Putin: The World’s Champion of Homophobia Travels to Cuba
Isbel Diaz
HAVANA TIMES – Russian President Vladimir Putin, perhaps the most powerful homophobic leader on the planet, will be received with a great song and dance this Friday in Havana, where he is to meet with his counterpart Raul Castro.
Is there any way to convey a recommendation to the Eurasian country on behalf of the Cuban government, in defense of the victims of the LGBT community in Russia, or do the rules of diplomacy preclude such a daring gesture? Could those of us who make up Cuba’s civil society do it?
The fact of the matter is that Russia has become a champion of backward legislative reforms that curtail the liberties of its citizens in the name of supposed “traditional values”, values the country has sought to export to the rest of the world.
In 2012, the UN Human Rights Council approved a resolution advanced by the Russian delegation, titled “Promotion of human rights and fundamental liberties through a better understanding of the traditional values of humanity,” a proposal that was rejected by human rights activists around the world.
Around that time, the renowned members of the Russian feminist band PussyRiot were imprisoned for criticizing Putin at a Moscow cathedral, where they staged a “punk mass” critical of the president.
This side of the planet, we tend to think that Latin Americans are particularly macho and homophobic, but the truth is that, in Russia, homosexuality is still considered “morally unacceptable” by a considerable part of the population.
This posture has received the support of the Russian Duma, which, in 2013, approved a controversial law aimed at prohibiting any type of “homosexual propaganda” around the country, a law that had already become effective in Saint Petersburg and nine other regions in Russia in 2012.
The law aims to “protect children,” in view of the fact that “homosexual propaganda has become very strong in Russia.” Further down, the law states that “the family, maternity and infancy in their traditional conception (…) represent values that ensure uninterrupted generational replacement” and, as such, “must be vigorously defended by the State.” Children must be protected “from factors that have a negative impact on their physical, intellectual, psychological, spiritual and moral development,” the promoters of this law tell us.
For Nikolai Alexeyev, a renowned champion of gay rights in Russia, the law implies that everything, from events to banners demanding gay rights, will be prohibited and organizers fined. It could also mean that members of the LGBT community will be prosecuted simply for holding hands on the street or kissing in public.
In 2012, Alexeyev filed a suit aimed at eliminating a norm issued by the Moscow city hall prohibiting pro-gay rallies in the Russian capital for the next 100 years, but the main Moscow court ratified the prohibition.
Hate crimes and cases of rape are common news for the Russian press thanks to this slap on the back homophobes have gotten from the government. All the while, LGBT activists are beaten on the street and arrested by the police when they protest.
All of this worries me deeply. The desire to ensure an uninterrupted generational replacement is shared by our politicians, troubled by the island’s aging population, low birth rates and (even though they don’t say it) by the emigration of young people of both genders in their reproductive age.
It worries me because the idea that “homosexual propaganda has become very strong” is also constantly expressed here at home, in pro-religious blogs written in Cuba, in the comments of those who witness the small, multi-colored conga line that traverses Havana’s 23 street once a year in May.
All of this is so despite the fact that the Cuban government has been ignoring the proposal to modify the country’s current Family Code (which at least partially recognizes same-sex partnerships) for years, and that there are no substantial laws that protect members of the LGBT community from discrimination.
Will our government entertain the homophobic initiatives of this Asian power, or, on the contrary, will Raul Castro give Putin some of the informative flyers produced by the National Center for Sexual Education? It would be good to know this beforehand.
I also wonder whether anyone will tell Putin how, in January of 2014, Cuban authorities captured the Russian neo-Nazi leader Maxim Martsinkevich, a notorious torturer of homosexuals from Russia and other East European countries. Martsinkevich was the leader of a far-right group called Format18 and the organization Occupy Pedophilia, a group which, since 2011, had been torturing and humiliating young homosexuals and promoting racism.
One needn’t be a rocket scientist to see the correlation between this rise in Russian extremist groups and the reactionary measures of a government that is blind to the democratic progress that has been made in this area around the world, a government with enough economic power to ignore international law and even the Human Rights Charter.
