Windows to Russia

Who in the world is Barack Obama to claim that “No God” would allow the Islamic State to exist and slaughter what it considers to be non-believers? His statement follows the same line of transgression committed by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in their baleful appeals to God and Christ, even as they approved and presided over operations leading to torture, rape, murder and the wounding of large swaths of humanity. And this sinful vanity– the claim to know God’s Will, is precisely the sin that the Islamic State’s Caliph, the House of Saud, the Vatican, the Church of England and all stripes of religious sects worshiping Prophets/Gods from Yahweh to Zoroaster make each and every day in the name of “good.”

Let us turn to the Russian author of Life and Fate, Vasily Grossman, for a lesson on good and evil as the civil-military leaders of the 21^st Century Western world appeal to their Gods to sanction suffering, censure, torture, murder and the creation of gulags large and small.

“Few people ever attempt to define ‘good’. What is ‘good’? ‘Good’ for whom? Is there a common good – the same for all people, all tribes, all conditions of life? Or is my good your evil? Is what is good for my people evil for your people? Is good eternal and constant? Or is yesterday’s good today’s vice, yesterday’s evil today’s good? When the Last Judgment approaches, not only philosophers and preachers, but everyone on earth – literate and illiterate – will ponder the nature of good and evil. Have people advanced over the millennia in their concept of good? Is this concept something that is common to all people – both Greeks and Jews – as the Apostle supposed? To all classes, nations and States? Even to all animals, trees and mosses – as Buddha and his disciples claimed? The same Buddha who had to deny life in order to clothe it in goodness and love.

The Christian view, five centuries after Buddhism, restricted the living world to which the concept of good is applicable. Not every living thing – only human beings. The good of the first Christians, which had embraced all mankind, in turn gave way to a purely Christian good; the good of the Muslims was now distinct. Centuries passed and the good of Christianity split up into the distinct goods of Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodoxy. And the good of Orthodoxy gave birth to the distinct goods of the old and new beliefs. At the same time there was the good of the poor and the good of the rich. And the goods of the whites, the blacks and the yellow races… More and more goods came into being, corresponding to each sect, race and class. Everyone outside a particular magic circle was excluded.

People began to realize how much blood had been spilt in the name of a petty, doubtful good, in the name of the struggle of this petty good against what it believed to be evil. Sometimes the very concept of good became a scourge, a greater evil than evil itself. Good of this kind is a mere husk from which the sacred kernel has been lost. Who can reclaim the lost kernel?

But what is good? It used to be said that it is a thought and a related action which lead to the greater strength or triumph of humanity – or of a family, nation, State, class, or faith. People struggling for their particular good always attempt to dress it up as a universal good. They say: my good coincides with the universal good; my good is essential not only to me but to everyone; in achieving my good, I serve the universal good. And so the good of a sect, class, nation or State assumes a specious universality in order to justify its struggle against an apparent evil.

Even Herod did not shed blood in the name of evil; he shed blood in the name of his particular good. A new force had come into the world, a force that threatened to destroy him and his family, to destroy his friends and his favourites, his kingdom and his armies. But it was not evil that had been born; it was Christianity. Humanity had never before heard such words: ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again… But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you… Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.’

And what did this doctrine of peace and love bring to humanity? Byzantine iconoclasticism; the tortures of the Inquisition; the struggles against heresy in France, Italy, Flanders and Germany; the conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism; the intrigues of the monastic orders; the conflict between Nikon and Avvakum; the crushing yoke that lay for centuries over science and freedom; the Christians who wiped out the heathen population of Tasmania; the scoundrels who burnt whole Negro villages in Africa. This doctrine caused more suffering than all the crimes of the people who did evil for its own sake…

In great hearts the cruelty of life gives birth to good; they then seek to carry this good back into life, hoping to make life itself accord with their inner image of good. But life never changes to accord with an image of good; instead it is the image of good that sinks into the mire of life – to lose its universality, to split into fragments and be exploited by the needs of the day. People are wrong to see life as a struggle between good and evil. Those who most wish for the good of humanity are unable to diminish evil by one jot. Great ideas are necessary in order to dig new channels, to remove stones, to bring down cliffs and fell forests; dreams of universal good are necessary in order that great waters should flow in harmony… Yes, if the sea was able to think, then every storm would make its waters dream of happiness. Each wave breaking against the cliff would believe it was dying for the good of the sea; it would never occur to it that, like thousands of waves before and after, it had only been brought into being by the wind.

