The People in the Chimney and The Perfect Mothers by Donya Kowalski

Donya’s Poem The People in the Chimney and her essay The Perfect Mothers

 Donya Noudoshani Kowalski is an 8th grade student at St. Mary of the Lakes in Medford, New Jersey. In the fall of 2016, she plans to enter Bishop Eustace Preparatory School which is located in Pennsauken, New Jersey.

 In my opinion, her poem, The People in the Chimney, is powerfully insightful regarding the German people and its un-forgetful and un-forgiving twentieth century crime against humanity – The Holocaust: the genocide of millions of Jews, Slavs, and Roma. The Germans always considered these three groups as the untermenschen – the sub-humans.

 What we see in Donya’s poem and essay is humanity. Humanity appears to be a characteristic which is sorely lacking in the Germanic psyche.

 

 The People in the Chimney

By: Donya Kowalski

 

Darkness overtakes Auschwitz

as people in striped pajamas filled the camp

 

The smoke of my people

filled the once clear sky

 

I look out past the barbed wire

at the world I used to live in

 

I push a wheelbarrow full of dirt

and imagine that I am doing yard work

 

As the list of numbers for the showers was being called

I heard

Vier und fünfzig drei hundert ein und neunzig

My life

was going to go up a chimney

 

The German guards barked orders

The people in the striped pajamas

marched to the shower

 

Thousands of us squeezed into the chamber

The door was bolted shut

 

The gas began to fill our lungs

We slumped over into piles

 

We did not deserve this fate

We did not deserve to end our life

by going up a chimney

We did not deserve to be killed like

an infestation of bugs

We did not deserve this at all  

  

The Perfect Mothers

By: Donya Kowalski

           All my life my mom has gone to the ends of the earth to make me happy. When my best friend passed away, I was devastated. My mother knew exactly what I needed to hear. Mary shared the same maternal instinct with her son. Mothers always know what their children need. Mary knew that Jesus needed her to stay by his side and my mom knew I just needed a hug from her.

My mother has shown her endless love for me all my life. When I get sick, she cares for me. My mom brings me food and medicine and helps me to feel better by simply loving me. If I am scared, she will embrace me in a tight hug. I automatically know that she loves me so much that she wouldn’t let anything hurt me. Mary showed the same love to her son, Jesus. As he was carrying the cross that he would soon die on, Mary followed by his side. Mary loved her son so much that she stayed with him through his suffering. I see that same love from my own mother.

When I have doubts that I am able to do anything, my mom encourages me to do my best. She knows that I am capable of doing anything I set my mind to. The night before the entrance exam for high school, I became very worried. Thoughts of not being accepted filled my mind. Without me saying a word, my mother could tell I was worried. She told me she knew I would do great and that I had nothing to worry about. I knew that if she thought I could do it, then I really would do well. Like my mom, Mary encouraged her son. Even though Jesus did not feel ready to perform his very first miracle, Mary knew he was ready. Jesus changed water from a well to an abundance of the best wine at a wedding with help from his mother’s encouraging words.

My mom is patient with me when she asks me to do my chores. I usually respond with, “I will do it in a minute.” My mom knows that I really mean that I am not going to do my chores. She is patient with me and calmly tells me to do them. After a while, I give in and do them. Without my mom’s patience, she would have a hard time when I need to do chores. When Mary and Joseph were leaving Jerusalem after the Passover, they discovered that Jesus was missing. They searched everywhere for him. Mary was patient and did not get mad at Jesus when they found him sitting in temple with the teachers. That took a lot of patience and bravery not to worry about Jesus.

Out of all the people I know, my mom is the bravest one. She always manages to smile, no matter what the situation. When my grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer, my mom went with her to all of her chemotherapy and radiation treatments. After spending a long day at the hospital with my grandmother, she would come home with a smile. Although my grandmother was going through harsh treatments, my mother made sure I knew everything would be alright. Like my mom, Mary was also brave. When the angel Gabriel came to Mary, she took on a great challenge. The angel told her that she would be the mother of God’s son. She knew it would be tough, but Mary accepted it.

I am so grateful to have a mother as loving as mine. She always believes in me and I know that she will always keep me safe. I see Mary in my mom everyday. Mary loved her son so much that she stayed by his side during his suffering. She was brave enough to take the challenge of being his mother. Both my mom and Mary are the perfect example of a mother who would do anything for their child because they care about them so much.

 

 

 

Russia’s Hybrid War Against The United States: Which Economic Option Do You Want? A voluntary ‘soft landing’, or, an imposed ‘hard landing’? (Open letter from Russia to the United States.)

 

February 8, 2016:

Rotislav Ischenko, President of Centre for System Analysis and Forecasting (Kiev) currently living in Moscow, wrote an article entitled “Time Is Running Out For Pax Americana’s Apologists” which was published in the Oriental Review on November 11, 2015.(http://orientalreview.org/2015/11/11/time-is-running-out-for-pax-americanas-apologists/) Mr. Ischenko stated:

“The paradox of the current global crisis is that for the last five years, all relatively responsible and independent nations have made tremendous efforts to save the United States from the financial, economic, military, and political disaster that looms ahead. And this is all despite Washington’s equally systematic moves to destabilize the world order, rightly known as the Pax Americana.”

Mr. Ischenko states that “A crisis erupts within any system when there is a discrepancy between its internal structure and the sum total of available resources (that is, those resources will eventually prove inadequate for the system to function normally and in the usual way). And, that the system is faced with three options: reform, collapse, or through preservation. He states, as quoted above, that the United States has ignored for the last five years facing up to the fact that it no longer has the “financial, economic, military, and political” resources to be the world’s hegemon, and the “Russian-Chinese approach has made a point of offering Washington a compromise option that endorses the gradual, evolutionary erosion of American hegemony, plus the incremental reform of international financial, economic, military, and political relations on the basis of the existing system of international law.”

Mr. Ischenko concludes his open letter as follows: “But the US needs to think fast. Their resources are shrinking much faster than the authors of the plan for imperial preservation had expected. To their loss of control over the BRICS countries can be added the incipient, but still fairly rapid loss of control over EU policy as well as the onset of geopolitical maneuvering among the monarchies of the Middle East. The financial and economic entities created and set in motion by the BRICS nations are developing in accordance with their own logic, and Moscow and Beijing are not able to delay their development overlong while waiting for the US to suddenly discover a capacity to negotiate.

The point of no return will pass once and for all sometime in 2016, and America’s elite will no longer be able to choose between the provisions of compromise and collapse. The only thing that they will then be able to do is to slam the door loudly, trying to drag the rest of the world after them into the abyss.”

From December 13, 2013, the Accumulation/Distribution line for the SPDR Gold Trust Shares (GLD) on the NYSE has been advancing in a positive manner. The GLD (SPDR Gold Trust Shares) price has continued trending down along a trend line that goes back to October 1, 2012, and in late January 2016 broke through to the up-side.. Clearly, a divergence between price and accumulation. This divergence between strong accumulation and never-ending lower prices is un-explainable. All of this can be seen on the GLD price chart shown in the link: http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=GLD&p=W&yr=3&mn=6&dy=0&id=p11244689691&a=444655238

Oriental Review published Grandmaster Putin’s Trap written by Dmitri Kalinichenko ( http://orientalreview.org/2014/12/25/grandmaster-putins-trap/ ) on December 25, 2014, and, which is, referenced in Rotislav Ischenko’s Time Is Running Out For Pax Americana’s Apologists. One year before the English translation date, the “smart money” began its accumulation. This group, with its superior intelligence gathering, was aware of what Russia and China were doing relative to selling their dollars received from trade for gold and were purchasing gold via the GLD ETF.

Grandmaster Putin’s Trap states:

“Thus, the Western world, built on the hegemony of the petrodollar, is in a catastrophic situation. In which it cannot survive without oil and gas supplies from Russia. And Russia is now ready to sell its oil and gas to the West only in exchange for physical gold! The twist of Putin’s game is that the mechanism for the sale of Russian energy to the West only for gold now works regardless of whether the West agrees to pay for Russian oil and gas with its artificially cheap gold, or not.

Because Russia, having a regular flow of dollars from the sale of oil and gas, in any case, will be able to convert them to gold with current gold prices, depressed by all means by the West. That is, at the price of gold, which had been artificially and meticulously lowered by the Fed and ESF many times, against artificially inflated purchasing power of the dollar through market manipulation.

Interesting fact: the suppression of gold prices by the special department of US Government – ESF (Exchange Stabilization Fund) – with the aim of stabilizing the dollar has been made into a law in the United States.

In the financial world it is accepted as a given that gold is an antidollar.

