Apparently I’m not alone in doubting that this ship is unsinkable. Here’s a perspective on the Ukraine War from a member of JFK’s Cuban Missile Crisis Management Team; James R. Polk
In a rather ghastly Nineteenth Century experiment, a biologist by the name of Heinzmann found that if he placed a frog in boiling water, the frog immediately leapt out but that if he placed the frog in tepid water and then gradually heated it, the frog stayed put until he was scalded to death.
Are we like the frog? I see disturbing elements of that process today as we watch events unfold in the Ukraine confrontation. They profoundly frighten me and I believe they should frighten everyone. But they are so gradual that we do not see a specific moment in which we must jump or perish.
So here briefly, let me lay out the process of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and show how the process of that crisis compares with what we face today over the Ukraine.
Three elements stand out in the Cuban Missile Crisis: 1) Relations between the USSR and the U.S. were already “on the edge” before they reached the crisis stage; each of us had huge numbers of weapons of mass destruction aimed at the other. 2) The USSR precipitated the Crisis by advancing into Cuba, a country the U.S. had considered part of its “area of dominance” since the promulgation of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. 3) Some military and civilian officials and influential private citizens in both countries argued that the other side would “blink” if sufficient pressure was put on it.
Allow me to point out that I had a (very uncomfortable) ringside seat in the Crisis. I was one of three members of the “Crisis Management Committee” that oversaw the unfolding events.
My mind drifts back to 1987, during the height of the Cold War, when Roger Waters sang these words:
When they overrun the defences
A minor invasion put down to expenses
Will you go down to the airport lounge
Will you accept your second class status
A nation of waitresses and waiters
Will you mix their martinis
Will you stand still for it
Or will you take to the hills
(Roger Waters, “Home” from the album Radio KAOS)
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
Politicians who wish to lead & protect ought to read some Aquinas. Obviously the concept of “moral” violence is foreign to some. Aquinas’ argument was that when confronted with tyranny, we are morally obligated to fight it.
We are only like a frog if we do not act like the frog in the fable.
Frogs are much smarter than that. When they get too warm, they attempt to leave. Just like we do.
If someone involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis believed this silly story, then that explains a lot about our foreign policy.
How many wars did Thomas Aquinas fight in?
Hmmm…looks like ‘none.’
Wait…there won’t be any dogs showing up in this fable, will there?
The “wise men” of US foreign policy are always finding bogeymen to be exorcized about. Typically money is made, people die and nothing good is accomplished
Bob:
so what is your take on the CMC? Seriously, I am interested in what you think about this. All BS aside.
bron,
My take on it? I lived through it. We were waiting to see whether WWIII would start, that night. We were dead serious about it.
It was stupid for the Soviet Union to move missiles to Cuba. Everyone knew that there were planes taking photos.
It was also stupid for the U.S. to behave as if they owned Cuba and Latin America, but that was accepted in those days. There was all this talk about Communism 90 miles away from Florida, when the Soviet Union was 50 miles or so from Alaska. The U.S. also had nukes stationed very close to the Soviet Union, and we expected that not to bother them. Of course, it did. In those days, we fantasized that one side or the other could survive a nuclear war. So, if missiles were stationed close to the targets, maybe someone could get an advantage. All fantasy.
Almost none of the citizens of the U.S. or the Soviet Union, had any real understanding of how their economic systems differed, or what history lay behind the confrontation. And they were preparing to end the world for something they didn’t understand. They didn’t really grasp that the human part of the world would end, though. That was beyond imagination. We’ll all just hide in our basements, until help comes. Help wasn’t going to come. Fantasy.
Seems to have started with Harry Truman reacting to Stalin’s country-gobbling, by threatening to nuke Russia. But everyone was quite insane in those days, having just been through WWII. Frightened out of their wits. And Stalin was a very bad boy.
Despite the untrue frog analogy, Mr. Polk gave a very reasonable analysis of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Ukraine crisis.
Of course, I think Mr. Polk is correct because he sees things as I do.
I was not aware that anyone outside an asylum was urging the invasion of Russia.
But you asked only my take on the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Does that address your question?
thanks Bob. I was only 5 at the time so all I remember is getting under my desk.
By 6th grade we were laughing at the prospect of a desk protecting us in the event of a nuclear explosion.
Crouching under a desk would delay the vaporization of your vital organs for a few more microseconds. Every microsecond of life counts!
Is there any way to just turn off the spam filter? A spam filter that prevents all posting is worse than useless.
Bob K.,
No there isn’t, but as someone who sees how much actual spam is caught compared to the legitimate posts accidentally caught? You really wouldn’t want it off. It would make the comments unusable at all. Unless you’re in the market for fake Burberry and Viagra and Ugg Boots and “authentic sportswear”.
Bob, While I agree with much in your post, Stalin was NOT aggressive at all. I refer you to Churchill’s Triumph and Tragedy in which he praises Stalin for adhering to the agreements he and Stalin worked out in Moscow as to influence in Europe. Later Churchill and the UK went back on those agreements, and tried to start a war with Stalin by supplying arms, agents, explosives, etc to the Nazi collaborators in Eastern Europe. I refer you to the book MI-6 which details all the sabotage and attacks that MI-6 made. Stalin in installing Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe was simply responding to US and UK aggression that provoked it. Check out the nature of regimes in those areas of Europe at the time of 1946 when Churchill basically declared war with his so called Iron Curtain speech.
Then of course, we cannot forget that the US, UK, France, Czechoslovakia, and other nations ALL invaded the new Soviet Union and were fighting in the Civil War on the sides of the Whites and the enemies of democracy. When there are thousands of Russian troops buried on US soil, THEN we can complain about Russian “aggression”.
Back during the Cuban missile crisis, I had worked for Nixon against Kennedy, and we all can be thankful that Nixon did not win, since we wouldn’t be around to have this discussion. Krushchev was overthrown for being so stupid as to place tactical nukes in Cuba to protect the regime and the missiles with FULL authority to use them in case of invasion by the US. Turns out the other members of the Politburo did not wish to have hundreds of millions of their citizens die for Cuba. I was of course, young and stupid and was all for war to get the missiles out. I did not bother to think much other than to go along with the right wing nuts.
In the current situation, the best we can hope for is to slice off the parts of the Ukraine which have a majority of Russians and let them join Russia. I find it ludicrous that the US could bomb the hell out of Serbia, support the Nazis in Kosovo, and then declare that part of Serbia is independent in violation of the UN Charter and the Helsinki Accords. The US has no shame when it comes to hypocrisy, nor do any of the supporters of such aggression.
I must agree with Randyjet’s dissection of Mr. Polk’s remarks about the state of affairs leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis. I hold no brief for Stalin who was a murderous bastard, but realistically after WWII the West was threatening the USSR and so Stalin reacted to the threat.
I’d like some fake Viagra. I’m a homeopath…or is that psychopath…and the less real medicine contained in the concoction, the more effective it is.
randyjet,
You are correct. The U.S., and various other countries, and WWII, made the Soviet Union what it was. I chose not to go back further than WWII in my brief reply to bron. Whatever excuse Stalin had for taking over other countries, he did it. That’s aggression.
Every country that invades and colonizes has some reason, further back in its past, for doing it.
There aren’t any innocent parties in this foolishness. But Truman, to my knowledge, was the first to threaten atomic war on the Soviet Union. He did that because he was afraid of Stalin. Whether Truman feared Stalin because of previous injustices to Stalin, Truman still feared him.
It’s analogous to discussing the rise of Nazism in Germany, and how evil the Nazis were. That’s true, even though there were real causes for German resentment. Like WWI, for one.
But you have to start from somewhere, in media res, to discuss the Cuban Missile Crisis. I didn’t go back to discuss the origins of the Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny, either, though they played a part.
Yanomean?
Bob, I read a bio of Truman and I don’t recall any fear that Truman expressed of Stalin. I DO recall that the US military industrial complex Eisenhower had built for WWII was very much against the demobilization of the US military. Truman was presented with military estimates of the Soviets that were wildly inflated as a “threat”. Truman was also worried about the reduction of US military spending and forces, and he came up with the idea of scaring the hell out of the American people to get the military forces they thought they needed. It had no relation to reality. They were also worried about unemployment, and thought an arms race would do wonders for keeping unemployment down as well.
