal

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | May 8 2024 17:59 utc | 14

Posted by: karlof1 | May 8 2024 16:02 utc | 4
Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | May 8 2024 17:59 utc | 14
Yes, thank you Karl. Tom, the same thing jumped out at me that you’ve noted, regarding the reduction of the Gini coefficient. Can you imagine any American administration making that a goal? I cannot. The proof will be in the pudding of course, but these are goals of a nation/people on the rise (in a good sense). I wish them success. Sadly, here and in most of the West, we are being divided and made fearful.

Posted by: KMRIA | May 8 2024 18:18 utc | 16

Pepe Escobar appraises part of the current reality, A tale of Two Sovereigns, a Lackey and a Nanny”, and provides the following summation:
“The NATOstan lackeys will remain dazed, confused – and hysterical. So what; lackeys lack strategic depth, they just wallow in the shallow waters of irrelevancy.”
The Eurolackey’s will have a new problem with Ansarallah’s decision to extend its operations to the Med and expand the criteria for its targeting.
////////////////////
Tom Pfotzer | May 8 2024 17:59 utc | 14
KMRIA | May 8 2024 18:18 utc | 16–
Thanks for your replies and kind words. Another goal is increasing the degree of equitability across the entire Russian state as the European regions have always been more advanced and favored than those regions beyond the Urals. You’ll have also noted the planned rise in the minimum wage, although solving the poverty issue will take much more than that since there remain indigenous Artic peoples following their traditional pathways, and Putin/Russian government don’t have any desire to alter that; rather, the goal is to have modern assistance available in healthcare and education–if the people want to continue to herd reindeer, then let them, etc.
Empower the people so the people can empower the nation, so the nation van further empower the people so they can again empower the nation and so forth. That’s People Centered Development. The West does the exact opposite with its Oligarch Centered Decilivization. The political philosophy I see behind both China and Russia I term Progressive-Conservatism, which will require an essay to explain.

Posted by: karlof1 | May 8 2024 18:44 utc | 18

Well, the parallels ramify in every direction. Geneva ~ Minsk, the complete inability of the USA to pursue any foreign policy other than setting up client rulers to facilitate systematic corporate looting and the prevention (at all costs?) of local populations controlling and benefiting from their own territory. The playbook is so well known and so often used that one has to wonder whether it’s self-reflexively intentional or rather pathological in the historical materialist sense. It must be the latter: the structural incapacity of any mode of appropriation to reshape itself other via a continual doubling-down until Aufhebung.

Posted by: Patroklos | May 8 2024 19:04 utc | 20

A German politician has been convicted for citing official German statistics about gang rape. Comparing welt, taz and RT, I find I have to read RT to be accurately informed about this. This is sad.

Posted by: Passerby | May 8 2024 19:11 utc | 22

I can not believe that this pretty disgusting piece of trash has found its way here and is even recommended!
Posted by: JB | May 8 2024 18:11 utc | 15
Not sure if you are referring to the poster and his support group or to the linked article. /s

Posted by: waynorinorway | May 8 2024 19:18 utc | 24

Posted by: karlof1 | May 8 2024 18:44 utc | 18
An essay… AN ESSAY
Conserve the good, progress the bad (daoist thought)
Progressive-Conservatism as complementary rather than adversarial
Good/bad is not described in moral terms but as contemporary societal needs.
How’d I do?

Posted by: awaiting approval | May 8 2024 19:28 utc | 26

Posted by: bevin | May 8 2024 19:05 utc | 21
No doubt you’re familiar with Ricoeur’s ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’. Many find themselves suspecting something’s wrong with the world. For some the hermeneutic pathway leads to ‘critique’ (in the Kantian sense); for most others it leads to a doubling down on mystification and superstition, i.e., to fascism. These latter majority are not necessarily stupid, but they are susceptible because they want their prejudices, fears, desires, etc confirmed and endorsed. Scorpion, Canuck and others of their ilk are good examples. For them critique is resisted because it is essentially self-reflexive: it requires the debunking of one’s own prejudices by opening oneself up to the relationship between one’s subjectivity and one’s relationship to the objective conditions of production. Thus, for many people the consequences of critique are too catastrophic and destabilizing to contemplate.

