Thursday 28th of March 2024

the travails below the skin of propaganda.....

WARSAW (Sputnik) - Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki expressed his outrage on Monday to Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal over the celebration of the birthday of the controversial Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera.

On January 1, the Ukrainian authorities held a series of events on the occasion of Bandera's birthday.

"I don’t have enough words of indignation about all sorts of actions that praise or salute those responsible for the crimes in Volhynia. From 100,000 to 200,000 Poles died at the hands of Ukrainians then. It was genocide. We will never forget about it ... Today, a couple of hours ago, I talked about this with the Prime Minister of Ukraine and expressed to him my absolutely negative attitude towards everyone who does not understand this and perpetuates the memory of Bandera," Morawiecki said, answering citizen’s questions on social media.

The issue of massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in 1943-1945 is one of the most difficult issues in relations between Poland and Ukraine. The massacres were carried out by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the military arm of the Bandera's [NAZI] faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (both organizations banned in Russia).

In 2016, the lower house of the Polish parliament adopted a resolution recognizing July 11 as the national day of remembrance for the victims of the genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists against the inhabitants of the Second Polish Republic.

Ukrainian officials consider these events to be the consequences of the war between the Polish Home Army and the UPA, in which the civilian population of the region also took part. The Ukrainian side estimates its losses at 10,000-20,000 people.

The Ukrainian parliament also adopted a statement condemning the decision of the Polish parliament to recognize the Volhynia massacre as genocide. Ukrainian lawmakers believe that this decision "endangered the political and diplomatic developments of the two countries.”

 

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HERE THE UKRAINIAN GOVERNMENT WAS TRYING TO SHIFT THE NARRATIVE OF ITS NAZI PAST WHICH IS BLEEDING INTO THE PRESENT, BECAUSE UKRAINE NEEDS POLAND TO SUPPORT ITS CASE AGAINST RUSSIA — A CASE WHICH IS ALSO BASED ON MASSIVE UKRAINIAN LIES. THE UKRAINIAN GOVERNMENT IS VERY GOOD AT LYING — AND THE LIES ARE GOBBLED UP BY THE WESTERN GOVERNMENTS LIKE CHAMPAGNE, BECAUSE IT SUITS OUR AMERICAN CULTIVATED HATE OF THE RUSSIANS.

FABRICATING A LIE HAS BEEN AN OFFICIAL/UNOFICIAL PASS-TIME OF GOVERNMENTS OF ALL PERSUASIONS — WITH THE AMERICAN EMPIRE BEING THE BIGGEST LIAR OF THE LOT, SINCE THE INVENTION OF “AMERICA”…

THIS HAD PROVEN VERY SUCCESSFUL, UNTIL THE MEDIA BECAME FRACTURED BETWEEN THE MAIN STREAM AND THE SOCIAL JOURNALIST MEDIA, WHICH CAN BRING THE TRUTH TO SURFACE. THE LIES BECOME IMPOSSIBLE TO MAINTAIN.

WE ALL KNOW (WE ALL SHOULD) ABOUT THE LIES BY THE AMERICANS ABOUT SADDAM’S WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. THOUGH THE AMERICAN AND THE CIA HAVE BEEN LYING FOR A LONG TIME, THIS PARTICULAR LIE BROUGHT A NASTY FRISSON ON THE THIN SKIN OF AMERICAN PROPAGANDA. 

 

DURING THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS, THERE WAS A LOT OF TURD POLISHING TO DO. IT WAS NOT JUST A QUESTION OF JFK MAKING A DEAL WITH KHRUSHCHEV. “YOU REMOVE YOUR MISSILES, WE REMOVE OURS AND ALL IS SWEET.” THERE WERE A LOT OF EGOS TO MANAGE AND THIS INVOLVED SOME DECEIT (LIES) WHICH WERE IMPLEMENTED BY THE SO-CALLED “NASSAU STEERING GROUP”.

