HISTORY AND THE CURRENT CONTEXT
[HistoryAndCurrentContext.blogspot.com]
* "Media Lies ‘Made in America’. What Prospects for 2016?" (2016-01-08, by William Blum, williamblum.org) [archive.is/s358R] [begin excerpt]:
Holocaust Deniers -
It’s easier to deny the existence of God than to deny the existence of certain aspects of the Holocaust. And not as dangerous. In Europe “denying the Holocaust” is illegal in 14 countries.
Ken Meyercord, who lives in Virginia, has long been a researcher of this phenomenon. He writes that the debate over the Holocaust boils down to three principal issues:
- How many died?
- Was the “Final Solution” really an extermination plan or was it a plan to deport Europe’s Jews?
- Were there actually gas chambers?
He’s prepared an 11-page e-pamphlet on the subject, “Did the Holocaust really happen the way we’ve been told?” It can be obtained by emailing [iconohead@)gmail.com].
It’s a good thing the United States doesn’t have a law against reporting on the American Holocaust. I’d have been put away long ago, for the sum total of US foreign policy can well be described by that infamous word beginning with an “H”; indeed, my first website carried the name “American Holocaust”.
However, in California there is now a proposed ballot initiative which would restrict “Holocaust Denial”. The Holocaust Denial Speech Restrictions Initiative (#15-0073) [archive.is/YImU9] is an initiated constitutional amendment proposed for the California ballot on November 8, 2016. The measure would prohibit any speech in any state-funded school, museum or educational institution that claims Jewish, Armenian or Ukrainian Holocausts did not exist. It would also prohibit Holocaust denial organizations from distributing information or conducting activities at these state-funded locations.
In case you’re wondering what the Ukrainian Holocaust was, it’s something left over from the Cold War – charges of widespread famine caused by the Soviet Union amongst the people of Ukraine. But I believe that such charges must be approached with some caution, given, amongst other reasons, the documented campaign by the Hearst Press in the United States to squeeze out every drop of anti-communist blood they could from the historical events. You can read about this in a book by Douglas Tottle, “Fraud, Famine and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth From Hitler to Harvard” (1987), available free online (.pdf link with intro) [archive.is/Vp8kd]. [end excerpt]
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* "The Triumph of Evil: The Reality of the USA's Cold War Victory" book (by Austin Murphy) (.pdf) [http://is.gd/adleKk]
* meme from [archive.is/nhQi9], comments: Socialism is evil... As opposed to Private Bureaucracies undermining Common Law with Mercantile Law, so that these despots have no power before them to protect the people? Perhaps a common government could regulate the merchants, or they would despoil the land through theft and debt. If capitalism worked for the common good, Haiti would be paradise.I would say the the framers of the constitution looked at democracy like communism (though they didn't have the words for it at the time). They were worried that democracy would cause equal distribution of property. James Madison called these social urges for equality "leveling impulses" which was the main purpose of the government to stop.
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* "The Declaration of Independence—Except for 'Indian Savages' " (2014-05-13, indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com) [archive.is/5vaKB] [begin excerpt]: The most sacred document wherein the U.S. celebrates its Fourth of July holiday, the Declaration of Independence, is known for having some of the most revolutionary words in history in regards to the equality of men who at the time had been forever accustomed to having caste-like systems whether it be Empires, noblemen and serfs, or a monarchy rule the American colonialists lived under.
After a brief introduction, the DOI states in the eloquent prose of the Thomas Jefferson,“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Powerful words, indeed, and ones we should hold dear no matter where we are from or live. But if one reads through the document completely – as it's done annually and publicly in countless U.S. locations – it lists “repeated injuries and usurpations” and “tyranny” acts against the colonialists on behalf of King George III of Great Britain.The second paragraph concludes, “To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world,” before a list of 27 sentences listing various trangressions from tax complaints to forced military conscription.
The last of these complaints, however, is one that reads: He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
Pause right there. Does the most famous document in American history really state “all Men are created equal,” then hypocritically proclaim right afterward its first inhabitants are “merciless Indian savages”?
Yes, it really does, and this founding document was more than just a document written in the context of a bitter conflict. Consider, although Jefferson is most credited for penning this famous document, it was written by a committee of 5 people – including Benjamin Franklin and John Adams – and ratified 86 times by the Continental Congress before becoming official and signed. So this was a carefully mulled over phrase in that Natives would forever be considered “savages” in regards to their future relations with the U.S.
Go figure, in Jefferson's rough draft was a statement he was adamant in having “against King George III for creating and sustaining the slave trade, describing it as 'a cruel war against human nature.'” He was eventually overruled.
So undoubtedly, the future of Natives and their potential role in the U.S. was discussed at length, and the sentiments of them being “Indian savages” not equal with Americans would immediately be put to use in the war's aftermath. Tribes that had fought with the British were naturally assumed as having forfeited all rights of the newly formed country, but even those allied with the U.S. would ultimately receive the same fate in spite of their loyalty. [end excerpt]
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* "Britain destroyed records of colonial crimes; Review finds thousands of papers detailing shameful acts were culled, while others were kept secret illegally" (2012-04-18, theguardian.com) [archive.is/vvw1W]
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* "Jimmy Carter’s Blood-Soaked Legacy" (2016-01-11, by Matt Peppe, dissidentvoice.org) part 1 [archive.is/XeREa], part 2 [archive.is/mEg9u]
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* "How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power; Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president" (2004-09-25, theguardian.com) [archive.is/0yhN4]
* "Father Of Koch Brothers Built Refinery For Hitler, Hired Nazi To Nanny His Kids" (2016-01-12, occupydemocrats.com) [archive.is/LkddC]
* "New book finds father of Koch brothers built Nazi’s third largest oil refinery" (2016-01-12, rt.com) [archive.is/nGACk]: A new book detailing the role wealthy families have played in shaping conservative US politics has found that the father of multi-billionaires and political donors David and Charles Koch built an oil refinery in Nazi Germany, aiding the German war effort.
