From Under the Rubble…Spring Cleaning

From the fog of a long, hard winter, questions come stumbling out of the cold.

First: does the U.S. really support democracy?

Take Ukraine. For a decade and more, the United States has advocated – and even agitated – for democratic elections there. And yet, as so often occurs when the Goddess of Democracy winks, our government has been unhappy with the results when Viktor Yanukovich won Ukraine’s presidential elections in 2010.

Regarding the recent unpleasantness in the region, the Rubble has friends on all sides. Hence, as usual, we ponder principle, not personality.

Yes, Mr. Yanukovich was elected, but he was corrupt, we are told.

Well, the folks at Transparency International agree: in 2013, they listed Ukraine as number 144 out of 177 counties in terms of corruption. Ukraine tied with Nigeria, to give the reader a sense of Yanukovich’s humiliating performance.

Other countries fared better. The United States came in 19th, tied with Uruguay, but behind Denmark (1st), New Zealand (2nd), Finland (3rd), and a host of other less corrupt countries (Lois Lerner, call your office).

For instance, Canada, our neighbor to the north, came in 9th; our neighbor Mexico, alas, came in 106th – tied with Bolivia and Argentina (a sobering footnote to the ongoing amnesty debate).

Russia came in a lame 127th.

So it’s all to the good to be banging our pots and pans about Yanukovich the corrupto. But while we’re at it, a dollop of perspective.

Afghanistan, our newly “democratic” ally, came in 175th.

Yes, Mr. Karzai, the toast of so many State of the Union skybox charades, came in dead last, tied with North Korea and Somalia.

And then there’s our marvelously democratic ally Iraq, which edged out Mr. Karzai, coming in in 171st.

Now here’s a question: the U.S. taxpayer is pouring billions of dollars a year into Afghanistan and Iraq – countries that, for all we know (“transparency” being really really woefully totally big-time lacking) are light years more corrupt than even that nasty Mr. Yanukovich was.

Moreover, we have pledged to keep the billions flowing far into the future – even as the governments of these two “democracies” thumb their noses (and that’s not all) at us.

Moreover, Obama is now promising the suddenly no-long-corrupt Ukraine tens of billions of American dollars to show Putin what a piker he was, offering only a measly ten billion.

True to form, John Kerry, Obama’s flailing understudy in narcissistic self-indulgence, tosses around new deadlines and supporting tons of bloviation, striving to outshine Obama in diplomacy’s crowded annals of pathetic posturing.

We are reminded of Nancy Pelosi in 2009. When asked to identify the Constitutional provision that authorized ObamaCare’s massive takeover of health care, she famously uttered to mocking reply, “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

What troubles the Rubble is this: our bipartisan crusading establishment claims to advocate democracy throughout the world – even if it requires a bloody coup now and then in countries like Ukraine, Egypt, and Syria.

All the world’s a stage, and politics is the plaything for these sandbox savants whose taunts and tantrums might well find them sending us stumbling into World War III.

Are we serious? Are we serious?

History Need Not Apply

Second: as we pore through the dust in the attic, we collide with an old and forgotten friend – history.

Somewhere, someone lurking in the bilious bowels of the Democrat Party has a sense of the past that goes back farther than “Blame Bush.”

That pilgrim might stumble across a nagging memory prompting us to recall that, when all else fails, second-term Democrat presidents are wont to foment patriotic wars to cover up for their disastrous domestic policies.

In the vice-presidential debates of 1976, Bob Dole boldly (for once) called them “Democrat Wars” (only later would Republicans indulge in this perfidy).

Obama is desperately trying to avoid a shellacking in the 2014 midterm elections. His incompetence – truly, surpassingly stunning – offers the perfect ingredient for his party’s recipe to rescue his floundering administration’s last two years in office.

They did it with Libya, driving that country into even deeper disaster. They almost did it with Syria, but on Saturday, September 7 of last year, Pope Francis called on people of all faiths to fast, pray, and give alms on for the cause of peace.

Two days later, on Monday, Obama’s dreams of going to war (with Al Qaeda terrorists as his allies) were shattered.

But yesterday’s folly often returns disguised as tomorrow’s magic wand.

The possibility of military confrontation in Ukraine offers a new chance for the false Prophet of Hope and Change.

The harrowing specter haunts us all. It constitutes a pressing invitation for the Vicar of Christ on earth to renew his penitential call for prayer and for peace.

Should Obama’s Fantasyland continue to go awry as elections approach (and it undoubtedly will), the administration can count on senior Republicans like Senators McCain and Graham to carry his water and pour it on, drowning the national desire to throw the bums out in a “bipartisan” tsunami of faux patriotism and real war-profiteering.

All with a strutting, gloating Republican imprimatur.

Our finest hour? Far from it. But the lies have worked before, to invoke the phrase of FDR, “again, and again, and again.”

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This article, From Under the Rubble…Spring Cleaning is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
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Christopher Manion

  • Carlos says:

    EU: anti family & anti-life
    Putin: pro family & pro life

    EU: tax them to death
    Putin: flat tax

    EU: regulate them to death
    Putin: let them do business

    EU: promote sodomy
    Putin: don’t promote sodomy

    I could add a few more pages. If Putin is a “thug” what has he done: fail to prosecute thugs with sticks at a poll station? Have a woman shot to death in front of her baby for the crime of approaching the Kremlin perimeter fence?

