‘Both/And’ Political Systems

On 29 Oct. 2014 we wrote about this kind of political system as being distinctive of a truly Christian society (that is, a kingdom and a folkdom existing together without destroying one another).  We thought it well to offer an historical ensample to bring the idea down from the realm of speculation into concrete reality, that the reader might know that there are alternatives to the snakepit of Big Business-controlled ‘constitutional republics’.  Tsarist Russia will serve as the ensample for today, though others could be cited (England, Ireland, and so on).

Fr Matthew Raphael Johnson has written this in his essay ‘The Peasant Commune in Russia’ (this is only a part of it; the whole thing really ought to be read, for it is all quite good):

 . . .

A powerful and seminal article by Boris Mironov, “The Russian Peasant Commune After the Reforms of the 1860s” (Slavic Review, Vol. 44, No. 3 [Fall 1985]), is extremely important for the understanding of the peasant commune. Its significance lies in the fact that it takes its data from the survey of 816 communes between 1878 and 1880, sponsored by the Russian Geographical Society and the Russian Free Economic Society. Its results were astounding, and largely supported the claims of the pro-agrarian and pro-monarchist elements in Russia, then and now. The average peasant had it better in Russia than likely anywhere else in Europe. This data proves it.

It is important to keep in mind the structure of the Imperial Russian state around the middle of the 19th century. The tsar’s power was limited to foreign policy and general taxation. He, of course, was the chief spokesman for the nation and the defender of the Orthodox Church. However, at the agrarian level, where 90 percent of the population lived, royal authority was virtually invisible. The peasant commune was the only relevant authority the peasant had to deal with. Therefore, it is accurate to say that Russia was not a single, unitary state, but rather a collection of thousands of independent agrarian republics, held together by rather weak cords to the central monarchy. Prof. Charles Sarolea, who visited Russia regularly, wrote in the 1925 issue of The English Review:

On closer examination we find the [Imperial] Russian state was a vast federation of 50,000 small peasant republics each busy with its own affairs, obedient to its own laws and even possessing its own tribunals of starotsas (elders). The Russian state was not undemocratic, on the contrary, if anything, there was too much democracy.

What makes the peasant commune such a unique institution is the power it had. Each commune was a completely selfcontained unit, answering to no other authority than its own body of elected elders. All police functions were discharged by the communal authorities. All legal matters were dealt with by the same. Any damage to property, any criminal offense whatsoever, was dealt with at the communal level. All public works were also within the jurisdiction of the commune. It maintained stores of grain during famines and assisted poorer members who suffered during the lean months of the spring. It controlled the cultural life of the people as well as all education. It even built its own parish churches and trained many of the rural clergy. The commune maintained all schools and hospitals. In short, it was absolute.

The state’s interest in this was clear. For the commune to be self governing, yet still loyal to the monarchy, it was necessary for it to be completely independent of the state. Mironov writes, “The government did not risk appointing its own people, who would have been independent of the peasant, to official positions in the commune; that would have been too expensive and ineffective at the same time.” (445)

However, to make sure any village executive (specifically its chief executive) was loyal, he could be removed by the royal-appointed district governor. This, however, rarely occurred, largely because irritating the peasants, the great bastion of loyalty in the country, would not be in the interests of the royal state. Mironov continues in this vein:

If, however, one analyzes how these officials actually functioned, it is clear that the government did not reach its goal: elected officials did not stand above the commune but operated under its authority, and all administrative and police measures in the commune were taken only with the consent of the village assembly. Only very rarely did elected officials become a hostile authority standing above the peasantry: they had to be periodically reelected, had no significant privileges, did not break their ties with the peasantry (elected officials were freed from taxes and other obligations, except those in kind, and continued to perform all forms of peasant labor), remained under the control of public opinion of the village (and in the event of malfeasance faced the threat of retribution), and shared the common interest of the peasants, not the interests of the state. As a rule the elected officials acted as the defenders of the commune, as petitioners and organizers. Frequently they emerged as leaders of peasant disorders despite the threat of harsh punishment. (445-6)

Many liberal Russia scholars might counter this by claiming that the elected village heads were required, after the 1860s, to faithfully carry out the will of the district authorities. However, though this is true, it was also true that no decree of the district authorities had validity in the commune unless it was approved by the village assembly.

According to the data collected by the Russian Geographic Society, the Russian peasant assembly consisted of all male heads of household. Decisions were not finalized until unanimity was reached, or, as Mironov has said, disagreement was brought to a level of silent sulking, which, at this level, was considered agreement. It is important to note, therefore, that each peasant had a specific stake in communal affairs as well as a corresponding voice. Any specific peasant, therefore, could not afford to be alienated from the community, as all decisions could be vetoed even by a relatively small group of disgruntled peasants.

 . . .

Source:  http://web.archive.org/web/20070101212422/http://www.rusjournal.com/commune.html, accessed 21 Nov. 2014

Ivan Solonevich adds some weighty thoughts of his own to this subject in his ‘The Force of Authority’ (trans. Mark Hackard).  A small sample:

 . . .

