www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Purple badge of courage: Iraqi elections

Dear Stojgniev:

The atheism was fundamental to Marx - and all who bought into Marxist revolution - who viewed religious organizations as complicit in the exploitation of the lower classes. This view is not entirely without merit. In any case, it is not a view that can isoaled to Jewish intellectuals.

Of course. Affluence demands diligence in considering the best allocation of resources - savings, investment, etc. And the diligence is lavishly rewarded: the door is opened to all sorts of personal expenses - SUV's, European vacations, etc.

But when such wealth is out of sight, provided dire povery is avoided, there is a great blessing. Only in that circumstance does one have the luxury of being able to afford to share everything that one has with friends and guests. It is great to be able to afford to be good.

Brian,

The United States will NEVER have "social democrat" parties like those in Europe. Never. The Democrats often act like that but they have made it a habit of losing elections as well. Frankly, they are going nuts and all they seem to care about nationally is abortion. The majority of people in the US do not want those kinds of politics here.

Stoj-
You take things you don't like about the United States and apply it to everybody here. Not fair and not accurate. I am not saying that all things in the US are perfect - they are not. You have used this thread to blast away at the USA and you are just plain wrong.
My greatgrandfather stowed away on a boat and left Poland for Pittsburgh. I am very happy he did so.

Western Europe is becoming agnostic and socialist. France and Germany have staggering unemployment rates that would never be accepted here.

djs - I used the Boortz quote because I did not want to get into a fight about the Iraq war. People have stong feelings about it on both sides. I am happy for the Iraqi people that they are free from the terrorist thug Hussein and can now build a free nation, without torture and rape rooms, repression and mass graves. I hope they take advantage of the opportunity.

Othodox Catholic - I sincerely hope you can come to the Our Lady of Perpetual Help pilgrammage one eyar soon. I have been to Toronto (and will likely be ther for a weekend next summer). 'Bout time you paid a visit to Uniontown!

jw... wrote:

You take things you don't like about the United States and apply it to everybody here. Not fair and not accurate.

JW...-

No, not all. If I thought the people in this forum were responsible for the American sins that bother me, then I wouldn't bother debating here. I am talking in broad generalizations & stereotypes (always some truth in them), just as you are when you talk about "agnostic Europe". I'm sure the people here share many of the cultural & religious values that I respect. I first met those values here in America, in my grandparents' community when I was a kid. But in the course of half a century America got way off course.


I am not saying that all things in the US are perfect - they are not. You have used this thread to blast away at the USA and you are just plain wrong.
My greatgrandfather stowed away on a boat and left Poland for Pittsburgh. I am very happy he did so.

So we disagree on America. I'm grateful that we have the opportunity to disagree civilly. But I still maintain that America (but not any of you personally ) is the source of most of the world's problems America's model of consumption, American "pop culture", the American economic model of MacDonalds/Walmart/Halliburton, America's Protestant "missionaries" etc etc.




Western Europe is becoming agnostic and socialist. France and Germany have staggering unemployment rates that would never be accepted here.


I'm not advocating that America adopt some one else's system. Western Europe's systems will never work in America.




Othodox Catholic - I sincerely hope you can come to the Our Lady of Perpetual Help pilgrammage one eyar soon. I have been to Toronto (and will likely be ther for a weekend next summer).

Now that's something I've wanted to do for many years. I have some video tapes of old pilgrimages & they are truly inspiring.

Stojgniev

Dear Stojgniev,

At first I was going to blast you, but frankly didn't know what to blast first. Then I remembered something. I remembered that I had always considered our greatest sin, not the garbage that is being fed to us, because our puritanical heritage gives us some protection. But that we export it to other nations, and they in turn twist it around in accordance to their own cultural mores. In effect, we contribute to their moral downfall, simply because they are stupidly impressed, and trying to emulate what they see in our media. You can thank people like Michael Moore for that.

As for the lack of discipline in your society, or any other society where people are not accustomed to freedom, America is certainly not to blame for that. Every nation is free to develop their government in whichever way they wish.

