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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

How the West is whitewashing Ukrainian Nazism

2023-02-12

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.

Link to the original article via Russian military blogger Boris Rozhin:
[InoSMI] Washington's whitewashing of Ukrainian Nazis is a national disgrace to the United States, writes American Greatness. America is ready to turn a blind eye to all the crimes of Nazism in Ukraine for the crazy idea of destroying Russia and regaining world hegemony.

Our American politicians, united in a "monolithic party" of warmongers, whitewash the Ukrainian Nazis in order to justify their crimes and deceive the world community.

On January 1, the world celebrated the New Year - a celebration of introspection, self-renewal and hope. But in Ukraine, the emphasis was completely different. There, on January 1, the birthday of Stepan Bandera, the Nazi national hero of Ukraine, is celebrated.

One would imagine that, like in Russia, Ukrainians celebrate the Orthodox New Year of the old Julian calendar, which currently is January 14 on the Gregorian calendar we use in the West.

Bandera is the founding father of Ukrainian Nazism, and his birthday is a national holiday. In Ukraine, paying tribute to its most famous anti-Semite and the main Nazi collaborator of the Second World War is a very important thing.

Would Stalin be Russia’s most famous antisemite, or do they have someone worse? To be fair, unlike Mr. Bandera, Stalin was a bit of a polymath — he also was among Russia’s worst anti-kulaks, anti-Ukrainians, anti-intellectuals...

COLLECTION OF ALL NAZIS
Under President Volodymyr Zelensky, the level of Nazi influence and control in Ukraine was unprecedented. Zelensky outlawed all 11 independent and opposition political parties, but left the parties and organizations of his Nazi partners and allies intact and in power. So it is not surprising that on Bandera's birthday, the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament (in which no one but the Nazis remained), burst into wild applause. Later, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valery Zaluzhny, published a photograph in which he proudly poses in front of a portrait of Bandera.

The message of the top legislators and the chief general of Ukraine was clear. "Don't doubt for whom and for what our government and army are fighting in the "proxy war" between NATO and Russia."

Honoring the main Nazi of Ukraine was not liked in Poland. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki angrily condemned "the ongoing glorification of Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera."

And where does this outrage of the Poles come from?

In order to understand the reason for the Polish fury over Bandera worship in Ukraine, we must take a quick look at what happened in Ukraine during World War II and separate fact from propaganda.

"UNIMAGINABLE ATROCITIES"
Bandera was the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) (the organization was recognized as extremist and banned on the territory of Russia - approx. InoSMI) - Ukrainian accomplices of the Nazis, who dreamed of a racially clean Ukraine, free from Jews, ethnic Russians and Poles. During World War II, primarily in Volhynia, the OUN massacred at least 100,000 Poles.

To give the impression that the bloody brutality was only a spontaneous peasant uprising (and out of its own sadistic pleasure), the OUN preferred to kill its victims with axes, scythes, knives, hammers, steel bars and pitchforks. Hundreds of Bandera stuffed the unfortunate into houses and sheds and burned them alive. And this method is still preferred by the Ukrainian Nazis.

Bandera crowds roamed the country like packs of mad dogs. The Polish edition of The First News talks about the barbarism of the Ukrainian Nazis:

In a bloody frenzy, the Ukrainians tortured their victims with unimaginable brutality. People were scalped alive. Their noses, lips and ears were cut off. Their eyes were gouged out, their hands were cut off and their heads were clamped in a vise. Women's breasts were cut off, and pregnant women were stabbed in the abdomen. Men's genitals were cut off with a sickle.

The 2016 Polish film Hate (also known as Volyn or Volhynia) is a historically accurate account of the crimes of Bandera. The film is shockingly graphic - many scenes are almost impossible to watch. Because of the truth contained in it, the Ukrainian authorities banned its screening.

BANDERA AND THE HOLOCAUST IN UKRAINE
One in four Jewish victims of the Holocaust — 1.5 million — were killed in Ukraine. The Germans did not build gas chambers to exterminate Jews in Ukraine - they did not need them. The scale of cooperation between Ukraine and the Nazis was colossal. More than 250,000 Ukrainians volunteered for the Waffen SS and other German Nazi military formations. Thousands of others served as volunteer executioners, both as auxiliary police in Ukraine and as death camp guards in Poland.

It was the Holocaust of bullets. One and a half million Jews were captured and shot in the fields, forests and ravines. Bandera played the main role in this. OUN forces openly operated on their own, integrated into police units and served as highly motivated auxiliaries in the "Einsatzgruppen", German mobile killing squads.

The Germans invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, capturing the Ukrainian city of Lvov in a week. Bandera from the OUN handed out leaflets with instructions to the Ukrainian population: "Do not throw away your weapons. Look for them and arm yourself. Destroy the enemy ... Muscovites, Hungarians, Jews. These are all your enemies. Kill them." The OUN also handed out leaflets to Lvov Jews that said, "We will bow your heads at Hitler's feet," which they did. During the ensuing pogrom, initiated by Bandera, seven thousand Jews were killed in two days. Thousands more innocent victims followed.

