...if Harper were acting honestly, he'd be resigning and surrendering as a war criminal himself.
Harper's memorial for 'the victims of communism'
Mon, 2010-03-29 12:36
#52
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
Mon, 2010-03-29 12:46
#53
If Harper was acting honestly, in a paragraph remembering the victims of the Holocaust, he'd build a monument to the victims of the Holodomor.
But that would be a risky act as none of those war criminals have every been brought to trial.
The best 'memorial' would be international trials of the war criminals and international state collaborators, including western states and financiers.
These trials could be held in conjunction with the trials of those responsible for and complicit in war crimes in Sri Lanka, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Indigenous lands the world over.
Mon, 2010-03-29 13:04
#54
remind
Great stuff LTJ.... :D :D
Mon, 2010-03-29 13:05
#55
and it is incorrect to say that the 'Bolsheviks took down the Romanov dynasty in its entirety.'
First, many diverse sectors overthrew the Romanov dynasty at different levels.
Second, the Bosheviks simply rebuilt and expanded the dynasty in their own image, at the expense of tens of millions of people and the earth.
Mon, 2010-03-29 13:16
#56
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
I realize that the myth of the holodomor is one that you're very attached to, thanks. But it exists to serve the purposes of the radical right, simply as a fable demonizing the left; so you are never going to be successful in your quest to wrest it from the likes of Stephen Harper.
Mon, 2010-03-29 14:41
#57
so you say recognition of the Holocaust is a good starting place, but not recognition of the Holodomor.
in calling the Holodomor a 'myth' you are very wrong.
you do an injustice to the millions who were mercilessly killed, just as Holocaust-deniers are fraudulent and injust.
Mon, 2010-03-29 14:55
#58
also, it irks me that so many consider Marx to be the founder of commun-ism, when he wasn't.
Traditional village residents lived in communities where resources were shared for millenia before the term was used.
This wasn't 'ideology', it was the practice of early nomadic and agricultural peoples.
I gather Marx recognized this, but he certainly wasn't the first.
We have a period of a couple centuries appropriating the history of millenia, in reactionary and counter-reactionary ways, ongoing.
It would be useful to separate the notion of 'community-ism' from massive industrialization and unhelpful political interpretations.
It would be useful to look at how Indigenous and traditional societies functioned at the community level, and how more contemporary communities which have retained or rebuilt local processes make decisions and share elements of ecology and economy.
Mon, 2010-03-29 15:12
#59
remind
Good post thanks, I believe you are absolutely correct!
Mon, 2010-03-29 15:43
#60
One of the subway bombs was exploded under the FAS headquarters.
I think FAS highlights the problem with authoritarian regimes. They all hire killers. The Cheka was the Tzars secret police. They mostly survived and became the hated KGB. Mention the term KGB and our state media at the CBC spit venom.
I was astounded to learn on the CBC this morning that the FAS is simply Russia's security force. Hated under the Tzar, brutally despised under the Communists but accepted as necessary under a democratic facade. But it is the same brutal state apparatus that was instrumental in many massacres and is still implicated in the Caucuses with ongoing brutality. So much for political ideology driving the policies. Seems that greed and the usurping of resources is always the real culprit behind brutal repression not the form of government.
Mon, 2010-03-29 15:57
#61
and it is incorrect to say that the 'Bolsheviks took down the Romanov dynasty in its entirety.'
First, many diverse sectors overthrew the Romanov dynasty at different levels.
Second, the Bosheviks simply rebuilt and expanded the dynasty in their own image, at the expense of tens of millions of people and the earth.
No, the February Revolution knocked it down and allowed the Duma to gain primacy. The dynasty was still alive and sitting in its palaces - basically posed for a reentry onto the political scene of Russian. Then the October Revolution ended that thread. The Bolsheviks did to the Romanovs what the Romanovs had used the state aparatus to do to the Bolsheviks - kill them, exile them, and hurt their families. I'd really like to see you expand on what you mean, though.
