Slouching Towards Oblivion

Showing posts with label anti-war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anti-war. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Ukraine


There's a fairly robust anti-war sentiment in Russia, even though it has to be more or less subdued - people who stand up and make noise publicly face some pretty harsh retribution, both from the Kremlin and from their employers.


‘Those who unleashed aggression won’t be in heaven’
St. Petersburg priest faces criminal charges for condemning Russia’s war against Ukraine

Former priest and doctor of theology Ioann Kurmoyarov has been jailed for two months pending trial on felony charges of spreading “false information” about the Russian military. St. Petersburg’s Kalininsky District Court remanded Kurmoyarov in custody on Saturday, June 11.

According to the rights group OVD-Info, the criminal case against Kurmoyarov was launched over a video posted on YouTube, in which he condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and maintains that according to Christian dogma, those who unleashed the war will go to hell.


Kurmoyarov was arrested at his home on June 7. Following a search of the residence, law enforcement seized Kurmoyarov’s cell phone, laptop, and tablet, as well as his cassock, two icons, and a wooden cross.

A linguistic analysis from St. Petersburg State University concluded that Kurmoyarov expressed “deliberately false information” about the Russian Armed Forces. If convicted, he will face between five and ten years in prison.

On Saturday, Kurmoyarov’s lawyer Leonid Krikun reported that he had been denied access to his client. Krikun visited two separate remand prisons and a temporary detention center, only to be told by prison staff that the priest was not in custody at any of these facilities.

Ioann Kurmoyarov lived in Ukraine until 2018, where he served in the parish of a Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the Vinnytsia region. Kurmoyarov moved to Russia after Ukraine’s Security Service brought administrative charges against him for posting an image of the St. George ribbon on Facebook. (Ukraine banned the St. George ribbon in 2017.)

After moving to Russia, Kurmoyarov taught at a theological seminary in Novosibirsk. In June 2020, he was suspended by the Russian Orthodox Church and eventually fired from his post for criticizing the Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces in a Facebook post (Kurmoyarov denounced the newly built cathedral a “pagan temple”).

Kurmoyarov successfully petitioned the suspension and was given three months to transfer to another diocese. He left Novosibirsk for St. Petersburg, but found himself blackballed within the Church — allegedly due to the influence of Novosibirsk’s Metropolitan Nikodim.

In an attempt to return to service, Kurmoyarov filed a claim against Metropolitan Nikodim with an ecclesiastical court. The Novosibirsk diocese responded by filing a counterclaim against Kurmoyarov.

Nevertheless, Kurmoyarov continued to criticize the Russian military cathedral. In an open letter to Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, he called for the removal of frescoes with communist symbols from the cathedral. Later, at the end of 2021, Kurmoyarov asked the Russian Interior Ministry, FSB, and Investigative Committee to bring charges against Shoigu for “offending religious sentiment.”

In January 2022, a court recommended that Metropolitan Nikodim formally defrock Kurmoyarov. This came shortly after the priest was admitted to the Moscow diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA).

Kurmoyarov was officially defrocked in April. The Russian Orthodox Church accused him of conducting “active media activities in support of Ukraine’s nationalist regime,” spreading “fake news” about the Russian military, and participating in a “schismatic organization.”

Sunday, April 17, 2022

Ukraine & Russia

Ol' Doc Maddow with a look at how some Russians insist on their freedom to speak out against Mr Putin's war.

The A Block ends at about 6:20



And the culprit?

Here's another look at just how wide and deep Russian corruption is - the labels say "TNT".

The Ukrainians unwrap them and find nothing but wood.


Saturday, March 05, 2022

Hope For Russia

When a government loses its shit, and puts on its war face, the people who plead for sanity are always the ones labeled as crazy.

When "the strong" go to war, the ones who stand up to them - unarmed - are always labeled as weak.

War is a mental illness.

The Guardian:

Thursday, February 24, 2022

Today's Tweet



"War with Ukraine - Russia's shame"

Monday, May 29, 2017

Today's Today


What they teach us to think it is



Daylight again, following me to bed
I think about a hundred years ago, how my fathers bled
I think I see a valley, covered with bones in blue
All the brave soldiers that cannot get older 

Been askin' after you
Hear the past a callin', 
From Armageddon's side
When everyone's talkin' and no one is listenin', 
How can we decide?