Posted by: Patroklos | May 8 2024 19:43 utc | 28

My post nr. 15 is about the article scorpion recommended. It is not about scorpion.
The article is
1) disgusting
2) trash
It would be foolish and a waste of time to dissect a disgusting piece of trash.
I feel no need, though, to dissect scorpion because he posted it. I also have a different view of scorpion’s role on MoA than the ones just expressed.

Posted by: JB | May 8 2024 20:01 utc | 30

Posted by: Patroklos | May 8 2024 19:32 utc | 27
Posted by: scorpion | May 8 2024 19:18 utc | 23
Maybe, but Bevin’s got your number though. Was anything he said wrong?

Was anything he said not fabulist ad hominem? Did any of it have anything to do with the points made in the article? Or are you so besotted a fanboy that you never even considered that?

Posted by: Patroklos | May 8 2024 19:43 utc | 28
For them critique is resisted because it is essentially self-reflexive: it requires the debunking of one’s own prejudices by opening oneself up to the relationship between one’s subjectivity and one’s relationship to the objective conditions of production. Thus, for many people the consequences of critique are too catastrophic and destabilizing to contemplate.

All you have is long, waffling ad hominem, no substance. What drab academic-sounding piffle! Surely you can do better? I thought you were an Australian?! And male!
Generally I enjoy your posts; in this case, however, your obvious intellectual cowardice has left you exposed.
Commiserations!
One of the nice things about growing older is that for most of us sometime around our forties we mature enough to stop caring what others think of our opinions and so can better resist peer pressure and group think, nor stoop to making adolescent-level appeals to peers to toe the line or help ostracize dissidents etc.
Here’s to hoping that one day you and bevin will get there!

Posted by: scorpion | May 8 2024 20:14 utc | 32

Posted by: JB | May 8 2024 20:01 utc | 30
Thanks for your clarification. I obviously disagree that the article is trash. For sure it is controversial, but some of the sources therein are neither unreasonable nor false. Undeniably there was an awful amount of partisan propaganda and unquestionably the defeated got the shitty end of the stick in that regard – moreover to this day. And we know very well who dominated, and still dominates, the narrative space in Western society.
So although some of the piece makes for uncomfortable reading, much does not or presents hard truths that are too often obfuscated. I cannot come up with a blanket statement about it (pro or con) like you, bevin, patroklos and others, but of course have no issue with your opinion as clearly stated.
Below follows a comment I offered to the author on the Unz site, which is the best bastion of free (and controversial) speech on the internet and as such quite a treasure – as is our host’s here at MoA. I pray speech police types and ad hominem addicts will not succeed at getting them closed down.

I would like to thank the author for this excellent, important essay. The level of deception layered throughout western society is a true tragedy, ever-unfolding. It is a profound mistake to blame it all on the Jews, however unless and until the West can find the wherewithal to reject their machinations only bad things will happen and further degradation unfold.

The part of the essay I found most interesting was about the ethno-state notion. Here from the conclusion:

In the end, Hitler and National Socialism will continue to be relentlessly demonized by the Jews. To achieve their Jewish utopia,[21] Israel (as the Jewish race as a whole is also called) will systematically seek to destroy any individual, group, or country that stands in its way. Nationalism and race consciousness are particularly targeted because they know from their own experience that the unity, strength, and cohesion of a nation are rooted in its racial and ethnic homogeneity. They are well aware that racial and cultural diversity in the same country is not a strength, but a Trojan horse used to divide, fragment, and weaken those who succumb to its charms. They know, finally, that the ethno-state is the only model of society capable of ensuring the security and happiness of men.

Any discussion along racial lines like this makes us very uncomfortable. And yet is that not what is unfolding now in Gaza? And is it untrue that homogeneity in the West has been systematically undermined?
The essay raises some important issues, uncomfortable and unfashionable as they are. IMO.

