Who didn't know China would laugh off the terms of their agreement with the Brits for them leaving the colony?
Neither the Brits nor anyone else will stop this.
China is way too powerful, both militarily and economically.
Hong Kong security law: Pro-democracy books pulled from libraries
Showing posts with label communism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label communism. Show all posts
Sunday, July 5, 2020
Saturday, May 9, 2020
Thursday, March 5, 2020
People forget who the Dems are running against
Chris Hayes pointed out that while the press was pearl-clutching because Bernie praised Castro's literacy program - yeah, I know, it's "Mussolini made the trains run on time", but at least Castro actually did it and it actually was a good thing - Bozo was in India lavishing love on Modi and praising him as a devoted champion of religious liberty.
Nobody turned a hair at this fantastic lie, this absurd and gross misrepresentation of the bigoted and deadly Hindu nationalist authoritarian - whom Trump praised for his nationalism - as a champion of religious pluralism and freedom, even as the Duce also covered the violence and political attacks on Muslims Modi has personally incited with equally gross mislabeling as active engagement in the struggle against Muslim - yes, Bozo made it specifically Muslim - terrorism.
Nobody even said "Boo!"
Is this what the "free media coverage" of Mini-Mussolini and his Dem opponent is going to look like all the way to November?
Every time the media feel it necessary to report some mote in the Democrat's eye they should bellow with all their lung power about the corresponding beam in Bozo's eye, to deserve to call themselves "fair and balanced".
But they won't.
They'll be oohing and aaahing about Joe squeezing some young woman's shoulder and how much it just sickened her, while ignoring that Bozo is and has always been an unrelenting pussy-grabbing sex criminal and doesn't give a shit who knows it.
And nor do his party or his voters.
Nobody turned a hair at this fantastic lie, this absurd and gross misrepresentation of the bigoted and deadly Hindu nationalist authoritarian - whom Trump praised for his nationalism - as a champion of religious pluralism and freedom, even as the Duce also covered the violence and political attacks on Muslims Modi has personally incited with equally gross mislabeling as active engagement in the struggle against Muslim - yes, Bozo made it specifically Muslim - terrorism.
Nobody even said "Boo!"
Is this what the "free media coverage" of Mini-Mussolini and his Dem opponent is going to look like all the way to November?
Every time the media feel it necessary to report some mote in the Democrat's eye they should bellow with all their lung power about the corresponding beam in Bozo's eye, to deserve to call themselves "fair and balanced".
But they won't.
They'll be oohing and aaahing about Joe squeezing some young woman's shoulder and how much it just sickened her, while ignoring that Bozo is and has always been an unrelenting pussy-grabbing sex criminal and doesn't give a shit who knows it.
And nor do his party or his voters.
Tuesday, December 3, 2019
Mass politics
It could be said that an essential attribute of a successful regime in the age of mass politics is vulgarity.
But there is a considerable difference between the mere vulgarity of style and propaganda of the liberal regimes and the profound vulgarity of values of authoritarian and, even worse, fascist, racist, or Nazi regimes.
And right now many leading Western nations are sliding from the former toward the latter.
Are regimes, parties, or movements of the further left also committed to vulgar values?
Or is that another difference between them and regimes of the vicious right, from the merely authoritarian even to the totalitarian?
Questions that arise while watching on Amazon video Detective De Luca.
But there is a considerable difference between the mere vulgarity of style and propaganda of the liberal regimes and the profound vulgarity of values of authoritarian and, even worse, fascist, racist, or Nazi regimes.
And right now many leading Western nations are sliding from the former toward the latter.
Are regimes, parties, or movements of the further left also committed to vulgar values?
Or is that another difference between them and regimes of the vicious right, from the merely authoritarian even to the totalitarian?
Questions that arise while watching on Amazon video Detective De Luca.
Monday, September 2, 2019
Nobody saw it coming in Russia, either.
Remember this?
When it comes - and it will come because, barring technological overthrow and ignoring the entirely reactionary (and doomed) interruption of Islamism, Fukuyama was right - the collapse of the red regime in China will come as a surprise.
Tom Sauer, in particular, does not see it coming, even now.
And yet, the Hong Kong demonstrations are proof of the inner rot.
No man knows the day or the hour.
But the faith of the demonstrators is right.
It will come.
Saturday, August 24, 2019
Night Soldiers
Alan Furst's novel first reveals the tyranny of Soviet Russia by displaying Stalin's tyrannical behavior regarding members of the leadership of the Communist Party and the NKVD.
