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Friday, March 21, 2008

Pentagon divided on Iraq strategy

Ummmm. This is news? OKAYAAABEE.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Religion sucks #10 (or how to unsuccessfully mix politics and religion)

Lieberman forced to Correct McCain again


McCain referred to the Jewish holiday Purim as “their version of Halloween.”
Liebershrewd & McInsane were confused by the whole candy thing.
Mmmmmmmm. Makes me wonder if McInsane is tapping the old lady's stash, I mean, somebody's popping too much something.


In other recent news: Fucktardama bin Laden pipes up again. --- Alienating moderate Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Oh, what's this? The Saudis say they will retrain 40,000 clerics? Hmmmmm. Color me skeptical. If it's true it must be the almighty €uro talking.


The Hasidim look like idiots to me:
Hasidic actor walks off Portman movie
(Abe Karpen, 25, a married father of three, was cast as Portman's husband...)
Yeesh, where would Israel be if the only two exports this country has left (Arms and Entertainment) were stopped?

You thought I wouldn't bash the Christian whack-jobs?
Oh boy, lookeee here, it's got three brands of religious whack-jobs in one article plus a bonus McCain bashing.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Center for Media and Democracy ( covers another great story that the MSM will ignore)

Teaching College Kids to Lie

Additional details have surfaced about the story we mentioned last month regarding a corporate-sponsored hoax at Hunter College. The college receives donations from the Coach Corporation, a manufacturer of handbags, shoes and other women's accessories. In particular, Coach funded a "guerrilla marketing" class that "educated" students about the dangers of knockoff products by creating a fictional student named "Heidi Cee" who claimed that she had been conned by a counterfeit Coach handbag. "The professor who taught it says that he was pressured to do so even though he has no expertise in advertising or public relations (he teaches computer graphics) and had ethical qualms about the course," reports Scott Jaschik. "Further, the professor -- and other professors who have investigated the circumstances of the course -- maintain that the professor was required to teach only one side of the issue, had to accept industry officials watching him teach, and had little clout to fight back since he didn't (and still doesn't) have tenure." According to Hunter professor Stuart Ewen, the lessons in deception were designed by Paul Werth Associates, an Ohio-based PR firm working for the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition, a Coach-funded organization.

I can haz cheez plz.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Um, except for saying the Iranian Oil Bourse is in Tehran, instead of Kish Island, where an FBI agent was killed, er, oops, has disappeared I think he got it right.

He tells us slowly and laboriously tells us what's behind all the talk of war with Iran



And I love this post about the corporate media ignoring the anti-war protests inside the United States. Yes, folks, the Iraq war has united the United States in their disgust with this war and the idiot we didn't elect. Either time.

The movie "Bordertown" gave me nightmares

My friend was visiting El Paso recently and she called me and said "Well, I can see Juarez from here, but I can't go there, it's too dangerous." There was sad resignation in her voice. She and I and our friends used to go to Tijuana occasionally to eat or shop, and when we were younger, occasionally to dance and drink. I still use a blanket that was made and purchased in Mexico that is probably 25 years old. The last time I went to Tijuana was some time after September 11 and another friend and I were appalled that they kept pushing us to buy tequila shots for our 13-year-old daughters on the famous (or infamous) Avenida Revolución. It was a week day and around lunch time, so we made sure we got our butts back across the border way before dark. Later I thought to myself, "Hey guys, way to send responsible tourists packing, never to return." We bought blankets that were labeled "Hecho en Corea" that day.

The news reports mention around 400 raped and murdered women in Juarez. The movie mentions that there may be as many as 5,000 missing women in Mexico. I don't know about you, but that number makes me wonder just what the fuck is going on in our border towns? And who all might be involved, eh? Sometimes Hollywood tries to bring attention to real problems and sometimes it even goes as far as throwing out there creative solutions to real problems.