Posted by: scorpion | May 8 2024 20:41 utc | 34

Posted by: scorpion | May 8 2024 20:14 utc | 32
If one ever wants a definition of ad hominem read that post. Nothing Scorpion writes is critical in any shape or form. ‘Academic-sounding’ is the typical canard of the anti-intellectual. When you say “we mature enough to stop caring what others think of our opinions and so can better resist peer pressure and group think” you’re actually saying you abdicate your responsibility to a community of peers to justify what you say and claim the right to swing your dick around like a tyrant. It’s just such tired common-or-garden right wing cliché after cliché… you think you’re a ‘free thinker’ but Bevin’s right: your type is a dime-a-dozen in internet land.

Posted by: Patroklos | May 8 2024 21:09 utc | 36

for those who are interested
Breaking news and analysis on day 215 of Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Flood | The Electronic Intifada Podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCaU3MnTjmE

Posted by: ld | May 8 2024 21:36 utc | 38

Re the Unz Review link, a cursory reading shows it to be nonsense. It is not true WWII was a principled struggle between two race-conscious nations, the Germans and the Jews. The French and British empires were not Jewish nor was the USSR. Further, the geopolitical issues were such that it is entirely customary to see WWII as a direct sequel to WWI, which is at least rational. That’s why the belligerents were England, France, “Russia” and the US vs. Germany. Insofar as WWII was genuinely different instead of a second German attempt to control continental Europe, it was a vast anti-Communist crusade. Most of the article is genuine ad hominem, doubly stupid because the smear boils down to “JEW!” It is no credit to Unz to host such twaddle. Calling this a matter of opinion is absurd. One could just as well host a defense of hollow-earth or homeopathy or Scientology or hermetic philosophy.
The only question is whether Scorpion is correct: Does MoA really include Scorpion’s mode of argument, which disdains reason, which posits without argument or evidence propositions about Jewish racial/religious imperatives and transhistorical nature, which blandly dismisses criticism as mere ad hominem? Is MoA a forum where there are no enemies on the right, while the so-called left—routinely caricatured as woke, with all manner of sexual deviance and racial decadence and spiritual depravity and outright psychosis? These charges are not just levied at any hint of disagreement, along with the presumption of guilt a dogma? And dissidence on these issues is rejected as an insufferable insult much worse than fascist propaganda? Is there a double standard where favoring some cultural issue (like transgender) is wholly intolerable while being a fascist/fascist apologist/fascist adjacent crackpot is just being colorful?
Scorpion and Scorpion’s kind most certainly have a better claim to belong here, to be luminaries of the MoA community than I do.

Posted by: steven t johnson | May 8 2024 21:43 utc | 40

Regarding that above mentioned “Good Nazis” UNZ article:
Occasionally self-declared “dissident thinkers” demand attention and to be taken seriously, and then you look into their writings and so often it’s just superficial drivel. I don’t know how anybody can take that seriously. Here’s a quote from that UNZ site:

To sum up, WW2 was basically a war between two racially conscious nations: Israel and Hitler’s Germany, the first one, voraciously ambitious, dishonest, intellectually inferior, and hateful of all non-Jews,[22] and the second, convivial, nature and animal friendly, honest, intellectually superior by a long-shot, and willing to live in peace with the other nations and races.

When criticized and ridiculed for referencing this, Mr. Scorpion just throws around some “You haven’t even really really read it thoroughly // ALL you have are ad hominems”. What a tiring waste of time.

Posted by: Roland | May 8 2024 22:20 utc | 42

fyi
Household income distribution according to the Gini Index of income inequality in the United States from 1990 to 2022
Useful graphic ….
https://www.statista.com/statistics/219643/gini-coefficient-for-us-individuals-families-and-households/

Posted by: Don Firineach | May 8 2024 22:26 utc | 44

Posted by: Patroklos | May 8 2024 21:09 utc | 36
…………….
An ad hominem response to an ad hominem is appropriate and proportional. I note you did not really respond to the points it made except to entirely misinterpret them. Oh well.

