Forty years ago, I left Russia – then being the Soviet Union – as a Jewish refugee to escape a sort of spiritual Holocaust (for both Jews and Christians, and the intellectual people of any beliefs) perpetrated by the Bolsheviks’ Soviet Union. I found in the USA a Judeo-Christian nation and a unified “better world” – the better world that was built jointly by Christians, Jews and the others who accepted the Judeo-Christian vision of a “better world”. In America of forty years ago, two visions of the better world competed with each other – the vision of a big caring government building the better world (the vision of the Left) and the vision of the people themselves building the better world (the vision of the Right) - and the competition was of enlightened ideas, not of politicians’ private behavior.
The Soviet Jews and intellectual Russians knew about the American better world mostly through the information delivered by the American CIA through various official news media outlets such as Voice of America for example. Since the Soviet intellectuals already realized the ruinous nature of the Soviet regime, they were ready to be influenced and “discontented”. The Soviet government did not try to criminally convict American CIA in the crime for sowing discontent in Soviet Russia – the Soviet government just wished KGB sowing a similar discontent in America. However, it was impossible – the American society was strong and resistant to any discontent.
Forty years later, now I observe almost everything is reverse – in the New Russia the Jews and the Christians are practicing freely their religions; the intellectuals are not afraid to express themselves; Russian intelligence is successfully sowing discontent in America; and in the USA the competition of enlightened ideas is being replaced by the political character assassinations.
What happened?
The Russian political leaders realized – based on the failed Soviet experience in replacing the Russian traditional morality by a new (communist) morality - that there is only one way to build a new Russian better world for the entire nation (and of course for themselves) - to build it on the foundation of the old Russian traditional morality. And they have succeeded – Russian society now is mostly unified and moving ahead with two societal traits we in the West do not like.
The first trait is a strong authoritative government that is taking care of its citizens. Although the Russian majority knows that is a sort of “pipe dream”, but … that is the tradition! The second trait is a traditionally acceptable certain level of societal corruption in business and public life. Although the majority knows it is bad but that might be the only way to get something done – that is the tradition! That is the historic Russian tradition upon which a Russian “better world” is being created.
The American political leaders went a completely different road in creating an American better world. They decided that the great American successes in economy and world dominance may let them to neglect the traditional American Judeo-Christian morality and build an American better world on the foundation of new “social-justice/human-rights” morality. And they have failed – the American society has lost its spiritual unity and is divided along many division lines – by race, by income, by education, by country of origin, by religion ….
From the news media:
The FBI has indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies over alleged tampering with the 2016 US presidential election.
The office of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller describes it as a criminal and espionage conspiracy.
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And American political leaders – mostly of the Left – are … blaming the Russian intelligence in America’s inability to govern itself – instead of blaming our own intelligence for its inability to prevent Russian interference in our internal affairs.
It looks like President Donald Trump understand all that and trying to fix it – first, to restore the spiritual unity of the nation. Let’s hope it is not too late.
No spiritual unity – no national unity – no bright future.