But anyway, all you kids who think that just handing over a couple of bucks when you fuck up, or you get fucked up in Mexico on Spring Break? You might end up in more trouble than you think, and don't be surprised if the problems you create in Mexico follow you home. Yeah, everybody's looking for the mordida .




To Work and Die in Juarez

Mass grave unearthed in midst of Mexico's drug war
By Marla Dickerson and Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
March 15, 2008
MEXICO CITY -- Authorities in Ciudad Juarez said Friday that they had uncovered the remains of 33 people buried in the yard of an abandoned property, a mass grave believed to be linked to the city's violent drug trade.

Bodies of 5 Minors Found Executed Outside of Tijuana
Last Update: 3/04 11:57 pm
Murder Victims Found

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Drug Trade Tyranny on The Border

Mexican Cartels Maintain Grasp With Weapons, Cash and Savagery
By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 16, 2008; A01

...More than 20,000 Mexican troops and federal police are engaged in a multi-front war with the private armies of rival drug lords, a conflict that is being waged most fiercely along the 2,000-mile length of the U.S.-Mexico border. The proximity of the violence has drawn in the Bush administration, which has proposed a $500 million annual aid package to help President Felipe Calderon combat what a Government Accountability Office report estimates is Mexico's $23 billion a year drug trade.

A what?

No, es más que ese, mirada aquí,...
Y aquí...Y aquí...Y aquí...Y aquí...Y aquí...Y aquí...


some shit just never changes ... history repeating

& Cheney goes
to thank & kiss some Arab ass this week regarding this country's other addiction problem

A friend sent me this yesterday

And my friend said it's ok to share it with you. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

The Oracle stutters...

In a TV speech delivered this Thursday,George Bush finally accepted the possibility that the Country was "going through some tough times" Mr. Duh strikes again! if George had been present when the Universe started with the Big Bang, he would have said, a long time later, that perhaps there had been a "bit of a 'pop' somewhere out there."

The economy has been headed South, by every sign, for a good long time. With the oil cartel holding the country (and the rest of humanity) to ransom, with the speculators on the New York Mercantile Exchange bidding up the Commodity Traded price of oil and minting billions in take-home profits right under our noses, with the federal Government paying out incentives for converting Wheat acreage to Corn to promote its Ethanol circus while driving up food costs nationwide, and what with the Treasury borrowing Billions every week from China so that China can export billions worth of shoddy goods to U.S. markets and finance the Endless War to Undefined Victory in Iraq, the American citizen doesn't stand a chance.

Recession?

What recession?

In a little less than ten months from now, George will retire to his collection of Horse manure in Crawford Texas, and visit his Presidential Library once a year to look at the book displayed on a polished shelf made from Texas Sage wood. He will look at the pictures and return the book to its shelf, so others can look at it and know what an avid reader he was. There will also come a time when he will begin to believe that he was America's Greatest president, but that a typo made a 92% approval rating look like 29%.by the end of his Eighth Year as the Leader of the Free Wire-Tapped World..

The likes of George Bush are sent to test us. He has a strictly faith-based economic Plan, faith in that the next President will somehow resolve the mess he created.

In its wisdom, Congress passed the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution some time after FDR. It limits the President to Two Terms. If they do nothing else for the next Ten Thousand Years, they will still have merited a Free Pass through the Pearly Gates for this one Act of Good Sense: can anyone even imagine what three Bush terms would feel like?


Try sitting down without pants on a nest of Amazon Fire Ants, for starters.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Religion sucks # 9

Top Saudi cleric calls for writers' deaths
REUTERS
Reuters US Online Report World News
Mar 15, 2008 09:35 EST

I read the above article and I started wondering about the Crusades, because I had heard that at least one or more of them involved pushing the Ottoman Turks (Muslims) out of Europe. So I go looking around for some basic information& I find...