In Muscovite Rus, acts of regicide would have first of all been pointless, for the Tsar’s authority was only one of the components of a “system of institutions,” and they system could not be changed by the murder of one of its components. According to Aksakov: to the Tsar belonged the force of authority, and to the people the force of opinion. Or according to Lev Tikhomirov: monarchy derived “not from the arbitrary rule of one person, but from a system of institutions.” By the force of authority, the Muscovite Tsars realized the opinion of the Land. This opinion, organized into the Church, into ecclesiastical councils and Assemblies of the Land, and in its unorganized form represented by the population of Moscow, did not change over a regicide. Assemblies never claimed power (a completely incomprehensible phenomenon from the European point of view), and Tsars never went against the “opinion of the Land,” a phenomenon of a purely Russian order. Behind the monarchy stood an entire “system of institutions,” and all of this taken together presented itself as a monolith impossible to shatter through any regicide.

Therefore the Popular-Monarchist Movement sees in the “restoration of monarchy” not only the “restoration of the monarch,” but also a whole system of institutions from the Throne of All the Russias to the village assembly. It would be that system in which the force of authority belonged to the Tsar and the force of opinion to the people.  This cannot be achieved by any “written laws” or “constitution,” for both written laws and constitutions are followed by men only until that time when they gain the strength to NOT follow them. The Popular-Monarchist Movement is not engaged in publishing the laws of a future Russian Empire. It attempts to establish basic principles and ideationally compose the country’s future ruling class, which would be equally devoted to the Tsar and the people, a ruling class organized into a system of institutions to realize these principles in practice and truly become the bulwark of the throne, not visitors to prayer services who conceal in their boots the daggers of regicide.

 . . .

Source:  http://souloftheeast.org/2014/10/04/solonevich-the-force-of-authority/, posted 4 Oct. 2014, accessed 7 Oct. 2014

In the current atmosphere following Pres Obama’s executive amnesty of millions of illegal immigrants, we understand that the term ‘king’ will bring forth plenty of negative reactions.  But this is to misunderstand what a king is.  A true king is the embodiment and expression (often the highest form of it) of a people’s history and praiseworthy traditions.  When he acts (passing a law, overturning a court ruling, etc.), it is always to uphold those traditions, for to do otherwise would undermine the foundation that his authority rests upon (as the Abbeville Institute’s Dr Donald Livingston has said).  (Such a figure would thus fit well in the tradition-loving South.)  This is the opposite of what Pres Obama has done, so he is not properly to be called a king but a tyrant, i.e., one who rules according to his will alone - with all thought of laws, traditions, and fear of God’s judgment cast out of his mind.

True Patriotism

True patriotism for one’s country is not shown in the love of a disenfleshed, ungrounded idea (in France freedom, brotherhood, equality; in the [u.] S. life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) or in the degrading of another’s country (as those who share the bigheaded New England spirit are constantly doing to Russia, the South, or any other country that opposes their gnostic plans to redeem the creation through fallen man’s diabolic scientific knowledge).

Rather, it is love for the people and the place where one lives:  families, houses, hills, flowers, and so on.  The South’s distant Dorset cousin-poet, the Reverend William Barnes, tells us of this kind of patriotism in his poem ‘The Girt Woak Tree That’s in the Dell’:

The girt woak tree that’s in the dell!
There’s noo tree I do love so well;
Vor times an’ times when I wer young,
I there’ve a-climb’d, an’ there’ve a-zwung,
An’ pick’d the eäcorns green, a-shed
In wrestlèn storms vrom his broad head.
An’ down below’s the cloty brook
Where I did vish with line an’ hook.
An’ beät, in plaÿsome dips and zwims,
The foamy stream, wi’ white-skinn’d lim’s.
An’ there my mother nimbly shot
Her knittèn-needles, as she zot
At evenèn down below the wide
Woak’s head, wi’ father at her zide.
An’ I’ve a-plaÿed wi’ many a bwoy,
That’s now a man an’ gone awoy;
  Zoo I do like noo tree so well 
  ’S the girt woak tree that’s in the dell. 

An’ there, in leäter years, I roved
Wi’ thik poor maïd I fondly lov’d,—
The maïd too feäir to die so soon,—
When evenèn twilight, or the moon,
Cast light enough ’ithin the pleäce
To show the smiles upon her feäce,
Wi’ eyes so clear ’s the glassy pool.
An’ lips an’ cheäks so soft as wool.
There han’ in han’, wi’ bosoms warm,
Wi’ love that burn’d but thought noo harm,
Below the wide-bough’d tree we past
The happy hours that went too vast;
An’ though she’ll never be my wife.
She’s still my leäden star o’ life.
She’s gone: an’ she ’ve a-left to me
Her mem’ry in the girt woak tree;
  Zoo I do love noo tree so well 
  ’S the girt woak tree that’s in the dell. 

An’ oh! mid never ax nor hook
Be brought to spweil his steätely look;
Nor ever roun’ his ribby zides
Mid cattle rub ther heäiry hides;
Nor pigs rout up his turf, but keep
His lwonesome sheäde vor harmless sheep;
An’ let en grow, an’ let en spread,
An’ let en live when I be dead.
But oh! if men should come an’ vell
The girt woak tree that’s in the dell,
An’ build his planks ’ithin the zide
O’ zome girt ship to plough the tide,
Then, life or death! I’d goo to sea,
A saïlèn wi’ the girt woak tree:
An’ I upon his planks would stand.
An’ die a-fightèn vor the land,—
The land so dear,—the land so free,—
The land that bore the girt woak tree;
  Vor I do love noo tree so well 
  ’S the girt woak tree that’s in the dell. 

