This Wednesday I was interviewed by Kevin Barrett. It was a very good conversation. Check it out on this page:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/14478726
or simply click here
or you can download the show by clicking here.
Cheers,
The Saker
Saker Message:
Well done, Saker!
You managed to give a very coherent explanation of how deep rooted the anti- Russia phobia is historically, and I am wondering if the current estrangement from any kind of Christianity in the US generally speaking may have freed people who elected Trump for the right reasons, because they, the people, do not adhere to that Western Christian animosity.
I was,struck recently by the passage in Saint Matthew where Christ tells the short parable of a man having two sons whom he asks to plow a field ( something like that.) One son says no, he won’t, but goes ahead and does it, and the other says yes he will, but doesn’t.
Perhaps there is hope that the questioning of Western Christianity might be a good thing here and now just as you described Jesus questioning the distortion of the Jewish faith in his era.
There were a lot of positive things people do need to hear in your interview. Thanks!
Very crisp interview that touched a lot of the best Saker topics.
Barrett did his homework and the hour moves rapidly.
Some highlights were spotlighting the American Imperative of the Elites running the show in DC (not Trump). They seek Global Dominance at all costs. Empire first. Hegemony is the template for all interactions.
Classified Sources vs Open Sources and the nature of Intel Agency internal environment.
The Demonization of Russia This was a very rich topic.
Minorities as threats used by Elites against Majorities.
Roots of Exceptionalism linked to Exclusivism of Rabbinical Jews and how both are Racist at their core.
A rich environment for one hour.
Good stuff.
I am glad you read and listen to other people in your disussion sections. I can hear that nd feek you are like wine, the older (more experienced) it is, the better it tastes. A very peaceful and balanced chat. Cheers…
Israeli jets have reportedly targeted vicinity of Damascus Airport tonight in Syria. Explosions heard.
https://syria.liveuamap.com/pics/2017/09/22/21538427_0.jpg
These were Israel battle drone(s) – not specified how many. Reportedly one was shot down. Or more, who knows. May be none.
Kevin Barrett’s great – I have his book – Truth Jihad – he was at the Veterans site for a while but hopefully has broken away and is now on his own.
Very good, and may I please point out that the reasons the Europeans are a Speaking up more now than under Obama is because they are basically on the side of the deep state. Because this is where the real power lies. Not because they are feeling any independent identity from the US per se.
When you remember how many of them were first elected… Even Merkel when that previous anti-Iraq war guy (Schroder) just had to be let go..its no surprise at all.
– Regards, Shyaku.
Good to hear, I like listening to this stuff while walking. By the way I became a Patreon to The War Nerd (one off payment of $1, I canceled it so it won’t renew) hoping to have some nice insight into geopolitical affairs past and present.
But was disappointed to find that he and his co-host are MSM-lite, and democrats. For instance, how can we take what a man says about NATO in Afghanistan seriously if he can’t even concede that 9/11 was a false flag event?
And he’s more than intelligent enough to know, which means he simply lacks conviction. This is where The Sake excels, we get real talk and real insight. Not buffed-up money grabbing.
By the way Saker, auto-complete for your comment form is showing other names and emails that I don’t recognize, that’s kind of worrying. It suggests that my email might be showing on someone else’s computer if it can happen to me.
By the way Saker, auto-complete for your comment form is showing other names and emails that I don’t recognize, that’s kind of worrying. It suggests that my email might be showing on someone else’s computer if it can happen to me.
As far as I know, auto-completion is always on the client-side, never the server. I have seen weird auto-completes showing up in Windows machines in the past. I get the feeling that there is software out there which is shipped with the developer’s auto-complete cache still present. Dunno for sure.
So I am 99% sure that the issue is on your side. You can email Herb ([email protected]) if you want to make sure.