Our concern is that democracies do not start wars, and we're a little tired of going to war to save Europe, or any other part of the world. We lost too many men in World War II, and to think we didn't even bother colonizing them at the end of the war. Then the great 'France', refused to give Vietnam it's freedom, and we're the one's that ended up suffering for that. Oh how dumb we are.

Zenovia

You can say the Jews were threatened by Christians because of their history. But the Christians were also threatened by the Jews.

In area's such as Eastern Europe, and the Balkans, where people were in constant warfare over real estate, the Jews were a threat. They had no allegiance to any group. It didn't matter to them where one border started and where the other ended...So in the end, they became persecuted by both.

Is it any wonder then, that so many of them desired world communism, without religion or ethnicity...and that is what gave rise to national socialism, (Nazism) and Fascism.

Zenovia..Who loves to look at both sides of an issue.

Dear Zenovia,

How appropriate to mention the Puritans! A civilization never gets too far from its roots. I will confess now that I have published a small book called "Why I Left America" (bilingual English-Polish) & the Puritans figure prominently in that essay.

Where did America's pornography & sexual abuse of children come from, to say nothing of "the last respectable prejudice", anti-Catholicism?
Why is America is so ugly today, with its manufactured housing, shopping strips & cookie-cutter landscape? It all goes back to the roots of American society.

Concerning my previous post, I found out later that certain "key words" were deleted. I wrote about that part of the world located between Jerusalem & Bagdad.

I must disagree with djs's previous post on the origins of atheistic Marxism. Zenovia, your remarks are politically incorrect & as you probably know, you would not be able to work in academe if you voiced such opinions publicly. I don't want to debate that issue in this forum, so I won't mention it further, but I stand by my original statement. As was clearly obvious in postwar Poland, ethnic (not religious but atheist) Jews were responsible for much of the communist terror. In the academic world, one must insist that that is a "canard," a myth.

Stojgniev (who also likes to look at both sides)

That is an old anti-Semitic argument. Stalin used the same reasoning when he labeled Jews during the Doctor's Plot of the early 50's as "rootless cosmopolitans"

And in your reasoning, the Jews themselves were responsible for the hatred that developed into Nazism??? Isn't that the ultimate use of "blaming the victim"? I cannot understand such reasoning, frankly!! Do people STILL believe this stuff after the Holocaust????

Dear Brian,

Things never pop up out of no where. The Zionist movement started at the end of the 19th century. At the First World War, they either pressured the English, or the English decided to use them, (they were certainly no angels), and had leaflets dropping out of the planes on the German army. These leaflets told the Jewish soldiers not to fight for Germany, for the English were their true friends. They were going to give them the land of Israel, the part of Trans-Jordan that was called Palestine.

After the war, when Germany fell into a deep depression and was being forced by France to make reparations, they looked for their scape goat. They believed the Jews had stabbed them in the back.

A victim is always a victim, but we must look at what motivates a murder. You know genocide was committed against my ancestors, but that doesn't mean that their killers didn't have some kind of absurd reasoning behind it.

Zenovia

Where did America's pornography & sexual abuse of children come from, to say nothing of "the last
respectable prejudice", anti-Catholicism?
Why is America is so ugly today, with [/QUOTE]

Dear Stojgniew,

I believe sexual abuse has always existed, it was just not made public to the extent it is today. As for prejudice, my parents came into a very different America. The one they came into, had banned them from immigrating here. They were undesirable, because they weren't from Northern and Western Europe.

I'm not critical of that. It's understandable when one considers that this nation was getting people that were uneducated, undernourished, poverty stricken, and with very different cultural values.

My father though was not like you. He worshipped the American ground he walked on. It took me many years to understand what he saw, and what I had been unaware of, because America was handed to me with a silver spoon.

As for the rows of houses, that all look the same and you consider ugly, maybe it's because they were all built at the same time. To the Japanese, they probably look exotic.

Zenovia

Not all Iraqis are happy with the USA, even those who suffered under Sadaam. This man wrote a letter to the editor of the Toronto Star and had some very good points to make.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...4RO%2bIIDSLhOw%3d%3d&tacodalogin=yes [thestar.com] (you have to register, but it is worth it.)