As far as so called Soviet aggression goes, I guess you must be from the South where the Civil War is called the War of Northern aggression. I suppose that in the same vein one could make the same case against Stalin for that violation too. In fact, most of those states who were incorporated into the Soviet Union after WWII had been established by force of arms by the western powers against the majority of their people. Finland killed off all the Finns who were reds and established the Finnish state which was not democratic. The same was true for all the Baltic states and Poland. Hungary’s government had been the second Soviet communists government in the world, but was overthrown by the western powers and the Horthy dictatorship and the White Terror established to kill off the red electorate to make sure they would never vote that way again. Too bad that the folks in the west forget about the western invasion to get rid of the legal and legitimate government of Bela Kun, while condemning the Soviet invasion of 1956. Romania is the only country I can think of which had no basis of popular support initially for the Stalinist governments. So that would be an aggressive move, BUT given the fact that the regime which declared WAR on the Soviets was still in power, I cannot get too upset about knocking the king off his throne.
Randyjet: “When there are thousands of Russian troops buried on US soil, THEN we can complain about Russian “aggression”.
Randyjet,
It’s the flip side of the Monroe Doctrine; we have no business screwing around in their sphere of influence.
Polk: “We must recognize that the Ukraine is not part of our sphere of influence or dominance. It is neither in the Western Hemisphere nor in the North Atlantic. On the Black Sea, the concept of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an oxymoron. The Black Sea area is part of what the Russians call “the near abroad.”
The policy implications are clear: Just as the Russians realized that Cuba was part of our sphere of dominance and so backed down in the Missile Crisis, they will probably set their response to our actions on the belief that we will similarly back down because of our realization that Ukraine is in their neighborhood and not in ours.”
When you combine that with the outright propaganda by the NY Times and Washington Post — demonizing Putin in a simplistic and false narrative — you’ve got yourself a consensus that this ship is unsinkable.
The problem is that those responsible for US foreign policy define our “sphere of influence” as the entire planet.
I have a friend that lives in Kiev and though they are far from the war zone they still feel the ramifications of what’s going on on the so called Eastern front.
Today I was told that Putin intends to take over Lithuania, Latvia and one Estonia … This will shore up the Baltic Sea again for Russia.
We are supposedly providing arms to the Ukraine under the table, but not authorized by congress yet….
A side issue is the hyperinflation that’s occurring as the Ukrainian hryvnia is 40 to 1 US Dollar. They said that people are in a panic and are cleaning out the store shelves, thus causing more panic and increase in the price of the goods….
AY, Russia already has Kaliningrad on the Baltic and it port. While the alarmists like to think and hope Russia will invade those countries, absent mind reading ability on your friends part, I rather doubt such a thing. It is useful to know that people in the Ukraine believe their own propaganda. Do your friends also support the Nazis who have power of command in the military and police? I would be interested in knowing their take on those political questions. Do they support the ethnic cleansing ops being done by those groups? Do they support making Ukrainian the ONLY language in the Ukraine? This inquiring mind wants to know.
randyjet,
“As far as so called Soviet aggression goes, I guess you must be from the South where the Civil War is called the War of Northern aggression. I suppose that in the same vein one could make the same case against Stalin for that violation too.”
Your guess is insane. I am not from the South. I am not a Confederate. Are you a Stalinist? Stalin as Abraham Lincoln? Yow!
You say “Truman was presented with military estimates of the Soviets that were wildly inflated as a “threat”.”
but
“I don’t recall any fear that Truman expressed of Stalin.”
So, Stalin was presented as a threat, but Truman didn’t fear him?
How is that possible? Truman did nothing in response to this perceived threat? No Truman Doctrine, no NATO? Or did Truman do all of this without any fear of Soviet aggression?
Are you actually saying that Stalin’s actions were not aggression? How did the forced annexation of these countries come about, if not through aggression?
“So called Soviet aggression”? Like in Czechoslovakia and Hungary?
All of the annexed countries after WWII had governments set up by Western powers? How would that have been possible?
Does anyone else ascribe to your version of history? Stalin is dead, so he doesn’t.
To use your definition, the United States did not use aggression in taking Texas from Mexico.
I try to agree with your viewpoint, that Western nations committed wrongs against Russia. My contention is that all sides were at fault.
That’s not enough for you. I’m still wrong.
Is it possible to have a rational discussion with you, about how all of this came about?
Or do you need to disagree with anyone’s opinion of history, no matter what it is?
Sorry Bob, I did not mean to offend your sensibilities. I was joking that a Southerner could apply the term of aggression against the Federal government for invading the South to restore the legal union. It all depends on your point of view and politics. All of the countries that were incorporated into the Soviet Union HAD BEEN part of internationally recognized borders of Russia. Thus one can state as Kerensky did and PRAISED Stalin for restoring the rightful borders of Russia, that no aggression happened since it was part of Russia for centuries and treaties. I rather like Lenin’s position that Russia was a prison house of nations and advocated their right to exist and enshrined in even the old Soviet Constitution that they had the right to secede. Indeed the break with Stalin on Lenin’s part came about because Stalin threw Krupskya out of his office when she went to investigate Stalin’s conduct in the office of Nationalities which was contrary to the official policy of the Party. I don’t see how you can think that I like or support Stalin since I am a Trot and a good friend of mine is part of the curatorial staff of Trotsky’s old home in Mexico.
In my reading of the Truman biography, it only stated that Truman agreed that a bogus scare was needed to restore the conventional forces of the US.The US military saw the huge disproportionate balance of military forces, and knew that the US and Western Europe could not militarily stop the Soviets. It begs the question as to whether or not the Soviets would attack. Even after the defeat of Germany, had Stalin wanted to keep going to the English Channel, there was nothing the US,or UK could have done militarily to stop him. Stalin kept his agreements with his Western allies. THAT is what stopped Stalin. Even during the Cold War the NATO strategy was to simply delay the Soviet advance to allow for some slight part of land where more forces could be landed to take on the Soviets. It was acknowledged that the NATO forces would be mostly wiped out during the initial fighting. A friend of mine said his job as a helicopter pilot was to kill at least 10 tanks before he died had war broken out in Germany.
I disagree with your assessment that BOTH sides were to blame. If you wish to still say that, then I would like you to state some ACTION the Soviets took prior to 1948 that showed their aggression and bad faith which would constitute a threat. Even Churchill praised Stalin for abiding by his agreements in his book Triumph and Tragedy as regards Stalin’s role in Greece. The Truman Doctrine was against the native Greek communists who were being murdered by the scores by the fascists the UK supported.
Since I am a Texan, I do have to state that the US did NOT use aggression to take Texas. In FACT there was a large amount of resistance to Texas being admitted to the Union AFTER Texas had gained its independence. If you know history, you would know that the armed rebellions that fought against the Santa Ana dictatorship included Texas as the last holdout after Santa Ana had subdued the other six states of Mexico by committing genocide against the people of those states. Texas did not start fighting for independence until after the defeat of their cohorts in the rest of Mexico. In FACT, the banner that flew over the Alamo had the number of 1824 on it because at that point they were fighting for the restoration of the Constitution of that year and not for outright independence. The US government gave no aid or arms to Texans since the Whigs would have raised holy hell if that had happened.
Is it possible to have a rational discussion with you, about how all of this came about? – Bob K
😉
I think, just for fun , I’ll toss James Jesus Angleton, the National Security Act of 1947, signed into law by President Harry S. Truman into the frightened of Communist aggression mix.
