From George Orwell to Robert Conquest to Solzenytsin, very few people have bothered to check the sources on which they base their sweeping anti-communist ‘conclusions’. Professor Grover Furr, a talented linguist and Historian, with an interest in the USSR, Stalin and the communist movement, has done just that, and it is his evaluation of ALL the sources and ALL the footnotes that allows him to reach an authoritative opinion on the true value of these ‘bibles of anti-communism. It turns out that the overwhelmingly reactionary Polish and Ukrainian sources are ALL biased, or outright fabrications.
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RUSSIANS ARE MUCH ADMIRED AND PUTIN IS LOVED BY THE CHINESE, FOR GOOD REASONS.
JEFF J. BROWN—It’s not only Xi Jinping, but Chinese people love Putin and Russian people too. No two countries sacrificed so much and so many of their citizens to defeat Western and Japanese fascism, to gain victory in World War II (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2015/09/04/from-may-9th-in-moscow-to-september-3rd-in-beijing-the-anti-west-order-comes-full-circle-moscow-beijing-express-on-the-saker-44-days-radio-sinoland/). The Chinese see in Putin a dedicated, patriotic leader for his citizens, just as they know this is true for Xi at home (http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1106087.shtml). Ten million Chinese participated in an online poll, overwhelming tipping their hat to the Russian president for being wise and iron-fisted, while calling him Prince Charming and a super online sensation, for riding a horse sans shirt.
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BIG BROTHER FACEBOOK: DRAWING DOWN THE IRON CURTAIN ON YANKEEDOM
BRUCE LERRO—We think it is reasonable to suspect that Facebook wants to get rid of its “political underground”, the groups that exist beyond the two party system. Why? For one thing people at both extremes of the political spectrum are not likely to buy the products that are advertised on their pages. The second reason is that our ads are chump change for them. Getting rid of us will cost them close to nothing in revenue. The third reason is political. Facebook, like most media institutions is committed to the Democratic Party. Cleaning its house of “Fake News” (the news and opinions of the socialist or fascist sides of the spectrum) will steer people back to reasonable choices like the Democratic Party.
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America’s Public Are Foie-Gras Ducks
ERIC ZUESSE—America’s Democratic Party voters aren’t as politically disaffected as are America’s Republican Party voters, but both groups are reluctant to vote for the politicians whom the aristocracy is offering to them as constituting their final general-election options. And there are now a larger number of unaffiliated or “independent” American voters than the voters of either Party — and America’s independent voters are astronomically politically disaffected. This was shown on 26 October 2016, just before the U.S. election, when Britain’s Guardian bannered
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Andy Levine’s column on the Dastardly Dems elicits comment by senior editor Steve Jonas
STEVE JONAS—Second of all, Democrats must recognize that if they are to win, the DLC-wing must be crushed, once and for all, but gently, by winning on policy, not by having screaming matches. They do need to mobilize their wing of the ruling class, which does not want fascism, at least not now, against the Trump wing, which is moving fairly quickly in that direction.
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We Need a Mass Movement to Save and Expand Social Security and Medicare
DAVE LINDORFF—Note that the program is not “going bankrupt,” as hyperventilating talking heads on Fox and right-wing radio will claim. In fact, with no change in taxes or income sources Social Security would still continue to provide retiree and disability benefits at that reduced rate indefinitely from that point on just based on the funds paid into the fund by current workers at that point (which is how the program was intended to work from the time it was established in 1936).
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CHURCHILL AND WORLD WAR TWO: The Man and the Myth.
MIKE FAULKNER—With the single exception of his unlamented predecessor, Neville Chamberlain, Churchill was born before any other leading political figure holding power in the belligerent countries during the war. Stalin was four years his junior; Chiang Kai-shek was 13 years younger, De Gaulle 16 years younger, Hitler 15 years younger and Roosevelt eight years younger than Churchill. When Churchill was born in 1874 Disraeli was prime minister of Britain and Bismarck had recently become the first Chancellor of the new German Empire; Marx and Engels were still hard at work in London, Lincoln had been dead for only nine years and General Custer still awaited his fate at the Little Big Horn.
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