Jane Mayer’s “Dark Money” details how, in 1934, Fred Koch, in partnership with William Rhodes Davis, an American businessman who has previously been called a "Nazi Agent of Influence", drew up engineering plans for a large oil refinery near Hamburg, Germany and oversaw its construction.
Adolf Hitler gave the refinery his personal blessing and it went on to play a vital role in the Third Reich’s war effort. It was the third largest refinery under Nazi control and supplied fuel to their warplanes.
Koch’s Nazi oil refinery is missing from the history posted on the family company’s website, while the company also refused to participate in Mayer’s book due to "deep disagreements and strong objections to her interpretation of the facts and their sourcing," the New York Times reports.
Mayer, a writer with the New Yorker, also found that Fred Koch hired a "fervent" Nazi to help toilet train his eldest sons, the Washington Post writes.
Mayer’s book looks into how Fred Koch’s political leanings and admiration of the German ethic at the time has shaped the political dealings of his sons today and resulted in the souring of relations between the four brothers.
A deposition Mayer uncovered from 1982 details how David and Charles blackmailed their eldest brother Frederick by threatening to tell their father that Frederick was gay if he didn’t give up his shares.
David and Charles currently own 84% of Koch Industries, which Forbes says has an annual revenue of over $115 billion, and are known for funding various political ventures on the right through nonprofit organizations, think tanks, and advocacy groups.
Mayer outlines how she believes their secret funds are shaping various issues at the local, state, and national level, resulting in the development of anti-government and anti-tax policies, which in turn helps boost the revenue of already rich companies.
Mayer’s investigation comes a decade after The Guardian uncovered a link between the financing of Hitler’s rise to power and the grandfather of former US president George W. Bush.
Documents revealed that Prescott Bush, a former US senator himself, was a co-founder of and director with the Union Banking Corporation (UBC) in New York, which helped represent the US interests of Fritz Thyssen, a German industrialist who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s by routing millions of dollars’ worth of gold, fuel, steel, coal, and US treasury bonds to Germany through UBC.
Bush was also a board member of at least one company which the newspaper found to be part of a "multinational network of front companies" that enabled Thyssen to move his assets around the world.
* "Grandniece of Himmler, has NOT refused to have children to end her great-uncle’s bloodline. She believes the idea of good or evil being passed through bloodlines is itself a reflection of Nazi ideology" (2015-12-21, warhistoryonline.com) [archive.is/QEl9a]
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* "The Klan yesterday and today" (1983-01-27, workers.org) [archive.is/P2acO] [begin excerpt]: In the middle of November 1982, the Ku Klux Klan undertook what appeared to be a bold adventure in their long and bloody history.
They attempted to schedule a demonstration in the heart of Washington, DC, fully aware that the District has been for quite a number of years virtually a Black city. Washington was thus a particularly attractive target for the Klan.
It was not boldness or bravery which impelled them to target Washington but rather their calculation that the police in the District, mostly Black, would be forced by both the federal authorities and the chief of the metropolitan police to protect and defend their presence in the city.
Earlier the Klan had partially succeeded in invading several large cities, including Boston and Baltimore, as well as some of the smaller cities. After weeks of maneuvering behind the scenes with the federal and District police authorities, the Klan obtained a permit to demonstrate in the District on November 27.
This certainly came as a profound shock to the oppressed people in the District and to many in the progressive movement. The move by the Klan unfortunately caught the working class and oppressed communities in and around the District, and throughout the country as a whole, by surprise.
The capitalist press and media knew about the projected Klan demonstration long in advance. As a matter of fact, the All-Peoples Congress, a national community, labor, and civil rights organization, which learned of the Klan demonstration early, sent out releases to the national and local electronic media and press and announced that it was calling for a counter-demonstration.
As will be seen by the articles in this book, the Klan was soundly trounced in its effort and was driven off by a very militant counter-demonstration. The counter-demonstration was largely a spontaneous response by thousands of militant, mostly Black, young people. It did not come about without a struggle with the police, which took a considerable toll in injuries and arrests of the young militants.
Since then the Klan has reared its ugly head in several other cities. It has attempted to stage a demonstration in Austin, the capital of Texas, and has sought a foothold in the western part of New York near Rochester.
The Klan would not be a problem worthy of serious discussion if one were to judge it merely by its numbers, which are conceded by all sides to be rather insignificant.
The far more important problem is the reciprocal relations between the capitalist government and the Klan. More often than not, the former is made to appear rather hostile to the Klan. The public impression conveyed is that the government is forced under the law (the First or "Free Speech" Amendment to the Constitution) to defend and secure the Klan's rights.
In reality, however, the capitalist government has covertly encouraged and promoted the Klan over many decades. It is often completely overlooked in current discussions and in the press and media reports that the durability of the Klan rests on solid long-term bonds to the state, and that the two share a common political ideology, for the most part.
When the ruling class had the opportunity to wipe out the Klan more than a century ago, it failed to do so. The Northern industrialists and bankers were more interested in reaching a compromise with the ex-slaveowners than with the newly freed slaves. [end excerpt]
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* "Book Says Zhou Enlai, Chinese Premier, May Have Been Gay" (2015-12-29, nytimes.com) [archive.is/Ze3jl]
* "Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai Was Secretly Gay, New Book Claims; Despite a long marriage, Zhou once had feelings for a male classmate, the book claims" (2015-12-29, huffingtonpost.com) [archive.is/zBITZ]
When bourgeois, "Scholarship" sounds exactly like cheap gossip tabloids. Nevermind the fact that Zhou Enlai was married to the same woman for over 50 years. Homosexuality is and was not encouraged in China just like in many other areas of the world due to culture issues. The Chinese Communisty Party never made homosexuality a crime. So there, western propagandists are obviously running out of lies to make, as they have been busted over and over.