And as to that, the official orders to officers serving abroad to return to the Soviet Union, known to all to be orders to return for execution that, in general, no one dared disobey, are a nice parallel to the way things went in the empire of the Turks, its tyranny most neatly depicted in the mind of one of Furst's heroes, early in the book, in the practice of sending an official a garotte, indicating he should kill himself.
Which, generally, he did.
But the difficulty with this view of the situation is that, much like Khrushchev's secret speech to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on February 25, 1956, it hides the inherent tyranny of Soviet Communism behind the tyranny of Stalin, personally, while it hides his tyrannical rule of the entire country behind his tyrannical treatment of party members and officials.
On the other hand, Furst's treatment in the same novel of the Spanish Civil War is almost entirely satisfactory.
And as to that, the official orders to officers serving abroad to return to the Soviet Union, known to all to be orders to return for execution that, in general, no one dared disobey, are a nice parallel to the way things went in the empire of the Turks, its tyranny most neatly depicted in the mind of one of Furst's heroes, early in the book, in the practice of sending an official a garotte, indicating he should kill himself.
Which, generally, he did.
But the difficulty with this view of the situation is that, much like Khrushchev's secret speech to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on February 25, 1956, it hides the inherent tyranny of Soviet Communism behind the tyranny of Stalin, personally, while it hides his tyrannical rule of the entire country behind his tyrannical treatment of party members and officials.
On the other hand, Furst's treatment in the same novel of the Spanish Civil War is almost entirely satisfactory.
Tuesday, August 13, 2019
The bourgeois revolution in China.
China Is Waging a Disinformation War Against Hong Kong Protesters
Right now, that makes it a kind of latter day Cold War between the dictatorship of the Communist Party on the one side and the protesters on the other.
With the local government of Hong Kong a weak player in the middle
What do they want, these protesters?
What did the protesters of Tiananmen want?
The Revolution of 1848 in China.
The French Revolution - or any one of several - in China.
Think of that, but scaled back to cover only Hong Kong.
For now.
It is a direct challenge to the party's exclusive hold on power.
What a provocation it must be to Chicom nationalist eyes to see in the Times a photo of a gray-haired protester in the street waving the Union Jack, the banner of the former Western, white, racist, European colonial power, or demonstrators rushing around the Hong Kong airport, a youth among them waving the Stars and Stripes, as viewers of CNN saw this morning.
The talking heads of mainstream American cable news, all in varying degrees conscious or unconscious Children of Zinn, are accustomed to demonstrators burning the US flag and interviewees and guests who revile it as a symbol of slavery, genocide, misogyny, homophobia, Christianism - or indeed, simply Christianity - and racism.
They hear and repeat, day after day, that it is the banner of an evil regime of white males that is only a recent outpost of a larger evil white thing of millenia, Western Civilization.
They must have to try hard not to gag, reporting on a courageous democracy movement of nonwhites for whom the Stars and Stripes - and the colonialist Union Jack! Colonialism! What, better a Brit colony than one of the last Red Empire in Beijing? - are symbols of exactly the free society and government they want.
Meanwhile, the Beijing tyrants, relying on the Great Firewall of China to make easier their task, are incensing nationalist sentiment against the demonstrators with dangerous success, portraying them as criminals and terrorists manipulated and funded by foreigners and particularly the CIA.
The clashes have been off and on, and more on than off, since early this year.
The government clearly is in no hurry to send in the tanks and would prefer to wait it out.
And that could work, given enough patience.
Chaos Grips Hong Kong’s Airport as Police Clash with Protesters
And this inane remark by the moron in the White House is both hilarious and disgraceful, exactly as you would expect.
We are so going to get another four years of this orange jackass.
Trump on Hong Kong protests: 'It's a tough situation … but I'm sure it'll work out'
“We’ll what see what happens,” Trump said before boarding Air Force One for an event in Pennsylvania.
“But I’m sure it’ll work out. I hope it works out for everybody, including China, by the way.”
UK should give British nationality to Hong Kong citizens, Tugendhat says
What, does he think they want to be airlifted to East Anglia?
Trump isn't the only moron.
Right now, that makes it a kind of latter day Cold War between the dictatorship of the Communist Party on the one side and the protesters on the other.
With the local government of Hong Kong a weak player in the middle
What do they want, these protesters?