Years ago, Cuba received the unpresentable president of Iran, a nation where members of the LGBT community are hanged for the simple fact of expressing their love publicly. Neither the Cuban government nor press condemned those practices and laws. No Cuban State institution that combats homophobia and discrimination condemned them either.
Will the same thing happen now? Will Cuba’s Granma newspaper speak of the “affection” we feel towards Putin in Cuba? Will members of our Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) be called on to wave at the Russian millionaire responsible for the suffering of many human beings in his country? Are such glaring contradictions possible?
Or has the old slogan to the effect that our principles are not negotiable been discarded by Cuba’s political elites?
The games of diplomacy, the traps of money, geopolitical alliances, pardoned debts and various other affinities are the important thing here, let no one be deluded enough to think otherwise.
It is no accident that, in April of this year, Raul Castro and the Cuban Minister of the Interior met with the Chair of Russia’s Investigations Committee, and that, at the end of that same month, the Cuban president received and met with the Russian Foreign Minister.
They’re cooking something behind closed doors, though the press tells us they met to “go over the magnificent state of bilateral relations.”
Despite this, some lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals in Cuba look on this with suspicion.
None can say what have happened if. Please get that.
Then, I have other numbers regarding hibakusha
They are more than 400 000 and the number is still ticking.
Thankfully it was only the US that used nuclear weapons against civilian targets and no other country. It has lo live with that shame for all time.
And yes, the Japanese army was a terrible killing machine. No doubt about their horrific crimes, where Nanking was the worst of all. The victims in Nanking didi stop counting when the crime was over. The victims of Hiroshima, Nagasaki (and Viet Nam) are still increasing. As we speak.
Why would the war have stopped? Please be specific. The Japanese government had refused several formal demands to surrender.
“In number of killed (and generations affected) the Hiroshima and Nagasaki cases are of course the worst.”
More people were killed in the Rape of Nanking than in Hiroshima & Nagasaki combined.
Horoshima & Nagasaki: 250,000 dead
Rape of Nanking: 400,000 dead.
I could list dozen more similar atrocities committed by the Japanese. The Korean “comfort some” continue to suffer from their ordeal as sex slaves to the Japanese soldiers. Estimates rage from 360,000 to 400,000 victims.
You aren’t very good with numbers are you?
Mariel Castro was quoted from an interview she gave to the Ottawa Citizen, published on July 8th, 2014.
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/diplomatica-i-believe-in-the-project-cuba-is-developing-cuban-presidents-daughter-says
Nope, I didn’t say (and never will) that some terror actions are less bad than other. In number of killed (and generations affected) the Hiroshima and Nagasaki cases are of course the worst.
By defending the atom bombs it is you who says that was good terror. I repeat it once again: there is only terror. That simple!
And the war may have continued. Maybe not. You don’t know. Neither do I, but I have the capacity to admit that.
You can never say “what had happened if…”. The only you can say is what is happening now and what really did. But no if.
Oh, but you do judge Bad and Good terror. As you see it, according to what you wrote above, ( ” is what I call the worst act of terror in history”) … anything the US did is the Baddest, and anything anybody else did is less bad, or good, or simply doesn’t count.
And of course the war would have continued. The most likely scenario is that it would have continued in the same path it had been going: a slow brutal defeat of Japan, stretching over several bloody months. The Japanese Imperial Army would have carried on slaughtering civilians because that is what it had been doing for the previous 35 years, ever since they invaded Korea.
To pretend it would have stopped all by itself, or that nobody could have any idea what would have happened otherwise is engaging in childish magical thinking.
To condemn the military operation which brought a swift and sudden end to the war is a moral perversion.
Mariel said, “humans organize themselves according to state policy?”
What is the source for that story?
Virtual dictator? You have a curious impression of family life, John. it must have been hard growing up in the Goodrich household, eh?
Can we assume you are not a father? By that I don’t mean a sperm donator who knocked up a woman and split when the baby was born. I mean an actual father who helped raise a child. There is a useful guide for parenting: one should be authoritative, not authoritarian.