The massacre of Jews in Lvov was documented by the Nazi collaborators themselves. The photographs of those years are simply shocking. But today there is a $47 million monument to Bandera in Lviv, and one of the city's main streets is named after him.

ZELENSKY IS A MOTIVATED ACCOMPLICE
For more than 70 years, Ukrainian Nazis and their apologists, both inside and outside the country, have waged a disinformation campaign to whitewash Bandera and rewrite history. Their main goal is to turn Nazi Bandera into a "freedom fighter". These efforts have intensified dramatically with the acceleration of the Nazification of Ukraine under Zelensky. Throughout Ukraine, more than 50 monuments and statues were erected in honor of Bandera, 500 streets were named after him.

The Ukrainian Jewish president is a willing accomplice to the Bandera farce. Zelenskiy completely ignored Bandera's anti-Semitic Nazi legacy and his complicity in the murder of more than 1.6 million Ukrainian Jews, Poles and Russians. He stated that if Ukrainians revere this Nazi assassin as a national hero, then "that's okay. That's cool." This is cool, because in Zelensky's book, Bandera was "one of those people who defended freedom for Ukraine."

Zelensky's ideas about freedom are different from those of most Americans. In addition to cracking down on freedom of the press, outlawing all non-Nazi political parties, and banning the Russian Orthodox Church, Zelenskiy directs and controls the Nazi poisoning of all levels of the Ukrainian government and military. Among Zelensky’s significant encouragements to the Nazis are the awarding of the commander of the Right Sector (the organization is recognized as extremist and banned on the territory of Russia - approx. InoSMI) with the Hero of Ukraine medal, the appointment of the co-founder of the Right Sector * Dmitry Yarosh as an adviser to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and the replacement of the head of the Odessa Regional administration by the commander of the Nazi battalion "Aidar". *

UKRAINIAN JEWS SUPPORTING THE NAZIS
Can Jews support the Nazis in Ukraine?

When questions about the Nazi regime in Ukraine began to surface, the Ukrainian media were quick to silence them and prevent them from being discussed. A common media reaction across the Ukrainian political spectrum has been to constantly highlight Zelensky's Jewish heritage. Thus, the very question of Ukrainian Nazism was portrayed as absurd. The simple "logic" of this ploy was as follows: "Zelensky is a Jew. A Jew cannot support the Nazis. Therefore, there are no Nazis in Ukraine." Zelensky was untouchable - no talk about the Nazis touched him. The implication was that as long as Zelensky was president, there could not even be any Nazis in Ukraine.

But, as I noted earlier, Zelensky not only created his own completely Nazi regime, but also did more to support and institutionalize the Nazis in Ukraine than any other president before him.

His Jewish critics take a different view. Zelensky does not identify himself as a Jew. He mentions his Jewish origin only when it is politically beneficial for him - for example, when he hides the truth about his Nazi regime.

Zelensky does not profess Judaism, married a Christian, baptized children in the Orthodox Church, observes Christian holidays. In fact, during his presidential campaign, he and his spokesman refused to even confirm whether he was Jewish.

Zelensky mocks Jewish culture. Hawa Nagila ("Let us rejoice") is a revered Jewish folk song performed at Jewish holidays around the world. Zelensky's idea to honor this piece of Jewish cultural heritage was to perform Hawa Nagila with his penis as a comedy act on stage.

Correction: Hava Nagila was written in 1918 as a Zionist celebration of the Balfour Declaration promising a Jewish homeland in the Holy Land. I believe it was Harry Belafonte who brought it into the popular culture as one of his signature songs. As for Mr. Zelensky’s peepee, comics have done really stupid, crude things for laughs since time immemorial.

Finally, during his world tour to demand billions more in money and weapons, Zelensky angered members of the Israeli Knesset with a disgraceful speech about Holocaust denial in Ukraine. Refusing to acknowledge the history of Bandera-Nazi collaboration, Zelenskiy absurdly claimed that the significant Ukrainian military effort against the Germans was that they were "saving the Jews." He was exterminated by Jewish critics for "distorting the Holocaust."

His speech before the Greek Parliament was also infamous. It was attended by the "Azov *" Nazi, whom Zelensky brought with him. Some MPs left in disgust, calling Zelenskiy's speech a "Nazi fiesta."

But Zelensky was not the first wealthy and powerful Ukrainian Jew to support the Nazis. Igor Kolomoisky is a Ukrainian Jewish billionaire oligarch and the original financial backer of the Azov and Aidar battalions. He also funds other Nazi militias. Kolomoisky was Zelensky's main financial backer as president. And as the owner of Burisma Holdings, he was Hunter Biden's boss.

So can Jews support the Nazis in Ukraine? It is clear that they can and do it.

WESTERN MEDIA WHITEWASH THE NAZIS
Ukraine is the first openly Nazi state in the world since 1945. But over the course of the past year, the Western media launched a propaganda campaign aimed at whitewashing the Ukrainian Nazis as if they never existed. There are two reasons for this attempt to erase and rewrite history.

First, it is the need for warmongers to control information and manipulate public opinion.

