Posts Tagged ‘SOVIET UNION’
ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ATOMIC BOMB, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BEIRUT BOMBING, BILL CLINTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHRIS MATTHEWS, CNN, COMMUNISM, CROOKS AND LIARS, CULTS, DAILY KOZ, ECONOMICS, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, HARDBALL, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IRAN, IRAN-CONTRA AFFAIR, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOSEPH STALIN, MEDIA MATTERS, MEET THE PRESS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, POLLUTION, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REUTERS, Ronald Reagan, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SLATE, SOVIET NUCLEAR PHYSICS, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TAX CUTS, TERRORISM, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THIS WEEK, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, Vladimir Lenin
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 7, 2022 at 12:13 am
On February 6, 2011, Ronald Reagan, if he had been alive, would have been 100 years old.
Publishers rushed to put out worshipful tributes to his eight years as President. Network political programs such as “This Week” and “Meet the Press” assembled surviving members of his administration to re-live the “glory days” of Reagan’s—and their—time in power.
Actually, it was during the Reagan administration that America entered its decline—a Right-wing legacy of huge Federal deficits, tax-cuts for the rich, bloated military budgets and cutbacks in government programs to aid the poor and middle-class.
Ronald Reagan
No two men could have been more different than Vladimir Lenin and Ronald Reagan. Lenin created the Soviet Union in 1917 and became its first in a series of absolute dictators. Reagan spent his life fighting Communism, most notably as President.
So it’s ironic that both men, in death, got essentially the same funeral—and for the same reason: To sanctify and legitimize their respective organizations—and the authority of their potential successors.
Vladimir Lenin
Lenin died in 1924 and was immediately succeeded by Joseph Stalin. Stalin knew that, despite Communism’s official atheistic stance, most Russians remained loyal to the Russian Orthodox Church.
So in giving Lenin’s funeral oration, Stalin used the language of religion to confer sainthood upon a militant atheist—and upon his successor, Stalin himself: “We vow to thee, Comrade Lenin, that we will fulfill this, thy commandment….”
Funeral for Vladimir Lenin
Stalin and his fellow Communists immediately launched the “cult of Lenin,” depicting him as a fatherly, all-wise leader whose genius could only be bestowed upon his closest disciples.
Lenin’s extensive political writings were treated as divine writ, and were used to justify everything Stalin and his own successors wanted to do.
A classic example: Although he died 20 years before the American creation of the atomic bomb, Lenin was hailed by the Soviets as the “father” of “Soviet nuclear physics.”
Similarly, Republicans quickly turned Reagan into a modern-day saint of mythical proportions.
They did so for the same reason that Stalin deliberately forged a cult around the dead Lenin—to create a “holy” figure of whom other Republicans can claim to be true disciples.
Funeral for Ronald Reagan
These deliberate fictions conveniently ignore a series of ugly truths:
- Reagan was only one of a series of Presidents who held the line against the Soviet Union.
- His budgets were just as stained with red ink as those of all previous Presidents.
- Far from standing up to Iranian terrorists, Reagan sold them our most sophisticated missiles in a weak-kneed exchange for American hostages. Then he went on television and brazenly lied that any such “arms for hostages” deal had ever happened.
- By the end of his term, 138 Reagan administration officials had been investigated, indicted or convicted for official misconduct and/or criminal violations.
- His “trickle-down” Reganomics brought prosperity to only the wealthiest 1% of Americans, proving that “a rising tide lifts some yachts.”
- By drastically shrinking the tax-base, bloating the defense budget and destroying programs to benefit the poor and middle-class, Reagan produced a $1 trillion deficit—which only the Clinton Administration eliminated.
- Reagan believed that government should not help the impoverished. Those who lacked wealth to buy such necessities as housing and medical insurance were written off as unimportant.
- John F. Kennedy had praised government service as an honor. Reagan repeatedly said that “the best and the brightest” could be found only in business.
- This denigration of government service continues among Republicans to this day—defaming the very institutions they lust to control.
- Although he often berated the poor for their “laziness,” Reagan adhered to a “banker’s hours” schedule: During his working hours in the Oval Office, he often had blocks of free time—two to three hours. He would call for his fan mail and answer it.
- Reagan saw no need to protect America’s fragile environment against corporate polluters, eager to enrich themselves at its expense: “Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation, so let’s not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from man-made sources.”
Reagan famously attacked “welfare queens” and sought to deny government benefits for the poor. But he didn’t hesitate to enrich himself at public expense.
- Before his Presidency ended, 18 wealthy Californians contributed $156,000 apiece to buy him a 7,200 square-foot mansion overlooking Beverly Hills.
- Reagan signed a multi-million dollar deal to write his Presidential memoirs and publish a collection of his speeches.
- He signed an exclusive contract with a Washington lecture bureau, which paid him $50,000 per speech given in the United States and $100,000 overseas. This made him the highest-paid speaker in the country.
- These monies came in addition to his Presidential pension of $99,500 a year for life and his $30,000 annual pension as a former governor of California.
- At a cost to the government of $10 million annually, Reagan—a millionaire who could afford private security—continued to receive lifetime Secret Service protection from 40 fulltime agents.
The “cult of Lenin” died when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The “cult of Reagan” died only when it was superseded by that of Donald Trump.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CRIMEAN PENINSULA, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, ECONOMIC SANCTIONS, ENGLAND, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, JOSEPH BIDEN, JOSEPH STALIN, LIFTWAFFE, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION (NATO), NPR, OLIGARCHS, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLIC OF GEORGIA, REUTERS, ROYAL AIR FORCE, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SECOND CHECHEN WAR, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE BLITZ, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, WEHRMACHT, WONKETTE, WORLD WAR 11
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 30, 2022 at 12:14 am
Sometimes your worst enemies aid you in ways you could never help yourself.
From July 10 to October 31, 1940, hundreds of badly-outnumbered pilots of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) fought off relentless attacks by Germany’s feared Luftwaffe—since known as the Battle of Britain.
But Adolf Hitler wasn’t prepared to give up. He believed he could so terrorize Britons that they would insist that their government submit to German surrender demands.
From September 7, 1940 to May 21, 1941, the Luftwaffe subjected England—and especially London—to a ruthless bombing campaign that became known as The Blitz.
The undamaged St. Paul’s Cathredal, December, 1940
More than 100 tons of high explosives were dropped on 16 British cities.
During 267 days—almost 37 weeks—between 40,000 and 43,000 British civilians were killed. About 139,000 others were wounded.
Clearly, what Great Britain desperately needed most was a miracle.
Exactly that happened on June 22, 1941.
With 134 Divisions at full fighting strength and 73 more divisions for deployment behind the front, the German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union.
German tanks invading Russia
Joseph Stalin, the longtime Soviet dictator, was stunned. The invasion had come less than two years after Germany had signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union.