Surely you are not advocating that children should be raised in a manner in which they have equal authority and responsibilities as the adults? Children are not capable of such roles nor would it be healthy for them to be placed in positions of adult authority and responsibility. Children need strong parents who protect, guide, teach and most importantly, love them.
You assert that brute force was the most important and defining characteristic of a father. Again, that is curious. In fact, the most important characteristic of any parent is love. Love binds the father to the mother. Love binds the parent to the child. Love binds the child to the parent. Without love, the family unit would not hold. Without the family unit holding, the child’s life is in danger. If the child dies, the parents will not pass on their genetic material. Therefore, in evolutionary biological terms, the capacity to love is a positive genetic trait, selected for by the forces of natural selection.
This condition was especially true in prehistoric societies. It remains true today. However, the modern social welfare systems have worked to undermine or weaken the forces of natural selection. Today, it is quite possible in modern Western societies to impregnate a woman in a selfish, unloving relationship, and then leave her & the child to be raised at the expense of the taxpayers. Your kind call that social justice.
Yet the result has been a social disaster, with large numbers of fatherless children growing up without decent male role models. These boys are seduced into the gangster culture we see all around us today, where violent, misogynist narcissistic males are held up as ideals and women are denigrated as hoes and bitches. Is that the ideal society you advocate?
No wonder you nurture a perverse admiration for narcissist dictators while despising your own democratically elected leaders. Your political views reflect your family values.
“I would invite you and all believers to reread Leviticus in its entirety and notice that except for the proscription on homosexuality ( amongst men) , none of the other laws laid down in Leviticus are followed today ”
Where exactly is that law followed?
By the way, the Kosher laws listed in Leviticus are still followed by observant Jews.
I watched Hitchens video. Aside from the tedium of listening to a smug atheist drone on about what he does not understand (and I generally like Hitchens’ work) it was not much to suffer. My faith survived unscathed.
Not, I am not saying anytning but: There are no “if we had” in history. There is what it is or what it was.
What I am saying also is that there is no “bad” and “good” terror depending on who commits it. There is just terror.
I know, as little as you also do, how the war had ended if the bombs had not been used.
And to remind you: The victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki continue to die today as a consequence of the bombs.
There are also other examples of war crimes with chemical weapons used by US in the war in Viet Nam agains civilians where the victims suffer the pain even these days.
Once again, what I say is there is no good terror just because there is a government or a military organization behind it.
Are you saying that if the US had not used the atom bomb the war would have ended anyway? You pretend the war would have ended in some other magical way. That’s not an argument, it’s fantasy. The Japanese generals who spoke about it after the war were very clear; they would never have surrendered.
If, as you say, terror is terror, then killing with an atom bomb is no more terrible than killing with a conventional explosive or a bullet. Therefore, you contradict your earlier claim that the American use of the atom bombs was the worst terrorist attack in history.
Yes, the victims of Hiroshima died. Some of them in a painless instant and some in terrible agony. Were their deaths more terrible than the 300,000 victims of the Japanese Rape of Nanking? There were thousands of documented incidents within the Nanking Massacre in which acts of sheer sadistic brutality were done without any military necessity. Japanese soldiers and officers held competitions to see who could rape and murder the most victims. Does it not rank a spot on your list of “worst terrorist acts ever”?
During the Japanese retreat from Philippines, Manchuria and Korea, the JIA carried out mass killings of civilians, for the simple reason they wanted nobody alive when they left. In this way they murdered 3 million civilians in 1945. Is that on you list?
In war, the only consolation we can take is that fewer deaths is better than more deaths. Estimates of US and Japanese casualties which would have resulted from an invasion of the main Japanese islands range into the millions. Oh and by the way, both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military targets. Both cities had major armaments industries and large military bases.
Now perhaps you have access to better information and are capable of more incisive analysis than the US generals who made the invasion plans. Or maybe you’re just naive and uninformed.
