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More commentsReader comment on item: Uncovering Early Islam Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Jun 29, 2012 at 14:40 the Grand Infidel of Kaffiristan wrote : > re Katyn, Ianus writes: "The problem is not who was originally blamed for it but rather who first put the affair into circulation and to achieve what goals? So the fact that Stalin blamed the Germans for his massacre of 20,000 Polish officers is inconsequential? Ok, if that's how you see it.<< Not how I see it , but as Dr. Goebbels does. He writes on the 14th of April 1943: "We are now using the discovery of 12,000 Polish officers, murdered by the GPU for anti-Bolshevik propaganda on a grand style. We sent neutral journalists and Polish intellectuals to the spot where they were found. Their reports now reaching us from ahead are gruesome. The Führer has also given permission for us to hand out a drastic news item to the German press. I gave instructions to make the widest possible use of the propaganda material. We shall be able to live on it for a couple of weeks." Indeed, he lived on it for a couple of weeks.The West has been living on it for a couple of decades now, and seems to be living on it for a couple of centuries yet. > "You e.g. repeated anti-communist slogans I had read in Nazi literature without any pangs of conscience." You mean me personally - I have repeated anti-Communist slogans found in Nazi literature? Amazing, as I've never,ever read any Nazi anti-Communist propaganda in my entire life. I will admit to having more than a teaspoon of German blood in my veins - so perhaps it's a genetic thing then - the ability to spot a crock and say so? What was it I was alleged to have repeated that is so offensive to communists?< No, I didn't mean you personally , of course , nor did I suspect you of having read Nazi literature. It would be too heretical and dangerous for a Westerner to do it. What I meant was that the gentlemen who control the public opinion in the West heavily relied on the Nazi propaganda and it is how the same things one finds in the Nazi propaganda one also sees in the output of the Western propganda machine. Unawareness of the source doesn't mean the material is original. "Do you think that everybody is so happy with repeating Dr. Goebbels' speeches and guidelines ?" I don't know - you would have to ask them when and if that occurred. I can see why you didn't mention the accompanying text on that icon link. Which showed in how much esteem he was held in by all Russians. "A scandal flared up due to the incident with an icon portraying Joseph Stalin put up in the Church of Grand Princess St. Olga, Equal-to-the-Apostles, in Strelna, under St. Petersburg. The absurd situation attracted "Communists of St. Petersburg" who took the news of Father Evstafy as a sky-sign and printed about three thousand icons depicting the Kremlin tyrant alone and with a halo above his head [above- MK] and distributed the icons in the city." Perfect.< I would call it "different perspectives" if they added also as detailed opinions of those who had the icons painted and hung in the church as their opponents'.But this would not be politically correct. What would the PC Westerners say to that? "What is "Western" nowadays? Demographic decline,degradation of school system, breakdown of family life, corruption scandals, addictions, hostile immigration, hedonism, ignorance of one's identity and past ? If this is being "Western" , then yes, we are Western and I do hate it !" Jungian psychology will show you we see the world how we are - and not as it is. We project our own clarity - or confusion and frustration - onto the outside world and other people. Every society has its ills - but people not taking responsibilities for their own state of mind is not your responsibility. So why do you feel to hate it? I'm not going to tell you how to suck eggs but whatever is happening in your world is pretty much beyond your personal control - the most logical thing to do is to change how you experience it.< Do you know the proverb "Doctor, heal thyself!"? The above probably describes your own psychoanalytical situation. As to me on reading your well-meant comment I thought about your earlier statement that the communist system was a failure suggesting the present one isn't . Well, in 1998 the World Bank published an interesting study "Income, inequality, and poverty during the transition from Planned to Market Economy" by Branko Milanovic. It examines Socialist countries , including the USSR in terms of their economic performance as compared to the results of economic "reforms". The conclusions are very interesting and revealing indeed : "The total estimated number of the poor in the eighteen countries has risen twelvefold from nearly 14 million before the transition or about 4 percent of the population, to 168 million in 1993-95, or approximately 45 percent of the population." (p. 67) So first, you call the system that created 4% poverty a failure while the system that creates 45% poverty seems to you to be a "success"? Interesting. Well, for some clever speculators that got rich quick in those years it must have been a big time "success" looting income that had belonged previously to 168 mln people ! Now given the incredible fact that objective reality does exist and is not a figment of my imperfect soul , the Jungian psychology and any recommendations based on it do need a serious reconsideration, I am afraid. > But why are Poles now flirting with the devil and experimenting with excess? Is it because before that, they had no freedom to choose to do the wrong thing by themselves? It really is a learning process for society as a whole. Extremes are tested, people find they lead nowhere - and return to their roots. The same thing happens everywhere. Though I have to say the one thing in that list which should not be allowed of course is hostile immigration.