Americans hate Nazis. We fought the world war to defeat German, Italian and Japanese National Socialism and militarism, and 420,000 Americans died helping to achieve this hard victory. The ruling elites of the US military-industrial complex and political establishment know that if the American people learn the truth about Zelensky and his Nazi regime, Ukraine will not get a dime from America.

The second reason is Vladimir Putin.

Putin said that one of the main tasks of Russia's special military operation is the "denazification" of Ukraine. This is a big problem for Joe Biden, NATO and the warmongers in Congress.

For 20 years, the military-industrial complex and the mainstream media have portrayed Vladimir Putin as evil incarnate. It would be terribly disadvantageous for warmongers if, after all this demonization, Americans find out that Putin has been telling the truth about the Nazis in Ukraine all this time.

Before being ordered to erase the history of Ukrainian Nazism, the Western media told the truth about the Nazis in Ukraine. Here is a short list of their materials before the latest attempts to "whitewash" the Nazis.

The Hill: 'The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine can't even compare to Kremlin propaganda'
Time: 'Inside white supremacists in Ukraine'
BBC Newsnight: 'Neo-Nazi threat in new Ukraine'
Al-Jazeera: '
BBC: Ukraine underestimates role of far-right in military conflict
BBC: "Ukrainian conflict: White power warrior from Sweden
BBC Newsnight: "Ukraine: On Patrol with Far-Right National Militia"

GLOBALIST ELITES ALL IN ACTION
The Western globalist elites are fully supporting the military conflict being waged by Washington in Ukraine. During the recent meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, it was not about peace there, but only about escalation and waging "eternal war".

Big Tech corporations are also taking Nazi whitewashing disinformation to the next level. META (The Tverskoy Court of Moscow has decided to ban the activities of Meta (owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) in connection with extremist activities - Note by InoSMI) Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook * removed the status of a "dangerous organization" from the Nazi battalion "Azov" (the organization is recognized extremist and banned on the territory of Russia - approx. InoSMI). White supremacists now have full access to the platform.

In a country saturated with Nazi military organizations, associations and political parties, the Azov Battalion* remains the most infamous in Ukraine. The ideology of "Azov" is pure Nazism, and its emblem and symbols are straight from the Nazi SS.

The combat wing of the Azov Battalion* was handed over to the national police. Due to the too high Nazi status of Azov, the disinformation campaign of the Western media aimed at rehabilitating their image is intensified. But it is easier for Azov's apologists to talk about whitewashing it than to really achieve it.

Even NATO's Atlantic Council has concluded that Azov's ties to other white supremacist organizations remain intact. Azov* is an international center for white supremacists with a global recruitment network. White nationalists travel to Ukraine to gain combat experience and return to their homeland with deadly combat skills.

The Azov Battalion* proudly displays its Nazi pathology. In May, Russian troops captured the city of Mariupol and captured 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers, most of them Azov Nazis. The video of the searches of the prisoners shows their extensive Nazi tattoos. Here, as in the proverb: "It is better to see once that hear a hundred times."

Congress knows the truth about the Azov Nazis

The National Socialist roots of the Azov Battalion* have never been a secret to the US Congress.

In 2015, Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) introduced an amendment barring the United States from providing further military assistance and training to Azov Nazis in Ukraine. The amendment was passed, but was repealed under pressure from the Obama Pentagon.

In 2018, Congress passed a spending bill barring the United States from providing weapons and training assistance to the "Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion* fighting in Ukraine."

In 2019, 40 Democrats in the House of Representatives signed a letter asking the State Department why they did not list Ukraine's Azov Battalion* on the US "Foreign Terrorist Organization" (FTO) list. Among the signatories were Rep. Ro Hannah (D-CA) and Jamie Ruskin (D-Maryland). Democrats have found links between "Azov" Nazis in Ukraine and white supremacist terrorist attacks around the world, including Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso, Texas.

But that was then.

Today, every Democrat and corporate Republican belongs to the "one party" of warmongers committed to promoting the interests of the military-industrial complex of the Congressional political establishment through the waging of permanent war. That's why Congress voted to allocate $100 billion to support the Nazi regime in Ukraine and to support the Azov Battalion, a group they know is a white supremacist Nazi terrorist organization. The "united party" of warmongers whitewash these Nazis in order to justify their betrayal and deceive the public.

Last fall, a delegation of Azov Nazis in military uniforms were welcomed like heroes in our Capitol building, where they were received by 50 members of the House of Representatives and senators. Among the special guests was Adam Schiff (D-CA), then chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. This Nazi parade continued throughout the United States, with stops in New Jersey, Detroit, Chicago, and Stanford University. Azov stormtroopers met with large audiences, including children, spread disinformation and collected money. Auctioning Nazi patches and battle colors, they welcomed the Americans to the Nazi club: “Now you are all Azov.”*

NATIONAL DISGRACE
Is there anything more dishonorable than America's support for Nazism? The whitewashing and support of Ukrainian Nazis by the American media and legislators is a national disgrace.

Joe Biden, the military-industrial complex and congressmen, neoconservatives from the State Department and Western globalist elites have dragged the United States and NATO into a "proxy war" with Russia. Ukraine for them is just a disposable puppet.

