Crimea: Russian Language, Russian Heroes, and Russian Culture

Thousands of ethnic Russians in Crimea are protesting against the new Government in Kiev, pulling that nation towards the West. A lot of Russians still live in Crimea, but they aren't alone. Ethnic Ukrainians live in the north, Russians in the south, and a third group called Tatars in the middle. Historians still aren't exactly clear why Russia gave Crimea away in 1954.

Both Russia and the Ukraine were part of the Soviet Union at the time, and it supposedly had something to do with "strengthening brotherly ties"... but one thing is clear: Russian President Vladimir Putin has no intention of letting that "gift" slip too far from his hands. Russia has staged military drills in districts that border Ukraine, a reminder of Russia's armed power, and interest in the region.

Russian Language, Russian Heroes, and Russian Culture

Parts of Crimea including Sevastopol are described as 'little Russia' and activists there have vowed it will remain so, no matter what happens with the rest of Ukraine.

The demonstrations in Crimea serve to display the broad divide in that region, as well as the rest of Ukraine, as part of the country reaches towards the West, with the other group staunchly Pro-Russian. During protests this week, one group waved Ukrainian flags and shouted "Crimea is not Russia," while the other held Russian flags aloft and shouted "Crimea is Russia".

If for no other reason than pride alone, Putin will not let Ukraine slip from the Russian sphere of influence. In 2005 Putin called the fall of the Soviet Union the "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century". To allow Ukraine to turn to the West would make him no better than Mikhail Gorbachev, who presided over the Soviet empire’s dissolution in 1991.

Further fueling what can only be called a cultural and political divide in Crimea, when the Soviet Union dissolved, there was a desire by locals for the region to rejoin Russia, but ultimately Ukrainian and Crimean lawmakers intervened and voted to stay in Ukraine.

And don't forget Yalta. In 1945 U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchil (the Allied leaders), and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, met to divide up Europe. That meeting, which laid the groundwork for the Cold War, took place in the Crimean resort of Yalta.

In addition to the historical concerns, there is also the practical issue of the Russian Black Sea Fleet which has called Crimea home for 230 years...Ships and subs based there are just north of Turkey and can reach the Mediterranean to influence the Middle East and the Balkans. 

Sevastopol, the city where the fleet is based, clearly remains significant for Russia. In 2010, Moscow gave Ukraine a good deal on natural gas, partly in exchange for Kiev extending the Russian Navy lease on the base in Ukraine.

But there is another more sinister element to this whole story. The Tatar portion of the Ukrainian population is driving this divide. The Tatar's have an ax to grind with Russia since Stalin ejected them in the 1950's. The Tatar's are of Muslim decent, and as far as the people of Crimea are concerned, this group is seeking a Crimean Muslim state.

This is one dispute that we must stay out of. We cannot destroy US military assets and readiness, as we've allowed Barack Obama to do, and then try and be the World's police. And no one can say with any certainty that we have the right, the will, or the means to do anything other than stay quiet.

Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?

SARAH PALIN: The chicken crossed the road because, gosh-darn it, he's a maverick!

BARACK OBAMA: Let me be perfectly clear, if the chickens like their eggs they can keep their eggs. No chicken will be required to cross the road to surrender her eggs. Period.

JOHN McCAIN: My friends, the chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.

HILLARY CLINTON: What difference at this point does it make why the chicken crossed the road.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either with us or against us. There is no middle ground here.

DICK CHENEY: Where's my gun?

COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.

BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with that chicken.

AL GORE: I invented the chicken.

JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

AL SHARPTON: Why are all the chickens white?

1/4 Americans unaware Earth circles the Sun. Here's why:

(Source: Yahoo News, AFP)
Americans are enthusiastic about the promise of science but lack basic knowledge of it, with one in four unaware that the Earth revolves around the Sun, said a poll out Friday.

The survey included more than 2,200 people in the United States and was conducted by the National Science Foundation. Nine questions about physical and biological science were on the quiz, and the average score -- 6.5 correct -- was barely a passing grade.

Just 74 percent of respondents knew that the Earth revolved around the Sun, according to the results released at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago.
===

It's not an accident that Americas education system is in serious decline, adept at nothing more than breeding fools who can either carry a gun or flip a whopper. The dumbing down of America is a sinister plot based on control. Your first mistake is assuming the Education system serves to actually educate. It doesn't. It serves to create good members of the "state".