Many books have been written about the nature of good and evil and the struggle between them… There is a deep and undeniable sadness in all this: whenever we see the dawn of an eternal good that will never be overcome by evil – an evil that is itself eternal but will never succeed in overcoming good – whenever we see this dawn, the blood of old people and children is always shed. Not only men, but even God himself is powerless to lessen this evil. ‘In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.’ What does a woman who has lost her children care about a philosopher’s definitions of good and evil? But what if life itself is evil?

I have seen the unshakeable strength of the idea of social good that was born in my own country. I saw this struggle during the period of general collectivization and again in 1937. I saw people being annihilated in the name of an idea of good as fine and humane as the ideal of Christianity. I saw whole villages dying of hunger; I saw peasant children dying in the snows of Siberia; I saw trains bound for Siberia with hundreds and thousands of men and women from Moscow, Leningrad and every city in Russia – men and women who had been declared enemies of a great and bright idea of social good. This idea was something fine and noble – yet it killed some without mercy, crippled the lives of others, and separated wives from husbands and children from fathers.

Now the horror of German Fascism has arisen. The air is full of the groans and cries of the condemned. The sky has turned black; the sun has been extinguished by the smoke of the gas ovens. And even these crimes, crimes never before seen in the Universe – even by Man on Earth – have been committed in the name of good. Once, when I lived in the Northern forests, I thought that good was to be found neither in man, nor in the predatory world of animals and insects, but in the silent kingdom of the trees. Far from it! I saw the forest’s slow movement, the treacherous way it battled against grass and bushes for each inch of soil… First, billions of seeds fly through the air and begin to sprout, destroying the grass and bushes. Then millions of victorious shoots wage war against one another. And it is only the survivors who enter into an alliance of equals to form the seamless canopy of the young deciduous forest. Beneath this canopy the spruces and beeches freeze to death in the twilight of penal servitude.

In time the deciduous trees become decrepit; then the heavyweight spruces burst through to the light beneath their canopy, executing the alders and the beeches. This is the life of the forest – a constant struggle of everything against everything. Only the blind conceive of the kingdom of trees and grass as the world of good… Is it that life itself is evil? Good is to be found neither in the sermons of religious teachers and prophets, nor in the teachings of sociologists and popular leaders, nor in the ethical systems of philosophers… And yet ordinary people bear love in their hearts, are naturally full of love and pity for any living thing. At the end of the day’s work they prefer the warmth of the hearth to a bonfire in the public square.

Yes, as well as this terrible Good with a capital ‘G’, there is every day human kindness. The kindness of an old woman carrying a piece of bread to a prisoner, the kindness of a soldier allowing a wounded enemy to drink from his water-flask, the kindness of youth towards age, the kindness of a peasant hiding an old Jew in his loft. The kindness of a prison guard who risks his own liberty to pass on letters written by a prisoner not to his ideological comrades, but to his wife and mother.

The private kindness of one individual towards another; a petty, thoughtless kindness; an unwitnessed kindness. Something we could call senseless kindness. A kindness outside any system of social or religious good.

But if we think about it, we realize that this private, senseless, incidental kindness is in fact eternal. It is extended to everything living, even to a mouse, even to a bent branch that a man straightens as he walks by.

Even at the most terrible times, through all the mad acts carried out in the name of Universal Good and the glory of States, times when people were tossed about like branches in the wind, filling ditches and gullies like stones in an avalanche – even then this senseless, pathetic kindness remained scattered throughout life like atoms of radium.

Some Germans arrived in a village to exact vengeance for the murder of two soldiers. The women were ordered out of their huts in the evening and set to dig a pit on the edge of the forest. There was one middle-aged woman who had several soldiers quartered in her hut. Her husband had been taken to the police station together with twenty other peasants. She didn’t get to sleep until morning: the Germans found a basket of onions and a jar of honey in the cellar; they lit the stove, made themselves omelettes and drank vodka. The eldest then played the harmonica while the rest of them sang and beat time with their feet. They didn’t even look at their landlady – she might just as well have been a cat. When it grew light, they began checking their machine-guns; the eldest of them jerked the trigger by mistake and shot himself in the stomach. Everyone began shouting and running about. Somehow the Germans managed to bandage the wounded man and lay him down on a bed. Then they were called outside. They signed to the woman to look after the wounded man. The woman thought to herself how simple it would be to strangle him. There he was, muttering away, his eyes closed, weeping, sucking his lips… Suddenly he opened his eyes and said in very clear Russian: ‘Water, Mother.’ ‘Damn you,’ said the woman. ‘What I should do is strangle you.’ Instead she gave him some water. He grabbed her by the hand and signed to her to help him sit up: he couldn’t breathe because of the bleeding. She pulled him up and he clasped his arms round her neck. Suddenly there was a volley of shots outside and the woman began to tremble.

