#unification church in ukraine
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Ukraine & Mr. Moon (2019)
A WIOTM post from December 25, 2019 by "Don Diligent"
The Azoz Battalion of the Ukraine is a prominent organization within the Nazi/Fascist agenda of the 21st century. The fact that their emblem incorporates 2 significant Nazi symbols should speak volumes.
A key fascist Ukrainian, Lev Dobriansky, took a special interest in Sun Myung Moon from early on. He directed a large number of his “Captive Nation” followers to the Washington Monument in 1976 to listen to Mr. Moon speak. Dobriansky has also attended ICUS conferences, spoke at UTS, and was a VIP guest at a speech of Hak Ja Han in the early 1990s. And last but not least, Dobriansky was the head of the US affiliate to the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) in the 1970s mentoring the likes of Neil Salonen.
Today, the “Family Fed of Ukraine” is one of the most well organized and well structured groups working within the Moon Organization. Young recruits are trained in much the same way early recruits in the US were trained. So much so that young Mothers are asked by their Korean leader to leave their children to join fundraising teams sent to the US!
I would like to put out an appeal for anyone reading this, to find out more about what is happening in the Ukraine. What connections does the “Ukrainian UC” have currently, with the Fascist elements of that country?
‘til the next,
Don Diligent
Related links
NEW POST - from the ‘Victims of Communism’ substack - ‘The Uniification Church’
Podcast episode - Things Observed providing a brief overview of the World Anti-Communist League
Exploitative Moonies in Ukraine
U.S. & Nato Mastermind and Enginner Armed Conflict Between Russophobe Ukrainian Regime and Russia
#don diligent#ed coffman#Lev Dobriansky#family federation for world peace and unification#ffwpu#moonies#unification church#fascism#ukraine#unification church in ukraine#sun myung moon#icus#International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences#neil salonen#wacl#world anti-communist league#victims of communism#Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation#anti-communism#hak ja han
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Holidays 9.18
Holidays
Aging Awareness Day
Astronomy Day (Armenia)
Big Brothers Big Sisters Day (Canada)
Celebrate Your Name Day
Celebration of Talent (French Republic)
Chiropractic Founders Day
Clemente Day
Day of National Music (Azerbaijan)
Deceased Motorcyclists Remembrance Day (Ukraine)
Dieciocho (Chile)
Eleven Days of Global Unity, Day 8: Human Rights
European Heritage Days (EU)
Feast Day of the Walloon Region (Belgium)
Festival of Inner Worlds
Festival of Labour (French Republic)
Fiesta Patrias (Chile)
First Love Day
Global Company Culture Day
Hug a Greeting Card Writer Day
International Equal Pay Day (UN)
International Pitt Hopkins Awareness Day
International Read an eBook Day
Island Language Day (Okinawa, Japan)
Jeannie in a Bottle Day
Jitiya Parwa (Only Women Employees; Nepal)
Jonny Quest Day
Long Playing Record Day
Mickey Mantle Day (New York)
Mid-Autumn Festival Holiday (Taiwan)
Mountain Meadows Massacre Anniversary Day (by Mormon Church Members; Utah)
Mukden Incident Anniversary Day
National Cannabis Day (Germany)
National Ceiling Fan Day
National Colton Day
National Day of Civic Hacking
National Fitness Day (UK)
National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day
National Museum Day [also 5.18]
National Music Day (Azerbaijan)
National Play-Dough Day
National Rehabilitation Day
National Report Kickback Fraud Day
National Respect! Day
National Science Reading Day
National Tree Day (Canada)
Navy Day (Croatia)
New York Times Day
918 Day (Oklahoma)
Persian Literature and Pony Day (Iran)
PCOS Awareness Day
Scouring of the White Horse (Wantage, Berkshire, UK)
Shima-kutuba Day (Japan; Okinawa)
Top Ten List Day
U.S. Air Force Day
Victory of Uprona (Burgundy)
Vulver Awareness Day
World Bamboo Day
World Knot Tying Day
World Medical Ethics Day
World Water Monitoring Day
Food & Drink Celebrations
National Brett Day
National Cheeseburger Day
National Chocolate Day
Rice Krispies Treats Day
Independence & Related Days
Buddie Union (Declared; 2015) [unrecognized]
Chile (a.k.a. Dieciocho, 1st Gov't Junta, 1818)
Free Republic of Silbervia (Declared; 2020) [unrecognized]
3rd Wednesday in September
Banned Websites Awareness Day [3rd Wednesday]
Ember Day (Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches) [Wednesday after 9.14]
Human Resource Manager Day [3rd Wednesday]
Hump Day [Every Wednesday]
Mouth Cancer Awareness Day (Ireland) [3rd Wednesday]
National Attention Deficit Disorder Awareness Day [3rd Wednesday]
National Rehabilitation Day [3rd Wednesday]
National School Backpack Awareness Day [3rd Wednesday]
Quarter Tense (Ireland) [Wednesday after 9.14]
Wacky Wednesday [Every Wednesday]
Wandering Wednesday [3rd Wednesday of Each Month]
Website Wednesday [Every Wednesday]
Wiener Wednesday [3rd Wednesday of Each Month]
Weekly Holidays beginning September 18 (3rd Full Week of September)
Wear Cotton Week (thru 9.25)
Festivals Beginning September 18, 2024
Eurofurence (Hamburg, Germany) [thru 9.21]
Festival du Film Merveilleux et Imaginaire (Paris, France) [thru 9.20]
Lost Lands (Thornville, Ohio) [thru 9.22]
National Cattle Congress (Waterloo, Iowa) [thru 9.22]
Walnut Valley Festival (Winfield, Kansas) [thru 9.22]
Feast Days
Amoeba Assimilation Day (Pastafarian)
Anton Mauve (Artology)
Arcadius, Bishop of Novgorod (Christian; Saint)
Ariadne of Phrygia (Christian; Martyr)
Bidzin, Elizbar, and Shalva, Princes of Georgia (Christian; Martyrs)
Cassius Marcellus Coolidge (Artology)
Castor of Alexandria (Christian; Martyr)
Constantius (Theban Legion)
Ear Wig Fitting Day (Shamanism)
Edward Bouverie Pusey (Episcopal Church)
Eleusinian Mysteries begin (Ancient Rome; Starza Pagan Book of Days)
Eugene’s, Bishop of Gortyna (Christian; Saint)
Eustorgius I (Christian; Saint)
Ferreol (Christian; Saint)
Feast of Ceres (Roman Goddess of Agriculture & Grain Crops)
Festival of Labour (French Republic)
Foundation Day (Unification Church)
Hilarion of Optima (Christian; Saint)
Joe Kubert (Artology)
John Harvey Kellogg Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)
José de Rivera (Artology)
Joseph of Cupertino (Christian; Martyr)
Juan Macias (Christian; Saint)
Konstantin Kakanias (Artology)
Leonardo da Crunchy (Muppetism)
Lord Berners (Artology)
Lynn Abbey (Writerism)
Mark di Suvero (Artology)
Methodius of Olympus (Christian; Saint)
Plataia (Ancient Greece)
Richardis (Christian; Saint)
Rosmerta (Celtic Book of Days)
Samuel Johnson (Writerism)
Scouring the White Horse begins (Everyday Wicca)
Sophia and Irene of Egypt (Christian; Martyrs)
Third Nostril of Christ Day (Church of the SubGenius)
Thomas of Villanova (Christian; Saint)
Tzom Gedaliah (Fast of Gedalia; Judaism)
Vanaheim Day (Pagan)
Vondel (Positivist; Saint)
Zay Day (Sus God Zay) [Wear red or purple hoodies]
Lunar Calendar Holidays
Chong Chao (Macau)
Chusok (South Korea)
Lucky & Unlucky Days
Fortunate Day (Pagan) [38 of 53]
Taian (大安 Japan) [Lucky all day.]
Tycho Brahe Unlucky Day (Scandinavia) [31 of 37]
Unglückstage (Unlucky Day; Pennsylvania Dutch) [24 of 30]
Unlucky 18th (Philippines) [3 of 3]
Premieres
Abacab, by Genesis (Album; 1981)
Abou Ben Boogie (Swing Symphony Cartoon; 1944)
The Addams Family (TV Series; 1964)
Birthday, recorded by The Beatles (Song; 1967)
A Bully Frog (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1936)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Film; 1958)
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Animated Film; 2009)
Continental Divide (Film; 1981)
Crazytown (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1959)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (Film; 1951)
Dog Daze (WB MM Cartoon; 1937)
Enough Said (Film; 2013)
The Farm of Tomorrow (MGM Cartoon; 1954)
Fatal Attraction (Film; 1987)
Five and Dime (Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Cartoon; 1933)
The French Lieutenant’s Woman (Film; 1981)
Funny Girl (Film; 1968)
Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss (Albums; 1978)
Get Smart (TV Series; 1965)
Goldfinger premiered in UK (1964) [James Bond #3]
Goo Goo Goliath (WB MM Cartoon; 1954)
The Gullible Canary (Phantasies Cartoon; 1942)
Hair Today Gone Tomorrow (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1959)
Heartache Tonight, by The Eagles (Song; 1979)
I Likes Babies and Infanks (Fleischer Cartoon Popeye Cartoon; 1937)
In the Night Kitchen, by Maurice Sendak (Children’s Book; 1970)
The Japoteurs (Fleischer Cartoon; 1942) [#10]
Jennifer’s Body (Film; 2009)
Jonny Quest (Animated TV Series; 1964)
Making Money, by Terry Pratchet (Novel; 2007) [Discworld #36]
Maple Leaf Rag, by Scott Joplin (Song; 1899)
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (Film; 2015)
The Moffatt Translation of the Bible (Bible; 1922)
More Than a Feeling,, by Boston (Song; 1976)
New York Times (Daily Newspaper; 1851)
Old Rockin’ Chair Tom (Tom & Jerry Cartoon; 1948)
Pain Strikes Underdog, Parts 1 & 2 (Underdog Cartoon, S2, Eps. 1 & 2 1965)
Pink in the Clink (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1968)
The Road to Ruin or Mine Over Matter (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S2, Ep. 55; 1960)
Rockin’ with Judy Jetson (Hanna-Barbera Animated TV Movie; 1988)
Rush Hour (Film; 1998)
School Daze (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1942)
The Scorch Trials, by James Dashner (Novel; 2010) [Maze Runner #2]
Serve It Forth (Art of Eating), by M.F.K. Fisher (Food Essays; 1937)
Severed Relations or How to Get a Head (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S4, Ep. 161; 1962)
Sicario (Film; 2015)
Singles (Film; 1992)
Smiley Smile, by The Beach Boys (Album; 1967)
Strange Little Girl, by Tori Amos (Album; 2001)
A Streetcar Named Desire (Film; 1951)
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (TV Series; 2006)
Superman: Doomsday (WB Animated Film; 2007)
That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles or Me and My Chateau (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S4, Ep. 162; 1962)
Tired and Feathered (WB LT Cartoon; 1965)
Two Flying Ghosts or High Spirits (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S2, Ep. 56; 1960)
Wagon Train (TV Series; 1957)
War Pigs, by Black Sabbath (Song; 1970)
Where’s Wally, by Martin Hanford (Puzzle Book; 1987)
WKRP in Cincinnati (TV Series; 1978)
Today’s Name Days
Herlinda, Josef, Lambert, Rica (Austria)
Alfonz, Irena, Jonatan, Josip, Sonja (Croatia)
Kryštof, Oskar (Czech Republic)
Titus (Denmark)
Tiido, Tiidrik, Tiidu, Tiit (Estonia)
Tytti, Tyyne, Tyyni (Finland)
Nadège, Véra (France)
Alfons, Herlinde, Lambert, Rica (Germany)
Ariadne, Ariadni, Evmenis, Kastor, Romylos (Greece)
Diána (Hungary)
Eumenio, Giuseppe, Maria, Sofia (Italy)
Alinta, Elita, Gizela, Liesma (Latvia)
Galmantė, Mingailas, Stefa, Stefanija (Lithuania)
Henriette, Henry (Norway)
Dobrowit, Irena, Irma, Józef, Ryszarda, Stefania, Tytus, Zachariasz (Poland)
Eumenie (Romania)
Elizaveta, Raisa (Russia)
Eugénia (Slovakia)
José, Sofía, Sonia (Spain)
Orvar (Sweden)
Irene (Ukraine)
Clint, Clinton, Corbin, Corwin, Corwyn, Korbin, Korvin (USA)
Today is Also…
Day of Year: Day 262 of 2024; 104 days remaining in the year
ISO: Day 3 of Week 38 of 2024
Celtic Tree Calendar: Muin (Vine) [Day 18 of 28]
Chinese: Month 8 (Guy-You), Day 16 (Yi-You)
Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]
Hebrew: 15 Elul 5784
Islamic: 14 Rabi I 1446
J Cal: 22 Gold; Oneday [22 of 30]
Julian: 5 September 2024
Moon: 99%: Waning Gibbous
Positivist: 10 Shakespeare (10th Month) [Racine]
Runic Half Month: Ken (Illumination) [Day 12 of 15]
Season: Summer (Day 91 of 94)
Week: 3rd Full Week of September
Zodiac: Virgo (Day 28 of 32)
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Before being ousted in Montenegro’s presidential runoff election on April 2, incumbent President Milo Djukanovic sounded the alarm about a revival of Serbian efforts to establish a “Serbian world” in the Balkans, linked to the ideology driving Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The ‘Russian world’ project in the Balkans is called ‘Serbian world,’” Djukanovic warned before being ousted, arguing that Serbia views Yugoslavia’s successor states in the same way that Russia views post-Soviet independent states: ripe for political control and even annexation.