  • In 1971, US President Richard Nixon closed the ‘gold window’, ending the free exchange of dollars for gold, guaranteed by the US in 1944 at Bretton Woods.
  • In 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin has reopened the ‘gold window’, without asking Washington’s permission.

Right now the West spends much of its efforts and resources to suppress the prices of gold and oil. Thereby, on the one hand to distort the existing economic reality in favor of the US dollar and on the other hand, to destroy the Russian economy, refusing to play the role of obedient vassal of the West.

Today assets such as gold and oil look proportionally weakened and excessively undervalued against the US dollar. It is a consequence of the enormous economic effort on the part of the West.

And now Putin sells Russian energy resources in exchange for these US dollars, artificially propped by the efforts of the West. With which he immediately buys gold, artificially devalued against the U.S. dollar by the efforts of the West itself!”

 Grandmaster Putin’s Trap summarizes as follows:

“The Western economic establishment can see and understand the essence of the situation. Leading Western economists are certainly aware of the severity of the predicament and hopelessness of the situation the Western world finds itself in, in Putin’s economic gold trap. After all, since the Bretton Woods agreements, we all know the Golden rule: “Who has more gold sets the rules.” But everyone in the West is silent about it. Silent because no one knows now how to get out of this situation.

If you explain to the Western public all the details of the looming economic disaster, the public will ask the supporters of a petrodollar world the most terrible questions, which will sound like this:

How long will the West be able to buy oil and gas from Russia in exchange for physical gold?

And what will happen to the US petrodollar after the West runs out of physical gold to pay for Russian oil, gas and uranium, as well as to pay for Chinese goods?

No one in the West today can answer these seemingly simple questions.

And this is called “Checkmate”, ladies and gentlemen. The game is over.

Henry Kissinger’s recent visit with President Putin appears to be round 1 of the Rockefeller interests to find a Russian-US compromise as a response to Ischenko’s Time Is Running Out For Pax Americana. It’s likely a non-starter since Kissinger’s approach for a New World Order was more a United States-Russian partnership with the United States as the senior partner and Russia a junior partner.

If so, we can look forward to a U.S. economic collapse in 2016.

 

 

 

 

SCRANTON: The Prosperity of Coal; The European Immigrants; The Polish National Catholic Church; The Kowalski Family.

SCRANTON: The Prosperity of Coal; The European Immigrants; The Polish National Catholic Church; The Kowalski Family.    Sylvester J. Kowalski, May 6, 2015.

 Three important Scranton issues.

Scranton’s nineteenth and early twentieth century prosperity was due to its extensive anthracite coal seams. Most of the coal miners were poorly paid European immigrants who, eventually, wanted better pay and working conditions. Labor turmoil ensued. Concurrently, the Polish coal miners were experiencing the same type of language and culture repression as they did in Poland by the Roman Catholic Church. Rebellion against the Roman Church became frequent, and, out of this rebellion, the Polish National Catholic Church (PNCC) was born. The Kowalski family was intimately involved with coal mining, the labor turmoil, and the PNCC.

The 1st Industrial Revolution and Scranton’s prosperity.

John Kowalski, my grandfather, came to the Pennsylvania anthracite region from Poland because of the abundance of jobs which contrasted with their scarcity in Poland.

The technological innovations of converting the energy of coal into the mechanical energy of steam-driven engines ushered in the 1st Industrial Revolution. The northeast Pennsylvania 19th century economic boom was propelled by this region’s abundant supply of anthracite coal. It was an extension of the 1st Industrial Revolution.

Steam-driven engines permitted: the de-watering of coal mines; the powering of textile manufacturing machinery and machine tools; the building of steam-driven locomotives for transportation; the development of steam-driven marine engines for ship propulsion; the construction of steam-driven farm implements and tractors; and, when electricity became practical, the development of steam-driven electrical generators.

Pennsylvania had an abundance of coal and northeast Pennsylvania had the bulk of the country’s anthracite (hard) coal. The anthracite coal region required immense numbers of workers. Most of them came from Europe. The worker’s nationality were: England/Wales – 21%; Germany – 12%; Ireland – 16%; Poland/Russia – 26%; and all other – 25%.

The Kowalski family, Nanticoke, and Scranton.

John Kowalski is the patriarch of Kowalski family. He was born in 1857, and emigrated from the Polish Province of Poznan (western Poland) in 1882. His parents are Lorenz Kowalski and Elizabeth Zbiarwony.   Maria Henke was born in the same province in the year 1863.

Kowalski, in Polish, means the son of a smith or blacksmith. Polish surnames frequently depicted the father’s occupation. John’s father likely was a blacksmith. A blacksmith “manufactured” gates, grilles, railings, light fixtures, tools, agricultural implements, cooking utensils, etc.

According to the 1900 census, John arrived in the US in 1882.  In 1900 he and Maria lived at 24 Slope Street in Nanticoke Pennsylvania.   John and Maria had 5 children: Elizabeth born 1891; Constantine born 1899; Sylvester born 1902; Edmund in 1904; and, Joseph 1907. John’s employment was as a coal miner. In 1903, John owned a saloon located at Broadway and Lee in Nanticoke.

The 1900 census tells us that Maria Henke emigrated to the US in 1884. She certainly came to find a husband. Why Nanticoke? Likely, she came to Nanticoke because her mother’s first cousin lived in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania. Maria’s mother’s first cousin, Vincent Kołodziejczak, lived nearby at 286 West Union Street.

A huge number of men emigrated from Europe to the United States.  This gave mothers, such as, Antonina Kolodziej Henke a problem: How can they marry-off their daughters, such as, Maria Henke?  The most practical solution was to send them to the United States.  But, where, and who would watch over these young ladies?  If one had a trusted relative already in the United States, perhaps that individual would help.  Possibly, Antonina trusted Vincent and arranged for Maria to go to Nanticoke.  Vincent and his wife would help find a boarding establishment if they themselves could not board her.  Until Mary married, she would have the support of her Nanticoke extended family.  Mary was single for 5 years after arriving in the US.

King coal and life in the 1930s Scranton.

Life in Scranton in the 1930s must be viewed, first and foremost, from the coal miner’s perspective. This will first be done. Secondly, I will look at life in Scranton through my perspective for the years 1930 to 1942.

Labor turmoil in the anthracite coal region.

What follows chiefly comes from:

  • A DECADE OF TURMOIL: JOHN L. LEWIS AND THE ANTHRACITE MINERS 1926-1936, Douglas Keith Monroe’s Dissertation. (Georgetown University)
  • The Face of Decline: The Pennsylvania Anthracite Region in the Twentieth Century Thomas D. Dublin and Walter Light

The immigrant coal miners were exploited by the coal-mine owners. Waves of immigrants, particularly in the 19th century, provided cheap labor for these coal mines. The disparate immigrant groups were simply exploited, paid low wages, and forced to live in communities which were fragmented by ethnic barriers and without adequate socialization and integration opportunities. The living conditions were a form of apartheid. But, was very profitable for the mine owners.

In the year1918, 121 million tons of anthracite coal was mined. This was the peak for the entire coal mining cycle. In 1928, only 75 million tons were mined.

The reduced coal production created labor turmoil. A series of disruptive strikes led anthracite customers to seek alternative fuels. The 2nd Industrial Revolution based on oil and the internal combustion engine already had began, and became a significant rival to coal. Customers began to use oil for heating.

Four issues affected the long-term fate of anthracite.

First, by 1926, the easily mined coal was depleted. Second, Domestic coal faced stiff competition from oil and natural gas. Bituminous coal was much cheaper for the steam coal electrical generating market. Third, waterpower electrical generation was becoming a more serious competitor. And, fourth, the western market shrank and Northeast industrial market became stagnant.

The consequence of anthracite coal’s shrinking market share was labor turmoil not only between coal operators and the UMW, but also between the coal miners and the UMW.

The coal operator’s reaction to the coal industry decay was, first, to cut costs in any way possible to improve productivity, and, second, to discontinue the operation of collieries that were the least profitable. Employment dropped from 165,386 in 1926 to 101,500 in 1937. Annual days worked dropped by 24%.

The consequential unemployment brought poverty to the coal miners, and encouraged miners to steal or “bootleg” the coal needed for their homes and to sell to the public. The UMWA/coal operator relations became extremely turbulent.

In the aftermath of the 1925 strike, the coal miners warred with both the UMWA and the coal operators. Many violent local strikes occurred. With the onslaught of The Great Depression in 1930, the unemployment and underemployment brought misery to the coal miners.

The coal miner’s believed that the UMW ignored the poverty stricken coal miners. The coal miner’s realized that the reduced coal mining meant reduced total working hours. What they saw was that insider-favored miners were working full time, while others considered themselves fortunate if they were able to work five days per month. The coal miners wanted an equalization of days worked. This didn’t suit the coal operators nor the union insiders, and from 1930 to 1933, the coal miners warred against John L. Lewis and the UMW. Local strikes and violence were frequent.

