Adam Michnik...

...resurfaces:

The Russian Godfather: A View from Poland

 From Solidarity to Democracy

Adam Michnik: 'We Must Stop Putin'  (Video at this site)

Polish Dissident Adam Michnik: 'We Are Bastards of Communism'

 "Adam Michnik is editor-in-chief of Poland's leading daily and its most prominent former dissident. In a SPIEGEL interview, he talks about the threat of authoritarian regimes in Eastern Europe, the decline of the region's political culture and feelings of being treated like second-class citizens in Europe."

 He's right. Something went horribly wrong for Eastern Europe following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

 

Time Marches On

Muhammad Ali health: Boxing legend misses own premiere because he is 'so ill he can barely speak', his brother claims

"Muhammad Ali’s battle with debilitating Parkinson’s disease has reached the point at which he can barely speak, his brother has revealed.

The legendary boxer, 72, was too ill to attend the premiere of a film about his life last week – or to take part in any of the production for it."

[---]

"Muhammad’s son, Ali Jnr, said in January he believed there was "no chance" his father would survive until the end of 2014.

"I just want, hope and pray to God that this awful disease takes my dad sooner rather than later," he said."

And Gorbi, too: Mikhail Gorbachev reportedly 'fighting for his life' as health deteriorates in hospital

"Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Russian leader, is in hospital fighting for his life after his health deteriorated, Russian news sources are reporting.

“My state of health has been moderate for a week and today I am in hospital,” agency Ria Novosti quoted the 83-year-old politician as saying.

“My health is deteriorating.”

“I'm hooked up to a monitor,” he added."

[---]

"Famed for introducing widespread reforms glasnost (openness) and perestroika (rebuilding), Gorbachev was the last leader of the Soviet Union in 1985.

A Nobel Peace laureate, who has been heavily critical of the aggressive foreign policy of current Russian President Vladimir Putin, is thought to suffer from diabetes."

Maybe I'm next.

Interesting what he says about Putin, isn't it?

Ukraine

Ukraine conflict: How we got here - in two minutes

The Empire Strikes Back

Without Realizing It, Russian Soldiers Are Proving Vladimir Putin Is Lying About Eastern Ukraine

Vladimir Putin ‘wants to regain Finland’ for Russia, adviser says

What's next, I wonder? Latvia? Estonia? Lithuania? East Germany? He seems to be pining for the good old days of the USSR.

With Snow On The Ground...

...and bone chilling temperature, I thought I'd treat myself to a little history - AKA war by other means.

What Started As...

..a dual over striking Syria, has turned into a tug of war between Obama and Putin:

Obama team fires back at Putin op-ed on Syria

Amid all the sorrow and inhumanity in the world, sometimes there is outright hilarity. What's Obama going to do next? Bang his shoe on the desk in the Oval Office and then throw it at Putin? Funny how history just keeps playing over and over and over:

Missed This...

...but I guess after 52 years it doesn't matter that much:

Cosmic Bash: Parties on Earth and Mars Celebrate Human Spaceflight

Fifty-two years ago Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, ushering in the final, intense competition of the Cold War. Thank God the Americans won. If they can just save themselves from oblivion now.

And speaking as a female, Yuri was kinda cute when he was young, wasn't he?

Quick now. Who was the first American in space?

And I didn't know Gagarin died while test-piloting a MiG-15. Learn sumtin new every day.

One Week Away...

...from the 20th Olympiad, and the politics has already begun. Some are calling for a moment of silence in memory of the 11 Israeli athletes who were murdered in the 1972 Olympics, by, of course, Palestinian terrorists. But, so far, it looks like it will be business as usual. Of course, this won't stop athletes from individual countries from making a statement of one kind or another. I hope Canada's team will be sporting Israeli insignia, flags, etc. as well as Canadian ones while they are there.

And remember the good old days, when the Soviet Union used to send male athletes to compete in female events, you know those husky women with the five o'clock shadow of their faces and rather unusual body shapes for women. Well, it looks like perhaps the Saudis are going to have to do the same thing.

"Saudi Arabia’s pledge to send women to the London 2012 Olympics might fail because the country has little prospects of finding athletes who meet international standards.

According to a Saudi newspaper, what slim prospects the nation had of qualifying women are gone and Saudi Arabia will only send men.

“We are still trying to find women to qualify,” an embassy official told the BBC today. “The problem is finding women to meet the minimum criteria. This matter is being negotiated now between the (International Olympic Committee) and the Saudi Olympic committee.”"

Betcha there will be lots of female athletes among the Israeli Apartheid (cough, hack, hack) Team (/sarc) though.

In the meantime, look for the Olympic Committee to lower its standards so the Sauds can participate.

I Feel Old

Fifty-one years ago. The sad thing is that I remember this, very clearly.

Gorbi Weighs...

....in.

"Mr. Gorbachev, now an octogenarian, was one of the first Russian political figures to start warning – more than a year ago – that Vladimir Putin's autocratic, top-down Kremlin-centric regime risked repeating many of the errors that led to the downfall of the USSR and could face a mass challenge from the streets if it failed to implement democratic reforms.

Now that protest movement has materialized and Gorbachev, who faced a popular groundswell of opposition in the dying days of the Soviet Union, is advising Mr. Putin to drop his bid for election to a third presidential term in March 4 polls and leave.

With society turning against him, Putin is no longer able to handle the burdens of the presidency, Gorbachev said during a meeting with students at Moscow's International University today."

[---]

""Most likely Putin will manage to become president" in next month's voting, Gorbachev said. The election features a ballot from which most serious challengers have been weeded out. "But if he fails to overcome himself, and the situation in our country fails to change significantly following the presidential election, people will take to the streets again," Gorbachev added."