What did the protesters of Tiananmen want?
The Revolution of 1848 in China.
The French Revolution - or any one of several - in China.
Think of that, but scaled back to cover only Hong Kong.
For now.
It is a direct challenge to the party's exclusive hold on power.
What a provocation it must be to Chicom nationalist eyes to see in the Times a photo of a gray-haired protester in the street waving the Union Jack, the banner of the former Western, white, racist, European colonial power, or demonstrators rushing around the Hong Kong airport, a youth among them waving the Stars and Stripes, as viewers of CNN saw this morning.
The talking heads of mainstream American cable news, all in varying degrees conscious or unconscious Children of Zinn, are accustomed to demonstrators burning the US flag and interviewees and guests who revile it as a symbol of slavery, genocide, misogyny, homophobia, Christianism - or indeed, simply Christianity - and racism.
They hear and repeat, day after day, that it is the banner of an evil regime of white males that is only a recent outpost of a larger evil white thing of millenia, Western Civilization.
They must have to try hard not to gag, reporting on a courageous democracy movement of nonwhites for whom the Stars and Stripes - and the colonialist Union Jack! Colonialism! What, better a Brit colony than one of the last Red Empire in Beijing? - are symbols of exactly the free society and government they want.
Meanwhile, the Beijing tyrants, relying on the Great Firewall of China to make easier their task, are incensing nationalist sentiment against the demonstrators with dangerous success, portraying them as criminals and terrorists manipulated and funded by foreigners and particularly the CIA.
The clashes have been off and on, and more on than off, since early this year.
The government clearly is in no hurry to send in the tanks and would prefer to wait it out.
And that could work, given enough patience.
Chaos Grips Hong Kong’s Airport as Police Clash with Protesters
And this inane remark by the moron in the White House is both hilarious and disgraceful, exactly as you would expect.
We are so going to get another four years of this orange jackass.
Trump on Hong Kong protests: 'It's a tough situation … but I'm sure it'll work out'
“We’ll what see what happens,” Trump said before boarding Air Force One for an event in Pennsylvania.
“But I’m sure it’ll work out. I hope it works out for everybody, including China, by the way.”
UK should give British nationality to Hong Kong citizens, Tugendhat says
What, does he think they want to be airlifted to East Anglia?
Trump isn't the only moron.
Thursday, August 8, 2019
Revolutionary what?
Capitalists and their allies support coups or revolutions against regimes of representative government only if they fear someone else will do it first and use power against them.
Anti-capitalists do it because they cannot prevail, ever, without fanatical totalitarian dictatorship.
And anarchists? Well . . . .
Chile alone could be offered as a counter-example.
A highly questionable one.
But, anyway, one could ask whether it always works out for the best for the generality of people.
Because of the Nazis, mostly.
But not only.
Still, looking at Russia, China, Cambodia, and the rest, the horrible regimes the capitalists have accepted seem much less bad.
Nazis, maybe, excepted.
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
The Youth of Hong Kong want a Bourgeois Revolution
While in America the ignorant young boobs, the kind who used to (still?) wear Che tee shirts, say they want socialism.
"Democratic socialism" is an oxymoron and the only really existing socialism that ever happened in the modern world was the ghastly horror of Communism.
But anyway.
In Hong Kong, It’s Now a Revolution
Hong Kong separatism apart, it's a rerun of the revolt in Tiananmen Square, decades ago.
No doubt it will share the fate of that revolt, too.
Hong Kong : Pékin lance une mise en garde sans précédent aux manifestants
“Nous devons mettre en garde avec fermeté les groupes violents et ceux qui les manipulent : à trop jouer avec le feu, vous finirez par en payer le prix.
"Tous les participants auront à répondre de leurs actes en justice.
"Ce message s’adresse à tous les fauteurs de troubles : ne prenez pas notre modération pour du laxisme, ne sous-estimez pas la détermination du gouvernement central à maintenir la stabilité [de Hong Kong].”
C’est par ce message sans ambiguïté que Yang Guang, du Bureau des affaires de Macao et de Hong Kong, a mis en garde, ce mardi 6 août, les manifestants hongkongais, rapporte le South China Morning Post.
Pékin peut-il s’engager à ne pas recourir à l’armée pour trouver une issue à la crise actuelle à Hong Kong ?