Source:  http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Poems_of_Rural_Life_in_the_Dorset_Dialect/The_Girt_Woak_Tree_that%27s_in_the_Dell, posted 12 July 2013, accessed 18 Nov. 2014

(For help with the Dorset dialect, follow this path:  http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Poems_of_Rural_Life_in_the_Dorset_Dialect/Glossary)

One oughtn’t become beside himself with enthusiasm over the thin, airy ideas of shallow political philosophers (of TV, magazine, etc.), but let his loyalty instead lie deep-rooted in the dust and wood and stone of his fatherland.  It has helped keep the South and other farming societies somewhat sane thus far (an insight from Dr Clark Carlton’s very good interview here:  http://karamazov.ro/index.php/interviuri/340-clark-carlton-modernity-considers-sub-natural-existence-the-sumit-of-human-progress.html).  We would be foolish to throw away that wisdom now and dehumanize ourselves completely for the sake of having the latest baubles to come from Megalopolis’s assembly lines.

America as a Type of Antichrist

Father Seraphim Rose has said,

     The very nature of Antichrist, who is to be the last great world ruler and the last great opponent of Christ, is to be anti Christ—and "anti" means not merely "against," but also "in imitation of, in place of." The Antichrist, as all the Holy Fathers say in their writings about him, is to be someone who imitates Christ, that is, tires to fool people by looking as though he is Christ come back to earth. Therefore, if one has a very vague notion of Christianity or reads the Scriptures purely from one's own opinions (and one's opinions come from the air, and the air is not Christian now, but anti Christian), then one will come to very anti Christian conclusions. Seeing the figure of Antichrist, one will be fooled into thinking that it is Christ.

Source:  ‘Signs of the Times’, http://www.desertwisdom.org/dttw/truth/signs-of-the-times.html, speech given in Redding, Ca., Summer 1980, accessed 11 Nov. 2014

Most Americans would not want to admit it, but this is what has happened here:  The ‘Idea of America’ together with ‘holy men’ like Lincoln and Reagan have taken the place of Jesus Christ the Son of God as our Lord and Savior and King and God, and of His Church.

David Gordon gives a good account of this in his review of David Gelernter’s chilling book Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion.

David Gelernter starts with an undoubted fact and uses it to construct a bizarre fantasy. The origins of America have been profoundly religious; in particular, the Puritans affected American thought in pervasive fashion. Their influence long persisted their demise as a distinct movement in the nineteenth century. Thus, historians who view the Founding Fathers as creatures of a secular Enlightenment are badly mistaken.

Unfortunately, this useful theme is not enough for Gelernter. He argues that Americans, using Puritan thought as a starting point, have constructed a new religion. Abraham Lincoln ranks foremost as a developer of the new faith and as an idolatrous object of its worship. He does not stand alone: Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, and Ronald Reagan are accorded lesser, but very honorable, places in the new pantheon. Franklin Roosevelt belongs among the exalted also, though he suffers from a flaw. He did not take America into war by persuasion but waited until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor left no alternative. The new religion, Gelernter holds, is a great spiritual achievement. We ought to bow down and worship according to its tenets. In doing so, we need not abandon Christianity or Judaism. Quite the contrary, the new religion is fully compatible with the ancient faiths.

As Gelernter rightly notes, “the Bible and Puritanism molded America as a potter molds wet clay. Some secularists don’t like to face this fact… The Puritans who dominated those first English settlements, who did so much to shape this nation and its faith, were fiercely, fanatically dedicated to their God” (p. 9).

But did not the Founding Fathers break radically with the Puritans? Gelernter is not convinced that they did: True enough, John Locke’s thought lies behind the Declaration of Independence. But the “Bible was very important to Locke’s writing. Whenever he based his arguments on history and human experience, the Bible was his main source” (p. 29).

Had Gelernter expanded and documented his claims, he could have written a valuable book. Instead, he takes off into the empyrean. The Puritans, it seems, began to create a new religion. They often spoke of America as the New Israel: like the Jews of old, they were now God’s chosen people. “In sum: passionate belief in the American community’s closeness to God and its obligation to God and the whole world — Americans as a new chosen people, America as a new promised land — that is American Zionism” (p. 69, emphasis removed).

Gelernter fails to ask a fundamental question: when the Puritans and later writers spoke of Americans as a chosen people, how literally did they intend their remarks? Granted the Biblical orthodoxy of the Puritans, would it not have been the rankest heresy if they meant their comments as other than metaphors? What in the doctrines of any of the major Christian churches authorizes one to place America and its people above other nations? Is the matter any different for Judaism?

Amazingly, Gelernter denies the obvious point that the “religion” he expounds contradicts the teachings of orthodox Judaism and Christianity, in which particular modern nations occupy no special place. “The American Religion is a biblical faith. In effect, it is an extension or expression of Judaism or Christianity. It is also separate from those faiths; you don’t have to believe in the Bible or Judaism or Christianity to believe in America or the American Religion” (p. 4). Gelernter does not tell us how an “extension” of a faith can radically change its content. Perhaps this eminent Yale professor has so capacious a mind that he can readily embrace clashing principles.