How the Crusades Began:

For centuries, Jerusalem had been governed by Muslims, but they tolerated Christian pilgrims because they helped the economy. Then, in the 1070s, Turks (who were also Muslim) conquered these holy lands and mistreated Christians before realizing how useful their good will (and money) could be. The Turks also threatened the Byzantine Empire. Emperor Alexius asked the pope for assistance, and Urban II, seeing a way to harness the violent energy of Christian knights, made a speech calling for them to take back Jerusalem. Thousands responded, resulting in the First Crusade.


And the more I look, the more I realize that I know VERY little about the Crusades. So if I ever finish reading Collapse by Jared Diamond, I'll pick something shorter to read next time.

Maybe something like

The New Concise History of the Crusades (Hardcover)

by Thomas F. Madden (Author)

Friday, March 14, 2008

R World enlightens us

and reminds me of how I came to have an intelligent child.

Fish tacos.

Yup, I was really poor when I was pregnant with my child, but I worked in a cafeteria so I could choose to eat well and my big splurge on payday every Friday was a fish taco at Cotija's in Chula Vista. Those guys got to where they would see my big blueberry ass waddling down the street (I had one comfortable shirt and it was
purple) and have my fish taco ready for me.

The tacos must be good because Cotija's is still there, they still serve fish tacos, and the kid is in college.

Heh.

Pleased as punch

to add Brady Bonk over at Ketchup is a Vegetable to the blogroll.

The Anti-Nannier has some interesting ideas also.

Also, I knew that as soon as he got his forensic economisty ducks in a row, that Greg Palast would have something to say about Eliot Spitzer and the connection to the sub-prime meltdown, and he does.

Religion sucks #8

Kidnapped Archbishop Found Dead in Iraq
BAGHDAD, March 13 -- The body of a senior Christian cleric was found Thursday in the northern city of Mosul, two weeks after gunmen abducted him there and killed three of his associates...

There are a lot of Iraqi Chaldeans in San Diego so this is probably a bummer for them. So, out of curiosity, I decided to do a Google search to see if any of the Muslim leadership had been treated this way in Iraq lately. Or anywhere.
Hmmmmmmmmmm.
No wait, here's one .Omigod, fool was preaching peace and non violence.


Iranians vote for new parliament
...Ahead of the vote, the Guardian Council, an unelected body of clerics and jurists, disqualified around 1,700 candidates, mostly reformists.

Those barred from running were judged "insufficiently loyal to Islam or the revolution"...

Finally, if you missed Scoobie Davis' priceless catch of a video of Sun Myung Moon's incoherent rant it's short, but stunning. Moon has power and influence in Washington and wow, just wow, you gotta see this guy to believe that someone would actually say what he said.

Oy.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Spitzer’s Shame Is Wall Street’s Gain

Posted on Mar 12, 2008
Wall St. traders watch Spitzer confession
AP photo / Richard Drew

Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange watch New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s televised apology on Monday.

By Robert Scheer

...The media consensus from the opening salvo was that Spitzer must resign and he will be thrown to the dogs, which is unfortunate because, like Clinton, he has done much valuable work in the public interest, and the outrage over this personal dereliction, tawdry in the extreme, is excessive...

I agree Mr. Scheer, it's excessive. The media circus is over the top again. The Columbia Journalism Review checks in on the same side I'm on on this one:

Another Baseless Screed
As will most press-bias rants, Strassel’s piece is hollow
By Dean Starkman Thu 13 Mar 2008 05:27 PM

“Many reporters built careers on the prosecutor’s leaks intended to bully innocent people” - Kimberly A. Strassel, Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Wednesday.

Ah yes, she must mean those innocents over at Marsh & McLennan who demanded kickbacks...

What? Wall Street Journal opinion pieces are full of shit? Oh, now who'da thunk it?

Fighting Global Warming on the Fly



Home » ..Spin of the Day » Mar 11, 2008
Fighting Global Warming on the Fly
Topics: environment | global warming | politics
Source: Los Angeles Times, March 7, 2008

Less than a year ago, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was being lauded as the cover boy for NewsWeek's issue about how to battle global warming. But critics are calling attention to the governator's daily commute -- Sacramento to Los Angeles and back -- by airplane. "The governor's Gulfstream jet does nearly as much damage to the environment in one hour as a small car does in a year...

