Trump, Saddam, Putin
Donald Trump is not a very religious person although his mother does hail from Scotland (the Isle of Lewis) and was by all accounts a old-fashioned, Scottish Presbyterian
Trump has displayed no particular religious conviction during his adult life, as a prominent businessman and TV celebrity though this appears to be changing with Trump's new role as a politician.
Trump's speeches are now peppered with religious references and how much religion means to him which is, of course, exactly what happened with Saddam Hussein and Vladimir Putin.
Putin and Saddam (12/05/14)
When I read this piece by Ben Macintrye in The Times I was immediately struck by the similarities between Vladimir Putin and Saddam Hussein.
Because the Russian President as a former KBG agent and member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was never a big supporter of the Orthodox Church until it became useful to him, politically speaking.
So when the young women members of Pussy Riot sang a protest song against the Kremlin in a Moscow Cathedral a few years ago, Orthodox Church leaders behaved in a furious and very un-Christian fashion which helped send these dangerous criminals to the gulag for four years (subsequently reduced to two), if I remember correctly.
In other words, the Orthodox Church became a useful political ally to President Putin as he strengthened his grip on power and began the task of isolating and removing his enemies.
Likewise with Saddam Hussein who was a famously high living and secular Iraqi President until the terrible war with Iran required him to suddenly become a devout Muslim so that he could exploit the tensions between Sunni and Shia Islam which continue to bedevil the world.
As religious leaders have shown throughout the ages - in Nazi Germany, in fascist Italy or as a supporter of General Franco in Spain - they are willing to throw their lot in with unscrupulous political leaders, if there's something in it for the faithful.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4084806.ece
No law can gag Russia’s champion swearers
Because the Russian President as a former KBG agent and member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was never a big supporter of the Orthodox Church until it became useful to him, politically speaking.
So when the young women members of Pussy Riot sang a protest song against the Kremlin in a Moscow Cathedral a few years ago, Orthodox Church leaders behaved in a furious and very un-Christian fashion which helped send these dangerous criminals to the gulag for four years (subsequently reduced to two), if I remember correctly.
In other words, the Orthodox Church became a useful political ally to President Putin as he strengthened his grip on power and began the task of isolating and removing his enemies.
Likewise with Saddam Hussein who was a famously high living and secular Iraqi President until the terrible war with Iran required him to suddenly become a devout Muslim so that he could exploit the tensions between Sunni and Shia Islam which continue to bedevil the world.
As religious leaders have shown throughout the ages - in Nazi Germany, in fascist Italy or as a supporter of General Franco in Spain - they are willing to throw their lot in with unscrupulous political leaders, if there's something in it for the faithful.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4084806.ece
No law can gag Russia’s champion swearers
By Ben Macintyre - The Times
Putin’s ban on profanity is an attempt to silence the country’s anarchic, supremely rude language of free expression
In the early 1980s censors in Romania attempted to ban the word “suitcase” from published works. People were fleeing the country and officials feared that the language of luggage was encouraging the exodus: if readers could not read “suitcase”, it was believed, they would not think about packing; and if they could be stopped from thinking about packing they would not think about quitting the socialist paradise of Romania.
Communist dictatorships frequently resorted to language-engineering, banning certain words or replacing them with officially approved euphemisms: in East Germany Christmas angels were stripped of religious connotations to become “year-end winged creatures” and, to take people’s minds off death, coffins were renamed “earth furniture”.
In the early 1980s censors in Romania attempted to ban the word “suitcase” from published works. People were fleeing the country and officials feared that the language of luggage was encouraging the exodus: if readers could not read “suitcase”, it was believed, they would not think about packing; and if they could be stopped from thinking about packing they would not think about quitting the socialist paradise of Romania.
Communist dictatorships frequently resorted to language-engineering, banning certain words or replacing them with officially approved euphemisms: in East Germany Christmas angels were stripped of religious connotations to become “year-end winged creatures” and, to take people’s minds off death, coffins were renamed “earth furniture”.