But what if this objection is right? A defender of Gelernter, if not our author himself, might respond that his new religion still remains a live option for those who do not embrace the undiluted teachings of the old faiths. This response, though, invites a further objection. Why should we think that American Zionism, with its accompanying American Creed, is true? What is the evidence that America enjoys special Divine favor? If one need not believe in a “standard” God to accept Americanism, what exactly must adherents of the new faith accept as the Power behind America’s special place?

Evidence? What is that to Gelernter? From him, blind faith is enough. “The religious idea called ‘America’ is religious insofar as it tells an absolute truth about the meaning of human life, a truth that we must take on faith. (‘We hold these truths to be self-evident,’ says the Declaration of Independence. No proofs are supplied)” (p. 2, emphasis omitted). Gelernter confuses recognizing something as self-evident with blindly accepting a controversial position. Surely even he cannot seriously think that the extravagances of “American Zionism” are self-evident. If not, our question returns: why believe it?

The new religion is even odder than I have so far presented. Gelernter elevates Abraham Lincoln to Mount Olympus. Lincoln “transformed Americanism into a full-fledged, mature religion — not by causing America to embody its noble ideals but by teaching the nation that it ought to embody them. He changed Americanism by interpreting those ideals — liberty, equality, and democracy — not as words on parchment but as marching orders” (p. 105). Further, in “the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural Lincoln produced the two greatest sacred narratives in the English language (outside of the English Bible itself)” (p. 106).

 . . .

Source:  http://nomocracyinpolitics.com/2014/08/28/americanism-the-fourth-great-western-religion-david-gelernter-by-david-gordon/, posted 28 Aug. 2014, accessed 11 Nov. 2014

This demonic strain of nationalism, described well by Richard Gamble in another review of Gelernter’s book

http://nomocracyinpolitics.com/2013/10/03/the-allure-of-demonic-patriotism-americanism-the-fourth-great-western-religion/

seems to be quite old in the Union.  In 1880 a vision, if it happened, has many marks of a demonic delusion - strange sensations of the body, beings of beauty and light manifesting themselves to one who was not cleansed of the passions (Washington was well-known for his bad temper), and so on.

http://www.ushistory.org/valleyforge/washington/vision.html

But it helps lay more of the foundation for America as the messianic nation, the world’s new savior.

Perhaps more accurate than Gelernter’s, Bill O’Reilly’s, Lincoln’s, etc. vision of America is William Blake’s.  In his poem ‘America a Prophecy’ (1793), the plague of the tradition-destroying, restraint-hating American Creed is shown crossing the Atlantic and ravaging Europe.  Some relevant lines:

Am14.16; E56|        In the flames stood & view'd the armies drawn out in the sky
Am14.17; E56|        Washington Franklin Paine & Warren Allen Gates & Lee:
Am14.18; E56|        And heard the voice of Albions Angel give the thunderous command:
Am14.19; E56|        His plagues obedient to his voice flew forth out of their clouds
Am14.20; E56|        Falling upon America, as a storm to cut them off
Am14.21; E56|        As a blight cuts the tender corn when it begins to appear.
Am14.22; E56|        Dark is the heaven above, & cold & hard the earth beneath;
Am14.23; E56|        And as a plague wind fill'd with insects cuts off man & beast;
Am14.24; E56|        And as a sea o'erwhelms a land in the day of an earthquake;   ^t163

Am14.25; E56|        Fury! rage! madness! in a wind swept through America
Am14.26; E56|        And the red flames of Orc that folded roaring fierce around
Am14.27; E56|        The angry shores, and the fierce rushing of th'inhabitants together:
Am14.28; E56|        The citizens of New-York close their books & lock their chests;
Am14.29; E56|        The mariners of Boston drop their anchors and unlade;
Am14.30; E56|        The scribe of Pensylvania casts his pen upon the earth;
Am14.31; E56|        The builder of Virginia throws his hammer down in fear.

Am14.32; E56|        Then had America been lost, o'erwhelm'd by the Atlantic,
Am14.33; E56|        And Earth had lost another portion of the infinite,
Am14.34; E56|        But all rush together in the night in wrath and raging fire
Am14.35; E56|        The red fires rag'd! the plagues recoil'd! then rolld they back with fury

Am15.1;   E56|        On Albions Angels; then the Pestilence began in streaks of red
Am15.2;   E56|        Across the limbs of Albions Guardian, the spotted plague smote Bristols

Am15.3;   E57|        And the Leprosy Londons Spirit, sickening all their bands:
Am15.4;   E57|        The millions sent up a howl of anguish and threw off their hammerd mail,
Am15.5;   E57|        And cast their swords & spears to earth, & stood a naked multitude.
Am15.6;   E57|        Albions Guardian writhed in torment on the eastern sky
Am15.7;   E57|        Pale quivring toward the brain his glimmering eyes, teeth chattering
Am15.8;   E57|        Howling & shuddering his legs quivering; convuls'd each muscle & sinew
Am15.9;   E57|        Sick'ning lay Londons Guardian, and the ancient miter'd York
Am15.10; E57|        Their heads on snowy hills, their ensigns sick'ning in the sky

