Belief, Reality and Death

Says it all…

Life can be much more uncomfortable for any group or faction, than its members, literally, never planned for, should the motivating ideologies that have activated the group politically, emotionally or intellectually be exposed as, essentially, incorrect.  It is very upsetting, and more so if you are in the subset of that faction that is the last to realize that your beliefs really can’t apply to reality any longer.  Those so impacted are quite likely to strike out against those who knew of the wrongness of the formers’ beliefs well in advance of the “new” awareness of those upset.  In effect, a larger and larger majority of society appear to be becoming enemies of the newly “awakened” – a most unsettling environment.

This shift in “truths” can affect the powerful as well as the marginal.  For those with political power, the reaction seems never to be an adjustment in action or belief, no admissions of error.  Rather, the reaction is likely to be what is called “doubling down” on the old beliefs and supporting actions.  To a degree, we can see this reaction in Congress, most particularly within and around the so-called “January Sixth Committee,” which has as its main purpose the proving of “White Supremacy” and “domestic terrorism” as the prime motivators of anyone who ever supported Donald Trump.  As expected, evidence of the opposite being true is routinely ignored or denigrated as simply part of the “big lie” that the ever-smaller sub-group is sacrificing so mightily to expose.  This concentrated cabal remains certain that all Americans will embrace their sacrifice once that premise is “proven.”

For many, the foolishness embodied in the January Sixth committee barely registers as a problem worthy of Congress’ attention, which helps to show the falseness of the premise noted above.  The shrinking inner group of alternate believers seems to be more determined than ever to prove their case.  Should that fail, hatred of the alternate believers will be the irreducible collapse of their dimming star: there will be no supernova.

So it is with abortion and “choice,” but on a much longer timeline and background of seeming success.  This awakening will be one of the most wrenching that America has faced, certainly since the 2nd Civil War.  That one, over slavery, finally, made America stronger.  The collapse of Abortion, Incorporated, has the potential of doing the same, but only if churches wake up at the same time.  America “works” only in a society of shared morality.  Will a new understanding of life, itself, open people’s hearts?  Not very quickly, Prudence fears.

Abortion “rights” distill the human conflict between spirituality and the worship of socialist government.  This conflict has existed since the “Garden of Eden” when the “serpent” convinced “Eve” that surely she would not (actually) die if she ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but that she would become like the gods in knowing of good and evil.  When God learned that Adam and Eve had eaten of the tree His love for them tempered his punishment: not death, but difficulty, and banishment from “the Garden.”  The “thesis” was that Eve and Adam would die if a certain commandment were not observed; the “serpent” provided the “anti-thesis” that surely they would not die.  God’s love for His “children” softened the punishment, as love does and should do, which was explained as the antithesis being slightly more true than the thesis.  This is the same dialectic employed by Marx and Hegel and Engels. 

For thousands of years, amidst phenomenal progress, prosperity and elevated standards of living, the lure of authoritarianism, Nazism, Soviet Communism and Fascism has clung to the human condition like a voracious parasite.  Its only opponent is God and, as Christians believe, his son, the Christ.  The story of Jesus Christ, whether one is a believer or not, is a dramatic departure from identity only as part of a religious group.  Grouping is virtually automatic, but being FREE because of a personal connection to God, rewards faithful individuals with personal responsibility for individual decisions, choices and actions.  There is no freedom without that responsibility; there is no freedom when “right” action is taken only in fear of some earthly authority. 

Back to the future of our once-great nation.

Is there a source within society that can rebuild a common morality?  Our collective conscience?  We need two key elements… no, THREE: 1) Non-political churches; 2) Morally guided education; and, 3) Equal application of laws.  Free individuals have the power to empower all three factors.  Yet, our imperfect politics is what we tend to look to for salvation from problems created by, mostly, politicians.  Do we have some reason to believe that, facing a wide replacement of those in Congressional power, that the new crop of “representatives” in either House is going to help us chart a more morally straight national course?  There is almost no historical support for that outcome.

But there is opportunity for America, and it’s wrapped up in our ability to deal with the promised agitation from pro-abortionists.  There is no greater moral imperative than to protect our children.  There is no economic value that comes close to that of protecting our children.  Supposedly economically or politically powerful people can issue drivel that tries to connect the destruction of the unborn with some sort of economic benefit.  Obviously the economy exists because there are people, but it is a stretch beyond all reason that aborting new lives is good for everyone, let alone any one.  Still, there is a good possibility that overreaction to the end of Roe v. Wade will awaken many who are rabidly in favor of abortion, now.  It certainly will focus attention on the worst forms of butchery and profiteering.  Prudence would indicate that there is still sufficient moral outrage in Americans’ hearts to overcome the allure of political/financial power.  To those in Democrat power, abortion has been played for added power for 50 years – the destruction of 62 Million lives has been a small price to pay to keep re-electing Democrats.  What a foul bargain.

The illegal “leak” of Justice Alito’s draft opinion on “Roe,” has unleashed a rash of law-breaking by proponents of unfettered abortion.  Within that is the possibility of exposing the utter lawlessness of our own Department of Justice under AG, Merrick Garland.  Not only has he lied to Congress in sworn testimony, but he has employed the FBI to investigate parents who are upset about improper educational curricula and ideological indoctrination of their children.  The FBI was instructed by Garland to open cases under “domestic terrorism” titles regarding parents who broke no laws.

Now, as proto-criminals harass Supreme Court Justices in direct violation of federal law, America’s AG ignores them and refuses to direct the FBI to apprehend and charge those breaking 18 U. S. Code Section 1512.  Unfortunately, with Garland’s apparent political agreement with demonstrators who are in contravention of that section of federal law, and with his established willingness to break federal laws, himself, and to lie about it, no apprehensions or prosecutions appear likely.  Perhaps stopping illegal demonstrations is a threat to Democratcy. (spelling intended)

As Prudence has noted before, contracts, including covenants with a free people, are only as good as the integrity of the parties to them.  Changing the meaning of words is a common and corrupt means of sidestepping truths, a major cornerstone of integrity.  The second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence says, in English, that our unalienable rights include Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.  The abortion travesty of 1973’s Roe versus Wade decision tried to codify the redefinition of “Life.”  There no longer was a question of life or death of a fetus, provided that the pro-death faction was allowed to define when life began to exist.  The court did not rule on that, although it tried to “split the baby,” so to speak, by stating that States could limit abortion to the first one or two trimesters of, well, LIFE, perhaps, for lack of a better name.  But, in the Blackmun opinion, abortion was allowed throughout pregnancy.

The floodgates were thus opened to dozens of interpretations of “when life begins,” largely coming down to “when the pregnant woman decides it does,” largely on the basis of convenience, not on the life or health of the mother or of the baby.  Needless to say, this open-ended death warrant included, and has been argued to include, “abortion” up to the moment of birth.  In effect, a woman who decides at the very day of birth that she does not “want” the baby, for it certainly is such, can deny its right to live beyond a point of starvation or dehydration after birth.  It seems Prudent that a live baby is a citizen of the United States and causing it to die is murder, no matter the reason or logic for the act.  The pro-death faction has been allowed, in some jurisdictions, to redefine the meaning of “murder,” too.

Perhaps there will arrive a national awakening to the horrors of abortion, the cruelty, the pain, the denigration of humanity and even the anti-God aspects thereof.  Perhaps morality will win out.  Perhaps this 5th Civil War will begin the process of restoring America and erasing our ability to believe one of the worst aspects of socialism: that a fetus can be both a person and not a person at the same time.

Socialism depends on large numbers of people acting as though two diametrically opposed ideas are true.  Such mental incongruities are all around us, today.  That so many young people can believe, in the midst of unparalleled freedoms, that socialist central governance will make them more free, is one such incongruity.  Believing that men and women can change their genders with enough determined willpower, is another.  People will fight to hold these opposing ideas simultaneously.  In order to do so, of course, requires constant reinforcement by immersion among groups who are also determined to believe two incongruous ideas.  They have to redefine a lot of words to support their beliefs.

They ought to be made to answer some obvious questions as, for example, when the somewhat confused mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, was asked if there should be any limits on abortion, and his answer was “No, no limits.  It is a woman’s right.”  Any reporter with enough courage to ask a public figure a question without prior clearance, should have then asked, “Are there any limits on what procedures may be used to stop the heart of a baby who survives the abortion process?”

As an alternative, should no one with that much courage be within earshot, would be, “Mr. Mayor… if the baby survives the abortion, is it a citizen of the United States?”  Surely there would be an answer to one of those queries.  At least one of the “abortion activists” shouting slogans in recent days opined that a mother could decide up to the age of two years, or even later, whether the living, growing fetus actually had a right to live and grow any longer.  When pressed, it all came down, FOR HER, to “… it’s the mother’s right.”  That outlook seems imprudent, at least, and blatantly murderous.  How did a female of the species arrive at such a belief?

Prudence indicates that truth will overcome evil, whether EVIL agrees with it or not.  The subgroup that likes rubbing shoulders with evil or Satanism, itself, will be come smaller as those farther out from the pit are able to be revulsed by what they’ve been instructed to ignore.  At the same time, those who never bought the pro-death lies will gain the courage to resist, if not fight, the proponents of eliminating children.  In fact, here are a couple of protester signs that might help: Babies are a pain in the vagina: Get rid of them!  Or, if that point is misunderstood, All unwanted children should be killed!  Convenience über alles, God forbid.

AS ABOVE, SO BELOW

AS ABOVE, SO BELOW

The flow of history is a slog through constant resistance, almost like wading through clingy mud, as it were, with progress measured in excruciatingly slow jumps: dry patches where it is possible to walk briskly a short distance until humankind’s instinctive ability to confuse and confound its direction toward some elevation of living quality or standards.  Seventy years ago we dreamed of sleeker automobiles, wrap-around windshields and ever more powerful engines.  Tens of thousands of patents have been issued for automotive improvements in the interim, but we still crash into and maim or kill one another by ignoring signals or courtesy or conditions.  Fewer and fewer of these “accidents” interfere with trips to church.  There is still trash littering our gutters, highway shoulders and median strips.  Excruciatingly small jumps of progress.

We celebrate great thinkers like Einstein, Rosen, Bohr and Susskind who seem to leap ahead of contemporary understandings, but their genius takes a long, long time to improve people’s lives, although the atom bomb provides the exception to that rule… so to speak.  Many of the “rapid” changes to humanity’s convenience and living standards have derived from weapons development as far back as history has been recorded: even the wheel and domestication of oxen and horses and so forth.  But great theoretical, mathematical thinkers don’t concentrate on creating better appliances or roofing materials; they contemplate time and gravity and quantum mechanics and black holes and such, which are all important, too, despite most people caring very little about their progress.

Now and then there is a Nicola Tesla, a Thomas Edison, an Isaac Newton, a Copernicus, a DaVinci or an Elon Musk, and thank God for them.  The greatest thinker of all, however, is God, it seems Prudent to accept, even though people are certain they can explain why He is not so.  It strikes Prudence, however, that the great theoreticians are edging, bit by bit, toward understanding how God’s creation works – physically, mathematically, honestly.  It is a matter of truth, information, reality and pure intersectionality… oh, and black holes.

The latest thinking tends to accept that the “event horizon” of a so-called black hole is nearly a spiritual place.  It has to do with quantum mechanics and the preservation of information and the “entanglement” principle that predicts that two related particles or wave-packets or even energy strings, will maintain a status of “truth” between them no matter how far apart they may be.  That is, if a quality of one particle varies for whatever reason, its “mate” will exhibit the same variation instantaneously.  This can be proven by observation if the two particles are within range of observation, and is so well established that the principle is accepted at essentially all distances.  What has this to do with the event horizon?

The “event horizon” marks the last place where light or other radiation can escape the effects of a black hole before “falling” into the black hole. Two particles that interact in this most unusual place might separate, one radiating outward as the other falls in past the event horizon.  Current thinking says that the “entanglement” of these two particles, which is to say, the shared truth of these two particles, does not end at the event horizon.  The entanglement principle holds true in both realms.  Variance in the nature / condition of one particle will be true for the other at the same time regardless of distance.  To poor, dense Prudence, this sounds a lot like “As above, so below.”

What is true in Heaven is true on Earth, in so many words.  The Newtonian / Einsteinian descriptions of reality: space, time, gravity, electro-magnetism, atoms and sub-atomic particles, can describe many relationships in the observable Universe, but it is quantum mechanics, quantum physics, that explain how the engine runs, including the spontaneous conversion of energy into matter and vice-versa… and entanglement.  The truth of quantum entanglement pretty much establishes truth as the heart of the engine.  It is also the heart of life, which seems to be everywhere in some form, humans being part of it: love, life, law, truth.

There is something true about how the Universe works and exists as it does.  As scientists struggle to think the way God does, for utter lack of a better name, they keep getting closer to fundamental truths.  As they attempt to observe with ever-greater clarity, how two particles – or FACTS – are entangled in truth, they realize that with better and better observation the particle or packet being observed – or the fact being observed – expands and expands to fill the known Universe, theoretically.  Pretty soon the theoretical master-minds are describing the Universe as holographic: an expression of truth perceived through a filter of observation and, well, meaning.

Is the hologram mere happenstance?  Can we ask, whose hologram is it?  Not a fair question?  Scientists keep sharpening their sense of truth / reality without contemplating the spirituality of truth, but it is lurking everywhere truth is observed, thank God… for utter lack of a better name.

MALE AND FEMALE CREATED HE THEM

And there is love…

A man shall leave his mother and a woman leave her home

And they shall travel on to where the two will be as one.

As it was in the beginning is now and till the end

Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again.

And there is Love.  There is Love.

                                                                        From Peter, Paul & Mary: Wedding Song

To hear it screamed about, the apparent likelihood that the Supreme Court will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that upended common law regarding abortion, marks the end of life as we know it. (Pun intended.)  Or, maybe, the end of civilization, itself.  How grievous that women may again be celebrated for motherhood.

Well, maybe that’s not fair: women are so much more than mere “birthing persons.”  They are able to work, after all, which the artificially high costs of living and taxation require these days, and even earn more than many, Ugh!, men can earn, for Heaven’s sakes.  Careful of the “Heaven” reference, there, Prudence.  No sense bringing spirituality into this “life” argument; it’s taken nearly 50 years to denigrate it as well as we have.

Besides, religion is for the handful of weirdos who are not as enlightened as abortionists and who, still, think abortion is somehow “wrong:” science-deniers, all.  KEEP YOUR RELIGION OFF OF MY BODY, or can’t you read the signs of deep wisdom all around you as you leave church this Mothers’ Day?  We will not be held in subjugation by men for a million more years as we have been: mere mothers and homemakers and nannys to the children of, Ugh!, men.

Well, that’s one way to look at it.

One sign that popped into being since the big, illegal reveal says, “(euphemism for fornicate) to come, not for pregnancy!”  Females, then, (since ‘women’ can’t be defined) have been elevated to the higher status of pleasure-seeking pleasure objects… which is another way of looking at it.  That men have benefitted the most from freely available abortion – at least in terms of unfettered pleasure-seeking – and WHITE MEN most of all, seems to have escaped the notice of enlightened females.  Black men tend to be discarded in abortion clinics at much higher rates than whites, but, then, who’s listening to them?

Somehow, though, the relative power of the feminist mystique has resulted in wholesale destruction of women’s true status which was supposed to be elevated by loosening the shackles of pregnancy.  Exactly why current ideological, pedagogical theory requires pediatric exploration of sexual pleasure rather than language and arithmetic skills, critical thinking and problem-solving, has not been explained, but it certainly is a component of socialist beliefs.  Children, both sexes, we are told… they are told, need to be separated from traditional “roles” that science-denying religionists assign to them at birth, especially traditional roles of boys and girls growing into men and women, from whose love shall come forth new generations.  Those same kids must be separated, psychologically from their parents, who can’t be trusted as much as their true friends, the “education” establishment.

Go ahead and give birth, if you want to, but that’s where your rights end.

Men are pigs, so to speak.  Despite their strengths and values, men tend to set aside almost any higher calling when they perceive the possibility of having sex.  To borrow a phrase, it takes a village to keep men in their own pasture, and the head of that village is a man’s wife.  Women are the civilizing force in society.  Decades ago the strengthening feminist juggernaut decried President Reagan’s statement that “women are the civilizing force on men.” (Or, words to that effect.)  The feminist “leader” who put Reagan in his place for that comment, was signally offended by his statement, apparently because it linked men and women in the processes of socialization and civilization.  God forbid.  No way did a modern, liberated woman have any obligation to do anything – even a good thing – for a man: everything required negotiated parity between equals.  Love had nothing to do with it, nor, apparently, did child-rearing or family dynamics or nurturing stability or dependence on some, Ugh!, man to provide for the family.  It is remarkable, indeed, that any families are still being formed, today.

A measure of the destructiveness of feminized socialism is the breakdown of traditional father-mother families, and it is at its worst for black families.  Today nearly three-fourths of black children grow up in single-parent households, mostly fatherless; nearly 30% of white and Hispanic children do, also.  This shift began in earnest with the “Great Society” and the federalization of welfare, perhaps the worst public policy experiment ever conceived.  People blame Lyndon Johnson for the foul execution of military policy in the Viet-Nam War, as they should, but 100 times as much damage has been done through federal welfare programs that facilitate single-mother households.

Since the eugenics of Margaret Sanger, but really since the inception of the Great Society, the “liberation” of women, constantly touted by the Democrat Party to their key voting block, as they help them throw off the shackles of oppression by men, women have striven towards economic equality with men, but it has cost them the rewards of their majestic roles as mothers in loving 2-parent households.  In part as a result, American citizens no longer have enough children to replace ourselves.  Is this a measure of feminist success?

It is almost better referred-to as a success in the battle against motherhood, now that the battle against fatherhood is so well underway.  The rabid attempts to sexualize and gender-neutralize elementary school children could play a vital role in this battle.  Indeed, the greatest impact of convincing children that they are not who they originally thought they were, but are some sort of gender-fluid non-boy or non-girl, is STERILITY!  In the minds of feminized socialists, separating children from their parents and from reality, is the most effective way to destroy Christianity, as it destroys procreation.

Are there any demonstrations over Roe v. Wade outside of Mosques?

Indeed, the entire, sick fad of trans-genderism, non-binary identities and gender fluidity is an assault on both masculinity and femininity.  To what end, a normal person is inspired to ask?  To express hatred towards life?  Towards God?  Towards love?  It expresses nothing better than hatred for all of these things.

Perhaps the destruction of traditional sexual mores is the natural outgrowth of feminism.  Can a half-century of celebrating anti-masculinity result in a new appreciation for the value of men?  Our culture teaches boys that they are flawed almost to irredeemability, able to restore approval only by renouncing maleness in grade school.  The same culture teaches girls that the least-attractive aspect of their lives is as a mother, then it teaches that some giant boy pretending to be a girl is worth more than girls, themselves.

Then we select and celebrate a female judge who is incapable of defining what a woman is, and entrust her with discerning the essence of our Constitution when she cannot discern her own.  No wonder women are angry these days, and, as on most days, when angred there must be a man at the root cause of it.

Prudence is not certain that having more women in government really is an answer we’ve been waiting for: more real men might help, though.  Maybe the liberal wing of the Supreme Court can find a right to love one another in the penumbra of the Constitution, and override all State laws to the contrary.

THE DEATH THAT CAN’T BE SPOKEN

We’ve all heard of the “Supreme Court.”  Historically, it has had 9 justices, one of whom designated upon presidential nomination, as “Chief Justice.”  When the Constitution was ratified in 1789, the Court was defined with 6 justices, with John Jay as Chief.  The fifth Chief Justice was John Marshall, who also held that position for the longest tenure: 34 years.  Until 1869, the court’s size varied from 5 to 10 justices; at that point Congress set it at 9 justices and it has remained that until today. 

The politicization of the court became an obvious problem under Franklin D. Roosevelt, a so-called “transformative” president, which mainly meant that he pushed policies that the Constitution had not anticipated, extra-Constitutional policies, we might call them.  As the Supreme Court ruled against his socialist efforts, Roosevelt attempted to “pack” the Supreme Court, intending at one point to expand it to 15 justices… of whom enough would agree with Roosevelt’s political ideas.

“Packing” the court got shot down by a wise Senate in 1935, but it has always been technically “legal” constitutionally.  How much safer we’d be today if there were an amendment that set the number of Justices at 9, safely limiting how destructive any one president could be.  Harry Blackmun showed how destructive a Justice could be by inventing a “penumbra” of shadowy rights emanating from the Fourteenth Amendment and perceived “right to privacy.”  It’s not known whether even Blackmun grasped how cleverly the definition of “life” could be distorted so as to convince 62 Million mothers that their unborn child is anything but.

Would he cheer or frown to find that not even womanhood can be defined in our enlightened age?

Coming home from work the other day – the day the “leaked” opinion draft indicating that Roe v. Wade could be overturned was all the RAGE – there were, in just one intersection of our not so very large town, about 250 pro-abortion hot-heads shouting at traffic, waving signs like, “My Body – My choice,” “Keep Abortion Legal,” “Bans Off My Body” and easily 50 other messages.  Prudence observed that every single one of those protesting had never been aborted!

Abortion is definitely not one of those actions that can be done over, nor can the experience be related to others who have had one.  What?  You say that a woman can certainly discuss an abortion with another womens’ rights exerciser?  Well, that’s true enough, but the abortion didn’t happen to her, did it?  The person who actually experienced the abortion has been, pretty much, silenced forever.  No one on this side of the veil can listen to how the abortee describes an abortion.  The person in whom the abortion took place has only a circumstantial description of what happened: her brain wasn’t suctioned out of her skull so she can still speak and breath and stuff.

Of course, it is statements like that that bring down the hatred of the pro-abortion zealots who denounce the hatred being expressed, the lack of compassion for the abortion facilitator / mother, the outright… ummm, well, racism, or worse, religious beliefs Prudence is trying to impose on others!  Ohh, the horror.  Anyone making such a statement is trying to make an unfortunate “birthing person” feel badly about aborting the whatever it is she is carrying inside her.  Aha! You called her “she.”  You’re transphobic, too!  You, you… you MAGA person!

Back in my town’s intersection there was a lot of anger and upset including many young men as well as women (Prudence can tell them apart).  Have they any concept of what they are protesting?  Is it safe to suspect that none has READ Justice Alito’s draft opinion?  Or are they fired up because of the possibility that some authority-figure might have said “No!” to something they want?

What is more unfortunate is that “protests” in the Washington, D. C. area have devolved to the level of targeting the residences of Supreme Court Justices.  “Protests” is in quotes because they are sliding toward riots, and Prudence can tell them apart.  The now almost-expected wrong reaction from the “White House” is a failure to condemn this step towards personal, possibly physical intimidation of JUSTICES for performing the Constitutional tasks that reach the Court through legal, appellate processes.  We are witnessing a creeping sickness that Prudence never expected to see.

The so-called “Biden Administration,” in thrall to a global communist utopia, utilizes the Constitution as a road-map of what to do the opposite of.  The treachery and treason of the entire cabal is so monstrous as to defy belief, even as we watch it unfold.  It has sunk to its lowest level yet when the “President” refuses to condemn the worst behavior of his fellow travelers… he does condemn patriotism, however.  What a s-(euphemism for “turd”).

WHY IN HELL?

Buds.

Prudence, in her most Prudent way, is always trying to keep up with events, trends, purposes and consequences.  And, never one to stir up trouble, Prudence must admit to being fully puzzled as to why in Hell Russia invaded Ukraine?  Perhaps you are wondering the same thing.

History has shown almost every way and purpose humans can imagine for attacking, invading, occupying, destroying, annexing, blockading, burning, looting, bombing or decimating both neighboring and far-off nations or tribes or even continents.  Ghengis Khan and Alexander the Great had what seemed to them and their followers, valuable reasons for dominating as many states, cities and regions as they could.  Hitler had his own “good” reasons for doing the same, and most Germans and like-minded – or like-confused – neighbors went along with him.  The Romans could justify what they did, so did Japan so did Lenin and Stalin in Soviet days.

One expects that Vladimir Putin has a sufficient reason to attack Ukraine, but it certainly isn’t very clear or explicable.  What is going on? 

Given that Mr. Putin hasn’t conferred with Prudence and is not expected to anytime soon, most evidence to which we might allude will be circumstantial at best and inferential, otherwise.  Many wise people have tried to evaluate what he is trying to accomplish, including experienced military leaders.  But they are making military judgements of tactics and short-term strategies and, no matter how accurate, such musings won’t explain the overall purpose of employing war to “solve” some nebulous threat from Ukraine.

Perhaps the non-existent threat from Ukraine was never the impetus for invasion.

Putin is not someone most people would want to chum around with, but he’s not stupid, nor does it seem Prudent to assume that he is mentally addled.  He has managed and manipulated Russia for more than 20 years, gained power and influence geopolitically in that time, and become one of the wealthiest men in the world by cleverly holding and exercising power over the oligarchs that own or control most of Russia’s large industries and banks.  A significant “vig” is paid to Putin for every significant domestic and international trade deal: he is a billionaire.

However, Mr. Putin is also messianic in terms of restoring what he perceives as the once-great Russian empire.  As a loyal KGB agent, once assigned to East Germany, arguably the empire’s furthest outpost, Putin was probably less concerned about Communism than he was about the territorial and political extent of the Soviet Union.  The end of the Soviet system was a severe setback in his view, and something he wishes to set aright.  He had what appeared, at first, to be two audiences to satisfy as to his intent and purpose: Ukraine… and Russia.  It doesn’t appear that he gave a damn about what other countries thought of his threat to return Ukraine to the Russian fold.  It was strictly a local matter for Ukraine to resolve by folding in the face of his threats.

Like it or not, however, Putin’s Russia is a big puzzle piece in geopolitics.  As local as he may have wished to keep his piecemeal dissection of Ukraine, Putin needed to shore up his flanks while going to war on his western border.  Russia’s overall military significance is tied to its huge nuclear stockpile, at least half of which is modern enough to be reliable, which is to say, 2,000 or more warheads and hundreds of missile systems that can deliver them.  Its economic significance is mainly tied to oil and natural gas and extensive mineral resources.  Russia’s longest border is with China, slightly longer than that with Mongolia.  There have been shooting skirmishes along the border with China and the relationship between the two countries has been likened to two praying mantises in a bottle, neither trusting the other.

Lately, however – 6 to 7 years, cooperation between the two socialist/communist giants has been more active.  China’s economy, despite its problems, is 6 to 7 times that of Russia’s.  Russia’s huge land area sits atop enormous natural resources, particularly in oil, gas and relatively untapped shale-oil and gas.  Its population, however, is shrinking.  Programs have been tried to give stipends to parents for having children, but they have not worked to bring births up to even “replacement” rates.  Ultimately, along with politics, economics and industrial base, population size is the key determinant in national strength, depending on how it is achieved.  Massive immigration is not, generally, the solution.

China has 5 times the population of Russia, but lacks sufficient energy resources and, because of an unintended consequence of the “one-child” policies pursued in the late 1960’s through 2010 and beyond, the bias toward boys remains.  This pattern skewed the balance of boys and girls significantly, as parents aborted female fetuses.  During that same period, many thousands of girl babies were “adopted out” so that families could have another baby, hopefully a boy.  China’s ratio of female-to-male is 100 to 118: there are not enough marriage partners to civilize the males, essentially, or to produce enough children to replace aging workers.  China well understands the importance of population quality, rather than mere quantity, and it plays a multi-decade game in its quest to be the dominant country and culture.  So what, you may be asking?

The issue behind almost everything is the U. S. A.  China’s “problem” is not Russia, although the CCP is perfectly happy to buy oil from Russia while it stirs up problems for the “West.”  It is the United States that is the main impediment to Chinese hegemony, even in its own side of Asia and Southeast Asia.  After decades of buying off the elites, Wall Street, the universities, the banks and major industries in the U. S., China has finally secured a compromised President, who it has also “bought off,” and, praise the ancient dragon-gods, is also mentally incompetent!  Things seem to be aligning for China’s big move to unseat the U. S., globally.

Wait a minute, you’re saying, I thought the worst problem is the brutal destruction and wanton murder of Ukraine.  Sadly, Prudence thinks not, although the brutality is the worst the world has seen – paid attention to – in 30 years, except for the murder, rape and slavery promulgated in Africa, in Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Libya, Uganda, Nigeria, Mali, Angola, Namibia… and on and on.  Of course those countries and tribes didn’t have such good communications or beautiful buildings to be bombed as Ukraine has / had.  Besides, we like Ukraine and our President’s family scammed a lot of money there.  But the dead, starving, uprooted people in Africa are just as dead or more in pain than Ukrainians, who have modern neighbors to flee to and billions of dollars of aid pouring in.  Prudence hates all of it, but Americans are rather selective in our outrage.

What else has been going on in Africa these past 30 or more years?  Why, the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative.  The same long-term strategy reaches into European countries, Arab /Muslim countries, South Asia, South America and Oceania.  China lends money and expertise to countries that need major infrastructure in order to compete economically, but many cannot afford to pay off the loans.  China is happy to trade ownership for the notes, or lifetime access to ports, natural resources, communications systems and so forth, resulting in a densifying web of influence and military advantage that is, bit by bit, surrounding Russia as effectively as it does the United States in their Western Hemisphere efforts.  Hard to tell which of us is more blind.

So, is it really Prudent to connect the “Rape of Ukraine” to China?  Really?  “Absolutely,” seems to be the answer.

Keep in mind that China’s actions are ALWAYS in favor of China.  That kind of nationalism deserves respect, and it’s fully understandable.  This is why we were safer when Trump was president: “America First.”  The United States is the only country that has always tried to do things, internationally, that are better for other countries, including shedding jobs and production in order to “buy” cooperation, first, to resist the Soviet Union and the spread of Communism, but later to try to buy friendship from China, of all countries!  While our largesse wasn’t restricted to only China, the shift to our insidious pro-China tilt, in academia, in industry, and in our “grass-roots” politics, believe it or not, has weakened our will to defend America.  The Biden regime has stopped enforcing requirements to reveal foreign sources of funds flowing to colleges and universities, most of it Chinese.  Why would they do that?

It is safe to say that the timing of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was based on China’s “granting” permission to Putin.  There may have been, it seems likely, some sort of permission from the W. E. F., as well.  Russia had its forces gathered east of the Ukrainian border for more than a year; they could have invaded at any time.  What made the winter of 2022 the “right” time?  Prudence indicates that it is the presence of the Biden administration and a number of steps Biden has taken to soften U. S. policy towards China, both for responsibility for the Covid pandemic and with regards to China’s multiple efforts in other countries that have begun to compromise even southern Europe.  An “America First” foreign policy would have the U. S. countering the Chinese “Belt and Road” initiatives around the world.  What we must aggressively, diplomatically do is attempt to keep poorer countries from succumbing to China’s bait-and-switch.  Instead, the Biden regime has ignored China’s encirclement.  China has observed the shift in U. S. policy since Trump and, it seems, has decided that this period is when invading Taiwan might be most successful.  It is unclear how much more encouragement China needs.

The final test has been observing how “the West,” most particularly the United States, deals with Russia’s aggression.  At the same time, Russia’s abilities are also being evaluated.  China is perfectly happy to fight to the last Russian, even as the West seems to be happy to fight to the last Ukrainian.  Gaining such knowledge will be put to China’s advantage – everything is.  China cares very little what happens to Ukraine or to Ukrainians; just as little about what happens to Russians and Russia, itself.  Russia has been a rival of China’s almost since Mao Tse Tung took over.  China is playing a century-long game with respect to Russia, too.  Helping Russia, now, buying its oil and gas, for example, may, in China’s view result in the acquisition of far eastern Russia, enabling the encirclement of Korea and Japan and control of key parts of the Pacific.  If you’re thinking that , “… oh, China would never try to do that…” then you haven’t been watching its creation of artificial islands and their militarization and disturbing encroachment upon the Phillipines, and Taiwan.  Indeed, the entire arc of Southeast and South Asia is waiting to see how the U. S. responds to China’s expansionism.  No other country in the world can oppose China and the globalization of Communism.

Interestingly, the World Economic Forum is pushing capitalist countries toward global unification, obviously under the benign management of bankers and oligarchs.  This is diametrically opposed to China’s plan for world hegemony, under the benign management of the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP.  Where the W. E. F. says that in the future we won’t “own” anything and therefore we’ll be happy,  the CCP believes we’ll be happier under their form of Communism and total social control that our ephemeral “freedom” fails to afford us: not that different in net.  Neither option will be “Constitutional,” and no one but the United States will be a defender of the principles of our nation.  This part of our exceptionalism is being constantly eroded BY AMERICANS!  Even people we have elected to our own Congress are actively attempting to destroy our Constitutional culture, now reinforced by a Biden administration that is compromised by BOTH China and Russia!  Interestingly, Biden’s family is even compromised by Ukraine!  What a mess.  Just be certain, in your heart of hearts, that NEITHER THE W.E.F. OR THE C.C.P OPTION IS IN THE UNITED STATE’S INTEREST!

Prudence is deeply concerned about the ascendancy of the oligarchy in the U. S. and elsewhere in the West.  Multi-billionaires do not respect Main Street, U. S. A., nor do they respect the basic family values that drive American culture.  Moms, Dads, marriage, Christianity and children raised by parents, are not the path to power that oligarchs crave.  The general morality of the ultra-rich is quite different from that of most moms and dads – by some reports, rather depraved.  When one’s fortune reaches a certain size, the impetus to make governments protect that fortune becomes paramount.  Politicians, unfortunately, are unusually attracted to power and money much like true oligarchs, although they are not smart enough to earn the billions to gain economic entry to the oligarchs’ club.  So, sadly, many are willing to sell-out to the real power brokers, because re-election is equally sought-after.  There is a relative handful of true patriots or statesmen and women in office who will sacrifice to protect the last best hope of mankind.

Wow!  All of this from the “Ukraine” problem?  May God protect that nation and its people.