On August 1933, John Maloney led the angry coal miners into a new union – United Anthracite Miners of Pennsylvania (UAMP), and in October 1933, UAMP struck the Glen Alden Company and its 19 collieries.

John Maloney became the leader of UAMP. At this time, my father, Sylvester C. Kowalski, was president of his UMW local, and, with membership’s approval, led it into the UAMP. Their meetings took place in the Kowalski home on East Locust Street. As a four-year old, I met the members and listened to their discussions from the second floor. My father’s UAMP local participated in the very violent strike against Glen Alden’s Baker Colliery located in Scranton.

The strike started “a reign of terror”, one with bombings and shootings commonplace. Battalion’s of miners blocked roads and gates in order to close collieries. Fights broke out frequently. Hundreds were hospitalized. Houses and cars of both UAMP and UMWA were sabotaged. Local and state police were unable to maintain order. The Wilkes-Barre area resembled an armed camp. But, the strike itself was very effective.

UAMP’s betrayal by FDR’s administration

Pressure by FDR’s administration resulted in the National Relations Board (NLRB) and Senator Wagner becoming involved in resolving the UMW/UAMP/Glen Alden strike. The Administration wanted UAMP to submit to NLRB arbitration.

Maloney and UAMP reluctantly agreed to NLRB arbitration. Since John L. Lewis and the UMW had tremendous political power, the final decision was politically motivated and favored the UMW. The second blow that UAMP received was Judge W.A. Valentine 1935 ruling that UAMP was not entitled to the union dues amassed as dues coupons (from dues check-off). UAMP was effectively bankrupted. The combination of the NLRB ruling and Judge Valentine decision meant the demise of UAMP.

In the aftermath, John Maloney, his son, Thomas, Jr., and Hanover Township School Director Michael Gallagher were all killed when packages sent to them exploded on Good Friday, 1936. Even after UAMP was destroyed, the viciousness continued. My father was “black-balled” from ever working for a coal company.

Douglas Keith Monroe states:

“The question which remains is not whether the cards were stacked against Maloney and his mine workers. They clearly were and and under the conditions which were imposed on his new union, it was probably destined to fail.”

“… whether the UAMP’s was good or bad, and whether it had any impact in its brief life.”

“Maloney was an idealist and in many respects a true radical, a man who was captivated by a strong sense of right and wrong. He was convinced that the UMW was corrupt, inefficient and lacking in ideas needed to better the conditions of the anthracite workers. In this regard he cannot be faulted.”

Maloney more than anyone dramatized the equalization issue. Since the onset of the 1918 coal mining slowdown, the coal miners insisted on an equalization of hours worked by all UMW members. Instead, the privileged few, such as, UMW insiders were working full time while many at the opposite end of the spectrum were working less than five days per week. Maloney forced the UMW to re-organize and give the mine workers a voice in policy making, and he forced John L. Lewis to stop his arbitrary decision-making.

The post-UAMP Kowalski family sunk into deep poverty. The East Locust Street home’s mortgage was defaulted, and the family needed to move. For a time, my father “worked” with the Federal WPA (Works Project Administration. In 1937, the “tide” changed. My father was able to get employment as a coal miner at the Moffat Coal Company in Taylor, PA, on the basis that he would not participate in any union activity. Even better, in early 1939, my father obtained a mechanic’s position at the Manor Farms of Fleetville, PA. He repaired dairy equipment and serviced its truck fleet.

The saving grace for the Kowalski family was that it had three wonderful extended families.  the Janchak family (my father’s sister); the Sysko/Kosciuk family (my maternal grandmother), and St. Stanislaus PNCC Cathedral.

The Janczak family provided the young Kowalski’s with much love and support. Ciotka, our father’s sister Elizabeth, and her three children, Regina, Rose, and Leo, provided us with sleep-overs, treats, such as, ice cream, and, at times, the only Christmas presents that we received. Later, my father arranged for Leo to be his assistant at Manor Farms.

My maternal grandmother, Bronislawa Lewandoska, was, in my opinion, the 1st Polish feminist. When she was 16, her father pressured her to marry a Russian soldier. This was not what she wished, and, secretly, left her home, emigrated to the U.S., married Joseph Sysko, and both lived in the Greenwood section of Moosic Borough for the rest of their lives.

The Sysko/Kosciuk family.

Joseph Sysko died at the age of 29, and his family needed to find a survival strategy. Family survival for the European immigrant families meant remarriage when the coal miner father experienced premature death which was frequent. Death from mine explosions and cave-ins were frequent. The coal miner’s surviving family had no financial resources. Benefits, such as, Survivor’s Benefits, relief payments, or food stamps were not available. For survival, the young widow had no choice other than to remarry. Likely, the coal region’s had a deficit of marriageable females, and surviving widows had no difficulty finding a second husband. Likely, there was a shortage of marriageable females.

Bronislawa’s grandchildren loved her. We were frequently at her house on Sundays. She always had a feast of fried chicken, her own fresh sausage and plenty of fixings’. Dessert was her homemade pie, apple or strawberry-rhubarb, all from her own yard.

The Sysko/Kosciuk family was the second of the important extended families.

Our third extended family was Saint Stanislaus PNCC. Why was PNCC an important extended family? St. Stanislaus Cathedral showed: love; security; consideration; assistance in time of need; education; a Christ-like holy culture; love and understanding of the Holy Spirit; and, companionship. It had a traditional Slavic communitarian culture. Here in Scranton, Bishop Hodur nurtured St. Stanislaus’ to be the “Kingdom of God here on earth”.

A PNCC May Day parade took place on the first Sunday of May. The parade started at the St. Stanislaus Cathedral and ended in the recreation area adjacent to the PNCC cemetery. My brother, Vincent Kowalski, is in the foreground and on the extreme right. Such celebrations provided us with pride in both our Polish culture and pride of being Americans.

The Polish National Catholic Church: Its Origin; Why it was Founded; The Organizer – Prime Bishop Francis Hodur; The theology of Bishop Hodur .

The Organizer – Bishop Francis Hodur

“Franciszek Jan (Francis John) Hodur was born in Poland in the village of Zarki in the country of Chrzanow, a coal minig region in what was then the Austrian section of Upper Silesia, on April 1, 1866, the son of Maria and Jan Hodur, a country tailor and farmer. He completed his secondary education in Krakow in 1889 at St. Anne’s Gymnasium of the 300 year old Nowodworski Lyceum, perhaps the fines prepatory school in the country, where he was one of the highest ranking students. Entering the Vincentian theological seminary, at that time affiliated with the Jagellonian University, he continued as an excellent student. However, his budding career was cut short in 1892 and he came to America early in 1893, where he entered the Roman Catholic seminary in Betty (now Latrobe), Pennsylvania. On August 19, he was ordained a priest by Bishop William O’Hara in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

“At first, a vicar in Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary Parish in Scranton, in 1895 he was appointed pastor of Holy Trinity Church in not-far-distant Nanticoke. As in many Roman Catholic parishes throughout the United States, a protest movement developed at Sacred Hearts in 1896, leading to the building of a new church, St. Stanislaus. [Sacred heart of Jesus and Mary and St. Stanislaus are a distance of one block from each other.] Father Hodur accepted the invitation of the dissident parish to become its first pastor in 1897. The date of his arrival, March 14, has become the traditionaldate marking the beginning of the Polish National Catholic church.” (From the Biographical Note in Hodur: A Compilation of Selected Translations by Theodore L. Zawistowski.)

“Bishop Hodur was a brilliant and complex priest who devoted his life to God and building the Kingdom of God here on earth.

“Why did Bishop Hodur organize the PNCC? This is how Bishop Grochowski, Bishop Hodur’s successor responded:

During the observance of the 60th Anniversary of the founding of St. Stanislaus parish and the Polish National Catholic Church, a logical question prods the mind: What were the fundamental causes for bringing into existence the Scranton parish in general? A clear and truthful answer must be given for our own assurance and for the assurance of the future of the Church which depends on the proper knowledge and preservation of our ideology and our aims.

