With all due respect, this sounds like propaganda. My priest PERSONALLY heard Patriarch Kirill dress down Putin. This situation is not exactly the same as it was under communism. The Russians are simply patriotic and love their homeland. There is nothing wrong with that. Just because the clergy expresses that sentiment doesn’t make them agents. I don’t understand why we Americans, who believe in patriotism, can’t understand it when others are the same way. You wannaworry, better watch China...THEY are a threat!
“With all due respect, this sounds like propaganda. My priest PERSONALLY heard Patriarch Kirill dress down Putin. This situation is not exactly the same as it was under communism. The Russians are simply patriotic and love their homeland. There is nothing wrong with that. Just because the clergy expresses that sentiment doesn’t make them agents. I don’t understand why we Americans, who believe in patriotism, can’t understand it when others are the same way. You wannaworry, better watch China...THEY are a threat!”
Russia and China are the threats. They share the same strategic goals and work hand in hand to further those goals. One of those goals right now is to give Iran the technology and the political cover to get nuclear weapons with which to drive us out of the middle east and isolate Israel, perhaps even destroy Israel entirely or involve us in a distructive war that will probably involve WMD being used on our homeland.
Russia is the country, and always has been, where dissidents get beaten to death in dark alleys and journalists conveniently step out of their windows. There is no patriotism in Russia. It is nationalism being promoted by the FSB and Kremlin controlled media, which right now is telling its people that the U.S. is responsible for using “active” measures (CIA, IOW) to cause Putin to lose the Presidential race... when, in reality, he’s stealing it, just like they always steal the race.
There is no democracy in Russia. There is no patriotism in Russia. There is no free press in Russia, outside of the blogosphere and a few brave people willing to stand up.
The Russian Orthodox Church is not exempt. It was infiltrated during the KGB days, and the KGB and “former” communists were never purged or made to hang for their crimes. The communists turned capitalists make up the majority of government positions within the corrupt Russkie government.