“[we are] going to continue to fight communism. Now I am going to tell you how we are not going to fight communism. We are not going to transform our fine FBI into a Gestapo secret police. That is what some people would like to do. We are not going to try to control what our people read and say and think. We are not going to turn the United States into a right-wing totalitarian country in order to deal with a left-wing totalitarian threat.” – Truman
Enter the CIA. (National Security Act of 1947)
In America, Truman’s presentation of the global threat of Communism (Truman Doctrine/Containment Speech, Match 1947) whipped up an anti-Communist hysteria which was to end in the ‘Red Scare’ of the 1950s. In Russia, the rhetoric of Truman’s speech convinced the Soviets that America was indeed a threat to Soviet Communism, and it substantially enflamed the Cold War. In 1947 Truman had formed the CIA; in 1950 he gave orders to develop the hydrogen bomb; in April 1950, a policy document known as NSC-68 stated that the policy of the USA should be ‘change the world situation by means short of war in such a way as to … hasten the decay of the Soviet system’; and by 1952 John Foster Dulles was openly talking about ‘rolling back’ Communism.- BBC GCSE. History as taught in Britain’s Secondary Schools
Bob K.,
The haze of history causes us to forget who Truman was prior to his elevation to the Presidency. Harry was a Kansas senator who rose as a protege of Kansas City’s Boss Prendagast’s political machine. Truman was not well thought of in the Senate, but FDR had to take him as part of the deal to get Prendagast’s support as he ran for his fourth term. Once in Washington, Truman was pretty much ignored as VP by FDR, who thought him a lightweight. When Truman took over after FDR’s death the staff ill-regarded him, thinking him a bumpkin. Since Truman wasn’t kept abreast of the war, he entered office somewhat ignorant of the issues. He was subject to the crafting of the various situations done by those “wise” old military and foreign policy people. He faced a difficult task, especially with a cabinet that didn’t respect him and was quite isolated in his position. Truman signed the 1947 National Security act, but he was quite skeptical about it. We need to remember that the CIA’s predecessor was the wartime OSS led by “Wild” Bill Donovan and James Jesus Angleton. They were staunch anti-communists who came from privileged backgrounds. The OSS and then CIA, were primarily staffed by Ivy Leaguers, mostly Yalies, who represented America’s privileged elite and their foreign policy ideas were in line with the interests of their social class. In their minds communism was a terrible threat that had to be opposed mightily. Once established the CIA began a record of toppling any foreign government that would seem to be going leftward, Greece, Iran and Latin America, for example. This all set the tone for the Cold War. Truman is fondly remembered now in a sense because he did balk at many of the attempts to manipulate him, such as General McArthur’s insubordinate behavior.
How can anyone think Stalin was a victim? I guess they studied history at Moscow state university (not the one in Idaho).
“How can anyone think Stalin was a victim? I guess they studied history at Moscow state university (not the one in Idaho).”
Sauce,
Those that view history from a biased political lens are doomed to repeat it. As for you veiled allusion that anyone who disagrees with the premises of the origin’s of the Cold War is a communist, perhaps you might elucidate on your political views, otherwise people might assume many noxious pre-judgments rolling around in your skull.
I am a liberal socialist.
Bone suckin sauce, that explains a lot.
Or if you prefer a social capitalist. I despise labels as too confining. Most people are a mix of various ideas they have been exposed to in life. You can’t really choose your belief system, it finds you based on your wiring.
Gene,
Missouri, Kansas, it is all the same to me. 🙂 In any event Prendergast was Kansas City based.
Not to nitpick, Mike, but Truman was a Senator for Missouri. It’s an easy mistake to make given his close association with Kansas City.
Randyjet: “Do your friends also support the Nazis who have power of command in the military and police? I would be interested in knowing their take on those political questions. Do they support the ethnic cleansing ops being done by those groups? Do they support making Ukrainian the ONLY language in the Ukraine? This inquiring mind wants to know.”
Randyjet,
Whatever do you mean?
Burning Ukraine’s Protesters Alive
In Ukraine, a grisly new strategy – bringing in neo-Nazi paramilitary forces to set fire to occupied buildings in the country’s rebellious southeast – appears to be emerging as a favored tactic as the coup-installed regime in Kiev seeks to put down resistance from ethnic Russians and other opponents.
The technique first emerged on May 2 in the port city of Odessa when pro-regime militants chased dissidents into the Trade Unions Building and then set it on fire. As some 40 or more ethnic Russians were burned alive or died of smoke inhalation, the crowd outside mocked them as red-and-black Colorado potato beetles, with the chant of “Burn, Colorado, burn.” Afterwards, reporters spotted graffiti on the building’s walls containing Swastika-like symbols and honoring the “Galician SS,” the Ukrainian adjunct to the German SS in World War II.
https://consortiumnews.com/2014/05/10/burning-ukraines-protesters-alive/
Ignoring Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers
The U.S.-backed Ukrainian government is knowingly sending neo-Nazi paramilitaries into eastern Ukrainian neighborhoods to attack ethnic Russians who are regarded by some of these storm troopers as “Untermenschen” or subhuman, according to Western press reports.
Recently, one eastern Ukrainian town, Marinka, fell to Ukraine’s Azov battalion as it waved the Wolfsangel flag, a symbol used by Adolf Hitler’s SS divisions in World War II. The Azov paramilitaries also attacked Donetsk, one of the remaining strongholds of ethnic Russians opposed to the Kiev regime that overthrew elected President Viktor Yanukovych last February.
The Wolfsangel symbol on a banner in Ukraine.
Yet, despite this extraordinary reality – modern-day Nazi storm troopers slaughtering Slavic people in eastern Ukraine – the Obama administration continues to concentrate its criticism on Russia for sending a convoy of humanitarian supplies to the embattled region. Suddenly, the administration’s rhetoric about a “responsibility to protect” civilians has gone silent.
https://consortiumnews.com/2014/08/13/ignoring-ukraines-neo-nazi-storm-troopers/
http://www.timesofisrael.com/ukraine-rabbi-us-jews-helped-us-beat-russias-anti-semitic-propaganda/ “Jewish communities in the Ukraine and US conducted a coordinated effort to refute Russian claims that Ukraine’s revolution unleashed a wave of anti-Semitic acts, a leading Ukrainian rabbi said.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117759/anti-semitism-rising-russia-simon-wiesenthal-center-accuses-rt ”
Anti-Semitism Is on the Rise in Russia—and the Kremlin’s TV Network Is in on It An offensive video on Russia Today is just the latest example
By Julia Ioffe @juliaioffe
Remember when Vladimir Putin said the provisional government in Kiev was brought to power by “nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes and anti-Semites”? Remember how RT, or Russia Today, the Kremlin’s English-language propaganda outlet, actively advanced the fiction—and it is a fiction—that anti-Semitism is now running rampant in post-Yanukovych Ukraine? The stories about Odessa Jews being evacuated, of Ukrainian synagogues being attacked, the stories on the anti-Semitic statements of Ukrainian nationalists involved in the Maidan movement?
Well, the Simon Wiesenthal Center has demanded that Russia Today publicly apologize for a video that aired on its channel, which the Center said was “eight minutes of raw Jew-hatred and unambiguous group defamation.” The video, made by an Australian media company, purports to rap its way through the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in the process marshalling quite a few classic anti-Semitic stereotypes.
“Does screening this repugnance signal an RT policy shift?” the statement went on, quoting Shimon Samuels, Director for International Relations at the Wiesenthal Center. “If so, you have made a mockery of Russia’s 9 May Victory commemoration, as you soil the memory of more than 20 million Soviet citizens—among them over 500,000 Jewish soldiers of the Red Army—who fell victim to the Nazi scourge.”
In response, Russia Today said that it had no role in the production of the video and simply had beamed it across the universe, unchecked. Then it accused the Simon Wiesenthal Center of anti-Semitism.
Were that this was one, isolated incident. Unfortunately, despite Moscow’s assertions that it needs to protect Russian speakers from the fascists and anti-Semites now in power in Kiev, the rise of Russian nationalism at home has brought with it an ugly tide of Russian anti-Semitism.
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The Russian Jewish Congress, for instance, issued a report saying that there has been a marked increase in anti-Semitism in Russia in the first four months of 2014. Though there were no physical attacks on Jews, there were some minor incidents—everything from cemetery attacks to Russian nationalist thugs chanting anti-Semitic slogans. But most of this rise, the Congress reports, “was manifested first and foremost in public anti-Semitic statements, the number of which has increased dramatically.”
The report notes public statements from politicians, like the member of Putin’s United Russia party in Kaliningrad who accused his opponents of being “Jews, hiding among the opposition” and destroying the country. Dmitry Kiselev, who has threatened to turn the U.S. “into radioactive ash,” was called out for pointedly pointing out the Jewish names of some opposition writers and saying that they should be wary of comparing the Sochi and 1936 Berlin Olympics because, in Germany, they wouldn’t have been allowed to write, let alone live. The columnist of one state-friendly Russian newsletter listed Jewish members of the Russian opposition, saying that “they have no homeland because of their political beliefs.”
In February, the news anchor of Rossiya24, one of Russia’s largest state-controlled television channels, agreed with the ardently nationalistic (and often anti-Semitic) author Alexander Prokhanov, who said that Jewish organizations “were ushering in a second Holocaust with their own hands … just as they ushered in the first one.”
And last month, the Jewish daily newspaper the Forward noted that Russian state television’s hatchet-job “documentaries” about Ukrainian politicians Yulia Tymoshenko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk stressed, in ominous terms, their allegedly nefarious Jewish roots.