Christian anti-Socialists eat these types of accusations up... Remember how many believe Hitler and the Nazis were gay? Read more, from the 4th edition of the book "Pink Swastika" [http://is.gd/DRbxRQ], which documents the evidence that Hitler's rise was from woman-less men organized in an anti-social organization, and that these men were homosexual socialists.
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* The Nazis weren't even Socialists, they were Fascists that upheld private property, the term National Socialism was a misnomer used to decieve working class Germans from actually overthrowing German capitalists and establishing a Socialist Republic. It was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR that actually did more than 80% of the fighting against Nazi Germany, which cost them over 27 million lives, while the US and UK didn't even bother deploying troops into European theatre until 1944, 1 year before the war ended, basically to prevent a total Soviet victory. The reason why Fascism took root in Germany, Italy, Spain, Romania etc... Was because of Western capitalists, like Bush, Rockefeller, Hearst, Ford, etc... Investing in them as a bulwark from Socialism gaining influence in Europe.* Nazi Germany was barely socialist. It was more authoritarian and strongly nationalistic. People don't know history and on top of that you have idiots trying to convince other idiots what history is. The party that Hitler co-opted and turned into his fascist party happened to be called the socialist workers party or something like that. The socialist part of the name was meaningless, it just made them sound a bit more appealing to Germans. Like when the Republicans create some evil bill and call it the Freedom and Liberty bill of Freedom. And National Socialist was just a name they gave themselves. They were actually Fascists....ultra conservatives. Not only that but Bernie Sanders is descended from actual holocaust survivors. do you think he'd be a Nazi??
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* "North Vietnam, 1972: The Christmas bombing of Hanoi; The biggest ever bombing campaign by US B-52 aircraft took place over Christmas 40 years ago, when the US dropped at least 20,000 tonnes of explosives on North Vietnam, mostly Hanoi. More than 1,000 Vietnamese died, but some claim the assault may have helped bring about the deal signed a month later that led to an end to US involvement in the war" (2012-12-24, bbc.com) [archive.is/DVums]
December 25, 1978- Armed forces of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam with the support of Cambodian socialist exiles begin their offensive against the army of Democratic Kampuchea, also known as the Khmer Rogue. In two weeks they toppled the genocidal regime of Pol Pot, capturing the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh and rescuing the Khmer people from the clutches of a despotism that killed and brutalized millions of its people. Pol Pot and his thugs fled to neighboring Thailand, where they were armed and supplied for the next decade by the US, France, Canada, UK, West Germany, Sweden, China, and Japan in a failed bid to oust the Vietnamese from Cambodia.Afterward, the Vietnamese required every one of their towns to donate rice to the starving Cambodian people, even though their own people were hungry. An example of selfless internationalism and heroism to remember this Xmas.
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* "Indonesia: A forgotten genocide; Millions of Communists were killed in a U.S.-backed pogrom in Indonesia 50 years ago, but the government continues to disallow discussions or film screenings relating to the massacre" (2016-01-08, frontline.in) [http://is.gd/McROYz]. Photo caption: Communist rebels rounded up in Bojolali in central Java. [begin article]:
The events that shook Indonesia unfolded at the height of the Cold War. At the time, the PKI was the second biggest Communist Party in Asia after the Chinese Communist Party. In 1965, the PKI had around three million members. Trade unions and women and student organisations affiliated to the party had another 15 to 20 million more supporters. The PKI, under the leadership of Dipa Nusantara Aidit, was a peaceful unarmed organisation adhering broadly to a parliamentary path. It was playing a key role in keeping Sukarno, one of the architects of the Non-Aligned Movement and a towering figure of the decolonisation struggle, in power in the last years of his presidency.
Sukarno incurred the wrath of the West after he insisted on following an independent foreign policy. He had taken a strong stance against the remnants of British, French and Dutch colonialism in the region. By the mid-1950s, he had nationalised foreign-owned oil companies. In early 1965, he expelled the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund from the country. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States had made several attempts to overthrow Sukarno and foment secession, in cahoots with friendly governments in the region. Among those who worked for the CIA in Indonesia was Benigno Aquino, father of the present President of the Philippines.
The U.S. role -
The U.S. and its allies continuously demonised Sukarno and his perceived tilt towards China and the socialist bloc. They also covertly backed right-wing parties in the country and encouraged top army generals to step in and prevent the PKI and its allies from taking power through the ballot box.
In early 1965, the Dutch Ambassador to Indonesia wrote to his government that Sukarno would continue to lead his country until his death and that it was “no longer possible to keep Indonesia from slipping into the Left”.
Sukarno was ailing at the time and was not expected to live long. Meanwhile, convinced that he would remain dependent on the PKI until the very end for his political survival, the U.S. was already planning to bring about regime change in Indonesia. Secret channels were established by U.S. with the right-wing army leadership by 1964 to prepare for pre-emptive action.
A coup attempt by a few left-leaning army officers on September 30 was crushed within days. But the death of six top army generals at their hands gave the military and its supporters an excuse to launch an all-out exercise to rid the country of Left-wing groups, trade unionists, sympathisers and even the next of kin and relatives of those suspected of having left-wing tendencies.
The two most senior officers of the Indonesian army at the time, Gen. Abdul Harris Nasution and Gen. Suharto, took over the leadership of the army and presided over the bloodletting that followed. Both these generals had undergone training in the U.S. and despite being on the hit list of the coup plotters, had escaped unscathed. The September coup attempt, according to many historians, might have been intended to forestall a right-wing coup that was being hatched by a cabal of top army officers that included the slain generals along with Nasution and Suharto.