 

 

Crystalizing Plans for Diplomacy

Document No. 10Steering Group on Implementing the Nassau Decisions, “Minutes of 2nd Meeting Held January 3, 1963, at 5:00 P.M.,” January 3, 1963

The Nassau Steering Group devoted its January 3, 1963, session to Jupiter removal diplomacy. Ambassadors Finletter, Hare and Reinhardt were present as well as McGeorge Bundy and Defense Department General Counsel John McNaughton. While the papers on the Jupiter [NUCLEAR ROCKETS] that the committee prepared remain classified, the discussion summarized here covered some of the key issues. One was to avoid the word “withdrawal” when discussing the Jupiters and to use the word “replace” instead (as in “replace” Jupiters with Polaris SLBMs). Moreover, because of concern about leaks, there would be no reference to an April 1, 1963, deadline  in communications with the Italians and Turks. As April 1 would be six months after the Cuban crisis, State Department official Seymour Weiss wanted to “go to the mat” to keep any dates out of the official discussions because he worried that too much specificity would raise suspicions of a “deal” or would sound like an “ultimatum.”[xiii] Nevertheless, an April 1 date would be used for the timing of the stationing of Polaris submarines in the Mediterranean, and some U.S. interlocuters would see it as a deadline.

The Steering Group also addressed the problems raised by the early deployment to Turkey of F-104Gs; making the fighter-bombers available by May 1963 would require the rerouting of planes that had already been assigned to the Republic of China (Taiwan), Denmark, Norway, and Greece. There would be a delay in deploying nuclear bombs for the F-104s until they were outfitted with Permissive Action Links (PALs), as required by President Kennedy, which was not likely to occur until later in the year.

Document No. 11Letter, Secretary of Defense McNamara to Defense Minister Giulio Andreotti, January 5, 1963

Members of the Nassau Decisions Steering Group worked up the texts of letters from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to the Italian and Turkish Defense Ministers, which President Kennedy approved when he met with Dean Rusk and Thomas Finletter in Palm Beach on January 5, 1963 (see document 6). The State Department sent the letters to Ankara and Rome later that day.

McNamara’s letters expand on the points about the need to replace Jupiters with Polaris missiles that he made to Andreotti and Sancar when he met them in Paris. To both, McNamara wrote that the Polaris force would be “on station” by April 1 as the replacement for the Jupiters. Writing to Andreotti, he also mentioned substituting “obsolete” Corporal with Sergeant missiles. In his message to Sancar, McNamara informed him that he is exploring the possibility of accelerated delivery of the F-104s and that “emergency actions” could make it possible to deliver the first squadron during April 1963.

Document No. 12State Department telegram 1241 to U.S Embassy Italy, January 8, 1963

In this “limited distribution” message, Under Secretary of State George Ball informed Ambassador Reinhardt of the developing plans to deploy three Polaris boats in the Mediterranean with the missiles on station by April 1. Polaris would supersede the less effective Jupiters. The Ambassador should seek agreement with the Italian Government to take the “necessary steps” to dismantle the two Jupiter squadrons. The Italians “may be quite willing” to move in this direction, Rusk suggested, having already shown they recognized the value of replacing Jupiters with Polaris. Reinhardt should advise the Italians that the U.S. government was treating the matter with “great secrecy” and was making a parallel approach to Ankara.  

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/jupiter-missiles-and-endgame-cuban-missile-crisis-matter-great-secrecy

 

MEANWHILE, THE RUSSIANS WOULD HAVE KNOWN OF THE AMERICAN PLANS AND HAD DEVELOPED THEIR OWN SUBMARINE NETWORK ARMED WITH NUCLEAR MISSILES. CUBA HAD SERVED.

 

AS WELL, WE KNOW (WE ALL SHOULD) THERE WAS NO LOVE LOST BETWEEN THE USA AND THE GENERAL DE GAULLE. HE KNEW HE HAD WON A FEW BATTLES AGAINST THE CIA, BUT THE WAR WAS OF FRENCH INDEPENDENCE WAS STILL IN PROGRESS. IT TOOK THE ARRIVAL OF SARKOZY AT THE FRENCH PRESIDENCY TO CAPITULATE. 