Now they were locked in a fight to the death.
People in England were suddenly hopeful. Britain now had a powerful ally whose resources might tip the balance against Hitler.
Fast forward to 2022.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was created in March, 1949 by the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. In 1952, Greece, Turkey and West Germany were admitted.
NATO emblem
Its purpose: To provide collective security against the Soviet Union.
Following World War II, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had refused to withdraw his occupying forces from the Eastern European countries they had entered on their way to defeating Nazi Germany.
These Soviet-dominate countries: Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and East Germany.
Behind NATO stood the threat of the American “nuclear umbrella”—and Article V, which states that an attack on one ally would trigger a counterattack by all of them.
From its founding in 1949 to 2017, America’s leadership of NATO—and the importance of the alliance—remained unquestioned.
The Presidency of Donald J. Trump (2017-2021) dramatically changed both.
From the outset, Trump attacked NATO as being “very unfair” to the United States. He attacked its members as deadbeats who didn’t contribute an equal share of monies to the organization.
But Trump’s disdain for NATO may well have been grounded in his “bromance” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin press conference
He had refused to accept the unanimous conclusion of the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency that Russia had interfered in the 2016 Presidential election to put him in the White House over Hillary Clinton.
He had often praised Putin, both during the 2016 campaign and after entering the White House.
And he had publicly defended Putin against these agencies in an infamous press conference with Putin in Helsinki, Finland, on July 16, 2018.
On January 14, 2019, the New York Times reported that, several times in 2018, Trump discussed withdrawing the United States from NATO. This would effectively doom the 29-nation alliance and empower Russia, which had spent years seeking to weaken it.
Meanwhile, Putin, intent on restoring the borders of the former Soviet Union, swept from one war to the next.
- In 1999-2000, he waged the Second Chechen War, restoring federal control of Chechnya.
- In 2008, he invaded the Republic of Georgia, which had declared its independence as the Soviet Union began to crumble. The war ended with 20% of Georgia’s territory under Russian military occupation.
- In 2014, Putin invaded and subsequently annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.
Through all of this, NATO did nothing but launch verbal condemnations.
The reason:
- Fear of igniting a nuclear war; and/or
- Belief that Russia was simply acting within its own sphere of influence.
Coupled with Trump’s repeated displays of subservience, it’s likely that Putin felt he could get away with any aggression.
On February 24, Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine. And those who had thought the Cold War was over realized it wasn’t.
Suddenly, NATO came alive—with a vengeance:
- At least 40,000 allied troops are now under direct NATO command in the eastern part of the alliance.
- More than 130 fighter jets are on advanced high alert.
- More than 200 allied ships are stationed at sea in the region.
- NATO activated defense plans that would allow military commanders to deploy elements of the multinational Response Force.
Perhaps most important, the United States has a President—Joe Biden—who is not in thrall to Putin. As a result, it has led the world in imposing harsh economic sanctions on Russia:
- Russia has become a global economic pariah.
- Over 30 countries, representing well over half the world’s economy, have announced sanctions and export controls targeting Russia.
- The country’s banking system has all but collapsed.
- On the stock market, the ruble is worth less than the penny.
- And oligarchs linked to Putin have had their assets frozen around the world.
Seventy-nine years ago, events turned around for England when all seemed lost. The same has happened for NATO and the United States.
9/11 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES, ALTERNET, AP, ARAB OIL EMBARGO, BBC, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHRISTIAN RIGHT, CNN, COLD WAR, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DAILY KOZ, DONALD TRUMP, EGYPT, FACEBOOK, FOSSIL FUELS, GLOBAL WARMING, IRAN, IRAQ, ISLAM, ISRAEL, JAMAL KHASHOGGI, MECCA, MEDINA, MIDDLE EAST, MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, Oil, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, SALON, SAND CURTAIN, SAUDI ARABIA, SEATTLE TIMES, SECOND COMING, SHAH OF IRAN, SHIITE MUSLIMS, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, SUNNI MUSLIMS, TERRORISM, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TRUMP WORLD TOWER, TURKEY, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES, UPI, USA TODAY, VENEZUELA, WAHHABISM, WORLD WAR ii
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 25, 2022 at 12:10 am
The time is long overdue for the United States to scrap its devil’s bargain relationship with Saudi Arabia.
Reason #1: The political assassination of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a key critic of Saudi King Mohammed bin Salman.
On October 2, 2018, Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to pick up a document allowing him to marry a Turkish woman. Video footage showed Khashoggi walking into the consulate; there is none of him leaving it.
He was never seen again.
According to Turkish government officials:
- Fifteen Saudi agents flew into Istanbul.
- They waited for Khashoggi inside the consulate and murdered him within two hours of his arrival.
- The assassins used a bone saw to dismember Khashoggi’s corpse.
Jamal Khashoggi
[GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Reason #2: Saudi Arabia is a weak ally.
President Donald Trump claimed that Saudi Arabia served as a counter-weight to the growing regional influence of Iran. But Saudi Arabia was unable to defend itself against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1990, after the invasion and takeover of Kuwait.
This was, in fact, why Saudi-born Osama bin Laden decided to declare war on the United States.
He petitioned Saudi King Fahd bin Abdulazis al-Saud to let Saudis oppose any invasion by Iraq. He argued that “infidel” American soldiers stationed in the Kingdom would “pollute” Islam’s two great holy sites: Mecca and Medina.
Having fought against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s, bin Laden offered to help defend Saudi Arabia with his Arab legion.
The king refused—because he knew that, despite all the sophisticated military hardware he had bought from the United States, the Saudis were too militarily weak to resist an invasion.
Bin Laden left the country to wage fulltime war against the United States.
Osama bin Laden
Reason #3: Saudi Arabia is filled with Islamics who hate the United States as “the Great Satan.”
Fifteen of the 19 September 11, 2001 highjackers came from Saudi Arabia.
And Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Wahhabism, a radical brand of Islam dedicated to “purifying” the world of “unbelievers.”
Reason #4: The only reason the United States cares about Saudi Arabia is that it’s the second-largest oil-producing country (after Venezuela) n the world.
Yet oil consumption threatens the future of the world through global warming. And it keeps America tethered to a regime that is fundamentally unstable and hostile to the West.
Reason #5: The United States can end its dependence on Saudi oil by embarking on a crash program to develop alternatives to oil.
Had this happened during the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the United States would now be energy-independent. America has the technology to do so; it lacks only the will.
Reason #6: Once the United States no longer needs fossil fuels, it can quit financing Middle East dictatorships.
This will end spending billions of dollars every year to prop up dictatorial regimes like those in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt. America will no longer supply big-ticket military hardware (like fighter planes and missiles) to potentially hostile Islamic regimes.
Reason #7: By withdrawing from the Middle East, the United States can free itself of the burden of acting as Israel’s permanent bodyguard.