Am15.11; E57|        The plagues creep on the burning winds driven by flames of Orc,
Am15.12; E57|        And by the fierce Americans rushing together in the night
Am15.13; E57|        Driven o'er the Guardians of Ireland and Scotland and Wales
Am15.14; E57|        They spotted with plagues forsook the frontiers & their banners seard
Am15.15; E57|        With fires of hell, deform their ancient heavens with shame & woe.
Am15.16; E57|        Hid in his caves the Bard of Albion felt the enormous plagues.
Am15.17; E57|        And a cowl of flesh grew o'er his head & scales on his back & ribs;
Am15.18; E57|        And rough with black scales all his Angels fright their ancient heavens
Am15.19; E57|        The doors of marriage are open, and the Priests in rustling scales
Am15.20; E57|        Rush into reptile coverts, hiding from the fires of Orc,
Am15.21; E57|        That play around the golden roofsin wreaths of fierce desire,
Am15.22; E57|        Leaving the females naked and glowing with the lusts of youth

Am15.23; E57|        For the female spirits of the dead pining in bonds of religion;
Am15.24; E57|        Run from their fetters reddening, & in long drawn arches sitting:
Am15.25; E57|        They feel the nerves of youth renew, and desires of ancient times,
Am15.26; E57|        Over their pale limbs as a vine when the tender grape appears

Am16.1;   E57|        Over the hills, the vales, the cities, rage the red flames fierce;
Am16.2;   E57|        The Heavens melted from north to south; and Urizen who sat
Am16.3;   E57|        Above all heavens in thunders wrap'd, emerg'd his leprous head
Am16.4;   E57|        From out his holy shrine, his tears in deluge piteous
Am16.5;   E57|        Falling into the deep sublime! flag'd with grey-brow'd snows
Am16.6;   E57|        And thunderous visages, his jealous wings wav'd over the deep;
Am16.7;   E57|        Weeping in dismal howling woe he dark descended howling
Am16.8;   E57|        Around the smitten bands, clothed in tears & trembling shudd'ring cold.
Am16.9;   E57|        His stored snows he poured forth, and his icy magazines
Am16.10; E57|        He open'd on the deep, and on the Atlantic sea white shiv'ring.
Am16.11; E57|        Leprous his limbs, all over white, and hoary was his visage.
Am16.12; E57|        Weeping in dismal howlings before the stern Americans
Am16.13; E57|        Hiding the Demon red with clouds & cold mists from the earth;
Am16.14; E57|        Till Angels & weak men twelve years should govern o'er the strong:
Am16.15; E57|        And then their end should come, when France reciev'd the Demons light.

Am16.16; E57|        Stiff shudderings shook the heav'nly thrones! France Spain & Italy,
Am16.17; E57|        In terror view'd the bands of Albion, and the ancient Guardians
Am16.18; E57|        Fainting upon the elements, smitten with their own plagues

 

Am16.19; E58|        They slow advance to shut the five gates of their law-built heaven
Am16.20; E58|        Filled with blasting fancies and with mildews of despair
Am16.21; E58|        With fierce disease and lust, unable to stem the fires of Orc;
Am16.22; E58|        But the five gates were consum'd, & their bolts and hinges melted
Am16.23; E58|        And the fierce flames burnt round the heavens, & round the abodes of men

Am16.24; E58|        FINIS

Source:  http://www.english.uga.edu/nhilton/Blake/blaketxt1/america_a_prophecy.html, accessed 11 Nov. 2014

This has come true not just in Europe but in many other countries of the world as well.

Another sign of America as a type, and precursor, of Antichrist:  Their unbounded enthusiasm for antichristian Israel and the rebuilding of the Temple.  Returning to Father Seraphim, he says,

    A few years ago a book was printed in English which has become a fantastic bestseller for a religious book. It has sold over ten million copies in America. It's called The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey, a Protestant Evangelical in Texas. In a rather superficial style he gives his interpretation of the signs of the times. He believes it's the last times we are living in now. He believes that everywhere around us there are being fulfilled these signs which our Lord talked about. If you read this book, you find that sometimes he gets something more or less correct according to our Orthodox understanding, sometimes he is totally off, and sometimes he is partly wrong, partly right. It's as though he's just guessing, because he reads the Scripture according to his own understanding. He has no basic Orthodox Christian knowledge, no background in the true knowledge of the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers. Therefore, if you read this book seriously, you will find that you become very confused. You don't know what to believe any more. He talks, for example, about a millennium which is supposed to come before the end of the world. He talks about the rapture, when Christians are supposedly gathered up into the heavens before the end of the world, and then watch how the people suffer down below. He talks about the building of the Temple in Jerusalem as though this is a good thing, as thought this is preparing for Christ's coming.

    If you read such books as this (there are many other books like it; this one happens to be a bestseller because the author caught the imagination of people just at one particular time), and if you take them all as truth, you will find that instead of recognizing Christ—which is the whole reason for our understanding about the signs of the times—you will be accepting Antichrist.

    Take, for example, the very question of the Temple in Jerusalem. It is true, according to Orthodox prophecies, that the Temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem. If you look at people like Hal Lindsey, or even the Fundamentalist Carl McIntire, they are also talking about the building of the Temple, but they're talking about it as though we are building it in order for Christ to come back and reign over the world for a thousand years. What they are talking about is the coming of Antichrist. The millennium, according to the Protestant interpretation, as being a special thousand year reign at the end of the world, is actually the reign of Antichrist. In fact, there have already been people who have arisen and proclaimed their thousand year kingdom which is going to last until the end of the world. The last one was Adolf Hitler. This is based upon the same kind of chiliastic idea: that is, interpreting the millennium in a worldly sense. The actual thousand years of the Apocalypse is the life in the Church which is now, that is, the life of Grace; and anyone who lives it sees that, compared to the people outside, it is indeed heaven on earth. But this is not the end. This is our preparation for the true kingdom of God which has no end.