< It depends. This is a crucial element if the applied theory of chaos is to work with all its destructive energy. A country with a healthy, nationally-minded, patriotic and morally and demographically sound population cannot be manipulated and exploited at all by outside forces, e.g. predatory finance capitalism.What you need therefore is undermine and desintegrate such a population with its pride, history, mentality and identity. How ? With a hostile immigration you will depict as a great luck and wisdom while in fact it will turn out to be a source of great and irreparable evil as all hostile immigration to the West clearly shows. GIK: "I'm not sure how we go from my statement i.e. 'the past is unchanging' to 'nothing has consequences' .Can you explain your reasoning?< Ianus "It's up to you to explain to me why you are looking for excuses not to blame the US for all the evil it has done to Christianity ! Or maybe you will blame the USSR, Stalin and communism and not the US for the destroyed and desecrated churches of Northern Cyprus and Kosovo and Islamization of teh Balkans ?" I'm simply stating a law of physics. No more than that. You now make it your business to somehow make it out that I am looking for excuses not to blame all the evil in the world to Americans. Very strange.< And I was not talking about ALL the evil in the world. Cuique suum. I was talking about "the destroyed and desecrated churches of Northern Cyprus and Kosovo and Islamization of the Balkans" . Any alternative ideas based on quantum physics or any other science as to who is to blame for that ?A butterfly fluttering its sinister wings on a Russian military base in Kaliningrad ? "Second, I have never heard that the military stationed in Estonia was added to Estonia's population census.If they were , then Estonia must have been the most militarized region in the world- even more militarized than Northern Cyprus." > Ok - so until you actually know the facts - the rest of your statements are just assumptions as well. The only figure I can find is that in 1992 - well after the fall of communism in "some 25,000 Russian troops were reported left in Estonia, the smallest contingent in the Baltic states." So presumably there were a lot more Soviet troops located there before then.< According to you there should have been no Soviet troops on the territory that was the most likely direction of a NATO attack in an expected war against the USSR? There are not so many ways to get to Moscow as those Charles XII , Napoleon or Hitler used. ". I can e.g. enumerate several factories in the neighborhood which the Americans bought , ruined and then shut down. There are various ways of eliminating competition." The Chinese almost use this as a matter of policy - yet you make no mention of that.< In fact they are building in the vicinity a carpet factory. Curious, isn't it? > I have seen this happen here as well - in fact today I'm going to a factory that has been shut down - nearly completely due' to lack of insight by its former American owners. They are the ones who lost out big time - not the locals.< Are you sure? No locals work in the factory?Have the Americans already shifted to slave/coolie labour yet ? "What a contrast to the two decades before 1970. In 1946 - 929 000 ; in 1970 - 1 350 000! Incredible 69% ! If everything was so bad in the USSR for the poor Estonians as you and they assert, then why was their demography so good ?" Quite simple - internal Soviet migrations - primarily from Russia - followed by Ukraine. Does the figure you give include the 80000 Estos deported to gulags? Where did you get those "80 000" from ? In an article about Estonia they say "In response to the continuing insurgency against Soviet rule,more than 20,000 Estonians were forcibly deported either to labor camps or Siberia" . And further : "In the face of the country being re-occupied by the Red Army, tens of thousands of Estonians (including a majority of the education, culture, science, political and social specialists) (estimates as many as 80,000) chose to either retreat with the Germans or flee to Finland or Sweden." Didn't you mix up figures to look more dramatic ? Note that during the war the Estonians say they lost more than 200 000 people, around 25% of the population.Don't you think that this explains better the decline in the percentage of Estonians from 88,11% in 1934 to 74,59% in 1959? And internal immigration was necessary as Estonia under the Soviet regime changed from agrarian to industrialized economy. Who could build factories and power plants in Estonia ? Estonian peasants ? Note also that Estonia's short-lived economic "rise" was a bubble that burst in 2009 making Estonia one of the hardest hit economies of Europe. Who in Europe needs Estonia's production while for political reasons it closes its borders on its only natural market - Russia ? "In your "most prosperous economy in Europe" it is more profitable to clean latrines in Australia or the UK than work in an Estonian office" >Why does the world seem so bleak to you - why do you always picture the worst outcome?< I don't care about 'bleak or bright" "the worst outcome or the best outcome". What I care about is truth. Now why must the truth be identical with "bright" or "the best outcome" to your mind ? Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments". 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