Afterwards she told people what she had done. No one could understand; nor could she explain it herself. This senseless kindness is condemned in the fable about the pilgrim who warmed a snake in his bosom. It is the kindness that has mercy on a tarantula that has bitten a child. A mad, blind, kindness. People enjoy looking in stories and fables for examples of the danger of this senseless kindness. But one shouldn’t be afraid of it. One might just as well be afraid of a freshwater fish carried out by chance into the salty ocean. The harm from time to time occasioned a society, class, race or State by this senseless kindness fades away in the light that emanates from those who are endowed with it.

This kindness, this stupid kindness, is what is most truly human in a human being. It is what sets man apart, the highest achievement of his soul. No, it says, life is not evil! This kindness is both senseless and wordless. It is instinctive, blind. When Christianity clothed it in the teachings of the Church Fathers, it began to fade; its kernel became a husk. It remains potent only while it is dumb and senseless, hidden in the living darkness of the human heart – before it becomes a tool or commodity in the hands of preachers, before its crude ore is forged into the gilt coins of holiness. It is as simple as life itself. Even the teachings of Jesus deprived it of its strength. But, as I lost faith in good, I began to lose faith even in kindness. It seemed as beautiful and powerless as dew. What use was it if it was not contagious?

How can one make a power of it without losing it, without turning it into a husk as the Church did? Kindness is powerful only while it is powerless. If Man tries to give it power, it dims, fades away, loses itself, vanishes. Today I can see the true power of evil. The heavens are empty. Man is alone on Earth. How can the flame of evil be put out? With small drops of living dew, with human kindness? No, not even the waters of all the clouds and seas can extinguish that flame – let alone a handful of dew gathered drop by drop from the time of the Gospels to the iron present… Yes, after despairing of finding good either in God or in Nature, I began to despair even of kindness. But the more I saw of the darkness of Fascism, the more clearly I realized that human qualities persist even on the edge of the grave, even at the door of the gas chamber.

My faith has been tempered in Hell. My faith has emerged from the flames of the crematoria, from the concrete of the gas chamber. I have seen that it is not man who is impotent in the struggle against evil, but the power of evil that is impotent in the struggle against man. The powerlessness of kindness, of senseless kindness, is the secret of its immortality. It can never be conquered. The more stupid, the more senseless, the more helpless it may seem, the vaster it is. Evil is impotent before it. The prophets, religious teachers, reformers, social and political leaders are impotent before it. This dumb, blind love is man’s meaning. Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness. But if what is human in human beings has not been destroyed even now, then evil will never conquer.”

John Stanton can be reached at captainking22@gmail.com

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

An actual 1953 photo of a test of a nuclear artillery projectile at the Nevada Test Site (photo depicts an artillery piece with a 280 mm bore (11 inch), and the explosion of its artillery shell at a distance of 10 km (6.2 mi))…

Nuclear artillery is a subset of limited-yield tactical nuclear weapons, in particular those weapons that are launched from the ground at battlefield targets. Nuclear artillery is commonly associated with shells delivered by a cannon, but in a technical sense short-range rockets or missiles are also included…

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And simply put; They wipe out divisions of men, tanks and artillery in one shot…

Russia has about, 9,000 to 10,000 of these tactical nuclear weapons (still operational,) sometimes called battlefield nuclear weapons. You use these for short distances. They can be fired; you don’t need an airplane or a missile to send them to the target (though a plane can drop them or a missile can deliver them.) They can be fired from artillery. But they are nuclear bombs, just small versions of the big ones. They’re just as radioactive as a large nuke. They’ve never been used in actual battles, but since Russia has about 10,000 usable tactical nuclear weapons and America has about 400 to 500 of them. There is a huge difference in battlefield power. Russia’s military doctrine (updated several years ago) clearly says that if Russia is threatened by overwhelming conventional forces, they will use tactical nukes. This is directed at NATO and the resource hungry Western Empire…

These weapons were not discussed by the U.S. and Russia in the nuclear talks, or should I say they were discussed and it was decided to ignore these type weapons. Russia will not get rid of her only defense against a encroaching west that lies…

Tactical Nukes in America? I was trained on the Lance Missile system and it was a tactical nuke. So we had them in abundance at one time…

Russian Doctrine on Tactical Nuclear Weapons

Contexts, Prims, and Connections:
Against the background of the collapse of talks between NATO, the US and Russia on missile defense in 2011 sparking fears of a new arms race, this article examines Russian military doctrine on tactical nuclear weapons. It discusses the obstacles to an agreement and the prospects for a US-Russian treaty on tactical nuclear weapons.