Source:  http://www.desertwisdom.org/dttw/truth/signs-of-the-times.html

Now comes talk from Israel herself that the Temple’s rebuilding is a definite goal:

Israeli Housing Minister Uri Ariel says Israel will eventually replace Al-Aqsa Mosque with a Jewish temple.

According to the Middle East Monitor, Ariel told Israeli radio station Kol Berama - controlled by the Jewish extremist movement Shas - the status quo could not continue at the Al-Aqsa Mosque as it "was built in the place of the holiest place for Israel".

Ariel added that the construction of a third Jewish temple at the site is the primary demand of the Torah "as it is at the forefront of Jewish salvation", the report from Middle East Monitor said.

 . . .

Source:  IBTimes, ‘Israel: Al-Aqsa Mosque 'Will be Replaced by Jewish Temple' Claims Housing Minister Uri Ariel’, http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/74997.htm, posted 8 Nov. 2014, accessed 11 Nov. 2014

Far too many Southern evangelicals, brainwashed by the satanic global Elite’s propaganda regarding the rapture, the millennium, the Temple, and much else besides, will no doubt shout their approval.

It would be a grave mistake, but apart from the light found only in the Orthodox Church, Southrons cannot be expected to have the discernment needed in this matter.  We implore our Southern brothers and sisters again to turn away from the mistakes of our Protestant and Catholic forebears and embrace the fulness of the Faith in the Orthodox Church while there is still time.

Losing by Winning

Much to-do is being made about the number of women, especially Republican women (and thus presumably conservative as well), who were elected to State and federal office in the elections just held.  An ensample:

The 2014 midterms were a huge win for Republicans, but it also was a big night for female candidates in both parties. 

Republican women helped lead the GOP to victory in some of the biggest races last night, and the party achieved new milestones in gender diversity. In addition to flipping a key Senate seat for Republicans, Joni Ernst will be the first member of Iowa’s congressional delegation and the Senate’s first female combat veteran.

Republican Shelley Moore Capito will become West Virginia’s first female senator, giving the Republicans a record six women in the Senate. Utah’s Mia Love, an incoming House member, will be the first black Republican in Congress, and in New York’s 21st district, 30-year-old Elise Stefanik has become the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. 

Republican pollster and strategist Kristen Soltis Anderson believes the election is a breakthrough for the party’s gender gap. Historically speaking, Republican women “were significantly less likely to make it through a primary than Democratic women were. It was tougher for them to wind up on the ballot,” Soltis said.

Soltis is particularly excited about the fact that younger female Republicans are prevailing. As the newly elected GOP women begin to rise in leadership roles, Republicans will make more headway in changing its image as the party of “old white guys,” she said.

A freshman college student, Saira Blair, made history Tuesday when she defeated her 44-year-old opponent in the race to represent a small West Virginia district, becoming America’s youngest elected politician. It was the first election where the 18-year-old was legally able to vote.

 . . .

Source:  Suzy Khimm, ‘2014: Historic Gains for Women in Politics’, http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/2014-midterms-big-step-women-politics, posted 5 Nov. 2014, accessed 7 Nov. 2014

After reflecting on this, one is forced to ask, Do so-called conservative Republicans wish to conserve any traditions at all?  Is dragging women out of the home (those few who are left), away from husbands and children and other relatives, to be ‘smeared with the greasy paw’ (Irving Babbitt, Democracy and Leadership) of corrupt, bankster-run American politics, going to do any good in the long run? 

It seems that all is dispensable in order to save the favorite idol of these ‘conservatives’ - an all-powerful, divinized ‘America’ that is awash with material riches at home and that can do as it pleases abroad.  If the remnants of the traditional family, we may infer, must be sacrificed for the good of this wonderful deity, then let us draw our knives and see to it that it withers and dies and troubles us no more.

With apologies to the ancients:  ‘Let America rule though the heavens fall.’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_justitia_ruat_caelum

Let us turn away from them.  There are better guides.  Richard Weaver is one.

Distinctions of many kinds will have to be restored, and I would mention especially one whose loss has added immeasurably to the malaise of our civilization—the fruitful distinction between the sexes, with the recognition of respective spheres of influence.  The re-establishment of woman as the cohesive force of the family, the end of the era of “long-haired men and short-haired women,” should bring a renewal of well-being to the whole of society.  On this point Southerners of the old school were adamant, and even today, with our power of discrimination at its lowest point in history, there arises a feeling that the roles of the sexes must again be made explicit.  George Fitzhugh’s brutal remark that if women put on trousers, men would use them for plowing has been borne out, and I think that women would have more influence actually if they did not vote, but, according to the advice of Augusta Evans Wilson, made their firesides seats of Delphic wisdom (The Southern Tradition at Bay, Regnery Gateway, 1989, p. 378).

Rev Dabney, another.