Kind regards,
The Saker
Dear Saker,
I am a big fan, but on Western European medieval history you are totally wrong. It is completely Roman in origin (I advise you to read some works by French scholars like Rémi Brague and others). Maybe you should open up a topic again on the history of Western Europe.
I never said that West European historians would agree with me. But I, as a Russian and as an Orthodox Christian, know full well that the West is not a successor of Rome, but a successors to the Frankish Empire, an anti-Rome if you want. Please check this:
https://thesaker.is/putin-the-pope-the-schism-franks-and-romans/
To repeat: The West was founded by the Franks. The Franks are both an pseudo-Rome and an anti-Rome.
The Saker
Is it possible to upload the book on feudalism again? The link does not work for me.
The Roman state collapsed, but the bishops (who were Gallo-Roman) and church structures in Gaul preserved the Roman civilization through education. So I disagree with you here. The feudal dark ages are an invention of “liberal” anti-christian historiography and propaganda from the 18th-19th centuries. But these ages were not dark at all.
The “liberal” “West” which we see today is totally anti-frankish, anti-papacy and anti-Roman. How can you say that the 16th century reformation is papist in nature, it was a revolt against the papacy.
I can’t debate the Dark Ages claims on history, but it’s pretty clear to me that protestant and enlightenment philosophy in the West sprang primarily from Latin based roots rather than Greek, which was the base language for early eastern Christianity in general, and was in fact the common language of early Rome, so more ancient than Latin, as far as that goes.
My high school classical education taught Latin. It was only by fortune that my liberal arts college forced me to study Greek. And that was like being removed to a different planet, mentally. That for me was a very good thing as it widened my horizons in ways few westerners today can achieve.
There are more things, Horatio…
Well the reformation was created in the Latin west, but was a revolt against it. Can’t it be more symbolic that the protestants preferred the vernacular language instead of the Latin language?
From one hand of course the Reformation could not be developed from a Greek culture, because Greek had already disappeared from the West for more than thousand years. The only Western medieval theologian of any relevance who could read Greek was Scotus Eriugena.
But on the other hand, I would even say that protestantism has more in common with Greek eastern orthodoxy than Latin Catholicism. Of course because of humanism there was a rediscovery of the original Greek Texts of the New Testament. This had a direct impact upon the reformation. And there is also an obvious link because of caesaropapism. Eastern Orthodoxy and sixteenth century protestantism are both caesaropapist which is the inverse of papism. Isn’t it a coincidence that many Orthodox theologians from Russia started to develop an interest in protstant theology?
Of course history is always more nuanced. But I hope that I made a point at bringing this nuance.
I would say that traditionalist catholics and traditionalist orthodox should have a better understanding of each other (and this works in both directions).
The greatest enemy of traditional religious societies is the anglo-zionist empire of today (on which I agree with the Saker). The empire is as anti-russian, anti-traditional, anti-roman as it is anti-frankish and anti-traditional catholic.
@How can you say that the 16th century reformation is papist in nature…
You can say that because “Papism is the oldest Protestantism”, as one of the last true theologians, Saint Justin Popovic, said (Papism as the Oldest Protestantism, by St. Justin Popovich):
“In the European West, Christianity has gradually transformed into humanism. For a long time and arduously, the God-Man diminished, and has been changed, narrowed, and finally reduced to a man: to the infallible man in Rome and the equally “infallible” man in London and Berlin. Thus did papism come into being, taking everything from Christ, along with Protestantism, which asks the least from Christ, and often nothing. Both in papism and in Protestantism, man has been put in the place of the God-Man, both as the highest value and as the highest criterion. A painful and sad correction of the God-Man’s work and teaching has been accomplished. Steadily and stubbornly papism has tried to substitute the God-Man with man, until in the dogma about the infallibility of the pope—a man, the God-Man was once and for all replaced with ephemeral, “infallible” man; because with this dogma, the pope was decisively and clearly declared as something higher than not only man, but the holy Apostles, the holy Fathers, and the holy Ecumenical councils. With this kind of a departure from the God-Man, from the ecumenical Church as the God-Man organism, papism surpassed Luther, the founder of Protestantism. Thus, the first radical protest in the name of humanism against the God-Man Christ, and his God-Man organism—the Church—should be looked for in papism, not in Lutheranism. Papism is actually the first and the oldest Protestantism.