Sukarno, who may or may not have had knowledge of the coup, was soon reduced to a figurehead and eventually completely sidelined. After the coup attempt, Sukarno had refused to ban the PKI, despite the demands of the army leadership. In the following months, he was gradually divested of almost all powers.
Killing spree -
The PKI leadership was apparently not aware of the coup attempt. It was the handiwork of a few army officers and some PKI members who had not kept the party leadership in the loop.
But the bloodletting started nevertheless. Hundreds of thousands of Indonesians were brutally massacred all over the archipelago for the crime of being either PKI members or the party’s supporters. The killings under the eye of the Indonesian army and its many Western backers went on for almost a year.
The army leadership under Nasution and Suharto took control of the media immediately after staging its counter coup. The PKI was painted as a vile, anti-national and anti-Muslim party out to destroy the country and its way of life. The army leadership planned the massacres in a cold and calculated way. The army choreographed the anti-PKI demonstrations by providing transport and protection to demonstrators. More than a week after the killing of the generals, PKI offices were burnt down all over the country. Houses of PKI members were the next to be targeted, and then the killings started.
The first massacres were in central Java, and then the violence spread to other parts of the island. In December 1965, the armed forces shifted their attention to Bali, one of the strongholds of the PKI. Some reports have said that more than 200,000 people were killed in the small island of Bali alone. Bali had a population of two million at the time. Entire villages were destroyed by militias, many of them belonging to the Nahdlatul Ulama, the right-wing Muslim party that was in alliance with the army. The massacres were preceded by the arrival of the Indonesian army’s special forces. The CIA had given the Indonesian army leadership a list of 5,000 top PKI functionaries. The CIA, along with other Western intelligence agencies, had provided substantial funding and weaponry for the army after it was purged of left-leaning officers following the events of September 1965.
The U.S. State Department gleefully noted at the time that “with the killing of up to 300,000 Communists” and the resignation of 1.6 million party members, the number of communists outside the socialist bloc had dropped by 42 per cent in just one year. More people were killed in Indonesia following the September 30 incident than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the U.S. dropped atom bombs in 1945. The British philosopher Bertrand Russell accused the American government of being “directly involved in the day to day events” in the silent slaughter.
In its December 17, 1965, edition Time said: “Communists, red sympathisers and their families are being massacred by the thousands. Backland army units are reported to have executed thousands of communists, after interrogation in remote jails. Armed with wide bodied blades called ‘prangs’, Moslem bands crept at night into the homes of Communists, killing entire families and burying their bodies in shallow graves. The murder campaign became so brazen in parts of East Java, that Moslem bands placed the heads of victims on poles and paraded them through villages. The killings have been on such a scale that the disposal of the corpses has created a serious sanitation problem in East Java and parts of Northern Sumatra where the humid air bears the reek of decaying flesh. Travellers from these areas tell of small rivers and streams that have been literally clogged with bodies. River transportation has at places been seriously impeded.” The U.S. magazine, despite its known hostility to Sukarno and the Left, was one of the few Western media outlets to occasionally report the truth about the horrific situation that prevailed in Indonesia at the time.
Tens of thousands of Indonesians who escaped the butchery were rounded up and sent to prison. Others were exiled to uninhabited islands. Many of them were only released after more than three-and-a-half decades of incarceration or internal exile. The internationally acclaimed Indonesian writer Pramoedyo Ananta Toer has documented the events after 1965 in his path-breaking Buru trilogy. The writer himself was jailed and exiled for long years in a remote prison island. When this correspondent was in Indonesia in 1992, he had seen the practice of the government and the public sector giving jobs to only those who were “socially clean” and “environmentally clean”. “Socially clean” meant that the applicant should not have had next of kin who were members of the PKI. “Environmentally clean” meant that even if distant relatives were PKI members, the applicant was ineligible for a job.
More than a million Indonesians in jails and their children, some of whom not even born in 1965, faced discrimination. The PKI continues to remain banned in the country despite Indonesia having become a multiparty democracy after the ouster of Suharto in the late 1990s. The ban on the PKI dates from 1966. Abdurrahman Wahid, who became President after the restoration of multiparty democracy, had suggested the lifting of the ban on the PKI. But he was overruled by his party, the Nahdlatul Ulama, which had participated in the pogroms. After 1965, properties, including schools and hospitals belonging to the PKI, were confiscated. Even wives and daughters of PKI members were taken along with their properties. The military legalised these thefts by issuing a decree in 1975 that stated that all PKI assets belonged to the state.
No regrets, no apologies -
The 1965-1966 Murder Victims Research Foundation, which was set up by former prisoners, has demanded an apology from the government. President Joko Widodo, who was elected last year, had promised during his campaign that if elected, he would look into all cases of past human rights abuses. But, after assuming office, Widodo, the first head of state who does not hail from an elite or military background, has changed his stance and refused to apologise to the victims.
During the campaign, some of his opponents tried to label Widodo a closet Communist. One of his Cabinet Ministers said that the “killings were necessary at the time”. Sarwo Edhie, who personally supervised many of the mass killings, was recently named a “national hero”.
As recent documentaries, such as the widely acclaimed Act of Killing, and a few articles in Indonesian journals reveal, few of the perpetrators of the massacres have been apologetic about their heinous deeds. The Indonesian military, which continues to be influential, want the survivors of the 1965 killings to still be monitored, though many of them are very old and ailing.
The Indonesian government recently banned panel discussions and other events such as screenings relating to the massacre at the annual Ubud Book Festival in Bali. In October, copies of a university magazine carrying an in-depth analysis of the events of 1965 were confiscated and the students responsible for its publication threatened with punitive action.
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North Korean and Chinese Communists with the pictures of Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Sung and the coat of arms of the People's Korea in prison in Koje - South Korea in 1952 during the Korean War.