It all started with a Russian television “documentary” on former Ukrainian President Yulia Tymoshenko, aired on March 30. The film was a propaganda piece in the Soviet style—unrelenting character assassination with ominous, grating background music. Tymoshenko’s whole career, the narrator intoned, was one of embezzlement, criminality, back-stabbing of associates, and secretly ordering assaults and killings. Then, toward the end, the culminating “disclosure”: Tymoshenko was Jewish. “She completely hides her origin. But for many, it is no secret that the father of this woman with a hair-braid—Viktor Abramovich Kapitelman—has Jewish roots.”…
A few days earlier, the same documentary news program did a similar hatchet-job on Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatseniuk, and indulged in the rhetoric of the 1970s: Yatseniuk was not just a Jew, but a Zionist. “One must take into consideration his Jewish origin. He is a Jew on his mother’s side, and is one of the fifty most famous Zionists in Ukraine.”…
For the conventional (non-anti-Semitic) Russian viewer, these disclosures of Jewishness were insignificant—after all, they lasted only 20 seconds in a half-hour program. Or they could be brushed aside as editorial lapses into bad taste. But for the Russian ultra-right, these words were gold. They legitimized their wedding of anti-Ukrainianism to anti-Semitism.
Putin’s critics have long conceded that while he is many things, he is not an anti-Semite. His closest childhood friends (now, coincidentally, billionaires on the U.S. Treasury sanctions list) are Jews. So was his judo coach and replacement father, Anatoly Rachlin. After Rachlin’s funeral, Putin took a dramatic and solitary walk through his hometown. He has been good to the Russian Jewish community.
But the Russian nationalism he has unleashed to buttress both his hold on power at home and his imperialist policy abroad is not free. Russian nationalism has always been mixed up with often violent anti-Semitism. It’s why the U.S. has such a large Jewish population: Millions of Jews fled the Russian empire at the end of the 19th century because of this poisonous combination. Millions more fled at the end of the 20th because it was resurrected again under the guise of Soviet patriotism. This time, there are no longer millions of Jews to flee the place, but there are just enough left in politics and culture to point out as aliens incapable of loving the Motherland.
In Ukraine, meanwhile, the Jews are standing with the provisional government in Kiev, which has even appointed one of them to run the Dniepropetrovsk region.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117759/anti-semitism-rising-russia-simon-wiesenthal-center-accuses-rt “But the Russian nationalism he (Putin) has unleashed to buttress both his hold on power at home and his imperialist policy abroad is not free. Russian nationalism has always been mixed up with often violent anti-Semitism. It’s why the U.S. has such a large Jewish population: Millions of Jews fled the Russian empire at the end of the 19th century because of this poisonous combination. Millions more fled at the end of the 20th because it was resurrected again under the guise of Soviet patriotism. This time, there are no longer millions of Jews to flee the place, but there are just enough left in politics and culture to point out as aliens incapable of loving the Motherland.
In Ukraine, meanwhile, the Jews are standing with the provisional government in Kiev, which has even appointed one of them to run the Dniepropetrovsk region.
Just something to keep in mind next time the Kremlin accuses Kiev—or the Simon Wiesenthal Center—of anti-Semitism.”
“I despise labels as too confining.”
Sauce,
I agree. That being the case why did you imply that those you disagree with on this issue are communists. i.e. Your Moscow University reference?
Tom Pendergast was an earlier supporter of Truman and a big deal in Jackson County, Missouri.
If you want to throw dirt at the Kansas side, I suggest John Brown.
Or maybe Sam Brownback.
Gene,
I did one have a good steak in Kansas City, Kansas.
Everyone,
I was asked politely by Bron for my take on the Cuban Missile Crisis. I provided what I remembered. I was aware during those days. I don’t think that anything that I said can be contested, historically. I was challenged concerning my omission of events going back to the Russian Revolution. I offered that everyone was at fault. Everyone was.
For this, I was accused by our resident revisionist historian, randyjet, of thinking that the U.S. Civil War was the War of Northern Aggression.
A fantastic revisionist view of Stalin’s (the Russian Abe Lincoln’s) behavior followed.
I have ruminated, much like an old goat, on this strange outburst.
I have come to believe that randyjet craves my permission for him to have intercourse with his arrogant self and the horse on which he rode in. He does not need my permission to do this.
I will, however, suggest that he do this, if he ever again tells me what I must think.
randyjet should perhaps learn to think, first, before he tells me what I must think.
Now, to the subject of Stalin, and Stalinists. I have never met Our Dear Leader.
I have met one of Trotsky’s bodyguards. Stalin sent his followers to Mexico to assassinate Trotsky. The Stalinists machine-gunned the complex in which Trotsky and his posse lived.
The bodyguard that I met had been sent out to run errands, when Ramon Mercador, recruited by the NKVD, struck the blow which was later fatal to Trotsky.
“Shortly after the assassination, Joseph Stalin presented Ramón’s mother Caridad with the Order of Lenin for her part in the operation.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram%C3%B3n_Mercader
Stalin – what a guy!
I was, for a time, a communist, one that lived in a political commune, and fought off occasional attacks from the rural locals. The Stalinist and Maoist robots that I encountered were a danger to themselves and anyone around them. As in, “If you tell the local townspeople that we live in a “soviet,” they’ll come here and kill us.” We did not allow the hard-liners to broadcast that.
A group of armed Stalinists later took command of a pacifist food co-op in Minnesota. I knew people on both sides. The Stalinists were brainwashed thugs. I’m dear friends with one of those recovered Stalinists. He has no clue of how he was enticed into it. It destroyed his marriage.
Later still, I worked with a Hungarian woman who’d been shot by Stalinists during the failed Hungarian uprising.
There are historical reasons for the formation and rise of Stalin. Everyone participated.
I do not, however, admire Stalin or Stalinists.
Bob,
You did an excellent recollection. The one thing over looked is Dulles abrupt departure for his role as head of the CIA gave bad Intel that JFK relied upon.
It was and still is either you are with America (Capitalism) or you are against us and therefore you are communist as we don’t recognize neutral counties. Just ask the Rulers of south America or the royalty in the Mideast.
“A group of armed Stalinists later took command of a pacifist food co-op in Minnesota.” Bob K Where? the range?
I guess the only way to decide this is make a list of how many governments we’ve toppled since the end of wwII and how many governments they’ve toppled.
Loser wins, or winner loses. Or it it just the people of those countries who lost.
Loser wins, or winner loses. – pete
Weeell … we might have won a few more but for that Kim Philby dude and his band of merry communists giving away all our plans.
However, your point is as valid today as it was back then …. the real losers were the people who reside in the countries being “saved”.
I have ruminated, much like an old goat, on this strange outburst.
I have come to believe that randyjet craves my permission for him to have intercourse with his arrogant self and the horse on which he rode in. He does not need my permission to do this. – Bob K,
I have often found the term “rectal orifice” to be useful in occasionally describing the authors of certain posts. You may borrow it. No charge. 😉
swm,
Minneapolis. North-Country Co-op and its associated stores.
Here’s a Minnesota Historical Society account, but there are lots of discussions, and book sections, on it, if you google “co-op wars MN”
www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00074.xml
I had known/lived with most of the people named in the first two paragraphs. This account doesn’t refer to the members of the Co-op Organization (CO) as Stalinists, but other folks call them that.
“By 1975 the CO had seen moderate success in increasing its following, but was hungry for control. The CO physically took over the People’s Warehouse and tried to occupy several storefronts. At North Country Co-op, six out of nine members of the leadership collective were part of the CO. These six railroaded a vote to lift the boycott of People’s Warehouse. Their vote was overruled by a crowd of angry community residents and co-op members who stormed the store, installed a new cash register, and demanded that CO members leave the store.”
Here’s a reference to Stalinists.
“Now known officially as the “Mass Organization” (though everyone else continued to refer to them as the CO) the so-called “Stalinist” faction went on a rampage. Cashiers were assaulted at the Seward Co-op; Mill City Co-op was mobbed by Stalinists while Mill City workers and their supporters formed a human chain to protect the store; men in matching sunglasses lurked outside people’s homes; windows were broken, tires were slashed, and phone lines were cut. According to Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the CO “were believed to have a cache of weapons stored on the South Side of Minneapolis.”(8) It’s a wonder that nobody was ever killed.”
http://www.metafilter.com/108465/The-Coop-Wars
I’d already migrated to New Mexico by the time all this happened, so I missed it. I’m just never at the right place, at the right time.
This is why I still travel to Minneapolis annually. If I leave them to fend for themselves, they get into all sorts of trouble. Damned commies. I removed part of the URLs, to get past the sucky spam filter.
swm,
Minneapolis. North-Country Co-op and its associated stores.