The well-being of Ukraine is not of interest to warmongers.

Their real goal seems to be to overthrow Putin and divide Russia, and in order to achieve this they are ready to see the death of millions of Ukrainians.

Ukraine is the perfect puppet to fight and die against Russia. Its political parties and military are already guided by a racist, Nazi ideology built on hatred of Russians. And in the person of Zelensky, they have an ideal protege - a corrupt front for the globalist elites, ready to sacrifice the Ukrainian people and endlessly drag out the war. Even if Zelensky's Ukraine is completely destroyed.

The welfare of the United States is also of no interest to warmongers.

They sent 100 billion dollars to continue the military conflict, which is not in our national interest. The war they should be fighting should be fought here at home. Our country is invaded by millions of illegals, our cities are being destroyed by uncontrolled crime, and 100,000 Americans die every year from fentanyl supplied by Mexican drug cartels.

The conflict in Ukraine could end today with one phone call.

Zelensky is a puppet, and Washington is pulling his strings. The conflict will end the minute Biden picks up the phone and tells Zelensky that the game is up and it's time for peace. It's time for Republicans in Congress to demand that Biden pick up the phone.

(c) Maurice Richards

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Fifth Column

At its worst, however, Left Forum is Comic Con for Marxists‐Commie Con, if you will‐and an absolute shitshow of nerds and social rejects.

2017-05-10

[TheBaffler.com] A few weeks back in Manhattan, hundreds of socialists, communists, anarchists, and even few decent “small-d” democrats shuffled into the unlikely venue of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice (ironically, best known as a “cop school”) for Left Forum 2015. If you aren’t up on your radical political symposiums, Left Forum evolved out of the now-defunct Socialist Scholars Conference, which was re-founded in 1981 after the original Socialist Scholars Conference petered out in the 1960s. The SSC grew into the largest, most prominent leftist summit in the United States, though nationwide university cuts eventually curtailed both budget and staff for the event. By 2004 it was renamed Left Forum, and it still commands a big draw: This year’s confab boasted 1,300 speakers and four hundred events under the salient title of “No Justice, No Peace: Confronting the Crises of Capitalism and Democracy.”
Yeah, because democracy is a crisis. Jesus.
At its best, Left Forum remains a reassuring beacon of cameraderie and ambition. In addition to seasoned journalists, organizers and academics, it usually snags a few big public intellectuals, like Noam Chomsky, David Harvey, and Angela Davis, while also peppering the bill with high-profile activists like Harry Belafonte and Michael Moore. The organizers sometimes even lure the odd political success story, most recently Kshama Sawant, Seattle City Council member and open socialist. Generally, both speakers and attendees are smart, friendly, and often quite young and good-looking (if I do say so myself).

At its worst, however, Left Forum is Comic Con for Marxists—Commie Con, if you will—and an absolute shitshow of nerds and social rejects. There are bitter old codgers that will harangue you about a thirty-some-years-old internecine grudge, and there are politically unsophisticated kids with Che Guevara t-shirts and Adbusters subscriptions. There are sanctimonious Trotskyists, ridiculous Maoist Third-Worldists, condescending horizontalist anarchists, smug social democrats and a glut of ardent adherents to similarly esoteric ideological traditions, all competing for the title of Most Insufferable Anti-Capitalist. Left Forum is notorious for grueling Q&A sessions, often with nary a “Q” to be found. People like to demonstrate how many books they’ve read (or worse, have written and self-published) in embarrassing displays of pretension and/or machismo, and cynicism is frequently substituted for insight.

But the grumps and the brats, the blowhards and the sectarians, the narcissists and the pessimists—all of these people are bearable to me, some even charming. No, the worst part of Left Forum is the crackpots, the paranoiacs, the hysterics, and all the other truly dysfunctional personalities attracted by the conference’s most infamous policy: no panel submission will be rejected.
It's good to know that the Left has problems, too.

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Home Front: Politix

Harry Belafonte feels the Bern!

2016-02-12

[DAILYMAIL.CO.UK] Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders picked up another endorsement today - that of actor, activist and singer Harry Belafonte
Belafonte suggested that the Vermont senator could 'turn this ship of state, called America, around
The Belafonte endorsement comes before Nevada and South Carolina, where Sanders will have to pick up a solid share of the minority vote

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Home Front: Politix

Longtime congressman Rangel finds himself in political peril in New York primary

2014-06-24

[Washington Post] The birthday boy, turning 84, stood near the back of the room beneath white and gold balloons as friends, allies and supporters lined up for photos. Between photos, he stole swigs of the Corona Light gripped tightly in his left hand as the upbeat sounds of a local Latin band echoed off the dark walls.

The crowded fundraiser this month was a departure from Rep.

Charlie Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Rangel
Congressman-for-Life from Harlem, who became what 20 terms in Congress turns you into ...
's legendary birthday bashes of the past, which often were headlined by the likes of Aretha Franklin
...The Queen of Soul. She denies ever having been in a fistfight with Patti Labelle...
and Dionne Warwick and attended by New York's black political royalty — former New York City mayor David Dinkins
...the former mayor of New York. He sez he lost to Rudy Giuliani in 1993 because of racism, which is pervasive in places like Manhattan...
, the civil rights hustler Al Sharpton
...Tawana Brawley's spiritual advisor...
and singer Harry Belafonte.

