By far the strangest change in America’s political right is the turn-around from anti-communist anti-Soviet to blind adulation of Mother Russia and its forever leader Vladimir Putin. At 70 he’s leader until 2036. Putin, the man without a face, KGB anti-American anti-Western spy, hasn’t changed since the fall of the Soviet Union and, we smugly thought back then, the collapse of communism. And because America’s conservative republicans sing the Russian leader’s praises, particularly citing his grand gestures toward Christianity, democrats are the ones holding up law and order and making known the line in the sand. Democrats, who used to be called communists, pinkos and reds back in the 20th century, are the ones warning of Putin and pointing out how corrupt, even murderous, his government is. I never thought I’d live to hear an American president gush over a Soviet leader, but Donald Trump repeatedly kissed the emperor’s ring and went so far as to accuse the FBI and CIA on the world stage as completely wrong about Russia and Putin.
They, who in our country are represented by the color red, claim Putin to be Christian, and all is right with the world.
Have they even read the words of Christ in the Bible?
There is not one thing about Putin that is remotely Christ like.
Calling him Christian because he calls himself that is insulting to Christians everywhere.
The root of all evil
After the Soviet Union fell, business people in the new Russia wanted to emulate American and Western capitalism as quickly as possible. But in our nation’s beginnings, America was very strict Christian, intentionally so from the Pilgrims and the Puritans and all the other Christian groups who left Europe to start over in the New World—to practice their religion without persecution. Christians who are sincere in putting their faith first do not cheat in business dealings. They don’t shortchange customers, sell flimsy garments or unsafe products. Not intentionally. Christian businesspeople go out of their way to make things right because not only is it good for business but it’s the Christian thing to do.
Russian business people in the 1990s toured this country to study our practice in commerce. They could not believe sales clerks would count back change so that the customer would see he or she was getting exactly the correct amount, what was owed him or her. Sales staff were courteous, helpful, kind and friendly with no sinister air as most Soviets expected and experienced in their homeland during decades of communist rule. Fair business dealings, ‘do right by the customers’ and ‘the customer is always right’ mantras were unheard of and not practiced in Soviet Russia. The people were screwed in every possible manner when it came to business. Their cars did not run. There were always bread lines and lines for essentials. People spent hours in lines and then when finally entering a store, shelves were empty. Their water was impure. Their air polluted. Their nuclear plant accident produced ghastly birth defects and deadly cancers for generations to come.
Americans used to try to figure out how the Soviet Union, our arch nemesis, was a nation that could put a man on the moon yet incapable of building a reliable washing machine. Something was missing. Ingenuity? Perhaps. But the Soviet goal was and remains to produce smoke and mirrors and put all their money into one major project like building a rocket that could blast the stratosphere and land on the moon.
We beat them to the punch in 1969. And we could mass produce automobiles and machines that catapulted American life into the envy of the world.
Now Russia is admired along with their life-time leader? By republicans?
What happened? How did our two political parties go full 180?
I’ve never forgotten what we were taught about communism during the Cold War at school and church:
Communists do not believe in God.
Communists believe the people exist only for the benefit of the state and not the state for the benefit of the people.
The ultimate goal of communism is world domination; everyone will be communist even if by force. Objectors will be killed.
Communism—a government system whereby everyone takes care of one another, food is plentiful, no one is homeless, social ills like addiction and criminals are handled with heavy hand, everyone from garbage collector to brain surgeon earns the same wage, and everyone thinks exactly the same way—was proven to be ineffective at least in the Soviet Union because humans are flawed, jealous, stingy and basically not all that altruistic.
Hmm. The central belief, for those of us who witnessed via TV news the spread of communism in eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia, is the forced disbelief in God and religion. Bibles and all religious books, statues, pictures, prayer beads, etc. were destroyed. I won’t mention how the Communist revolution dealt with Buddhists monks and nuns in order to wield the government’s power. Unspeakable. Unconscionable. Evil.
See, hear, think
In the former Soviet Union (and really in present-day Russia), the people had a saying that explained their basic survival: You see one thing, hear a second, and think a third.
Entire classes of school kids were punished by standing straight as a rod with eyes staring forward for hours on end.
This is communism as I understand it from listening to people who lived in that kind of regime. Citizens have no rights. People are arrested on trumped up charges and thrown in putrid jails to languish without a trial or legal representation. Prison is hard labor. The criminally insane are thrown into jails, too. People spy on each other to report wrongdoing to the government, hoping for a reward or bump up among the party (better housing, more money, better job). The rulers at the top are always fat and live a life of luxury. You can see why a brutally suppressed and brain-washed people would come to think cynically about any government, that none is better than the other even America. And what do Putin and his followers say about our country? They think we’re trash … because Americans are not a pure race. We’re mixed ethnicities and cultures. They think this is awful and has brought down every great society in history. Ah, this would explain the republicans’ newfound enlightenment about their old foes the Russians. See, our country is indeed wrestling with our formerly touted melting pot. Some people aren’t supposed to be thrown into our once savory stew of humanity.
Putin’s communism in the middle of this century has a big problem: the internet. China simply censors it. But that’s not how satellites and invisible waves work. Everything’s out there one way or another. The Russians know how others live all over the world. After the fall of the Soviet Union, many Russians were grateful to return to churches and worship God without fear of the government surveying them and chiding them as emotionally weak and inferior. Somewhere along the line, Putin decided to confirm himself a Christian.
But let us not forget that Jesus did not call himself a Christian; people called his followers Christians because they emulated his manner. Christians constantly forgive. They strive against excessive living. They give freely to help their fellow man. They pray and stay in constant contact with the Lord. They are not known to be brutal. They do not practice cruelty though history does not reveal former self-proclaimed Christians as righteous souls and innocent. Christ taught live and let live, judge not, and love your neighbor like you love yourself.
The Christian life is not just an adjective people call themselves to get along with certain populations in the world. It is a way of life that others can see and can believe. It is love, kindness, affection, honesty, freedom, integrity, faith, humility, gratitude—none of these are Putin’s attributes and are hard to see in a lot of politicians. So, stop claiming to be Christian if you’re not. At least with communists, we knew what we were dealing with.