Here’s a Minnesota Historical Society account, but there are lots of discussions, and book sections, on it, if you google “co-op wars MN”
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00074.xml
I had known/lived with most of the people named in the first two paragraphs. This account doesn’t refer to the members of the Co-op Organization (CO) as Stalinists, but other folks call them that.
“By 1975 the CO had seen moderate success in increasing its following, but was hungry for control. The CO physically took over the People’s Warehouse and tried to occupy several storefronts. At North Country Co-op, six out of nine members of the leadership collective were part of the CO. These six railroaded a vote to lift the boycott of People’s Warehouse. Their vote was overruled by a crowd of angry community residents and co-op members who stormed the store, installed a new cash register, and demanded that CO members leave the store.”
Here’s a reference to Stalinists.
“Now known officially as the “Mass Organization” (though everyone else continued to refer to them as the CO) the so-called “Stalinist” faction went on a rampage. Cashiers were assaulted at the Seward Co-op; Mill City Co-op was mobbed by Stalinists while Mill City workers and their supporters formed a human chain to protect the store; men in matching sunglasses lurked outside people’s homes; windows were broken, tires were slashed, and phone lines were cut. According to Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the CO “were believed to have a cache of weapons stored on the South Side of Minneapolis.”(8) It’s a wonder that nobody was ever killed.”
http://www.metafilter.com/108465/The-Coop-Wars
I’d already migrated to New Mexico by the time all this happened, so I missed it. I’m just never at the right place, at the right time.
This is why I still travel to Minneapolis annually. If I leave them to fend for themselves, they get into all sorts of trouble. Damned commies. I removed part of the URLs, to get past the sucky spam filter, but the sucky spam filter wouldn’t post it, anyway.
swm,
Minneapolis. North-Country Co-op and its associated stores.
Here’s a Minnesota Historical Society account, but there are lots of discussions, and book sections, on it, if you google “co-op wars MN”
I had known/lived with most of the people named in the first two paragraphs. This account doesn’t refer to the members of the Co-op Organization (CO) as Stalinists, but other folks call them that.
“By 1975 the CO had seen moderate success in increasing its following, but was hungry for control. The CO physically took over the People’s Warehouse and tried to occupy several storefronts. At North Country Co-op, six out of nine members of the leadership collective were part of the CO. These six railroaded a vote to lift the boycott of People’s Warehouse. Their vote was overruled by a crowd of angry community residents and co-op members who stormed the store, installed a new cash register, and demanded that CO members leave the store.”
Here’s a reference to Stalinists.
“Now known officially as the “Mass Organization” (though everyone else continued to refer to them as the CO) the so-called “Stalinist” faction went on a rampage. Cashiers were assaulted at the Seward Co-op; Mill City Co-op was mobbed by Stalinists while Mill City workers and their supporters formed a human chain to protect the store; men in matching sunglasses lurked outside people’s homes; windows were broken, tires were slashed, and phone lines were cut. According to Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the CO “were believed to have a cache of weapons stored on the South Side of Minneapolis.” It’s a wonder that nobody was ever killed.”
I’d already migrated to New Mexico by the time all this happened, so I missed it. I’m just never at the right place, at the right time.
This is why I still travel to Minneapolis annually. If I leave them to fend for themselves, they get into all sorts of trouble. Damned commies. I removed part of the URLs, to get past the sucky spam filter, but the sucky spam filter wouldn’t post it, anyway. So I removed the URLs.
swm,
I’ve posted a long reply to your question 3 times, now. Obviously, the spam filter “thinks” it’s a Viagra commercial.
I used to run a WordPress blog, and I used Kismet as a spam filter. It stopped spam, and didn’t stop everything else. Either kismet has evolved into incompetence, or they’re using a different filter. This one don’t work.
blouise,
Thanks for the lend. I usually try more subtlety, as in “Speak again, oh toothless one.”
“I guess the only way to decide this is make a list of how many governments we’ve toppled since the end of wwII and how many governments they’ve toppled.”
Instances of the United States overthrowing, or attempting to overthrow, a foreign government since the Second World War. (* indicates successful ouster of a government)
China 1949 to early 1960s
Albania 1949-53
East Germany 1950s
Iran 1953 *
Guatemala 1954 *
Costa Rica mid-1950s
Syria 1956-7
Egypt 1957
Indonesia 1957-8
British Guiana 1953-64 *
Iraq 1963 *
North Vietnam 1945-73
Cambodia 1955-70 *
Laos 1958 *, 1959 *, 1960 *
Ecuador 1960-63 *
Congo 1960 *
France 1965
Brazil 1962-64 *
Dominican Republic 1963 *
Cuba 1959 to present
Bolivia 1964 *
Indonesia 1965 *
Ghana 1966 *
Chile 1964-73 *
Greece 1967 *
Costa Rica 1970-71
Bolivia 1971 *
Australia 1973-75 *
Angola 1975, 1980s
Zaire 1975
Portugal 1974-76 *
Jamaica 1976-80 *
Seychelles 1979-81
Chad 1981-82 *
Grenada 1983 *
South Yemen 1982-84
Suriname 1982-84
Fiji 1987 *
Libya 1980s
Nicaragua 1981-90 *
Panama 1989 *
Bulgaria 1990 *
Albania 1991 *
Iraq 1991
Afghanistan 1980s *
Somalia 1993
Yugoslavia 1999-2000 *
Ecuador 2000 *
Afghanistan 2001 *
Venezuela 2002 *
Iraq 2003 *
Haiti 2004 *
Somalia 2007 to present
Libya 2011*
Syria 2012
Ukraine 2014
Q: Why will there never be a coup d’état in Washington?
A: Because there’s no American embassy there.
http://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peoples-governments-the-master-list
Bob K.
We are using Akismet for the spam filter. Sometimes it seems to be set on “extra grumpy.” Other times it leaks like a cloth diaper.
I found two or three of your comments in the spam filter. They all said the same thing, so I released the one that was slightly longer, since it seemed to have more content.
Bob K, Eddie Felien is a well known name there. The coops are thriving and even most small towns have one.
Thanks, Chuck!
Spam filters can’t change their behavior, so any change in the behavior is due to “updates” or “improvements.” Coders should keep their hands in their pockets.
swm,
Yes, Ed Felien is among the criminals that I keep annual tabs on. He’s infamous…I mean famous, as you said. Damned unrepentant Maoist!
He was part of the commune, led some of us to Washington, DC for the Nov. 15, 1969 Moratorium. The dust from the tear-gas dispensers brought tears to one’s eyes, just walking down the street, for days.
We’ve written stories (“Notes”), none of them true, mind you, about it, on Facebook.
SwM,
Obviously Bob K is our kind of guy …. “I’d already migrated to New Mexico ….”
blouise, Yep. coops……
MS
For the reasons Bob Kauton was speaking of, s damn Stalinist is as dogmatic ax they come.
Stalin, in my opinion, betrayed the spirit of the revolution. We don’t need to kill the people we want to help. I mean really, how hard is it to share the wealth?
Bob
I do like how Laos is on the successful list for 1958, 1959, & 1960.
randyjet woke up!
Of course, a Texan would say that the taking of Texas from Mexico wasn’t aggression.
Texans are delusional.
Just speculation here, but Stalin signing a non-aggression pact with the Nazis could make folks suspicious. Other than that, I’m not spending the evening looking up history for you.
I assumed you liked Stalin because you keep defending him. He’s just not worth it.
Bob, I can see that you are historically challenged. By the way, I work for a living so I cannot devote as much time as I would like informing others of historical facts. As for the Stalin Hitler pact, Trotsky himself defended that as a necessary measure to secure the Soviet Union against Hitler’s aggression. It hardly meant that he supported Stalin. It was a common sense move which Stalin had been forced to make by the Western powers and Poland. Stalin had tried to get an alliance with the UK and France against Hitler, but those governments were licking their chops over the idea that Hitler was going to attack the Soviet Union. So they had NO desire to help Stalin at all. the Polish leader Col Beck was proud of the fact he had turned down Stalin’s bid to form a pact against Hitler. Instead he thought it was a brilliant thing to have the Germans instead attack Poland and then have the Red Army enter Poland en route to destroying Germany with NO Polish government around to take charge. The only politician who had a realistic view of things in the West was Churchill who warned that Hitler was going to attack the UK and France. As Churchill said about giving aid to the Soviets after the German invasion, If Hitler invaded HELL, I would imagine that I would have a few kind words for the Devil.