This year, many of the speakers were lesser-known Dominican activists and political strategists. The headliner was Dominican entertainer Frederick Martinez, also known as "El Pacha," a popular Spanish-language radio and television host.

Those changes to the guest list tell almost the entire story of the political peril that threatens to end one of the iconic careers in American politics.

Over his 44 years in office, Rangel, "the congressman from Harlem," became one of best-known political figures in American politics and a defining voice in the nation's black politics.
Notice that he's not threatened with losing his seat because he's so old he used to date God's grandmother. Nor is he in danger of losing his seat because of being censured by the House ethics committee, which really takes some doing.

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-Short Attention Span Theater-

Richard Cohen column smearing the GOP

2013-11-14

The left has chosen to have a collective conniption over Cohen's remarks on interracial marriage. The column that caused so much controversy is a standard liberal poking of fun a conservatives. Gotta expect that from liberals.
The day after Chris Christie, the cuddly moderate conservative, won a landslide reelection as the Republican governor of Democratic New Jersey, I took the Internet Express out to Iowa, surveying its various newspapers, blogs and such to see how he might do in the GOP caucuses, won last time by Rick Santorum, neither cuddly nor moderate. Superstorm Sandy put Christie on the map. The winter snows of Iowa could bury him.

From a Web site called the Iowa Republican, I learned that part of the problem with John McCain and Mitt Romney, seriatim losers to Barack Obama, is they were deemed too moderate by many Iowa conservatives. The sort of candidates Iowa Republicans prefer have already been in the state. The blog cited Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah (considered to the right of Cruz, if such a thing is possible), Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the partys recent vice presidential candidate and its resident abacus, and the inevitable Sarah Palin, the Alaska quitter who, I think, actually now lives in Arizona. If this is the future of the GOP, then its in the past.

None of these candidates bears the slightest resemblance to Christie. And the more literate of them thats not you, Palin must have chortled over post-election newspaper columns extolling Christie as precisely the sort of candidate the GOP ought to run in 2016. This is the dream of moderate Republicans, but not many of them vote in the Iowa caucuses or the South Carolina primary, two of the early nominating contests.
Just amazing. A woman capable of speaking contemporaneously for 30 minutes with a 20 word note written on her hand is illiterate? The 'illiterate' smear is an old one from the 1970s, not quite the truth, but since it is a negative not provable either. In this context it speaks of Cohen utter ignorance, which liberals will follow.
At the moment, it is Cruz, not Christie, who has seized the imagination of Iowa Republicans. Cruz has not only been to the state, but he also was accompanied by his evangelist father, Rafael, a colorful preacher who opposes almost anything, including, of course, same-sex marriage. (It was Adam and Eve, it was not Adam and Steve, he recently said.)
A cogent argument that speaks to the benefit of traditional marriage as a benefit to society. But not to Cohen.
Cruz the younger is not merely tea party to the nth degree, he is a Christian conservative as well and for 22 percent of Iowas likely 2016 caucusgoers, polled by the Des Moines Register, thats who they think stands the best chance of winning the presidency. The No. 1 choice (44 percent) was a candidate focused on civil liberties and a small government rooted in the U.S. Constitution. Christie can passably argue that he is that, but no one is going to call him a Christian conservative. After all, he opposed same-sex marriage in New Jersey, but he acquiesced. Cruz would not to do that. Hed still be talking and Steve would still be single.
Kewt. You should try standup comedy in your new career.
Iowa not only is a serious obstacle for Christie and other Republican moderates, it also suggests something more ominous: the Dixiecrats of old. Officially the States Rights Democratic Party, they were breakaway Democrats whose primary issue was racial segregation. In its cause, they ran their own presidential candidate, Strom Thurmond, and almost cost Harry Truman the 1948 election. They didnt care. Their objective was not to win although that would have been nice but to retain institutional, legal racism. They saw a way of life under attack and they feared its loss.

Todays GOP is not racist, as Harry Belafonte alleged about the tea party, but it is deeply troubled about the expansion of government, about immigration, about secularism, about the mainstreaming of what used to be the avant-garde. People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children. (Should I mention that Bill de Blasios wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be a lesbian?) This family represents the cultural changes that have enveloped parts but not all of America. To cultural conservatives, this doesnt look like their country at all.
de Blasio is a self confessed Sandanista, an ally of a Nicaragua political movement responsible for their share of socialist mayhem in central American, coming soon to New York. His wife is supposed to be irrelevant in politics, unless she decides to be relevant. Her race is not s'posed to matter. I have yet to see anything from the TEA Party that extols or even encourages racial segregation. The only time such a thing is even an issue is when liberals like Cohen make the charge as a political smear.
As with the Dixiecrats, the fight is not over a particular program although Obamacare comes close but about a tectonic shift of attitudes. I thank Dennis J. Goldford, professor of politics and international relations at Drake University in Des Moines, for leading me to a live performance on YouTube of Merle Haggard singing Are the Good Times Really Over. This chestnut, a lament for a lost America, has been viewed well more than 2 million times. It could be the tea partys anthem.
That song was written and performed by Merle haggard back in the 1970s. In only my opinion is does speak to unhelpful changes, so its sentiment will be relevant in generations to come. In the song Haggard laments feminism, lying and other American societal changes.
For all his positions and religious beliefs, Christie is too Joisey for the tea party too brash, as well. He would be wise to steer clear of Iowa lest he lose or, worse, follow Romney and take on the deeply conservative coloration of the states GOP. That might make him (barely) acceptable to Republican Iowans but anathema to the rest of us.