Millions of Americans believe they are morally obligated to defend Israel owing to the barbarism of the Holocaust. But America was never a party to this, and has nothing to atone for.
Yet, for decades, the United States has been repeatedly dragged into the never-ending religious conflicts between Israelis and Islamics. Since both sides believe they are doing “God’s will,” there can be no substantial compromise by either.
Reason #8: The United States and its European allies can defend themselves against Islamic terrorism by erecting a “Sand Curtain” around the Middle East.
For 44 years—1947 to 1991—the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a Cold War stalemate. Essentially, the United States drew a ring around the Soviet Union—including those nations its armies had seized following the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.
The United States said, in effect: “We can’t liberate the countries you’re now occupying”—because that would have triggered a nuclear World War III. “But we won’t allow you to occupy and enslave any other countries. And if you try to do so, it will mean total war.”
America could withdraw all of its forces from the Middle East—but keep a good portion stationed in Europe.
It could then publicly announce: “From now on, you are the masters of your own destinies—so long as what you do affects only the Middle East.
“We recognize that barbarism and violence have always been a part of life in the Middle East. And we don’t expect this to change.
“We realize you will destroy as many of your own citizens as you can—because they’re Jewish or Christians, or because Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims hate each other.
“Just don’t threaten citizens living outside your territories. In short: Europe and the United States are strictly off-limits to you.
“And if you aim your aggression at either, we will consider this an act of war and use all the weapons at our disposal—including nuclear ones—to wipe you from the face of the Earth.“
ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, JOSEPH STALIN, KIM JONG-UN, LAVRENTI BERIA, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, NORTH KOREA, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT PAYNE, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE PRINCE, THE RISE AND FALL OF STALIN, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WARFARIN, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 24, 2022 at 12:11 am
According to an October 29, 2014 story on National Public Radio, at least 10 North Korean officials had been executed for watching South Korean soap operas.
If true, this brings to 50 the number of people murdered by North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un for committing this “crime”.
Kim Jong-Un and his generals
Sources for Bloomberg News speculated they were likely purged for having close ties to his uncle, Jang Song Thae, who was executed in 2013.
Kim inherited control of the country after his father, Kim Jong-Il, died in 2011. Since then, he has ruthlessly eliminated all possible opposition.
“Kim Jong Un is trying to establish absolute power and strengthen his regime with public punishments,” Yang Moo Jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told Bloomberg. “However, frequent purges can create side effects.”
Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of political science, couldn’t have said it better.
Niccolo Machiavelli
In fact, Machiavelli did say it. In Chapter Eight of The Prince, his famous work on the realities of politics, he tackled the subject: “Of Those Who Have Attained the Position of Prince by Villany.”
“…In taking a state, the conqueror must arrange to commit all his cruelties at once, so as not to have to recur to them very day, and so as to be able, by not making fresh changes, to reassure people and win them over by benefiting them.
“Whoever acts otherwise, either through timidity or bad counsels, is always obliged to stand with knife in hand, and can never depend on his subjects, because they, owing to continually fresh injuries, are unable to depend upon him.”
Another Communist dictator—Joseph Stalin—may have paid the price for violating this counsel.
Joseph Stalin
Throughout his 30-year reign over the Soviet Union, Stalin was responsible for the deaths of at least 20 million men, women and children.
These deaths resulted from executions, a man-made famine through the forced collectivation of harvests, deportations and imprisonment in Gulag camps.
Robert Payne, the acclaimed British historian, vividly portrayed the crimes of this murderous tyrant in his brilliant 1965 biography, The Rise and Fall of Stalin.
According to Payne, Stalin Was planning yet another purge during the last weeks of his life. This would be “a holocaust greater than any he had planned before.
“The chistka [purge] had become a ritual like a ceremonial cleansing of a temple performed every three or four years according to ancient laws.
“The first chistka had taken place during the early months of the [Russian] revolution. It had proved so salutory that periodical bloodbaths were incorporated in the unwritten laws of the state.
“This time there would be a chistka to end all chistkas, a purging of the entire body of the state from top to bottom. No one, not even the highest officials, was to be spared.”
Then, on January 13, 1953, the Soviet Union’s two government-controlled newspapers—Pravda (“Truth”) and Izvestiya (“News”)—announced that a sinister plot by Jewish doctors had been uncovered.
Its alleged object: No less than the murder of Joseph Stalin himself.
Nine doctors, said Pravda, had so far been arrested.
Stalin’s closest associates—veteran observers of past purges—quickly realized that another was about to descend. And there could be no doubt who its chief victims would be.
Yet Stalin did nothing to calm their fears. He often summoned his “comrades” to the Kremlin for late-night drinking bouts, where he freely humiliated them.
“What would you do without Stalin?” he asked one night. “You’d be like blind kittens.”
Then, on March 4, 1953, Moscow Radio announced “the misfortune which has overtaken our Party and the people—the serious illness of Comrade J.V. Stalin.
“During the night of March 1-2, while in his Moscow apartment, Comrade Stalin suffered a cerebral hemorrhage affecting vital areas of the brain.”
Death came to Stalin on March 5.
Officially, the cause was ruled a cerebral hemorrhage. Stalin was 73 and in poor health from a lifetime of smoking and little exercise.
So it’s possible he died of natural causes.
But it’s equally possible that he died of unnatural ones.
In the 2004 book, Stalin’s Last Crime, Vladimir P. Naumov, a Russian historian, and Jonathan Brent, a Yale University Soviet scholar, assert that he might have been poisoned.
If this happened, the occasion was during a final dinner with four members of the Politburo: Lavrenti P. Beria, chief of the secret police; Georgi M. Malenkov, Stalin’s immediate successor; Nikita S. Khrushchev, who eventually rose to the top spot; and Nikolai Bulganin.
Lavrenti Beria
The authors believe that, if Stalin was poisoned, the most likely suspect was Beria. And the method: Slipping warfarin, a tasteless and colorless blood thinner also used as a rat killer, into his glass of wine.
In Khrushchev’s 1970 memoirs, he quotes Beria as telling Vyacheslav M. Molotov, another Polituro member, two months after Stalin’s death: “I did him in! I saved all of you.”
Kim Jong Un had better hope that Communist history doesn’t repeat itself.
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BILL CLINTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BORDER WALL, BUZZFEED, CANADA, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, EMOLUMENTS CLAUSE, FACEBOOK, FASCISM, FBI, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GREAT BRITAIN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARRY S. TRUMAN, HUFFINGTON POST, JAMES COMEY, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOHN MCCAIN, JOSEPH BIDEN, JOSEPH R. MCCARPTHY, JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY, KIM JONG UN, KU KLUX KLAN, MEDIA MATTERS, MEIN KAMPF (BOOK), MIKA BREZINSKI, MITCH MCCONNELL, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NAZIS, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NEWT GINGRICH, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, PENTAGON, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RODNEY KING, RUSSIA, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWENTY-FIFTH AMENDMENT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMR ZELENSKY, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 9, 2022 at 12:12 am
In 2016, “reality show” host Donald Trump—with major assistance from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin—was elected President.