And yeah, any new regime takes over the apparatus of the previous state, but the Russian Civil War moved and shaped the Bolshevik party and its use of power.
LTJ, as for Holodomor being a 'myth'? Its politicization is a problem. To call it a myth is really, really offensive. I really wish you could say that to my family that didn't manage to get out of Ukraine. Oh, wait. You can't. They were starved to death or shot. I find such dismissals of what millions and millions and millions of people can attest to (and I can bet dollars to donuts that my friend's families who lived through it aren't NAZIs) absolutely disconcerting. Criticize its use as a political tool, don't call it a myth. It is alienating and offensive. LTJ, of course, I'm sure any hardships that your historical ancestors ever felt are just 'myths', of course. I can buy into the concept that it isn't genocide - but then what was this 'myth'. You should probably explain that, LTJ.
Mon, 2010-03-29 15:58
#62
Second, the Bosheviks simply rebuilt and expanded the dynasty in their own image, at the expense of tens of millions of people and the earth.
In that case, I can only assume that the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonization_of_the_Romanovs]canonization[/... of Lenin and other revolutionaries is imminent.
Mon, 2010-03-29 16:42
#63
Viking77, ....Other people here don't quite get our model either but they aren't drawn to it the way you are.......You are consistently and belligerently contrary to core principles here....
The downfall of communism lies in that philosophical approach. Oldgoat, you are ok that Viking believes what you say simply because the guy in charge knows what it means. According to communists, as long as the guy in charge knows the meaning, the whole world spins around quite perfectly. I'd love to see them try that approach here in South Africa. Observing the consequences would be more entertaining than a Monty Python movie. Oh hang on...we already have a couple of bizarre dictatorships here in Africa!!
Viking, when the guy in charge decides to take so many liberties that he is entitled to develope his own definitions of historical terms then he is simply so far out of orbit that it's best to just cut your losses and move on. Your persistence to understand when you were in doubt was a very admirable quality. When you have nothing left to lose, it should be enough to know you are right regardless of the fact that there is nothing you can do about it.
Mon, 2010-03-29 16:46
#64
Viking77, ....Other people here don't quite get our model either but they aren't drawn to it the way you are.......You are consistently and belligerently contrary to core principles here....
The downfall of communism lies in that philosophical approach. Oldgoat, you are ok that Viking believes what you say simply because the guy in charge knows what it means. According to communists, as long as the guy in charge knows the meaning, the whole world spins around quite perfectly. I'd love to see them try that approach here in South Africa. Observing the consequences would be more entertaining than a Monty Python movie. Oh hang on...we already have a couple of bizarre dictatorships here in Africa!!
Viking, when the guy in charge decides to take so many liberties that he is entitled to develope his own definitions of historical terms then he is simply so far out of orbit that it's best to just cut your losses and move on. Your persistence to understand when you were in doubt was a very admirable quality. When you have nothing left to lose, it should be enough to know you are right regardless of the fact that there is nothing you can do about it.
LOL A brand new poster who seems to know all about the board and Viking. Wow I am truly astounded. You share a writing style with someone, I just can't put my finger on who though.
Mon, 2010-03-29 16:51
#65
LOL A brand new poster who seems to know all about the board and Viking. Wow I am truly astounded. You share a writing style with someone, I just can't put my finger on who though.
I also have nothing left to lose on this site. That was my first and last posting.
Mon, 2010-03-29 17:00
#66
Snert
Sort of a rhetorical suicide bomber approach?
Mon, 2010-03-29 18:08
#67
Now remind, as the guy in charge, I'm interested in knowing just what you mean when you say "#$#@%^$"
Mon, 2010-03-29 18:30
#68
number sign dollar sign number sign at symbol percentage hat money sign
and i thought you could read nerd.
Mon, 2010-03-29 18:36
#69
oh,...and a racist one at that!
Mon, 2010-03-29 18:39
#70
remind
hate to quibble fish but your last post was your last post and you definitely picked the wrong side to come down on, do you really want to be associated with a racist?