Over the past several decades, the idea of a “Russian world” has shaped how Russia sees the populations of former Soviet countries. The Russian language, Orthodox Christianity, and a common culture and history are all viewed by Moscow as ties that outlived the collapse of the Soviet Union. More than three decades later, Moscow still sees these countries as belonging to its sphere of influence despite being independent states—a perception shaping policy. President Vladimir Putin justified Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea by referring in essence to the effort to reclaim the Russian world. His 2022 invasion of Ukraine seeks to reestablish “the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians.”
The Russian world reflects a tension between “actual Russian Federation state borders and the mental maps of ‘Russianness’ that exist in the minds of many Russians,” said Igor Zevelev, a global fellow at the Wilson Center. The concept of the Russian world, Zevelev said, “allows Moscow to keep boundaries vague, at least rhetorically, with uncertain consequences for regional security.” Timothy Garton Ash recently observed that “the ideology of a Russian world was always closely associated with the Russian imperial project, the Russian Orthodox Church … and autocracy.”
Similarly, the idea of a Serbian world casts doubts on the borders of Yugoslavia’s successor states and aims at their reunification. The concept was first articulated in September 2020 by Serbia’s then-defense minister, Aleksandar Vulin. At that time, Vulin stated that Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vucic, “should establish a Serbian world. Belgrade should unite all the Serbs. President of Serbia is president of all Serbs.”
Vulin’s views were not a gaffe. Serbia’s national security strategy of 2021 stated that the country’s objective is the “preservation of the existence and protection of the Serbian people wherever they live.” In other words, Serbia considers itself responsible for promoting and guaranteeing the political interests of Serbs living outside its borders.
Most ominously, this strategy declared that the “preservation of Republika Srpska is one of the foreign policy priorities of the Republic of Serbia.” Republika Srpska is an administrative entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina, a result of the Dayton peace accord hammered out in late 1995. Serbia and Republika Srpska are allowed to have “special parallel relations” under the Dayton Agreement; what is a cause for concern is that Serbia is taking it upon itself to defend a part of Bosnia’s territory. Perhaps in no other country’s national security strategy is its interference in a neighboring state so officially laid out—and well received. Last weekend, Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik called for a unification of Republika Srpska and Serbia, adding that “this century is one of Serbian unification.”
Former Bosniak member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency Sefik Dzaferovic warned in 2021 that talk by Serbian politicians of a Serbian world was reminiscent of former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic’s “Greater Serbia” project: the effort to incorporate all Serbs into one state which brought years of war and suffering to Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dzaferovic’s colleague in the presidency, Bosnian Croat Zeljko Komsic, told the European Parliament in March 2022 that the “Serbian world was identical to the so-called Russian world” in scope, aims, and strategic reasoning.
As if to show his commitment to Serbia’s overreach, Vulin—as interior minister—declared in June 2022 that “the formation of the Serbian world is a process that cannot be stopped.” The following month, he was even more direct: “I dream of the unification of Serbs, just as all my ancestors dreamed of it,” adding, “I know that one day it will be completed, peacefully, without violence and conflict.”
Vulin even called for the unification of all Serbs in the Balkans “in one state,” though how exactly he plans to redraw borders and incorporate Serbs living in other independent states without violence remains unclear. In emphasizing that borders are vague and fluid, he echoes proponents of a Russian world, such as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who also think post-Soviet borders are vague and accordingly take it upon themselves to redraw them. In July 2022, Lavrov said that Russia’s military goals in Ukraine would expand beyond the country’s eastern regions, adding that at the invasion’s five-month mark “the geography is different.” Vulin met with Lavrov when he visited Moscow the following month.
Taken together, Serbia’s 2021 national security strategy and Vulin’s 2022 statements are cause for concern. Even more worryingly, Vulin served under Slobodan Milosevic’s wife, Mira Markovic, in the 1990s, has visited Milosevic’s grave on the anniversary of his death, and pays homage to the former Serbian leader. Vulin’s rhetoric and his living link with the Milosevic years have raised suspicions in Bosnia that the Serbian world is, as political scientist Jasmin Mujanovic termed it, “‘Greater Serbia’ 2.0.” Vulin’s boss, Vucic, also served under Milosevic in the 1990s and has not disowned the idea of a Serbian world.
Though the idea is gaining institutional support, many in the region saw Djukanovic as a brake on it. This month, though, 36-year-old economist Jakov Milatovic won 60 percent of the vote to Djukanovic’s 40 percent, becoming Montenegro’s new president. On the surface, these election results may seem like nothing out of the ordinary: A veteran politician long accused of corruption was replaced by a youthful candidate with international credentials promising change.
But Djukanovic’s defeat is a major victory for those who believe in a Serbian world and support its aims, because it removes barriers to Belgrade’s influence in Montenegro. Djukanovic had been critical of the rising rhetoric of the Serbian world idea and the danger it poses for the rest of the Balkans, lamenting the West’s failure to respond to Vulin’s aggressive rhetoric. After elections in August 2020, a coalition of opposition parties formed a government, turning him into a lame-duck president. On April 2, this array of anti-Djukanovic parties joined forces to oust him.
Milatovic, who got his start in politics as an economic development minister in a coalition government of pro-Serbia, pro-Serbian Orthodox Church parties, won the election with the support of Andrija Mandic, one of the leaders of Montenegro’s pro-Serbian Democratic Front. Mandic, who ran against Djukanovic in the election’s first round, was tried in 2019 for his alleged role in an attempted coup joining Serbs, Russians, and Montenegrins in overthrowing Montenegro’s government. He flanked Milatovic during his victory speech as supporters in the streets greeted the new president with Serbian flags.
Djukanovic’s defeat also opens the door for Serbia’s religious influence in Montenegro. The runoffs featured a clash between the Serbian Orthodox Church and Montenegro’s Orthodox Church. The Belgrade-based Serbian Orthodox Church holds jurisdiction throughout Serbia, Bosnia, and Montenegro, and its control over properties in Montenegro —which Djukanovic opposed—was at stake on April 2. Djukanovic’s ouster will reduce the power of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church in its own country, strengthening the Serbian church’s hand even more.
Milatovic himself has dismissed the idea of a Serbian world, but observers in Montenegro perceive that his victory enables it. Seki Radoncic, a journalist based in Montenegro, sees the new president as a “puppet” of Belgrade, stating that Milatovic represents a Greater Serbia to Montenegro. Senad Pecanin, a lawyer and journalist based in Sarajevo, recently observed that Serbia will do away with Montenegro’s identity and “may change the character of its statehood.” And Avdo Avdic, an investigative journalist in Sarajevo, weighed in that “the Serbian world now has access to the sea.” He meant that Serbia, through its control over Montenegro, has gained access to the Adriatic Sea, which it lost when Montenegro opted for independence in 2006.
With Milatovic in power, Montenegro will keep its territorial integrity but lose the political independence Djukanovic helped secure for it. The 61-year-old veteran politician dominated Montenegro’s politics for over three decades and was first elected prime minister at the age of 29. In the 1990s, he was in league with Milosevic as he launched his wars of conquest on Croatia and Bosnia. When he saw that Milosevic’s fortunes were declining, Djukanovic distanced himself from the strongman and chartered his own course, eventually leading Montenegro to independence from Serbia.
He has since become a champion of a pro-Western Montenegro and presided over its closer integration with the European Union. In 2017, Montenegro joined NATO. At home, ethnic minority rights were largely respected. Djukanovic was happy to declare his country a leader in the European integration process in the Balkans.
With Djukanovic gone, fears of a rising Serbian world are spreading beyond Montenegro. Serbian officials in Bosnia are effectively blocking the country’s NATO accession. In a Serbian world, key political and military decisions about states in which ethnic Serbs live outside Serbia would be made in Belgrade, negating the independence of post-Yugoslav successor states and placing Serbia as the center of political gravity in the Balkans. True to form, Bosnia’s Serb member of the presidency, Zeljka Cvijanovic, mandated that the Bosnian Armed Forces must hold exercises with Serbia before they can do so with Germany and the United States.