  

Unconventional warfare preparation

CIA forms the French branch of Operation Gladio.

The CIA is suspected to have infiltrated the French Communist party and worked to support the growth of non-revolutionary communists within France to offset the Soviet influence on the more radical elements within the French Communist Party.

The CIA is suspected to have been involved in supporting the student riots against Charles DeGaulle to retaliate against his withdrawal from NATO and his Francophile policies.

"Charles De Gaulle undertook covert operations in Quebec using nationalist and separatist movements in Quebec, under the rubric of "Assistance et Cooperation Technique" or "Operation Ascot." Jacques Foccart dispatched SDECE agents to Quebec to develop and foment the growth of separatist movements.”

IT IS HARD TO KNOW THE EXTEND OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE CIA ON FRENCH (AND GERMAN) POLITICS BUT WE CAN SUSPECT THAT THROUGH ITS VARIOUS “AMERICAN CLUBS” IN PARIS (AND BERLIN), THE PRESSURE WAS ALWAYS ON. 

WE KNOW THAT THE USA SPIED ON MERKEL AND HOLLANDE WHO BULLSHITTED TO RUSSIA

 

SO… ONE OF THE RELATIVE PASSING QUESTION HERE IS WHO KILLED JFK?

WE MORE OR LESS KNOW WHO PULL THE TRIGGER(S) — OSWALD AND “SECRET SERVICE MAN” George Hickey. WHY?

UNDER WHOSE INSTRUCTIONS?

 

SO HERE IS KENNEDY'S SPEECH TELLING US NOTHING ABOUT THE AGREEMENT HE HAD MADE WITH THE RUSSIANS, WHILE TRYING TO GILD THE LILY FOR THE EUROPEANS, WHILE DEMANDING THE RUSSIANS "TOOK THE CAN".

MEANWHILE A GOOD OLD CUBA BASHING MAKES YOU FEEL GOOD, DOESN'T IT?

 

Good evening my fellow citizens: 

This Government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet Military buildup on the island of Cuba. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere. 

Upon receiving the first preliminary hard information of this nature last Tuesday morning at 9 a.m., I directed that our surveillance be stepped up. And having now confirmed and completed our evaluation of the evidence and our decision on a course of action, this Government feels obliged to report this new crisis to you in fullest detail. 

The characteristics of these new missile sites indicate two distinct types of installations. Several of them include medium range ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead for a distance of more than 1,000 nautical miles. Each of these missiles, in short, is capable of striking Washington, D.C., the Panama Canal, Cape Canaveral, Mexico City, or any other city in the southeastern part of the United States, in Central America, or in the Caribbean area. 

Additional sites not yet completed appear to be designed for intermediate range ballistic missiles--capable of traveling more than twice as far--and thus capable of striking most of the major cities in the Western Hemisphere, ranging as far north as Hudson Bay, Canada, and as far south as Lima, Peru. In addition, jet bombers, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, are now being uncrated and assembled in Cuba, while the necessary air bases are being prepared. 

This urgent transformation of Cuba into an important strategic base--by the presence of these large, long range, and clearly offensive weapons of sudden mass destruction--constitutes an explicit threat to the peace and security of all the Americas, in flagrant and deliberate defiance of the Rio Pact of 1947, the traditions of this Nation and hemisphere, the joint resolution of the 87th Congress, the Charter of the United Nations, and my own public warnings to the Soviets on September 4 and 13. This action also contradicts the repeated assurances of Soviet spokesmen, both publicly and privately delivered, that the arms buildup in Cuba would retain its original defensive character, and that the Soviet Union had no need or desire to station strategic missiles on the territory of any other nation. 