I am hardly supporting Stalin by citing the FACT that the West was the prime initiator of aggression against the Soviets immediately after WWII. I see that you could not come up with ANY action the Soviets took after WWII to 1948 that would indicate they were also responsible for the Cold War. I would hope that you would learn more history and think about the sequence of events before you make snap judgments or go along with the tired old clichés about US policies.
One important issue was Poland. Stalin barred free elections there (the “3 times YES” referendum) and Truman, seeing this as a violation of the Yalta agreements, had to gave careful consideration to the U S domestic political situation. The Democratic party was wooing the more than 6 million votes of Polish Americans plus millions more with Eastern European roots all who were very concerned about their friends and families living under communist control. Truman wanted to be elected and these votes were important to him. He could not appear to be soft on communism.
Stalin reacted to Truman’s strong words by closing the doors of his satellite nations to American trade stating that there could be no lasting peace with capitalism.
There was more than a bogus scare going on at that time.
The last free election in Poland was in 1948, when Stalin ordered the Communists to take complete control. You have to also remember that the so called London Polish government was NOT a freely elected democratic government, but a military dictatorship. It was also opposed to taking part in ANY government that included communists. There were a few members of that government who went back and took part, but that came to an end in 1948. I initially thought that Churchill had a point after reading his WWII history, UNTIL I found out how nuts the London Poles were. They were discussing fighting against the Red Army as it went through Poland during the war before Germany was defeated. They hated Russians so much that it made them crazy. They are still nuts too. Just look at their reaction to the crash of the Polish plane bringing the President of Poland to Russia. As the Poles said of fighting the Germans. They had to fight the Germans before they took on the Russians business before pleasure. This is also reflected in how they view the Stalin Hitler pact. They accuse Stalin of treachery for taking part of Poland, and being an ally of Hitler at the time. They forget that Poland was ALSO an ally of Hitler when they joined him in taking apart the rump Czechoslovakia and stole a good part of that poor country. Polish aggression is GOOD, every body else BAD. This also forgets the FACT that Poland forcibly annexed the biggest city in Lithuania and its capital, Vilnius. At least Stalin had the decency to restore that part of Lithuania to that country when he took it over. Without Stalin, Lithuania would still be missing its capital and a good chunk of its territory.
Actually, it does appear that there wasn’t much Soviet aggression before 1948. U.S. actions were largely paranoia and belligerence. As I said, everyone was nuts during and after WWII.
Thanks, Blouise. I haven’t studied that era, much.
Bob K,
There was so much going on and remember, one of the main reasons Churchill and Roosevelt didn’t push Stalin harder at Yalta was because the U S thought they would need him more to win the war against Japan. It turned out they didn’t but that wasn’t known at Yalta time.
blouise, I suggest you read Triumph and Tragedy by Churchill. Of particular interest would be his rendition of his meeting in Moscow with Stalin on how the world was to be divided after the defeat of Germany. THAT was what was agreed at Yalta for the most part, only this time with FDR in the discussions. Stalin declined the offer to keep the written agreement and asked Churchill to keep that document.
While I don’t think Churchill outright lied, as much as he did not tell the whole story in his history, and he omitted a number of less worthy things he did.
I have all the volumes plus a whole lot more in my library as it was required reading for the 2 years I spent earning my Second in Modern- Contemporary History.
At the present time I am reading “A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal” by
Ben Macintyre (British) … publication July 2014
So far his historical information is accurate and the insight from the Intelligence viewpoint is more than just a little interesting.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/03/why-is-ukraine-s-war-so-bloody-the-soviet-union-trained-both-sides.html
For me, I’ve learned not to address remarks from people whose lives are one long urination tournament. Boring.
Bob K,
That usually means a very small … bladder. 😉
It is, however, a fascinating period in history though, to tell you the truth, quite a stretch in concocting a comparison to the Ukraine today.
There’s an interesting opinion piece in Spiegel written back in May of last year by Jan Fleischhauer entitled “Putin’s Not Post-Communist, He’s Post-Fascist”. When reading Fleischhauer one has to keep in mind that he is a conservative who was convinced that Romney would win the U S Presidency. Never the less, you will find shades of meaning in his work regarding Putin that match the conservatives in this country.
Conservative so called free market people have an affinity for their kind internationally, so it is no surprise that we find these folks liking the Nazis in the rest of the world They supported the Nazis in Kosovo, Georgia, and now the Ukraine. I got a laugh out of the piece SM posted about the rampant anti-Semitism in Putin’s Russia which had about three instances of that, and had to admit that there were no attacks or other instances of it. Hell, Paris was shown to be as “bad” on such slim evidence too. So I guess all the Jews in Paris are leaving and don’t feel safe any more. Then it goes on to say with NO evidence that ALL the Jews in the Ukraine are supporting the fascists. From what I can read, they have no choice in the matter if they wish to remain alive and well. In fact, I remember that the right wing Zionists sent a letter to Hitler saying that they too wished to have separation from German society and stay Jewish with no intermingling. That did not constitute the majority Jewish sentiment though. Getting in bed with Nazis as some Jews in the Ukraine do, is not a good idea given the views of their temporary “partners”. In fact, anti-Semitism is more pronounced in the Ukraine historically and they supplied much of the concentration camp guards and personnel. That some rampant nationalist nuts who support Putin, hardly means that he and his political partners support those views. The GOP has many such nuts and supporters as well, but I do not accuse the GOP as being anti-Semitic even though Nixon was a notorious one.
“I got a laugh out of the piece SM posted about the rampant anti-Semitism in Putin’s Russia which had about three instances of that, and had to admit that there were no attacks or other instances of it.” randyjet Keep laughing as jews have never been safe in russia and that is why most have left. Putin promotes christianity, antisemitism and homophobia. Some conservatives seem to like that and he is very popular with the Pat Buchanan crowd.
Once again we have blanket statements that supposedly apply for all times and places. In FACT Jews were as safe as any group in even Stalin’s Soviet Union. Stalin was an equal opportunity murderer. They were certainly more safe than Germany, thanks to the Nazis. So if one wishes to postulate that instances of anti-Semitism make Jews unsafe in any country, then Jews are not safe even in the US. I could find lots of such action in the US too. I hardly think that Jews are not safe here because of these isolated actions. There is a very good record of Jews having more safety in the Soviet Union when Jews established their own autonomous region, were specifically moved out of the way of the advancing Germans, the Red Army put down pogroms in Krakow AFTER WWII. Poland was worse than Russia by the way in this regards.
One of my best friends was an ardent Zionist, and I got a laugh out of his complaint that Israel and the Zionists went to all kinds of expense and trouble to get Jews out of the Soviet Union, and instead of going to Israel, they instead went to the USA. I would bet that most Russian would have been happy to leave if they could get into the US. It hardly shows that they left because of anti-Semitism and a threat to their existence based on their Jewishness.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/11/watching-eclipse “An avid reader about tsarist Russia, Putin was forming a more coherent view of history and his place within it. More and more, he identified personally with the destiny of Russia. Even if he was not a genuine ideologue, he became an opportunistic one, quoting Ivan Ilyin, Konstantin Leontiev, Nikolai Berdyayev, and other conservative philosophers to give his own pronouncements a sense of continuity. One of his favorite politicians in imperial Russia was Pyotr Stolypin, the Prime Minister under Nicholas II. “We do not need great upheavals,” Putin said, paraphrasing Stolypin. “We need a great Russia.” Stolypin had also said, “Give the state twenty years and you will not recognize Russia.” That was in 1909. Stolypin was assassinated by a revolutionary in Kiev, in 1911. But Putin was determined that his opportunity not be truncated: “Give me twenty years,” he said, “and you will not recognize Russia.”
And so now, instead of nurturing the business and creative classes in the big cities, he turned on them. He vilified them on TV; he weakened them with restrictions, searches, arrests, and selective jail terms. He sided now with the deeply conservative impulses, prejudices, and habits of mind of the Russian majority. “There was an idea to gain the support of the majority, to distinguish it from the minority,” Boris Mezhuev, a conservative columnist at Izvestia and the editor of the Web site politconservatism.ru, told me. “This was done harshly.” “
SM I find that you are simply repeating slanders against the Soviets. The FACT is that the Jews in the CPUSSR were NOT targeted because of being Jews, but because they reached a limit of what they could tolerate with Stalin. They were politically opposed to him In none of the purge trials was their ethnic background an issue. In FACT, the opposite was true and the anti-Bolshevik propaganda used anti-Semitism of the extreme variety In FACT as was mentioned many of the leaders of the party were in fact Jewish, and the right wing types used this fact against the Bolsheviks. Even after the show trials, Stalin allowed and encouraged a Jewish autonomous region for Jews and up until recently the only Yiddish theater in the world was in RUSSIA.
