Best Anatoly so far đ
Best Anatoly so far đ
âď¸The âTraditionalistsâ and Trumpâď¸
With the election of #Trump, Putin has found a potential ally in unwinding the trans-Atlantic networks that support the liberal democracies that flowered following the end of the Cold War.
Trump, like Putin, has made his disdain for groups like NATO and the EU clear,
and pushed a vision of Victorian-era spheres of interest,
in which regional powers are allowed something far closer to free reign in their respective regions than anything seen during the post-Cold War period.
While Trump falls back on fiscal arguments,
claiming that security relations with other NATO member-states arenât worth the price of maintaining the U.S.âs participation,
his opposition to organizations like the European Union parallels arguments out of the Kremlin
âall while Trump continues defending Putinâs policies.
Any time heâs faced with questions of Putinâs probity
âof Moscowâs destruction of an independent press, say,
or of the Kremlinâs suffocation of opposition actors
âTrump deflects.
Not only has the former president continued casting doubt on the U.S. intelligence consensus that Moscow meddled in the American election to support Trump,
but he has further said Putin has been
âfar moreâ of a âleaderâ than former President Barack Obama ever was.
Indeed, itâs within Trumpâs outspoken praise for Putin that we can trace the contours of the reasons
white nationalists and members of the Religious Right continue to look to Moscow for support and inspiration,
and continue to admire and praise Putinâs policies.
For white nationalists, in their blinkered understanding of recent developments in Moscow,
Putin presents something of an ur-leader:
a head of state embodying an idealized view of masculinity,
undistracted by legal or cultural niceties in pursuit of his ultimate end-goals.
Rather than remaining within the understood boundaries of post-Cold War politics,
Putin has, to Americaâs white nationalists,
reclaimed the primacy of a white, Christian population within a multi-ethnic federation:
a model white nationalists envision as a possibility under Trump.
The Religious Right, meanwhile, stands enthralled with Putinâs willingness to bolster the church,
with the Russian Orthodox Church maintaining a clear, superior role both within the state and over other non-Christian religions.
Moscow is only too happy to provide both financial and organizational backing for sympathetic groups in the U.S. and elsewhere,
and is almost certain to do so for the foreseeable future.
And with Trumpâs inauguration, Moscow has a man in Washington who, by all appearances,
has little interest in investigating these ties,
or of slowing these swelling links.
While Trump and his team occupy the White House, Russia will have an ally in attempting to roll back the liberal order,
with the American president acting as a partner,
witting or otherwise, of the Kremlin
âas well as the white nationalists and Religious Right cohorts on both sides of the Atlantic,
whose support for the Kremlin seems likely to accelerate for the foreseeable future.
(10/10)
#Yelena #Mizulina #Vladimir #Yakunin #dominionist #Bryan #Fischer #Franklin #Graham #WCF #Allan #Carlson #Anatoly #Antonov #Viktor #Medkov #antiLGBT #Alexey #Komov #Brian #Brown #IOF #Religious #Right #American #missionaries #David #Duke #Preston #Wiginton #Harold #Covington #Mike #Cernovich #Matthew #Heimbach #HailPutin #PutinForTsar #Novorossiya #Konstantin #Malofeev #TraditionalistWorkerParty #Richard #Spencer #NPI #antiSemitism #monoracial #statehood #LĂźgenpresse #Jobbik #Nina #Kouprianova #Byzantina #Richard #Spencer #Matthew #Heimbach #Alexander #Dugin #Eurasianism #Eternal #Rome #Alex #Jones #InfoWars
The links between American conservative organizations and Putinâs inner circle,
including those tasked with pushing the Kremlinâs geopolitical policies throughout the West,
have sometimes created outsized tensions for those on the American end of the relationship.
One such moment came in early 2014,
when Putin began citing the protection of ethnic Russians
âand Russian Orthodox believers
âas rationale for the annexation of Crimea.
Even though the WCF announced that it would cancel its planned 2014 conference in Moscow,
many of the scheduled speakers nonetheless showed up,
and the conference proceeded in all but name.
Beyond that, though, the gathering confirmed a trend long in the making, says Stroop.
Indeed, the 2014 conference, he said, represented
âRussia taking on the mantle of leadership of global social conservatism.â
(9/N)
#Yelena #Mizulina #Vladimir #Yakunin #dominionist #Bryan #Fischer #Franklin #Graham #WCF #Allan #Carlson #Anatoly #Antonov #Viktor #Medkov #antiLGBT #Alexey #Komov #Brian #Brown #IOF #Religious #Right #American #missionaries #David #Duke #Preston #Wiginton #Harold #Covington #Mike #Cernovich #Matthew #Heimbach #HailPutin #PutinForTsar #Novorossiya #Konstantin #Malofeev #TraditionalistWorkerParty #Richard #Spencer #NPI #antiSemitism #monoracial #statehood #LĂźgenpresse #Jobbik #Nina #Kouprianova #Byzantina #Richard #Spencer #Matthew #Heimbach #Alexander #Dugin #Eurasianism #Eternal #Rome #Alex #Jones #InfoWars
The links between Russian officials and the American Religious Right,
like those between Kremlin-linked actors and American white nationalists,
are easy to trace.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Duma member #Yelena #Mizulina,
who helped spearhead Russiaâs anti-gay âpropagandaâ law,
has been âheavily involvedâ with the WCF.
#Vladimir #Yakunin, former head of Russian Railways
âand a Kremlin insider who has cultivated additional links with the American theocratic â#dominionistâ movement
âhas also served as a WCF committee member.
Likewise, Russiaâs 2011 package of anti-abortion legislation saw conspicuous links with the WCFâs efforts.