What “Greater Serbia” failed to achieve by brute force in the 1990s may now be attempted by hybrid means. Political state capture from within independent states, rather than military incursion, seems to be Serbia’s preferred method for pursuing the dream of a Serbian world. For now.
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Holidays 9.18
Holidays
Aging Awareness Day
Astronomy Day (Armenia)
Big Brothers Big Sisters Day (Canada)
Celebrate Your Name Day
Celebration of Talent (French Republic)
Chiropractic Founders Day
Clemente Day
Day of National Music (Azerbaijan)
Deceased Motorcyclists Remembrance Day (Ukraine)
Dieciocho (Chile)
Eleven Days of Global Unity, Day 8: Human Rights
European Heritage Days (EU)
Feast Day of the Walloon Region (Belgium)
Festival of Inner Worlds
Festival of Labour (French Republic)
Fiesta Patrias (Chile)
First Love Day
Global Company Culture Day
Hug a Greeting Card Writer Day
International Equal Pay Day (UN)
International Pitt Hopkins Awareness Day
International Read an eBook Day
Island Language Day (Okinawa, Japan)
Jeannie in a Bottle Day
Jitiya Parwa (Only Women Employees; Nepal)
Jonny Quest Day
Long Playing Record Day
Mickey Mantle Day (New York)
Mid-Autumn Festival Holiday (Taiwan)
Mountain Meadows Massacre Anniversary Day (by Mormon Church Members; Utah)
Mukden Incident Anniversary Day
National Cannabis Day (Germany)
National Ceiling Fan Day
National Colton Day
National Day of Civic Hacking
National Fitness Day (UK)
National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day
National Museum Day [also 5.18]
National Music Day (Azerbaijan)
National Play-Dough Day
National Rehabilitation Day
National Report Kickback Fraud Day
National Respect! Day
National Science Reading Day
National Tree Day (Canada)
Navy Day (Croatia)
New York Times Day
918 Day (Oklahoma)
Persian Literature and Pony Day (Iran)
PCOS Awareness Day
Scouring of the White Horse (Wantage, Berkshire, UK)
Shima-kutuba Day (Japan; Okinawa)
Top Ten List Day
U.S. Air Force Day
Victory of Uprona (Burgundy)
Vulver Awareness Day
World Bamboo Day
World Knot Tying Day
World Medical Ethics Day
World Water Monitoring Day
Food & Drink Celebrations
National Brett Day
National Cheeseburger Day
National Chocolate Day
Rice Krispies Treats Day
Independence & Related Days
Buddie Union (Declared; 2015) [unrecognized]
Chile (a.k.a. Dieciocho, 1st Gov't Junta, 1818)
Free Republic of Silbervia (Declared; 2020) [unrecognized]
3rd Wednesday in September
Banned Websites Awareness Day [3rd Wednesday]
Ember Day (Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches) [Wednesday after 9.14]
Human Resource Manager Day [3rd Wednesday]
Hump Day [Every Wednesday]
Mouth Cancer Awareness Day (Ireland) [3rd Wednesday]
National Attention Deficit Disorder Awareness Day [3rd Wednesday]
National Rehabilitation Day [3rd Wednesday]
National School Backpack Awareness Day [3rd Wednesday]
Quarter Tense (Ireland) [Wednesday after 9.14]
Wacky Wednesday [Every Wednesday]
Wandering Wednesday [3rd Wednesday of Each Month]
Website Wednesday [Every Wednesday]
Wiener Wednesday [3rd Wednesday of Each Month]
Weekly Holidays beginning September 18 (3rd Full Week of September)
Wear Cotton Week (thru 9.25)
Festivals Beginning September 18, 2024
Eurofurence (Hamburg, Germany) [thru 9.21]
Festival du Film Merveilleux et Imaginaire (Paris, France) [thru 9.20]
Lost Lands (Thornville, Ohio) [thru 9.22]
National Cattle Congress (Waterloo, Iowa) [thru 9.22]
Walnut Valley Festival (Winfield, Kansas) [thru 9.22]
Feast Days
Amoeba Assimilation Day (Pastafarian)
Anton Mauve (Artology)
Arcadius, Bishop of Novgorod (Christian; Saint)
Ariadne of Phrygia (Christian; Martyr)
Bidzin, Elizbar, and Shalva, Princes of Georgia (Christian; Martyrs)
Cassius Marcellus Coolidge (Artology)
Castor of Alexandria (Christian; Martyr)
Constantius (Theban Legion)
Ear Wig Fitting Day (Shamanism)
Edward Bouverie Pusey (Episcopal Church)
Eleusinian Mysteries begin (Ancient Rome; Starza Pagan Book of Days)
Eugene’s, Bishop of Gortyna (Christian; Saint)
Eustorgius I (Christian; Saint)
Ferreol (Christian; Saint)
Feast of Ceres (Roman Goddess of Agriculture & Grain Crops)
Festival of Labour (French Republic)
Foundation Day (Unification Church)
Hilarion of Optima (Christian; Saint)
Joe Kubert (Artology)
John Harvey Kellogg Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)
José de Rivera (Artology)
Joseph of Cupertino (Christian; Martyr)
Juan Macias (Christian; Saint)
Konstantin Kakanias (Artology)
Leonardo da Crunchy (Muppetism)
Lord Berners (Artology)
Lynn Abbey (Writerism)
Mark di Suvero (Artology)
Methodius of Olympus (Christian; Saint)
Plataia (Ancient Greece)
Richardis (Christian; Saint)
Rosmerta (Celtic Book of Days)
Samuel Johnson (Writerism)
Scouring the White Horse begins (Everyday Wicca)
Sophia and Irene of Egypt (Christian; Martyrs)
Third Nostril of Christ Day (Church of the SubGenius)
Thomas of Villanova (Christian; Saint)
Tzom Gedaliah (Fast of Gedalia; Judaism)
Vanaheim Day (Pagan)
Vondel (Positivist; Saint)
Zay Day (Sus God Zay) [Wear red or purple hoodies]
Lunar Calendar Holidays
Chong Chao (Macau)
Chusok (South Korea)
Lucky & Unlucky Days
Fortunate Day (Pagan) [38 of 53]
Taian (大安 Japan) [Lucky all day.]
Tycho Brahe Unlucky Day (Scandinavia) [31 of 37]
Unglückstage (Unlucky Day; Pennsylvania Dutch) [24 of 30]
Unlucky 18th (Philippines) [3 of 3]
Premieres
Abacab, by Genesis (Album; 1981)
Abou Ben Boogie (Swing Symphony Cartoon; 1944)
The Addams Family (TV Series; 1964)
Birthday, recorded by The Beatles (Song; 1967)
A Bully Frog (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1936)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Film; 1958)
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Animated Film; 2009)
Continental Divide (Film; 1981)
Crazytown (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1959)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (Film; 1951)
Dog Daze (WB MM Cartoon; 1937)
Enough Said (Film; 2013)
The Farm of Tomorrow (MGM Cartoon; 1954)
Fatal Attraction (Film; 1987)
Five and Dime (Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Cartoon; 1933)
The French Lieutenant’s Woman (Film; 1981)
Funny Girl (Film; 1968)
Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss (Albums; 1978)
Get Smart (TV Series; 1965)
Goldfinger premiered in UK (1964) [James Bond #3]
Goo Goo Goliath (WB MM Cartoon; 1954)
The Gullible Canary (Phantasies Cartoon; 1942)
Hair Today Gone Tomorrow (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1959)
Heartache Tonight, by The Eagles (Song; 1979)
I Likes Babies and Infanks (Fleischer Cartoon Popeye Cartoon; 1937)
In the Night Kitchen, by Maurice Sendak (Children’s Book; 1970)
The Japoteurs (Fleischer Cartoon; 1942) [#10]
Jennifer’s Body (Film; 2009)
Jonny Quest (Animated TV Series; 1964)
Making Money, by Terry Pratchet (Novel; 2007) [Discworld #36]
Maple Leaf Rag, by Scott Joplin (Song; 1899)
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (Film; 2015)
The Moffatt Translation of the Bible (Bible; 1922)
More Than a Feeling,, by Boston (Song; 1976)
New York Times (Daily Newspaper; 1851)
Old Rockin’ Chair Tom (Tom & Jerry Cartoon; 1948)
Pain Strikes Underdog, Parts 1 & 2 (Underdog Cartoon, S2, Eps. 1 & 2 1965)
Pink in the Clink (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1968)
The Road to Ruin or Mine Over Matter (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S2, Ep. 55; 1960)
Rockin’ with Judy Jetson (Hanna-Barbera Animated TV Movie; 1988)
Rush Hour (Film; 1998)
School Daze (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1942)
The Scorch Trials, by James Dashner (Novel; 2010) [Maze Runner #2]
Serve It Forth (Art of Eating), by M.F.K. Fisher (Food Essays; 1937)
Severed Relations or How to Get a Head (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S4, Ep. 161; 1962)
Sicario (Film; 2015)
Singles (Film; 1992)
Smiley Smile, by The Beach Boys (Album; 1967)
Strange Little Girl, by Tori Amos (Album; 2001)
A Streetcar Named Desire (Film; 1951)
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (TV Series; 2006)
Superman: Doomsday (WB Animated Film; 2007)
That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles or Me and My Chateau (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S4, Ep. 162; 1962)
Tired and Feathered (WB LT Cartoon; 1965)
Two Flying Ghosts or High Spirits (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S2, Ep. 56; 1960)
Wagon Train (TV Series; 1957)
War Pigs, by Black Sabbath (Song; 1970)
Where’s Wally, by Martin Hanford (Puzzle Book; 1987)
WKRP in Cincinnati (TV Series; 1978)
Today’s Name Days
Herlinda, Josef, Lambert, Rica (Austria)
Alfonz, Irena, Jonatan, Josip, Sonja (Croatia)
Kryštof, Oskar (Czech Republic)
Titus (Denmark)
Tiido, Tiidrik, Tiidu, Tiit (Estonia)
Tytti, Tyyne, Tyyni (Finland)
Nadège, Véra (France)
Alfons, Herlinde, Lambert, Rica (Germany)
Ariadne, Ariadni, Evmenis, Kastor, Romylos (Greece)
Diána (Hungary)
Eumenio, Giuseppe, Maria, Sofia (Italy)
Alinta, Elita, Gizela, Liesma (Latvia)
Galmantė, Mingailas, Stefa, Stefanija (Lithuania)
Henriette, Henry (Norway)
Dobrowit, Irena, Irma, Józef, Ryszarda, Stefania, Tytus, Zachariasz (Poland)
Eumenie (Romania)
Elizaveta, Raisa (Russia)
Eugénia (Slovakia)
José, Sofía, Sonia (Spain)
Orvar (Sweden)
Irene (Ukraine)
Clint, Clinton, Corbin, Corwin, Corwyn, Korbin, Korvin (USA)
Today is Also…
Day of Year: Day 262 of 2024; 104 days remaining in the year
ISO: Day 3 of Week 38 of 2024
Celtic Tree Calendar: Muin (Vine) [Day 18 of 28]
Chinese: Month 8 (Guy-You), Day 16 (Yi-You)
Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]
Hebrew: 15 Elul 5784
Islamic: 14 Rabi I 1446
J Cal: 22 Gold; Oneday [22 of 30]
Julian: 5 September 2024
Moon: 99%: Waning Gibbous
Positivist: 10 Shakespeare (10th Month) [Racine]
Runic Half Month: Ken (Illumination) [Day 12 of 15]
Season: Summer (Day 91 of 94)
Week: 3rd Full Week of September
Zodiac: Virgo (Day 28 of 32)
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Bulgaria’s Orthodox Church elects new patriarch formerly opposed NATO
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church on Sunday elected Daniil Vidin (Atanas Nikolov), the 52-year-old metropolitan as its new leader in a vote.
