‘Lemmygrad’s resident expert on fascism’ — GrainEater, 2024

The political desperadoes and ignoramuses, who say they would “Rather be Dead than Red”, should be told that no one will stop them from committing suicide, but they have no right to provoke a third world war.’ — Morris Kominsky, 1970

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Joined 5 years ago
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Cake day: August 27th, 2019

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  • An organization that bombastically calls itself ‘EUvsDisinfo’, splatters a diplomatic photograph with fake blood, and preemptively dismisses counterevidence as ‘pro‐Kremlin disinformation’ does not sound like something that has an interest in exploring this matter in good faith, but I can play along (for now). Simply put, your source leaves too much counterevidence unaddressed. This, for example:

    The discussion in London took place on 24 April. Halifax also backed unilateral declarations. ‘A tri-partite pact on the lines proposed, would make war inevitable. On the other hand, he thought that it was only fair to assume that if we rejected Russia’s proposals, Russia would sulk.’ And then Halifax made this comment, almost as an afterthought: ‘There was… always the bare possibility that a refusal of Russia’s offer might even throw her into Germany’s arms.’⁸⁰ Was anyone listening? If you asked the British and French everyman’s opinion, war was already inevitable.

    […]

    The failures of the previous five years to obtain agreements on collective security led Molotov to want to pin the French and British to the wall to make sure they would not leave the Soviet Union in the lurch against the Wehrmacht. This was not Soviet paranoia, it was Soviet experience. Would not any prudent diplomat in the same position, after years of being spurned, mistrust interlocutors like Chamberlain and Bonnet? Maiskii’s reports appear to have encouraged the Soviet government to invest in continued negotiations. The obduracy in Moscow derived from doubts about British and French intentions which Maiskii and Surits could not overcome, and that for good reason.

    (Source and more here.)

    I know that I did not address everything in your link, but frankly I really doubt that you have the time, patience, or interest in reading a thoroughly sourced and exhaustive commentary on it. For simplicity’s sake I chose to focus on the denial that the liberal capitalists wanted a reinvasion of Soviet Eurasia.




  • I’m surprised that they made handhelds! I was always under the impression that Soviet video games were more like experimental curiosities than a visible industry. The situation was similar in the Anglosphere back in the 1950s and ’60s: there was not much of a market for them, so they were hard to find (unless you were a computer scientist).


  • Tut‐tut, I see that Clinton’s electoral failure in spite of winning the popular vote hasn’t moved somebody’s faith in the pseudodemocracy. Let’s briefly review the circumstances, shall we?

    Starting with the national elections of 2000:

    • Democrats have received more popular votes in 4 out of the past 5 presidential elections, yet only gained office 2 times. Despite winning the popular vote only once in the past 5 elections, a Republican has taken office 3 times.
    • Democrats have received 24 million more votes for Senate than Republicans, yet have held a majority in the Senate in only 3 out of the last 9 sessions, while Republicans have had a majority in 4 out of the past 9 sessions.
    • Democrats have received over 500,000 more votes for seats in the House of Representatives, yet have held a majority in that body for only 3 out of the past 9 sessions, while Republicans have held a majority in 6 of those sessions.

    (Source and more evidence here.)

    Trust me, an overglorified public opinion poll isn’t going to stop neofascism should the ruling class deem its institutionalization necessary. The Fascists ascended to power in the Kingdom of Italy and the Weimar Republic in spite of their want of votes.





  • Anarcho-Bolshevik@lemmygrad.mltoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlAre you a 'tankie'
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    5 months ago

    The reason that MovingThrowaway said ‘Almost none of us were alive when Khrushchev rolled tanks into Hungary’ is that certain British socialists coined the pejorative ‘tanky’ to nickname communists who approved of the Warsaw Pact intervention in the Hungarian People’s Republic (and later, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic), but hardly anybody uses the pejorative this way anymore.

    In practice, application now varies widely, from approving of the Bolsheviki to opposing the Ukrainian government to suggesting that maybe North Korean politicians think and behave like ordinary human beings. The contemporary criteria are so variable that many would argue that the term is too vague to be useful.






  • Anarcho-Bolshevik@lemmygrad.mltoAsklemmy@lemmy.mldo you use 4chan?
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    5 months ago

    I frequented /v/, /int/, and a few other boards about one dozen years ago. Now the only things that I touch are a few of the archival websites, and even then only rarely. Occasionally I’ll visit an archive to look for images or clips, and more unoften I’ll look up a phrase or word out of curiosity, but that is the extent of it. I haven’t posted anything on the official website in a very long time (and I’ve never posted anything on the archival websites at all).



  • Descriptions of crucifix violation by Jews are always depicted in the Hebrew chronicles as a reaction to the evil destruction of their Torah scrolls by the crusaders. During the First and Second Crusades, crusaders attacked the most holy object of the Jews, so the Jews in response are depicted as attacking the main symbol of Christianity and the crusading movement. In the First Crusade, the tearing of sacred Torah scrolls was part of almost every attack.95 There are nine descriptions of Torah desecration in the four chronicles.96

    The Hebrew chroniclers first emphasized the holiness and beauty of the Torah, how it was honored by a particular Jewish community, and how terrible it was that the uncircumcised contaminated it. According to Eliezer bar Nathan, the crusaders trampled the Torah scrolls in the mud in Worms: “The enemies and oppressors set upon the Jews who were in their homes, pillaging, and murdering men, women, and children, young and old. They destroyed the houses and pulled down the stairways, looting and plundering; and they took the holy Torah, trampled it in the mud of the streets, and tore it and desecrated it amidst ridicule and laughter.”97

    The Mainz Anonymous depicts the grief of the Jewish women who saw the Torah as it was torn in the Mainz synagogue in 1098: “There was also a Torah scroll in the room; the errant ones came into the room, found it, and tore it to shreds. When the holy and pure women, daughters of kings, saw that the Torah had been torn, they called in a loud voice to their husbands: ‘Look, see, the Holy Torah—it is being torn by the enemy!’ And they all said, men and women together: ‘Alas, the Holy Torah, the perfection of beauty, the delight of our eyes, to which we used to bow in the synagogue, kissing and honoring it. How has it now fallen into the hands of the impure uncircumcised ones?’”98

    Furthermore, according to Solomon bar Simson, the Torah scrolls were trampled underfoot in Trier: “At that time the people of the community of Trier took their Torah scrolls and placed them in a sturdy building. When the enemy became aware of this, they went there while it was still day and broke the roof above; they took all the mantles and the silver adorning the rollers of the Torah, and threw the Torah Scrolls on the ground, and tore them and trod upon them with their feet.”99

    (Emphasis added. Source.)