À la question, le porte-parole s’est contenté d’une réponse sibylline :
“Mes réponses ont été préparées, mais je tiens à souligner une fois encore que le gouvernement central est attaché à la prospérité et à la stabilité de Hong Kong.
"Nous ne laisserons impuni aucun acte qui s’en prendrait au principe ‘Un pays, deux systèmes’.”
"Democratic socialism" is an oxymoron and the only really existing socialism that ever happened in the modern world was the ghastly horror of Communism.
But anyway.
In Hong Kong, It’s Now a Revolution
Hong Kong separatism apart, it's a rerun of the revolt in Tiananmen Square, decades ago.
No doubt it will share the fate of that revolt, too.
Hong Kong : Pékin lance une mise en garde sans précédent aux manifestants
“Nous devons mettre en garde avec fermeté les groupes violents et ceux qui les manipulent : à trop jouer avec le feu, vous finirez par en payer le prix.
"Tous les participants auront à répondre de leurs actes en justice.
"Ce message s’adresse à tous les fauteurs de troubles : ne prenez pas notre modération pour du laxisme, ne sous-estimez pas la détermination du gouvernement central à maintenir la stabilité [de Hong Kong].”
C’est par ce message sans ambiguïté que Yang Guang, du Bureau des affaires de Macao et de Hong Kong, a mis en garde, ce mardi 6 août, les manifestants hongkongais, rapporte le South China Morning Post.
Pékin peut-il s’engager à ne pas recourir à l’armée pour trouver une issue à la crise actuelle à Hong Kong ?
À la question, le porte-parole s’est contenté d’une réponse sibylline :
“Mes réponses ont été préparées, mais je tiens à souligner une fois encore que le gouvernement central est attaché à la prospérité et à la stabilité de Hong Kong.
"Nous ne laisserons impuni aucun acte qui s’en prendrait au principe ‘Un pays, deux systèmes’.”
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
A natural ally for the nationalist parties of Europe
Italian PM to address claims League sought money from Russia
The Cold War is soooo over.
And in European eyes, Communism is just gone.
Russian power, much diminished in any case, is no threat at all to capitalism or representative government, and Russia is not exporting any sort of revolutionary and crazy ideology just the thing to terrify everyone.
And Putin's authoritarianism, for these folks, just doesn't much matter; if it's anybody's problem, it's the Russians'.
Fewer Europeans, every day, have any interest in NATO and its Cold War II.
More and more people, not just in America but in Europe, and anywhere on the political spectrum but notably on the right, when asked "Should you or your kids be willing to fight and die in a full-scale, pan-European and maybe even global war for the independence of Estonia?", are inclined to answer with a wholly unabashed, "No."
They are equally skeptical of NATO and wholly opposed to the EU superseding Europe's individual nations as a military power.
And just as European parties of the West were not much bothered by, and often actually colluded in, American meddling in their elections to keep power out of the hands of anybody soft on defense against the Soviet bloc back in the day, some parties now seek or tolerate Russian meddling on behalf of nationalists seeking to lead their countries away from the old Cold War alliances and even, sometimes openly and specifically, the power of the US.
The Cold War is soooo over.
And in European eyes, Communism is just gone.
Russian power, much diminished in any case, is no threat at all to capitalism or representative government, and Russia is not exporting any sort of revolutionary and crazy ideology just the thing to terrify everyone.
And Putin's authoritarianism, for these folks, just doesn't much matter; if it's anybody's problem, it's the Russians'.
Fewer Europeans, every day, have any interest in NATO and its Cold War II.
More and more people, not just in America but in Europe, and anywhere on the political spectrum but notably on the right, when asked "Should you or your kids be willing to fight and die in a full-scale, pan-European and maybe even global war for the independence of Estonia?", are inclined to answer with a wholly unabashed, "No."
They are equally skeptical of NATO and wholly opposed to the EU superseding Europe's individual nations as a military power.
And just as European parties of the West were not much bothered by, and often actually colluded in, American meddling in their elections to keep power out of the hands of anybody soft on defense against the Soviet bloc back in the day, some parties now seek or tolerate Russian meddling on behalf of nationalists seeking to lead their countries away from the old Cold War alliances and even, sometimes openly and specifically, the power of the US.
Sunday, July 21, 2019
A brilliant and learned specialist in an oddly forgotten history
Anne Applebaum, Communism, and the Cold War
Take a look at her write-up on Scammell's bio of Arthur Koestler.
And at this marvelous review of Spies.