  • Halina says:

    Let’s get it straight, discerning the truth from all the lies, disinformation and pure propaganda coming from our news and information media and
    our government which, have been falsely portraying Vladimir Putin as an an evil tyrant instead of the devout Christian that he is. Russia today is not the same monstrous regime as it was under the USSR. Putin is probably the most Christian and least anti-Christian of all world leaders. Further evidence of this is in the fact that his ambassador to Rome recently
    initiated a private meeting with Father Nicholas Gruner of the Fatima Center, wanting to learn more about Our Lady of Fatima and her Third Secret as it pertains also to the consecration and conversion of Russia as a Heaven-sent plan for ending all the wars we’ve been fighting or financing Israel and establishing, at long last, world peace. We might say that Vladimir Putin is the world’s foremost peacemaker today.

    Putin is Orthodox Christian which, it’s true, is a breakaway from Roman Catholicism, the one religion of divine origin, but he is nonetheless a devout
    Christian who desires not war but peace. Putin SHINES next to the likes of war-mongering mass-murdering demagogues such as ……………Obama amongst so many…….surely, known to God…..Thanks Be To God!

    Our Lady of Fatima, ora pro nobis!

    Viva Cristo Rey!

    • Carlos says:

      Halina, the world is turning around. This is the conversion of Russia that Our Blessed Mother talked about. From now on let us pay attention to the 13th day of each month! Pray and have no fear, evil won’t prevail!

  • Halina says:

    Carlos….On the one hand, we can agree that Russia has changed somewhat. In fact, Russia has changed enough that, in many respects, it is probably more moralistic than the United States and many other NATO countries. On the other hand, the fact remains that Russia is still the chosen arm of God’s wrath, and will remain so whether it is moral or immoral. One only needs to read the newspaper headlines to know that Russia is very involved in world affairs and continues to flex its muscle.
    Our Lady’s words stated that one of the main purposes for THE CONSECRATION OF RUSSIA was for the conversion of that nation…..then, once converted, God will use Russia to convert the rest of the world, for it is only then that a ‘period of peace’ will have fertile soil to be established……to preach the Gospel to the nations and prepare them for His Second Coming (Mt. 24:13-14). But as we know the Scripture also teaches, just prior to the end, the world will fall into utter apostasy as Satan and the Antichrist are loosed for the ‘little season’ (Apoc. 20:1-3, 7-8); and then Christ will return and cast Satan and his minions INTO HELL (yes, Hell is real), and begin the New Heaven and New Earth (Apoc. 20:9-15).

    If these facts do not inspire us to pray daily for the holy Father to say the simple words “I consecrate RUSSIA (not the world) to the Immaculate Heart of Mary”, nothing will.

    All Catholics ought to embrace the Fatima Message with their heart and soul. May God grant the grace of the papal consecration of Russia, and we will enjoy a great fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy (2:4-5) on Earth which awaits the final fulfillment in Heaven itself;
    …….’and they shall turn their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into sickles: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they be exercised any more to war. O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.”

    Our Lady of Fatima, ora pro nobis!

    • Carlos says:

      Halina, I hesitate to try to figure the times and seasons. We have been told about the conversion of Russia but not necessarily in this or that order, before or after the consecration, etc. In your comment you mention several prophetic elements of which we know very little. I do not know the exact order of things. That has been obscured on purpose: the conversion of Russia, the conversion of the Jews, the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart, the casting of Satan into Hell, etc. we know that all those things will happen but it is better to be prudent and not to jump ahead of God’s plans. We will understand all of it when we get there. I see this small conversion of Russia as something positive, perhaps the first fruits of the great conversion coming. Search the following in YouTube “Putin- Defender of the Faith” and see how he reneges Communism and admits the necessity of religion in culture. It was an eye opener for me. Also remember the prophecy of St Philoteus about the “third Rome”.
      God bless!

  • Halina says:

    Carlos…..Obscured on purpose by whom? A mystery to us, but not to God, nor His Mother Mary.
    The prophetic elements of we know very little, as you stated………come from none other but the Mother of God, who chose to intervene from Heaven to give humanity the solution for world peace, but most of all a warning to the children of men, that WAR is a punishment for SIN! While these material chastisements are shocking to the conscience, the spiritual chastisements are far graver, for they have eternal……not temporal…..consequences. Thanks be to God, that we know very little, lest we would die from fear, from the snares and mocking of the ‘devil’.
    I come from Poland, Russian hearts are most close to my heart, and the desire of my heart (as is the desire of the Mother of God), is for the conversion of their hearts. Poland is very divided right now, but most Poles are supporters of Vladimir Putin (and, so am I)………. who they really believe is the most Christian from all the world leaders.
    Going back to the consecration of Russia ‘by name’………. by not following the proper order of the requests of Mother of God, is only slowing down the fruits of the consecration to come to it’s fullness……the loss of souls as a result is in millions. In meantime Satan has unleashed all the powers of hell to preserve his flourishing kingdom on Earth. And he has directed his primary attack at the Popes and clergy of the Catholic Church.

    Didn’t Pope Paul VI lament the effects of Vatican II by describing the resulting ‘auto-demolition of the Church’ and declaring that ‘the smoke of Satan has entered into the Temple of God.”
    …..’The greatest persecution of the Church does not come from outside enemies, but is from sin in the Church’……Pope Benedict XVI……All these chastisements, both material and spiritual, were prophesied by Our Lady of Fatima, and are tied to the Popes’ failures to consecrate Russia for a reasons known to Heaven…….. not the world!

    Our Lord said……..’Do you think that I came to give peace upon the earth? No, I tell you, but division’. ……’And a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.” St. Luke 12:51…..St. Matthew 10:36.

    This verse is most frightening…….”When the Son of man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”….St. Luke 18:18

    Keep the Faith!…..Pray for the holy Father.

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