It is true that Japan, most certainly, had refused to surrender. We know japanese have troubles with that thing called honor.
But what you are saying has not sense. You know that the history doesn’t know about any “if”.
So “if the war had gone on longer…” is no excuse.
On the other side you are saying that there is “good terror” (US) and “bad terror” (Japan). Let me tell you: there is ONLY one terror. Not good, nor bad. Just one.
There is the same kind of terror when the victims are civilian no matter they live in Japan, New York or Pakistan. And regardless of whether there is an atom bomb, an airplane or a drone that kills them. Terror is what it is: violent acts that create or, are intended to create, fear and where the targets are civilians.
Your premise and thus your conclusions are fatally flawed. It’s why your rambling diatribe is so full of logical fallacy’s, and misdirection. It is particularly easy for you to slip up John as you have strong feelings about your topi (your conclusion seems obvious to you)
So the brown people of Afghanistan are “primitive” while white Western societies are more advanced and civilized.
(pssst: your inner racist is showing!)
In each of the last six months of WWII, the Japanese Imperial Army murdered 500,000 civilians in China, Korea & the Philippines. If the war had gone on longer, they would have slaughtered millions more civilians.
Although their defeat was inevitable, Japan had refused to surrender. They publicly proclaimed their willingness to fight to the death even if it cost the lives of every last Japanese. By using the two atom bombs on Japan, at a cost of 175 thousand dead, the US shocked Japan into surrendering, thereby saving the lives of tens of millions of people who would have died had the war gone on.
Blaming the nuclear family for FGM is ridiculous. There are other certain cultural influences which endorse FGM. Blaming the family for it makes as much sense as blaming their diet. Eating humous & pita causes FGM!
You think that having a “village” raise children is a better choice? If sick idiots like you are in that village, I don’t want you any where near my children!
Rape is rape, Tim. It doesn’t matter what the gender or orientation of the rapist is.
Ironically, the Russian military is well known for the practice of brutal sexual assaults against young recruits by the older NCO’s. Oh, but they aren’t homes! No, just manly men doing what comes naturally.
I am sorry about what you describe your relatives experienced. Yes, it was close to you and maybe that’s why you feel so.
But what you are saying is that the purpose always justifies the methods and I am not agree with that and, I hope, never will.
I am not defending any crime Japan or Germany, or even the USSR committed at the SWW, but does it sound to you to kill houndreds of thousands civilians for many generations to come? Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the places. I will some day visit the cities and honor the memory of those inocent civilians killed by the bombs.
Yes, Stalin was a terrbile dictator that didn’t hesitate to kill even his closest officers and what to expect about simple soldiers and common people? He was responsible for actions and decisions that caused thousands of casualties at war. He didn’t kill directly but hes agents committed horrible crimes. He won the war over Germany and that was his target. Once again, maybe as you do, he thought the method was justified by the purpose.
In today’s Russia he is considered as a dictator and hes crimes have been documented and are well known
Former I was concerned by the US as the world police just because, in general, Americans do not know much about other countries’ history, culture, religion. Many people think that what they call democracy can work everywhere the same way as it does in the US and that’s not true.
Historically the US have supported many dictators if, and only if, they served the US interests in the region.
Remeber Fulgencio Batista in Cuba?
Pinochet in Chile or Mobutu in Congo? The list is far larger. Tell me if you want more (and more recient) examples.
When a president, like Jacobo Arbenz, tried to make some progress that affected US companies, the government and the CIA was there ready to kill.
But the world is becoming a multi-polar one now and that is something I am very very happy for.
clap, clap, clap!
What a pity Mr. Goodrich that your knowledge does not match your ability to be abusive!
If the Castro brothers shun leader worship, why do they have those enormous posters of themselves plastered all over Cuba? Why are the “noticea” (news programs) on TV preceeded by a film clip of Raul Castro Ruz raising the hand to the heavens of Fidel Castro Ruz? You call that shunning leader worship? Whereas in your own Country the poster worship is of Coca Cola and MacDonalds, in Cuba it is the Castros and Dr. Ernesto Guevara – he who personally executed people and supervised the execution of over 350 Cubans without trial.