We should not do this ourselves. Papism indeed is the most radical Protestantism, because it has transferred the foundation of Christianity from the eternal God-Man to ephemeral man. And it has proclaimed this as the paramount dogma, which means: the paramount value, the paramount measure of all beings and things in the world. And the Protestants merely accepted this dogma in its essence, and worked it out in terrifying magnitude and detail. Essentially, Protestantism is nothing other than a generally applied papism. For in Protestantism, the fundamental principle of papism is brought to life by each man individually. After the example of the infallible man in Rome, each Protestant is a cloned infallible man, because he pretends to personal infallibility in matters of faith. It can be said: Protestantism is a vulgarized papism, only stripped of mystery (i.e., sacramentality), authority and power…
There is no doubt that all these facts converge into one irresistibly logical conclusion: in the West there is no Church and no God-Man, which is why there is no true God-Man society in which men are mortal brothers and immortal fellows. Humanistic Christianity is actually the most decisive protest and uprising against the God-Man Christ and all the Evangelical, God-Man values and norms. And even here is evident European man’s favored tendency, to reduce everything to man as the fundamental value and the fundamental measure. And behind that stands one idol: Menschliches Allzumenschliches. With the reduction of Christianity to humanism, Christianity has been no doubt, simplified, but also at the same time—destroyed!”
No, Protestantism has NOTHING in common with Orthodoxy. Protestantism is Caesaropapist indeed, as the pseudo-church of England (‘cuius regio, eius religio’), infused with Judaism as it is.
Orthodoxy functioned on the principle of Symphonia (Greek: συμφωνία “accord”) the normative theory or concept in Orthodox Christian theological and political thought, especially within the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, which posits that church and state are to complement each other, exhibiting mutual respect with neither institution presuming to dominate the other.
One may be tempted to interpret the relations Church-State in Petrinic Russia in the sense of Caesaropapism, but it is not really the case:
(Saint Justin): “It is, therefore, no wonder that the tides of this sinfulness, just like the tides of European pseudo-Christian poisons, from time to time wash over the Orthodox peoples as well. However, one thing is irrefutably true: the Orthodox church has never ecclesiologically dogmatized any sort of humanism, whether we are talking about Caesaro-papism or any other “ism.” With the strength of its genuine and uncorrupted God-Manhood and Evangelical truthfulness, and through its constant call for repentance regarding everything that is not from God-Man, it has preserved, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the wisdom and the chastity of its heart and its soul. And by this it has remained and continues to be the “salt” of the earth, man and society. On the other hand, the tragedy of Western Christianity lies precisely in the fact that it, either by correcting the image of the God-Man, or by denying it, has attempted to once again introduce demonized humanism, so characteristic of sinful human nature, to—where? Into the heart of the God-Man organism itself—the Church, whose essence lies precisely in the freeing of man from it. And through it into all regions of life, person and society, proclaiming it as the supreme dogma, as the universal dogma. With this, the demonized intellectual pridefulness of man, hidden under the cloak of the Church, becomes the dogma of a faith without which there is no salvation! It is horrible to think it, much less say it: with this, the sole “workshop of salvation” and graduation to God-Manhood in this world, is gradually turned into a demonized “workshop” of violence over consciousness and dehumanization! A workshop of the disfigurement of God and man through the disfigurement of the God-Man!”
@traditionalist catholics and traditionalist orthodox should have a better understanding of each other (and this works in both directions)
Sant Justin comments show that the traditionalist orthodox has a clear understanding of the ‘traditionalist’ catholic. The ball is in their court to gain a better understanding of traditional Christianity (where there is neither Greek, nor Jew). It would be extremely hard, because that requires repentance and the West is not in the least inclined to it.