I will quote one thought of his though:

"I am an Iraqi who suffered greatly under the regime of Saddam Hussein and the Baath party. I know of no one who did not suffer in one way or another, but I can say that the suffering was at its peak many years ago when Saddam was the Americans' favourite puppet. In those days, the U.S. administration did not talk about freedom and democracy. They supported Saddam and turned a blind eye to the crimes he committed, especially during his war with Iran.

Only when the interests of the U.S. are at stake do the Americans think of freedom and democracy. Where are they when we see basic human rights being violated in Palestine and other parts of the world? More often than not, I see them supporting the oppressor, not the oppressed. It was not freedom the Americans announced to justify the war, it was weapons of mass destruction. But "freedom and democracy" is the favourite American slogan when it runs out of excuses."

I think he sums it up quite nicely.

Moe,

Thank you for a reasoned contribution. I'm sure there is much merit in the argument. The next few years should be interesting to be sure. I'm glad that we stop supporting Saddam and am ashamed that we didn't do so earlier. I'm ashamed that we support the killers in Sudan and supported the killers in Rwanda. I ashamed that we bombed Serbia. Someday I pray that we get it right. At least we no longer support Saddam.

Dan L

The rights of the Palestinians are being violated by their own leaders. Remember, Arafat's money is in the banks in Switzerland, not in the Palestinian people's pockets.

Why you ask? Because Arafat, and those that fed him knew, that only when people suffer will they be willing to die to regain the small portion of the 'fatherland' that was taken away.

You know, it never seems to occur to some people, that when they see the poor suffering Arabs in Palestine, that all the poor suffering Christians have left. Why did they leave? Because no one forced them to stay and suffer for those lands.

Zenovia

Where did America's pornography & sexual abuse of children come from, to say nothing of "the last
respectable prejudice", anti-Catholicism?
[/QUOTE]
Zenovia wrote:
Dear Stojgniew,

I believe sexual abuse has always existed, it was just not made public to the extent it is today.

I'm not blaming America for sexual abuse, but blaming the Puritans & America's Puritan heritage. Those cultures that have a more open attitude towards things like nudity & sexuality, e.g. Slavs, have fewer problems with child abuse.



My father though was not like you. He worshipped the American ground he walked on. It took me many years to understand what he saw, and what I had been unaware of, because America was handed to me with a silver spoon.

My grandparents felt the same way. But that's all history. Things have changed. For one thing, it's much more difficult to get into America these days. And US immigration policies throughout most of American history have discriminated against Slavs & others from eastern & southern Europe. A century ago America didn't pretend to be the world's policeman. Americans didn't care about the rest of the world then & were smart enough back then to know they didn't know much about it.

America is making some of the same mistakes that Britain made a century ago, e.g. Ireland, Constantinople, Palestine. If the trend continues, America's future won't be so bright.

Stojgniev

Actually, it was very difficult for someone to come into this country back then if they were from Southern Europe. The immigration laws banned them in the 1920's. They were undesirable. My father jumped ship. He was here illegally. It was Pres. Kennedy that opened the borders.

I think the reason they were so appreciative of America, was because they sufferred so much in the old country. I believe Elia Kazan has a novel called "America, America", and wasn't it a Jew Irving Berlin that wrote, "God Bless America".

Today America is the world's policeman because the British Empire doesn't exist. We are the only super power left, and someone has to do the dirty work. Just look at the U.N. It's absolutely useless.

Actually, about ten years ago, we wanted to become isolationist once more. Don't think we enjoy paying and keeping all our troops in NATO and Europe, but the Europeans wouldn't allow us. They all want our money and man power.

Now I know very well what our problem is. It is our support for Israel. But what is the alternative? If we allow the Palestinians to retake the land of Israel, then who will be next? They took Kosovo, and Macedonia is having it's problems. There are now 125,000 Turks in Greek Thrace, when there is only supposed to be 25,000 according to the Lausanne Treaty. No doubt, after Macedonia, Thrace will be on the Islamic agenda.

Kashmir has it's problems, and so do places in Africa. The Netherlands will become Muslim in about 25 years, and then France. They are already reclaiming Spain, and so on, and so on.

Zenovia