And here is something we might share with AOC, given her personal concern with the matter.
Take a look at her write-up on Scammell's bio of Arthur Koestler.
And at this marvelous review of Spies.
And here is something we might share with AOC, given her personal concern with the matter.
Clear and true vs fuzzy, murky, and wrong
Fuzzy, murky, and wrong:
Five myths about socialism
Clear and true:
What Americans Must Know About Socialism
Five myths about socialism
Clear and true:
What Americans Must Know About Socialism
Monday, July 15, 2019
Dickens v. the rabble
In the later chapters of Barnaby Rudge, D repeatedly portrays the rioters as violent, murderous criminals bent more on limitless destruction and anarchy than any real political goal.
Their actions repeatedly stem from hatred of the authorities and the haves - however little or much they have - , and it is these latter, persons with property, who have his undivided and wholly unabashed sympathy and loyalty.
Along with defenders of property, order, and authority.
Dickens a socialist?
Not on your life.
Which is not at all to deny his endless, heartfelt, and sincere sympathy for the deserving poor or his support for both private charity and state action aimed at relief within the context of a wholly undisturbed capitalism.
Who was it, which converted red, wrote that the entire red plague of the 20th Century was based on blind hatred of the bourgeoisie?
Oh, yes.
Francois Furet.
Though he was certainly not alone in that.
Of course, that plague was over by 1990.
A whole generation of adults was born and came to maturity after that.
Their actions repeatedly stem from hatred of the authorities and the haves - however little or much they have - , and it is these latter, persons with property, who have his undivided and wholly unabashed sympathy and loyalty.
Along with defenders of property, order, and authority.
Dickens a socialist?
Not on your life.
Which is not at all to deny his endless, heartfelt, and sincere sympathy for the deserving poor or his support for both private charity and state action aimed at relief within the context of a wholly undisturbed capitalism.
Who was it, which converted red, wrote that the entire red plague of the 20th Century was based on blind hatred of the bourgeoisie?
Oh, yes.
Francois Furet.
Though he was certainly not alone in that.
Of course, that plague was over by 1990.
A whole generation of adults was born and came to maturity after that.
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
He's doing it again
Evasively and contemptuously disguising a lifelong hatred of capitalism so intense he spent the Cold War making excuses for and defending communist regimes because they expropriated the expropriators in the name of the working masses, instituting socialism - yes, that means public ownership of the means of production - by revolution and by force.
Better that than not at all, eh?
And all the while grudgingly admitting the crimes of red totalitarian dictatorship, usually insisting on mixing in condemnations of America and capitalism in the same paragraph, if not in the same sentence.
It is no accident that his political hero is not and never was the social democrat Clement Attlee, but the socialist Eugene Debs who came to admire Bolshevik Russia.
Not to mention Castro, Che, the Sandinistas, and a host of others.
Bernie Sanders to Deliver Defense of His Democratic Socialist Philosophy
I really despise this cowardly fraud - specifically for his cowardly fraudulence.
And I have no doubt AOC and the other soi-disant democratic socialists of the Democratic Party feel pretty much the same way as he does.
I have met many people who have called themselves "democratic socialists" in my years, and every one of them hated capitalism and, during the Cold War, defended communist regimes against US opposition.
Harrington, a sincere democratic socialist who was also sincere in his hatred of communism and support for American opposition to them during those years, was a rare exception and, anyway, I never personally met him.
Better that than not at all, eh?
And all the while grudgingly admitting the crimes of red totalitarian dictatorship, usually insisting on mixing in condemnations of America and capitalism in the same paragraph, if not in the same sentence.
It is no accident that his political hero is not and never was the social democrat Clement Attlee, but the socialist Eugene Debs who came to admire Bolshevik Russia.
Not to mention Castro, Che, the Sandinistas, and a host of others.
Bernie Sanders to Deliver Defense of His Democratic Socialist Philosophy
I really despise this cowardly fraud - specifically for his cowardly fraudulence.
And I have no doubt AOC and the other soi-disant democratic socialists of the Democratic Party feel pretty much the same way as he does.
I have met many people who have called themselves "democratic socialists" in my years, and every one of them hated capitalism and, during the Cold War, defended communist regimes against US opposition.
Harrington, a sincere democratic socialist who was also sincere in his hatred of communism and support for American opposition to them during those years, was a rare exception and, anyway, I never personally met him.