The size of this undertaking makes clear that it has been planned for some months. Yet only last month, after I had made clear the distinction between any introduction of ground-to-ground missiles and the existence of defensive antiaircraft missiles, the Soviet Government publicly stated on September 11, and I quote, "the armaments and military equipment sent to Cuba are designed exclusively for defensive purposes," that, and I quote the Soviet Government, "there is no need for the Soviet Government to shift its weapons . . . for a retaliatory blow to any other country, for instance Cuba," and that, and I quote their government, "the Soviet Union has so powerful rockets to carry these nuclear warheads that there is no need to search for sites for them beyond the boundaries of the Soviet Union." That statement was false. 

Only last Thursday, as evidence of this rapid offensive buildup was already in my hand, Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko told me in my office that he was instructed to make it clear once again, as he said his government had already done, that Soviet assistance to Cuba, and I quote, "pursued solely the purpose of contributing to the the defense capabilities of Cuba," that, and I quote him, "training by Soviet specialists of Cuban nationals in handling defensive armaments was by no means offensive, and if it were otherwise," Mr. Gromyko went on, "the Soviet Government would never become involved in rendering such assistance." That statement also was false. 

Neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation's security to constitute maximum peril. Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic missiles are so swift, that any substantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace. 

For many years both the Soviet Union and the United States, recognizing this fact, have deployed strategic nuclear weapons with great care, never upsetting the precarious status quo which ensured that these weapons would not be used in the absence of some vital challenge. Our own strategic missiles have never been transferred to the territory of any other nation under a cloak of secrecy and deception; and our history--unlike that of the Soviets since the end of World War II--demonstrates that we have no desire to dominate or conquer any other nation or impose our system upon its people. Nevertheless, American citizens have become adjusted to living daily on the Bull's-eye of Soviet missiles located inside the U.S.S.R. or in submarines. 

In that sense, missiles in Cuba add to an already clear and present danger--although it should be noted the nations of Latin America have never previously been subjected to a potential nuclear threat. 

But this secret, swift, and extraordinary buildup of Communist missiles--in an area well known to have a special and historical relationship to the United States and the nations of the Western Hemisphere, in violation of Soviet assurances, and in defiance of American and hemispheric policy--this sudden, clandestine decision to station strategic weapons for the first time outside of Soviet soil--is a deliberately provocative and unjustified change in the status quo which cannot be accepted by this country, if our courage and our commitments are ever to be trusted again by either friend or foe. 

The 1930's taught us a clear lesson: aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged ultimately leads to war. This nation is opposed to war. We are also true to our word. Our unswerving objective, therefore, must be to prevent the use of these missiles against this or any other country, and to secure their withdrawal or elimination from the Western Hemisphere. 

Our policy has been one of patience and restraint, as befits a peaceful and powerful nation, which leads a worldwide alliance. We have been determined not to be diverted from our central concerns by mere irritants and fanatics. But now further action is required--and it is under way; and these actions may only be the beginning. We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth--but neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced. 

Acting, therefore, in the defense of our own security and of the entire Western Hemisphere, and under the authority entrusted to me by the Constitution as endorsed by the resolution of the Congress, I have directed that the following initial steps be taken immediately: 

First: To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation or port will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This quarantine will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers. We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948. 

Second: I have directed the continued and increased close surveillance of Cuba and its military buildup. The foreign ministers of the OAS, in their communique of October 6, rejected secrecy in such matters in this hemisphere. Should these offensive military preparations continue, thus increasing the threat to the hemisphere, further action will be justified. I have directed the Armed Forces to prepare for any eventualities; and I trust that in the interest of both the Cuban people and the Soviet technicians at the sites, the hazards to all concerned in continuing this threat will be recognized. 

Third: It shall be the policy of this Nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union. 

Fourth: As a necessary military precaution, I have reinforced our base at Guantanamo, evacuated today the dependents of our personnel there, and ordered additional military units to be on a standby alert basis. 

Fifth: We are calling tonight for an immediate meeting of the Organ of Consultation under the Organization of American States, to consider this threat to hemispheric security and to invoke articles 6 and 8 of the Rio Treaty in support of all necessary action. The United Nations Charter allows for regional security arrangements--and the nations of this hemisphere decided long ago against the military presence of outside powers. Our other allies around the world have also been alerted. 

Sixth: Under the Charter of the United Nations, we are asking tonight that an emergency meeting of the Security Council be convoked without delay to take action against this latest Soviet threat to world peace. Our resolution will call for the prompt dismantling and withdrawal of all offensive weapons in Cuba, under the supervision of U.N. observers, before the quarantine can be lifted. 

Seventh and finally: I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless and provocative threat to world peace and to stable relations between our two nations. I call upon him further to abandon this course of world domination, and to join in an historic effort to end the perilous arms race and to transform the history of man. He has an opportunity now to move the world back from the abyss of destruction--by returning to his government's own words that it had no need to station missiles outside its own territory, and withdrawing these weapons from Cuba--by refraining from any action which will widen or deepen the present crisis--and then by participating in a search for peaceful and permanent solutions. 

This Nation is prepared to present its case against the Soviet threat to peace, and our own proposals for a peaceful world, at any time and in any forum--in the OAS, in the United Nations, or in any other meeting that could be useful--without limiting our freedom of action. We have in the past made strenuous efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. We have proposed the elimination of all arms and military bases in a fair and effective disarmament treaty. We are prepared to discuss new proposals for the removal of tensions on both sides--including the possibility of a genuinely independent Cuba, free to determine its own destiny. We have no wish to war with the Soviet Union--for we are a peaceful people who desire to live in peace with all other peoples. 

But it is difficult to settle or even discuss these problems in an atmosphere of intimidation. That is why this latest Soviet threat--or any other threat which is made either independently or in response to our actions this week--must and will be met with determination. Any hostile move anywhere in the world against the safety and freedom of peoples to whom we are committed--including in particular the brave people of West Berlin--will be met by whatever action is needed. 

Finally, I want to say a few words to the captive people of Cuba, to whom this speech is being directly carried by special radio facilities. I speak to you as a friend, as one who knows of your deep attachment to your fatherland, as one who shares your aspirations for liberty and justice for all. And I have watched and the American people have watched with deep sorrow how your nationalist revolution was betrayed-- and how your fatherland fell under foreign domination. Now your leaders are no longer Cuban leaders inspired by Cuban ideals. They are puppets and agents of an international conspiracy which has turned Cuba against your friends and neighbors in the Americas--and turned it into the first Latin American country to become a target for nuclear war--the first Latin American country to have these weapons on its soil. 

These new weapons are not in your interest. They contribute nothing to your peace and well-being. They can only undermine it. But this country has no wish to cause you to suffer or to impose any system upon you. We know that your lives and land are being used as pawns by those who deny your freedom. 

Many times in the past, the Cuban people have risen to throw out tyrants who destroyed their liberty. And I have no doubt that most Cubans today look forward to the time when they will be truly free--free from foreign domination, free to choose their own leaders, free to select their own system, free to own their own land, free to speak and write and worship without fear or degradation. And then shall Cuba be welcomed back to the society of free nations and to the associations of this hemisphere. 

My fellow citizens: let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out. No one can see precisely what course it will take or what costs or casualties will be incurred. Many months of sacrifice and self-discipline lie ahead--months in which our patience and our will will be tested--months in which many threats and denunciations will keep us aware of our dangers. But the greatest danger of all would be to do nothing. 

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are--but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world. The cost of freedom is always high--and Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission. 

Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right- -not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere, and, we hope, around the world. God willing, that goal will be achieved. 

Thank you and good night. 

 

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WE KNOW THAT EVEN IN THE SIMPEST OF MARRIAGE, TENSIONS WILL OCCUR AND VARIOUS AGREEMENTS CAN DEFUSE THESE, BUT OFTEN THERE ARE STILL DEVIOUS CURRENTS THAT STARTED BEFORE THE SAID MARRIAGE. LOVE IS A EQUATION OF BENEFITS IN WHICH COMPROMISES CAN BE VERY HARD TO MAKE.... 

 

Anti-Catholic prejudice was still very much in the mainstream of American life when JFK decided to seek the presidency in 1960. Only one Catholic, Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York, had ever been the presidential nominee of one of the major parties. Smith’s 1928 campaign was dogged by claims that he would build a tunnel connecting the White House and the Vatican and would amend the Constitution to make Catholicism the nation’s established religion. He was overwhelmingly defeated—even losing much of the then Democratic Solid South.

JFK established an informal network of advisers on the religious issue—including speechwriter Ted Sorensen, Dean Francis Bowes Sayre Jr. of the National Cathedral and several journalists. It was clear from the outset that Kennedy had to enter the state primaries to prove to skeptical party leaders that he was a viable national candidate. In the Wisconsin primary, he defeated Senator Hubert Humphrey with 56% of the vote but failed to win a majority of the Protestant vote—an ominous sign.

WHERE IS THIS REFERENCE TO THE CATHOLICS GOING TO?

WE KNOW (WE SUSPECT) BUT WE’LL TELL YOU IN THE NEXT COMMENT….

GOOD NIGHT.

 

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

religious mob.....

The Pope, the Mafia, and the Rest of Us

This past June, the Pope spoke critically of the Mafia, and did so in its heartland region in Italy

 

By Martin E. Marty

 

SEPTEMBER 18, 2017

https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/articles/pope-mafia-and-rest-us

 

This past June, the Pope spoke critically of the Mafia, and did so in its heartland region in Italy. He threatened to excommunicate anyone who was part of this international crime syndicate. So here we have the unquestioned leader of the largest religious organization/communion in the world, the Roman Catholic Church, taking on the presumably most powerful organizational embodiment of crime, at least in the Western world. Who noticed?

Such a move was crowded off the front pages and out of prime time by other news events. Epochal storms in the form of hurricanes, along with earthquakes and drought, were immediate threats. North Korea created the greatest human-made concern. Blustery acts and words from politicians in a time of governmental chaos no doubt made the Pope-versus-Mafia to-do seem ignorable. Could it not be shelved as an incident which concerned only a single religious group, however large, and one criminal organization, however evil, while non-members of each could go about their business?

Let’s take back the “no one noticed” line. My e-files and clippings baskets do include some disturbing references, but most of these originated among enemies of the Roman Catholic Church, who despise the Pope and wish him ill. They had, and have, plenty to say. They were not ready to pay attention to the positive side of the Vatican’s announced plans to “develop a new legal doctrine for the Catholic Church about ‘excommunication for corruption and mafia association,’” announced after a Vatican conference on fighting these phenomena. The Vatican spoke of its role in the fight for justice and pursuit of the common good. Its enemies were unmoved.

Perhaps this incident, and commentary on it, will inspire fresh inquiry into how evil, whether produced by crime syndicates or other forces, keeps changing shape and inventing new tactics. The Sightings thesis for today is simple: publics can become inured as problems become—dare we call them this?—“commonplace.” Climate change, for example, is commonplace, so publics get used to it, and ignore it, even in the face of connected disasters. Let me be autobiographical for a few lines to illustrate this in respect to organized crime. Indulge me.

I was once a (beginning) parish pastor in the Chicago area, a crime-ridden but beloved (by people like me) place where there were Syndicate signals all around us. Even now, I can look out my window down on a hotel which was a crime-syndicate nest. I pastored in a suburb where Tony Accardo—who was worse than Al Capone—and his kind lived in comfort and attended Mass. We all knew we were part of a corrupt culture. Virgil Peterson, head of the Chicago Crime Commission, was my tutor. When my mother promised a visit, despite her fears of then-Chicago, I asked Peterson whether such-and-such a restaurant was mob-related. He told us the one we mentioned was not, so we took her there. A few days later we learned that he had been unnerved by our choice to go to a non-Mafia-controlled restaurant. Why? “The Syndicate is not going to bomb or burn ‘one of its own.’’’ That year over 50 non-Syndicate-controlled restaurants were burned or bombed. We lived amidst the horror, but it was NIOBY, “not in our back yard,” even though it was just inches away.

So we enter a new season, with new issues, new hopes and fears, new opportunities. There are signs that other-than-Syndicate syndicates have largely replaced the old ones, but there remain plenty of current challenges to the common good. Citizens may not know how to thwart them, but they may be relearning, from the Pope and other people of skill and good will, that inurement and willful ignorance promote a climate where quest for the common good is compromised. In the seasons ahead, we’ll try to focus Sightings on some of these issues, and the people who address them. Worrying about the safety of our local restaurants may not be the most urgent issue, but there will be new occasions, addressable in the spirit of Pope Francis, and evoking our need to pursue the common good.

 

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The Italian church is dissolving its links to the mob

https://www.economist.com/erasmus/2017/12/15/the-italian-church-is-dissolving-its-links-to-the-mob

 

15 Dec 2017 — Italy's Catholic-inspired Christian Democratic party, the Catholic church and organised crime had the common purpose of keeping communism at bay …

 

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The relationship between Mafia and Church [2021] - Sicilian Mafia and Vatican Ties

The relationship between Mafia and Church is a documentary made in 2021 about the Sicilian Mafia and Vatican Ties. Secrets, business relationships, hidden truth and ambiguous ties are at the base of the relation between Sicilian Mafia and the Vatican or Church in general for many decades.

#sicilianmafia #vatican #mafia

 

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Pope backs drive to end ‘deviant spirituality’ of Italian crime families who use Madonna as a shield of religious respectability

 

Julian Coman

Sun 6 Sep 2020 15.50 AEST

 

 

Early in his papacy, Pope Francis responded to a particularly gruesome double murder in Calabria by travelling to the region and issuing a ringing condemnation of ’Ndrangheta, the local mafia-type organisation responsible. Addressing an audience of 200,000 people in June 2014, he said: “The ’Ndrangheta represents the adoration of evil and contempt of the common good … they are excommunicated.”

The following month, with the pope back in Rome, an officially sanctioned religious procession through the streets of the Calabrian town of Oppido Mamertina halted outside the home of Giuseppe Mazzagatti, a local ’Ndrangheta boss. There, a giant statue of the Virgin Mary was made to bow in homage and obedience to Mazzagatti. Outraged police officers refused to accompany the procession as it then moved on through the town.

Such acts of defiance, described by Rome as “deviant spirituality”, continue to take place. This autumn, exasperated Vatican officials have decided to mount a theological counter-offensive. With the enthusiastic backing of Pope Francis, the Pontifical International Marian Academy (Pami) has set up a new department with the title: “Freeing Mary from the mafia and from criminal powers”. The intention, said Pami’s president, Father Stefano Cecchin, is to teach and disseminate a “true theology of Mary”, disentangling acts of veneration from local networks of political corruption and mafia influence.

Speaking to the Catholic News Agency, Cecchin said that the project was ambitious, but also “a duty”. In a letter approving the project, Pope Francis wrote: “May the numerous devotees of the Virgin assume attitudes that exclude a misguided religiosity and respond instead to a religiosity correctly understood and lived. It is necessary that the style of Marian displays conform to the message of the Gospel and the teachings of the Church.”

Marian devotions, along with the veneration of local saints, have remained a feature of popular Catholic culture, both in southern Italy and parts of Latin America. The status of Mary, as the mother of God, is seen as giving her unique power to intercede on humanity’s behalf. As processions of spectacularly adorned Madonnas maintain the Virgin as a beneficent presence in communities, mafia bosses have been assiduous in maintaining a close relationship with such a powerful symbol. Often with the complicity of local priests, money from organised crime has long helped finance local religious festivals and enhance the social prestige of the clans.

According to Cecchin, the mafia exploits popular veneration of Mary to inculcate a culture of obedience to its own authority. “In the mafia framework,” he said, “the figure of Mary has become the figure of a human being who must be submissive, therefore a slave, accepting the will of God, the will of the bosses, the will of the mafia leader.” 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/06/vatican-fights-to-free-virgin-mary-from-mafia

 

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WE KNOW THAT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAD MADE SOME UNSAVOURY ALLIANCES WITH FASCISTS (NAZIS, see: the nazis in ukraine.....) AND WITH THE MAFIA IN ORDER TO COMBAT THE THREAT OF ATHEISTIC COMMUNISM.

TO A GREAT EXTEND, COMMUNISM AS SUCH HAS VANISHED FROM THE WESTERN AND RUSSIAN CULTURES, AND ONLY VAGUELY SUSTAINS IN NAME IN CHINA, WHERE “PATERNALISTIC CONTROLLED CAPITALISM” IS NOW MORE PREVALENT.

 

SO IT BECAME POSSIBLE FOR THE CATHOLIC CHURCH TO DISENTANGLE ITSELF FROM THE MAFIA.

 

Twenty years ago what was once a mighty Communist Party of nearly two million members, the Italian PCI, was dissolved and was transformed into the Democratic Party of the Left, later to become the Democratic Party. In the process the party split in two, with those opposing this change setting up the Party of Communist Refoundation. This article by Roberto Sarti of the Editorial Board of Falcemartello looks at how this came about and draws some lessons for today’s communists.

At its 20th Congress, held in Rimini at the beginning of 1991, the Italian Communist Party was officially dissolved. The majority of the delegates decided to found the Democratic Party of the Left, while a part of the minority that had opposed the change in name was to form Rifondazione Comunista (Communist Refoundation).

The Rimini congress was the final act in a bitter, intense debate that had begun on 12 November 1989 in Bolognina, a workers’ district of Bologna, when the then PCI Secretary, Achille Occhetto, had announced that the party was to change its name. That fourteen-month debate marked a watershed for the labour movement and the left in Italy and we are still paying its consequences today. At the same time a geological era seems to have gone by since those events. The memories of those events presented in the media are confusing and deliberately mystifying.

We shall leave aside the version of the sponsors of that turn, who saw it as a necessary salvation that was eventually to end up with the creation of the present Democratic Party (PD), because we believe the results speak for themselves. However, to the left of the PD we find an uncritical assessment of the history of the PCI up to the Bolognina turn, according to whom in order to restore the fortunes of the party all that was required was not to abandon the so-called “happy insights” of the “second Berlinguer”, i.e. Berlinguer as he was following the end of the historic compromise. [Note: the “historic compromise” refers to the policy adopted by the Berlinguer leadership of the Communist Party in the mid-1970s that eventually led the party to providing support and collaboration with the minority Christian Democratic government as it imposed severe austerity measures in the wake of the 1974 recession].

Others believe the party line to have been basically correct – apart from a few over-moderate positions in the period of the historic compromise – until it was buried by a handful of traitors led by Achille Occhetto. This position fits well with the idea that today “one big communist party” would be all that would be required to solve the problems of the left in Italy.

 

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https://www.marxist.com/the-dissolution-of-the-italian-communist-party-1991.htm

 

THE SOCIALISTS/COMMUNISTS IN FRANCE HAVE ALSO BEEN IN THE SAME BOAT…

DOES THIS MEAN THAT THE CATHOLICS HAVE WON? WHAT DID THEY WIN? LESS BUMS ON SEATS?

HAS THE MAFIA VANISHED?

IS THERE MORE ATHEISM IN THE COMMUNITIES?

WAS THE MAFIA INVOLVED IN THE ASSASSINATION OF JFK?

WAS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH DISPLEASED AT JFK MAKING A DEAL WITH THE RUSSIAN COMMUNISTS?

 

MORE TO COME….

 

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