It is indignantly asked, "Why should politics corrupt the morals of women more than of the 'lords of creation'?" Suppose now we reply: American politics have corrupted the morals of the men? Suppose we argue that the retort is so true and just and the result has actually gone to so deplorable an extent, that were the female side of our social organization as corrupt as the male side has already become, American society would crumble into ruin by its own putrescence? It is better to save half the fabric than to lose all. And especially is it better to save the purity of the mothers who are, under God, to form the characters of our future citizens, and of the wives who are to restrain and elevate them, whatever else we endanger. Is it argued that since women are now confessedly purer than men, their entrance into politics must tend to purify politics? We reply again that the women of the present were reared and attained this comparative purity under the Bible system. Adopt the infidel plan, and we shall corrupt our women without purifying oar politics. What shall save us then? (‘Women’s Rights Women’, Discussions, Vol. IV, Secular, https://archive.org/details/DiscussionsOfRobertLewisDabneyVol.4Secular, p. 500)

‘Little children, keep yourselves from idols.  Amen’ (I John 5:21 KJV).

Ebola, Africa, and the South

Why are so many deadly new diseases originating in Africa?  It is not by coincidence but rather by design.  The Elite have quite a strong loathing for Africans and any others they consider to be lower creatures than themselves (like the poor and numerous Indians, Chinese, and so on), on whom the resources of the world must be ‘wasted’ (in their view).  The history of Planned Parenthood in the [u]nited States shows this quite plainly. 

The eugenics ideology of the Elite is described briefly in an essay on that history:

 . . .

Margaret Sanger aligned herself with the eugenicists whose ideology prevailed in the early 20^th century. Eugenicists strongly espoused racial supremacy and "purtiy"," particularly of the "Aryan" race. Eugenicists hoped to purify the bloodlines and improve the race by encouraging the "fit" to reproduce and the "unfit" to restrict their reproduction. They sought to contain the "inferior" races through segregation, sterilization, birth control and abortion.

Sanger embraced Malthusian eugenics. Thomas Robert Malthus, a 19^th century cleric and professor of political economy, believed a population time bomb threatened the existence of the human race. He viewed social problems such as poverty, deprivation and hunger as evidence of this "population crisis." According to writer George Grant, Malthus condemned charities and other forms of benevolence, because he believed they only exacerbated the problems. His answer was to restrict population growth of certain groups of people. His theories of population growth and economic stability became the basis for national and international social policy. Grant quotes from Malthus’ magnum opus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, published in six editions from 1798 to 1826:

All children born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to a desired level, must necessarily perish, unless room is made for them by the deaths of grown persons. We should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality.

Malthus disciples believed if Western civilization were to survive, the physically unfit, the materially poor, the spiritually diseased, the racially inferior, and the mentally incompetent had to be suppressed and isolated–or even, perhaps, eliminated. His disciples felt the subtler and more "scientific" approaches of education, contraception, sterilization and abortion were more "practical and acceptable ways" to ease the pressures of the alleged overpopulation.

Critics of Malthusianism said the group "produced a new vocabulary of mumbo-jumbo. It was all hard-headed, scientific and relentless." Further, historical facts have proved the Malthusian mathematical scheme regarding overpopulation to be inaccurate, though many still believe them.

Despite the falsehoods of Malthus’ overpopulation claims, Sanger nonetheless immersed herself in Malthusian eugenics. Grant wrote she argued for birth control using the "scientifically verified" threat of poverty, sickness, racial tension and overpopulation as its background. Sanger’s publication, The Birth Control Review (founded in 1917) regularly published pro-eugenic articles from eugenicists, such as Ernst Ruin. Although Sanger ceased editing The Birth Control Review in 1929, the ABCL continued to use it as a platform for eugenic ideas.

Sanger built the work of the ABCL, and, ultimately, Planned Parenthood, on the ideas and resources of the eugenics movement. Grant reported that "virtually all of the organization’s board members were eugenicists." Eugenicists financed the early projects, from the opening of birth control clinics to the publishing of "revolutionary" literature. Eugenicists comprised the speakers at conferences, authors of literature and the providers of services "almost without the exception." And Planned Parenthood’s international work was originally housed in the offices of the Eugenics Society. The two organizations were intertwined for years.

 . . .

Source:  Tanya L. Green, ‘The NEGRO PROJECT: Margaret Sanger's EUGENIC Plan for Black America’, http://blackgenocide.org/archived_articles/negro.html, posted 2012, accessed 4 Nov. 2014

Dr Cyril Broderick of Liberia is unabashed in claiming that the Ebola virus is the latest in a series of attacks on the people of Africa by the Elite:

 . . .

1.    EBOLA IS A GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISM (GMO)

Horowitz (1998) was deliberate and unambiguous when he explained the threat of new diseases in his text, Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola - Nature, Accident or Intentional. In his interview with Dr. Robert Strecker in Chapter 7, the discussion, in the early 1970s, made it obvious that the war was between countries that hosted the KGB and the CIA, and the ‘manufacture’ of ‘AIDS-Like Viruses’ was clearly directed at the other. In passing during the Interview, mention was made of Fort Detrick, “the Ebola Building,” and ‘a lot of problems with strange illnesses’ in “Frederick [Maryland].” By Chapter 12 in his text, he had confirmed the existence of an American Military-Medical-Industry that conducts biological weapons tests under the guise of administering vaccinations to control diseases and improve the health of “black Africans overseas.” The book is an excellent text, and all leaders plus anyone who has interest in science, health, people, and intrigue should study it. I am amazed that African leaders are making no acknowledgements or reference to these documents.