A total of 138 out of 140 participants in the council voted. Daniel secured the support of 69 of them. Metropolitan Grigory of Vratsa received the votes of 66 delegates. Three more ballots were declared invalid.
Unlike his late predecessor, Daniil sided with the Moscow Patriarchate in its dispute with the Ecumenical Patriarch over the independence of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
Daniil succeeded the soft-speaking and charismatic Patriarch Neophyte, who passed away in March aged 78 after leading the church for 11 years.
A church procession accompanied the newly elected patriarch to the cathedral, where he was enthroned in a sumptuous ceremony, attended by other Orthodox church representatives as well as Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians.
Bartholomew is considered first among equals among Eastern Orthodox patriarchs, which gives him prominence but not the power of a Catholic pope. Large portions of the Eastern Orthodox world are self-governing under their own patriarchs.
The election of the Bulgarian patriarch was of great significance in light of the issue of the Ukrainian schism. In December 2018, then-Metropolitan Daniil called non-canonical the “unification council” of the schismatics, from which the new “church” emerged. He has repeatedly spoken in support of the canonical UOC and criticised the intervention of ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.
Although the church in Bulgaria is completely separate from the state, its constitution calls Eastern Orthodoxy the “traditional religion,” which is adhered to by about 85 per cent of its 6.5 million people.
Read more HERE
#world news#world politics#news#europe#european news#european union#eu politics#eu news#bulgaria#international relations#orthodox#orthodox christianity#orthodox church#nato#nato news#nato expansion#nato allies#ukraine#ukraine war#ukraine conflict#ukraine news#ukraine russia conflict#ukraine russia news#russo ukrainian war#war in ukraine#russia ukraine crisis#russia ukraine war#russia ukraine conflict#russia ukraine today
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The mysterious world of indigenous Hutsuls. How romanticising can become a dangerous tool of imperialism.
The world of indigenous Ukrainians have always been covered with mystery. Even more so for the external observers - people who perceive this land as the most authentic place in Ukraine, where the local traditions and rites have been preserved and cultivated. Nevertheless, some aspects of the Hutsul culture and history have changed over time under the pressure of various forces, both political and technological, and for the full picture those forces should be closely examined. Today I talked to a young woman from Hutsul region, S. (name changed), who shared her story of superstitions, magic and paganism that exist in the Carpathians until this day.
I was curious about whether there exist any myths and mystical narratives that are being told by the elderly to the young generations. S. shared a story that was narrated in her family, where a woman was called a witch mostly die to her unethical behaviour. That woman was engaged with herbal medicine, so the superstitions worked well with the image of a powerful indigenous Hutsul dealing with the natural forces. S. also shared that witchcraft has always been stigmatised, where a woman would be called a “witch” if she did not fully comply with normativity. S. added: “The topic of witchcraft has always been of interest to me.” The Western European medieval witch hunt with which most of people associate the story of women’s magic was not the only existing framework. In Hutsul region, due to the late imposition of Catholic religion, and its close interaction with paganism, there was no violent witch hunt, but rather social and moral condemnation of non-normative women. Simultaneously, S. shared a story of pagan culture that has been very strong despite the hegemony of the Christian Catholic Church. For example, it was documented in 80-90s that there were still people praying to the sun and not to the God. “This also exists until today,” S. shared, “but back then [paganism] was still sincerely living.”
The history of the region is exciting. People who did not want to be subjected to oppression of any of the empires that ruled on the Ukrainian territory (there were plenty of them), were fleeing to the Carpathian Mountains. There, far from the state rules and structures, they managed to preserve and develop rites and traditions, which would not withstand the imperial forces of unification and subjugation. However, the depiction of indigenous Hutsul people has turned into the post-colonial narrative the people from the capital tell each other. “These are the people who were not influenced by civilisation,” S. shared. She thinks that this image is way too romanticised. She also drew a parallel between the narrative about Hutsul people by Ukrainians from Kyiv and elsewhere, and the way Americans talk about native Americans - the superficial depiction of the richness of culture and labelling of the indigenous communities as “noble savages”. However, there are a plenty of other region in Ukraine where the culture is rich and exciting, like Polissya and Poltavschyna, yet they are not as “appealing” and “mysterious” as the people who live high in the mountains, far from the rest of the population, isolated and authentic. The desire to explore the indigenousness is understandable, however, the outsider would almost inevitably come with their stereotypes and lenses that would impact the objectivity of research.
I have never had sincere conversations with Hutsul people on the topic of their cultural framing. This time, however, the discussion with S. revealed something special. She helped me understand that the interest in the topic does not necessarily justify research, especially if no cultural sensitivity is present.
The immediate temptation to apply my personal understanding of “witchcraft” and “mysticism” onto the Hutsul people shows that the story can be narrated by the agent themselves much better than external people who have pre-existing knowledge, although superficial, about the regional culture.
Sometimes the best question that can be asked is “What do YOU think is important and would be nice to share?” rather than “Tell me about the mythology of your people.” The curious mind coming into the culture should not necessarily impose their superstitions or hypotheses, but would rather observe and note the reality without any theoretical framework. Only afterwards, when the ethnographic work is done, they could draw conclusions and construct the theory to explain what they have seen, and not the other way around. Such approach helps discover some hidden gems, non-conventional knowledge of the indigenous peoples, but also the frames that are so quick to limit the vast wisdom of the nation for the purpose of reinforcing post-colonial narratives in culture, society and politics.
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That bad dream we knew as the 1980s
#Los Tecos#drug trafficking#terrorism#WACL#Ukraine#international fascism#Nazi#death squads#CIA#freemasonry#cold war#golden lilly loot#Phillipines#Unification Church
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Mongolia – Battleground of the Han and Kwak groups
Thanks to a recent post on WIOTM, Mongolia and its relationship with the Moon Organization, was brought to our attention again:
https://whatisonthemoon.tumblr.com/post/617771924673773568/uncensored-interview-moonies-cult-activities-in
Prior to the Preston Moon scandal (that began in 2008), the Chung Hwan Kwak family was in charge of Mongolia. Once Preston and Rev. Kwak were officially “demonized” and removed from their “positions”, Bo Hi Pak became the Family Federation leader of Mongolia:
http://www.tongil.org/ucbooks/Mongolia/20101209-Mongolia.html
Given the significance of the Kwak and Pak families in the history of the Unification Church, and the fact that there’s still an ongoing court battle between the Preston/Kwak group and the Han group, it seems apparent that Mongolia is a key geographical area to have “influence”. In other words, by understanding the current connections between the Mongolian government and these two “factions,” it should give us a glimpse if not more, into where the “greater” Moon Organization may be heading in geopolitical matters.
There seems to be a lot at stake here. So, I’ve taken it upon myself to post a few articles on this topic:
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March 25, 2016
Mongolian President Tsakhia Elbegdorj denied any links with South Korean religious group Unification Church on Thursday.
Elbegdorj said he and other Mongolian politicians had attended events organized by the church, but he had never participated in such events or met with the organization’s leader after becoming president.
Video recordings of Elbegdorj with Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon went viral on Mongolian social media recently, allegedly leaked by a source close to the president.
The South Korean religious group is highly controversial in Mongolia, as it was accused of trying to edit textbook contents in its favor. An Education Ministry official resigned after coming under fire for joining the church.
http://www.china.org.cn/world/Off_the_Wire/2016-03/25/content_38106365.htm
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June 23, 2017
Mongolians pick a new president Monday (June 26) after a campaign marred by corruption scandals plaguing all three candidates, from jobs for cash to offshore accounts and donations from an alleged cult.
The candidates are Mieygombo Enkhbold for the Mongolian People’s Party - which controls the parliament - Khaltmaa Battulga for the opposition Democratic Party (DP) and Sainkhuu Ganbaatar for the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party.
The third-party candidate… a video allegedly shows Ganbaatar receiving a US$44,000 donation from a member of the “Moonies,” or Unification Church, a South Korean-based Christian group that critics consider a cult.
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/corruption-scandals-muddy-mongolias-presidential-vote
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Daily Sabah
Sept. 3, 2018
Relations between Mongolia and Turkey were strained in July after a high-level Gülenist Terrorist Group (FETÖ) member in Mongolia was not extradited to Turkey. Following the failed extradition, Turkey announced that allowing FETÖ to operate freely in Mongolia would be detrimental to Turkish-Mongolian relations.
Responding to Turkey’s announcement, Mongolia’s Ambassador to Ankara Ravdan Bold stressed that they understood Turkey’s concerns on FETÖ-affiliated schools and all five of the said schools’ administration would be eventually transferred to the Mongolian Ministry of Education. Bold also added that individual members of FETÖ would not be able to renew their education and employment visas and be asked to leave the country this year.
Currently, around 1,300 students are in these five schools that have been operating in Mongolia since 1994. Empati, the company that owned these schools, sold them to a German company that serves as a front for FETÖ. The Mongolian Ministry of Education did not allow this company to acquire the necessary licenses to operate the five schools. On this subject, Ambassador Bold said that the technical process to seize these schools from FETÖ is in progress and that these schools are losing students by the day.
While drawing analogies between the Moon Cult and FETÖ as both of them operated through schools and companies, Bold expressed his belief that both of these harmful entities created concerns for Mongolia’s national security. Bold said, “They are two sides of one coin.”
“As Mongolia’s Ambassador to Turkey, I fully understand Turkey’s concerns, and I do my best to convince Mongolian politicians on the issue. Today, terrorism is not only one country’s issue, it is an international issue,” Bold added.
The Unification Church, known as the “Moon Cult,” is highly controversial in Mongolia, as it was accused of trying to edit textbook content in its favor. An Education Ministry official resigned after coming under fire for joining the church in Mongolia in 2016. Members of the Church are often referred to as “Moonies” and have been active in promoting events in Mongolia through education and trade activities. …
Moon visited Mongolia in October 2005. He came to Ulaanbaatar, the capital and largest city of Mongolia, with his wife Hak Ja Han Moon and gave a speech titled, “Strong family life is the true role model for peace and harmony.”...