The US experimented with "Mass Education" after Sputnik but the kids who profited from one of the most expensive education systems on the planet (in that time), took up against Jim Crow and Vietnam.

Our Rulers aren't the most clever bunch, even they can learn. And learn they did, that a education leads to dissent. So who is the Father of this decline? None other than John Dewey. Dewey not only subverted the education system as a whole, he even managed to subvert the LANGUAGE of education with purposefully vague sentiments and philosophies.

From Henry Makow:

John Dewey and his friend, the influential Jewish Marxist propagandist, Sidney Hook, saw the American school system as the thin end of the wedge in their deceitful game to slowly build a secular society with no moral absolutes.

Using Rockefeller money to establish the Teachers College in New York (1922), their goal was to create a new generation not quite as bright as their parents; and with every succeeding generation, a copy, the actual content of which -- facts, data, objective truth -- faded and became less clear and comprehensible.

Replacing mathematics, geography, history and science with cooking, sewing, household management and manual training skills necessary to run machinery. And make no mistake: that dumbing down has been both damnable and deliberate.

John Dewey: 'The mere absorption of facts and truths is so exclusively an individual affair that it tends very naturally to pass into selfishness. There is not obvious social motive for the acquirement of mere learning, there is no clear social gain in success thereat.'

Educators were now indoctrinated to accept the viewpoint, based on nothing more than Dewey's belief, that "what" they taught was irrelevant; how and why they taught were the main considerations. Eventually Communist "agents of influence" took over where Dewey and company left off.

Nothing in American Education works well.  None of it is intended to work well.

Frankly, you shouldn't expect the American Education system to EVER rise again above what it is now. The entire system would have to be violently disassembled, every administrator and most of the educators with in it would have to be cut out like a cancer.

The architects of such a system must be acknowledged for who and what they are (American subversives) and dealt with accordingly.

If we don't act soon, these subversives will complete their work in destroying the foundations of a modern functioning society, and then education will be the last thing on anyone's mind...


Henry Mencken, The American Mercury, April 1924
"The aim of public education is not to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. . . . Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim . . . is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States. . . . "

Screaming from the Mountain Top

Paul Revere rode at night and proclaimed: "The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming!" With this vocal pronouncement we knew for certain that our ideas as American's were under attack. Our sovereignty was now in great peril, our right to exist as free men was in doubt.

Unfortunately, no great pronouncement was made when the Socialists arrived, though the threat is just as dangerous, if not more so. Mark my words friends, Socialism is here.

Perhaps though, it is more accurate to say that Socialism never left. And since this group of Socialists have a lot of experience with our country and system of government in particular, many of them Americans themselves, born here, they are particularly skilled at working within our system to both attack with greatest impact, while causing the smallest amount of alarm, indeed slowly boiling the frog alive.

Rep. Allan Grayson has called this phenomenon "Stealth Socialism", a Progressive darling, Grayson welcomes the change.

How does one come to believe in a Socialist ideology, and what is the ultimate outcome? Two main factors draw people into a Socialsm, which essentially means a planned economy and state control of production for (supposedly) the equal benefit of the people. 

Those who favor "State control" LOVE Socialism. Why not? The State has all the power, which is of course administered by a Ruling Class. Others are attracted to Socialism because they have been poor or powerless, and seek to take power from others by force.

This concept is actually Greek in origin. Plato had the idea there should be "guardians" or "watchers" of the State to regulate and improve the welfare of all citizens, and the State should control all the wealth in order to regulate and benefit all citizens equally.

But is it wise to grant absolute power to those who would seek it? From this idea comes the phrase, who watches the Watchers...

The inherent problem with Socialism (which was synonymous with Communism until the early 1900's) is it assumes Men can be trusted in the affairs of other Men. That, given the opportunity, absolute power won't be used to further one's own interests.

Those who seek this kind of power will stop at nothing to attain it. They will force change down onto your head if you let them. Adolf Hitler famously said: "How fortunate for leaders that men do not think..." and "...our strategy is to destroy the enemy from within, to conquer him through himself..." Socialism always ALWAYS devolves into Fascism and death.

George Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it..." So the question should be, if Socialists were really making an effort to destroy the American system and put in place a socialist system, where would you look for those signs?

How about another one from Hitler, "To conquer a nation, first disarm its citizens..."

