Russian City Bans Yoga to Stifle Spread of Religious Cults

Russia is always interesting. Many say it is one of the last Christian societies.

Recently the Russian city of Nizhnevartovsk banned yoga classes from city facilities.

While I can’t imagine America or western Europe doing the same, I must agree that Yoga does have religious elements in it. Its origins aren’t even orthodox Hinduism but heterodox Hinduism, which should be less congruous with Christianity.

Similarly Eastern martial arts tend to pass on values, though the values there seem to be largely positive.

In the Culture War, most everything has significance. Post-Christian secular humanism has its cultural products too. (Eg. Feminism, masculinism, modern architecture, tv shows like “Family Guy” which Russia has banned, the language Esperanto, modern “art”.)

A conservative polity should ban or limit alien cultural artifacts like these. It’s wrong to label Russia “Soviet” over such policies. Rather, it is we who have become Soviets.

Putin Chews Out Billionaire Oligarch, 2009 Video

Even oligarchs fear Putin. Billionaire Oleg Deripaska (Jewish) is among those chewed out as “cockroaches” in the 2009 video.

Background info: In 2009, workers in a factory town blocked a road in protest of unpaid wages and declining living standards. Putin, like a tsar of old, saved the day by forcing unpaid wages to be paid immediately.

It’s difficult to know whether Putin is truly being helpful here (incomplete data), but it is refreshing to see an oligarch chewed out. Classic Putin.

H/T: Roho.

William Lind on the Insanity of our Russia Policy

William Lind from Traditional Right:

In contrast, getting into a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine could matter a great deal. Wars have the unfortunate habit of not remaining within their initial confines. Should Russia find itself on the losing end of such a war, it could remember that it is a major nuclear power—the only other country that is roughly equal to the United States in nuclear weapons. Do we really want to find ourselves in a Cold War-style eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with Russia, with the possibility of escalation very real? The fact that we must ask the question shows the utter folly of current American foreign policy.

Given Russia’s geographic advantage in Ukraine, a more likely outcome is that we will find ourselves on the losing end of a proxy war. For every anti-tank weapon we send the Ukrainians—that is not sold by corrupt Ukrainian officials to Russia, ISIS, or whomever—Russia can easily send ten tanks. If there is one thing Russia has lots of, it’s tanks. She is not likely to run out.

Should Russia tire of the proxy war, she can end it easily and quickly. As President Putin has said, the Russian Army can be in Kiev in two weeks. America has no such option, nor any conceivable military response. Drop in the 82nd Airborne? To a Russian tank army, it would not amount to more than a speed bump. Again, the very thought that we must consider a ground war with Russia deep in the Russian heartland shows that our foreign policy is made by imbeciles. ~ William Lind (emphasis mine)

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