Throughout his four-year term, the Right enthusiastically supported him despite a record of unprecedented infamy—which included:
- Repeatedly and viciously attacking the nation’s free press for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters, calling it “the enemy of the American people.”
- Publicly siding with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—which unanimously agreed that Russia had interfered with the 2016 Presidential election.
- Praising Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen.
- Using his position as President to further enrich himself, in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
- Attacking and alienating America’s oldest allies, such as Canada and Great Britain.
- Firing FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump—and continuing to investigate Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
- Shutting down the Federal Government on December 22, 2018, because Democrats refused to fund his “border wall” between the United States and Mexico. An estimated 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay.
- Trying to coerce Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to smear former Vice President Joe Biden, who was likely to be his Democratic opponent in the 2020 Presidential election.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of Americans supported Trump’s actions or refused to actively oppose them.
On April 27, 2020, “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough offered an important insight about why most Americans ignored Trump’s crimes and outrages for so long:
“I’ve said from the very beginning: You can lie about independent counsels, people won’t listen. You can lie about former FBI directors—“
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: “It doesn’t impact their lives.”
JOE SCARBOROUGH: “They’re still going to work, the kids are doing fine, they’ve got enough money to pay their rent, to pay their mortgage. You can even lie about the Ukraine call—they don’t really care.”
Then-White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders provided strong evidence for this when she bragged, on June 4, 2018:
“Since taking office, the President has strengthened American leadership, security, prosperity, and accountability. And as we saw from Friday’s jobs report, our economy is stronger, Americans are optimistic, and business is booming.”
Donald Trump
Many Congressional Republicans echoed this: The American people care only about the economy—and how well-off they are.
But COVID-19 changed all that. Suddenly, millions of Americans found themselves stuck at home with their children. Many of them couldn’t go to work—because they were sick or their jobs had disappeared. Their 401Ks suddenly became worthless.
Had COVID-19 not intervened, Trump would still be President. And he wouldn’t have had to call on aid from Vladimir Putin. Millions of Right-wing, “I’ve-got-mine-so-screw-you” Americans would have happily returned him to office as “President-for-Life.”
During his 12-year reign, Adolf Hitler was the target of at least 42 overthrow plots. The most famous of these occurred on July 20, 1944.
So far as is known, Donald Trump was not the target of even one.
- No Cabinet members dared to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution to remove Trump for office as “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
- House and Senate Republicans rubberstamped his every infamy. When he praised North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-Un or attacked Vietnam POW John McCain or falsely charged massive voter fraud, Republicans stayed silent or loudly parroted his lies.
- On February 5, 2020, the Republican-dominated Senate—ignoring the overwhelming evidence against him—acquitted Trump on both impeachment articles: Obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.
- Just hours after Trump incited the deadly January 6, 2021 coup attempt at the United States Capitol, 147 Republicans lawmakers in the House and Senate voted to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss—following months of his baseless claims that the November election had been stolen.
- At the Pentagon, American generals stood mute as Trump repeatedly abused their ability and integrity, while pursuing policies calculated to aid Russia.
- Although they regularly met with Trump, none of them plotted his removal.
- No FBI agents—steeped in Federal criminal law—built a case for Trump’s indictment and prosecution. This despite his attacking their integrity and even firing their director, James Comey, for investigating Russia’s subversion of the 2016 election.
Trump knows he cannot win office in a free election.
So notorious was the role played by Russian trolls and hackers in winning Trump the 2016 election that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was determined to prevent a repetition in 2020.
Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, revamped the department’s cybersecurity efforts and increased coordination with state and local governments.
By all accounts—except Donald Trump’s—the November 3, 2020 election was virtually free of fraud. As a result, Trump lost.
That’s why legislators in Republican-controlled states are trying to corrupt election machinery at state and local levels—to nullify the votes of millions of Democrats in the 2022 and 2024 elections.
If they can restore a lifelong criminal to absolute power in 2024, Joseph Biden will be the last democratically-elected American President.
And Donald Trump will live out his dictatorial fantasies as “President-for-Life.”
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BILL CLINTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BORDER WALL, BUZZFEED, CANADA, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, EMOLUMENTS CLAUSE, FACEBOOK, FASCISM, FBI, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GREAT BRITAIN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARRY S. TRUMAN, HUFFINGTON POST, JAMES COMEY, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOE SCARBOROUGH, JOHN MCCAIN, JOSEPH BIDEN, JOSEPH R. MCCARPTHY, JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY, KIM JONG UN, KU KLUX KLAN, MEDIA MATTERS, MEIN KAMPF (BOOK), MIKA BREZINSKI, MITCH MCCONNELL, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NAZIS, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NEWT GINGRICH, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, PENTAGON, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RODNEY KING, RUSSIA, SALON, SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWENTY-FIFTH AMENDMENT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMR ZELENSKY, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 8, 2022 at 12:10 am
In his January 19 press conference, President Joseph Biden said: “I actually like Mitch McConnell. We like one another.”
In reality, McConnell refused to acknowledge Biden’s legitimacy as President-elect until December 15, 2020—more than one month after Biden’s election on November 3.
Additionally, at least 147 Republicans sided with Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him. And even after the treasonous attempted coup of January 6, 2021, many of them still refuse to accept the legitimacy of Biden’s win.
January 6, 2021’s attempted coup
Tyler Merbler from USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Republicans have enthusiastically embraced Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him—despite overwhelming evidence that it wasn’t.
Legislators in Republican-controlled states are now working furiously to corrupt election machinery at state and local levels so they can nullify the votes of millions of Democrats in the 2022 and 2024 elections.
Their ultimate goal: Restore a lifelong criminal and Russia-appeasing traitor to absolute power as “President-for-Life.”
In 1996, Newt Gingrich, then Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, wrote a memo entitled “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control.” It encouraged Republicans to attack Democrats with such words as “corrupt,” “selfish,” “destructive,” “hypocrisy,” “liberal,” “sick,” and “traitors.”
Republicans learned long ago that most voters aren’t moved by appeals to their rationality. Instead, what counts with them are emotions. And Republicans have become experts at appealing to these—especially the baser ones.
For Republicans, the Big Three emotions are: Hatred, Greed and Fear.
This has enabled Republicans to repeatedly score impressive electoral victories: Out of 17 Presidential elections since the end of World War II, Republicans have won 10.
But it’s not enough to see Republicans for what they are. Americans need to be seen for what they are.
Historically, the United States has always been a highly conservative nation. Going from “conservative” to “Fascist” is a relatively easy step—as millions of Donald Trump’s supporters have proven.