The Papacy is not about the veneration of a God-Man. The only person who was truly divine and human is Jesus Christ. Catholics agree on this with orthodox, the hypostatic union.
The papacy is about the succession of Saint Peter, who was only a man. Read this sermon, it is beautiful. I witnessed this sermon with a few million young faithful people: https://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/homilies/2011/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20110821_xxvi-gmg-madrid.html
Hi Zebigbos thank you for educated comment – sometimes I feel on this topic here at Saker’s that the Franks are bad guys – and the whole of the middle ages – Chartres and the Gothic cathedrals – is not a bad thing – a very VERY beautiful thing – Chartres actually taught a lovely kind of paganism –
So to label the whole of the middle ages as ‘Roman Frankish’ is kind of weird – Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor – which he didn’t even want – and then he followed his own Christian faith throughout his life, and then was followed by other Holy Roman Emperors that were – yes – Frankish – but good guys and Christians – true Christians, as much as anyone could be in those days –
I mean even today – how many true Christians are there in the world ? Two or less ? Chrisitanity is growing – its in its infancy in a way – and through the acts of evil – we sometimes seem to be digressing – I mean nowadays I would wholly agree with Saker – that much of the ancient Frankish domain is post Christian – and America and Britain too –
South America ? Totally Catholic but – although the Catholic Church is corrupt and truly post Christian – I mean the Vatican – the people are not – even though another weird aspect of Roman Catholicismis the whole Marian worship thing – why do we need an intercessor between Christ and us – when Christ came as intercessor for us – between the Father and us.
thanks again for erudite truly European comment – in the best sense of the word.
@Chartres actually taught a lovely kind of paganism
Actually, the fame of Chartres is due to its custody of the ‘Tunic of Mary (Sancta Camisa)” that Mary is reported to have wore it during the Annunciation of Jesus’ birth by the angel Gabriel, or during her labor and delivery of Jesus.
The Tunic was given by the King Charles the Bald to the Chartres Cathedral in 876. His grandfather, Charlemagne, had received it as a gift from the Byzantine Empress Irene. When tested in the twentieth century, the cloth contained pollen from first century Palestine. This piece of cloth is closely tied to the history of both Chartres Cathedral and the town of Chartres…
The story goes that it was during the siege of Chartres by the Normands in 911 that the relic acquired its notoriety and entered into history. “The bishop, in view of the combatants, displayed on the top of the Porte-Neuve the tunic of the Virgin Mary. When they saw the venerated relic, the courage of the Christian armies doubled, while the pagans were terrified… Everyone attributed the victory to the diving help and intercession of the Virgin Mary.
It played the same role as the Veil (or the Cerement) of the Mother of God kept in Church of Blachernae in Constantinople. The word “cerement” has a dual meaning of “veil” and “protection.” The Russian word Pokrov (Покров), like the Greek Skepi (Σκέπη), has a complex meaning. First of all, it refers to a cloak or shroud, but it also means protection or intercession.
Well I truly think the Frankish kingdom and Holy Roman Empire were Roman, as it not only conserved the Roman Civilization but also handed it on. And not only texts by the Latin Church Fathers like Saint Augustine, but also pagan Roman texts. And it was also not only texts, but also a way of life, a true civilization that was handed down. It is true that today’s France, the Low Countries and Germany (the center of the Frankish realms) are post-christian, but there are still people in it who are truly christian. Maybe in the future they can grow again, only God knows.
In my oppinion, the first cracks in this civilization was nominalism. Nominalism has it origins in the 11th-12th centuries (cf. Abelard). Nominalists said that God was to transcendent and that we can’t have a personal knowledge of and relation with God. In the later Middle Ages (cf. William of Ockham) at some locations this became the majority in the intellectual life and was directly responsible of not only the reformation, but also our modern strictly rational, scientific worldview that dominates the West today. For what should we pray, if we can’t have a relation with God?