“THE FIRST AND THE MOST IMPORTANT REASON FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF THE ST. STANISLAUS PARISH AND OF THE POLISH NATIONAL CATHOLIC CHURCH, HAD BEEN THE DESIRE AND DEEP CRAVING FOR THE IDEALS OF THE RELIGION OF JESUS CHRIST. THE ORGANIZER OF THE POLISH NATIONAL CATHOLIC CHURCH CARRIED AND NURTURED THESE IDEALS IN HIS HEART AND IN HIS SOUL, because he lived according to the teachings of Jesus, and he knew how to evaluate their blessed worth. Unfortunately God’s truth was neither applied in the life of the Church, nor in the social or national life. The foremost Polish philosopher and Christian, August Cieszkowski, who knew that danger lay in the spiritually degenerate condition of the European nations, sounded this warning:

“Holy God, what is happening in the world! So much hostility and so much repulsiveness. Everywhere truth is on the decline and falsehood in ascendancy. The world is attiring itself for a marriage feast amidst the cries of hungry nations and those being murdered. A sea of pleasure and an ocean of pain, pleasure accompanied by weariness, despair and pain. Vanity prances while virtue idles. The arm of the flesh is lascivious, the arm of spirit is decrepit. The Word of God is on the lips of all, abused, it doesn’t live in them, nor do they live by the Word. Brotherhood of peoples and nations proclaimed, but the crime of Cain passes on from people to nations.”

“The Polish philosopher saw the moral decline of the Roman church and of the nations. The Organizer of the Polish National Catholic Church wrote and taught the same. He cautioned and pleaded with the highest authorities of the Roman Catholic Church, but he met with rejection and anathema. The only road left, was the road chosen by the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and he has taken it.”

THE SECOND IMPORTANT FACTOR IN BREAKING WITH ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH WAS ARDENT PATRIOTISM AND THE FERVENT LOVE FOR POLAND, ITS LANGUAGE, CUSTOMS AND CULTURE.

Our Organizer was an expert historian. He studied the misfortunes which Poland experienced at the hands of Rome. On this continent, he had foreseen a slow death for Polish culture under the Irish-German ecclesiastical domination. It had been the aim and scheme of the Roman Bishops to bring about this regimentation. The motto coined by Bishop Tierney of Hartford, Conn., was “ONE GOD, ONE FAITH, ONE LANGUAGE AND ONE CHURCH JURISDICTION IN AMERICA.” This motto was adopted by other Roman Catholic Bishops. Some of them, such as, Richter, Messmer, Katzer, Ireland and Tierney prohibited singing Polish hymns and prohibited the Polish language in the churches and in the parish schools.

“The emergence of the Polish National Catholic Church has to a large degree slowed down these anti-Polish schemes of the Irish and German bishops. The Polish Press, both in Poland and America has written extensively about the merits of culture-preservation by the Polish National Catholic Church through the untiring efforts of its founder, Bishop Francis Hodur.

IT IS DESIRED THAT IT SHALL PREVAIL AGAINST THE BESIEGING HOSTILE FORCES.”

“A certain anonymous writer who understood the importance of the role of Bishop Hodur stated:

“His work arose from a fervent religious and national longing, nourished by the eternal elements of God’s goodness and justice. Through him and by him had spoken the spirit of a true priest, a Pole and Emancipator of our times. He has delved into the deepest layers of Christian tradition, those which affect man’s morale. He has shown how collective religious life and activity must be organized and sustained in order to contribute to the moral, social and national growth.

“He has regained for the Church of Jesus, light and liberty. He has liberated his people from the bonds of a lifeless, dogmatized faith and has pointed to the unlimited possibilities of growth which freedom of religion offers to the individual and the nation.

“In this manner a new religious organization came into being. It is full of vitality and is ready to serve God, nation and man.

“He measured the greatness of the Polish National Catholic Church by the magnitude of its aims and by the degree of the moral and religious regeneration of its communicants.”

THE MERITS OF THE SCRANTON CONGREGATION

“We cannot overlook the merits of the Scranton people in this historical sketch. They stood firmly by their good shepherd. They felt intuitively that they were in the presence of a man of God. They believed that the work that they began with their leader would be blessed by God. Their feelings and beliefs did not deceive them. We must marvel at their courage and gallantry with which they triumphed over the numerous obstacles and discrimination directed at them. We must marvel at their faith, their brave stand and Christian courage. Newly arising parishes of the Polish National Catholic Church received not only able assistance of the Organizer but of the whole St. Stanislaus Congregation. They visited even distant towns to strengthen and comfort those who dared to break the shackles of Roman slavery. No other parish has borne greater sacrifices for the Church. The members of the first parish always were and still are the most numerously represented at the General Synods, Conventions and religious or patriotic demonstrations. They are ready at all times to undertake and perform any service for the good of the Church.

GUIDED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT

“The influence of the Holy Spirit was clearly experienced during the many important events which took place in Scranton, Pa. To the delegation of the people from Scranton wronged by the Roman Bishop, in 1896, Father Francis Hodur said:

“ALL WHO ARE DISSATISFIED AND WRONGED IN SCRANTON SHOULD ORGANIZE AND BUILD A NEW CHURCH, WITH FULL CLAIMS TO PROPERTY OWNERSHIP.”

“The advice was very stirring. The organizational work was undertaken immediately and the activity was not stopped until full success was assured.

“Father Francis Hodur, then made a trip to Rome to see what could be done to help those who were wronged by the Roman hierarchy. He returned early in March of 1898. Ammeting of St. Stanislaus Congregation was called for the second Sunday of March at which Father Hodur presented the results of his efforts made in the “eternal city.” They were negative, nevertheless they were blessed with far-reaching consequences. Father Hodur had discovered that no just solution of any problems presented in Rome on behalf of the Scranton Congregation could be expected. The rebuff which Father Hodur met in Rome contributed to the organization of the Polish National Catholic Church for which we should perpetually thank God and bless His Holy Name. Upon notifying his congregation of the refusal which met their just petition, Father Hodur said:

“It is for you to decide now what steps we must take in the future. If you think that the spirit of the decisions of the Baltimore Synod are binding as just laws, and that by accepting those decisions, you can serve God in all peace and tranquility and live happily, tell me now, so that I may notify Bishops O’Hara and Hoban, and through them the Apostolic Legate Martinelli, that you are willing to recognize their jurisdiction.”

“At this moment, an ardent and active parishioner, Michael Szczyglinski stood up and asked, “What will happen to you, Father, what do you intend to do?”

“I shall not return under the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Bishop. I shall not return to the Roman Church,” replied Father Hodur firmly and distinctly.

“Then we shall not return either,” replied Michael Szczyglinski, he was supported by thirty other participants of that meeting. A holy ardor overwhelmed the gathering. They all stood up: men and women, raised their hands to show their indomnitable decision and repeated: “We shall not return!”

“It was a holy and decisive moment. It was the moment when the Free Polish National Catholic was born. That holy ardor – the gift of the Holy Spirit – imparted itself to all present. A similar ardor enveloped the Apostles and people gathered together with them during the great day of Pentecost.

“The Scranton people became an instrument in the hands of God by transforming into action a holy and great task. On that day the people of Scranton, led by their pastor, and inspired by God, set the foundations for a free Polish Church.

“When Bishops O’Hara and Hoban were informed of the decisions reached, Father Hodur and the Scranton Parish were excommunicated. Father Francis Hodur read the document of excommunication from the pulpit to acquaint his parishioners with the diatribe. He then burned it and the ashes were thrown into the brook which flows beneath the hill upon which St. Stanislaus Cathedral stands. While excommunication terrified even kings, the Scranton Congregation refused to be bullied into Roman submission!

“The burning ceremony of that un-Christian and barbaric document generated an indescribable enthusiasm among those present in church. Some toiled the bells, some sang, some prayed aloud, some embraced and kissed each other, while others approached the pulpit to greet Father Francis Hodur who was descending from it as though he were returning from another world. Others jumped over the communion railing, crowded into the sanctuary and cried out loudly: “God is with us Father. He will not forsake us, his children. God is with us!” They were transformed. The spirit to Power, of Faith, and of Valor descended upon this inspired congregation, which was starting a new, free and dangerously expendable life.

“God was with us, He is with us and shall continue to be with us as long as we remain united with Him in our hearts, minds and souls.

“The un-Christian excommunication of Father Hodur and of the Scranton Congregation, set loose a storm of abuse. In a land of brotherhood and freedom of religion, the Roman hierarchy and its faithful conducted a veritable “holy” inquisition. Against the Polish National Catholic Congregation of Scranton, every evil abuse was employed: discrimination in mines and factories, good names besmirched, beatings and cruel treatment – all this, in the name of the “One, True, Church” which is not willing to practice the Fatherhood of God nor the love of the Son, Jesus Christ.”

Bishop Francis Hodur was, without doubt, an important religious reformer. His life’s work in bringing the word of God, the teachings of Jesus Christ, and his work in bringing the Kingdom of God to St. Stanislaus compares him favorably with an earlier Roman Church reformer, Jan Hus. Jan Hus, the founder of the Hussite movement, was one of many reformers who tried to get the Roman church to reform prior to the Reformation. He was asked to go to Rome to defend his views, which he did, and his king gave him assurance of safe passage. The evil Roman Church burned Jan Hus at the stake ignoring his safe passage. Hus and many other reformers of that period failed to get Rome to change, and the outcome was the Reformation.