Posted by: Scorpion | May 8 2024 22:33 utc | 46

fyi
Household income distribution according to the Gini Index of income inequality in the United States from 1990 to 2022
Useful graphic ….
https://www.statista.com/statistics/219643/gini-coefficient-for-us-individuals-families-and-households/
Posted by: Don Firineach | May 8 2024 22:26 utc | 44
hardly worth seeing, try this one a bit more long ranged
http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/capital21c/en/Piketty2014FiguresTables.pdf

Posted by: Newbie | May 8 2024 23:27 utc | 48

@ Newbie | May 8 2024 23:27 utc | 48
Thanks for that. Yes, circa 1970 the greed went into overdrive.
Note the contrast with Russian Federation – one increasing, one decreasing

Posted by: Don Firineach | May 8 2024 23:38 utc | 50

@ Newbie | May 8 2024 23:27 utc | 48
Thanks for that. Yes, circa 1970 the greed went into overdrive.
Note the contrast with Russian Federation – one increasing, one decreasing
Posted by: Don Firineach | May 8 2024 23:38 utc | 50
Plenty of other info in that PDF, it’s Piketty’s capital in the 20th century full tables

Posted by: Newbie | May 8 2024 23:46 utc | 52

Posted by: scorpion | May 8 2024 20:41 utc | 34
Any discussion along racial lines like this makes us very uncomfortable. And yet is that not what is unfolding now in Gaza? And is it untrue that homogeneity in the West has been systematically undermined?
——
No, criticism of the crimes in Gaza are not supportive of the aims of the Nazi project. Quite the opposite. An ethnostate du jour is violently oppressing a group strictly due to its ethnic character; that is a point of commonality between the Nazi state and the Israeli state, and others such as apartheid South Africa. Recognition of the similar motivations for the Gaza crimes and the crimes of these other ethnostates has been the foundation of sympathy for the Gazan plight around the world.
Homogeneity in the West has not been “systematically undermined”. Most migrations of the past several centuries have been economic, due to uneven development across geographic areas; or, driven by destruction by war, famine, natural disasters, etc. And besides, there was no ‘homogeneity’ to begin with.

Posted by: a stone | May 8 2024 23:52 utc | 54

… but if b (God forbid!) had died from his recent infection, I’m sure most of us would have assumed he’d been bumped off by agents of the Anglo-American Empire.
Posted by: observer | May 8 2024 18:52 utc | 19
And so what makes you think he wasn’t?
Where’s you’re evidence the person who took over after several days is the original ‘Bernhard’?
Everyone is assuming it is.
But we all know far less than we “assume” we do. (big grin)

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | May 9 2024 0:04 utc | 56

I can not believe that this pretty disgusting piece of trash has found its way here and is even recommended!
Posted by: JB | May 8 2024 18:11 utc | 15
Really? You are so disgusted that YOU REPOST the comment here with the URL link???
That is a dysfunctional act which undermines your “stated” intentions/opinions.

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | May 9 2024 0:14 utc | 58

Sorry in advance for not participating in today’s mud-slinging.
I would still like to know whether Bevin believes that Zionists are atheists or not.
—
I find what is happening in West Africa fascinating. Power abhors a vacuum. As quickly as the US commits an “own goal”, China and Russia step in without missing a beat. Russia’s recent experience protecting allies against color revolutions is paying off with the knowledge to rapidly support and protect coup leaders until they can legitimize their regimes. I’d say Ibrahim Traore in Burkina Faso is ahead of the curve. He’s succeeded against “Islamic” insurgents quickly and decisively after years of the Americans being unable to track down insurgents (in the open) with their massive drone and satellite resources. President Traore has also launched many public works projects without taking on World Bank debt, finding clever ways to open up the economy now that foreign tribute payments have diminished.
Transformation across the Sahel, while differentiated and diverse, all seem to be flowing in a similar direction.
Away from the West.
Who says that Russia isn’t winning “Bigly“?
Just in time for Trump to win an election, and direct his lame-duck government that won’t answer to him anyway into conflict with a world that is rapidly becoming anti-American in a profound way. Gone are the days of Trump going to China and being received like a visiting Emperor. These days, he may get the “stay on the tarmac until we send a rickshaw for you” treatment made famous during the Obama and Biden regimes.
Oh well, Trump is still the first Jewish President. I suppose that is a consolation of sorts.
If you can’t run America from America, maybe you can run America from Tel Aviv.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | May 9 2024 0:23 utc | 60