Commenting on the Moon Cult leader Sun Myung Moon, Bold stated that the Moon Cult was quite influential in Mongolia until three years ago, having around $3 billion invested in the country. After a fall out between two sons of Moon, one of whom was leading the cult’s operations in Mongolia, this investment was transferred to Hong Kong, he said.
Underscoring the ulterior motives of the Moon Cult and drawing an analogy with FETÖ, Bold said, “I talked to Mongolian politicians and asked them to look at the present example. FETÖ is just like the Moon Movement. If you don’t understand Gülen and FETÖ, look at Moon, what he did to Mongolia and what happened to him. It’s exactly the same process. Faces may be different but cults and purposes are the same. They are two sides of one coin.” ...
The Mongolian economy only consists of two branches, Mining and agriculture.
https://www.dailysabah.com/war-on-terror/2018/09/03/mongolia-will-act-in-accordance-with-turkeys-concerns-on-feto-envoy-says
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To conclude here, let us be mindful of the fact that the countries of Mongolia, Nepal and the Ukraine [and Brazil?], are arguably where the Moon Organization has its greatest influence currently. Looking at this geopolitically, Nepal borders China in the south, while Mongolia borders China in the north. Then there is the Ukraine, which borders Russia in the west, while Mongolia borders Russia in the south. Summarizing then, I find it very intriguing, that the three nations where the current Moon Organization seems to have its greatest influence, can be looked at geopolitically in such a manner.
What more do we need to know, about the work the “greater” Moon Organization is doing in this part of the world? And was the recent Rev. Kwak letter to the “Unification Movement,” which basically excerpts Kwak’s new book on the UM “conflict”…is this all a “power play,” in the what I will call “Tribal Warfare?”:
https://whatisonthemoon.tumblr.com/post/616646950771654656/rev-chung-hwan-kwaks-letter-april-22-2020
https://www.amazon.com/Truth-Shall-Prevail-Understanding-Unification-ebook/dp/B081DL8563
’til the next,
Don Diligent
reposted from WIOTM
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“Uncensored interview” – Moon cult activities in Mongolia Part 1
“Uncensored interview” – Moon cult activities in Mongolia Part 2
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BY LESLIE MORRIS
Leslie Morris at his typewriter. [Communist Party of Canada]
Welsh-Canadian Leslie Morris was a Communist Party activist in the nineteen-twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and into the sixties. Elected Party Leader in 1962, he died in 1964. Through much of that time he wrote a regular column for the Communist press. Here are some examples.
***
The Labour Temple at 167 Church Street, Toronto. (1965) [York University Archives]
***
(In 1921, while Canada was still under the War Measures Act, the Communist Party organized itself secretly in a barn near Guelph, Ontario. In 1922, the above-ground Workers Party of Canada was formed, and in 1924 it changed its name to Communist Party of Canada. Leslie Morris was there, and in 1938 reflected on the Party’s founding.)
December 24 | 1938
Party of the Builders of Canada
Daily Clarion
Seventeen years ago this month in December, 1921, a group of men and women gathered in the Labor Temple in Toronto to form a new party. They came from all parts of Canada. All of them had been active for years in trade unions, in the Socialist movement of various wings; some were connected with labor papers, others with cultural associations among the immigrant groups.
But, no matter what their background was, they were all fired by one great enthusiasm: to restore to the Canadian working class that genuine Socialist leadership which had led the workers and peasants of the tzarist empire to victory, and which at that very moment was organizing the defeat of the interventionists.
There are those who say the Communist Party is an "importation." Nothing can be farther from the truth. The men and women who made up that provisional conference in Toronto were a cross section of the people who had built this new country. If anything can be more Canadian than a workingman, no matter where he was born, who laid the steel and bored the blast holes and broke the virgin sod of the prairies, we should like to meet him!
True, the world experience of the working class movement in the war years and in the revolutionary upsurge which began in 1917, had its profound effect upon Canada. National boundaries cannot prevent the migration of ideas and feelings. But it would be wrong to say that these experiences came only from the outside, from Europe. The Communist Party sprang from Canadian conditions: from the Socialist movement which existed here from the turn of the century; from the trade union movement, which gave us leaders like Tim Buck; from the movement for political democracy which had its earlier champions in Mackenzie, Papineau, Gourlay,* Riel.
The provisional conference of December, 1921 which decided to call a constituent convention in Toronto in February 1922 (again in the historic Labor Temple on Church Street) indeed marked the opening of a new chapter in Canadian history.
Up to that time the Socialist movement had been divorced from life. It preferred to ignore the living stuff of the daily class struggle. It chose to ruminate and philosophize. It did not give leadership.
With the coming of the Workers' Party (later to be known as the Communist Party after the third convention in 1924) the labor movement underwent a change.
Andre Malraux, in his latest book, Man’s Hope, remarks through one of his characters that the favorite Communist word is “concrete” – that is to say, that the Communist is characterized by his burning desire to stick to the facts and on that basis to propose a definite course of action,
Just as in the Daily Clarion the other day, Lenin's telegram to the revolting German soldiers in the Ukraine in 1918 did not come swathed in a bundle of congratulatory phrases, but came as a simple, direct call to pursue the next practical step towards securing the success of their action against the Hohenzollern [the Kaiser’s] machine.
One of the most important changes in the Canadian labor movement brought about by the Communist Party lay in the concreteness with which the tasks of labor were set forward, not always in the best manner in those early days, but in a way not exceeded by any other group, and with clarity of purpose as its keynote.
Empty philosophizing was condemned in the sharpest terms. “Back to the masses" was the slogan the early Communists adopted. “Learn to swim in water," was one of the mottoes hung up in the party rooms in Winnipeg at that time. "No struggle too great, no struggle too small” another read.
So the Communists commenced their Herculean task of rebuilding the labor movement, of ridding it of the isolation from the daily lives of the people which was part of our heritage from the past. The slogan of unity was advanced in that time: unity of the union movement; unity between farmers and workers; unity with the masses for winning those concessions like relief [forerunner of welfare] (which at that time after the war were not yet known to people) and in later years, advancing those policies which were first the property of the Communists and later of the entire people.
Remember some of those slogans: unemployment insurance, trade union unity, national unification, against the Hepburn-Duplessis alliance [Hepburn, Duplessis, reactionary premiers of Ontario and Quebec] – remember them next time a red-baiter spouts the slander that the Communists are “foreign agents," and then realize that these great Canadian ideas, first advanced by the Communists, are today the issues around which the whole political life of our country is revolving.
Nineteen twenty-one has given place to nineteen thirty-nine, but the party founded by Tim Buck and his comrades grows and flourishes – because it is flesh of the flesh of the laboring masses of Canada, the custodians of the destiny of our country.
That oneness with Canadian life, guided and enriched by the world experience of the workers, is the guarantee for the success of the principles which the Communist Party has held aloft through thick and thin, in fair weather and foul.
* Robert Gourlay, early democratic reformer, opponent of the "Family Compat" in Upper Canada, banished for sedition in 1819.
Detail from Soviet anti-imperialist political cartoon. (c.1960) [Public Domain]
***
(In 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was set up under U.S. leadership. Canada was a founding member of that military alliance, supposedly organized to block “Soviet aggression and disruption” – meaning by “disruption”, working class and left opposition to post-war capitalist “stabilization” in Western Europe. Now the Soviet Union is gone, but – surprise! surprise! – NATO remains. NATO now openly declares its sphere of activity to be world-wide, not just confined to the region of the North Atlantic, even though the United Nations Charter expressly prohibits – without Security Council authorization – “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state,” while allowing “regional arrangements or agencies for dealing with … the maintenance of international peace and security.”)
May 30 | 1949
Tragedy and Farce
Canadian Tribune
The genius Karl Marx, whose stature as the teacher of mankind grows with each passing day, remarked that great facts and personages appear in history the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce.
This wisdom is called to memory by a comparison between the Anti-Comintern Pact in the 30s [“Comintern” – short for the Communist International] between Hitler, Horthy [of Hungary], Mussolini, Tojo [of Japan] and Franco [of Spain] – which produced the Munich Pact of 1938 and the world war of 1939, and the Atlantic Pact which we are told "preserves our freedom."
The arch-criminals concocted the Anti-Comintern Pact and said it was to preserve “western civilization against the Soviet Union and communism.” That was the Axis – which gave rise to the name “Axis powers" to describe the fascist states.
This is an historic occasion. It is certainly one of the greatest steps toward world peace and security…. This agreement marks the opening of a new era of cooperation and understanding.
That is how [British Foreign Minister] Ernest Bevin described, in parliament on March 18, the Atlantic Pact [which gave rise to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization].
Now, a voice from the past which was strangled by the hangman:
The conclusion of today's agreement is an epochal event. It is a turning point in the struggle of all nations which love order and civilization against the powers of destruction.... This agreement is a guarantee of peace for all the world.
So spoke Ribbentrop, Hitler's foreign minister, when the Anti-Comintern Pact was concluded in November, 1936.
Not even the grace of a change in language – because the motive for both pacts is the same!
Another voice from the dead, Ciano, Mussolini's foreign minister whom he later put to death:
The (Anti-Comintern) Pact has no hidden aims. It is directed against no one. ... It is an instrument placed in the hands of peace and civilization.
Compare this with Ernest Bevin's praise of the (North Atlantic) Pact:
This Pact is a powerful defense arrangement, it is not directed against anyone... If we are accused of ganging up against any country or a group of countries, I should say simply: “Examine the text. There is no secrecy about it; there are no secret clauses."
Two hundred and fifty million people are a rampart against the menace of Soviet aggression and communist disruption.
So shout the press and politicians.
Hitler's main newspaper, the Volkischer Beobachter, hailed the Anti-Comintern Pact in November, 1937, in almost the same words:
The... agreement is a bulwark of peace. A dyke of two hundred million human beings is being formed to protect the peace of the world from Bolshevist disruption.
The chief of the U.S. Air Force said March 1, 1949, referring to the arrival of his Atom Bomb squadron in Britain:
The shadow of United States Air Power can be cast over any part of the world.
Mussolini declared after the signing of the Axis Pact against Bolshevism:
The shadow of our planes will darken the sky.
The Anti-Comintern Pact paralyzed the governments of the western democracies and opened the door for Hitler's armies of invasion. The Atlantic Pact puts the governments who signed it right into the clutches of the United States which alone has the power to enforce its provisions.
Hitler's attempt brought tragedy into the world. The U.S. attempt to repeat what Hitler has done has all the elements of farce attached to it – remembering that farce recoils mightily upon the heads of the ill-doers.
The Communists warned that the Axis Pact and the Munich Pact would lead to war. They were right, and people said so. They say again, the Atlantic Pact is a war pact – but the forces of peace, ten times stronger than in 1938, can defeat the new Axismen – who are ten times weaker than before the war.