Having read a bio of Stalin, I don’t recall that anti-Semitism was a major factor in his politics. He was totally unscrupulous in his treatment of those he saw as a threat, and it would not be out of character to use anti-Semitism as a club to beat any person of Jewish background as part of his attack. As for a generalized hatred of Jews, there is not any evidence that I have seen. He did not sponsor pogroms, and in FACT used the Red Army to save Jews and punish those who would do such things. So your thesis has not presented any facts to support it. You should also know that Stalin in fact supported the state of Israel, and without his support of arms and material, Israel would not exist. I suggest you read the Sword and the Olive which is a history of the IDF and details how the arms were given to Israel from Czechoslovakia which had been taken over by the CP in 1948. There in fact was a rush to get Truman to recognize Israel ahead of Stalin doing so. The US beat him by hours.
“Many Jews fell victim to the Great Purges, and there is evidence that Jews were specifically targeted by Stalin, who harbored antisemitic sentiments all his life (main article:Antisemitism and Joseph Stalin). A number of the most prominent victims of the Purges—Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev, to name a few—were Jewish, and in 1939 Stalin gave Molotov an explicit order to fully purge the ministry of Foreign Affairs of Jews, in anticipation of rapprochement with Nazi Germany.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Russia
“SM I find that you are simply repeating slanders against the Soviets.”randyjet Nope…..repeating the opinions of those with first hand knowledge. My husband’s grandfather was a menshevik.
sm I just know that the CPUSA in NYC was mostly Jewish and had thousands of members who also had first hand knowledge of the Soviet Union. Just because Stalin was a monster does not mean he was anti-Semitic, a cannibal, a child molester, and any other thing you wish to call him without proof. You do the same with Putin who I think is atrocious, but there are worse people and politics in the world. You should also cite some examples as I did in contesting your opinion. I guess Stalin was anti-German as well since he sent German KPD members who fled to the Soviet Union from Hitler back to the Gestapo as part of the Stalin Hitler pact. Stalin removed Litvinov as Foreign Minister because he wanted to have a pact with Hitler and thought that having a Jew as the negotiator would impede the talks. He simply tossed Litvinov aside to serve his needs at the time rather than only because he was a Jew. He had no problem keeping him when his Jewish background would not be an impediment.
Jews in the Soviet Union were as safe as any Soviet citizen under Stalin at the time, which is not saying much. In fact, as history shows, they were FAR safer there than any other place in Europe during WWII. After it became clear that Jews were being exterminated by the Nazis, special efforts were made to get Jews out of harms way. THAT is not anti-Semitism.
I was especially struck by your defense of the oligarchs who now own Russia and the Ukraine. They are NOT the productive, creative folks you paint them to be since they invented nothing, nor built anything. They simply stole and took control of the factories and other resources that had been built under the Soviets. In fact, I wish Obama would be more like Putin and jail the crooks on Wall Street instead of giving them billions of our tax dollars. I guess you think that those so called creative folks on Wall Street did a bang up good job for us. You are in a small minority. Not to mention the fact that the new finance minister for the Ukraine resigned her job with USAID and took Ukrainian citizenship to shield herself from criminal charges as she stole millions of dollars of our tax money. She fits in well with the “creative” folks you like. She will be one of those you support along with all the oligarchs who stole millions of USAID money and stashed it in Western Europe and Cyprus.
I recently had the opportunity to talk with a woman from Hungary who was complaining that much of her country and its assets are being bought up by the crooks from Russia who stole enough money to live lavishly in her country. Her complaint is that there is a new Russian invasion using our money to establish themselves there. So much so that the signs are now bilingual in Russian and Hungarian.
swm,
This is a game of “whatever you say, I’ll prove you wrong.” It’s just a mindless algorithm. It doesn’t believe anything it says, it just contradicts.
One of those 1950s “8-balls” that answers at random, is more fun. And more intelligent.
But if you’re enjoying this, proceed.
SWM,
Good posts. Well, I know you don’t miss the DFW area etc. some of the people sure. Today, you would not have missed any of it. It snowed a lot in FW and paralyzed the city and major roads. Thank goodness that I knew Pharr would take me downtown to the medical district. We are now back to 20/60 instead of the 20/300. That’s not good for a nurse. I had an appointment over at inwood and walnut hills area by the Starbucks. So went 30 east to loop 1 or is that 12 to the 635 express. That took 11:00 to 2:30. No one or very few know how to drive on the snow or ice. Why people don’t downshift or stop at the bottom of an incline is beyond my understanding.
On the way back I recall you telling me about Royal. Thank you. Though it was new and uncharted territory for me, it was not a bad as 30 or 635 East or West. We took off at Bass Pro and headed up 1709.
Again thank you for the royal lane tip. Hopefully you are enjoying the new digs and things are good.
“Here there be monsters.”
I am inclined to agree with Randy that Stalin was an equal opportunity monster of the first order. People like him have always been with us. When they destroy so much, sometimes it is difficult to determine exactly who or what they are prejudiced against. Given there is so much antisemitism in the world, including Russia, seems to me that it’s safe to assume Stalin was bigoted against Jews.
Simon Weisenthal said, “There is no denying that Hitler and Stalin are alive today… they are waiting for us to forget, because this is what makes possible the resurrection of these two monsters.”
Of course, “alive today” is a metaphor, because both dictators were long deceased when Mr. Weisenthal said that.
Stalin was bigoted against any person or group of people who he though to be a threat to him. The Crimean Tartars among others were deported en masse during WWII for suspicion of disloyalty, much as the Japanese Americans were put into camps and imprisoned. It hardly means that FDR was an anti-japanese bigot. He made a bad judgment,but out of bad information not bigotry, though one cannot say that about others. Of course, FDR was not a Stalin.
Out of curiosity I checked how Litvinov fared after Stalin removed him and told Molotov to cleanse the office of Jews. I turns out, that Litvinov went on to responsible posts as Ambassador to the US and other responsible posts. He was rumored to have been killed in 1951 by Stalin, in a car accident, but that was disputed by his wife who was a Brit and his daughter who stated he died of a heart attack and got the best treatment available. I take their word over the rumor mongeers. Again, it is obvious that Stalin was driven more by the political needs of Stalin rather than simple, blind anti-Semitism. Once HItler invaded, he had no problem bring Litvinov back to deputy minister.
Stalin’s designated “Enemy of the People” concept was a stroke of killing and or forced labor genius. What a guy.
(BTW … In his memoirs, Khrushchev claims Stalin was an anti-Semite but that’s rather like the pot calling the kettle black.)
Putins opposition critic is Killed.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/27/europe/russian-politician-killed/index.html
AY,
It appears to be a professional hit job. No one seems to be surprised.
I agree that it probably was a political assassination. though I have doubts that Putin ordered it. The repression he has used lately is prison rather than assassination, but one never knows for sure. In fact such things happen in Israel with Rabin, and his widow laid responsibility for that murder at the feet of Netanyahu. The Irgun also ordered the murder of UN leader Count Bernadotte and his murderers were hailed by Netanyahu and are free in Israel today. So for those who think that such things only happen in Russia, they need to look at all of political history. Netanyahu has just as bad a history as Putin in many areas.
Well they have to have use for the SVR somehow, ya know…
Putin has taken charge of the investigation. Now, where have we heard that kind of thing before?
The Guardian has the story:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/27/russian-opposition-politician-boris-nemtsov-shot-dead-moscow-reports
Chuck,
That’s like letting Dalhmer testify as a medical expert.
The killers who did this, are going to be very unpleasantly surprised if they thought this will stop the demonstration. My guess is that it will be a massive one, and Putin will not be pleased.
Whomever and whatever, this has all the earmarks of a major miscalculation.
Unless, and this requires a turn of the diabolical mind, a major crackdown is now in the works. Russian power plays can be fascinating intricate.
On the other hand, it could be outside influences at work to thwart Putin’s plans.
The future will give us perfect hindsight.
Blouse,
Good morning. I think Putins past is a good indicator of his interests. If he really is going to try and take back the three country’s that are closest to the Baltic Sea, I think other events might occur that will start a possible situation we won’t want to be in.