Since the end of World War 11, Republicans have regularly hurled the charge of “treason” against anyone who dared to run against them for office or think other than Republican-sponsored thoughts.
Republicans had been locked out of the White House from 1933 to 1952, during the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.
Determined to regain the Presidency by any means, they found that attacking the integrity of their fellow Americans a highly effective tactic.
During the 1950s, Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph R. McCarthy rode a wave of paranoia to national prominence—by attacking the patriotism of anyone who disagreed with him.
Joseph McCarthy
The fact that McCarthy never uncovered one actual case of treason was conveniently overlooked during his lifetime.
During the 1992 Presidential campaign, Republicans tried to paint Bill Clinton as a brainwashed “Manchurian candidate” because he had briefly visited the Soviet Union during his college years.
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Republicans lost their “soft on Communism” slander-line. So they tried to persuade voters that Democrats were “soft on crime.”
When riots flared in 1992 after the acquittal of LAPD officers who had savagely beaten Rodney King, President George H.W. Bush blamed the carnage on the “Great Society” programs of the 1960s.
George H.W. Bush
After losing the White House to Clinton at the polls in 1992 and 1996, Republicans tried to oust him another way: By impeaching him over a tryst with a penis-loving intern named Monica Lewinsky.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to impeach, but the effort was defeated in the Democratically-controlled Senate.
The 2008 election of Barack Obama pushed the Republican “treason chorus” to new heights of infamy.
Barack Obama
Almost immediately after Obama took office, he came under attack by an industry of right-wing book authors such as Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.
Consider the vocabulary Right-wingers use to describe their political adversaries:
“Liberals,” “radicals, “bankrupting,” “treason,” subversion,” “slander,” “terrorism,” “betrayal,” “catastrophe,” “shattering the American dream,” “leftists,” “Communists,” “government takeover,” “socialism,” “power grab,” “secularism,” “environmentalism.”
And while the Right lusts to constantly compare Democrats and liberals (the two aren’t always the same) to Nazis, its propaganda campaign draws heavily on Adolf Hitler’s own advice.
In Mein Kampf, the Nazi leader laid out his formula for successful propaganda: “All effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials.
“Those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotypical formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.
“[The masses] more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.”
Thus, Republicans spent the eight years of Barack Obama’s Presidency repeating the lie that he was born in Kenya—not Hawaii, as the long-form version of his birth certificate attests.
The reason: To “prove” that he was an illegitimate President, and should be removed from office.
To Republicans’ dismay, their slander campaign didn’t prevent Obama from being elected in 2008—and re-elected in 2012.
In 2016, “reality show” host Donald Trump—with major assistance from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin—was elected President. Throughout his four-year term, the Right enthusiastically supported him—despite a record of unprecedented infamy.
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID SATTER, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IT WAS A LONG TIME AGO AND IT NEVER HAPPENED ANYWAY (BOOK), JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOSEPH REPUBLICANS, JOSEPH STALIN, jOSH HAWLEY, MEDIA MATTERS, MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, MO BROOKS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAFAEL EDUARDO "TED" CRUZ, RAW STORY, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WONKETTE, WORLD WAR ii
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 7, 2022 at 12:11 am
Sixty-nine years ago, Joseph Stalin, absolute dictator of the Soviet Union, died on March 5, 1953.
And, 69 years later, Russians are still trying to come to terms with his almost 30-year legacy of mass imprisonment, wholesale executions, man-made famine and forced labor.
Of the eight leaders who succeeded Stalin, only Mikhail Gorbachev dared to confront the horrors of the Stalinist past. He recognized that the Soviet Union had reached a point of economic and political stagnation.
And he believed the only way to revitalize Communist society was to face the brutal truths of the Soviet past so new generations of Russians could reach beyond them to create the ideal “workers paradise.”
That experiment, known as glasnost, or “openness,” lasted through the reigns of Mikhail Gorbachev (1985-1991) and Boris Yeltsin (1991-1999) and ended with the arrival of Vladimir Putin (2000).
The price for this unwillingness to face brutalities of the past—and, worse, to deny that they occurred—has been devastating.
It has been vividly described by David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent and longtime writer on Russia and the Soviet Union for the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal.
As the dust jacket of his 2012 history, It Was a Long Time Ago and It Neve Happened Anyway, sums up:
“Russia today is haunted by deeds that have not been examined and words that have been left unsaid.
“A serious attempt to understand the meaning of the Communist experience has not been undertaken, and millions of victims of Soviet Communism are all but forgotten.
“In this book David Satter….presents a striking new interpretation of Russia’s great historical tragedy, locating its source in Russia’s failure fully to appreciate the value of the individual in comparison with the objectives of the state.
“Satter explores the moral and spiritual crisis of Russian society. He shows how it is possible for a government to deny the inherent value of its citizens and for the population to agree, and why so many Russians actually mourn the passing of the Soviet regime that denied them fundamental rights.”
Today, Stalin’s estimated 20 million victims—the vast majority of them Russians—are being consigned to oblivion. In their place is the image of Joseph Stalin as the victor of “The Great Patriotic War” against Nazi Germany.
Joseph Stalin
World War II—now over for almost 75 years—remains a pivotal event for Russians. It marks the time when—after horrifically suffering 22 million casualties—the Soviet Union pushed the German armies all the way back to Berlin.
Left out in this history: The Soviet Union received massive amounts of American military equipment from its 1941 invasion to its ultimate triumph in 1945.
Also removed from this history:
- Stalin’s wholesale purges of the Red Army in the 1930s had made the country vulnerable to the German attack; and
- So had Stalin’s “nonaggression” pact with Germany in 1939, where he and Hitler secretly and aggressively divided Poland between them.
It was the German invasion of Poland, on September 1, 1939, that ignited World War II.
But Russian Communists no longer have a monopoly on rewriting the past. Today they have been joined by American Republicans.
Just hours after the January 6, 2021 attempted coup at the United States Capitol Building, 147 Republican lawmakers voted to overturn then-president Donald Trump’s election loss. This followed two months of his lies that the November 3 Presidential election had been stolen.
For more than a year since that election, most Republicans have refused to say whether Joseph Biden was legitimately elected President of the United States.
Reuters asked the office of every lawmaker who voted against certifying Biden’s victory through the Electoral College: “Do you believe that Donald Trump lost the election because of voter fraud?”
Fully 133 lawmakers, or 90%, refused to answer or respond to multiple inquiries.
Among them: Senators Rafael Eduardo “Ted” Cruz and Josh Hawley—who led the coalition of objectors—and Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama, who also tried to overturn the election.
Rafael Eduardo “Ted” Cruz
Hawley claimed in a December 30 statement that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state election laws.
That was an argument multiple courts had already rejected.
But he later told CNN: “I was very clear from the beginning that I was never attempting to overturn the election.”