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* Photo (2016-01-07) [archive.is/zUaz7]: Spotted this last night in Berlin: "It was not all bad in the DDR!"
* "Experienced living the USSR from 1981-85 as a foreign diplomat AMA" (2015-12-23) [archive.is/t3rrX] [begin excerpt]:I'd like to share with you my experience as a Diplomat during the Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and Gromyko period, I hope to answer all your questions in as much detail as I can. My perspective is that of a Socialist woman who joined the diplomatic corps and was posted in Moscow from 1981 to 1985. [...] I didn't live in an enclosed compound or base, I lived in the city and wouldn't have wanted it any other way.
It helped me expand my perspective beyond the closed-off, limited world of diplomatic service. I knew some other diplomats, but also foreign students (especially American ones) who never left their close groups of friends, work areas, living areas or institutions of study/work but I wasn't like them. Ask me anything.
[question]: How was east Germany?
[answer]: Sensational, extraordinary. The moment that the two got together, Western Germans were really able to see how amazingly well East Germany had exalted their culture. The GDR was very safe, very beautiful. The average citizen was able to go to the best theaters, the operas, the art galleries. They were able to dine out and enjoy their country to the fullest. They had full job security, universal education, and healthcare. I visited Western Germany as well and the contrasts were quite stark. The GDR may have looked a bit more "gray", but any brightness and colour that existed in the West was the usual glamour of Capitalism, with neon lights and big skyscrapers, masking poverty and scarcity. But most of all: wealth inequality.
[question]: Forgive me for my ignorance, but I'm confused here. My understanding was that the wall was built to prevent East Germans from "escaping the horrors of the Soviet Union". See: The Death Strip. If east germany was actually so much better - especially for the poor - than west germany, how is this the case? Did I fall into the trap of capitalist propaganda?
[answer]: Better under soviet-style Communism, of course. Full employment, less income inequality, There's a very good book about it that does a side by side comparison of all of the differences between the FRG and GDR, it's called The Triumph of Evil. You can find it in PDF here [http://is.gd/adleKk]. It's very well researched, especially chapter 2. East Germans are made to feel bad for defending the GDR or even vaguely talking about it with nostalgia in modern Germany, but there's no mincing words, most East Germans miss the GDR and the lives they had. There was a poll I read a while back from Spiegel that had something like 54% openly saying they wanted it back.
* 1919 Spartacist uprising -
96 years ago, German workers and communists rose up in Berlin to overthrow bourgeois rule, establish a socialist republic, and turn the Russian Revolution into a world revolution. After more than a week of battle, the insurgents were not only outnumbered and outgunned by the German Army, but were also terribly betrayed by the Social-Democrats, who sent out right-wing death squads to crush the revolution and massacre workers and communists. Among the dead were communist leaders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.
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* "Estimated 190,000 German Women Raped by US Soldiers After WWII; Around 860,000 German women and girls were raped by Allied soldiers at the end of World War Two, according to a new book published in Germany which estimates that more than one in five rapes were committed by US troops" (2015-03-27, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/xOQyJ]
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* "Bill Clinton warned Tony Blair of Saddam Hussein ‘nightmare’ 4yrs before Iraq War" (2016-01-08, rt.com) [archive.is/UyVy1]
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* (2015-01-06, by Sukant Chandan): Malcolm X Movement coordinator Sukant Chandan comments on 'North Korea's' hydrogen bomb test -In 1945 the people of Korea overthrew Japanese and western imperialism, a revolution by radical socialists and communists led by the late president of socialist 'North Korea' (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea) Kim Il Sung. From 1945 until the imperialist war of aggression and genocide or the 'Korean War' in 1950, the imperialists killed nearly half a million people and destroyed much of the land.
In the war of aggression from 1950-1953 some 4 million Koreans were killed by imperialism, Pyongyang was flattened and the USA and UK imperialists forced a partition of the country and colonised the south which is still occupied by tens of thousands of USA troops who have some 1,000 nuclear war heads on the Korean armistice border pointed at Pyongyang, the capital of the DPRK.
The DPRK has always and continues to advocate the removal of all imperialist interference in Korea and for the peaceful reunification of Korea with a 'one country two systems' strategy.
Today Pyongyang stands as a beautiful city and the country continues to advance the rights and liberation of its people. The struggle of the Korean people and the DPRK greatly inspired many across the world, including Che Guevara who considered the socialist countries of Korea, China and Vietnam the most important examples of socialism and revolution for the people of the world.
The African and Black Liberation movements also took primary inspiration from the DPRK, with the Black Panthers sending solidarity delegations there and including Kim Il Sung on the front page of their newspaper and encouraged people learn from the DPRK and their concept of independence and socialism. The Nation of Islam, the All African Peoples Revolutionary Party and socialist Tanzania, Libya, Zimbabwe, Algeria, Syria and Cuba are a few countries who have had and continue to have close and warm relations with the DPRK.
Mumia Abu Jamal, political prisoner in the USA and former young local leader of the Black Panther recounts in his autobiographical book 'We Want Freedom', how the Panthers and the Nation of Islam looked to Kim Il Sing and the DPRK as a great example:
"Shouts of "Help Us Free Huey!" mingled with "Salaam Aliekum, brother!" as we struggled to sell our product.
"Yo, brother! Find out what’s happenin’ that the white power structure ain’t gonna tell ya! Check out The Black Panther—only a quarter!"
"Salaam Aliekum, Sister! Come on back to your own! Read Muhammad Speaks! Twenty-five cents!"
For nearly an hour the sales continued, fed and famished by the flow of passerby debarking from the trains hissing to a stop overhead. After a while, we got into a conversation:
"Brother, you got to get with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and stop following those devils like Marx and Lenin and ’em."
"Well, bro’—you should get with the Minister of Defense, Huey P. Newton, and the Black Panther Party."