Sunday, June 9, 2019
The politics of HBO's "Chernobyl"
The Daily Caller, behind an absurd demand for subscription, is claiming liberals hate the series while conservatives love it.
The show damns socialism, they say, and not without reason, though the point is disputed just what it damns, and so the left hate it and the right love it.
And yet Vox has published a string of well-deserved positive reviews.
The Guardian, too, loved it by the end, as have lots of other people on the left.
Indeed, so far as I know, nobody outside the post-Soviet, post-socialist Russian state, Putin's Russian nationalist state, has published a review of the series that was negative in net.
Though some on the right have taken occasion to crow, and on the left to deflect.
The HBO series was actually very popular and highly regarded among Russians, but the Putinists are reacting out of stupid offended nationalism, much like the Japanese denying comfort women were slaves, denying the atrocity of Nanking, denying any number of war crimes, and even insisting on celebrating hanged war criminals at patriotic Shinto monuments.
Much like our Southerners and their GOP enablers, celebrating people who fought a war to destroy the Union, to kill the idea that "all men are created equal", to deepen and perpetuate racism in order to commit the South to African slavery forever.
That is to say, the only known folks to damn the series have done so out of the sort of idiot right wing nationalism that mimics the crime-family moms who aid and abet their criminal children, denying they are criminals or excusing their crimes when denial is impossible, because and only because "blood is thicker than water".
The truth is the exact opposite of what the Daily Caller has claimed.
The Russian state, btw, is retaliating with a ludicrous series blaming the CIA for the disaster.
As for the discrepancies between actual history and the events in the series, everybody knows about them because the people who made the series have been yakking about them from the first moments, again and again insisting the series is not and dramatically could not be an entirely accurate rehearsal of who did what, and pointing specifically toward the very same departures from fact to which Russians out to defend the Reds have pointed with an absurd filip of "gotcha".
Not every Russian, not even every Russian personally involved, sees it that way, however.
And this Post story should rebut the lies of surviving Soviet officials whitewashing their and their party's role.
And it is worth remembering that Putin and many others in today's Russian society were themselves officials of the Soviet state.
Even today, many of them, starting with the Big Man, are far from pleased to hear criticism of the Soviet state, feeling correctly they are all of them in varying degrees personally implicated in its crimes and disasters.
The show damns socialism, they say, and not without reason, though the point is disputed just what it damns, and so the left hate it and the right love it.
And yet Vox has published a string of well-deserved positive reviews.
The Guardian, too, loved it by the end, as have lots of other people on the left.
Indeed, so far as I know, nobody outside the post-Soviet, post-socialist Russian state, Putin's Russian nationalist state, has published a review of the series that was negative in net.
Though some on the right have taken occasion to crow, and on the left to deflect.
The HBO series was actually very popular and highly regarded among Russians, but the Putinists are reacting out of stupid offended nationalism, much like the Japanese denying comfort women were slaves, denying the atrocity of Nanking, denying any number of war crimes, and even insisting on celebrating hanged war criminals at patriotic Shinto monuments.
Much like our Southerners and their GOP enablers, celebrating people who fought a war to destroy the Union, to kill the idea that "all men are created equal", to deepen and perpetuate racism in order to commit the South to African slavery forever.
That is to say, the only known folks to damn the series have done so out of the sort of idiot right wing nationalism that mimics the crime-family moms who aid and abet their criminal children, denying they are criminals or excusing their crimes when denial is impossible, because and only because "blood is thicker than water".
The truth is the exact opposite of what the Daily Caller has claimed.
The Russian state, btw, is retaliating with a ludicrous series blaming the CIA for the disaster.
As for the discrepancies between actual history and the events in the series, everybody knows about them because the people who made the series have been yakking about them from the first moments, again and again insisting the series is not and dramatically could not be an entirely accurate rehearsal of who did what, and pointing specifically toward the very same departures from fact to which Russians out to defend the Reds have pointed with an absurd filip of "gotcha".
Not every Russian, not even every Russian personally involved, sees it that way, however.
And this Post story should rebut the lies of surviving Soviet officials whitewashing their and their party's role.
And it is worth remembering that Putin and many others in today's Russian society were themselves officials of the Soviet state.
Even today, many of them, starting with the Big Man, are far from pleased to hear criticism of the Soviet state, feeling correctly they are all of them in varying degrees personally implicated in its crimes and disasters.