Scorpion @ 7:
The way you worded your comment, in order to link to Pierre Simon’s biased and nonsensical article, does not reflect well on your character or your ability to respond adequately to Karlof1’s comment @ 4.
Your other comments to Bevin and Patroklos expose you and your intention (to derail this comments thread into endless argument over supposed Jewish aims to dominate the West) even more as a troll of a despicable kind.

Posted by: Refinnejenna | May 9 2024 0:34 utc | 62

OT remark on a comment in the last Ukraine thread by Nasir ( May 8 2024 16:24 utc | 7 ):

Philosophically speaking, a bomb that does not explode is not a bomb!

That’s a very dangerous argument according to “Dark Star” with its “Thermostellar Triggering Devices” that talk/argue and reason 😀
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Star_(film)
Bomb phenomenology clip (4 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjGRySVyTDk
“To explode of course” 😛

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | May 9 2024 1:30 utc | 64

.. http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/capital21c/en/Piketty2014FiguresTables.pdf
Posted by: Newbie | May 8 2024 23:27 utc | 48
The data clearly shows that for income equity improvements, the US needs to engage in a world war!

Posted by: Ново З | May 9 2024 2:05 utc | 66

@LoveDonbass (61)
Sorry for the quibble, but last I checked, baseball was introduced to Japan even before WWII. Whatever one thinks or however one feels about baseball in general, (I’m personally not a fan, but) all I know is that it’s still a thing in Cuba as it was even during the 1960s, as well as other parts of Latin America.
Correct me if and where I’m wrong.

Posted by: joey_n | May 9 2024 2:17 utc | 68

Posted by: Don Firineach | May 9 2024 2:08 utc | 67
NO, thank you. Happy to share those things I found useful in the past to wake me up, keep me aware. But horses for courses, each to their own self be true …
Have a tipple on me.

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | May 9 2024 2:35 utc | 70

Related to the opening article, and the anti-colonialist struggle in Gaza, I found this interesting presentation What Frantz Fanon Can Teach About Gaza …..
https://youtu.be/o9s8p5CQ44o
HAPPY VE DAY everyone!

Posted by: PassionateProgressiv | May 9 2024 3:14 utc | 72

Lavrov’s Dog 61
Oy vey, who was really committing a Shoah during WW2?
That is the nub of the matter, that the purpose of genocide is show of strength, which is why USUKIS are doing it now in Palestine, to add some fake credibility to their banking interest – based , fiat money, Paganism.

Posted by: Giyane | May 9 2024 3:46 utc | 74

A teaching moment for the bar.
Someone asked me recently, why do clerics wear different color turbans (durband in Farsi)? Some white, some black.
Well, those who wear black turban, are direct descendants of ahl-ul-bayt (house of profit (pbuh)). Usually their name is preceded with Seyyed (lord), an honorific title, recognized as the descendants. Those wearing white are not.
Posted by: Sakineh Bagoom | May 8 2024 16:28 utc | 5
Salaam to all.
I remember a while back a dear one visited from Iran and asked me a question. The topic of the conversation was the oppressive state of affairs in Iran. In both Arabic and Persian languages, the term used is Zolm (which means darkness). So suddenly they said “Maybe the prophet and the Imams were really like them!”
By “them” they meant the “Islamic” ideologues that have made a mockery of the religion and the holy ones of the house of the prophet (saws).
I was stunned into silence and felt anger within which was first (wrongly) directed at them for even thinking such a monstrosity. How could anyone with any sense confuse the Imams and the Household of the Prophet of Islam (saws) with these hypocrites and latter day Pharisees of Islam?
As with the Zionist entity, which has sinfully and presumptuously assumed for itself the name and mantle of Israel (as), motivated in part by a desire to beguile the ever gullible “goyim” into blindly assuming a servile posture towards them because of what is attributed to Allah, Holy and Exalted, in the Jewish bible, so to the wolves in clerical clothing in Iran are claiming that they represent (!!!) the Household of the Prophet (saws).
People are leaving Islam in droves in Iran because of these wolves wearing black and white turbans.
As for the matter of Seyyed, a “teaching moment”:

And Noah cried unto his Lord and said, `My Lord, verily, my son is of my family, and surely Thy promise is true, and Thou art the Most Just of judges.’
ALLAH said, `O Noah, he is surely not of thy family; he is indeed a man of unrighteous conduct. So do not ask of ME that, of which thou hast no knowledge, I admonish thee lest thou be one of the ignorant.’

This ‘teaching’ from Allah, Holy and Exalted, tells us that even a direct son of a prophet is not “of [the] family” if he exhibits unrighteousness. It’s exactly the same story with the children of Israel (as). Sure, the Almighty made promises regarding Jacob’s “seed” but as we know these were contingent on proper behavior.
Meanwhile in Iran people are leaving Islam in droves. And who can blame them?
So, what is expected from a Seyyed — and it is not entirely correct to say it is merely an “honorific” as the Mullahs do enjoy “lording it” over the people and the title carries many social privileges specially among the simple faithful — is conduct befitting a member of the Household. The Imams (as) attracted people to the faith by their beautiful disposition and conduct, their generosity, the depth and breadth of their knowledge, and their authentic spiritual dignity.
And it is incorrect to think “seyyed” is merely an honorific in case of say Lord Muhammad (saws) or Lord Jesus (as). It indicates a Spiritual attainment, Station, and Standing before the Everlasting God, the LORD.

Posted by: sunof27 | May 9 2024 4:07 utc | 76

Re: Hitler as scapegoat and WW2
The idea that Hitler was responsible for WW2 presupposes a communist-bias that wants you to think that Uncle Joe in the east and Uncle Sambo in the west were shy, retiring types, completely caught off-guard by NSDAP-miracle that utterly discredited the Weimar years and restored dignity to a humiliated Germany.
I can not accept this thesis because to do so would be irresponsible and non-rigorous.
I can not accept the other conspiracy theory that NSDAP-Germany was a result of western intervention against the communist east, a la a “summoning the Golem” approach to getting at your enemy.
What I can accept is 1) Germany was unjustly humiliated after WW1, thus setting the table for another hot-period; 2) the role of Jews in Europe is intensely complicated with patsys abounding; 3) communism was not and can never be considered shy or retiring (NKVD agents were crawling in western governments); 4) there is a possibility that Germany was rightfully preemptive to attack the Soviet Union; 5) that the opposite may be true
When speaking to a teenage boy at my church about the history of WW2, he rightfully assumed that we went after Germany instead of the communists because the Nazi-threat was more pressing.
This boy is more intellectually honest than many here who assume that the Nazis were just a western-summoned Golem to get at the communists. Clearly, NSDAP had their own agency and was indeed lightning in a bottle.
Doesn’t mean I agree with the supremacy-philosophy of the Germans.
…
I wonder if I detest being put in a box more than anything and so will fight tooth and nail against any attempt to pin the self down. I think we should all do this. It’s not a recipe for a happy life, but it DOES answer the call of philosophy.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | May 9 2024 4:29 utc | 78

In response to
”
I wonder if I detest being put in a box more than anything and so will fight tooth and nail against any attempt to pin the self down. I think we should all do this. It’s not a recipe for a happy life, but it DOES answer the call of philosophy.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | May 9 2024 4:29 utc | 78
”
Excuse me! Doesn’t your faith put you in a box?
I detest the hubris of that faith box and think Lao Tze was much more intelligent with the phrase, “The way that can be named is not the real way.”
You delude yourself about the recipe for a happy life when your faith absolves you from being responsible for every fucking thing you do…when you take personal responsibility for every action of yourself is when life is not easy but worth living, IMO
I like the phrase, “Life is art, or nothing.”