"You should follow a Black man, brother, not some Jews like Marx and Lenin!"
"We revolutionaries, brother, and we study about revolutionaries from around the world. We don’t care what race they is."
"I can see that, brother," glancing at a copy of The Black Panther, pointing to a cover picture of an Asian, full-haired man. "Who is that, brother?"
"That’s Kim Il-Sung, the leader of North Korea, and a revolutionary."
"You see what I’m saying, brother? Here you go talking ‘bout another guy! He ain’t got nothin’ to say to Black people, brother!"
"Well, if that’s so, brother, why he in yo paper Muhammad Speaks?"
"What you talkin’ bout, brother?" he asked, seemingly stunned by the question.
I read and studied his paper quite regularly, for its layout, news, and commentary, but I doubted if he ever read any of ours. This seemed only logical for someone assigned to the East Coast Ministry of Information office, and I remembered reading this week’s issue of Muhammad Speaks.
"Check it out, brother, in yo international news section."
In disbelief, he turned the pages until, sure enough, an article appeared bearing a photo of Kim Il-Sung. He looked at it, and then turned to me, smiling.
"Yes sir, brother. Yessir. Um-humm."
"And what we learned from him was the idea of Juche, a Korean word that means self-reliance!""
The 1990s and into the 2000s was a very precarious situation for the DPRK as the socialist anti-imperialist Eastern Bloc had collapsed leading to economic problems for the DPRK and the USA led the charge of threatening a war of destruction against the DPRK in its ridiculous 'axis of evil' countries. While the UK and USA destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan on the basis of lies, at the same time they were threatening the same towards the DPRK.
It was only the DPRK's capacity by means of weapons testing that showed the imperialists that the DPRK will conduct all-out peoples war and is ready and willing to defend itself by all means at its disposal. The DPRK has proven to this day that a very small global south country is able to stand up to the most powerful and genocidal imperialist system in the world by means of having a close relationship with Russia and China and above all a united people with a militant army and leadership utilising all means of self defence is the surest guarantee to secure its own independence. One only has to look at Libya, a former socialist and proud independence Pan-Africa and Pan-Arabist country that was destroyed in no small part due to it not having the military capacity to protect itself from NATO.
DPRK has been a leading beacon of anti-imperialist and socialist struggle, making its achievements through major victories against imperialism that assists all peoples across the world fighting for independence and socialism.
---
* "Public opinion of Stalin improves over past few years – poll results" (2016-01-14, rt.com) [archive.is/27nG7]
* Quote from "The Russian Social-Democratic Party and its Immediate Tasks" (1901-11, by J. V. Stalin) [archive.is/vyHOb]:
Joseph Stalin at the exhibition of captured German weapons in the Central Park of culture and rest named Gorky in Moscow, on March 22, 1943
* "Russian city opens cultural centre celebrating Stalin; As former Soviet dictator returns to prominence, Daniil Turovsky speaks to founder of Penza’s new facility about human rights, the Gulag and Steve Jobs" (2016-01-11, theguardian.com) [archive.is/LyySY]
Boris Yeltsin's monument covered in sh!t, vs roses at Joseph Stalin's monument.
Yelstin's regime killed up to 8 million.
Stalin's policies and security measures may have killed up to a million according to the latest research, and he was fighting an enemy (Fascism) that eventually invaded and murdered 27 million civilians across the USSR during 1941 to 1944, the same fascists who funded Yelstin's "shock therapy" regime of the 1990s that ended pensions, ended jobs, fostered famine... the 8 million deaths statistic I found recently from a book by a Yelstin administrator, the deaths were among elderly, children, and the victims of USA-trained death squads targeting USSR patriots during the destabilizing wars after 1992 across the old USSR!
(Gunnar Angeles writes): In Khrushchev's infamous 20th congress speech he claims Stalin said, "You are blind like young kittens; what will happen without me? The country will perish because you do not know how to recognize enemies."
I'm not sure if this quote can be verified as accurate, but in many ways this explains the post-Khrushchev revisionist takeover and later dissolution of the USSR under Gorbachev and Yeltsin. The CPSU failed to recognize their enemies and instead promoted them into positions of power, where they collaborated with US intelligence services, to destroy what millions had sacrificed to build. Under Brezhnev the Soviet Union entered the international oil market to increase foreign currency reserves to "buy"improved living standards for the Soviet population. This initial link to the international money markets was the beginning of the end. Something that Stalin refused to do in 1944 when in the Bretton-Woods treaty, the USA declared their economical dominance (to don't use stronger words) over bigger part of the world. And for that Stalin was declared public enemy No.1.
During the 1980s, after Brezhnev's economic contact with the international market, the USSR was totally dependent on oil export, so Saudi Arabia, and other OPEC nations, increased production to devalue the USSR's foreign currency reserves, likely with the US/NATO's full support. This meant that the USSR was providing the Warsaw pact with affordable fuel at a loss and contributed to what people now commonly refer to as, "Stagnation".
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* "Image revolution of early Soviet cinema still speaks volumes; An exhibition of silent film posters highlights the inventive spirit of great Soviet directors who continue to inspire modern film-makers all over the world" (2014-01-21, rbth.com) [archive.is/5ptjO], attached videos:
- "The Steps" scene from the motion picture "Battleship Potemkin in Odessa" [https://youtu.be/fVKFwFBmP3I]
- "The Man with a Movie Camera" (1929) [https://youtu.be/00ZciIC4JPw]
- Ending to the motion picture "MAT (Mother)" (1926) [https://youtu.be/KI3jZtruxvA]
---
The Czarists in China were the largest European community in Shanghai and participated in the Shanghai massacre of 1927. It was seen as Czarism's last victory against Bolshevism. The Russian Fascist Party was founded here and received much support from the Japanese that hoped to use the group in its upcoming war with the USSR. Many of those former Czarist White Guardists were also Fascists and Nazi sympathizers. They should've been captured by the Chinese People's Liberation Army and extradited to USSR to be put on trial for treason and war crimes.