The cover of the New Party movement’s 1960 platform paper. [Public Domain]
***
(From the mid-1930s on, Canadian social democracy, or at least the social-democratic leadership, has for the most part eagerly taken on the mission of fighting Communism. The Communists have mostly sought co-operation wherever possible with all popular forces, including social democrats, in working-class and people’s struggles generally. At the time of the New Democratic Party’s founding in 1961, such prospects again got nowhere, to nobody’s surprise. In fact, the infant NDP reversed the get-out-of-NATO policy that its predecessor party, the CCF, had adopted. The policy was later to be once again adopted by the NDP, and then again later dropped once more. Even when it was official, Convention-adopted NDP policy, the public scarcely knew about it.)
March 27 | 1961
The Communists and the New Party
Canadian Tribune
The Communist Party always has supported the idea of a mass labor party, a united front of the workers for independent political action. It also has emphasized that such a party must bring in the farmers and the middle-class people of the cities and towns.
This is not a matter of words but of long years of Communist activity.
In 1921 the Canadian Labor Party* was formed at the time of the Winnipeg convention of the Trades and Labor Congress (AFL). It was a federated party. When the Communist Party was formed in December, 1921, almost 40 years ago now, it supported the CLP. In his book, Thirty Years, Tim Buck described this effort in the following words:
In every locality all unions and other working-class organizations affiliated to the party (the CLP -L.M.) coordinated their parliamentary activities through a delegate council.
Each provincial section held separate annual conventions, the annual conventions being made up of delegates elected in provincial conventions. The CLP was open to all and any working-class organizations. The only conditions were that affiliated organizations should abide by the program and discipline of the CLP in electoral activities and should not at any time engage in anti-working-class activity. The CLP was a working-class political united front. Some marked gains were made during the five years in which its unity was maintained. There is no doubt whatever that its continued development would have made the organized labor movement an important parliamentary force in Canada.
For some time the Communists were in the Canadian Labor Party. One of the reasons the CLP failed was that for the right-wingers the issue became not the workers' needs but “Communism."
The Communists have advocated a mass labor party all these years because they are the strongest fighters for the working-class united front, of which independent labor parliamentary political action is one of the most important parts. It is not the whole of the united front because labor's struggles are not only in the parliamentary arena, but on the industrial front and at times in great demonstrative actions outside of parliament.
This is not to say that the Communists have not made mistakes about the united front from time to time over the years. Of course they have – and they have openly discussed and admitted them. But they have made no big mistakes on unity, because they have always stuck close to the basic truth – that the working-class united front, and people's unity against the monopolies and for peace and independence, are the fundamental questions of present-day Canada. The mistakes never involved these fundamental necessities but always were connected with how to bring them to life.
One of the earliest political memories of this writer is the efforts that were made in Winnipeg in the early 1920s, shortly after the General Strike, to reach electoral agreements with the Independent Labor Party for a parliamentary united front of the working-class voters. The right wing defeated us.
During the years of the CCF the Communists sought to build electoral unity, and were as often rejected by the right-wing leaders and their "red bogey.” At times this struggle for unity reached a high pitch, as when the Labor Section of the CCF was expelled for supporting the united front in Ontario in the mid-1930s.
There is no use blinking one's eyes to the fact that you can achieve unity only by fighting for it. It does not fall like manna from heaven.
The long and bitter struggle to build anti-fascist unity in the years before World War Two and the mighty movement to aid the people of Spain produced big gains and much political education in those stirring days – but always the right wing set its face against mass popular action. The war broke out, and Franco still is in power [in Spain].
The economic crisis of 1929-32 struck Canadians like a thunderbolt and millions recovered from their initial shock to enter massive economic struggles. These never became concentrated in a great parliamentary movement of the workers and farmers because the idea of political unity was not yet strong enough to defeat the right-wing: leaders of the CCF, who ran this chance into the ground.
Now Canadians, living in a world which is being transformed daily before our eyes, when we are menaced by the 20 megaton H-bombs that [scientist] Prof. Linus Pauling described in Toronto last Sunday – bombs that can wipe cities off the map in the twinkling of an eye; and when the idea of Canadian independence is gathering ground and another economic crisis is mounting against us to bring Canadian national policy into its deepest crisis yet - now we have a new chance – as we had in the 1920s and 1930s – to forge that instrument of mass political action which is so urgently required.
Will the new chance be muffed, again? Or will it succeed this time? That is the question.
As far as the Communists are concerned they have made their views on the New Party known, directly and plainly, for they are plain spoken people, not given to double-talk and double-thinking.
They support the New Party, welcome its appearance and see in it a chance of success in defeating the old-line capitalist parties, so much so that the Communist Party raises the possibility of electing a government of the New Party in the coming federal election.
This can be done, say the Communists, if the New Party learns the lesson of the past: that unity – working-class, labor-farmer, all-in people's unity – must be the heart and soul, the backbone, of the New Party if it is to fulfill the hopes many thousands are placing in it.
It can be done if the New Party is the party of Canadian independence, disarmament, peace, and new economic policies to put the country to work for its people instead of for the giant U.S.-Canadian monopolies.
Such a program would immediately win mass support and would roll up further backing as it got rolling in a great crusade.
The Communist Party program, The Road to Socialism in Canada, puts it this way:
Independent labor-farmer political action can be the means of winning away masses of workers and farmers from their traditional support for the capitalist parties and setting them on to the path of political independence. The Communist Party works for the election to parliament of a labor-farmer government. The formation of a labor-farmer government would be a defeat for the monopoly capitalists, instilling political confidence among the workers and farmers... The Communist Party believes that the road of a united, all-inclusive labor-farmer political party is the most advantageous way to bring about the parliamentary defeat of monopoly capital and its parties, and to unite all democratic, freedom-loving forces among the Canadian people to achieve independence, peace and social progress.
In its attitude to the New Party, the Communist Party is faithfully carrying out its program.
It does not ascribe to the New Party a socialist aim, as John Diefenbaker did at the Tory clambake in Ottawa the other day, in an obvious effort to make socialism, falsely, the issue in Canada today, and so to try to scare away potential supporters of the New Party who want new policies short of socialism, and by means of this trick to cover up his own sins in connection with nuclear armaments and unemployment.
There is only one party in Canada which is the party of socialism, the party of the working class, and that is the Communist Party. The Communist Party, as its program says, regards a mass labor-farmer party as a part of the long struggle towards political maturity gained out of experience. It stands on the socialist principle that to build a socialist Canada we shall have to have a working-class dictatorship, a new kind of state led by the working class, possessing a traditional Canadian parliamentary form but with a new class content - a working-class state.
Naturally, such a principle could not be the foundation of the New Party, and the Communists are the first to say so. That is why we speak of the New Party as a party of reform. But reforms, and the fight for them, can help the working class gain strength and experience for the final historic socialist goal.
If unity is built and maintained around the fight for reforms, which will have to be very deep-going to meet the needs of Canada today, then we can foresee the New Party becoming a movement that will do what has been sorely needed for these many years – taking millions of workers and farmers away from the habit of voting for the bosses and voting for themselves for a change.
This is the attitude of the Communist Party to the New Party.
Trade unions, farmers' organizations, New Party clubs and all kinds of popular groups should send hundreds of delegates to the New Party's founding convention. If they are determined to stand for unity there, and fight to adopt a real people's program, then the New Party will correspond to the demands of Canadian life.
If the Founding Convention becomes the scene of anti-Communist misrepresentations, and if the Communists rather than the monopolists become the main target, then the chance will be missed again.
Canadian labor history tells us the choice is as plain as that.
* The name used in the formative stage of the New Democratic Party
Tommy Douglas is carried to the convention platform after the announcement was made that he had won the NDP leadership. (1961) [The Associated Press]
***
October 1961
The New Democratic Party Founding Convention
Marxist Review (Excerpt)
... The active political leadership and control were in the hands of the right wing, from the very beginning, long before the convention. Anyone who, not being at the convention, saw it on television and heard it on the radio can testify that the union men and women, farmers, French-Canadian delegates and others who made up the convention, displayed an enthusiasm and vitality and readiness to battle which the labor and progressive movement are sorely in need of. They would have responded to a solidly consistent progressive, militant line on peace, Canadian independence and economic reconstruction. And likewise, it is clear that such a fighting policy could have been taken to the electors with greater benefit than [NDP Leader T.C.] Douglas is now able to do with his "safe" line on the key issues, sugared as it is by his specious agreement with Diefenbaker's challenge to fight the next election on the issue of “socialism." Very safe, that, so long as NATO, peace, independence are not at the heart of the struggle!
#The Spark!#Marxism#Marxism-Leninism#Communism#Socialism#Leslie Morris#Canadian Tribune#NATO#Social Democracy#Imperialism
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A solid episode from Things Observed providing a brief overview of the World Anti-Communist League
In this episode we cover the origins of the world anti-communist league starting with the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations and the Asian Peoples Anti-Communist League. This group brings together nazi collaborators from the Ustasha, Iron Guard and the Organization of Ukranian Nationalists. We also cover War Criminals from the days of the Imperial Japanese some of whom we've previously discussed in the Blood and Gold series on the Golden Lily Operation such as Yoshio Kodama and Ryochi Sasakawa. Some of the characters we find in the WACL would be involved not only with fascist movements across the world but would also peddle opium. We discuss the Kuomintang party's connection the world opium trade and the little-known fact that Chiang Kai-Shek's country was a narco-state that worked alongside the Civil Air Transport and the CIA and how the National Crime Syndicate would get in on the action as well. Oh, and how can I forgot to mention the Moonie connection!