Posted by: psychohistorian | May 9 2024 5:02 utc | 80

@ NemesisCalling | May 9 2024 5:28 utc | 81 who better watch it or he will get excommunicated by the church if you think too far out of the box.
Don’t get me started about the patriarchy part….grin

Posted by: psychohistorian | May 9 2024 6:13 utc | 82

But the one thing that still separates Jesus from all the rest is that he revealed the scapegoating mechanism of the mob, of groupthink. Jesus is the outside-the-box, never pin-me-down OG who tricked the devil once and for all.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | May 9 2024 5:28 utc | 81
…………………………..
What’s an OG?
I liked your list, especially the last two. Much about last century is lies. Some is truth though mainly only glimpsed like vague images reflected in flowing ripples.
I do wish people could get past the tribal programming but it seems that is too much to ask. There is a type of fear one has to step through somehow. Am not fully there yet but at least am well on the lesser path of recognizing and rejecting the bodyguards of lies who frighten most into submission.
That submission to the overlords of the Empire of Lies and our fear of offending such Dark Masters is our personal contribution to the widespread corruption spawning ongoing mass murder in Ukraine and Gaza.
We are all connected. Nobody gets a free pass out of the ever-spinning wheel of suffering.

Posted by: Scorpion | May 9 2024 7:49 utc | 84

Posted by: Featherless | May 9 2024 7:38 utc | 83
You’re a weak pussy.
Shouldn’t you be throwing that paper mâché rock at the ones wanting to Lynch S……?

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | May 9 2024 8:19 utc | 86

a la a “summoning the Golem” approach to getting at your enemy.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | May 9 2024 4:29 utc | 78
You think, never believe what the west has used Ukraine for to get at Russia could ever happen.
They’d never do that in the 1930s, only now?
(smile)
I’m not sure about all the nuances that went down from moment to moment …. but that the Nazis and Hitler were murderous thieving thugs (whatever their idealistic hypothetical philosophy was) just seems undeniable at this point, and has been since the 1930s.
Murderous thieving thugs sounds awfully similar to those Zionist neo-nazis in Israel oddly enough.

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | May 9 2024 8:32 utc | 88

@ Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | May 9 2024 8:37 utc | 89
I think i would just freak out, n run away, probly hide under my bed.

Posted by: Featherless | May 9 2024 8:42 utc | 90

Scorpion made judgments and made choices.
This is the result of those actions.
Might seem cruel. Is it?

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | May 9 2024 8:55 utc | 92

It seems that it’s time to talk about Adolf
Adolf was a corporal. There was a fundamental difference between German fascism and Spanish and Italian fascism: the Adolf was not classist within the borders of Germany. Spanish fascism, on the other hand, is accurately biblical fascism.
But the Adolf was classist with respect to the Slavs. In fact, the great genocide of the Second World War was the Slav genocide. And as they say, in sin he had his penance. This inertial issue is certainly striking because from Kaiser Wilhelm II to the current puppets in Berlin via the Adolf there is a striking continuity in their classism towards the Slavs.
Inertia, Ignorance,
Classism, Domination.
The four beasts of history.

Posted by: Simon | May 9 2024 9:22 utc | 94

Thanks, b. I had no idea about the battle at Dien Bien Phu. By the time I was old enough to be aware, the US already had troops in Vietnam. And by the time I graduated from college the US had withdrawn and nobody wanted to talk about Vietnam any more. Now I must learn more about Vietnam as a whole. And I have heard it is a lovely and hospitable place to visit.

Posted by: Clever Dog | May 9 2024 10:09 utc | 96

@ Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | May 9 2024 10:57 utc | 97
*throws paper mâché rock off into the distance*
GO FETCH BOY !!

Posted by: Featherless | May 9 2024 11:35 utc | 98

Posted by: Featherless | May 9 2024 11:35 utc | 98
Very funny. I was being genuine. And left it up to you anyway. What more do you want – Complete compliance?

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | May 9 2024 12:18 utc | 100