Josh Hawley
On the contrary: His actions had made it abundantly clear that he was attempting to do exactly that.
Hawley refused to respond to Reuters’ multiple inquiries on whether he believed Trump lost because of voter fraud,
Cruz also tried to stretch the truth in two different directions.
In a January 2, 2021 joint statement with 10 other Senators and Senators-elect, he said: “By any measure, the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes.”
But on January 6—the day of the Capitol attack—Cruz said: “Let me be clear. I am not arguing for setting aside the result of this election.”
In fact, he had been doing exactly that.
And the lies spun by Republicans that Donald Trump had been cheated of victory by fraud directly triggered the treasonous attempt by Trump’s followers to brutally overturn the results of that election.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ACAM SCHIFF, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BRETT CROZIER, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHARLES PIERCE, CHRIS KREBS, CNN, CONVERSATION WITH AN AMERICAN WRITER (POEM), CORONAVIRUS, CROOKS AND LIARS, CYBERSECURITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY, DAILY KOS, DAILY KOZ, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, DIMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE REPORT, ESQUIRE MAGAZINE, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS NETWORK, GREAT TERROR, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, HUFFINGTON POST, JOSEPH BIDEN, JOSEPH STALIN, MARIA YOVANOVICH, MEDIA MATTERS, MICROSOFT, MIKHAIL TUKHACHEVESKY, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NIKOLAI ZHILAYEV, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUDY GIULIANI, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THOMAS MODLY, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, WEHRMACHT, WONKETTE, WORLD WAR ii, YEVGENEY YEVTUSHENKO
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 4, 2022 at 12:14 am
Dictators bring out the worst in their followers.
But they also bring out the best in those who dare to oppose them.
Next hero: Marie Yovanovitch, the former United States ambassador to Ukraine (2016 – 2019). She had joined the Foreign Service in 1986, and served as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan (2005 – 2008) and Armenia (2008 – 2011).
In May 2019, on President Donald Trump’s orders, the State Department recalled Yovanovitch as ambassador to Ukraine. She had earned respect from the national security community for her efforts to encourage Ukraine to tackle corruption.
But she had been criticized by Right-wing media outlets—notably Fox News Network—and by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
Marie Yovanovitch
CNN reported that Yovanovitch stopped Giuliani from interviewing witnesses in his search for politically damaging information against former Vice President Joe Biden, whose son, Hunter, had had business dealings in Ukraine.
On October 11, 2019, she appeared before the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA). She did so in defiance of orders by the White House and State Department to not attend.
“She was a hero even before she hit the hearing room,” wrote Charles Pierce for Esquire magazine.
“She told them to stuff their directives, she would answer a congressional subpoena like a citizen is supposed to do. And she didn’t sneak in through the basement. She walked into the Capitol through the front doors, and she didn’t do so to fck around.”
Testifying for nearly 10 hours, Yovanovitch said that Trump had removed her from her post owing to “unfounded and false claims” and “a concerted campaign against me.”
She believed that associates of Trump’s personal lawyer, Giuliani, might have thought “that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”
And she warned that the State Department was being “attacked and hollowed out from within. State Department leadership, with Congress, needs to take action now to defend this great institution, and its thousands of loyal and effective employees.”
Another victim on Trump’s hate-list was Chis Krebs.
During the 2016 Presidential race, Russian propaganda had played a major role in convincing millions of Americans to vote for Donald Trump. Social media platforms—especially Facebook and Twitter—were flooded with genuinely fake news to sow discord among Americans and create a pathway for Trump’s election.
And where Internet trolls left off, Russian computer hackers took over.
Trump didn’t win a majority of the popular vote. But he got enough help from Putin to triumph in the Electoral College.
So notorious was the role played by Russian trolls and hackers in winning Trump the 2016 election that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was determined to prevent a repetition in 2020.
And point man for this was Chris Krebs.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1977, Krebs had received a B.A. in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia in 1999, and a J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law in 2007.
Chris Krebs
Krebs had served as Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection, and later worked in the private sector as Director for Cybersecurity Policy for Microsoft.
Now he was director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS.
In preparation for the 2020 Presidential election, Krebs launched a massive effort to counter lies spread by Russians—and Americans—on social media platforms. Among his duties:
- Sharing Intelligence from agencies such as the CIA and National Security Agency with local officials about foreign efforts at election interference.
- Ensuring that domestic voting equipment was secure.
- Attacking domestic misinformation head-on.
As a result, Krebs was widely praised for revamping the department’s cybersecurity efforts and increasing coordination with state and local governments.
By all accounts—except Trump’s—the November 3, 2020 election went very smoothly.
As a result of the vast increase in election security, Trump not only failed to win the popular vote again but couldn’t get the help he expected from Putin.
On November 17, Trump fired Chris Krebs.
The reason: Krebs had not only countered Russian propaganda lies—he had dared to counter Trump’s as well. For example: He rejected Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud: There “is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
In a November 17 story on the CNN website, CNN reporters Kaitlan Collins and Paul LeBlanc bluntly concluded:
“[Krebs’] dismissal underscores the lengths Trump is willing to go to punish those who don’t adopt his conspiratorial view of the election.
“Since CNN and other outlets called the race for President-elect Joe Biden, Trump has refused to accept the results, instead pushing baseless conspiracies that his second term is being stolen.”
Yet, by depriving Trump of Russian help, Krebs ensured a victory for democracy.
On January 6, the House and Senate counted the Electoral Votes—and pronounced Joseph Biden the winner—bringing an end to Trump’s reign of criminality and treason.
In his 1960 poem, “Conversation With an American Writer,” the Russian poet, Yevgeney Yevtushenko spoke for those Russians who had maintained their integrity in the face of Stalinist terror:
“You have courage,” they tell me.
It’s not true. I was never courageous.
I simply felt it unbecoming
to stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Republicans in the United States Senate and House of Representatives in the face of Trump terror.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ADAM SCHIFF, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARMENIA, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHARLES PIERCE, CNN, CONVERSATION WITH AN AMERICAN WRITER (POEM), CORY GARDNER, CORY GRADINER, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DAILY KOZ, DIMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH, DONALD TRUMP, ESQUIRE MAGAZINE, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOREIGN SERVICE, GREAT TERROR, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, HUNTER BIDEN, JAMES COMEY, JEFF SESSIONS, JOE BIDEN, JONI ERNST, JOSEPH STALIN, KEITH SCHILLER, KYRGYZSTAN, MARIA YOVANOVITCH, MARIE YOVANOVICH, MARTHA MCSALLY, MICHAEL ATKINSON, MIKE FLYNN, MIKHAIL TUKHACHEVESKY, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, NIKOLAI ZHILAYEV, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT MUELLER III, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RUDOLPH GIULIANI, RUDY GIULIANI, RUSSIAN ESPIONAGEky, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVOV, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, STATE DEPARTMENT, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THOM TILLIS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, WEHRMACHT, WORLD WAR 11, YEVGENEY YEVTUSHENKO
In History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 3, 2022 at 12:10 am
It takes courage to stand up to dictators. These Russians—and Americans—did so.