Sources:
VISUP: Secret Societies, Narcoterrorism, International Fascism and the World Anti-Communist League Part I (visupview.blogspot.com) - Recluse
Inside the League: The Shocking Expose of How Terrorists, Nazis, and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World Anti-Communist League - Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson
Gold Warriors: America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold - Sterling and Peggy Seagrave
One Nation Under Blackmail Vol I - Whitney Webb
Opium and the Politics of Gangsterism - Jonathan Marshall
History of the Opium Problem: The Assault on the East - Hans Derks
The Politics of Heroin - Alfred McCoy
#fascism#right-wing politics#wacl#world anti-communist league#drug trafficking#drug trade#nazis#crime#sasakawa#ryoichi sasakawa#yoshio kodama#ukraine#asian peoples anti-communist league#anti-bolshevik bloc of nations#Chiang Kai-shek#unification church in taiwan#moonies#unification church#podcast#anti-communism#counterinsurgency#parapolitics#parapolitical
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Holidays 5.22
Holidays
Abolition Day (Martinique)
Bălți Day (Moldova)
Bear Waking Day (Norway)
Buy A Musical Instrument Day
Canadian Immigrants' Day
Carpet Day (Turkmenistan)
Clover Day (French Republic)
Dia do Abraço (National Hugging Day; Brazil)
EMS Education Day
Ethernet Day
Ewokalypse
Find Your Soul Mate Day
Flag Adoption Day (Australia)
Goth Day
Growing Flavor in the Garden Day
Harvey Milk Day (California)
Heat Awareness Safety Day
International Being You Day
International Coco Mom Day
International Day For Biological Diversity (UN)
International Day of Syndrome 22q11
International Sherlock Holmes Day
Jumping Frog Jubilee Day (Angel's Camp, California)
Lee Rigby Memorial Day
Leiria Day (Portugal)
Loch Ness Monster Day
Manchester Arena Remembrance / 22 Angels Day (UK)
Mattie Stepanek Day (Rockville, Maryland)
Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood Day
National Boss Babes Day
National Coco Mom Day
National Curly Hair Day
National Day of First Nations Fishing Rights (Canada)
National Desert Storm Reservists Day
National Gout Awareness Day
National Heroes Day (Sri Lanka)
National Julie Day
National Maritime Day
National Psychopath Day
National Solitaire Day
National Sovereignty Day (Haiti)
National Title Track Day
National Toothpaste Tube Day
NF2 & Schwannomatosis Awareness Day
Pac-Man Day
Recliner Day
Republic Day (Sri Lanka)
Sherlock Holmes Day [also 1.6]
Toothpaste Tube Day
Translation of the Relics of Saint Nicholas from Myra to Bari (Ukraine)
Unification Day (Yemen)
United States Colored Troops Day
Unity Day (Yemen)
Watch Movies All Day Day
World Goth Day
World Pre-Eclampsia Day
Food & Drink Celebrations
Bitcoin Pizza Day
National Craft Distillery Day
Vanilla Pudding Day
World Paloma Day
4th Monday in May
Victoria Day (Canada) [Monday before 25th]
Independence Days
Dale Empire (Declared; 201) [unrecognized]
Feast Days
Basiliecus, Bishop of Corinna (Christian; Saint)
Biological Diversity Day (Pastafarian)
Bobo (Christian; Saint)
Castus and Emilius (a.k.a. Cactus and Æmilius; Christian; Martyrs)
Conall (Christian; Saint)
Elphinstone Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)
Fulk (Christian; Saint)
Humilita (Christian; Saint)
Julia of Corsica (Christian; Saint)
The Mackerel (Muppetism)
Mary Cassatt (Artology)
Michael Hồ Đình Hy (Christian; One of Vietnamese Martyrs)
Quiteria (Christian; Saint)
Ragnar Lodbrok (Viking)
Rita of Cascia (Christian; Saint)
Romanus of Subiaco (Christian; Saint)
St. Cyprian (Positivist; Saint)
Yvo (Christian; Saint)
Lucky & Unlucky Days
Shakku (赤口 Japan) [Bad luck all day, except at noon.]
Premieres
Alien 3 (Film; 1992)
Bone Sweet Bone (WB MM Cartoon; 1948)
Bullwinkle Goes to Press or All the Moose That’s Fit to Print (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 52; 1960)
Claws for Alarm (WB MM Cartoon; 1954)
Clean Pastures (WB MM Cartoon; 1937)
Far and Away (Film; 1992)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Film; 1998)
The Four Seasons (Film; 1981)
The Girlfriend Experience (Film; 2009)
Great Expectations (Film; 1947)
Gunga Din, by Rudyard Kipling (Poem; 1890)
Headquarters, by The Monks (Album; 1967)
Imperial Woman, by Pearl S. Buck (Novel; 1956)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Film; 2008)
Mission Impossible (Film; 1996)
The Negotiator, by Frederick Forsyth (Novel; 1989)
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (Film; 2009)
The Opposite of Sex (Film; 1998)
Outland (Film; 1981)
Preacher (TV Series; 2016)
Rocketman (Film; 2019)
That’s What You Get, by the Castiles featuring Bruce Springsteen (Song; 1966)
Tomorrowland (Film; 2015)
Water on the Brain or The Deep Six and 7/8 (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 51; 1960)
Well Worn Daffy (WB LT Cartoon; 1965)
When Marnie Was There (Animated Film; 2015)
The Wind and the Lion (Film; 1975)
Today’s Name Days
Julia, Ortwin, Rita (Austria)
Julija, Rita (Croatia)
Emil (Czech Republic)
Castus (Denmark)
Leivo, Oliver (Estonia)
Hemminki, Hemmo (Finland)
Émile, Quitter, Rita (France)
Julia, Ortwin, Renate, Rita (Germany)
Emilios, Kodros (Greece)
Júlia, Rita (Hungary)
Rita, Valente (Italy)
Emīlija, Mile (Latvia)
Aldona, Eimantas, Elena, Julija, Rita (Lithuania)
Henning, Henny (Norway)
Emil, Helena, Jan, Julia, Krzesisława, Rita, Wiesław, Wiesława, Wisława (Poland)
Vasilisc (România)
Júlia, Juliana (Slovakia)
Joaquina, Julia, Rita (Spain)
Hemming, Henning (Sweden)
Jolee, Joleen, Jolene, Jolie, Marshall (USA)
Today is Also…
Day of Year: Day 142 of 2024; 223 days remaining in the year
ISO: Day 1 of week 21 of 2023
Celtic Tree Calendar: Huath (Hawthorn) [Day 9 of 28]
Chinese: Month 4 (Ding-Si), Day 4 (Geng-Chen)
Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)
Hebrew: 2 Sivan 5783
Islamic: 2 Dhu al-Qada 1444
J Cal: 21 Bīja; Sevenday [21 of 30]
Julian: 9 May 2023
Moon: 9%: Waxing Crescent
Positivist: 2 St. Paul (6th Month) [St. Cyprian]
Runic Half Month: Ing (Expansive Energy) [Day 13 of 15]
Season: Spring (Day 64 of 90)
Zodiac: Gemini (Day 2 of 32)
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Although Japan has no nationwide election scheduled for 2024, the temperature in domestic politics is running high. Until a few weeks ago, the big question in the Japanese political scene was whether Prime Minister Fumio Kishida would be able to boost public support enough to wield the ultimate lever in his toolbox: calling a snap election at a time of his choosing, to maximize his party’s chances at the polls. That option now seems more remote after recent developments have continued to suppress his cabinet’s approval ratings.
Instead, the core questions in the national conversation are more primordial: Can Kishida’s party, the dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), finally eschew the factional politics that have long set the tone of intraparty dynamics? Can the LDP deliver on an agenda of political reform—something it has historically struggled to achieve—to restore public confidence?
At stake is the survival of Kishida’s premiership, with party president elections this fall. This is further complicated by the disarray of Japan’s factional system that has structured competition within the ruling party for decades and the prospect of domestic issues distracting from Japan’s proactive foreign policy agenda.
Kishida’s tenure rocked by political scandals
Successors to Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, have always had big shoes to fill. Their success is measured by their ability to drum up public support that can win the party elections and secure enough political capital to implement ambitious national and foreign policies. Although Kishida clinched solid wins for his coalition ticket (with the lay-Buddhist party Komeito) in the lower and upper house elections in 2021 and 2022, his track record on foreign policy is stronger than his domestic performance. Joining the international coalition to support Ukraine; adopting the first-of-its-kind economic security promotion law; revising Japan’s three strategic security documents, which included a pledge to boost defense expenditures; hosting a successful G7 summit; and improving historically frayed relations with South Korea to advance unprecedented trilateral cooperation with the United States are all feathers in Kishida’s cap.
Kishida’s foreign policy activism, however, has not elicited a domestic political upswing. The Japanese public remains unconvinced about Kishida’s promise to bring forth a “New Capitalism” that balances growth and distribution at a time when inflation and yen depreciation squeeze citizens’ wallets.
Political drama has also rocked the Kishida administration. Only one year into Kishida’s tenure, the country was shaken by Abe’s murder on July 8, 2022. As the assassin’s motives came into view—blaming Abe for LDP politicians’ ties to the Unification Church that had exploited his family—a broader scandal ensued. Kishida responded with measures to cut party members’ ties to the Unification Church, offer legal redress to its victims, and petition the courts to strip its religious corporation status to end its tax privileges. This, however, did not improve the cabinet’s approval rates, which have stayed below 30 percent since October 2023 and now sit at a perilous 23 percent.
Moreover, a scandal over the LDP’s use of slush funds has undermined public trust and put control over the party in question. The timing could not be worse for Kishida, as indicators showing Japan may be leaving behind the era of deflation (more robust wage increases, price increases in services, and hints from the Bank of Japan’s governor that an exit from negative interest rates is on the horizon) are overshadowed by the unfolding political drama.
In late 2023 and early 2024, revelations about the failure of some LDP factions to properly disclose over $6 million in revenue from fundraising parties and kickbacks to party members began trickling in. Now, four of the main six factions have been dissolved after being found to carry out such practices, including the Kishida faction. Prosecutors have charged several lawmakers, secretaries, and accountants for their involvement in slush funds, but no major senior political figure to date.
Last December, Kishida asked for the resignation of his own chief cabinet secretary, three cabinet ministers, and several senior party officials given their past roles in the management of the implicated factions. With no signs of the scandal abating, the prime minister announced the creation of an internal Political Reform Taskforce to address broader issues of transparency, accountability, and party governance.
The factions’ future
By mid-January 2024, a clear focal point had emerged: the factions’ future. Japan’s post-World War II electoral system—with multi-member electoral districts—pitted fellow LDP politicians against each other at election time. This made for intense intraparty competition that was managed through factions. Membership in a faction was essential for LDP politicians to secure party nomination and run in an electoral district, fund their campaign and provide constituent services, and obtain backing for promotion to senior positions in the party and government. Fierce factional competition also meant that the greatest peril to the LDP’s continued hold on power was defection from a major faction. This lesson was bitterly learned in 1993 when the Ozawa grouping bolted and brought about the LDP’s fall from power (albeit briefly).
The electoral system adopted in 1994 created a hybrid system of single-member districts and proportional representation regional blocks. Together with tightened political funding rules in 1994, these reforms weakened but did not eliminate the factions. The factions lost their hold on the electoral district nomination process, but they continued to provide key benefits (i.e., money and promotions).
Kishida’s decision to dissolve his own faction on January 16 shocked many. Three other factions (Abe and Toshihiro Nikai’s, then Hiroshi Moriyama’s) followed suit; however, Tarō Asō and Toshimitsu Motegi noted their own factions have not been implicated and declined to dissolve them. After only two weeks of deliberation, the LDP Political Reform Taskforce issued an interim report: it does not call for the dismantling of all factions, but forbids them from hosting fundraising parties and providing seasonal funds to their members, gives the party the power to dissolve factions found in violation of the Political Funds Control Act, introduces greater online transparency to political contributions, and introduces co-responsibility for shoddy financial practices so that LDP politicians cannot shift accountability to accountants. The report also calls for the end of factional nominations for party and government appointments. Yet questions remain about the new rules’ enforcement.
Will this time be different?