Of course The Catholic Church has faults and as every institution is much prone to corruption. We all know that the CIA possibly has infiltrated the Catholic Church and people even say that pope Benedict resigned because of pressure of the financial markets under the Obama regime (just look at the Podesta mails by example). If that is true, that is very sad. But it is the same thing in the Orthodox Church. The Saker himself says that many Orthodox patriarchs were corrupted and it is God’s flock, the people that just have to be strict to the faith (cf the catholic principle of “sensus fidelii, cf. infra).
about Marian devotion: Good question. Well, every statement about Mary is a statement directly about Jesus Christ and God. If Jesus Christ is the son of God and his mother is Mary, she is truly the mother of God. Grignion de Montfort said “per Mariam ad Christum”. The Virgin Mary has always been venerated by common people, but because of the “sensus fidelii” there is truth in the veneration. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_20140610_sensus-fidei_en.html
.
Also doesn’t the 4th commandment say, honour they father and thy mother?
And lastly, the Virgin Mary has never received the title intercessor officially in the Church. There was the idea to do this, but around the second Vatican Council the idea was abandoned, although I know some people who are still behind the idea.
Except for Spain, Roman-Gauls, and Roman Dacia, the Roman Empire didn’t affect other parts of Europe.
Spanish people
The Spanish are made up of many nationalities or ethnicities; the Asturians, Galicians, Basques, Navarese, Valencians, Catalans, Andalusians, Aragonese, Canarians, and others.
The Roman Republic conquered Iberia during a long series of hard fought campaigns in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. As a result of the Roman conquest, the peoples of Hispania (Roman Iberia) were culturally Latinized, and over a long period of time, the indigenous languages were replaced by the Common or Vulgar Latin brought to Hispania by Roman soldiers and traders in the centuries of Roman rule. Today, Spain’s languages, with the exception of Basque, stem from the Vulgar Latin that was spoken in Hispania, and which evolved into the modern Romance languages of the Iberian Peninsula, including Castilian or Spanish.
Romance languages spoken in Spain include the official language Spanish or Castilian and the co-official regional languages Catalan in Catalonia (called Valencian in Valencia) and Galician in Galicia.
Roman Gaul refers to Gaul[1] under provincial rule in the Roman Empire from the 1st century BC to the 5th century AD.
The Roman Republic began its takeover of Celtic Gaul in 121 BC, when it conquered and annexed the southern reaches of the area. Julius Caesar significantly advanced the task by defeating the Celtic tribes in the Gallic Wars of 58-51 BC. In 22 BC, imperial administration of Gaul was reorganized, establishing the provinces of Gallia Aquitania, Gallia Belgica and Gallia Lugdunensis. Parts of eastern Gaul were incorporated into the provinces Raetia (15 BC) and Germania Superior (AD 83).
During Late Antiquity, Gaulish and Roman culture amalgamated into a hybrid Gallo-Roman culture. The Gaulish language was marginalized and eventually extinct, being replaced by regional forms of Late Latin which in the medieval period developed into the group of Gallo-Romance languages (including French and Occitan). Roman control over the provinces deteriorated in the 4th and 5th centuries, and was eventually lost to the kingdoms of the Franks, Visigoths and Burgundians. The last vestiges of any Roman control over parts of Gaul were effaced with the defeat of Syagrius at the Battle of Soissons (AD 486).
And Roman Dacia (106-275 AD)
Between 271 and 275, the Roman army and administration left Dacia, which was invaded afterwards by the Goths.The Goths mixed with the local people until the 4th century, when a nomadic people, the Huns, arrived.
And don’t forget the Huns.