ETA for old goat, do not even know how that got there, was a link to outlook express and was supposed to be a ? mark. :very confused:
Mon, 2010-03-29 18:42
#71
remind
hey, edited my post as that was a link to my outlook express, and I do not even know how to do that, let alone wanting too.
see above edit
Mon, 2010-03-29 18:46
#72
So your outlook email address is #$#@%^$ ? Well, I guess I'm not surprised. 
Mon, 2010-03-29 19:02
#73
remind
:razz:
don't know what happened, was eating yogurt and dropped some on my f2 f3 and between the numbers, and was wiping the board off with my napkin and perhaps that is how the @$#% got there, but how did a link to my outlook express get into the equation?
very weird....
and I just ried to replicate it and nadda....
Mon, 2010-03-29 21:54
#74
- my understanding is that the Bolsheviks were one of many different factions active before, during and after events in 1917. Uprisings across the region were opportunistically used by Lenin and the bolsheviks when they took power. Bolsheviks were predominantly urban, had little popularity in the countryside, and were Russophilic. Ukrainian independence was considered a threat to them-progressive, socialist, even a communist Ukraine could not be tolerated. Ukraine was militarily forced to be part of a Russian-dominated USSR, in terms of governance structures.
- Lenin was 'canonized',perhaps in ways most insulting to local populations- the rapids on the river were dammed and a resevoir named Lenin Lake. Squares named after Lenin survived to the 70s. Even his statue stands, sort of.
anyway, i really didn't want this thread to become another rehash of rehashed rehash. it would be nice to spend more time looking at intentional communities in recent decades here, or indigenous community governance models, or other alternatives.
i think that's why i put this topic in the humanities forum.
Mon, 2010-03-29 22:09
#75
I give up 
'night.
Mon, 2010-03-29 22:50
#76
One of the subway bombs was exploded under the FAS headquarters.
I think FAS highlights the problem with authoritarian regimes. They all hire killers. The Cheka was the Tzars secret police. They mostly survived and became the hated KGB. Mention the term KGB and our state media at the CBC spit venom.
Actually, it was the Okhrana that was the czar's secret police. The Cheka, created in December 1917 in response to a "public servant" strike (the old czarist bureaucrats), consisted of a different lot from Bolshevik to Socialist-Revolutionary amateurs.
Russia was quite chaotic that time, so much so that the Cheka itself had a hard time maintaining order within its ranks.
In fact, believe it or not, the NKVD predated the Cheka! The People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs couldn't maintain order against the upheaval, so the Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage was created for this specific task.
Mon, 2010-03-29 23:21
#77
also, it irks me that so many consider Marx to be the founder of commun-ism, when he wasn't.
There are some who say that a certain carpenter from Nazareth was the first Communist.
Mon, 2010-03-29 23:33
#78
[url=http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/09/17_franken.html]Jesus was pro-flea markets and a supply sider[/url]
Tue, 2010-03-30 00:16
#79
There are some who say that a certain carpenter from Nazareth was the first Communist.
"Communism in the Bible" by Jose Miranda (scripture scholar and economist, amongst other things) makes a very good case for that.
interesting little fact: the Greek word 'tekton' that has been translated 'carpenter' means some kind of builder. Jesus could as easily have been a stone mason or construction worker (and may have worked in the nearby city of Sepphoris, which was being rebuilt at the time). It's unlikely he was making coffee tables and book cases!
Tue, 2010-03-30 01:56
#80
interesting little fact: the Greek word 'tekton' that has been translated 'carpenter' means some kind of builder. Jesus could as easily have been a stone mason or construction worker (and may have worked in the nearby city of Sepphoris, which was being rebuilt at the time).
Indeed, "builder" or "mason" make more sense than "carpenter," given the building materials used in that area.
Hmm, "mason"? I hear whispers of the Illuminati now...
Tue, 2010-03-30 08:06
#81
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
Papal Bull - I have always recognized that millions starved. The myth is that they were targeted for genocide along ethnic lines.
edited to add:
And the myth is in the holoword word itself, made up to sound like another atrocity, and not coined until 1988.