To wit, the package of abortion restrictions, speared by Mizulina, was launched a day after a series of WCF higher-ups,
including Carlson and Managing Director Larry Jacobs,
settled into Moscow for a
âDemographic Summit,â
the WCFâs most substantial assembly in Russia to date.
As the head of a Russian womenâs advocacy group later said,
âIt was 100 percent clear that everything [in the anti-abortion legislation] was copied from the experience of American fundamentalists
and conservative circles of several European countries
where abortion is forbidden or restricted severely.â
Or as the WCF would later claim in its promotional material:
The WCF âhelped pass the first Russian laws restricting abortion in modern history.â
Still, the WCF is by no means the lone U.S. Religious Right organization outspoken in its praise of Moscow,
or supporting Kremlin policy.
Over the past few years, arch-conservatives in the U.S. have begun espousing something approaching infatuation with Putin,
especially for Moscowâs leading role in both passing and encouraging anti-LGBT legislation.
For instance, #Bryan #Fischer, who until 2015 was a spokesman for the "American Family Association"
and who still hosts a show broadcast over its radio network,
has called Putin the
âlion of Christianity.â
Evangelist #Franklin #Graham
âwho visited Russia in 2015 to meet with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill
âhas likewise lauded Putin as someone âprotecting traditional Christianity.â
(8/N)
#WCF #Allan #Carlson #Anatoly #Antonov #Viktor #Medkov #antiLGBT #Alexey #Komov #Brian #Brown #IOF #Religious #Right #American #missionaries #David #Duke #Preston #Wiginton #Harold #Covington #Mike #Cernovich #Matthew #Heimbach #HailPutin #PutinForTsar #Novorossiya #Konstantin #Malofeev #TraditionalistWorkerParty #Richard #Spencer #NPI #antiSemitism #monoracial #statehood #LĂźgenpresse #Jobbik #Nina #Kouprianova #Byzantina #Richard #Spencer #Matthew #Heimbach #Alexander #Dugin #Eurasianism #Eternal #Rome #Alex #Jones #InfoWars
âď¸The World Congress of Families
-- From Idea to Movementâď¸
One of the primary vehicles in building Moscowâs relations with the U.S. Religious Right is known as the
"World Congress of Families".
Founded in 1997, the #WCF says its mission is to
ârespect, protect, and defendâ the
ânatural family founded on marriage between a man and a woman.â
A 2014 report in The Nation, looking at the WCFâs earliest days,
detailed the close relationship between WCF founder #Allan #Carlson
and the Russian Orthodox Church.
In fact, the partnership between the two actually predates the WCF:
According to Jennifer Butlerâs
âBorn Again: The Christian Right Globalized,â
Carlson, speaking in 1995 at Moscow State University,
determined with a representative from the Russian Orthodox Church that
âthey needed ⌠to bring together scholars and leaders from ânewly free Europe and Russiaâ to meet with leaders from the West.â
Further, as Stroop recently detailed,
the WCF grew as the brainchild of Carlson and #Anatoly #Antonov and #Viktor #Medkov,
a pair of sociology professors at Lomonosov Moscow State University.
The two Russians, according to Mother Jones, were casting about in the mid-1990s for a means to stave off their countryâs looming âdemographic winterâ
âthe idea that progressive legislation,
from birth control to LGBT rights,
will precipitate civilizational collapse
âand stumbled over Carlsonâs prior work.
Gathering in the apartment of a âRussian Orthodox mystic,â
the trio outlined an organization that would help organize a global Christian right
âand resurge Russia to a leadership position abdicated during the atheistic Soviet period.
Some two decades on, the Illinois-based WCF has now morphed into one of the worldâs foremost #antiLGBT organizations:
Per the Southern Poverty Law Center, the WCF âis one of the key driving forces behind the U.S. Religious Rightâs global export of homophobia.â
The group hosts global and regional summits
designed to share strategies and build connections among activists and policymakers.
In 2016, the WCF hosted a conference in Tbilisi, Georgia,
where speakers encouraged attendees to
âstay firm against homofascistsâ
and ârainbow radicals.â
One of the keynote speakers at the event was #Alexey #Komov, who,
as the WCFâs primary representative in Russia,
has not only helped facilitate Moscowâs efforts to woo and fund far-right groups across the West,
but is also closely linked with those backing Moscow-supported separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The WCF is now run by #Brian #Brown, the co-founder and president of the vehemently anti-gay "National Organization for Marriage"
and a man who has his own history of visiting Russia to lobby for anti-LGBT legislation.
In December, Brown announced that the WCF will be run as a project of a new group, the
"International Organization for the Family" ( #IOF ).
Komov was among the anti-LGBT activists from around the world who joined Brown in South Africa for the IOFâs launch.
Komov said at the time that allies in the Russian parliament would be promoting the groupâs anti-LGBT manifesto,
which they are calling "The Cape Town Declaration."
And it appears that they are wasting no time.
In early February, Brown sent a fundraising email from Moscow, where he had gone to promote the declaration and build working relationships with lawmakers from Putinâs United Russia party.
(7/N)
#Religious #Right #American #missionaries #David #Duke #Preston #Wiginton #Harold #Covington #Mike #Cernovich #Matthew #Heimbach #HailPutin #PutinForTsar #Novorossiya #Konstantin #Malofeev #TraditionalistWorkerParty #Richard #Spencer #NPI #antiSemitism #monoracial #statehood #LĂźgenpresse #Jobbik #Nina #Kouprianova #Byzantina #Richard #Spencer #Matthew #Heimbach #Alexander #Dugin #Eurasianism #Eternal #Rome #Alex #Jones #InfoWars