Time for you to pay a visit to reality Mr. Goodrich!
I remember my uncle emerging from Japanese captivity. Although 6′ 2″ tall he weighed 82 lbs. My Great-Aunt a medical missionary in China survived the Japanese invasion of 1938 and the bombing of Nanking. Later in 1942 she was imprisoned by the Japanese and I well recall her returning home to recuperate and her condition. Having returned to China she was imprisoned in 1948 by Mao Tse Tung who had her put on trial in the public square in Yichang when she was sentenced to death or expulsion.
What do you think about the Burma railway and the slave labour of allied prisoners used by companies including Nissan and Mitsuibishi? What do you think of the Japanese not signing the Geneva Convention? How many more allied military would you have been prepared to sacrifice in order to save Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Remember that following the first bomb, Japan itself having been given the opportunity decided not to surrender.
I am not supporting nuclear warfare, but for those of us who had already suffered six years of warfare, the reluctant surrender by Hirohito was wonderful and it would be hypocritical not to admit that.
There is nothing to like about war. For my generation it involved having over twelve years of food and clothing rationing, going to our air-raid shelter at 1.00 a.m. when the sirens sounded, listening to the bombs dropping, hearing the different sounds of the fighter planes and the Dornier bombers with the bum-bum-bum of their diesel engines. Subsequently having to do military service. witnessing thousands of displaced persons stateless and living in hut encampments in Western Germany being unable to return home to Eastern Europe – this until ten years after the war, when Western Germany regained sovereignty. The first Bill to be put in front of the German Bundestag (in Bonn at that time) by a wonderful Chancellor Konrad Adenaur was to abolish the death penalty – this he said (in German) Is to ensure that my country can never again kill a man legally.
Following the installation of the Iron Curtain from the Baltic to the Black Sea by the USSR – it wasn’t to keep the west out but to keep the captive nations in – we had the Cold War until 1989 when the Communist Block happily rotted from within and over a dozen nations became free! When given the opportunity, none elected communist governments.
Whereas we may not agree about whether democratic socialism, liberalism, conservatism or even the US Tea Party
are preferable, we have the good fortune to be able to openly discuss our differences and to vote for what and whom we individually choose. That is the pearl and we are the fortunate.
Are these questions from Anarchy 101?
Not all of us Mr. Goodrich are dependent upon the writings of others for our information. What makes you think that I don’t speak and write German? I’ve lived in Germany! In addition to my father had an apartment in Vienna from 1945 until 1997. You should understand that some of us have actual experience and can speak from .memory
You appear to question the validity of what I wrote, rather than learning from it!
Do you Mr. Goodrich deny any of the following?
That the UK declared war upon National Socialist Germany in September 1939 following issuing an ultimatum to Hitler? (I remember Chamberlin addressing the nation on the BBC and the subsequent installation of an air raid siren on the school roof.
That Communist USSR and National Socialist Germany entered into a pact to conquer and divide Poland, with the signatories being Molotov and Ribbentrop?
That the USSR slaughtered 15,000 Polish prisoners at Katyn?
That the French Prime Minister and the Head of the French Military both resigned leaving France headless prior to it capitulating?
That the USSR only entered the Second World War in 1941 following Germany attacking it with Operation Barbarosa?
That the British Navy ran convoys to Murmansk to supply the USSR with armaments to fight Germany and that the bulk of those supplies were produced by the USA?
That in December 1941, Hitler declared war upon the USA not the reverse?
That the Castro regime took military action in 13 countries?
If you deny any of the above, please do give the source supporting you as I realise that you are dependent upon others for your information.
How would YOUR family structure and operation compare with a family in the tribal areas of Afghanistan or Pakistan, or Egypt where 90% of the women have their clitorises sawed off by a male-dominated nuclear family structure ?
Of course children lack the knowledge and experience to make their own decisions.
