“The best laid plans of mice and men...”, as Burns wrote. Events confound both strategists and speculators…
Tweets seen
🇸🇾 Syrian Ministry of Defense: At 7:15 am, the Israeli enemy carried out an air attack with bursts of missiles from northern Lebanon, targeting some points in the countryside of Tartous and Hama.
The aggression resulted in the injury of three soldiers and some material losses. pic.twitter.com/QjWnKuYOcz
Almost certainly —at the very least— CIA involvement.
Armored train of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation guarding the borders of the liberated regions
The combat vehicle is equipped with anti-aircraft guns, an electronic warfare installation. In one of the parts of the composition there is a barracks for fighters, a… https://t.co/H5dUJEKgLKpic.twitter.com/y6lsXFQV0Q
Reminiscent of the armoured trains of the Russian Civil War [1918-1921].
🇨🇳 General Li Shangfu, who has been under US sanctions since 2018 for military cooperation with Russia, has been appointed Chinese Defense Minister. pic.twitter.com/prihw06nYT
In the present international situation, with huge tension between China and the USA, Chinese assistance to Russia is almost a given. Having said that, Russian leaders may be wondering whether China also wants to spread its influence and, maybe, some of its population, across Siberia, as far west as the Urals.
We’re hellbent on being seen as Good People™️ and have a martyr complex.
I used to be like that until I had a family to protect.
I rather like some quiz shows, though most have been hugely dumbed down, presumably to fit the current audience profile. My favourites are or were University Challenge (slightly dumbed-down but mostly still OK, and I shall miss Jeremy Paxman when he goes), Mastermind (now very dumbed-down and with a non-white presenter), Eggheads, and The Chase (despite many of the questions being either absurdly easy or on topics of which I admit I know little, notably popular music, football, and sitcoms).
A couple of shows recently astonished me without surprising me, if you understand me. The first was a Celebrity Mastermind.
It goes without saying that “celebrity” shows are usually replete with the incredibly ignorant (one of the few exceptions being any that feature Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, who is is relatively well-educated), and this show was no exception.
Four contestants, only two of whom were white. The winner was a rather odd Irishman, a stand-up comedian (apparently). As with most of such “celebrity” shows, I had never heard of any of the “celebrities”.
The oddest of the four was a TV and radio presenter (apparently) called Jayne Middlemiss [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayne_Middlemiss]. Entirely innocent of any general knowledge. Her manner was very peculiar, she wore a strange pink sweater with a large “Communist”(style) 5-pointed red star on it, and I have to say that I wondered whether she might be on drugs of some sort. Either that, or she has a mental or personality problem.
Jayne Middlemiss shared the booby-prize honour of total ignorance with two others, especially one Harpreet Kaur, a winner of the show The Apprentice, fronted by the Jewish businessman Alan Sugar.
As to the winner, the Irish comedian, he was better than the others, yes, but almost all the questions were embarrassingly easy. I may cross Mastermind off my list soon.
The other recent show that left me shaking my head was an episode of Eggheads, which saw a team of British Army officers fail to place correctly both Stockholm (the officer on the spot thought that it was in Denmark) and Bimini (between the Bahamas and Florida, in fact technically part of the Bahamas); I cannot recall where that second Army officer thought Bimini was. Somewhere ridiculous, anyway.
I do not expect military officers, most of them, to be great minds, but surely a knowledge of basic geography would be useful, nicht wahr?
I suppose that there are more important things to worry about in the world, just as there are more important issues than whether a self-important TV football pundit, one Lineker, should be allowed both to “blag” £2M a year from the BBC and, at the same time, make (stupid, ignorant) “refugees welcome” pronouncements on Twitter. Oh well, there it is.
Since I started tweeting about inappropriate sex lessons in school, teachers have privately sent me their stories and resources from across the country.
All too scared to publish, lest they be recognised and targeted.
I had no idea just how bad things are in schools.😱😳
Britain continues to decline in every way. There are differences between Britain 2023 and the decadent Weimar Republic in 1923 or 1928, but there are also similarities.
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Why is Bakhmut so Important? Russia will be able to occupy a huge territory after the liberation of Bakhmut. Bakhmut holds the Ukrainian defense, and after it falls, it will be easier for Russia to take more territories, and Russia also has resources to hold them. pic.twitter.com/GzcZtMZ6rO
Not the side of the Ukrainian Army (Kiev-regime forces) that the msm will show you…
Jeffrey Sachs on Ukraine
https://t.co/GKdPURrOVS "We are 90 secs away from a Nuclear exchange and the complete annihilation of the World"🌍 "The Western Governments are not sharing the Truth 👁️ about the Ukraine War with its citizens" Prof Jeffrey Sachs 👍
Everyone should watch/listen to that 33-min video.
