Tag Archives: USSR

Welcome to the U.S.S.A.’s Banquet of Consequences, by Charles Hugh Smith

Posted on December 9, 2020 | Leave a comment

US institutions’ corruption, incompetence, and lies are approaching those of Soviet institutions as they crumbled. From Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com:

The incontestable incompetence of the USSA’s monopolies, institutions and agencies is about to take center stage in 2021.

When I mention that the U.S.A. feels increasingly like the U.S.S.R., a surprising number of people tell me they feel the same way. Welcome to the U.S.S.A.: United Simulacra States of America where everything is an absurdly transparent simulation with little connection to reality and dissent is crushed by an everpresent, ubiquitous narrative police state enforced by the union of Big Tech social media, search and other monopolies and the Savior State: do what we tell you and you’ll get a piece of our endlessly spewed trillions.

My colleague Mark Jeftovic recommended an insightful book on the unraveling of the USSR, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation.

It’s an academic book so there are the required servings of jargon and references to suitably opaque academic tropes, but beneath the conceptual clutter lies a profound analysis of how humans adapt to and navigate a system that has lost all authenticity and survives entirely on the ceaseless marketing of artifice: in other words, the USA today.

Of particular interest are the book’s personal accounts of dutiful Party members going through the motions of obedience as a means of enjoying their private friendships and lives. Joining the Party’s machinery was a way to meet friends who you recruited for your committee work. Everyone went through the motions but nobody actually believed any of it: you did homework while “listening” to the endless canned speeches, you went out for coffee while telling the Party functionary that you were on Party business, and you worked on parades and activities that were a bit of fun despite the dreary official purpose which everyone ignored.

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Posted in Collapse, Economy, Government, History, Politics, Propaganda

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“Watch this!” by Dmitri Orlov

Posted on November 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

A close observer of the USSR’s collapse anticipates the US’s collapse. From Dmitri Orlov at cluborlov.blogspot.com:

here are times in my career as a collapse observer and systematizer when my running commentary can quite reasonably be pared down to just two words: “Watch this!” The current severe stage of the financial and economic collapse sequence that was initiated in 2008, which is being artificially masked (no pun intended) by the fake Covid “pandemic,” and now a hung and fraudulent US election on top of it is just such an occasion: why not just sit back and watch the world burn? But I happen to be in a particularly good and sprightly mood today, and when I get that way few things can hold me back from holding forth and bloviating prophetically.

Let’s start with a quick jaunt down memory lane. I first realized that the USA was going to follow the general trajectory of the USSR back in 1995. I also immediately realized that the USSR was rather well prepared for collapse whereas the USA was about to be blindsided by it, and so, as a public service, I thought I should warn people. “And a fat lot of good that did!” some of you might immediately exclaim. But you would be wrong: lots of people have written to me to say how much better adjusted they are psychologically now that they have heard and accepted my message, for now they are ready to accept collapse with equanimity and poise. This is sure to make their company less tedious moving forward.

And so I had my “Eureka!” moment in 1995, and a decade later, in 2005, I went public with my observations. I got a surprisingly sympathetic response from some particularly enlightened people (even if they said so themselves). And now, a quarter of a century after my initial insight, as the US enters national bankruptcy and institutional collapse, the whole world is being treated to an end-of-empire spectacular election extravaganza starring none other than the consummate showman and impresario extraordinaire Donald Trump. He used to run beauty pageants, while this one is more of an ugliness pageant, but then beauty is rare and always fades while ugliness is commonplace and usually just gets uglier, making it a much safer bet. And so let’s accept it as a parting present to the world from a vanishing nation that gave us horror flicks, reality television and three-ring circuses with sideshow freaks.

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The Devil and Karl Marx, by Walter E. Williams

Posted on September 16, 2020 | Leave a comment

Today’s socialists feed on the fantasy that somehow their socialism will turn out differently than the genocidal socialism of the past. From Walter E. Williams at lewrockwell.com:

Paul Kengor is a professor of political science at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania. He has just published “The Devil and Karl Marx,” a careful look at the diabolical side of Karl Marx. The book has come out during an important time in our history since so many Americans, particularly our youth, have fallen for the seductive siren song of socialism taught to them by the academic elite.

“The Black Book of Communism,” edited by Stephane Courtois details the Marxist-Leninist death toll in the 20th century. Here is the breakdown: USSR, 20 million deaths; China, 65 million; Vietnam, 1 million; North Korea and Cambodia, 2 million each; Eastern Europe, 1 million; and about 3.5 million in Latin America, Africa and Afghanistan. These figures understate those detailed by Professor R.J. Rummel in “Death by Government.” He finds that from 1917 until its collapse, the Soviet Union murdered or caused the death of 61 million people, mostly its own citizens. From 1949 to 1976, Communist China’s Mao Zedong regime was responsible for the death of as many as 78 million of its own citizens.