Saturday, May 18, 2019
Unrepentent to this day
‘I Did My Best to Stop American Foreign Policy’:
Bernie Sanders on US anti-Communism in Latin America.
In a nutshell, where stood many Democrats.
We had no real stake in Vietnam.
The dominoes were never going to fall all the way to California.
But Latin America is a lot closer, and I personally remember being taught as a student to shelter under the desk during the Cuban missile crisis.
I found it shocking and offensive that Democrats were so indulgent toward outright Communists in Chile, in Nicaragua, and elsewhere in the region.
Bernie Sanders on US anti-Communism in Latin America.
In a nutshell, where stood many Democrats.
We had no real stake in Vietnam.
The dominoes were never going to fall all the way to California.
But Latin America is a lot closer, and I personally remember being taught as a student to shelter under the desk during the Cuban missile crisis.
I found it shocking and offensive that Democrats were so indulgent toward outright Communists in Chile, in Nicaragua, and elsewhere in the region.
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Why Cuba? Why Venezuela?
They are no threats to the US.
North Korea is a nuclear menace.
The Trumpists are going after both Cuba and Venezuela.
Trump is nothing but hot air and bullshit in his completely failed attempts to get rid of the nuclear threat to the US posed by NK.
Why is he going after two harmless states, one communist and the other on its way to communist, while ignoring the most brutal and dangerous communist state in the world?
The question answers itself.
Republicans in general and Trump in particular are bullies and cowards.
North Korea is a nuclear menace.
The Trumpists are going after both Cuba and Venezuela.
Trump is nothing but hot air and bullshit in his completely failed attempts to get rid of the nuclear threat to the US posed by NK.
Why is he going after two harmless states, one communist and the other on its way to communist, while ignoring the most brutal and dangerous communist state in the world?
The question answers itself.
Republicans in general and Trump in particular are bullies and cowards.
Wednesday, April 10, 2019
A Cuban province on the mainland
Cuba Has Hijacked Venezuela
Is Cuba the only country in the world that, besides being run by a Communist family dictatorship, has a fairly heavily top down socialized economy?
Well, there's North Korea.
To be fair, the two countries appear to be at opposite poles of the "better or worse" spectrum among actually existing socialist states, the Cuban economy being far kinder to ordinary people, the Cuban state being far less geared to war, and the Cuban government being considerably less savage toward its own people.
On the other hand, the Bolivarian Revolution is turning Venezuela into a Cuban branch office, and it's not going all that well for the Venezuelans.
Is Cuba the only country in the world that, besides being run by a Communist family dictatorship, has a fairly heavily top down socialized economy?
Well, there's North Korea.
To be fair, the two countries appear to be at opposite poles of the "better or worse" spectrum among actually existing socialist states, the Cuban economy being far kinder to ordinary people, the Cuban state being far less geared to war, and the Cuban government being considerably less savage toward its own people.
On the other hand, the Bolivarian Revolution is turning Venezuela into a Cuban branch office, and it's not going all that well for the Venezuelans.
Thursday, March 28, 2019
This shows how much Republicans care about what socialism actually is, and what "socialism" actually means
Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks reads from Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' while bashing Democrats, media
About as little as Bernie Sanders and the Democrats on MSNBC who, just for him during the primaries of 2016, helpfully and mendaciously defined the word as "public ownership of any means of production".
Well, any organization devoted to the production of any good or service.
Like schools, fire departments, or the Tennessee Valley Authority.
As for the GOP, part of their warfare against the Dems for 2020 is, thanks to Bernie's personal and apparently entirely sincere and almost lifelong embrace of socialism and Bernie and AOC's embrace of "socialism", to paste that label to the Democratic Party and especially the Bernie/AOC agenda on the one side and onto various political boogey-men on the other.
You know.
Stalin, sure.
But the massively incompetent and idiotic Maduro in Venezuela.
And now that famous national socialist, Adolf Hitler.
About as little as Bernie Sanders and the Democrats on MSNBC who, just for him during the primaries of 2016, helpfully and mendaciously defined the word as "public ownership of any means of production".
Well, any organization devoted to the production of any good or service.
Like schools, fire departments, or the Tennessee Valley Authority.
As for the GOP, part of their warfare against the Dems for 2020 is, thanks to Bernie's personal and apparently entirely sincere and almost lifelong embrace of socialism and Bernie and AOC's embrace of "socialism", to paste that label to the Democratic Party and especially the Bernie/AOC agenda on the one side and onto various political boogey-men on the other.