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Home Front: Politix

"One Nation Working Together" rally all flaps and no thrust

2010-10-05

The nation's biggest, richest and most powerful labor unions spent months organizing the "One Nation Working Together" rally at the Lincoln Memorial Saturday. With midterm elections approaching, they hoped to put on a show of political strength to energize struggling Democratic candidates. But even after giving it everything they had, they still weren't able to draw as many people as Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally in August. Why not?

Because the labor movement is shrinking, aging and divided. Because the best program its leaders (and co-sponsors at the NAACP) could put together was one featuring Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Richard Trumka, Van Jones and Harry Belafonte. And because George W. Bush is no longer in the White House. Put those factors together, and Big Labor's big march fell flat.

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-Short Attention Span Theater-

Hollywood Race Obsession Cuts Both Ways

2008-07-25

US actor Danny Glover, who plans an epic next year on Haitian independence hero Toussaint-Louverture, said he slaved to raise funds for the movie because financiers complained there were no white heroes. "Producers said 'It's a nice project, a great project... where are the white heroes?'" he told AFP during a stay in Paris this month for a seminar on film.

"I couldn't get the money here, I couldn't get the money in Britain. I went to everybody. You wouldn't believe the number of producers based in Europe, and in the States, that I went to," he said. "The first question you get, is 'Is it a black film?' All of them agree, it's not going to do good in Europe, it's not going to do good in Japan.

"Somebody has to prove that to be a lie!", he said. "Maybe I'll have the chance to prove it."

"Toussaint," Glover's first project as film director, is about Francois Dominique Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803), a former slave and one of the fathers of Haiti's independence from France in 1804, making it the first black nation to throw off imperial rule and become a republic. The uprising he led was bloodily put down in 1802 by 20,000 soldiers dispatched to the Caribbean by Napoleon Bonaparte, who then re-established slavery after its ban by the leaders of the French Revolution.

Due to be shot in Venezuela early next year, the film will star Don Cheadle, Mos Def, Wesley Snipes and Angela Bassett. "I wasn't the first one who had this idea," he said. "Sergey Eisenstein had the same idea, Anthony Quinn had this idea, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, and this goes on."

The "Lethal Weapon" co-star, just turned 62, finally raised 18 of the 30 million dollars needed from a Venezuelan cultural body set up in 2006 by his friend President Hugo Chavez to counter what he termed "the Hollywood film dictatorship".

Venezuelan filmmakers last year slammed the investment. "It is Mr Glover who should be bringing dollars to Venezuela," the National Association of Film Makers and the Venezuelan Chamber of Film Producers said in an open letter.

Glover, a longtime activist, has supported Chavez's political revolution since he was first elected in 1998. An admirer of the Senegalese writer-filmmaker known as the father of African cinema, Ousmane Sembene, Glover has helped produce African films, including the recently-acclaimed arthouse movie "Bamako" by Abderrahmane Sissako.

"The first African films that I saw were films that portrayed Africans as savages, ignorant and uncivilized, and I wanted to know something else," he said. "I was very fortunate, I had the chance to read writers like Mariama Ba, Aime Cesaire ... and Leopold Sedar Senghor. I read him when I was 20."

"When I saw Sidney Poitier on screen, I was probably 10 or 11," he added. "That was a different image, an image I had never seen before, on screen. The African-Americans I saw, they danced, they were buffoons, that was the image. So Sidney brought another image."

History, Glover said, had enabled him to play a wide range of roles because of the changes taking place in society. "I think cinema has played a great role in our re-imagining ourselves," he said.
Hot on the heels of Clint Eastwood being attacked for not depicting blacks at Iwo Jima. Hollywood is obsessed with "rainbow diversity", not matter how nonsensical.

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Terror Networks

Come Mr. Taliban, come ...

2007-10-14

Caribbean singer Harry Belafonte's popular "Banana Boat" song was twisted by terror camp leader Atilla Ahmet to preach jihad to kids at the Jameah Islamic school, near Crowborough in Sussex. Ahmet, according to the Daily Mail, called it his "Jihad Calypso", and convinced children at the school to sing it along with him at a performance. That performance was later recorded, a court here was told.

The lyrics of the 84-worded song went as follows:

"Come Mr. Taliban, come give me kuffir...my Kalasnikov. Come Mr. Taliban, come bomb England... before the daylight come, you wanna see Ten Downing Street.