This publication is subject to Title 17, United States Code, Sections 101 and 105. It is in the public domain and may not be copyrighted.

Download: English (PDF · Page 116 to 154 · 247 KB)

Author: Jacob W Kipp

Publication: Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO

Publisher: Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College (SSI), Carlisle, United States

So tell me again why we (Western Empire) are play a game of “Wanna War,” with the Russian Bear?

I always say, “Too many Hitlers and Napoleons in western politics and they all want their war!”

I promise you that Russians would deliver these weapons by hand if that is what it would take to stop the west from invading her. The people are that fearless, compared to the western counterpart…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

P.S: I want you to realize that ocean battleships do not have to be hit by a nuke, aircraft not hit by a nuke,  the tsunami and or shock waves alone will sink all ships and send all aircraft to the ground for vast distances, a nuclear war is a lose lose for all involved and a bigger lose lose for the whole world…

Most people in the west do not realize how much “capability,” Russia really has; largest land mass, a population of 140 million+, for the most part very patriotic, (spare me the false democracy bull and allowing 2% of the population to be a majority of citizens, of dissent here and there).  They have unlimited natural resources, a moral internal structure geared to protect the children, nukes with better delivery systems then even the U.S., no debt, limited government involvement, unlimited markets reachable via land – sea – air travel, the best space program in the world, a military which is as good or better than anyone else (backed by very sophisticated weapon systems,) at a fraction of what the US spends and a inwardly focused leader which is as close to a “benevolent dictator” (the best and most efficient form of government) as you can get…

Russia is not the Soviet Union and they do not want to be the Soviet Union, they want to be Russia and are proud of it…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

Last night, just as it got almost pitch-black, Boza and I came upon a creature that was a big as Boza and stood on his back legs and tried to start a fight with us. Boza froze and until I could see what it was we were up against, my trusty walking stick held the overgrown critter at bay. Then as it swiped at my walking stick that I stuck in its face, it decided that we were too stupid to run and he ran away himself…

I really thought at first we had a small bear cub and I started first to look around for a momma bear. Boza and I could have been in trouble with a momma bear and baby bear. Panic mode was starting to raise its ugly head. Then as the angry chatter of a raccoon hit my ears and I got close enough to see in the impending darkness, I realized with a calming settling relief that we had a good ole pain in the ass raccoon…

I have seen many raccoons and I have hunted raccoons and this was the biggest raccoon I have ever seen and Boza looked at me as if to say, “What the hell was that?”

The final look at the raccoon was when the street light (yes we have one street light in our village,) popped on after resetting from the bulb going out and in its dim light I got a full view of our new found buddy, The Russian Raccoon…

So I did some investigation and found that some low level intelligent people brought raccoons to Russia in the 1930’s and being the survivable and invasive species they are, we now have raccoons in our tiny village and where there is one raccoon spotted, there are many more not spotted. He has a family somewhere nearby. Raccoons spread fast and after 80 plus years of free roaming, Russian soon will have to have coon hunting parties to keep them under control…

There is a native critter called Raccoon Dog (left,) but they are not Raccoons as I know a raccoon. What Boza and I came upon was a raccoon, a skinny huge wild raccoon, with full mask and attitude at seeing us… 🙂

Allowing them to live in our village will cause much damage to empty homes during the winter, as they will get in easily to seek shelter and food. Now I know what dug under our village home this last year…

I learn something new everyday and I see new things everyday. Even if all that I see is not for the best, I learn and learn and learn, as I walk, talk, drive and experience Russia…

Now you know a little bit more about Russia…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

We are what we teach…

This issue of Homosexuals is a good example of why I have lost faith in the western world. I do not try to tell you how you should live and who your partner should be, but I do have thoughts and ideas about what is right and wrong and I despised living in a world that crucified you for expressing that being homosexual is wrong. I have my opinions and I should not be ostracized for expressing them, especially when the opposite view point gets supported by the government and many others so called specialty groups…

I believe that Russia is on the correct path with the issues of homosexuality and they need to keep the rudder in that direction and never change…

The Constitutional Court of Russia has acknowledged the ban of homosexual propaganda among the under age as lawful and dismissed a complaint by well-known LGBT activists. The ruling was made in response to a complaint lodged by activists Nikolay Alekseev, Yaroslav Evtushenko and Dmitry Isakov. They tried to dispute the law section of Russia’s administrative code that describes how the law defines “propaganda of non-conventional sexual relationships to minors.” (Read More)