Sounds like Russia has “lone gunman” too.
From what I understand my Pete, ready to Repete….
“Whomever and whatever, this has all the earmarks of a major miscalculation.
Unless, and this requires a turn of the diabolical mind, a major crackdown is now in the works. Russian power plays can be fascinating intricate.
On the other hand, it could be outside influences at work to thwart Putin’s plans.
The future will give us perfect hindsight.” — blouise
————————————————————-
What she said.
Only objection would be:
“. . . this requires a turn of the diabolical mind . . . ”
Should be:
” . . . this requires the use of a diabolical mind . . .”
“A criminal case has been opened for murder and weapons trafficking, the investigative committee said.”
http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/27/europe/russian-politician-killed/index.html
Does this mean that the consortium of weapon manufacturers, along with the distributors of said will be called to the carpet?
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-drone-sales-20150217-story.html
Of course not, I lost my perspective for a moment. I forgot that all this is necessary for free-trade agreements to have any teeth.
“A dashing, handsome young politician of the early post-Soviet period, Mr. Nemtsov soared into the upper levels of government, and he was often touted as an heir apparent to Mr. Yeltsin. Mr. Nemtsov was then discredited, like so many others in the political elite of the 1990s, by political missteps, chaos and corruption, though he himself was not implicated in any wrongdoing. Mr. Putin eventually prevailed in the maneuvering to succeed Mr. Yeltsin.
While others from the Yeltsin years went into business or dropped out of view, Mr. Nemtsov chose to dive into the beleaguered opposition, at times standing in tiny crowds in street protests in the rain, enduring arrests and focusing attention on government corruption. The opposition movement swelled in 2011, with tens of thousands in the streets of Moscow, but was crushed by Mr. Putin when he returned to the presidency in 2012.
“I love Russia and want the best for her, so for me criticizing Putin is a very patriotic activity because these people are leading Russia to ruin,” Mr. Nemtsov said in an interview in 2011, republished Saturday on the Meduza news site. “Everybody who supports them in fact supports a regime that is destroying the country, and so they are the ones who hate Russia. And those who criticize this regime, those who fight against it, they are the patriots.
In recent years, Mr. Nemtsov’s star had been eclipsed by Aleksei A. Navalny, the anticorruption blogger who played a leading role in the 2011 protests. But Mr. Nemtsov remained active and was a leading organizer of this weekend’s planned rally.
Mr. Nemtsov was organizing the rally in part because Mr. Navalny is currently serving a two-week jail sentence for handing out leaflets on the subway. The rally was also noteworthy because it was the first political action inside Russia specifically endorsed by Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the exiled former political prisoner, who had signed the petition for a parade permit.”http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/28/world/europe/boris-nemtsov-russian-opposition-leader-is-shot-dead.html
Should be:
” . . . this requires the use of a diabolical mind . . .” – gbk
This thread meanders from past to present and back again so I’m going to dip back into the pages of history once more by suggesting Putin often seems to be channeling the diabolical that was so easily tapped by Catherine and Peter. I suspect it is intentional theater on his part.
cui bono?
Nemtsov’s death benefits those who oppose Putin.
Not vice versa.
“cui bono?
Nemtsov’s death benefits those who oppose Putin.
Not vice versa.” Bob Stone. Oh, a false flag again. Chanelling Alex Jones?
Both sides play this deadly game, so I have some doubts that it was Putin who directed this murder. I think the most likely scenario is that Putin supporters are responsible for this killing, since they are the more politically incompetent. Putin hardly needed to kill the guy since he has a good majority support and in any case prison has been his main method of dealing with opponents.
While killing off ones allies to make them martyrs has been CIA tactic used especially with Eden Pastora in Nicaragua and the Contras, I cannot find any such advantage in killing Nemtsov since he had no power or prospects of gaining it soon. Pastora’s attempted assassination by the CIA was prompted because he refused to join with the thugs who were running the Contras, so it was to the CIA advantage to kill him off and use his death as a rallying point for the Contras. I may be wrong on this, but I cannot see any real immediate benefit for the Ukrainians who hate the Russians other than PR. That is a pretty slim reed for them to base their political advantage on. It also deprives the Ukrainian coup regime of a good spokesman within Russia. The negatives outweigh the possible gains with his murder.
oopps chaneling
It’s all speculation at this point. We will be able to make better educated guesses as reactions and actions proceed.
SwM,
Channelling. … I blame my Kindle which is British 😉
“Oh, a false flag again. Chanelling Alex Jones?”
Actually, it was a former assistant director of the FBI I saw on CNN this morning that convinced me.
BTW, the former asst. director of the FBI was merely mentioning the alternative conspiracy theory. I simply thought it sounded more plausible than the “Putin did it” theory. He simply raised the idea that Nemtsov’s death will probably unify a fractured opposition and pave the way for a new leader and we might want to wait and see who that person is.
Otherwise, as of now, both theories seem equally implausible.
“The tragic murder of Nemtsov is only hours old and already the conspiracy theories abound. Due to the fact that Nemtsov was a member of the opposition, speculation immediately follows that Russian President Vladimir Putin is somehow involved.
Further, within hours of the murder, Putin vowed to personally oversee the investigation. Historians and scholars of Russian politics have been quick to claim that the situation reminds them of the 1940 murder of Leon Trotsky, a Marxist revolutionary, the founder and first leader of the Red Army, in Mexico City.
Conspiracy theorists in the other direction would come back and argue that the opposition was responsible. They would argue that the West is interested in destabilizing the Putin regime and creating a new Maidan revolution in Moscow. The easiest way to achieve this is to provide a single spark that can set off a powder keg that will lead to massive revolt.
Thus, they could point to Nemtsov’s murder as providing that necessary spark that will lead to regime change in Russia. Already the opposition is readying a massive protest for central Moscow. Just as violence in the Maidan set forth a chain of events that led to regime change in Ukraine, so too could violence at such a protest lead to a new Russian revolution.
The problem with the conspiracy theories is that none of them make any logical sense.”
(continued)
http://www.russia-direct.org/node/1495
Actually, tactically and strategically, it depends on how you define “benefit”.
Sure, it creates a martyr of sorts for the opposition, but as we know from the study of propaganda such “nuisances” can be mitigated if not managed in a top down regime. However, the unstated implication to any who would continue to challenge Putin is “the enemy of a man with a KGB background was assassinated”. Even the specter of that thought would deter all but the most courageous (or foolhardy depending on your perspective) potential opponents. What will be telling is how the assassination is explained over the coming months. But right now? I think it is premature to call whether or not this benefits or harms Putin. The management of the fallout and resulting public perception is going to be key to any conclusion. It could result in martyr or cautionary tale or even play to zero sum.
… play to zero sum. – Gene
If I were a betting man, that’s the bet I’d take.
Gene,
Wish we would have invested
Yep.
That is probably the best written and acted show on TV now that “Justified” is in its final season.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-02-28/the-russia-that-died-with-boris-nemtsov “Now, Putin, through his press secretary Dmitri Peskov, calls Nemtsov’s death “a provocation.” But who was the provoker? In recent months, Putin’s propaganda machine has been vigorously inciting Russians against the “fifth column” — those who protested against the annexation of Crimea and the Kremlin-instigated war in eastern Ukraine. Nemtsov was on every list of traitors published on the Internet and aired on state TV. It did not help that he was Jewish. There was a strong undercurrent of anti-Semitism in the smear campaign.
Nemtsov knew he was in danger. In a recent interview, he said half in jest that his mother was worried he could get killed. “If I were really afraid, I wouldn’t have headed up an opposition party,” he said. “I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.”
I seriously doubt that Nemtsov’s death will invigorate the anti-Putin protest movement. It is too weak to present a threat. Convincing others of the regime’s criminality is a weapon that’s too heavy for Russian liberals to heft these days. Still, I cannot help but wonder now what my country would have been like had Yeltsin made a different choice back in 1999.
Under President Boris Nemtsov, Russia could have been a country where I could have kept living and working. With his death, that unrealized future has died, too.”
There are a few cut throughs that don’t involve highway driving…. the Royal Lane one which you spoke of, Northwest Highway, and Walnut Hill.
Oh, that was directed to AY.
I couldn’t figure out how to get around the airport. But against much thanks. I did notice when at 1709 and 114 it had a sign for NW Hey. I was totally unaware that walnut hills went all the way through. Much thanks again.
Understood and responded to.
Gene Howington and Chuck Stanley, how is what goes on in the Ukraine or anywhere else in the world our business?