Free Superdelegate widget

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Pepe Escobar for Real News

Dems snooze through Latin America's wake-up call


Almost two years ago I knew the shit was gonna hit the fan

How?

Cause the shit was splattered on me before I knew it was shit. I lasted four days as a temp at JP Morgan. I had never seen a mortgage file before and they did not want me learning anything about mortgage files. Especially these files. They were loans that never should have been given, were being called in because of these god awful balloon payments and the homes were incredibly overpriced little shit boxes sold to minorities who didn't know any better, or perhaps were red lined out of better housing. Now keep in mind that that is the opinion of someone who had never seen a mortgage file before. Evah. They also didn't want anything other than a slimy little hamster on a wheel working there. That's what worked there, & that's not what they got with me. I acted like I didn't get it because I got it the first day and I hated every second of it once I did get it. Some snippity little schmuck that worked there got in my face and said to me "Well it's not rocket science!" and I snarled back "There aren't any rocket scientists here, especially not the person who plans your fire drills!"

You see, big corporate culture isn't exactly where I fit in. Works quietly in her cubicle while taking it up the ass by working for nine bucks an hour (in a city where 18.00 bucks an hour barely gets by) isn't exactly on my resume.

7:39 PM 3/17/2008
Jersey Cynic over at Blondsense posted this music video today, & it reminded me of this post of mine, so I added it.

Randi gives one hell of a speech a year ago today

Yeah, it's worth watching again.



I like it :) and here's some other interesting stuff I found today:

Spitzer's Sex Life Is Weapon of Mass Distraction for Bunch of Bad News for Bush
10 Mar 2008

Yeah, that's what I thought.

And this article is only a month old, how quickly we forget how many powerful people Spitzer pissed off. You think maybe powerful people wanted him gone? Fucking duh.


Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime
How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers
By Eliot Spitzer
Thursday, February 14, 2008; Page A25

And then there's the attack on him by the religious nutjobs (You have to hear these Catholic whack-jobs to believe them. What is it with these fucking retards? The population on this planet has more than doubled in my lifetime)

Global Warming to Affect Transport

Tuesday, March 11, 2008
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Flooded roads and subways, deformed railroad tracks and weakened bridges may be the wave of the future with continuing global warming, a new study says...
...The report cites five major areas of growing threat:

- More heat waves, requiring load limits at hot-weather or high-altitude airports and causing thermal expansion of bridge joints and rail track deformities.

- Rising sea levels and storm surges flooding coastal roadways, forcing evacuations, inundating airports and rail lines, flooding tunnels and eroding bridge bases.

- More rainstorms, delaying air and ground traffic, flooding tunnels and railways, and eroding road, bridge and pipeline supports.

- More frequent strong hurricanes, disrupting air and shipping service, blowing debris onto roads and damaging buildings.

- Rising arctic temperatures thawing permafrost, resulting in road, railway and airport runway subsidence and potential pipeline failures...


CEI: Fixing Climate Change Will Cause ‘Death On A Massive Scale’ In The Developing World
3/11/2008

So big big changes are presenting big challenges for us here, especially in San Diego. How we going to deal with them?

How More Money Would Be Won for Firefighting
By WILL CARLESS Voice Staff Writer

Wednesday, March 5, 2008 As San Diego's city and county governments congregate to discuss, again, how to fix the region's wildfire preparedness problems, a key concern overshadows every move they make: How the region will scratch together the cash to better prepare itself for the next massive wildfire...

...The bill, the wording of which has not yet been finalized, would call for an amendment to the California Constitution to change the percentage of votes needed from 66 percent to 55 percent. Kehoe said she's introducing the bill because the last two catastrophic wildfires in 2003 and 2007 showed that the state is poorly prepared for wildfires, and that local governments are inadequately funded to properly defend themselves from firestorms....

Oh fer fuck's sake, here we go. Not one God damned thing is going to change in this city. The fucking developers own and operate this county and they're not changing. Why should they? They get the money for the housing they build and they don't have any responsibility beyond that. They come in, build with illegal and disposable labor, and bail. Then the government is scrambling to provide the residents of these overpriced crappily built places with schools, fire and police protection and oh yeah, water. You want public transportation with that? Bwwaaa ha ha ha ha ha.
and Michael Klare checks in over at Tomdispatch:


posted March 11, 2008 09:53 am Tomgram: Michael Klare, The Permanent Energy Crisis Hits Home

Monday, March 10, 2008

Bad news

Oil prices gush to new highs
3/10/2008
9 hours ago
...New York's main contract, light sweet crude for April delivery, soared over 107 dollars a barrel for the first time and then crossed 108 dollars, striking an all-time high of 108.21 dollars...

Economic woes lead to retail retrenchment
3/10/2008
Amid belt-tightening, many chain stores are struggling

Spitzer scandal stuns Wall Street
By Nick Godt, MarketWatch
Last update: 5:51 p.m. EDT March 10, 2008
One question hanging is governor's involvement in bond-insurer bailout

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Many on Wall Street were stunned and some apparently were pleased by a Monday report linking New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer to prostitution, while stocks showed little immediate reaction.

Oh puhleeeeeze, if they were stunned why is this the first sentence in the article?

"Lots of people on Wall Street didn't like him because he went after certain people -- heads of firms, analysts and [former New York Stock Exchange chief Richard] Grasso," said Donald Selkin, head of equity at Joseph Stephens.


Anybody see Juno? When she goes into labor she sputters "Fuckity Fuckity Fuckity!"

This country is imploding, & most of the world is doing the golf clap.
Why?
Maybe we don't know enough of our own history?

Sorrows of Empire


Killing Hope

The Shock Doctrine


American Theocracy

Or maybe we just had our turn, eh?

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Gonna catch some heat for this one

Posted this in the online class last night. I'm going to catch shit from the Republicans in the class for this one, I can see it coming. I don't give a shit, these people need to know a little bit about who they're voting for instead of just voting for the candidate with the R by the name, which is what the brainwashed doofs do. It's like they can't think, they just cling to a daddy figure and do what daddy told them to do.

It's a beautiful day and I want to go play with my friend so I'm slacking on the blog. Sorry.

[Note; to open link in new window use R click]

If one cannot specify precisely who or what constitutes an “elite” why do political scientists use the term?

In a word; Power. It refers to those who rule. The term ruling elites is commonly used. and commonly understood to mean the people who really have the power as any quick Google search will turn up.

I believe that is what political scientists are referring to when they use the term “elites.” They mean the ruling classes. According to this documentary there is The American Ruling Class. I haven't seen the documentary. This evening, however, I was a bit alarmed to find out that Presidential hopeful John McCain comes from a family that might be termed the military elite and he is endorsed by Rapture-seeking elite leader Pastor John Hagee. Despite his media created image, McCain is no maverick.

Page 93 (Roskin/Berry) in the text states that “Political scientists call the top or most influential people in a political system its “elites,” the people with real political clout. Also that “Much of political life consists of struggles, often out of public sight, among and within elites to control the country’s direction. Typically, the masses then follow.”

The restructuring following the collapse of the State Socialist system in the former Soviet Union is being studied and reported on by the IPSA Research Committee on Political Elites because of the major changes in International Political relations that this has spurred.

Friday, March 07, 2008

Tracking CEO Compensation (watch with RealPlayer)

Tracking CEO Compensation
Today
">
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) chairs a House Oversight & Government Reform Cmte. hearing on CEO compensation. The Cmte. examines benefits and retirement packages granted by three companies involved in the current mortgage crisis.

House of Representatives MEMORANDUM March 6,2008 pdf
On Friday, March 7,2008, at 10 a.m. in room 2154 of the Rayburn House Office
Building, the Oversight Committee will hold a hearing to examine the compensation and
retirement packages awarded to the CEOs of three companies implicated in the mortgage crisis:
Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Financial Corporation, E. Stanley O'Neal of Merrill Lynch, and Charles Prince of Citigroup.

Compensation Consultants?
For companies that fail?
Holy Fuck.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Lookin' at some spiffy golf tans here.


Except for Chris Cannon (R. Utah).

"Cannon was named Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law at the beginning of the 108th Congress in January of 2003. As chairman he oversees legislation involving bankruptcy reform, privacy, interstate compacts and tort reform. He also serves on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property."


Yeah, he looked a little pale as I was watching him earlier online on CSPAN. He wasn't too happy when the freeze rate bill thingy happened:

"Most Republicans said the bill would harm the market and called for Congress to show restraint. "What we're doing is putting a sledgehammer in the hands of borrowers," Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah."

Hey, Señor Cannon?

Theese eez for ju.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

revenge for the deaths of nearly 130 Palestinians since Feb. 27.

I'm so sick of the way what's going on in Israel is reported to Americans.

Don’t Blame The Inmates Of The Lunatic Asylum

Cosby Makes Challenge to Black Community

I've heard before that Cosby has been the target of criticism inside the black community. I'm not qualified to say anything about that simply because of my skin color.

I can say I've been a Cosby fan since I was a little kid in the 60's. I can tell you that when I found it almost impossible to communicate with my teenaged daughter that
this video helped us laugh together. I will give credit to Mr. Cosby's work for helping me save my relationship with her. We wore that video out. When I had to evacuate because of the fires last October I made sure that I grabbed that DVD.

Cosby is on Oprah today.

Update 4:59 PM 3/6/2008 Okaybee Mr. Cosby, I listened to what you had to say and I gotta tell you that that shit wouldn't have worked with my kid. I tried it and it drove me AND the kid crazy and accomplished nothing productive. She didn't need me all up in her business any more. Maybe the difference is I already had confidence that I had a good egg, who was going through a bad time, and she would figure it out on her own. And she did. Every kid is different.

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Bankruptcy Makes Gift Cards Worthless

By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - You know that Sharper Image gift card you got for Christmas? Right now, it's worthless. And other gift cards in your wallet could lose their value, too.

As more retailers file for bankruptcy or go out of business, more than $75 million in gift cards are at risk of becoming worthless pieces of plastic this year...


Completely unrelated, but speaking of worthless, you smell a sting here too?

Peeeee-yeeeeew.

Red state brainiacs fail and renewable energy tax incentive bill passes anyway

Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008

On Passage
02/27/2008
House Roll Call No. 84
110th Congress, 2nd Session

Passed: 236-182 (see complete tally)

The House passed H.R. 5351, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide tax incentives for the production of renewable energy and energy conservation, by a yea-and-nay vote of 236 yeas to 182 nays, Roll No. 84.


Vote Map: House Roll Call No. 84
Votes For : 236
Votes Against : 182
Not Voting : 11




My congresswhore voted against it. Yeah, the one who's only response to e-mails is "Mailbox Unattended." Fucking RepugnantThuglican tool.

The Three Trillion Dollar War --authors interviewed on Democracy Now



Ill say it again. Democracy Now shows up the complete failure of the MainStream Media to report anything of importance to the American people. What I mean is that the msm doesn't help us to become an informed constituency.


Tomgram: William Hartung, The Cost of a Week in Hell
posted March 04, 2008 11:44 am

Monday, March 03, 2008

Diebold Stock Soars After $3 Billion Takeover Bid by Defense Contractor Conglomerate United Technologies


BLOGGED BY Brad Friedman ON 3/3/2008 12:17PM

UTC Chairman Says Irresponsible Republican Voting Machine Company an 'Excellent Fit', in Letter Explaining Hostile Offer, Twice Rejected by Diebold...
Election Integrity Advodcates Bristle at 'Disastrous', 'Surreal' News...

(click on pic to see what this is)



I'm wondering if the MIC is going to zap us with this fucker if we protest that the vote was stolen by the machines, or if they'll just cut to the chase and zap the people they don't want voting anyway?

Sunday, March 02, 2008

SNL Debate skit last night

I'm starting to hate school


2. How did Lenin's approach to world politics change after he assumed power in Russia?

Lenin was born Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov April 22, 1870 in the city of Simbirsk His father was the director of public education for the province of and during Lenin’s childhood, and his service to the state earned him the title of hereditary nobleman. While Lenin was finishing school in Simbirsk in 1887, his older brother, Aleksandr, was arrested and executed in Saint Petersburg (then the capital of Russia) for his involvement in a conspiracy to assassinate Russian emperor Alexander III.”

Lenin became radicalized after loss of his father and brother within a year of each other and the banishment of his sister to the family estate. While living on his mother’s estate in Kokushkino after being kicked out of Kazan University for being involved in a student demonstration he became further radicalized by reading by reading Karl Marx’s Das Kapital and What Is To Be Done? (1863), by Russian writer Nikolay Chernyshevsky. He translated the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx before he reached the age of 21 . His affinity for languages allowed him to travel throughout Europe as he and his wife could make money translating while agitating for socialist causes . His hopes of becoming a successful attorney were stifled by his arrests and exile in Siberia, where he had married his wife Nadezhda .

Lenin dreamed of a proletarian revolution that would spread throughout the world, starting in industrialized Europe. After he was elected as the Chair of the Council of People’s Commissars by the Russian Congress of Soviets on November 8, 1917 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin had to push aside those lofty goals in order to deal with more pressing matters, like consolidating Bolshevik (now called Communist p76, Roskin/Berry) power inside Russia.

The pressure of dealing with the Russian_Revolution_of_1917 and the civil war , and WWI may have led to the increase in number and usage of the gulag system inside Russia. According to an article titled “Seasons in Hell , How the Gulag grew” by David Remnick April 14, 2003 in the New Yorker The Bolsheviks practiced terror inside the country from the first days of the regime . They shuttered the Constituent Assembly and murdered leaders of rival parties such as the Kadets and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. Yet, as early as January of 1918, Lenin complained that his secret police, originally known as the Cheka, were “inordinately soft, at every step more like jelly than iron.” Lenin cast an iron example. In September, 1918, he ordered the authorities in Nizhni Novgorod to “introduce at once mass terror, execute and deport hundreds of prostitutes, drunken soldiers, ex-officers, etc.” Trotsky, for his part, warned that if soldiers drafted into the Red Army defied their officers “nothing will remain of them but a wet spot.”

Thus began the Red Terror, which helped win the civil war for the Bolsheviks and defined the nature of Communist power.”

Mr. Remnick interviews “Dmitri Likhachev, an eminent scholar of medieval Russian literature and an embodiment of the tragic history of his city. (The city was called St. Petersburg when he was born, Petrograd when he was growing up, Leningrad through his long adulthood, and, for the last eight years of his life, St. Petersburg again.) Likhachev was then eighty-four and a director of the literary institute known as Pushkin House. He had vivid memories of the first days of the Communist era—“When we opened the windows of our flat in Lakhtinskaya Street, we could hear all night long the volleys and short bursts of automatic fire from the Peter and Paul Fortress”—and now he was stealing time from his literary work to make impassioned, morally serious speeches about the liberal era that he hoped was coming. A great deal of Likhachev’s authority derived from his biography. He was living proof that the Gulag had been the invention not of Stalin but, rather, of Lenin, the Bolshevik founder, because, he said wearily, “I was a prisoner at Lenin’s first concentration camp” Anne Applebaum also asserts the rise of the gulag system began its growth during Lenin’s leadership in her book Gulag.

These internal pressures were intensified when “on March 3, 1918, the German and Soviet Governments signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in which the Soviet government ceded to Germany a vast amount of Russian territory, containing about one-third of Russia’s population, one-third of its cultivated land, and one-half of its industry. Although Lenin was convinced that these harsh terms must be accepted in order to end Russia’s involvement in the war, the treaty was widely unpopular, even within the Soviet government. It contributed to a split between the Bolsheviks and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in 1918, which left Lenin and the Bolsheviks in sole control of the Soviet government. World War I continued until November of that year.”

Foreign Policy, 1921-28

In the 1920s, as the new Soviet state temporarily retreated from the revolutionary path to socialism, the party also adopted a less ideological approach in its relations with the rest of the world. Lenin, ever the practical leader, having become convinced that socialist revolution would not break out in other countries in the near future, realized that his government required normal relations with the Western world for it to survive. Not only were good relations important to national security, but the economy also required trade with the industrial countries. Blocking Soviet attainment of these objectives were lingering suspicions about communism on the part of the Western powers and concern over foreign debts incurred by the tsarist government, which the Soviet government had unilaterally repudiated. In April 1922, the Soviet commissar of foreign affairs, Georgiy Chicherin, circumvented these difficulties by achieving an understanding with Germany, the other pariah state of Europe, in the Treaty of Rapallo. Under the treaty, Germany and Russia agreed on mutual recognition, cancellation of debt claims, normalization of trade relations, and secret cooperation in military development. Soon after concluding the treaty, the Soviet Union obtained diplomatic recognition from other major powers, beginning with Britain in February 1924. Although the United States withheld recognition until 1933, private American firms began to extend technological assistance and to develop commercial links in the 1920s.

Toward the non-Western world, the Soviet leadership limited its revolutionary activity to promoting opposition among the indigenous populations against "imperialist exploitation." The Soviet Union did pursue an active policy in China, aiding the Guomindang (Nationalist Party), a non-Marxist organization committed to reform and national sovereignty. After the triumph of the Guomindang in 1927, a debate developed among Soviet leaders concerning the future status of relations with China. Stalin wanted the Chinese Communist Party to join the Guomindang and infiltrate the government from within, while Trotsky proposed an armed communist uprising and forcible imposition of socialism. Although Stalin's plan was finally accepted, it came to naught when in 1927 the Guomindang leader Chiang Kai-shek ordered the Chinese communists massacred and Soviet advisers expelled.”

According to Soviet theorists, the basic character of Soviet foreign policy was set forth in Vladimir I. Lenin's Decree on Peace, adopted by the Second Congress of Soviets in November 1917. It set forth the dual nature of Soviet foreign policy, which encompasses both proletarian internationalism and peaceful coexistence. On the one hand, proletarian internationalism refers to the common cause of the working classes of all countries in struggling to overthrow the bourgeoisie and to establish communist regimes. Peaceful coexistence, on the other hand, refers to measures to ensure relatively peaceful government-to-government relations with capitalist states. Both policies can be pursued simultaneously: "Peaceful coexistence does not rule out but presupposes determined opposition to imperialist aggression and support for peoples defending their revolutionary gains or fighting foreign oppression."[1]

The general foreign policy goals of the Soviet Union were formalized in a party program ratified by delegates to the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in February-March 1986. According to the program, "the main goals and guidelines of the CPSU's international policy" included ensuring favorable external conditions conducive to building communism in the Soviet Union; eliminating the threat of world war; disarmament; strengthening the "world socialist system"; developing "equal and friendly" relations with "liberated" [Third World] countries; peaceful coexistence with the capitalist countries; and solidarity with communist and revolutionary-democratic parties, the international workers' movement, and national liberation struggles.[1]

Collections of Lenin’s writings are archived here .


Poke me with a fork, I'm so done. I am no Condoleezza Rice, that's fer sure. Sick of Russian history? Yeah, me too, how about some Russian current events?