Decisions like this quote above are the reason why the West targets Russia. They hate that Russia shows the world that there is an alternative to the western idiosyncrasies. Yet if the West would quit spotlighting Russia in propaganda, they would not have to worry about people in the west seeing alternate lifestyles than theirs. Russians are happy in their world and the west needs to stay away and western people are too damn lazy to even look around to see what is happening. Status quo is the western lifestyle of choice for the peasants…

Homosexual Propaganda Among Minors is Illegal in Russia; Now that is something that makes sense in this messed up, sick, degraded world that we live in. We are killing innocents everyday all over the world and we are ignoring starving people all over the world and we war like there is no tomorrow, but we ignore all that important stuff and make gay rights a forefront issue. That is the west for you and the east is confused as to why you do it…

I am not confused, you do it for distraction. The west is a distraction of extroverts and the east is confused by that introverts…

I hope to see a new America, for the old one is malvado…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

“The contract does not allow for re-exports. We hope that our European partners will adhere to the agreements. Only this can guarantee uninterrupted supplies to European consumers,” – Russia’s Energy Minister Aleksandr said.

Russia just fired a legal shot across the bow or Europe and I have studied the contracts that are public and Russia has all the rights to stop flow of gas to any country that breaks the contract with Gazprom…

Ouch…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

It is more than wrong, it is illegal, immoral and evil. It is a connived, conceived and deliberate setup to allow (very loosely – allow) bombing of countries that are in the way of the USA hegemony and the petrol dollar…

I am against the bombing of Syria and Iraq for false reasons. We created the terrorist situation, to do exactly what we are doing right now…

Killing innocent people all in the name of humanitarian aid and safety for the homeland…

I would appreciate the USA stopping the killing of innocent people all over the world. I do not accept it and do not desire it…

It is time for a new and better United States…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

I was digging a post hole for the fence this morning and it dawned on me; If 9-11-2001 had happened on 9-11-2014, Russia would be the blame for it!

Think about that for awhile as you sip that cappuccino or suck down a latte…

Makes no sense, but a bunch of you would believe that Russia did it, just like you believe, Russia invaded Georgia, Russia invaded Ukraine, Russia wants to invade Poland, Russia wants to rebuild the Soviet Union and Russia wants to invade all of Europe…

Don’t roll your eyes at me, I come from a past that was told by propaganda that Soviets ate their babies, just like we tell the world that North Korea does the same… (Lies)

Nothing that the American/western government tells you is the truth. Nothing any government tells you is the truth, so quit being so gullible…

Nothing…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

The above quote is really true, just look around and see who thinks; See that is my point…

MOSCOW, September 23  – The United States will not allow geography or borders to stand in the way of its campaign against the Islamic State (IS) militant group, US Secretary of State John Kerry was reported as saying Tuesday.

“We will not allow geography or borders to prevent us from taking action [against the IS],” Kerry said at a press conference following his meeting with Iraqi President Fuad Masum, as quoted by Associated Press (AP).

“We will hold them [IS militants] responsible for their grotesque atrocities,” Kerry stressed, adding that “we will not allow them to find safe haven where they think they can have sanctuary against accountability.”

There you have proof that the U.S. is in charge of the world and before you know it we will be in charge of the Universe. it is simple; we (USA) do not have to follow the rules, but you (rest of the world) have to…

You do realize that the U.S. just threatened the whole world! The whole world is not safe from the wrath of the USA, especially if that wrath is self-made…

You know, if I could get off this planet and go somewhere peaceful, I would. I would pack tomorrow and take Boza and Sveta, then find a place in the Universe where Humans have either grown up and become decent or there are no humans around at all…

Grow up America and Western world, we created all these issues and now we are bombing innocent people to make ourselves look like we are gods of truth, rights, liberty and freedom… [sarc]

I promise you that this will not end well for humanity…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

P.S: Just one question; Who will hold the [USA] responsible for their grotesque atrocities?

2014: Clash of civilizations?

At the beginning of the Millennium, much was said about a clash of civilizations between the West and Islamist movements, terminology which was unacceptable to the former and more and more used by the latter. Today, we see increased intrusion by the West not only in Islamic States but also in Eastern Europe and growing hostility in the world community against the international politics practiced by Washington and its Poodles.

Read More >>>> /opinion/columnists/25-09-2014/128608-clash_civilizations-0/