Find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground
Mother earth will swallow you, lay your body down

Find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground
Mother earth will swallow you, lay your body down

 What it actually is






Monday, May 30, 2016

Today's Today

It's said that every one of us is unique; that we all see the cosmos differently, and exist in it in our own way.  Some of those differences are slight and some are vast; but different, and personal and one-of-a-kind. So in a very important way, every time somebody dies, an entire universe dies with them. 

We should prob'ly keep that in mind when we're fixing to kill somebody; when we're sending people out to kill our "enemies".  

Remembering that all those universes are connected and intertwined - one with all the others, without even knowing who those others are - we're asking those people to kill part of us, and part of themselves as well.



And on the continuing theme of personal responsibility - holding ourselves ultimately accountable for our own actions:


You don't have much of a war 
if nobody shows up to fight


World War Something --Marc Wilson:








At some point, we have to start to wonder - what was all the fuss about?  Politics?  The color scheme of a flag?  Imaginary lines on a paper map?   

I See You And I Love You Still


Still --Alanis Morrisette





I am the harm which you inflict
I am your brilliance and frustration
I'm the nuclear bombs if they're to hit
I am your immaturity and your indignance

I am your misfits and your praised
I am your doubt and your conviction
I am your charity and your rape
I am your grasping and expectation

I see you averting your glances
I see you cheering on the war
I see you ignoring your children
And I love you still, and I love you still

I am your joy and your regret
I am your fury and your elation
I am your yearning and your sweat
I am your faithless and your religion

I see you altering history
I see you abusing the land
I see you, your selective amnesia
And I love you still, and I love you still

I see you averting your glimpses
I see you cheering on the war
I see you ignoring your children
And I love you still, and I love you still

I see you altering history
I see you abusing the land
I see you, your selective amnesia
I love you still, and I love you still

I am your tragedy and your fortune
I am your crisis and delight
I am your profits and your prophets
I am your art, I am your bytes

I am your death and your decisions
I am your passion and your plights
I am your sickness and convalescence
I am your weapons and your light

I see you holding your grudges
I see you gunning them down
I see you silencing your sisters
And I love you still, and I love you still

I see you lie to your country
I see you forcing them out
I see you blaming each other
And I love you still, and I love you still

I see you holding your grudges
I see you gunning them down
I see you silencing your sisters
I love you still, I love you still

I see you lie to your country
I see you forcing them out
I see you blaming each other
I love you still, I love you still, I see you

Songwriters
MORISSETTE, ALANIS / SHEARER, JOEL

Tuesday, January 05, 2016

An Acculturated Callousness

In WWI, civilian casualties accounted for about 10% of the total.  By the time we got around to invading Iraq almost 100 years later, that number had climbed to 90%. 

It's pretty simple really.  First, it's a transaction - there's lotsa people, so we can spend them - the cost of war.   

Second, in spite of our efforts to impose "Rules Of War", WWII made it very clear that nothing much had actually changed at all. 

Counter Force = kill their soldiers; destroy their weapons and equipment 
Counter Value = destroy roads and bridges and factories and farms
Counter Collateral = kill their people - the ones who become the soldiers, build the roads and grow the food.

Whoever loses the least gets to call themselves the winners, and put the other guys on trial for "war crimes".

All of that gets real clear about 42 minutes into this film:

Monday, December 28, 2015

Teach The World To Sing

The Message Manipulators seem to be bent on stripping away the soul from all of us by reducing everything to a transaction and creating a world of de-humanizing commercialism.

I've been part of that.  I was with them for a long time.  No more.  And never again.

But there are times when my eternally insistent skepticism (which always teeters on the brink of The Cynical Abyss) is tested.  



Wouldn't it be nice if this was more than just another attempt to co-opt something that should be a lot more meaningful than making us smell less like humans. (not that there's anything wrong with smelling better - just sayin')

hat tip = Facebook friend MH