General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDo you feel like I do?
As tens of millions of americans descend into madness, the madness of trump; The sane watch and wait, fearing they may be dragged into the abyss of their madness.
With agonizing patience, the sane wait for right to defeat wrong, for good to defeat evil. They wait for the relief of justice. When justice finally strikes down like a hammer it will be a glorious day like no other.
Justice must prevail, It would be an unspeakable horror for it not to. It would be Un-American. This is how I feel right now.
It is becoming clear to me Trump is a fan of the Hitler playbook. He must have read Hitlers book. His speech to the boy scouts was scary.
shraby
(21,946 posts)defacto7
(13,485 posts)But realistically, there is a point where the wheels of justice break down. It's not a perfect invention.
rzemanfl
(29,568 posts)fuck up everything, even the Boy Scouts for fuck's sake. He is doing his master, Putin's, bidding.
This madness must be ended.
lunasun
(21,646 posts)Ten thousand young commissars their title borrowed from the Communist Party leaders of the Soviet era came here to learn to be Russia's next generation of tycoons and political leaders. Equally important, they came to prepare to stamp out any challenge from opposition groups to President Vladimir Putin's government.
All were summoned by Nashi, a pro-Kremlin organization that pays homage to Putin and seeks to promote Russia's resurrection as a superpower capable of frustrating what leaders call Western "imperialism."
"In 10 years, we will have a huge network of people who share our ideology and who know that is Russia's proper place in the world," Vasily Yakemenko, the founder of the group, told reporters at the camp Tuesday.
Now from October 2016........ten yrs later
Last weekend a group of young activists turned out on a Moscow street to protest against western decadence. They were a hard-faced bunch, standing defiantly in military poses and wearing uniforms bearing the logo Officers of Russia: Executive Youth Wing as they blocked access to an exhibition by American photographer Jock Sturges that featured images of nude adolescents.
We are here to protect people from paedo-philic influences, one Officer of Russia told journalists while another protester sprayed the offending photographs with urine. At the same time, Russias statecontrolled airwaves filled with senators, priests and government officials denouncing the wickedness of the exhibition (which shut down immediately after the protests) and calling for the organisers to be prosecuted. The outcry came just days after the Russian government banned two popular porno-graphy sites, youporn and xhamster, also on the grounds of protecting public morality
Putins puritanism has grown hand-in-hand with the personal influence of two key conservative ideologues: his personal confessor Bishop Tikhon Shevkunov and the mystical geopolitical thinker Alexander Dugin. Bishop Tikhon is one of Russias highest-profile critics of the decadence of the modern western world and his Every-day Saints and the Other Stories was the bestselling Russian book of 2012
The influence of the Russian Orthodox church on public life is growing fast, thanks to Kremlin patronage. The churchs preferred instrument of control is a draconian law criminalising offending the feeling of religious believers that was passed in the wake of a protest by the feminist punk group Pussy Riot in Moscows Christ the Saviour Cathedral in 2012. Prosecutions under the law have kicked into high gear this year. In March in Stavropol, south Russia, criminal charges were brought against Viktor Krasnov after he wrote God does not exist on the VKontakte social network, Russias version of Facebook. Krasnov was ordered to spend over a month undergoing examinations in a psychiatric ward before he was finally deemed sane enough to stand trial, and the case continues.
A month ago, 20-year-old blogger Ruslan Sokolovsky was arrested and sentenced to two months in jail after he posted an online video of himself playing Pokémon Go in a church. He could eventually spend five years behind bars if his action is classed as a hate crime motivated by religion. I decided to catch some Pokémon in church because why not? I believe its both safe and not against the law, said Sokolovsky in his online video as he walked into Ekaterinburgs Church of All Saints. Who could be offended if you walk in a church with a smartphone in your hand?
Apparently, the answer is: most Putin-era Russians.
Polls show that most ordinary Russians hold deeply illiberal views on social issues (for example, 21 per cent want to see homosexuals liquidated, and another 37 per cent advocate separating them"
Dugin, once a marginal figure, has come closer to the political mainstream as Russia has veered deeper into isolation and nationalism in the wake of the annexation of Crimea in March 2014. The Tsargrad team played an important role in encouraging and fomenting the pro-Russian rebellion in eastern Ukraine. Dugin and Malofeyev have both been named in the US sanctions list for their role in the conflict a rebellion that was spearheaded by two of Malofeyevs former employees, Igor Strelkov and Alexander Borodai, who became defence minister and prime minster respectively of the break-away (and Russian-backed) Donetsk Peoples Republic.
This is a state that cynically uses Orthodox Christianity as a surrogate ideology to prop up its authority, argues Brian Whitmore, author of Radio Free Europe/Radio Libertys influential blog The Power Vertical. Its a state where fealty to the Orthodox church, or at least publicly proclaiming fealty, becomes a surrogate for patriotism and its a state where challenging the authority of the church is akin to an act of treason
Now the wheel has turned full circle. In the wake of last weekends Sturges protest, liberal Russians posted images of another group of morally indignant officers mounting a boycott members of the Union of German Officers blocking the door of the Jewish-owned Woolworths in Berlin in 1930.
Rise-of-fascism analogies are usually facile and often inappropriate. But it is true that Putins regime is making closer common cause with Russias religious, ultranationalist right. And its also true that the space for debate and dissent in Russias media is becoming vanishingly small. In that environment, with state television whipping up ever crazier conspiracy theories
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/10/revealed-putins-covert-war-on-western-decadence/
rzemanfl
(29,568 posts)Clarity2
(1,009 posts)completely insane. Especially yesterday. The fear that the GOP will do anything to stay in power including ignoring everything Trump does, and allowing infiltration of Russia into our next election, knowing that in an untainted election they would lose bigly (so why the inaction? Why such self-confidence?) is what keeps me up at night.
But you may not know that Trump kept a book about Hitler speeches on his bedside table. He's very familiar with Hitler ; ) : http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trumps-ex-wife-once-said-he-kept-a-book-of-hitlers-speeches-by-his-bed-2015-8
defacto7
(13,485 posts)lunasun
(21,646 posts)reading hitlers Mein Kampf but not the collection of speeches book New Order
But I believe little he has to say
standingtall
(2,787 posts)and woke up in 1930's Germany being called America in 2016 now 2017. This is a nightmare.
shockey80
(4,379 posts)That would bring this madness to a head quickly. Many republicans in congress would turn on Trump. I hope! The sooner this ends the better.