The world’s intellectual elite readily focus on Adolph Hitler’s murderous atrocities but ignore those of the world’s socialists. Mao Zedong has been long admired by academics and leftists across our country. They often marched around singing his praises and waving his little red book, “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung.” President Barack Obama’s communications director, Anita Dunn, in her June 2009 commencement address to St. Andrews Episcopal High School at Washington National Cathedral, said Mao was one of her heroes.

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Crime, Governments, History, Morality, Politics, Propaganda

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A critique of modern socialism, by Alasdair Macleod

Posted on August 28, 2020 | Leave a comment

The welfare-warfare-regulatory-state model of socialism is the next model that will collapse. From Alasdair Macleod at goldmoney.com:

ocialism has moved on from the Marxist version of the state owning the means of production to one whereby production remains in the hands of individuals but are heavily regulated — echoing Mussolini’s fascist-socialist model.

But after nearly nine decades this model faces collapse, much like the Soviet collapse after sixty-seven years. This article explores the modern socialist model, updates the economic calculation problem identified by von Mises in 1920 and explains why it still fails in today’s socialism. And finally we predict the consequences for governments and their state-issued currencies.

Introduction

It is presidential election year in the United States. The choice is between the Republican’s or the Democrat’s socialism, the former being a milder version of the latter. A further difference is President Trump’s administration increasingly pays the government’s bills by socialising money, while great-uncle Joe wants to tax the rich even more (which in practice means not the rich but the middle and lower classes) as well as defoliating  the magic money tree.

In Britain, those of us who rejoiced at a free marketeer becoming Prime Minister with a strong electoral mandate have experienced a greater clampdown on personal freedom than imposed by any British government since post-war rationing. Admittedly, Covid-19 and its lockdowns were not foreseen, but will the British ever regain any of their hitherto restricted freedoms? And those of us with long memories are reflecting that the imposition of taxes — the socialising of our earnings — under the Conservatives is almost always more onerous than under Labour. It was not meant to be like that.

One way or the other, the establishment’s socialisation of our wealth, money and freedom “creeps in this petty pace day to day until the last syllable of recorded time”. Whether we like it or not, we are all socialists now. It is a fact of our lives, if not our inclinations. The destruction of our money and what wealth we have left is claimed to be for the common good, as opposed to capitalism, which the socialists tell us enriches the few and is deeply immoral. They, the socialists, have captured the moral high ground, leading us to their higher plain. They allege it is progress towards a better humanity. Their utopian view sees the end of social inequality as its final goal, and as Man progresses towards it the human race will discard capitalism and the class wars that go with it.

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Posted in Business, Capitalism, Civil Liberties, Collapse, Cronyism, Currencies, Debt, Economics, Economy, Governments, Law, Politics, Propaganda, Taxes

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The US Bombed Japan in 1945 to Demonstrate Its Power to the USSR, by Scott Ritter

Posted on August 7, 2020 | Leave a comment

Japan was defeated and suing for peace, the atomic bombs were unnecessary. However, Truman and company had their eyes on the post World War II order and the Soviet Union. From Scott Ritter at lewrockwell.com:

As the world reflects on the decision by the US to drop two atomic bombs on Japan at the end of World War II, the reality is that the US nuclear enterprise remains the greatest threat to world peace.

Seventy-five years ago this week, two American B-29 ‘Superfortress’ bombers departed Tinian Island, in the northernmost part of the Mariana Islands, some 1,500 miles south of Tokyo, armed with the world’s newest and most horrific weapon: the atomic bomb. On August 6, a B-29 nicknamed the ‘Enola Gay’ dropped a single bomb containing 64 kilograms of highly enriched uranium over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The bomb, nicknamed ‘Little Boy,’ detonated with the force of 15 kilotons of TNT. At least 66,000 people were killed outright, with another 69,000 wounded, many of whom subsequently died of their injuries.

Two days later a second B-29, nicknamed the ‘Bockscar,’ dropped a bomb containing 6.4 kilograms of plutonium over the city of Nagasaki. This weapon, nicknamed ‘Fat Man,’ detonated with a force of 21 kilotons, killing some 39,000 Japanese outright and wounding another 25,000, most of whom, like those injured in Hiroshima, later died from their wounds.

American historians have struggled with the morality of dropping weapons that could destroy a city and its population in one mighty blast. Over the years, a consensus has been reached that justifies the horror of using the atomic bomb on the grounds that it helped shorten the war with Japan and, in doing so, saved hundreds of thousands of American lives that would have been lost in any invasion of the main Japanese islands, along with the lives of millions of Japanese, who would have died defending their homeland.

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Posted in Geopolitics, Governments, History, Military

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Trump Derangement Syndrome and the NATO Fetish of the Progressive Left, by David Stockman

Posted on January 23, 2019 | Leave a comment

It’s unthinkable that NATO would dissolve, but nobody can say why. From David Stockman at antiwar.com:

We’ve got NATO on our mind today because we learned this morning that the mere suggestion this obsolete relic of the Cold War should be abandoned tends to trigger an absolutely virulent outburst of Trump Derangement Syndrome in the mainstream media.