 . . .

3.    SITES AROUND AFRICA, AND IN WEST AFRICA, HAVE OVER THE YEARS BEEN SET UP FOR TESTING EMERGING DISEASES, ESPECIALLY EBOLA

The World Health Organization (WHO) and several other UN Agencies have been implicated in selecting and enticing African countries to participate in the testing events, promoting vaccinations, but pursuing various testing regiments. The August 2, 2014 article, West Africa: What are US Biological Warfare Researchers Doing in the Ebola Zone? by Jon Rappoport of Global Research pinpoints the problem that is facing African governments. 

Obvious in this and other reports are, among others: 

(a) The US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), a well-known centre for bio-war research, located at Fort Detrick, Maryland; 

(b) Tulane University, in New Orleans, USA, winner of research grants, including a grant of more than $7 million the National Institute of Health (NIH) to fund research with the Lassa viral hemorrhagic fever; 

(c) the US Center for Disease Control (CDC); 

(d) Doctors Without Borders (also known by its French name, Medicins Sans Frontiers); 

(e) Tekmira, a Canadian pharmaceutical company;  

(f) The UK’s GlaxoSmithKline; and 

(g) the Kenema Government Hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone. 

Reports narrate stories of the US Department of Defense (DoD) funding Ebola trials on humans, trials which started just weeks before the Ebola outbreak in Guinea and Sierra Leone. The reports continue and state that the DoD gave a contract worth $140 million dollars to Tekmira, a Canadian pharmaceutical company, to conduct Ebola research. This research work involved injecting and infusing healthy humans with the deadly Ebola virus. Hence, the DoD is listed as a collaborator in a “First in Human” Ebola clinical trial (NCT02041715, which started in January 2014 shortly before an Ebola epidemic was declared in West Africa in March. Disturbingly, many reports also conclude that the US government has a viral fever bioterrorism research laboratory in Kenema, a town at the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The only relevant positive and ethical olive-branch seen in all of my reading is that Theguardian.com reported, “The US government funding of Ebola trials on healthy humans comes amid warnings by top scientists in Harvard and Yale that such virus experiments risk triggering a worldwide pandemic.” That threat still persists.

 . . .

Source:  ‘Ebola, AIDS Manufactured by Western Pharmaceuticals, US DoD?’, http://liberianobserver.com/security/ebola-aids-manufactured-western-pharmaceuticals-us-dod, posted 9 Sept. 2014, accessed 28 Oct. 2014

Further proof of weaponized Ebola comes from South Africa:

Operating out of South Africa during the Apartheid era in the early 1980’s, Dr. Wouter Basson launched a secret bioweapons project called Project Coast.

The goal of the project was to develop biological and chemical agents that would either kill or sterilize the black population and assassinate political enemies. Among the agents developed were Marburg and Ebola viruses. 

 . . .

Source:  Dan Taylor, ‘Secret Project Created Weaponized Ebola in South Africa in the 1980s’, http://www.infowars.com/secret-project-created-weaponized-ebola-in-south-africa-in-the-1980s/print/ (via http://gizadeathstar.com), posted 20 Oct. 2014, accessed 4 Nov. 2014

* * *

In the mystery of God’s loving providence, black Africans and white Europeans have been joined together in the South.  We have never accepted the satanic eugenics espoused by Margaret Sanger, et al.  Rather, the South’s attitude (until corrupted by the racism of the North after the War) was typified by this statement from Sociology for the South: Or the Failure of Free Society by George Fitzhugh (1854):

We abhor the doctrine of the "Types of Mankind;" first, because it is at war with scripture, which teaches us that the whole human race is descended from a common parentage; and, second, because it encourages and incites brutal masters to treat negroes, not as weak, ignorant and dependent brethren, but as wicked beasts, without the pale of humanity. The Southerner is the negro's friend, his only friend. Let no intermeddling abolitionist, no refined philosophy, dissolve this friendship (p. 95, http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/fitzhughsoc/fitzhugh.html, UNC Chapel Hill electronic edition, posted 2004, accessed 4 Nov. 2014).

Knowing what we do (which Mr Fitzhugh and others of his day seemingly did not) about the saints of Africa (St Anthony the Great and other holy, wonderworking, and wise ascetics of the Egyptian desert), we may dispense with the notion of the limited potential of the African.

What is important are his last lines there:  ‘The Southerner is the negro's friend, his only friend. Let no intermeddling abolitionist, no refined philosophy, dissolve this friendship.’

Is it truly to be thought that there is no significance to white and black being brought together in the South, to live side by side with one another?  Can it be that we who lived with affection towards one another before Yankee intermeddling will remain cold-hearted forevermore?  

Or is there a role for these Southrons, black and white together, to yet play?  At home, a protector of the poor whites of Appalachia, etc. and the blacks; abroad, a protector of our African cousins (and others likewise circumstanced):  all of whom are being mercilessly exploited, tortured, and killed for the material gain of the satanic Elite.  Not that we shall go into other countries with ‘guns a-blazing’ but rather that we shall speak up on their behalf, and gather together allies from around the world who can help them protect themselves from such enemies (at home let us personally interpose as is proper and right).

The same God who watches after each sparrow and knows the number of hairs on our heads has made of Africa and Northern Europe one family in the South.  Let us fast and pray that we will know what our response to this mystery ought to be.