As for taking your child from you, doesn’t the forcing of most women and mothers to have to work take their children away from them ?
Children would all be better off raised by a village where a broader spectrum of knowledge and experience prepare them for life.
This does not take anyone’s children away from the parents but enhances and broadens their life experiences.
Child abuse, spousal abuse of all sorts is much harder to hide in a communal setting .
My belief systems are centered upon democratic processes and yes, that does make me an odd duck amidst the hundreds of millions of U.S. citizens who prefer totalitarian belief systems.
A question for you:
Which of the four pillars of U.S. society, capitalism, the oligarchy that is the government, religion and the nuclear family do you consider in any way structurally or functionally democratic in nature ?
If these are the basic institutions of this society , is this not a totalitarian society in mind and body ?
The nuclear family is a primitive structure necessary back when the strength of the male was an absolute necessity for the survival of the family, in a wild primitive world.
The male is still most often the total dictator or the power in the household and especially in the more primitive cultures .
I would invite you again, for the fourth or fifth time to read Christopher Hitchens’ “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything ” so you can understand the totalitarian nature of all religions.
If you believe the Christian stuff, if you do not accept the deity of Christ , you go to eternal hell.
That says believe this bullshit or suffer a fate worse than death.
As Hitchens points out in his 12:59 minute excerpt at You-Tube entitled ” The Falsity and Immorality Of Christianity, your religion amounts to a “celestial North Korea” except that in the DRK unlike in Christianity when you’re dead , the punishment ends.
In Christianity , the real punishment only begins AFTER .you’re dead .
See, Moses…your faith in your beliefs is so weak that you dare not look at anything I propose you see.
Because you have only the one side of things to call upon when debating, you are at a distinct disadvantage and are constantly being intellectually embarrassed .
Because you are so limited , you don’t ever realize that you have been embarrassed.
The Uzi comment was weak but you make a point for my side because any child that has been told that they are going to hell and burn forever from the time they can understand the words ,grows up to feel they HAVE to go to church.
Brainwashing is more effective than using an Uzi to get people to do something they normally would reject.
Like your love for totalitarian systems.
Can you present even one credible source that shares you demented definition of socialism/communism. You have claimed a wide selection of institutions of higher learning share your opinions. Name one please. Please cite the source. Stop running from me and man up or admit you were “bullsh*ting”.
The nuclear family is usually a mother, a father and the children.
In some societies there is an extended family with uncles, grandparents, nieces etc
In primitive human history , the man ,being stronger in a time when strength, sinew was of utmost importance for survival , the male was the head of household and the virtual dictator by virtue of force .
In the more primitive societies such as in Afghanistan, that male head of household still holds absolute power even of life and death over family members
. In more civilized, educated, advanced societies there is more democratic equality in these relationships.
Capitalism enforces the nuclear family structure economically . The father has to earn the money to feed, clothe, house his family .
SFB,
In debating, when you take whole passages from other ‘s writings , you are supposed to acknowledge /cite the author and work .
About the Soviets fighting the Nazis with the Allies:
IT’S HISTORICAL FACT .
The Soviets lost some 20 million people during WWII and EIGHTY PERCENT of the Nazi casualties in WWII were in the Soviet Union .
Were it not for the Soviet people sacrificing those 20 million people , you’d be writing and speaking German now.
If you would care to discuss, debate the countries in which Cuba intervened, the history of the underlying reasons for those interventions , go to it.
You pick the country and tell your side of the issues and I will respond with how I understand the history.
Define “extreme left”
Define “anti-U.S.”
Define or cite specific ” gay rights propaganda” from the Cuban government
How dare YOU accuse anyone else of bullshitting ?
In war, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” applies.
The U.S. government , the oligarchy has been waging an economic war on the entire population of Cuba . This is a war explicitly set in place 54 years ago to destroy the Cuban revolution.
Cuba needs the support of every and any nation and does indeed ally themselves with people as nasty as say, the Sauds and all the petty dictators installed in Latin America and the Caribbean by the USA over the years.