* "When the Philippines welcomed Russian refugees; Tubabao Island hosted around 6,000 ‘White Russian’ refugees, who fled China in 1948, when they were in danger of being forcibly repatriated to the USSR. They lived on the Philippine island for four years, a time that locals affectionately refer to as ‘Tiempo Russo’ " (2015-07-07, rbth.com) [archive.is/qDaoY]
* "The life of White Russian refugees in PH; Rappler posts never before seen photos of the anti-communist so-called White Russian refugees the Philippines welcomed into Guiuan, Eastern Samar in the 1950s" (2015-06-20, rappler.com) [http://is.gd/qm2Uhd]
* "Filipino’s grandmama could be Russia’s Anastasia" (2012-05-13, newsinfo.inquirer.net) [archive.is/2rA1J]
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* Image (2016-01-11, facebook.com/theEagleisRising) [archive.is/7VTDK]. Comments:- Matt Florence writes: The uniforms in the picture are actually close to 1920. But by all means just make up any random numbers, because it's not as if facts ever mean anything when it comes to anti-communist propaganda. Actually the Peoples Republic of China was founded in 1949. Also in 1948 China was in the middle of a civil war. In 1935 the government of China was 8 different governments, the largest being the USA backed KMT government. See this map, showing the situation as of late 1935 [http://is.gd/olrcMr]. This is like claiming that the United States banned guns before the United States ever existed, and claiming that the people killed in the US civil war were "political dissidents". I love where it says "political dissidents unable to defend themselves". Yeah because several million KMT nationalist troops that outnumbered the Communists by over a million and always had political backing, were "unable to defend themselves". There was the KMT, the Communist Party, and the China Democratic league. The KMT went around executing members of the China Democratic League, so the league eventually decided to side with the Communist Party. This is one of the big factors that led to the Communists winning the Civil War. The KMT always had more firepower, more money, and higher soldier numbers, but the Communists won because they had more popular support.
- R. Chan writes: This photo is taken in 1925, shown here titled "Two guards perform an execution in China, one holding the gun" (GettyImages.com) [archive.is/qpEej], those soldiers most likely belong the Warlord cliques (that's the Beiyang Army uniform)! These are USA backed nationalists, ironically enough, massacring communists.
- GR writes: This is an example of the awful truth how "history" is manufactured in the USA. Like the "Holodomor" photos which are all (100%) from 1920s Russia and eastern Ukraine. West Ukraine was part of Poland until 1939.
- Shane L. writes: Cuba doesnt even have strict gun control compared to most of Latin America. Read more at "Country Analyses: Cuba" from "Measurement and Use of Statistical Data to Analyze Small Arms in the Caribbean and Latin America" Section 4, pgs. 20-21 (2012-04-28, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime UNODC, and the Center of Excellence, National Institute of Statistics and Geography INEGI) [archive.is/UQQif]
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* Parody of USSR history according to fascists:
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* (2015-12-25, by Greg Butterfield) [archive.is/BeIcm]:
December 25, 1989: Comrades Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu of Romania are sentenced to death by masked “judges” following a fascist-led military coup. The lifelong communist militants, both from poor peasant backgrounds, are murdered by the pro-imperialist Council of National Salvation and buried in an unmarked grave.“I will answer any question, but only at the Grand National Assembly, before the representatives of the working class. Tell the people that I will answer all their questions. All the world should know what is going on here. I only recognize the working class and the Grand National Assembly – no one else. I will not answer you putschists,” Ceausescu said.
* Transcript of the closed “trial” of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu, December, 1989
(chnm.gmu.edu) [archive.is/5zYeW].
* “Reactionary coup in Romania” by Sam Marcy, Workers World, 1990 [archive.is/McBTK].
* Set of three photos [archive.is/sn2Gz] [archive.is/FcHTf] [archive.is/R1m5V].
---
Kalinin Prospekt, Moscow, USSR
* "Moscow-80: The model Olympic Games; Despite the American boycott, the success of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow left a lasting legacy" (2013-11-27, rbth.com) [archive.is/vIbPz]
Boycott, over what? Zibignew Brezinski, during the Carter administration, already admitted to arming the Mujahadeen, Pashtun ultranationalists and Salafist fundamentaliats, against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, a secular, sovereign and Socialist state. This Afghan state asked the USSR for assistance in the fight against imperialist backed terrorism. These are the same terrorists that were supposedly responsible for the world trade massacre.
* "Afghanistan As It Once Was" (2014-11-29, rferl.org) [http://is.gd/lErDvO], photo caption: The 2.6-kilometer-long Salang Tunnel, which passes beneath the Hindu Kush mountain range, was built with the help of the Soviet Union. It opened in 1964.
photo caption: "The Higher Teachers College was a two-year institution for training college-level teachers, located at Seh Aqrab Road and Pul-e Surkh Road, on the west side of Kabul, near Kart-e Sei," recalls Peg Podlich. In this photograph, a Mr. Bahir (left), who was William Podlich's counterpart at the college, and an Afghan teacher pose outside the school.
photo caption: An Afghan military band assembles for an unknown event.
photo caption: Afghan schoolgirls return home after attending school, an act that the Taliban would ban some 30 years later. "Afghan girls, as well as boys, were educated up to the high school level, and although girls [and boys] wore uniforms, the girls were not allowed to wear a chadri (burqa) on their way to secondary school," says Peg Podlich. "Able young women attended college, as did the men."
The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. The best Afghan government in history before it was taken over by Pashtun ultra-nationalists, Salafists, opium harvesters, warlords, and US/NATO comprador puppets.