It will be an academic question if a nuclear war should occur, but the “blame” for any such war will or would not be exclusively on Russia or Putin. It will be also, and indeed more, upon the NWO (the rulers of USA, UK, France etc) and the secret cabals and the ruling circles of the West.
Blame would also fall upon all those stupid idiots in the Western msm who have been cheerleading for war, more war, harsher war, and in favour of the corrupt and shambolic Jew kleptocracy in Kiev. The msm is also reporting only from the “Ukrainian” (Kiev regime) side, and not even trying to ask awkward questions of the Kiev regime (such as about its forces executing some prisoners in the field, or about how others are treated in captivity)
Other persons too are guilty of cheerleading war in Ukraine, and therefore quite possibly across Europe. Talking heads on TV are joined by thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of unthinking Twitter nobodies. All the cretins with Ukrainian flags on their Twitter accounts.
We, as broadly social-national people, should be preparing for after any such war, as far as we can. I wish that I had the means of a Dyson or a Gates; needless to say, I do not. In that event, I could then create the kernel of a new society in some south-western part of the UK, or elsewhere.
As it is, I live only 15-20 miles (nearer 15 as the crow flies) from the port of Southampton, and even nearer to the military port at Hythe, on the Solent in Hampshire; both ports would be major targets.
In other words, even a “limited” NATO-Russia nuclear exchange would probably see the end of me. The only “comfort” (and cold indeed) would be that the “cabal” (((aka “them”))) that would laugh at my demise are mostly (there are a few exceptions) in and around London, so would probably precede or at least accompany me into nuclear annihilation.
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Banks are fine.
Property values will fall as rates rise, but fundamental supply/demand imbalance remains (needs a lot more housebuilding and/or negative net immigration for years).
Ukraine war is bad, but effect on UK appears limited.
“Effect on UK appears limited“? In what world is that? One where people do not get heating and lighting bills, for one thing. Anyway, refer to the Jeffrey Sachs vlog interview above. The UK, small but with many target sites, might simply cease to exist if it were the target of a nuclear attack.
The Great Retirement strikes the BBC: Alan Shearer (age 52), Gary Lineker (62), Ian Wright (59). Will they do a Clarkson and defect to Amazon? Where could the BBC possibly find new talent to spout nonsense about football, except in every pub across the land?
Quite. In fact, the BBC could save itself £100M a year by just sacking 100-200 of its often-useless talking heads and drones.
He is right: jobs in America pay significantly more than in the UK (except at minimum wage). But New York is grubbier; and arguably less friendly too. https://t.co/AS1vz4yNhr
There are other factors too, as I know, having lived in both NY/NJ and London (though not in the past 25 years). For anyone living in either place for more than a few months, or who has a family in tow, there are the extra costs of American life: medical and dental care (i.e. insurance), and the costs of going to university (for anyone with children of that age).
True, many people in the UK pay privately for medical, dental, and secondary/tertiary education, but in the USA you pretty much have to.
Still, the commentator speaking there is right. London is now “not for white man”, unless wealthy.
The big thing to come out of the Matt Hancock story is how simple government is. There’s no conspiracy, no grand strategy; just ordinary mortals texting bland ideas to each other.
If you believe that, you will believe anything, though obviously even the best conspiracy operates through fallible humans. Still, it makes me wonder whether the released WhatsApp messages were released precisely to make people think that only a few mediocre idiots like Matt Hancock were responsible (across the world?). No WEF, no Schwab, no Bill Gates, no “Great Reset” etc. “Nothing to see here“…(really?).
Every now and again it occurs to me I'm accused of wearing a tin hat, which I don't, by people who wore paper face masks against a virus.
Was really great to speak to @thecoastguy@GBNEWS about ‘15 & 20 minute neighbourhoods’ & the lack of democratic accountability as well as harms of LTNs
British people used as guinea-pigs. Fake democracy. Useless local pseudo-democratic drones, who are but a small version of the better-known ones in the Westminster monkeyhouse.
Where were the Piers Morgan (etc) “free speech” protests when I was persecuted (disbarred, expelled from Twitter, questioned by police) for tweeting and then blogging the truth about Jews and/or MPs (etc)? Where were they when Alison Chabloz was imprisoned for singing songs and tweeting cartoons? Where were they when Jez Turner, of the London Forum, was imprisoned for making the suggestion, in a brief speech, that Jews should be expelled from the UK? Nowhere.
