Monthly Archives: July 2008

Two references to Russia being the next Nazi Germany in two days. The one from the left came yesterday. Fortunately, Daniel Silva is no intellectual heavy hitter and his Russia paranoia is likely to quietly dissipate into the ether.

Today’s however comes from someone who carries a big intellectual bat.  Namely, the ever loving Richard Pipes.  Pipes needs no introduction.  His Russophobia is well documented in print and Cold Warrior service. Always willing to challenge evil everywhere, Pipes has joined the Russia as Fascist bandwagon. Need proof? Just look at his letter to the Financial Times where he compares Russia’s behavior toward Georgia as akin to “Germany’s aggression against Czechoslovakia.” Here is the letter in full:

Sir, Peter J. Rooney (Letters, July 17) urges us to abandon the “insignificant statelet” of “tiny Georgia” to Russian aggression because its defence may lead to a military confrontation with Russia. This advice reminds me of ..read more

Steve Barnes, Assistant Professor at George Mason University, has set up a invaluable site called Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives.  Barnes is an expert in the history of the Gulag.  I had the pleasure of hearing paper of his at the “The Relaunch of the Soviet Project, 1945-1964” conference at the University College London in 2006. I especially look forward to his upcoming book on the subject.

Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives provides a comprehensive, nuanced, and sensitive picture of life in what was officially known as the Soviet Union’s Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies.  The main exhibit, Days and Lives, gives a documentary run down of the experience of arrest, labor, suffering, dealing with criminal gangs, and how million died and survived imprisonment.  It’s truly an amazing and much needed achievement in history and memory.

In addition to the exhibits on Gulag life, Barnes has also ..read more

I usually don’t waste my time with babble but Daniel Silva’s “President Obama and a 3 am Phone Call about Russia” struck a cord. It’s just another example that Russia is one thing American liberals and conservatives can embrace over.

Silva’s argument is simple.  “Russia is now a fascist country,” he writes. He hopes soon to be President Obama takes this assertion to heart and “uses his first meeting with Russia’s leader–whether it be Putin or the diminutive Dmitri Medvedev–to deliver a clear and sobering message. Russia can no longer have it both ways. If Russia wants to be a member of the club–that is to say, the civilized world–then it must act like a member of the club.” Oh, God.

I admit it. I read the HuffPost.  I enjoy its entertainment reporting and links to newspaper articles.  Plus, I kinda have a crush on political cougar Arriana Huffington. I rarely indulge ..read more

As regular readers can see, my blogging has been sparse over the last few weeks.  I just finished a three week teaching blitz of a Western Civilization course at Santa Monica High School.  The class was part of Santa Monica Community College’s dual enrollment program which allows high school students to take classes for college credit.  The class was everyday, 8-11 a.m.  I haven’t woken up so early since I worked in a stove factory over fifteen years ago.

Rushing through 500 years of history has never been so daunting. The class was enjoyable and the students remarkably bright.  One thing that struck me about the high school is how it resembled a prison.  I guess Gilles Deleuze was on to something when he wrote that modernity initiates,

The organization of vast spaces of enclosure. The individual never ceases passing from one closed environment to another, each having its own laws: first ..read more

Are there any more questions about who’s in charge? I think this says it all . . .

Maybe it’s some kind of gangster code.  All gangsters, of whatever stripes, stick together.

Russia and China took a steaming dump on the Zimbabwean opposition and much of the world by vetoing a UN Security Council Resolution that would place sanctions on Robert Mugabe and 13 members of his gang.  Nine countries backed the proposal, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Croatia, Italy and Panama.  Five opposed it: Russia, China, South Africa, and Vietnam.  China and Russia carry the big veto stick.

The sanctions would have imposed a travel ban and frozen Mugabe and his thug’s assets.

In recent weeks, Mugabe has unleashed a chistka on the opposition throughout Zimbabwe.  The latest report is that 133 supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change have been killed in political violence.  Reports the AFP,

Among the most recent victims was a polling agent, Gift Mutsvungunu, whose body was found in ..read more