You know.
Stalin, sure.
But the massively incompetent and idiotic Maduro in Venezuela.
And now that famous national socialist, Adolf Hitler.
"Cultural Marxism"
The term used to refer to Gramsci's idea that mature and entrenched capitalism cannot be overcome without a preparatory stage in which the pervasive cultural hegemony of bourgeois values is gradually replaced over time with a cultural hegemony of values of and favoring the working classes.
Those using the expression "cultural Marxism" were generally right wingers like Pat Buchanan and others wishing to spread alarm that the transitional process in the West is well underway, pointing to the influence of the left, and particularly of political correctness and those called "social justice warriors" on American campuses.
But a YouTube clip of James O'Brien talking with an anti-alt.right caller led to O'Brien claiming it is somehow tied to some right wing and specifically anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
You know, Marx, Trotsky, and a lot of the others were Jews, as were members of the Frankfurt School.
So I guess that was going to happen.
And it is after all a central theme uniting Nazi anti-Semitism with Nazi anti-Communism.
What the Fascists did to Gramsci.
On 9 November 1926, the Fascist government enacted a new wave of emergency laws, taking as a pretext an alleged attempt on Mussolini's life several days earlier.
The fascist police arrested Gramsci, despite his parliamentary immunity, and brought him to the Roman prison Regina Coeli.
At his trial, Gramsci's prosecutor stated, "For twenty years we must stop this brain from functioning".
He received an immediate sentence of five years in confinement on the island of Ustica and the following year he received a sentence of 20 years' imprisonment in Turi, near Bari.
Over 11 years in prison, his health deteriorated: "His teeth fell out, his digestive system collapsed so that he could not eat solid food... he had convulsions when he vomited blood, and suffered headaches so violent that he beat his head against the walls of his cell."
An international campaign, organised by Piero Sraffa at Cambridge University and Gramsci's sister-in-law Tatiana, was mounted to demand Gramsci's release.
In 1933 he was moved from the prison at Turi to a clinic at Formia, but was still being denied adequate medical attention.
Two years later he was moved to the "Quisisana" clinic in Rome.
He was due for release on 21 April 1937 and planned to retire to Sardinia for convalescence, but a combination of arteriosclerosis, pulmonary tuberculosis, high blood pressure, angina, gout and acute gastric disorders meant that he was too ill to move.
Gramsci died on 27 April 1937, at the age of 46.
Those using the expression "cultural Marxism" were generally right wingers like Pat Buchanan and others wishing to spread alarm that the transitional process in the West is well underway, pointing to the influence of the left, and particularly of political correctness and those called "social justice warriors" on American campuses.
But a YouTube clip of James O'Brien talking with an anti-alt.right caller led to O'Brien claiming it is somehow tied to some right wing and specifically anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
You know, Marx, Trotsky, and a lot of the others were Jews, as were members of the Frankfurt School.
So I guess that was going to happen.
And it is after all a central theme uniting Nazi anti-Semitism with Nazi anti-Communism.
What the Fascists did to Gramsci.
On 9 November 1926, the Fascist government enacted a new wave of emergency laws, taking as a pretext an alleged attempt on Mussolini's life several days earlier.
The fascist police arrested Gramsci, despite his parliamentary immunity, and brought him to the Roman prison Regina Coeli.
At his trial, Gramsci's prosecutor stated, "For twenty years we must stop this brain from functioning".
He received an immediate sentence of five years in confinement on the island of Ustica and the following year he received a sentence of 20 years' imprisonment in Turi, near Bari.
Over 11 years in prison, his health deteriorated: "His teeth fell out, his digestive system collapsed so that he could not eat solid food... he had convulsions when he vomited blood, and suffered headaches so violent that he beat his head against the walls of his cell."
An international campaign, organised by Piero Sraffa at Cambridge University and Gramsci's sister-in-law Tatiana, was mounted to demand Gramsci's release.
In 1933 he was moved from the prison at Turi to a clinic at Formia, but was still being denied adequate medical attention.
Two years later he was moved to the "Quisisana" clinic in Rome.
He was due for release on 21 April 1937 and planned to retire to Sardinia for convalescence, but a combination of arteriosclerosis, pulmonary tuberculosis, high blood pressure, angina, gout and acute gastric disorders meant that he was too ill to move.
Gramsci died on 27 April 1937, at the age of 46.
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