Come Mr. Taliban, come implement Shariah. Come Mr. Taliban, come bomb England before the daylight come, Insh'Allah, it will be done.

Hey Mr. Taliban, come kill the dirty kuffir, get rid of the haram, because we want halal.

Hey Mr. Taliban, boom, boom, boom, come bomb England before the daylight come. Insh'Allah, it will be done.

Ahmet, a former preacher at Finsbury Park Mosque, has pleaded guilty to three counts of soliciting murder in connection with a case now being heard at Woolwich Crown Court.

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Caribbean-Latin America

2 Men Charged in Cuba Travel Fraud Plot

2007-02-23

Two men were arrested and charged with using fake religious organizations to get thousands of people permission to travel to Cuba, prosecutors said Thursday.

Victor Vazquez and David Margolis invented nonexistent religious organizations to apply for federal government licenses that allow U.S. residents to travel to Cuba, U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta said. Nearly all travel to Cuba from the U.S. is banned, except for certain religious, humanitarian and research reasons.

Prosecutors say the men then provided the licenses to travel agencies, which sold the use of them to more than 4,500 people for about $250 above the normal cost of tickets. The scheme began last April, prosecutors said.

Vazquez and Margolis each were charged with one count of conspiring to violate Cuba-related travel regulations. Vazquez was also charged with two counts of lying on applications to obtain religious travel licenses to Cuba. The maximum sentence for each charge is five years.

They made their first court appearances Wednesday in Fort Lauderdale. Margolis was released on a $1.25 million bond. Vazquez's pretrial detention hearing continues Friday.

Margolis' attorney Richard Rosenbaum said he plans to plead not guilty and defend the case vigorously if an indictment is handed down.

"Mr. Margolis has never been in trouble for anything in his entire life," Rosenbaum said.

A telephone message left for Vazquez's attorney, Robert Eckard, was not immediately returned.

"Today's criminal charges are a wake-up call to those who seek to violate the economic and trade sanctions against the Cuban regime," Acosta said at a news conference.

Acosta wouldn't say if his office had specific plans to bring charges against the travel agencies or the thousands of people who traveled using the licenses.

"We start here, but that doesn't mean we end here," Acosta said.
Hopefully the next people prosecuted include Danny Glover, Harry Belafonte, Susan Sarandon, Oliver Stone, and Steven Spielberg.

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Caribbean-Latin America

Idiots flock to Hugo's paradise

2006-03-26

NYT registration, so posted in nauseating detail. How does one put most of an article on page 49, or is that a power denied to mere jackals?

The ~~has-been~~ actor Danny Glover has come. Harry Belafonte has also been here ~~before daylight come and he wan' go home~~. So has the antiwar activist ~~Mother~~ Cindy Sheehan, the prominent ~~white-hater~~ African-American writer Cornel West and Bolivia's new president~~-For-Life~~, Evo Morales. A student from an American university photographed residents of a Caracas neighborhood during a visit to Venezuela, a new leftist mecca.
They say they want a revolution.
But most visitors are like Cameron Durnsford, a 24-year-old student from Australia who decided to study at a new government-financed university in Caracas. Mr. Durnsford was, admittedly, put off some by the cult of celebrity around President Hugo Chávez, which he says "seems a little bit Maoist."
And if you go carrying pictures of Chariman Mao,...
But Venezuela's revolution, he quickly added, was not to be missed. "You've got a nation and a leader trying to prove an alternative to neo-liberalism and the policies that have ravaged Latin America for 20 years," he said. "That's why people are coming here. There's a sense that it's a moment in history."
A moment like 1919 in Russia, 1949 in China. Before the reality of Communism kills millions of people and spoils the fun.

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Fifth Column

Hollywood stars join campaign to close prison

2006-03-15

The campaign to close Guantánamo Bay has secured high-profile support, with Nobel laureates and film stars signing a letter in today's Guardian demanding an end to torture.

We, the undersigned writers and artists, demand that the US immediately cease using the Guantánamo Bay base as an illegal detention centre and to close all of its arbitrary detention centres where the systematic abuse of human rights and dignity are still taking place. As we write, the 62nd session of the UN commission of human rights in Geneva is about to begin and new images of the US military torturing prisoners in Iraq are being published. Yet the US and its allies in the EU have thus far prevented the UN commission from condemning the massive and systematic violations of human rights that have taken place in the name of the so-called war on terror. EU countries have ignored the testimonies of even their own citizens who have been victims of torture in Guantanamo. Several have allowed the overflights of CIA aircraft carrying prisoners to detention centres and elsewhere. The UN commission on human rights (or the council proposed to replace it) must end this hypocrisy and demand the closure of Guantánamo Bay and all the detention centres created by the US, as well as the cessation of torture and the deliberate violations of human dignity.

Signed by the usual suspects:

José Saramago
Nadine Gordimer
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
Rigoberta Menchú
Wole Soyinka
Harold Pinter
Dario Fo
Danielle Mitterrand
Harry Belafonte
Danny Glover
Gerard Depardieu
Alice Walker
Manu Chao
Eduardo Galeano
And 407 other writers and artists

Guess the real stars were washing their hair.