And paid the price.
Next up: Nikolai Sergeyvich Zhilayev (pronounced Zill-lay-ev) was a Russian musicologist and the teacher of several 20th-century Russian composers.
Among these: Dimitri Shostakovich (September 25, 1906 – August 9, 1975)
Among his friends—to his ultimate misfortune—was Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky, the former military hero now falsely condemned and executed as a traitor by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
In 1938, Zhilayev (November 18, 1881 – January 20, 1938) also became a casualty of what has become known as The Great Terror.
In his posthumously-published memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich, his pupil and friend, described how Zhilayev faced his end with a calmness that awed even the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) secret police sent to arrest him.
Dimitri Shostakovich
“He had a large picture of Tukhachevsky in his room, and after the announcement that Tukhachevsky had been shot as a traitor to the homeland, Zhilayev did not take the picture down.
“I don’t know if I can explain how heroic a deed that was….As soon as the next poor soul was declared an enemy of the people, everyone destroyed in a panic everything connected with that person….
“And naturally, photographs flew into the fire first, because if someone informed on you, reported that you had a picture of an enemy of the people, it meant certain death.
“Zhilayev wasn’t afraid. When they came for him, Tukhachevsky’s prominently hung portrait amazed even the executioners.”
“What, it’s still up?” one of the secret police asked.
“The time will come,” Zhilayev replied, “when they’ll erect a monument to him.”
As, in fact, has happened.
Meanwhile, Stalin has been universally condemned as one of history’s greatest tyrants.
Third hero—Brett Crozier, the former commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.
Graduating from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1992, he received his Master’s Degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College in 2007.
From 2017 to 2018 he commanded the USS Blue Ridge. In November, 2019, he was given command of the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.
On March 24, 2020, reports circulated that three members of the crew had tested positive for COVID-19. The next day the number of stricken sailors increased to eight. A few days later, it was “dozens.” The sailors reportedly became ill at sea, two weeks after a port call at Danang, Vietnam.
The initial cases were airlifted to a military hospital. The Roosevelt was ordered to Guam. After the ship docked on March 27, 2020, all 5,000 aboard were ordered to be tested for the virus. But only about 100 stricken sailors were allowed to leave the ship. The rest remained on board.
On March 30, Crozier emailed a four-page internal letter to multiple Naval officials, pleading to have the majority of the crew evacuated and quarantined on shore. Given the crowded sleeping quarters and narrow passageways of the vessel, Crozier wrote that it was impossible to follow social distancing and quarantine procedures:
“This will require a political solution but it is the right thing to do. We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset—our Sailors….
“This is a necessary risk. Keeping over 4,000 young men and women on board the TR is an unnecessary risk and breaks faith with those Sailors entrusted to our care.”
Brett Crozier
Crozier sent his letter via a non-secure, unclassified email to 20 to 30 recipients, as well as the captain’s immediate chain of command. He reportedly believed that his immediate supervisor would not allow him to send it.
And his superior later confirmed that he would not have allowed Crozier to send it.
On March 31, someone leaked the letter to the San Francisco Chronicle, which published it.
On April 1, the Navy ordered the aircraft carrier evacuated. A skeleton crew of 400 remained aboard to maintain the nuclear reactor, the fire-fighting equipment, and the ship’s galley.
On April 2, Crozier was relieved of command by acting United States Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly.
By that time, about 114 crew members—out of a total of around 4,000—reportedly tested positive for COVID-19.
As Crozier disembarked, sailors loudly saluted him with a standing ovation: “Cap-tain Cro-zier!”
Modly claimed that Crozier’s letter “raised alarm bells unnecessarily. It undermines our efforts and the chain of command’s efforts to address this problem, and creates a panic and this perception that the Navy’s not on the job, that the government’s not on the job, and it’s just not true.”
Actually, the Trump administration had frittered away January and February, with President Donald Trump giving multiple—and misleading—press conferences. In these, he played down the dangers of COVID-19, saying that “we’re on top of it”—even as the virus spread across the country.
“It was a betrayal. And I can tell you one other thing: because he did that he put it in the public’s forum and it is now a big controversy in Washington, DC,” continued Modly. [Italics added]
This was the United States Navy under Donald Trump—who threw “betrayal” and “treason” at anyone who dared reveal the truth about institutional crimes and failures.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ADAM SCHIFF, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARMENIA, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHARLES PIERCE, CNN, CONVERSATION WITH AN AMERICAN WRITER (POEM), CORY GARDNER, CORY GRADINER, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DAILY KOZ, DIMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH, DONALD TRUMP, ESQUIRE MAGAZINE, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOREIGN SERVICE, GREAT TERROR, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, HUNTER BIDEN, JAMES COMEY, JEFF SESSIONS, JOE BIDEN, JONI ERNST, JOSEPH STALIN, KEITH SCHILLER, KYRGYZSTAN, MARIA YOVANOVITCH, MARIE YOVANOVICH, MARTHA MCSALLY, MICHAEL ATKINSON, MIKE FLYNN, MIKHAIL TUKHACHEVESKY, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, NIKOLAI ZHILAYEV, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT MUELLER III, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RUDOLPH GIULIANI, RUDY GIULIANI, RUSSIAN ESPIONAGEky, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVOV, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, STATE DEPARTMENT, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THOM TILLIS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, WEHRMACHT, WORLD WAR 11, YEVGENEY YEVTUSHENKO
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 2, 2022 at 1:38 am
…A truly great man is ever the same under all circumstances. And if his fortune varies, exalting him at one moment and oppressing him at another, he himself never varies, but always preserves a firm courage, which is so closely interwoven with his character that everyone can readily see that the fickleness of fortune has no power over him.
The conduct of weak men is very different. Made vain and intoxicated by good fortune, they attribute their success to merits which they do not possess. And this makes them odious and insupportable to all around them. And when they have afterwards to meet a reverse of fortune, they quickly fall into the other extreme, and become abject and vile.
—Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses
Four heroes, three villains.
Two of the heroes are Russians; three are Americans.
The villains: One Russian (actually, Georgian); two American.
First up—in order of disappearance: Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky (pronounced too-ka-chev-sky).
Tukhachevsky (February 4, 1893 – June 12, 1937) was a major Soviet military leader and theoretician from 1918 to 1937.
He commanded the Soviet Western Front during the Russian-Polish War (1920-21) and served as Chief of Staff of the Red Army (1925-1928).