Politics makes for strange bedfellows.
That said , Cuba does not follow the policies nor the philosophies of any of the people you mentioned except for having a totalitarian -top-down mind-set. The Castro brothers both shun leader worship
If you think that the oligarchic USG is any less totalitarian however, you should look into the word oligarchy and how big money controls the electoral process and therefore the government in Washington D.C.
Can you tell me -are you willing to tell me your specific and primary sources for news and information ?
If you believe in a personal God who you pray to, who hears your prayers, who watches what you do, say and think not only when you’re awake but when you’re asleep , you have a problem with reality.
There is conclusive DNA scientifically factual proof that humanity in its present form evolved some 100,000 years ago at the minimum.
That means your omniscient, omnipotent God created humanity and then sat on her hands for some 98,000 years before intervening with Jesus.
Yes , you believe that all-powerful , all-knowing God who watches each of his creations , listens to your prayers , knows how you suffer sat around for 98,000 years while humanity nearly became extinct as have 98% of all things that have ever lived on this planet.
Secondly, homosexuality is damned in Leviticus . I would invite you and all believers to reread Leviticus in its entirety and notice that except for the proscription on homosexuality ( amongst men) , none of the other laws laid down in Leviticus are followed today
You are following the thinking of Bronze Age primitive humans in this.
I invite you to suffer the worst 12 minutes and 59 seconds of your life
by going to You-Tube and requesting and watching
” Christianity is False and Immoral : Hitchens ”
It debunks both the founding of Christianity and the entire Moses/Exodus story
My usual bet is that you won’t get beyond five minutes at best .
Your beliefs make a virtue out of not thinking out your beliefs and it is totally representative of those who believe in the supernatural .
And your thinking is immoral and based on myths, ancient legends and ,now, immoral teachings such as the right to hold slaves, the slaughter of heathens, genital mutilation….you can probably come up with a lot more, being familiar with the Bible .
Get back in your cave, atavist.
Yes, the USSR killed many thousands officers in Katyn. They were, after all, officers.
What the US did was throw two atomic bombs over two cities killing hundreds of thousands CIVILIANS and is what I call the worst act of terror in history. Yes, because terror does not occur only in peace. Even at war there is terror.
Then the US is the only power that can blow up another coutry (Iraq) and get away with that. Evidences were created with no other purpose than just fool UN.
Saddam Hussein was a terrible dictator but what US did there is 100 times worst. Now we are seeing the consequences of those actions: another wave of terror carried out by ISIS.
Were you raised by goats? What is your deal with the “nuclear family”? Religion as a totalitarian principal? Is that why all those Catholic priests are lined up with uzis forcing people to go to Sunday mass?
What about same sex rape? Following a rufee attack or too many vodka shots these victims are told “oh that is what he wanted” and often they are fooled into a lifestyle instead of accepting that they were raped.The perpetraters of this unholy act pride themselves in it. In many jurisdictions the unfooled are critisized and to get justice they face humiliation from the defenders of these acts and the victim has to prove they are not gay.Sick, right! Anyway, President Putin makes a good arguement. As for the rights of humanity,the final word goes to GOD, man was provided with women, whats wrong with that. The media is so over run with extremists with there own agenda that is offensive to GOD. I accept, that which god
has provided. Consider this: GOD brought us into this world and he can take us out!
Thank you
I can never quite get over your odd beliefs. The nuclear family totalitarian? I believe I have a partnership with my wife, although mostly I think she’s in charge. However if you’re saying that structuring my 6 year old’s life and activities is somehow totalitarian, then yes, guilty as charged. I find my wife and I have to keep a close eye on our little munchkin. And woe onto the fool who wishes to part us from her!!
…What an odd duck you are John Goodrich
As one who apparently has an interest in history Mr. Goodrich, you should get your facts right! The U.S.A. and the Allies did not join with the Soviets to fight the Axis powers. The Soviets and Nazi Germany formed an agreement to divide Poland by force. The USSR was represened by Molotov and Nazi Germany by Ribbentrop when the agreement for joint aggression was signed. The UK declared war upon Nazi Germany in September 1939 following issuing an ultimatum that they had to withdraw from their attack upon Poland – made in agreement with the USSR. The U.S.A. was attacked without warning by Japan at Pearl Harbour December 1941 and one week later Nazi Germany declared war upon the U.S.A. Nazi Germany breached their agreement with the USSR in June 1941 when commencing Operation Barbarosa. So much for the trust between a National Socialist Dictator Adolf Hitler and a Communist Dictator Josef Stalin.
In 1940, France which at one time had no Prime Minister and no Military Head, both having resigned, capitulated and the UK and member nations of the Commonwealth was left to fight on their own.
Following the invasion of the USSR by Nazi Germany the UK formed shipping convoys to convey armaments to Murmansk in the USSR to aid them in defending their territory believing in doing so that they were supporting the lesser of two evils. Most of the military materials shipped during the period 1941-1945 to Murmansk were supplied by the U.S.A.
The Soviets only joined World War II following invasion not to aid others. In Poland they committed one of the greatest atrocities in recorded history when executing over 15,000 Polish Officers at Katyn, a major war crime which they only admitted in recent years.
When attacked by the Socialist opposition in the Mother of Parliaments and as a superb peacetime Prime Minister Winston Churchill recognised ‘Red China’, he responded by saying:
“Members opposite must understand that there is a difference between recognizing something and liking it. For example we all recognize the Honourable Member for Ebbw Vale.” The then member for Ebbw Vale being Anuaerin Bevan a socialist.
I have to add that in listing petty dictators you failed to mention Bashar Asad, Kim Jung Un, Robert Mugabe, the late Ghadafi and indeed Fidel and Raul Castro Ruz. Surely they merit recognition? You also fail to mention the thirteen countries in which Cuba took military action during the period of the Castro regime.
Putin met with the Sauds as well, among middle eastern countries, only King Abdullah even came close to recognizing south Ossetia, so I think it is safe to say Putin gets along quite well with Saudi Arabia.
Also, what is the nuclear family? Is this some sort of family of nuclear weapons?
As a KGB operative Vladamir Putin reached the rank of Lieutenant colonel. Further promotion was prevented following the KGB’s critical assessment of him. Translated It was:
“He has a lowered sense of danger.”
This assessment fairly accounts for some of his actions as an autocrat and in particular for his actions in Crimea, Georgia and the homophobia demonstrated prior to holding the Winter Olympics in Sochi.
A psychiatrist could have a field day studying other “friends” of the Castros including Robert Mugabe, Kim Jung Un, Nicholas Maduro, Bashar Asad and indeed the Castros themselves. All possess a thirst for power and control over others irrespective of the consequences. Dictatorship is what it is! El poder!
The reality Griffin is that as long as the extreme left are focused on their anti-US rhetoric, the lack of consistency of the gay rights propaganda put out by the Castros with the practices on the ground in Cuba is irrelevant. Castro apologists seem to be willing to ignore a mountain of Castro bullsh*t to point out a thimble of US failings.
And Obama meets regularly with the Sauds and every and any petty dictator who is pro-capitalist and anti-communist .
This to impose neo-liberal capitalism on unaccepting ,unwilling world.
The Russians support the Cubans in many ways and their support is necessary given the U.S. economic war on all Cubans.
Survival often and necessarily makes for strange bedfellows..
The U.S.A and the Allies joining with the Soviets to fight the Axis powers for instance.
I find it passing strange that an admitted totalitarian would even think of using the phrase “toe the line ” about what others should do.
( Capitalism, the US oligarchy, the nuclear family, religion are all totalitarian )
While Raul receives these odious foreign leaders, he send his daughter Mariel abroad on a propaganda tour to convince the world how progressive Cuba is on the subject of LGBT rights. She passed through Canada for the annual Pride Day parade, and she graced us with this pearl of wisdom:
Her brand of socialism is one where “humans organize themselves according to state policy.”
Everybody toe the line now!