We need to take cognizance of the environment from which the Polish immigrants came from. Since the latter part of the 18th century, Poland no longer existed. Poland was partitioned by Prussia, Russia, and the Hapsburg Empire. Prussia, in particular, aggressively Germanized their part of Poland. German was the only acceptable administrative language, and Polish was forbidden to be taught in schools. For these immigrants, having their language and culture marginalized after coming to the “land of brotherhood and religious freedom” was an insult. The Polish language and culture had to be embedded into the new Church.

Bishop’s Grochowski’s history is almost equivalent to the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament. My association with St. Stanislaus from 1st grade to 9th, gives me confidence to state that the Holy Spirit indeed protected St. Stanislaus and the Polish National Catholic Church.

A PNCC reference library.

The following are good references to the Polish National Catholic Church, and can be readily obtained from St. Stanislaus Cathedral on East Locust Street. The APOCALYPSE is a must read.

  • A CATHECHISM of the Polish National Catholic Church.
  • 1897-1957 ALBUM: 60th anniversary of the PNCC.
  • MAN of DESTINY: A Pictorial History.
  • HODUR: A COMPILATION OF SELECTED TRANSLATIONS.
  • APOCALYPSE: The Revelation of the XXth Century.

The Fundamental Beliefs of the Polish National Catholic church.

The beliefs of the Polish National Catholic Church are in the A Cathechism of the Polish National Catholic Church, in the The Six Truths of Faith as found on page 7:

The Six Truths of Faith.

  1. That there is but one God, who created, preserves and governs all things.
  2. That God is a righteous judge who rewards the good and punishes the wicked.
  3. That there is but one God in three Divine Person: The Father, The Son, and The Holy ghost, or the Holy Trinity.
  4. That the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, out Lord Jesus Christ, became man and died on the cross for our salvation.
  5. That God’s grace is absolutely necessary for salvation.
  6. That the soul is immortal and will never die.

Belief 5, “That God’s grace is absolutely necessary for salvation.” comes from the teachings of Martin Luther. In Bishop Hodur’s APOCALYPSE or The Revelation of the XXth Century, written in 1930, stated, that in his opinion, Martin Luther was a great Christian thinker. Hans Kung wrote the following about Martin Luther in his Great Christian Thinkers:

“So the starting point of Luther’s reforming concern was not any abuses of the church, not even the question of the church, but the question of salvation: how do human beings stand before God? How does God deal with human beings? How can human beings be certain of their salvation by God? How can sinful human beings put right their relationship with the just God? When are they justified by God? Luther found the answer above all in Paul’s Letter to the Romans: human beings cannot stand justified by God, be justified by God, through their own efforts – despite all piety. It is God himself, as a gracious God who pronounces the sinner righteous, without any merits, in his free grace. This is a grace which human beings may confidently grasp only in faith. For Luther, of the three theological virtues faith is the most important: in faith, unrighteous sinful human beings receive God’s righteousness.”

The Two Commandments of Love.

  1. Thou shall love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
  2. And thy neighbor as thyself.

Prayer.

What is prayer?

Prayer is the lifting up of our minds and hearts to God. It is our talking to God and listening to God.

Why do we pray?

We pray:

  • To adore God, expressing our love and loyalty to Him.
  • To thank Him for his gifts to us.
  • To beg His pardon for our sins and shortcomings.
  • To ask His blessing and graces for ourselves and others.

For what should we pray?

We should pray for God’s help and guidance that we may live and work according to His holy will and attain salvation.

Who was Bishop Hodur?

The book APOCALYPSE: The Revelation of the XXth Century, informs me of: Who Bishop Hodur was. It has two parts: Historical-Sociological; and, Evangelical-Prophetic. In the first section, Bishop Hodur tells us:

“In the first section of the Apocalypse or the Revelation of the XXth Century, called historical part, I moved before the Reader’s eyes the thoughts and sayings of great theologians, excerpts from the Holy Scriptures, as well as eminent personages who played a conspicuous role in the 19 centuries of drama in the Christian church.”  

“I have given an unusually harsh assessment of the Roman catholic church. I have done this not because of hatred or from ill will, for I hate no one and least of all the Roman church, to which, as a priest, I owe so much; but because the Roman church to a high degree is responsible for much of the derailment of Christianity in the past. In the 11th century the Roman church caused the final break with the Eastern and Western churches, in the 16th the Roman church caused the religious revolution called the Reformation and at present impedes the unification of Christianity and thereby prevents the strengthening of its influences on human life and the course of world events.”

And, further:

“In the second part, in the Apocalypse proper, I have undertaken a tremendously difficult task. I wish to remind the Reader of the unique program of Christ’s mission. “

“The primary objective of the messianic life of Jesus was the spiritual regeneration of man and the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth.”

“This is why, though I am an unworthy man, only a poor and humble Polish priest, I consider it my greatest obligation, a direct Divine command, to remind my Brothers and Sisters of everything that Christ Jesus foretold about the salvation of man and of the Divine Kingdom.”

Christianity as seen by Hans Kung.

Hans Kung wrote two books of especial interest: Om Being a Christian; and, CHRISTIANITY: Essence, History, and Future.

In the book, CHRISTIANITY, Father Kung wrote in “The Aim of This Book” as follows:

“Christianity should become more Christian – that is the only possible perspective for the third millennium, too. The Roman system, Orthodox traditionalism and Protestant fundamentalism are all historical manifestations of Christianity. They have not always been there, and one day they will disappear. Why? Because they are not of the essence of Christianity.”

These are powerful words. Father Kung unequivocally states that the three major “Christian” groupings are devoid of the essence of Christianity. They are not followers of Christ.

In contrast, Bishop Hodur built the Polish National Catholic Church on the foundation of Christ’s teaching. Specifically, that each person has the right, and the duty, to develop a personal relationship with God, and that each of us have a responsibility to assist in the development of the Kingdom of God here on earth.

Bishop Hodur’s faith and brilliance informs me that he is the greatest Christian leader since the Reformation.

 

Who Am I? – The Need to Understand 1st Millennium Slavic History

Who Am I? – The Need to Understand 1st Millennium Slavic History

Who Am I? My research strongly suggests that my father, four brothers and I are direct descendants of the Slavic tribes that populated the Original homeland of the Slavs at the time period of the Roman Empire. (See the map East Central Europe, ca. 400 in Paul Robert Magosci’s Historical Atlas of East Central Europe.)

Mr. Magosci references four different researchers each having a different territorial area and central point for the homeland. The most generous shows the Homeland to start just west of the Oder River and continues eastward to the Dnieper River. The southern border is at the Dniester River, and the northern at the Pripet River. The Vandals were to the west, and the Huns, Visigoths, and the Ostrogoths were to the south of the Slavs adjacent to demarcation line between the Roman Empire and the barbarians. These Slavs did not participate in the incursions of the barbarians into the Roman Empire.

Professor Frances Dvornik has extensively written about the Slavic Civilization. In his book, The Slavs: Their History and Civilization, he discusses the meagerness of information relative to the Slavs because of their distance and lack of interaction with the Roman Empire. Archeological investigation suggests that the Slavs lived in the northern part of East Central Europe earlier than 500 BC.

During the period between the 3rd and 6th centuries CE, the map of Europe changed drastically: the Roman Empire had its fall; and, the northern ’’barbarian” tribes left their northern lands and over-ran the Roman Empire. The Scandinavian barbarians – the Angles, Jutes, and Saxon started to occupy Britain between 441 and 443 CE. The formation of Attila’s Hun empire in 443 CE destabilized many parts of Europe. In 443 CE, the Roman Empire allowed the Burgundians to occupy Savoy. In 468 CE, the Visigoths took control of Spain. The Frankish tribe of Clovis moved into Belgium and then into northern Gaul. Clovis then gathered all of the Frankish tribes and then conquered Aquataine for the Visigoths. In 511, the Franks were masters of most of Gaul with the exception of Provence. The Visigoths conquered Italy in 493.

At the start of the sixth century CE: the Anglo-Saxons controlled Britain; the Franks held Gaul; the Burgundians were confined to Savoy; the Visigoths were the masters of Spain; the Vandals were esconced in Mediterranean Africa; and, the Ostrogoths ruled Italy.