Tue, 2010-03-30 13:41
#82
holodna = hungry, in Ukrainian.
Stalin and others talked about 'the Ukrainian problem', and not simply with respect to a geographical region. A statement was made to the effect that he'd 'like to have deported all Ukrainians, but there were too many of them'. Forced starvation was the 'solution'.
Racism was rampant, Ukrainian language was outlawed, Ukrainian ethnic custom squashed. Ethnic Ukrainians particularly were limited in political representation, educational opportunity, freedom of expression.
Ethnic Ukrainians made up the majority of the population. The famine and massacres and deportations turned eastern Ukraine particularly to Russified territory, though in western Ukraine too Urainian language, culture, and religion were outlawed, Ukrainian peasants massacred and taken to gulags.
Yes other cultures were affected, just as Ukrainians, not just Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Does that mean the Holocaust was not a genocide? Of course not. The Holocaust was genocide and also sick racism and unspeakable abuse. The same goes for the Holodomor.
Tue, 2010-03-30 15:26
#83
The Holocaust's explicit purpose was to wipe out the Jewish people from Europe. It was genocide from the get go.
The famine in Ukraine, Holodomor, is a lot hazier. A lot of the archives around this period were destroyed (for an interesting account I'd suggest reading Krushev's memoirs or the journals of film maker Oleksandr Dovzhenko). But nonetheless, it was targeted, it affected millions outside of Ukraine and I think it is properly called a democide. Stalin and the rest wanted to crush Ukrainian culture - which is why the policy of Ukrainization was reversed. Again, genocide is a very specific crime. Whether Holodomor falls into that category should be up for individual interpretation.
As for the origin of the word - I think that Ukrainians have a right to describe their experience in whatever terms that they want. Before 1988 you just didn't talk about the famine. And what thanks said, it has some pretty good etymological roots in Ukrainian. Death by hunger? Sounds like a good match for describing those dark days to me.
And again, read the journals of Oleksandr Dovzhenko or Krushev. Anyone who saw first hand what was happening in Ukraine spoke about the absolute horror that they saw.
Tue, 2010-03-30 16:30
#84
How do they say hungry today in democratic capitalist India? That country had 25 famines during the years of British administration alone. Human life still isnt worth very much in capitalist India.
Tue, 2010-03-30 18:58
#85
It seems Ukraine is not unanimous about Holodomor, nor about the legacy of Stepan Bandera. At least, Yanukovych and Yushkevich seem to disagree. If there's no consensus in Ukraine (and Stalin has been dead for almost 60 years), is there room for discussion elsewhere?
Tue, 2010-03-30 19:36
#86
haven't we had this same conversation before? honestly.
what's the problem with you people? normally your memories are pretty good.
a lot of the archives from this period are only now beginning to be released in Ukraine, yet Russia still has not released its archives.
policies of 'Ukrainianization' came and went as political winds changed, none were ever substantial nor sufficient.
when a leader says he wants to deport all members of a certain race, having held their food under military guard while keeping them from leaving so that millions die, there is evidence of genocide.
it would be useful if those closer to urban libraries which may by now have copies of declassified documents released in the last couple of years post info. there is a lot of general info online about the Holodomor, from the Ukrainian Canadian Congress site http://www.ucc.ca/genocide/index.htm and other links, but it would be nice to get some data from government sources.
and yes famines in other countries are horrible too, and others more familiar with those events can talk about them.
Notice, Harper did not call for a monument to victims of the Holodomor. No one wants to recognize it. Harper is perfectly happy to talk about the 'Victims of Communism', but not specific victims of a specific regime, which might carry some purpose in terms of examination and trial, unless they happen to be victims of the Holocaust.
Guess he's learning from his experience apologizing for crimes against Aboriginals here- naming specifics creates expectation for action which he's not prepared to move with. All talk no action on that front.
On the Holodomor front he doesn't have the courage to even talk the talk, even though there was much talk a few years ago.
maybe since tides are shifting eastward again he doesn't want to offend Putin with an actual monument to the victims of his earlier regime.
A monument is easier to see than a Hansard record. A monument for the Holodomor would have the dates 1932-33 on it. People could look up those dates in archives and history books and find out all the investments Canada and the US and others made in Stalin's regime, while denying that millions were dying in the countryside.
The US and Canada continue to deny atrocities while doing business with the G8 and other perpetrators.
Tue, 2010-03-30 20:01
#87
the mind is interesting.
i read a lot of history during the winter, much of it depressing history around the horrors inflicted in the last century.
it seems i've blocked a lot of that off. i keep having to go back and check on the specifics. guess that's not a bad thing.
anyway,
Khruschev was the installed head of Ukraine in January 1938, the set of terrors lasted until December 1938 when NKVD head Yezhov was dismissed. When Khruschev was head of the USSR later, the Twenty-Second Congress of the CPSU held in 1961 "delineated the permissable limits for the revelation of historical truths quite closely; in the case of Russia, the Stalinist terror could be mentioned as going as far back as 1934, while in the case of Ukraine the 1937 terror was to be the limit."[Ukraine, A Concise Enc. p.909. V. Holubychny]
Holubychny also writes,"During 1959-61 the political police organized anew a series of well-publicized trials of some forty to fifty former members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and UPA guerillas, who had been released recently from Siberian concentration camps after the amnesty and had returned to Western Ukraine, this time their sentences were death by firing squads. In the same period, the USSR Committee on State Security increased its terror among the emigres: one of its agents , on trial in a German court, admitted having assassinate, on Moscow's orders, Lev Rebet (in 1957) and Stephen Bandera (in1959),both top leaders of the Ukrainian nationalists in exile in Germany." p.910.
Reading Ukrainian history, textbooks full, itemizing terrors over centuries, is very depressing. It's no wonder a mind wants to block it out, and why people haven't talked about the famine. It has also been very dangerous to do so.
Fri, 2010-04-02 09:53
#88
I also needed to say that there were many different factions operating in Ukraine at the time.
During WW2 Holubnychy and others described the different factions of the OUN, at odds with eachother under Bandera or Melnyk, Bandera having first thought to use military training to help Ukraine. However when he wrote a program and tried to set up Ukrainian self-government he was sent to a German concentration camp. At the same time UPA fighters under Taras Borovets were fighting Bolsheviks and Germans, and Bandera's OUN faction joined with them. Borovets and others ended up in German concentration camps too. There were also spontaneous uprisings of Ukrainian peasants against the brutal German occupation. There were movements in Chernihiv, and students in central Ukraine who called for 'neither Hitler nor Stalin'.
Bolsheviks resisted the Germans too, in Western Ukraine parachuted in from the east, and made up of many NKVD and special forces. Their atrocities were by that time well known however, and local populations often ended up fighting both invaders. Other members of the population did not agree with the fighting, opposed the killing of civilians, took political approaches, or continued with critical domestic tasks and tried to stay alive.
On their way out the Germans destroyed much of Ukraine, and then the Bolsheviks set up their terrors throughout the country after Western leaders gave them their blessing at Yalta.
There were differences during the war as people knew they didn't want repression of any sort, but the large powers were all intent on retaining and exploiting others' lands and had aligned themselves accordingly.
The blame goes to the large powers. One cannot condemn people at the grassroots, that they were not unified, etc. as some historians have done.
The focus should be on those in the major regimes responsible for war crimes, including those in the West as well as the East.
Fri, 2010-04-02 11:00
#89
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
holodna = hungry, in Ukrainian.
holodomor = absolutely nothing, in Ukrainian.
it's a fabricated word, which despite the 'root' words claimed for it, was designed primarily for its semblance to "holocaust". And even if its 'roots' justify its use in Ukrainian, there is absolutely no reason for its use in English other than this association.
Fri, 2010-04-02 11:21
#90
Cueball
Hey? When are the Capitalists going to appologize for the Land Enclosure Act?
I'll be clear, deliberatley destroying the existing agrarian economy in the name of "progress" is hardly a "communist" invention.
Fri, 2010-04-02 11:28
#91
Use term 'the Great Famine/Genocide' then if you prefer English.
The intentional starvation of an estimated seven to fourteen million people in 1932-33 requires recognition.
More than recognition, it requires the trial of perpetrators including complicit westerners, and reparations.
Let Harper put up a memorial to that.
Incidentally, I understand it was a KGB agent who assassinated Bandera, B. Stashynsky. The Encyclopedia of Ukraine (Vol 1.p.169) has,
"At Stashynsky's trial in the Federal Republic of Germany (8-19 October 1962), it was established that the assassination had been directed personally by the head of the KGB, A. Shelepin."
Maybe Putin knew something about Shelepin and should be questioned about other crimes.
G8 and G20 members should investigate existing war crimes and those criminals not yet brought to justice.
Including Harper for his criminal operations in Afghanistan supporting Karzai's torturing, raping regime.
Fri, 2010-04-02 11:31
#92
your terms need to be more accurate.
ie) 'hardly an invention of the regime of Lenin, Stalin, and their collaborators'.
Fri, 2010-04-02 11:42
#93
Cueball
Actually, a long standing series of policies enacted by successive British governments aimed at centralizing the rural economy, causing social unrest, privation, starvation and so on.
Also, the term "communist" can be associated with a huge number of people who had absolutely nothing to do with any of that. Hearing you talk, I think there are large numbers of people who would associate yourself with that particular faction. Ergo, the terminiology being used here is specifically being politicized, and has far less to with recognizing or memorializing any victims.
It's not as if we have memorial to the "victims of the right", or capitalism, there are many such victims, as you well know.
Fri, 2010-04-02 12:19
#94
N.Beltov
Actually, there are still to this day efforts to depict right wing atrocities as left wing atrocities. This even goes on here on babble. For example, the Hilterite Nazis are depicted as (National) Socialists as though evaluation of the Nazi political orientation ends with their stage name.
Fri, 2010-04-02 12:49
#95
Don't know if you can call atrocities left-wing or right-wing; when people become fanatical extremists, the results are much the same regardless of baseline political philosophies.
When an ideology hardens into dogma that must be adhered to at all costs, people die.
Fri, 2010-04-02 13:02
#96
holodna = hungry, in Ukrainian.
holodomor = absolutely nothing, in Ukrainian.
it's a fabricated word, which despite the 'root' words claimed for it, was designed primarily for its semblance to "holocaust". And even if its 'roots' justify its use in Ukrainian, there is absolutely no reason for its use in English other than this association.
You have no idea how Slavic languages work, do you?
Fri, 2010-04-02 13:07
#97
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
Is there a point to your rhetorical question?
Fri, 2010-04-02 13:13
#98
If you don't see I doubt I can explain it to you.
Fri, 2010-04-02 13:14
#99
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
Use term 'the Great Famine/Genocide' then if you prefer English.
I would never dispute the use of 'the Great Famine'.
Your appendage to the term is questionable still; as it has arisen as right-wing propaganda, used to tally the deaths 'caused' by communism/socialism - with no responsibility ever assigned to capitalism for the mass starvations and malnutrition that continues under its auspices today.
Fri, 2010-04-02 13:15
#100
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
PB - Can you explain the fact the term was never heard before 1988 if it is such a natural construction?
Fri, 2010-04-02 13:27
#101
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
Did Stalin intend for the rebellious peasantry to go hungry?
Yes.
Did he intend to subjugate them by this means?
Yes.
Did he care if some died?
No.
Did he hate them for their ethnicity, and intend to wipe them from the face of the earth?
No.
Was he a ruthless, heartless and generally evil bastard with the blood of innocents on his hands?
Yes.
...but so is Dubya, and he walks freely in Canada and gets paid handsomely to shmooze oil industry execs in Calgary.