The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia between the 4th century AD and the 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part of Scythia at the time; the Huns’ arrival is associated with the migration westward of a Scythian people, the Alans. By 370 AD, the Huns had arrived on the Volga, and by 430 the Huns had established a vast, if short-lived, dominion in Europe.
Numerous other ethnic groups were included under Attila the Hun’s rule, including very many speakers of Gothic, which some modern scholars describe as a lingua franca of the Empire. Their main military technique was mounted archery.
The Huns may have stimulated the Great Migration, a contributing factor in the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.[4] They formed a unified empire under Attila the Hun, who died in 453; after a defeat at the Battle of Nedao their empire would quickly disintegrate over the next 15 years. Their descendants, or successors with similar names, are recorded by neighboring populations to the south, east and west as having occupied parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia approximately from the 4th century to the 6th century. Variants of the Hun name are recorded in the Caucasus until the early 8th century.
It is always such a pleasure to find another Saker interview as they always reveal first rate thinking. I was especially taken with your description of how you managed your blog when estranged from raw intelligence data (I presume you have more sources now), and how anyone can do what you do with an educated background and a capacity to analyse what is out there. I have been doing this and always felt uncomfortable as in “who am I to second guess the experts”, but reading your feedback from readers shows me that there are others out there with valid views. It really is an intellectual exercise and much easier when examining the gamesmanship of a competent Putin compared to what comes out of Washington. But what got my juices going with your latest interview was the much held view that Hillary would have killed us all by now. I wondered about this given that the neocons hunkered down so effectively and overwhelmed Trump in short order. He is now but a mascot or figurehead president that preserves a façade of the institution of the presidency. In other words, totally controlled. And then I wondered why they would have allowed a Hillary as president free reign with the “football” as the corrupt, evil, and incompetent person she has demonstrated to be? Would they have allowed her any more latitude of behavior than Trump? Perhaps the focus should really be on an attempt to find out just how the “crazies in the basement”, now in control, will react to present geopolitical conditions. We can speculate about factions within the oligarchs as well – with some military types being opposed to war with, for example, Iran. And even that the real questions will be about whether the present escalations of tension in Syria and Korea are about a realization of decline of empire rather than building one still?
At any rate some humble speculations that surfaced from your fine interview. My admiration is combined with thanks that you do this.
Best regards.
Larry Galearis
I agree with Hassan Nasrallah that the supposed war of religions are not motivated by theologic issues but by people’s ambition. That is why I see the dispute between Rome and Constantinople as a quarrel for power. The romans were frustrated to see the emperor having moved his capital from Rome to Constantinople and having the Greek Language replacing the Latin and in addition Constantinople had failed to protect Rome against the invasions. This explains why Rome was searching a pretext to get away from Byzance’s authority. The real rupture came when the Pope made Charles the Magne emperor as the emperor was supposed to be the representative of God on earth. Two representatives did not make sense.
By the way, Russia became christian at the same time the Khazars tooke the Jewish religion to oppose Byzance. And in the West, the Irish had to come the continent to re-educate people in the christianism. In Europe usually people had the religion of their master and most of them were not understanding the subtilities of the theology. Most christians are like their fellows jews just hypocritical pharisees.
The globalism come from the fact the christians like the muslims were driven by very ambitious people pretending that they owned the Truth to be bought to the others: a good excuse for conquests.
Nothing has changed: those driving the world are liars, thieves and murderers.
I’ve been somewhat following your work – and witnessing the spectacular evolution of your website – since late 2013, because your perspective on the coup and subsequent “anti-terrorism action” was, and is still the best. But this is the first time I’ve actually heard you, so wanted to leave my first comment to say that your spoken presentation is excellent. Concise and clear yet not dumbed down.
Do you get offers – or search for opportunities – to appear as a guest/analyst on any TV or radio programs? I think you’d fit perfectly on some of the RT and Press TV programs for instance. And if you could get onto any of the alternative USian “progressive” or “conservative” shows, you could provide analyses that is sorely lacking on both.