He fought to modernize Soviet armament, as well as develop airborne, aviation and mechanized forces. Almost singlehandedly, he created the theory of deep operations for Soviet forces.
Mikhail Tukhachevsky
All of these innovations would reap huge dividends when the Soviet Union faced the lethal fury of Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht.
In 1936, Tukhachevsky warned Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that Nazi Germany might attack without warning—and ignite a long and murderous war.
Stalin—the son of a Georgian cobbler—resented Tukhachevsky’s coming from a noble family. A monumental egomaniac, he also hated that Tukhachevesky’s fame rivaled his own.
Warned of the approaching German danger, Stalin shouted: “What are you trying to do—frighten Soviet authority?”
Joseph Stalin
The attack that Tukhachevsky warned against came five years later—on June 22, 1941, leaving at least 26 million Russians dead.
But Tukhachevsky wasn’t alive to command a defense.
The 1930s were a frightening and dangerous time to be alive in the Soviet Union. In 1934, Stalin, seeing imaginary enemies everywhere, ordered a series of purges that lasted right up to the German invasion.
An example of Stalin’s paranoia occurred one day while the dictator walked through the Kremlin corridors with Admiral Ivan Isakov. Officers of the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) stood guard at every corner.
“Every time I walk down the corridors,” said Stalin, “I think: Which one of them is it? If it’s this one, he will shoot me in the back. But if I turn the corner, the next one can shoot me in the face.”
In 1937-38, the Red Army fell prey to Stalin’s paranoia.
Its victims included:
- Three of five marshals (five-star generals);
- Thirteen of 15 army commanders (three- and four-star generals);
- Fifty of 57 army corps commanders; and
- One hundred fifty-four out of 186 division commanders.
And heading the list of those marked for death was Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
Arrested on May 22, 1937, he was interrogated and tortured. As a result, he “confessed” to being a German agent plotting to overthrow Stalin and seize power.
On his confession, which survives in the archives, his bloodstains can clearly be seen.
On June 11, 1937, the Soviet Supreme Court convened a special military tribunal to try Tukhachevsky and eight generals for treason.
It was a sham: The accused were denied defense attorneys, and could not appeal the verdict—-which was foregone: Death.
In a Russian version of poetic justice, five of the eight generals who served as Tukhachevsky’s judges were themselves later condemned and executed as traitors.
Within hours of the verdict, Tukhachevsky was summoned from his cell and shot once in the back of the head.
From 1937 until 1956, Tukhachevsky was officially declared a traitor and fifth-columnist.
Then, on February 25, 1957, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev delivered his bombshell “Secret Speech” to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
In this, he denounced Stalin (who had died in 1953) as a ruthless tyrant responsible for the slaughter of millions of innocent men, women and children. He condemned Stalin for creating a “personality cult” around himself, and for so weakening the Red Army that Nazi Germany was able to easily overrun half of the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1943.
On January 31, 1957, Tukhachevsky and his co-defendants were declared innocent of all charges and were “rehabilitated.”
Today, he is once again—rightly—considered a Russian hero and military genius. And Stalin is universally—and rightly—seen as a blood-stained tyrant.
Mikhail Tukhachevsky appears on a 1963 Soviet Union postage stamp
Next hero: Nikolai Sergeyvich Zhilayev (pronounced Zill-lay-ev)
Zhilayev (November 18, 1881 – January 20, 1938) was a Russian musicologist and the teacher of several 20th-century Russian composers. Among these: Dimitri Shostakovich.
Zhilayev, a member of the Russian Academy of Art-Sciences, taught at the Moscow Conservatory. Among his friends—to his ultimate misfortune—was Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
In 1938, he, too, became a casualty of what has become known as The Great Terror.
In his posthumously-published memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich, his pupil and friend, described how Zhilayev faced his end with a calmness that awed even the NKVD secret police sent to arrest him.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ATOMIC BOMB, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BEIRUT BOMBING, BILL CLINTON, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHRIS MATTHEWS, CNN, COMMUNISM, CROOKS AND LIARS, CULTS, DAILY KOZ, ECONOMICS, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, HARDBALL, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IRAN, IRAN-CONTRA AFFAIR, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOSEPH STALIN, MEDIA MATTERS, MEET THE PRESS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, POLLUTION, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REUTERS, Ronald Reagan, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, Secret Service, SLATE, SOVIET NUCLEAR PHYSICS, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TAX CUTS, TERRORISM, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THIS WEEK, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, Vladimir Lenin
REAGAN GETS LENIN’S FUNERAL
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 7, 2022 at 12:13 amOn February 6, 2011, Ronald Reagan, if he had been alive, would have been 100 years old.
Publishers rushed to put out worshipful tributes to his eight years as President. Network political programs such as “This Week” and “Meet the Press” assembled surviving members of his administration to re-live the “glory days” of Reagan’s—and their—time in power.
Actually, it was during the Reagan administration that America entered its decline—a Right-wing legacy of huge Federal deficits, tax-cuts for the rich, bloated military budgets and cutbacks in government programs to aid the poor and middle-class.
Ronald Reagan
No two men could have been more different than Vladimir Lenin and Ronald Reagan. Lenin created the Soviet Union in 1917 and became its first in a series of absolute dictators. Reagan spent his life fighting Communism, most notably as President.
So it’s ironic that both men, in death, got essentially the same funeral—and for the same reason: To sanctify and legitimize their respective organizations—and the authority of their potential successors.
Vladimir Lenin
Lenin died in 1924 and was immediately succeeded by Joseph Stalin. Stalin knew that, despite Communism’s official atheistic stance, most Russians remained loyal to the Russian Orthodox Church.
So in giving Lenin’s funeral oration, Stalin used the language of religion to confer sainthood upon a militant atheist—and upon his successor, Stalin himself: “We vow to thee, Comrade Lenin, that we will fulfill this, thy commandment….”
Funeral for Vladimir Lenin
Stalin and his fellow Communists immediately launched the “cult of Lenin,” depicting him as a fatherly, all-wise leader whose genius could only be bestowed upon his closest disciples.
Lenin’s extensive political writings were treated as divine writ, and were used to justify everything Stalin and his own successors wanted to do.
A classic example: Although he died 20 years before the American creation of the atomic bomb, Lenin was hailed by the Soviets as the “father” of “Soviet nuclear physics.”
Similarly, Republicans quickly turned Reagan into a modern-day saint of mythical proportions.
They did so for the same reason that Stalin deliberately forged a cult around the dead Lenin—to create a “holy” figure of whom other Republicans can claim to be true disciples.
Funeral for Ronald Reagan
These deliberate fictions conveniently ignore a series of ugly truths:
Reagan famously attacked “welfare queens” and sought to deny government benefits for the poor. But he didn’t hesitate to enrich himself at public expense.
The “cult of Lenin” died when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The “cult of Reagan” died only when it was superseded by that of Donald Trump.
Share this: