Church Voices

4 Responses to “Nothing to lose, and the need for change”

1. Thorvald Erikson Says:
   July 7th, 2008 at 4:24 pm

   I would like to point out that the Revolution will eat its children, just as it always has.

2. Matt K Says:
   July 7th, 2008 at 5:09 pm

   I second what Thorvald said and add that white kids from Gen X have had everything handed to them on a silver platter.

   Just ask the people of the same age in Iraq. Or Afghanistan. China. Sudan. Zimbabwe. Uzbekistan. And on and on and on…

3. Tim Reed Says:
   July 7th, 2008 at 6:05 pm

   In that scenario the entire western world has had everything handed to them.

   Anyway, this wasn’t so much about Gen X as it was the general principle. If I can quote from the Gen X manifesto, Fight Club, it isn’t until you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything.

4. V. Rev. James Rosselli Says:
   July 18th, 2008 at 11:04 pm

   Comparing the American Revolution with the French and Russian Revolutions is to
   demonstrate ignorance of any of them.

   All revolutions proclaim “freedom” and
   “liberty.” Almost none deliver them. The
   Bolshevik Revolution, for instance, enslaved all of Eastern Europe for seventy years. It did none of what it promised.

   Promising “equality” and “worker ownership
   of the means of production,” the Soviet
   Union was ruled iron-handedly by an elite,
   privileged class knoen as the “nomenklatura:” literally, “those who give things their names.” These people had State-mandated-and-provided villas, special highway lanes that only they could use (and immunity from prosecution if you were crossing the street and they ran you down) and “hard (foreign) currency” stores that actually sold decent consumer goods.

   Most ordinary citizens, on the other hand, didn’t have a car. They could not shop at the “hard currency stores,” which did not take rubles. The regular stores sold shoddy goods that fell apart or didn’t even work, if they were in fact available. Ordinary citizens lived in State housing, on each floor of which was a KGB informer keeping track of everyone.

   Farms were communal, and the farm’s workers,the “owners of the means of production,” could be imprisoned or even
   summarily executed for doing so much as
   eating some of the fruit or grain they picked. trhe “Managers” (former owners)
   of the farms could not take anything into the house or store anything for their own use. They had to live on (often inadequate) government rations. There was no appeal from any of this.

   Two thirds of the Soviet gross national; product was invested in the military and propaganda budget (as opposed to the three percent the Pentagon gets).

   The Soviet Union is responsible for the
   terrorist doctrine that is today being used by the Muslims: they’re the ones who
   established the first terrorist training camps in the Arab countries. The Soviets are responsible for the current chaotic situation in Africa, having undermined and toppled stable, productive and prosperous
   democratically-elected governments all over the African continent. It is ironic
   that because of the Soviets’ “domestic economy advisors” the most mineral-rich,
   lushly-fertile continent on earth is unable to feed itself.

   The Soviets starved whole populations in
   their captive nations, by withholding the
   seeds and grain that they centrally controlled. Ten million people died in
   Ukraine alone, with lesser efforts elsewhere, to “keep them in line.”

   The works of Alexander Solzhenitsen provide
   a good overview of the Soviet “Peoples’
   Revolutionary Paradise” and its realities.

   The French Revolution was born in blood,
   in the systematic slaughter of the nation’s aristocratic families. So,
   “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” for
   some, but not even the offer of it for these. It was an exercise in blood-frenzy,
   that left an absolute ruling class in place that was far less tolerant of dissent than the King and nobility had been. The French Revolution apostatized from Christ and persecuted the churches,
   setting up “The Goddess of Reason” as a
   national object of devotion and even
   setting up a “Temple of Reason” in Paris.

   Spiritually helpless, without national valor, France is slowly being taken over by Islam.

   The American Revolution was estaboished in war, between combatants. It did not establish an oligarchy, most of its major
   fignures having died broke, their fortunes having been spent for the cause.

   American statute law has never held
   any group to be above the law, unlike
   the Bolshevik (the Nomenklatura) and
   French (the Revolutionary Council)
   revolutions.

   Ignorance of what such conditions are actually like can prompt some people to
   go, “Oh, yeah? well just look at…” and
   think the situations are morally equivalent. In the Soviet Union, you could be taken out and summarily shot for saying
   that. In France, the buying of privilege is
   so commonplace, no-one would care. In fact,
   America (and possibly Australia and New Zealand) are the only places in the world
   where the people get genuinely and vocally
   upset over government misconduct. In Europe, it’s taken for granted. In most other places, being vocal about it is not allowed. In many of those places, the penalty is death without trial.

   We live in the age of the throwaway phrase
   masquerading as actual thought. We need to
   get back to feeling an obliogation to provide actual, factual foundations for our statements, and not just nifty
   sound-bites.

   This country–and in fact, whatever has passed for civilized culture throughout history–was built upon the recognition that I have a responsibility to back up what I say by more than just the fact that
   it’s “my opinion.”

   in Christ,

   Fr. Jim <

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