Posted by Sean on June 26, 2007
If Victims of Communism Museums, nuclear bomb shelter tours, and talk of a “New Cold War” isn’t enough to satisfy your nostalgia for a bi-polar world, try Cold War Unicorns. Yes! Cold War Unicorns are bound to fully recreate that pitched battle between Communism and Capitalism that only ideological warfare and proxy wars could produce, albeit this time with a magical mythical flare. As the Archie McPhee Toy Company website promises:
The Cold War Unicorns Play Set allows you to play out the intense struggle between two global superpowers in the majestic fantasy world of the Unicorn! Can the Communist Unicorn’s horn of classless social structure hold up against the Freedom Unicorn’s hooves of capitalist opportunity? Each hard vinyl unicorn is 3-3/4″ tall with articulated joints for all sorts of dramatic poses.
And to think I thought a gas mask with a Geiger counter was cool.
A friend passed ..read more
Posted by Sean on June 26, 2007
Some old habits die hard. Eighty years after Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Bolshevik Party, the KPRF is still afraid of Trotskyists. The Moscow Times reports that Anatoly Baranov, the KPRF’s webmaster, has been hauled in front of the Party’s Central Control Commission and charged with stubbornly pushing “the Communist Party from the victorious Leninist path onto the false Trotskyist path of a rapid revolution, effectively carried out in the interests of the pro-Western bourgeoisie, rather than in the interests of the Russian people, and leading to the total occupation of Russia by NATO forces.” Baranov called the charges “schizophrenic raving.”
To quote Kyle’s mom, “What! What! What!?” Trotskyism? You gotta be fucking kidding me.
Yes, Trotskyism is alive and well in the KPRF. Now dubbed “neo-Trotskyism,” the followers of the shunned revolutionary appear to continue ..read more
Posted by Sean on June 26, 2007
You know Russia has hit the mainstream when CNN decides to devote a entire week of programming to it. All week CNN is running a daily half hour series called “Eye on Russia: The New Dawn.” Presumably the series is connected to Putin’s upcoming trip to the US. The topics include Russia’s “resurgence,” Russian youth, business, “the future,” and arts and culture. The first topic ran yesterday and you can view segments of it online here.
I must say that I think that former Gorbachev scribe Alexei Pushkov did an excellent job addressing CNN’s Jim Clancy’s loaded, and rather simpleton, questions. You could hear the disappointment in Clancy’s voice when Pushkov had to inform him that Russia isn’t going to be just like the West. “It’s not,” Clancy muttered with disappointment. What a boob.
What I really wonder is who Pushkov and Clancy meant ..read more