As it happened we were appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to promote our new book called, PEAK TRUMP: The Undrainable Swamp and the Fantasy of MAGA.

So long as we were talking about the folly of Trump-O-Nomics and the Donald’s rookie mistake in embracing an egregious stock market bubble that is destined to crash and a failing, geriatric business cycle that at age 115 months has “recession ahead” written all over its forehead, our host, Mika Brzezinski, was happy to nod approvingly.

But when we veered off into approval of the Donald’s efforts to rein in the Empire and make peace with the Russkies, it was an altogether different matter. We no more than launched the thought of it than Mika was sputtering in disbelief – as if we had committed a grotesque sacrilege in public:

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Imperialism, Intelligence, Military, Politics

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Eyewitness to the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, by Robert of Prague

Posted on August 22, 2018 | Leave a comment

This is what happened to Warsaw Pact nations that got uppity. This should be required reading for the drooling brats who dream of “socialism.” From Robert of Prague at americanthinker.com:

Half a century ago today, I watched as Soviet tanks rolled into my native Czechoslovakia to suppress the slight relaxing of the odious repression that was necessary to maintain a purported socialist paradise. “Prague Spring,” as the loosening of tyranny was called, ended before the summer was over.

The seeds of the Prague Spring 1968 sprouted at the Expo67 in Montreal. The Czech Pavilion was exquisite with long lines the entire time of the fair.  The Czech artists, engineers and builders brought back the infectious freedom-bug to Prague at the end of 1967. The dawn of the New Year 1968 came in subdued pastel colors over the permanent gray in the Red paradise.  Suddenly, there were changes in the dark Kafkaesque corridors of the still Stalinist Nomenklatura in Prague.  The liberal communist A. Dubček and his team came to power.  The people woke up from the imposed stupor and embraced the dystopian “Socialism with a Human Face.”  Very few people saw through it – though our family did, but our warnings were ignored in the general mass euphoria.  The voices calling for Swiss-like neutrality were unrealistic utopians.

The Prague Spring of 1968 turned blue very quickly, though.  Leonid Brezhnev and the ageing Kremlin Politburo were livid when Dubček’s team opened the Iron Curtain a bit and allowed some freedom of the press and of assembly — previously unheard of!  My father, who had been sentenced to menial labor in 1958 as an Enemy of the State and the People for defiantly riding a 750 cc Knucklehead Harley Davidson through Prague, openly listening to Elvis when everything American including jeans and Mickey Mouse, was forbidden/verboten, received a passport.  He traveled all over Western Europe and chose Switzerland chose as our goal for escape. After his return in June, he began to plan our exile.

Yours truly was then a student at the College of Geology and Mines, so I worked in August 1968 with several buddies at a stone-quarry east of Prague.  During the night of August 20th, we were entertaining the locals with music during drinks and dinner. Around midnight, a loud banging on the cabin door and a hysterical voice shook us out of our sleep. It was the local girlfriend of my buddy: “The Soviet tanks are here!”

To continue reading: Eyewitness to the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia

 

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Crime, Geopolitics, Governments, History, War

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Lies, Damn Lies: How The West Deceived Russia, by Eric Margolis

Posted on December 16, 2017 | Leave a comment

What has long been suspected has now been substantiated. The US and its European allies lied through their teeth when they assured the collapsing USSR that NATO would not expand to the east, towards Russia. From Eric Margolis at lewrockwell.com:

At a time when the United States is convulsed by anti-Russian hysteria and demonization of Vladimir Putin, a trove of recently declassified Cold War documents reveals the astounding extent of the lies, duplicity and double-dealing engaged in by the western powers with the collapsing Soviet Union in 1990.

I was covering Moscow in those days and met some of the key players in this sordid drama.   Ever since, I’ve been writing that the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, were shamelessly lied to and deceived by the United States, Britain, and their appendage, NATO.

All the western powers promised Gorbachev and Shevardnadze that NATO would not expand eastward by ‘one inch’ if Moscow would pull the Red Army out of East Germany and allow it to peacefully reunify with West Germany.  This was a titanic concession by Gorbachev: it led to a failed coup against him in 1991 by Communist hardliners.

The documents released by George Washington University in Washington DC, which I attended for a semester, make sickening reading (see them online).  All western powers and statesmen assured the Russians that NATO would not take advantage of the Soviet retreat and that a new era of amity and cooperation would dawn in post-Cold War Europe.  US Secretary of State Jim Baker offered ‘ironclad guarantees’ there would be no NATO expansion.  Lies, all lies.

Gorbachev was a humanist, a very decent, intelligent man who believed he could end the Cold War and nuclear arms race.   He ordered the Red Army back from Eastern Europe.  I was in Wunsdorf, East Germany, HQ of the Group of Soviet Forces, Germany, and at Stasi secret police HQ in East Berlin right after the pullout order was given.  The Soviets withdrew their 338,000 troops and 4,200 tanks and sent them home at lightening speed.

To continue reading: Lies, Damn Lies: How The West Deceived Russia

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