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Home Front: Politix

Liberal-Left Deserting Hillary Clinton

2006-02-02

Political junkies are witnessing a true phenomenon in presidential politics: more than two years before the next presidential election cycle there's a movement to target someone considered by the news media and pundits to be a frontrunner in 2008 -- Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Even with softball interviews by the likes of Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer, and with almost a daily practice by some members of the mainstream news media of publishing her press releases as if they were news, Hillary Clinton is facing tough opposition not only from Republicans but also from members of her own party.

Right after a poll showed last week that most Americans would definitely not vote for her, Senator John Kerry suddenly sprung to life on the ski slopes of Switzerland to head up an attempt at filibustering the confirmation of US Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito. It's no secret within the Beltway that Kerry believes he has a shot at the presidency even after losing to President Bush in 2004. There's no doubt that Kerry monitors the polls that are showing Hillary is vulnerable to attack from both the right and the left.

In fact, there are many Republicans storing their symbolic "flip-flop" sandals for the next Presidential campaign since Clinton is all over the place on issues, taking positions based on whom she's addressing. She's for tough border security, but votes no on legislation that would increase the number of border agents and detention beds. She claims she supports the war, but says she's sorry she voted to go to war after the reigning queen of the anti-war movement, Cindy Sheehan, spanked her in California by calling her a warmonger. She wants to curtail illegal immigration, but she also wants to provide illegal immigrants with education and healthcare.

Former staff members in Bill Clintons White House are privately saying she could be a risky choice. To the left, an anti-war stop Hillary movement is gathering traction, threatening her ability to unite the Democrats. Which is possibly why Al Gore is criss-crossing the US giving the most vitriolic speeches for left-wing groups such as MoveOn.Org. He too envisions another shot at the White House prize.

According to the Sunday Times, Mike McCurry, Bill Clintons White House press secretary, claims he fears the 2008 campaign could be brutal for the former first lady. He said he remembers how she became a lightning rod for conservatives during her husbands years in office.

She has proven that she works hard at being senator and does that job well, but bringing the country together and moving it in a different direction is an entirely different matter, McCurry said. It is very hard to reinvent yourself in politics.

However, McCurry proves that old habits, such as blowing smoke when it comes to the Clintons, are hard to break. Ask McCurry what piece of legislation Hillary has sponsored and you will get a glazed look. When New Yorkers are asked what's she done for New York State or for the nation, besides bloviating at functions and hobnobbing with the Manhattan and Hollywood elite, they usually answer with abstract notions such as "she gives us hope."

It's the same reaction you get if you ask African-Americans what Bill Clinton, the "first black president" did for them in his eight years in office. They think and think and then say, "He gave us hope." Hope doesn't pay the rent, feed the kids or make car payments. The true answer for both Clintons is: they do nothing but talk your ears off.

A CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll last week found that 51% of Americans definitely would not vote for Hillary and only 16% said they definitely would. Among men, 60% said they would not vote for her. And 43% of women said they wouldn't vote for her either.

Ultimately the issue is: do we turn to something new? Weve been through the Clintons, weve been through the Gores, weve been through the Kerrys, all of whom are known quantities in politics, said Leon Panetta, a driving force within the Democrat Party and a Bill Clinton loyalist.

The Democrats have a new rising star in Mark Warner, who recently stepped down as governor of the conservative state of Virginia. His proven appeal to moderate voters is attracting Democrats of all shades who are eager to win, but he remains little known on the national scene at this point. However, that is likely to change as the perception of Senator Clinton as damaged good starts to take hold within the Democrat Party.

The doubts about Clintons electabilty are growing almost with each speech. On Martin Luther King's Birthday, during a memorial in Harlem, Hillary chose to attack Republicans rather than honor the civil rights icon. She even managed to include the words "plantation" and "Republicans" in the same sentence in order to continue the myth of Republican racism.

Talk host Laura Ingraham was incensed over Hillary's playing of the race card. Ingraham told her listeners it was a speech designed to create fear in blacks that the evil Republicans can't be trusted. Even news stories about her ignoring washed-up Calypso singer Harry Belafonte at a New York function were promulgated to protect her from being linked to the rantings of an ignorant fool who prides himself as an intellectual.

Conservatives know that Hillary's heart is with Belafonte, but her mind wants to reside once again in the White House. As with singer Madonna, Hillary tries and tries to reinvent herself and it could have worked had there been no Internet news and blogs, no talk radio, and no Fox News Channel.

Clintons small successes with voters in the small towns in New York is seen as proof that she can win over conservatives, although according to last weeks poll, 90% of Republicans will definitely not vote for her. Even New York Democrats -- many of whom are former Reagan Democrats -- may be comfortable with her warming a seat in the senate, but giving her the power of President and Commander-in-Chief is a horse -- or donkey -- of a different color.

New Republic magazine, the left-wing weekly, argues in its current issue that the voters of rural New York bear little comparison to diehard Republican voters in the South and Midwest. She is going to have to bring something else to the national stage, it warned.

So folks, the Stop Hillary train is leaving the station. And it's coming to a station near you.

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