Why the mass movement of the ”barbarian” tribes out of northern Europe? Jacques Le Goff in his Medieval Civilization 400-1500 suggests the following:

”The growth of population and the attraction of more fertile territories, which Jordanes mentions as causes, probably only came into play after an initial impulse which might well have been a change of climate, a cold spell which, from Siberia to Scandinavia, reduced the cultivable land and pasture of the barbarian peoples. This would have set in motion, with one tribe pushing the next, towards the south and west as far as the extremities such as Britain (most of which was later to become England), Gaul (which was to become France), Spain ( whose southernmost portion was to take the name of the Vandals, Andalusia), and Italy ( which was to preserve the name of its late-arriving invaders only in the north, in Lombardy).

The mass movement of the northern ”barbarian tribes to western and southern Europe and northern Africa depopulated much of central and eastern Europe and allowed a vast migration of a new batch of Slavic tribes from central Asia to northern Europe.

Julien Paolantoni’s three part series entitled The root of Russia published in January 2015 in the Orient Review.org) includes a map entitled Slavic tribes central – eastern Europe c. 8th century.  (The link is: The roots of Russia: from the early East Slavs to the Grand Duchy of Moscow (I)  ) shows both the extent and names of the Slavic tribes that took over central and eastern Europe in the period circa the 8th century.

This migration extended to the Oder River in the west, Denmark and Scandinavia in the north, to Russia on the east, to the Danube river in the south, and stopped at the Bulgar and Khazar Khanate areas in the south. The Slavic Balts – Lithuanians and Latvians, controlled a vast territory which was adjacent to the Baltic Sea and started just east of the Vistula River. Now the time approached for the fledgling nation-states of central and eastern Europe to form.

The Slavic homeland in the 11th century was transformed into the Kingdom of Poland. As Mr. Magosci states:

“East of the Oborites, Veletians, and the Germanic marks (borderlans) of Lusatia and Meissen, the first historic ruler of the house of Piast, Mieszko, (r. 960-992) brought under control territory that under his successor, Bolesław I (the Brave, r. 992-1025), would become the Kingdom of Poland. Bolesław laid groundwork for an administrative system (comites-castellani, with civil and military powers); he promoted an organizational structure for the Catholic Church; and he expanded the boundaries of his realm, incorporating at various times lands inhabited by the Pomeranians along the Baltic Sea (992-994), Silesia and Cracow (from 999), Slovakia (1001-1018), the Lusatian Mark and part of the Meissen Mark (1002-5), Moravia ((1003-1004), and the Czerwien fortress borderland (1018-31) with Kievan Rus’. Just before his death in 1025, Bolesław became the first king of Poland. Most of his territorial gains were lost during or after his lifetime, so that by the second half of the eleventh century the focal point of the Polish kingdom was north of the Carpathian mountains between the Oder and the Vistula rivers.”

I have had both the Y-DNA and the autosomal DNA tests. My Y-DNA 25 marker test states that I am in the R-CTS11962 haplogroup and that my terminal SNP is CTS- 11962. Spencer Wells in his book Deep Ancestry: Inside The Genographic Project defines a haplogroup: ”… as an ancestral clan – the descendants of one man who had a particular set of genetic markers on his Y-chromasome.” Research suggests that those characterized with an SNP CTS11962 have a common ancestor who lived 3100+/-350 years from the present. Haplogroup R-CTS11962 is a sub-group of Haplogroup R1a, and the highest concentration of R1a men happens to be in Poland and Belarus. ( Wiik_Haplogroup_R1a)

The map of Haplogroup R1a1, Central Europe branch ( Haplogroup R1a1, Central European branch ) has the following foreward:

“This branch belongs to the M458 subclass.

Yellow pins mark relic haplotypes which are tested positive to M458 and negative to known downstream SNP.

Magenta pins correspond to presumably parent branch, which is chara[c]terized by SNP CTS11962, with its common ancestor living 3100±350 years before present.

Deep-blue pins denote the major sub-branch which is characterized by downstream SNP L1029. Its most recent common ancestor lived 2900±310 years before present.

Light-blue pins denote a particular Ashkenazy Jewish sub-bra[n]ch, whose ancestor lived 1300±200 years ago.

Another branch of M458 subclade – West Slavic (L260) is shown in a separate map.”

The magenta pins, as stated in the foreword, are characterized by SNP CTS11962. My terminal SNP per Family Tree DNA is identical – SNP CTS11962. Examining the map carefully, shows that the magenta pins are concentrated in the geographical area associated with the Original homeland of the Slavs. I do not believe that this is a coincidence. I look askance at coincidents. My conclusion: My father, my four brothers, and I are direct descendants of the Slavs who inhabited the Original home land of the Slavs.

The number of deep blue pins, which signifies the downstream SNP L1029 sub- branch is visibly magnitudes greater than the magenta SNP CTS11962, and its most recent common ancestor is 3100 +/- 350 years from the present. This group of Slavs participated in the circa 8th century migration into central and eastern Europe as written above. These are the Slav tribes depicted in the link above. This, in my opinion, is consistent with my Ancestry.com DNA report which states that I am 100% Europe East. The geographical area that SNP L1029 encompasses comprises Germany, the lands south of the Baltic Sea, western Russia, western Ukraine, and the northern border of Hungary. A significant number are also found in Finland, and lesser amounts in southern Sweden, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria and Greece.

Of interest are the light blue pins which signifies the Ashkenazi Jewish sub-branch. They are the fewest in number and are dispersed along a north-south line extending from Estonia to the Ukraine. It appears that the Ashkenazi Jews are a sub-branch of the Slavs – the male founder being a Slav, and the female founder a Jew.

In summary, I believe that the research reasonably suggests that my father, my four brothers, and I are direct descendants of the Slavs who inhabited the Original home land of the Slavs at the time of the Roman Empire. Also, that all of my 1st cousins are either direct descendant’s of the Slavs who inhabited the original homeland, or are part of the much broader Slav grouping of SNP L1029.

Crimea: The End of the Line for the American Empire

 

Crimea: The End of the Line for the American Empire S.J. Kowalski, March 25, 2014

The recent Crimean fiasco has changed the geo-political landscape. It is now official – the US is no longer the lone superpower. The world is now officially multi-polar and the US is only one global power along with Russia and China. Why does the Crimean fiasco demonstrate that the US is no longer the sole superpower? It is quite simple: the US does not have the “guts” to engage Russia in a war. The US Ukraine plan had the following objectives: kick the Russians out of the Sevastopol naval base; install missiles directed towards Russia; install an anti-missile defense system to support a nuclear first strike against Russia; and to steal whatever wealth that Ukraine has. The US organized coup of February 21, was executed for these reasons. Immediately after the coup, Russia decisively took control of Crimea and, by so doing, nullified all of the US’s military objectives vis-à-vis Ukraine. In response, what did the US do? It sat with its thumb in its mouth and continued gazing at its navel. If the US were indeed the world’s lone superpower, as it ceaselessly trumpets, it would at that point have massively confronted Russia militarily. It did not; its so-called Full Spectrum Dominance is nothing but an empty threat. The United States does not have the “guts” to militarily confront Russia. In 19th and 20th century European history no country has been able to control Europe without, at the same time, being a military powerhouse.

The presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed the Belazvezha Accords on December 8,1991 the effect of which dissolved the Soviet Union. From this point on, the United States stole Russian wealth and extended NATO to its borders. Despite numerous US assurances to Gorbachev, NATO was extended into the Baltic states, and to Lithuania, and Poland. Numerous attempts to extend NATO into the Ukraine and Georgia were pushed back by Russia. The capstone of the US’s theft of Russian wealth was to be the 2003 proposed sale of Yukos, Russia’s leading oil producer to ChevronTexaco, by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, but by this time Vladimir Putin was installed as President and stopped the sale. Later, Yukos assets were sold to oil companies owned by the Russian government. Essentially, Yukos was nationalized. This was the beginning of Russia’s pushback to the US’s imperialistic objectives, and was also the beginning of the West’s hatred of Vladimir Putin. The United States lost its opportunity to control a large portion of Russia’s vast oil wealth.

It is clear, that the minimum objective of the United States and NATO is to encircle Russia with offensive weapons and forces. Its maximum objective likely is to destroy Russia. At the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy, Vladimir Putin remarked as follows:

“I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernisation of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them. But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: “the fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee”. Where are these guarantees?”

Nothing has changed. The drive to enfeeble and/or destroy Russia has continued. The present Ukraine crisis is the latest manifestation of the West’s provocation of Russia. But, unfortunately for the West, the Ukraine provocation turned into a massive “cock-up”. The plan for the Ukraine coup was deeply flawed; it was implemented by a motley crew of EU and US incompetents; and, the final result was Vladimir Putin’s successful integration of Crimea into Russia.