* "Socialist Afghanistan" photo album (captions by Fabio B. Khachaturian) [archive.is/jYrlE]: A progressive country that has experienced years of peace and equality to the arrival of Gorbachev in power in the USSR, so cowardly pulling its troops giving loophole for terrorist fanatics and together with the US, lead the country in disgrace it is today, destination one that Iraq would also have ...
Photos:
* "The good times of solidarity and friendship of the USSR with socialist Afghanistan" [archive.is/eKQdY]
* "The life of the afghan people were worthy and equal, the people were free of terrrorists, unfortunately images like these make it hard to be seen again in Afghanistan invaded and poor" [archive.is/DRFl3]
* "Literacy campaign promoted by the socialist state with Soviet initiative" [archive.is/6TWoK]
* "The sad reality of the socialist Afghanistan with the days of today, invaded and aimless" [archive.is/i8UVO]
* "Central Kabul during socialist epoch" [archive.is/gYD2Z]
* "The inauguration of the new trolebus, one more step forward that the USSR had left in Afghanistan" [archive.is/Vibtu]
* "The Agricultural cooperative badan bagh" [archive.is/MOpAj]
* "Chemical factory en mazari sharif, built during the years 80" [archive.is/eFxOG]
* "The Afghan peasant woman taking care of the socialist planting at the time" [archive.is/Nn6fV]
* "The University of Kabul, totally the opposite of today" [archive.is/5aSnU]
* "The Afghan students" [archive.is/5S2Q9]
* "The University of Kabul in the 80 s." [archive.is/XOImR]
* "Biology class at the University of Kabul" [archive.is/EE8eA]
* "The Afghan girl doing experiments in the lab in the years 80" [archive.is/wPZSs]
* "The Socialist Education of women in Afghanistan, with nothing of the religious fundamentalism, which today only leaves delay for the country, of course with immense blame us involved in it" [archive.is/bimEr]
* "The good life of students in Kabul, free of all religious radicalism that today only led the country in misery" [archive.is/FQg2U]
* "The good life of women in education, where all were free and without giving chase extremist, thing totally impossible in this day" [archive.is/rOHyO]
* "The University of Kabul, so was the good life socialist in Afghanistan, where women were free, they have equal rights and nothing of fanaticism terrorist, unfortunately the opposite in the days of today" [archive.is/YITzV]
* "During the socialist Afghanistan, extremism has been eradicated, withdrew from the church of the state and especially the cultivation of drugs was wiped out in the country" [archive.is/v9ASj]
* "Mohammad Najibullah, leader of the socialist Afghanistan with Soviet troops, ruled the country until his death at the hands of the terrorists, he dedicated his entire life for the country fair, equal and developer" [archive.is/UpLJw]
* "The President and comrade najibullah with the little girl, during his visit in school when the socialist Afghanistan was developing, in spite of terrorist threats" [archive.is/v7Ppd]
* "The Pioneers Afghan" [archive.is/107SJ]
* "The beautiful afghan military" [archive.is/T0kkD]
* "The resistant afghan women" [archive.is/sAoYf]
* "The Afghan woman worthy and proud, armed by its revolution and their socialist homeland!" [archive.is/lqfG1]
* "Comrades of the socialist resistance, in 1978 began the revolution of saur, days after it was proclaimed The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, socialist and anti-imperialist with all the support of the USSR" [archive.is/bJzwq]
* "The Afghan resistance of the socialist comrades" [archive.is/xWbPl]
* "The Young Afghans Armed in defense of socialism and of their homeland resistant!" [archive.is/R5fzY]
* "Soviet troops entering in Afghanistan to ensure safety and development in a region by then, abandoned, something which unfortunately was repeated in the present day" [archive.is/ORX8B]
* "The Afghans greeted the Soviet comrades" [archive.is/pTCN9]
* "The Afghan people saluting with much joy Soviet troops" [archive.is/lHdih]
* "The brave soldiers Soviet Socialist, in Afghanistan" [archive.is/4npvn]
* "The little pioneers pose along with the Soviet soldiers" [archive.is/XvZiv]
* "The Afghan people giving affection to the Soviet fighters during the war against the terrorists" [archive.is/Erl1F]
* "The Soviet soldiers were acclaimed and dear by the afghan people in the fight against terrorism" [archive.is/CGwxJ]
* "The worthy and honorable Soviet soldiers that protected the Afghanistan socialist, if firing of the people in the shameful withdrawal orchestrated by Gorbachev's rat" [archive.is/Q9iTO]
* "Soviet soldier experiencing the afghan food, the coexistence of the USSR with Afghanistan was the most friendly during the friendship of both" [archive.is/D3F5S]
* "The Afghan people celebrating with the Soviets the coexistence of security, peace and especially of development in the country" [archive.is/Ni9ou]
* "The honored Soviet soldiers and Afghans in the fight against terrorism" [archive.is/o7VoI]
* "The heroic Soviet soldiers who fought till the end to protect the afghan people socialist of terrorist threats financed by imperialism" [archive.is/XYXDA]
* "The Soldiers Afghans, that even after the end of the Soviet resisted bravely against terrorists and have fought to the end against the radicals" [archive.is/PL9lF]
* "The Afghan people is nostalgic and clearly feel miss resistant president najibullah and the good life in the country when I was full support of the Soviet troops" [archive.is/LuMYm]
* "The beautiful flag of socialist Afghanistan" [archive.is/q1eGh]
* "Abdul Ahad Mohmand, first and only afghan astronaut. Participated in the soyuz missions and soyuz Tim Tim-6-5 in 1988, for the first time the Afghanistan has had a heavy investment and strong coming of the USSR, in all aspects" [archive.is/VGcW8].
* "1 may 1988 in Kabul" [archive.is/RcPP0]
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