Today we read stories about the State of Oregon attempting to change gun laws in order to accomplish what some have called gun registration, a precursor gun confiscation. The National Guard in Ohio is training to combat "anti government protesters" and "conservative right wing terrorists"... A DHS Memo even went so far as to say that domestic terrorists may recite their Constitutional rights, as an example of "extremism".

Throughout modern history, groups and individuals associated with left-wing causes have proven far more likely to commit acts of domestic terror because, as has been put on display time and time again, Left Wing Progressives will resort to any means necessary to get their way... and demonizing the enemy is usually the last step before the fighting begins.

NBC gets PINKO-eye

What you think and what you say depends on what you know and what you believe. The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on Friday, broadcast and produced by NBC, contained what can only be called a complete rewrite of Russian History.

But is it any surprise that a Communist news organization like NBC would favorably cover its heroes?

Its as if NBC got everything they know about Russian history from an all night binge session of doobies, Cheetos, and Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons...

NBC anchor Meredith Vieira called the end of the Soviet Union a "bitter sweet moment". Did Putin have one of his goons in the broadcast booth at the time controlling her words? Is she serious? This may in fact be the dumbest statement EVER muttered on TV...

She is suggesting there was something sad about the retreat of one of the greatest oppression's in modern history! Bittersweet, saluting the oppressor and lamenting its departure.

Vieira misspoke for sure, but now how you think. She should have just called the end of the "Evil" empire a "bitter moment" because that is what the end of the USSR was for the Left in America, their spiritual homeland tossed into the ash heap of history, just as Ronald Reagan said it would be.

No one should be surprised that Russia is making every effort to white wash its history, trying to persuade themselves that the years of the A-bomb, the Korean War, Soviet troops crushing the uprising in Hungary never happened.

We expect the Russians to offer up all manner of political propaganda during the games. That DOESN'T mean you should sit, agree, and nod along. And you certainly don't endeavor to deliver that propaganda back to your countrymen at home.

Someone should call NBC and remind them what the "N" in their name stands for. National.

As in our Nation. Not there's. 

No one should die with a needle in their arm...

The late Philip Seymour Hoffman was undoubtedly one of the greatest actors of his generation. His work will resonate forever. Hoffman died alone, in his apartment, with a heroine needle hanging from his arm.

The product of a single mother, he left behind 3 children. And once again the conversation about what went so terribly wrong in this mans life to have it end in such an undignified manner will undoubtedly cover everything but the topics it should cover.

Addiction and Mental Health are tied at the hip. Both exist in the mental and physical realms simultaneously, and both have a lovely relationship with drugs. Both are greatly misunderstood, and hardly treated at all. And in a lot of cases, those who suffer from life long mental health issues that go unrecognized or untreated turn to drugs to cope.

I say the phrase "mental health system" and I'm sure it brings to mind gleaming white exam rooms, and coordinated information flow...all the benefits of the most advanced health care system in the world. But that is far from the case. Instead we have too few beds, dwindling outpatient care, and many of the mentally ill simply land in jail cells.

Despite claims by the pharmaceutical companies, real mental health doesn't come in pill form, and it's not an instant cure. It takes years of practice and patience to master the art of quieting ones inner demons, and as much as we'd like...they don't ever go away for good. Our system simply isn't set up to handle this kind of long term intimate care.

Nope. Its easier to sell a pill as a cure. As anyone who has taken one of these meds will tell you, it simply masks the symptoms at best. At worst, it will create much more extreme problems. We've already discussed the number of school shootings which have as companion some sort of Anxiety or Depression medications.

Too often we inject morality into this conversations in a way that doesn't serve to help anyone. The stigma surrounding mental health issues force some to go untreated or diagnosed, others turn to drugs, both legal and illegal, and many more suffer in silence, the walking wounded. Hardly anyone learns the physical and mental skill to manage themselves.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of money in both the legal and illegal drug game...manufacturing, selling, regulating, policing, and mental health has no serious advocates. It is my fear we are continuing down a path of destruction and denying people any real chance at hope, in favor of the Almighty Dollar.

You ask, why do these school shootings keep happening? Why did those kids get killed at the mall? Why do these people who have everything destroy themselves with drugs? I have the answer to all these questions, my friends. But you aren't going to like it. This isn't going to be easy, and good mental health isn't a product I can sell you... but I do know this for sure:

No one should have to die alone with a needle in their arm. Inner demons should never be allowed to take control, we have to start teaching people another way. And we all need to agree this isn't an issue of morality...we can either judge each other, or we can help each other. Your call.