Strange how international politics unfold. You just never know how things will turn out. And I didn't know there had been protests in the streets of Moscow. You have to wonder why Vlad the Impaler is not interested in coming in from the cold.

Sad News

Former Czech president Vaclav Havel dies

"Havel, the president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 to 1992 and of the successor Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003, had long battled poor health, partly caused by the five years he spent in communist jails."

Perhaps he was not that well known, but I admired the man, most especially for the way he peacefully negotiated the breakup of Czechoslovakia into two countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. He was one of a small group of great men whose work brought about the end of the Soviet Empire and restored Eastern Europe. Not bad, for a playwright. Not bad at all.

Oh, and I think the Velvet Revolution was the first of a long line of similar "revolutions" in other parts of the world - of people longing to be free.

Rest in peace, good man.

Why Is It....

...that old commies have such difficulty with growing old and facing the certainty that their life may soon be over?

New Fidel Castro photos aim to dispel health rumors

What does he think? We're stupid? Maybe. After all, he seems to think the Cuban people are stupid. As if they haven't figured out his "revolution" is a sham.

I remember when Mao and several of the old head haunchos of the soviet politburo croaked. It was days before the state run media would admit he was dead. You'd think they'd have the succession issue settled before the old man croaks, but I guess no one wanted to admit that old men, even commies, eventually die. Perhaps planning for such an eventuality could land one in prison, or the gulag.

And, ya, I know Fidel hand picked his brother to take over, but I'm sure Fidel himself is still involved. That sorta comes with the perq of being able to handpick your successor.

Wasn't That...

long ago that I wrote about Gagarin, the first man in space. And here we are, coming up to the 50th anniversary of that event. And here I sit, wondering how'd I get so old, so fast.

About Revolutions

By Niall Ferguson:

"President Obama is reluctant to intervene in the bloody civil war now underway in Libya. As a senior aide told The New York Times last week, “He keeps reminding us that the best revolutions are completely organic.” I like that notion of organic revolutions—guaranteed no foreign additives, exclusive to Whole Foods. I like it because, like so much about this administration, it is both trendy and ignorant.

Was the American Revolution “completely organic”? Funny, I could have sworn those were French ships off Yorktown. What about Britain’s Glorious Revolution, the one that established parliamentary rule? Strange, I had this crazy idea that William III was a Dutchman.

The reality is that very few revolutions, good or bad, succeed without some foreign assistance. Lenin had German money; Mao had Soviet arms. Revolutions that don’t get some help from outside aren’t so much inorganic as unsuccessful. Indeed, they generally don’t go down in history as revolutions at all. More than one revolt has been brutally crushed by an Arab dictator—think of the Marsh Arabs’ fate at the hands of Saddam Hussein. Such events tend to be remembered as massacres. We must hope that someone gives President Obama a history lesson before thousands of Libyans share their fate. It will be tragic indeed if America concludes from the experience of overthrowing murderous tyrannies in Afghanistan and Iraq that the correct policy is to turn a blind eye to murder in Libya. That, remember, was the policy pursued by the last Democrat to occupy the White House, in Rwanda as well as, for much too long, in Bosnia."

RTWT

I disagree with his concluding arguments, though. I think the Vaclav Havels and Andrei Sakharovs have already derived their inspiration and were the young folks who inspired so many to come out on to the streets in Tunis and Cairo.

Putin Tells a Joke

He must know. He was one of them.

History of Modern Iran: Brits, Yanks and Ruskies

ht Spirit of Man

Russia Examines Its Past

Stalin and Mind Control

Many, many years ago, when I was still married and living in Saskatoon, my husband's brother and his wife also lived in Saskatoon. On one occasion her mother came to Canada for a visit.

The wife and, of course, her mother were citizens of the USSR. The brother, who was a member of the Iraqi Communist Party, had fled to the Soviet Union from Baghdad during one of the periods in which Saddam Hussein was attacking commies who were working against the Ba'athist regime, and secured a job in Moscow as a translator of technical literature. The wife's father had taught communism at a university in Moscow. The brother and his wife had later emigrated to Canada.  She eventually went back to Russia, but he stayed and became a Canadian citizen.

During the mother's visit I remember a conversation in our living room after hosting a dinner for them. My ex asked the older lady who she thought had been the best leader of the USSR. What she said stunned us. She replied that the greatest president they had ever had was Stalin. The series "Stalin and Mind Control" (linked above) will illustrate why we were both so astonished as well as how easy it is for a government to terrorize its citizens, a practice that Saddam Hussein was in the process of perfecting against his own citizens.

One of the videos in my previous entry - The History of Political Correctness - draws the many connections between today's leftist causes, the USSR and the history of communism. This includes why and how children are targets of indoctrination, the role universities so willingly play through the multitude of phony disciplines practicing "critical theory" (see also "Indoctrination U"), and especially how the doctrine of political correctness became so prevalent in today's "victim" industries, such as environmentalism, feminism, strident anti-Americanism, "black studies" and other special "victims" studies. We see this in the modern Israeli Apartheid nonsense so prevalent in our universities, in the dreck that comes out of Hollywood and in Canada's Indian Industry, too, and of course, in the fiasco emanating from Ann Coulter's attempt to speak at the University of Ottawa and our political correctness enforcers, the Human Rights regimes.

So many of today's youth are Stalin's willing accomplices, but because of their age, they know nothing about the communist era and are not likely to learn much about Stalin's butchery from many of the professors in a host of university departments across the Western world.  Stalin was responsible for the twentieth century's biggest genocide. I could go on, but I'll leave it at that.  Suffice it to say that the impact of Stalinist Russia is still very much with us, not only in Russia, but in the rest of the world as well, and we have a long road ahead before it is eliminated.