Since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, the objective of the United States has been to control Russia along with its previous control of the European Union. In the case of Russia, the United States will not succeed. Neither does it have the requisite military machine, nor does it have the requisite “guts”. The last country that came very close to controlling Europe was Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. Adolf Hitler had the necessary “guts” to challenge the Soviet Union, and almost succeeded. Unfortunately for Hitler, he was opposed by Joseph Stalin and Marshall of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov each having at least the “guts” of Hitler. Stalin and Zhukov liberated Europe by defeating Hitler and his Third Reich. Since Vladimir Putin has the “guts” of Stalin and Zhukov, and since neither the United States nor the European Union have the same “guts” as Adolf Hitler, the US and the EU will never have the capability to control Europe, and never will. Prior to the Crimean vote, Russia placed troops along Ukraine’s borders in preparation for any NATO military action aimed at Russia. Also, on the Friday prior to the Crimean vote, Russia sent four strategic bombers on 24-hour Arctic patrol. Putin, in effect, told the West that Russia is prepared to respond to any type of military provocation. Shortly thereafter, the West announced that no military action will be taken vis-à-vis the Ukraine.

Quo vadis? Whither goest thou? In an interview on March 30, 2014, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated what Russia’s bottom-line is:

“I confirmed the validity of the proposal we made a while ago, pertaining to the necessity to implement all of the issues registered in the Agreement of the 21 February and signed by Yanukovich, Yatsenyuk, Tyagnibok, Klitchko and Foreign Ministers of France, Germany and Poland. First and foremost, order has to be restored in all cities, all illegal weapons must be surrendered, all buildings that have been taken over illegally must be released, all barriers from streets and squares must be removed, and there must be no more “Maidans” or “mini-Maidans.”

Once these obvious steps aimed at restoring normal law and order are undertaken, the constitutional reform process should be started immediately, which is something that has also been captured in the Agreement of the February 21. We are convinced that the success of this reform can only be ensured by participation of all political forces and movements representing all areas and regions without exception, and each of them must have an equal decision-making opportunity within the framework of these negotiations.

We are convinced that it would be impossible to work out solutions to all of Ukraine’s problems without a unanimous agreement on the introduction of the federal form of government in Ukraine. Each region needs to have the opportunity to elect directly its local authorities, the executive branch and the governors, and to have all the rights and needs of its citizens satisfied across all spheres, including economy, finances, culture, language, social activities or the right for friendly relations and travel to neighboring states, be it Poland, Lithuania or Russia.

We know from experience that the unitary state does not work in Ukraine. After every presidential election they change the Constitution: first they give more power to the president, then to the parliament, after that to the government. This merry-go-round cannot last for long. Federalization is a way to make all the regions feel comfortable, so that every region will know that its rights are being respected. And at the national level, they will have certain things in common, like defense, foreign policy, judiciary. We would be willing to do that – I mean guarantees that external players would offer to Ukraine after it implements these reforms.”

For Russia, the only acceptable solution for the Ukraine is federalism and with foreign policy unattached to either the West or Russia – a Finlandization of the Ukraine. The United States is slowly and reluctantly moving to accept Russia’s Ukraine position. In the meantime, the United States and the EU “own” the Ukraine that they shattered, and Russia is prepared to out-wait the West. Pepe Escobar stated all of this succinctly in his March 20, 2014 post in the Asia Times entitled How Crimea plays in Beijing: “Meanwhile, the Western dogs bark, and the Sino- Russian caravan passes.”

 

The US’s Ukraine Fiasco: End Of Empire?

 

The US’s Ukraine Fiasco: End Of Empire?

S.J. Kowalski, March 11, 2014

The current Ukraine crisis can be best understood, in my opinion, by understanding the geo-strategy of the United States. In my opinion, the script can be found in Zbigniew Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives. We must remember that Brzezinski is the foreign policy eminence grise for the Obama administration.

The developing New Cold (Hot?) War between the United States and Russia over the US-engineered Ukraine regime change can best be understood if one understands that Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives provides the fabric and context for the America’s Eurasian geopolitical strategy. The following quotes from the Introduction clearly demonstrates what Zbigniew wishes to accomplish:

  • “Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power,”
  • “The last decade of the twentieth century has witnessed a tectonic shift in world affairs. For the first time ever, a non-Eurasian power [the United States] has emerged not only as the key arbiter of Eurasian power relations but also as the world’s paramount power.”
  • “Eurasia [after the defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union – Zbigniew’s words], however, retains its geopolitical importance. Not only is its western periphery – Europe – still the location of much of the world’s political and economic power, but also its eastern region – Asia – has lately become a vital center of economic growth and rising political influence. Hence the issue of how a globally engaged America copes with the complex Eurasian power relationships – and particularly whether it prevents the emergence of a dominant and antagonistic Eurasian power – remains central to America’s capacity to exercise global primacy.”
  • “Eurasia is thus the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played, and that struggle involves geostrategy – the strategic management of geopolitical interests.” “A half century later, the issue has been redefined: will America’s primacy in Eurasia endure, and to what ends might it be applies?”
  • “The ultimate objective of America’s policy should be benign and visionary: to shape a truly cooperative global community, in keeping with the fundamental interests in humankind. But in the meantime, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus also of challenging
  • America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book.

Brzezinski’s geo-strategy has the following key points:

  • The over-arching objective of his strategy is the control of the world by the United States. [Tausendjähriges Reich]
  • Brzezinski is a follower of Harold Mackinder who in 1904 in his The Geographical Pivot of History propounded: “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; Who rules the World-Island commands the world.
  • “The key players are located on the chessboard’s west [Western, Central, and Eastern Europe], east [China. Japan, South Korea], center [Russia], and south [India, Iran, and Turkey].” [Does the list have any surprises?]

A reasonable question to ask: Why does the US need such a geo-political strategy? Here are some additional quotes from The Grand Chessboard:

  • “Eurasia is also the location of most of the world’s politically assertive and dynamic states. After the United States, the next six largest economies and the next six biggest spenders on military weaponry are located in Eurasia.”
  • “Cumulatively, Eurasia’s power vastly overshadows America’s. Fortunately for America, Eurasia is too big to be politically one.” [This was true in 1997, but is not true in 2014.]
  • “Compounding the dilemmas facing the American leadership are the changes in character of the global situation itself: the direct use of power now tends to be more constrained than was the case in the past. Nuclear weapons have dramatically reduced the utility of war as a tool of policy or even as a threat. The growing economic interdependence among nations is making the political exploitation of economic blackmail less compelling. Thus maneuver, diplomacy, coalition building, co-optation, and the very deliberate deployment of one’s political assets have become the key ingredients of the successful exercise of geostrategic power on the Eurasian chessboard.
  • “A geostrategic issue of crucial importance is posed by China’s emergence as a major power.”
  • “Potentially, the most dangerous scenario [working against US hegemony] would be a grand coalition of China, Russia and perhaps Iran, an “antihegemonic” coalition united not by ideology but complementary grievances.” [While in 1997, an alliance of Russia, China, and Iran was not even a glitter in one’s eye, today, there is some such alliance of the three probably through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).”
  • “However, a coalition allying Russia with both China and Iran can develop only if the United States is shortsigthed enough to antagonize China and Iran simultaneously.” [Guess what Mr. Brzezinski. The collective group of succesive American president’s have smilingly did just that.]
  • “But the long-range task remains: how to encourage Russia’s democratic transformation and economic recovery while avoiding the reemergence of a Eurasian empire that could obstruct the American geostrategic goal of shaping alarger Euro-Atlantic system to which Russia can then be stably and safely related.” [Russia was an American “poodle” during the Yeltsin years, and, somewhat, during the Medvedev presidency. Under Putin, and especcially after his re-election to the presidency, Brzezinki’s fanciful fantasy has been dashed. Currently, we can see Brzezinski’s hysterical responses relative to the Ukraine fiasco in various news media.]
  • “For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia.”

Emmanuel Todd’s AFTER THE EMPIRE: The Breakdown of the American Order is a must read for a superb analysis of all of America’s strategy of hegemony and why it will fail. Regarding Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard, Mr. Todd comments as follows:

“Brzezinski’s plan is clear and concise even if he suggests that wiping out Russia is for its own good. He proposes bringing Ukraine into the occidental fold and using Uzbekistan to pry Central Asia out of Russia’s control. He does not say that encircling Russia need necessarily lead to a breakup of the heart of the country. His high strategy does not forego a minimum of diplomatic caution. But there are things even more unspeakable. Brzezinski does not broach the subject of America’s economic inefficiency and the necessity for the United States to insure control over the world’s wealth through political and military means. However, his geopolitical experience does lead him to formulate this vital matter indirectly, first by underlining the fact that the bulk of the world’s population is in Eurasia, and second by pointing out that the United States is a long way from Eurasia. Read: Eurasia supplies the influx of goods and capital that are indispensable for maintaining the standard of living of all Americans, from the overclass to the plebeians.”

Mr. Brzezinski provided the United States with a strategy that would, if successful, insure the country’s long-term economic viability. But, only a fool would not recognize that, at best, his strategy was a desperate gamble with questionable odds. Mr. Brzezinski’s intricate strategy has been followed since the break-up of the Soviet Union. What Mr. Brzezinski has not articulated was the need for a competent leader who would execute this complex strategy from the time of Soviet Union break-up until the US has complete hegemony over Eurasia. In my opinion, the only world leader who could accomplish the above was the 19th century Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck was an exceptionally outstanding leader and a very astute practitioner of realpolitik. I have a feeling that Henry Kissinger would agree with me. Alas, the US does not have an Otto von Bismarck.

The above summary must be recognized as an abbreviated look at Brzezinski’s geo- strategy. A reading of his well-written The Grand Chessboard will be both illuminating and educational.

The recent coup of the Ukrainian government by the US and its shady accomplices looks to me as being incompetently developed, and, certainly, must have assumed that Russia would sit by as an American “poodle”. Obviously, the US was mistaken. It crossed Putin’s “red-line”, and now Russia is strongly ensconced in the Crimea. Vladimir Putin

is an outstanding leader, arguably, the best in the contemporary world. If the US masterminds had a fraction of his leadership ability, they would have easily recognized that Putin would not gratuitously give up the Crimea to the United States. Now, the United States is backed into a corner. If the US is not successful with its Ukrainian gambit, the world will see it as a decaying superpower. The US has no means, even conventional war, which will give it success in the Ukrainian fiasco. Will it, as a “cornered-rat”, do something as irrational as start a nuclear war? In my opinion, this risk is not zero.

Why the 2013 Gold Swoon?

Why the 2013 Gold Swoon?
Since late in 2011, gold has been in a “swoon”. First, it went down from the $1900s to about $1750 in early 2012. The possible reasons were: deflation; government manipulation to keep the dollar strong; or, a combination of deflation and manipulation. Since late in 2012, and still continuing, gold has been hammered. The possible reasons could still be the previously stated reasons. I have had a feeling for some time that these explanations in 2013 are inadequate. I had the strong feeling that powerful insiders had access to information that the dollar’s valuation would, for some unknown reason, collapse, and were powerful enough to drive the price of gold down so that they and their powerful backers could purchase the maximum amount of gold at the lowest possible price. But, as I stated, this was just a hunch.
Along came three blogs posted in 2013 by www.zerohedge.com regarding QBAMCO:

  •  “QBAMCY On The Fed’s Exit” 03/13/2013
  •  “QBAMCO On Unreserved Credit Growth And Imperial Constraints” 04-21-2013 (the article has a link for one to read the full article)
  •  “QBAMCO On Precious Metals And The Coming ‘Great Reset’” 04/29/2013

My attempt to summarize the three papers is as follows:
1. The FED is controlled by the big banks, and functions in a way that maximizes big bank profits.
2. Up to 2007, the U.S. was in an inflationary leveraging mode. Hence, the enormous debt build-up by consumers, and federal, state, and local governments. Banks took on a lot of risk, but were very profitable to key people via bonuses.
3. In 2008, the U.S. entered a deflationary deleveraging mode. This is a disastrous mode , and can be the death-knell for an economy. This is what the 1930s was all about.
4. Sometime since 2008 and after all kinds of “stimulus” or reflation, such as, QE 1, QE 2, etc., the U.S. entered an inflationary deleveraging mode. Armageddon was avoided, but the deleveraging did not bring prosperity.
5. Late in 2012, the big banks decided that a new course of action was needed to get the banks profitable. Always, one needs to consider that the FED is a tool for the bank’s goals. The need was to get back to the pre-2007 inflationary leveraging mode, and the prevailing course of action was not successful. What is needed is a shedding of debt by consumers, government, and business. A good way is to default on most of the debt via currency devaluation, and when the debt burden is sufficiently reduced, initiate a new monetary system based on gold in the Bretton Woods principle. This was a G-7 decision, and this is what QAMCO calls the ‘Great Reset’.
6. Thanks to the so called “stimulus”, the U.S. banks balance sheets are in good shape.
Europe through first austerity in the periphery and, now, by seizure of bank deposits
(the Cyprus fiasco) is getting the core country bank balance sheets in good shape. Next,
Japan under Abe is now acting as if it wants to significantly destroy the yen. Then, it
would be Europe’s turn. The last would be the U.S. QBAMCO thesis is that in the
second half of 2013, the U.S. banks will have engineered a dollar collapse. To insure
that the proper person then becomes the FED head and becomes the hero, Bernanke is
out. The likely hero will be Tim Geithner who will engineer the “Great Reset”. The
dollar will be significantly devalued, and the “new” dollar will be based on gold. (There
is a lot of speculation that China, in the same time frame, is planning to do the same
with the yuan.) With the dollar significantly devalued, debt issues in the U.S. will be so
minor, that a new inflationary leveraging period can take place, and, hence, bank
profitability sky-rockets.
If the QAMCO thesis is correct, it goes a long way in explaining the recent, sharp drop in the
price of gold. The entities that would have decided on the “Great Reset” are smart enough
to buy all the gold that they can, and also significantly drive down the gold price in order to
enhance the future profitability of their gold holdings. This would suggest that sometime in
2013, the banks will want the price to rise as high as humanly possible.
QAMCO’s thesis is coherent, and can be the explanation for what has happened and what
will happen in 2013. Several months ago, Marc Faber in an interview predicted major
financial problems in the latter part of 2013. Within the last two weeks, Faber stated that
he buys gold every month, and has purchased gold at the current low price. Financial
observers are starting to comment that something unknown but very important happened
in the latter part of 2012.
While I have absolutely no knowledge of when and how the dollar will collapse, the
continuous “printing” of money by the FED will eventually destroy the dollar, and the value
of gold will sky-rocket. It looks as if the smart money thinks the shit will hit the fan during
the latter part of 2013.
S.J. Kowalski, May 20, 2013

What Went Wrong? : A Tale of Out-Of-Control Global Banking.

We are suffering through a very serious credit crisis which is the result of the super-liquidity wave (the availability of massive amounts of money injected into the financial system in a short period of time, a wave, and which facilitates massive investments, whether sound or unsound) generated by the global banking system, and which, in turn, spawned numerous fragile asset bubbles. The current liquidity boom, which is in its terminal state, was bred by never-ending debt which, in turn, produced a whole series of booms: the LDC lending boom of the 1990s; the 1990s stock market bubble; the commodity and real estate bubbles; the securitization boom of assets ( i.e. real estate mortgages and credit card debt); the U.S. Treasury bond bubble; recycling of Japanese, Chinese, other Asian countries; Middle Eastern oil producing states trade surpluses, and, the 800-ponnd gorilla, the unfathomably massive derivative market. All of these bubbles are related to the monstrous mountain of debt accumulated by the Western world. This debt is so large that it can neither be serviced nor protected from default. It can be inflated away, and this seems to be the stealth course pursued by the global central banks. The 2007 credit crisis is symptomatic of the size and fragility of this massive liquidity injection, and its partner, the massive global debt. What went wrong was the massive accumulation of debt, whether public or private. This is nothing new – history keeps repeating itself. Global capitalism’s parasitic 200 year history shows eight such lending waves each followed by a serious economic crisis. The present crisis is arguably the worst, and, in the worst case scenario, could result in a catastrophic implosion of the world-economies along with their fiat currencies.  To read the entire essay, please CLICK the following link:

What Went Wrong-Final 6-06-23-2012

The Consequences of a Failed Monetary System: The Great Depression and The Great Depression II

 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s election to the presidency in 1932 and his subsequent New Deal administration was a revolutionary event for the United States, but was not an isolated event in global affairs. At the turn of the 20th century, the world experienced a collapse of its monetary system, the international gold standard, a collapse which reverberated worldwide, and especially in the 1930s, produced calamitous economic disintegration and revolutionary political changes.  To read the essay, please CLICK the following link:

The Consequences of a Failed Monetary System


Rise and Fall of the American Empire: Quigley’s The Evolution of Civilization Applied by S. Joseph Kowalski

This essay applies Carroll Quigley’s The Evolution of Civilization to Western Civilization and particularly to that of the United States.  This essay argues that: Western Civilization is still mired in the Age of Conflict; the United States became Western Civilization’s Universal Empire at the conclusion of World War II; Western civilization was not fortunate to have a fourth period of Expansion; and, the United States has a high probability of entering its age of Decay.  To read the essay, please CLICK the following link:

The Rise and Fall of the American Empire