Kishida’s efforts are meant to transform the factions from being held together by the allure of funds and appointments, into genuine policy-focused groupings that can nurture a young and diverse generation of politicians. The January 2024 sketch of political reform, however, is unlikely to accomplish this. As in the past, politicians may find new loopholes in the political funding rules. Individual politicians are not forbidden from hosting fundraising parties, for example, and the interim report only promises a follow-up on creating the shift from a system of faction endorsement to whole-of-party management of the appointment process. Merely relabeling the factions as “policy groups” lacks credibility, as such a fix was already attempted with reforms in the 1990s. And it is difficult for the prime minister to portray himself as a crusader for political reform when he has let each faction decide its own future.
The public certainly remains skeptical. When asked about Kishida’s announcement to dissolve his faction, 61 percent said they approved of the decision, but 72 percent said that they did not think the LDP disbanding the factions would restore trust in politics, indicating a long road ahead to restore the LDP’s image.
A party election of national consequence
The factions’ role has been in flux for some time. Before the scandal broke, around 20 percent of LDP politicians were unaffiliated with factions. Two former prime ministers built their brands on rejecting factional politics— Junichiro Koizumi in the early 2000s and Yoshihide Suga decades later. But by and large, factions proved resilient because they helped structure the race to the top within the party. It is unclear whether the public’s distrust of factions and the new bans on their fundraising and appointment activities will be enough in the long term to constitute a tipping point toward their further decline.
Regardless, the LPD factions’ disarray will have important near-term consequences. The current upheaval has muddied the waters around the party president election scheduled for this September. Because Japan has a parliamentary system and a dominant ruling party, the LDP leadership vote paves the way to the premiership. Factional bosses have had an advantage since they could count on their members’ support, but these certainties no longer apply since major factions have closed and those that remain are also losing senior members seeking to avoid PR damage by association. There is also pressure for the party to censor or expel senior members of the Abe faction, further rocking the boat.
It is hard to predict whether Kishida’s gamble on political reform will pay off and win him reelection as the LDP party president. But the stakes go beyond Japan. Kishida will visit Washington this April while battling to restore public trust at home and assert control over his own party. The risk of greater uncertainty in Japanese domestic politics is not that Tokyo may change its foreign policy direction, but rather that low public trust and LDP infighting may shorten the tenure of prime ministers and distract from pressing geopolitical challenges, potentially affecting Japan’s impact in the region.
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Holidays 6.4
Holidays
Apple Computer Day
Audacity to Hope Day
Banker Day (Moldova)
Battle of Midway Anniversary Day
Born in the USA Day
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim Day (Estonia, Finland)
Carnation Day (French Republic)
Cavity Prevention Day (Japan)
Children’s Day (Vietnam)
Day of Remembrance of the Children Who Died as a Result of the Russian Federation’s Armed Aggression Against Ukraine
Demise of Imam Khomeini (Iran)
Devon Day (UK)
Dunkirk Evacuation Completion Day
Emancipation Day (Tonga)
Epsom Derby Day (UK)
Fat People’s Day (Aleutian Islands)
Festival of the Sticky Penis (Queens, NY)
Finnish Defence Forces Day (Finland)
Flag Day (Estonia; Finland)
Freedom and Civil Rights Day (Poland)
Gies A Scots Phrase Day (UK)
International Corgi Day
International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression (UN)
International Seaweed Day
International Spoiler Day
Killdozer Day
Lassie Day
Luilak (Lazybones Day; Netherlands)
Minimum Wage Day
Mom’s Equal Pay Day
MS St. Louis Voyage of the Damned
National Christian T-Shirt Day
National Civic Day of Hacking
National Clean Beauty Day
National Day of Mourning for George Floyd
National Day of State Symbols (Kazakhstan)
National Hug Your Cat Day
National Punk Day
National SAFE Day
National Troll Day
National Unity Day (Hungary)
Old Maid's Day
Pulitzer Prize Day
Shopping Cart Day
604 Day
Solar Eclipse Day
State Symbols Day (Kazakhstan)
Tiananmen Square Protest Memorial Day
Trianon Treaty Day (Romania)
World Day for Assistive Technology
World Day of Fertility
Food & Drink Celebrations
Applesauce Cake Day
National Cheese Day
National Cognac Day
National Mexicue Day
Roquefort Cheese Discovery Day (1070)
Independence & Related Days
Tonga (from UK, 1970)
1st Tuesday in June
National Healthcare Recruiter Recognition Day [1st Tuesday]
Taco Tuesday [Every Tuesday]
Women’s Golf Day [1st Tuesday]
Weekly Holidays beginning June 4 (1st Full Week)
Wheel of Cheese Week (thru 6.9) [Always begins 6.3]
Festivals Beginning June 4, 2024
Barcelona Rock Fest (Barcelona, Spain) [thru 6.7]
Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl (Boston, Massachusetts) [thru 6.6]
Stockholm Early Music Festival (Stockholm, Sweden) [thru 6.9]
Feast Days
St. Benedict (Positivist; Saint)
Betty Lou’s Mommy (Muppetism)
Bream (a.k.a. Breague; Christian; Saint)
Burian of Ireland (Christian; Saint)
Cougar Day (Pastafarian)
Day of All Things (Unification Church)
Fernand Leduc (Artology)
Festival for Hercules Custos (Ancient Rome)
Filippo Smaldone (Christian; Saint)
Francis Caracciolo (Christian; Saint)
Iris’s Day (Pagan)
Jarila’s Day (God of Sun/Fertility; Asatru/Slavic Pagan)
Metrophanes (Christian; Saint)
Natalia Goncharova (Artology)
Nenooc (Christian; Saint)
Optatus of Milevis (Christian; Saint)
Petroc of Cornwall (Christian; Saint)
Plynteria (Festival to honor Athena; Ancient Greece)
Quirinus of Sescia (Christian; Saint)
Ramendan begins (Pastafarian)
Robert Fulghum (Writerism)
Robert Jacobsen (Artology)
Saturnina (Christian; Saint)
Val McDermid (Writerism)
Vandrilles (Christian; Saint)
Vincent Gerosa (Christian; Saint & Virgin)
Walter (Christian; Saint)
Well-Dressing Day (Celtic Book of Days)
Werner Klemperer Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)
Hebrew Calendar Holidays [Begins at Sundown Day Before]
Jerusalem Day (a.k.a. יום ירושלים, Yom Yerushaláyim) [27-28 Iyar]
Lucky & Unlucky Days
Sensho (先勝 Japan) [Good luck in the morning, bad luck in the afternoon.]
Very Unlucky Day (Grafton’s Manual of 1565) [29 of 60]
Premieres
Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar (Animated Film; 1999)
Born in the U.S.A., by Bruce Springsteen (Album; 1984)
Buena Vista Social Club (Documentary Music Film; 1999)
Butterscotch and Soda (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1948)
Charlie Chan in Egypt (Film; 1935)
The Devil’s Advocate, by Taylor Caldwell (Novel; 1952)
Flagellatenzug, by Karl Bleyle (Symphonic Poem; 1904)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Film; 2004) [#3]
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, boy Carson McCullers (Novel; 1940)
In the City, by The Jam (Song; 1977)
Julien (a.k.a. The Poet’s Life), by Gustave Charpentier (Opera; 1913)
Julius Caesar (Film; 1953)
Jungle Blues, recorded by Jelly Roll Morton (Song; 1927)
Killers (Film; 2010)
Let Go, by Avril Lavigne (Album; 2002)
Load, by Metallica (Album; 1996)
Miracle on 34th Street (Film; 1947)
Mrs. Miniver (Film; 1942)
The Nutty Professor (Film; 1963)
Ohio, by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (Song; 1970)
Piano Jazz (Radio Series; 1978)
Poltergeist (Film; 1982)
Porky the Fireman (WB LT Cartoon; 1938)
Rabbit’s Feat (WB LT Cartoon; 1960)
The Reivers, by William Faulkner (Novel; 1962)
The Sea Chase (Film; 1955)
The Silent Passage, by Gail Sheehy (Book; 1992)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Film; 1982)
Surfing’ Safari, by The Beach Boys (Song; 1962)
Sweets For My Sweet, by The Searchers (Song; 1963)
Sweet Tooth (TV Series; 2021)
Taxi-Turvy (Fleischer/Famous Popeye Cartoon; 1954)
Terms of Endearment, by Larry McMurtry (Novel; 1975)
The Three Lives of Thomasina (Film; 1964)
To Sir, With Love (Film; 1967)
To Spring (Happy Harmonies Cartoon; 1936)
Tweety’s Circus (WB MM Cartoon; 1955)
A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean, by Jimmy Buffett (Album; 1973)
Woodpecker from Mars (Wood Woodpecker Cartoon; 1956)
Today’s Name Days
Christa, Iona, Klothilde (Austria)
Kvirin, Spomenka (Croatia)
Dalibor (Czech Republic)
Optatus (Denmark)
Toivo, Tõivo, Tõivot, Tõivotu, Tõivu (Estonia)
Aadolf, Toivo (Finland)
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A hermit, a slave or a free man, but Christ in everything and in everything ”(Col. 3:11). Of course, the Ecumenical Patriarchate doctrinally rejects the heresy of ethnophiletism, as well as the secularization of the Church. Despite that, during the last year, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew publicly underlined on three occasions that he recognizes Amfilohije and his diocese within the Serbian Orthodox Church for canonical jurisdiction in Montenegro.
*: Why is he doing this?
-: Because that is the existing situation, such is the jurisdiction: in 1922, the Serbian Orthodox Church received a tomos from Constantinople, which recognizes the unification of the autocephalous Montenegrin Church with the Serbian Church. However, things are changing. The 1922 Tomos is not scripture. On the example of the Church of Ukraine, which received a tomos on autocephaly from the Ecumenical Patriarchate at the beginning of last year, we see that the jurisdictions of local churches are subject to revision. The Serbian Orthodox Church and Amfilohije gave their support to the Russian Church, which until then had recognized jurisdiction over Ukraine. The Serbs fiercely opposed the Ecumenical Patriarchate and announced that they would not recognize the autocephaly of the new Ukrainian church. One of the consequences is that the cosmic tomos for the Serbian Orthodox Church from 1922 is now in a deep phase of reconsideration by Patriarch Bartholomew. The recognition of the autocephaly of the Church in Northern Macedonia is being considered, therefore, on the territory also under the recognized jurisdiction of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The Ecumenical Patriarchate determined that the Russian Church in Ukraine, for non-ecclesiastical reasons, did not fulfill its dogmatic mission and healed the schisms. Now, Serbian ethnophiletism and secularization of the Serbian Orthodox Church are becoming more and more visible for the Ecumenical Patriarchate. These are the main causes of decades of divisions in Northern Macedonia, but also in Montenegro.
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But they fought communism...
#Unification Church#cults#CIA#Antibolshevik Block of Nations#Ukraine#Korea#Japan#Georgetown University#money laundering#drug trafficking
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