Recently, Laura Towler, her husband Sam Melia, and Mark Collett, all of Patriotic Alternative, have been again barred from Twitter. They also had their personal bank accounts closed down a year or two ago because of their political views. Where was Piers Morgan then (or the dishonest Toby Young “Free Speech Union”, for that matter)?
'Our so-called leaders knowingly talked nonsense that destroyed lives and turned society upside down and inside out. The people responsible are wildly exposed and cannot convincingly deny any of it. Why I ask, would anyone trust them about anything else?'@TheCoastGuypic.twitter.com/CgLQ3SUEwC
Watched the last episode of Endeavour, which was pretty good, but again succumbed to the “blacks with everything” nonsense. Numerous blacks (including an officiating Anglican priest, and undertakers looking like Baron Samedi), as well as Chinese and other non-whites. In Oxford, and in what I thought was meant to be mid/late 1960s, but must (?) have been set in the early 1970s, featuring as it did Elton John’s pop song, Rocket Man (released 1972). There just were not very many ethnic minority people around in the Thames Valley in the early 1970s, let alone the mid-1960s.
My wife thought that the clothing worn indicated mid/late 1960s, though, rather than 1972.
Still, I thought it all well put together as a detective story, au fond.
"Unless liberals accept the necessity of limits, they lose any claim to realism, because the reality is that we would be overwhelmed". Lots of good points in here https://t.co/gmh6Zm3Xrn
There are concerns about some areas that are affected by the fighting and highly reliant on aid, such as Kharkiv and Sumy. Many places don't have food for more than 3-4 days. There are fears that supply chains could be disrupted if cities are besieged or shelled, like Mariupol pic.twitter.com/YoYkYX29oF
Both sides in what is now the war in Ukraine are running short of supplies, we read. Perhaps. The Russian forces can be resupplied overall, though there may be greater shortages in some specific geographical areas, but the Ukrainians (civilians and fighters) in the cities surrounded cannot be resupplied. Kiev itself is not completely surrounded, as yet.
Ammunition may be a bigger issue for the Ukrainian side than for the Russians. In any case, the weapons of most importance for the Ukrainian side are not small arms, but those donated free of charge by, mainly, the USA and UK— anti-tank and ground-to-air systems, able to be deployed by individuals or small groups. Without those weapons, Russia would by now be far more ahead in achieving its immediate tactical objectives.
Having said that, the civilians and soldiers in the besieged cities of the south and east cannot survive for long without food. Those cities will probably fall quite soon. When they do, huge Russian forces will move from the south and from the east towards Kiev.
I note that Zelensky is again calling for talks with Russia. He knows that he cannot win, as such, and so wants to stabilize the situation (eg by extended ceasefire, and open corridors) before cities now surrounded and under attack surrender or are destroyed.
Russia is going to win this war, in the short to medium term, even if most of its territorial gains are turned into scorched urban and rural wastelands. What happens further down the line is an open question.
This is not a war between very different nations and peoples. It is somewhere between that kind of war and a civil war. In the past, during the Russian Civil War (1917-1922), Ukraine was a battlefield between several contending forces: Bolsheviks, White Guards (pro-Tsarist anti-Bolsheviks), Ukrainian nationalists, and German forces, among others: see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_People%27s_Republic].
[territory of Ukraine during the years 1917-1920; a far larger area than in 2022]
Finally! A mainstream outlet talks sense about #sanctions. As I explained on last night's Templar Report, the #UkraineConflict is going to end up as another self-inflicted disaster for the globalists.https://t.co/07Q2YAh3qJ
The electrical outlet in Zelensky's hospital visit video is a three-pronged type E which is used in Poland and Israel. Ukraine uses types C and F, both two pronged. This raises the possibility that he is not even in Ukraine at this point. Poland? Just speculation at this point. pic.twitter.com/uuOPVzCeTX
— Jake Morphonios 🔴 Blackstone Intelligence (@morphonios) March 19, 2022
Unless you are prepared to literally sacrifice your life or your children's life to this cause, please shut up. https://t.co/fywKs4pxCk
A fairly dull Labour Party careerist, and System drone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Sheerman. Some of these idiots calling for war with Russia seem to forget that a. the UK now has only about 15,000 truly battle-ready soldiers now, b. the RAF’s capabilities (including transport) are now very limited, and c. even one Russian nuclear missile —and they have up to 6,200— landing on London would pretty much destroy the UK as a society, and economy, and state, and for about 50-100 years.
More tweets seen
Preliminary note: good to see that one of the worst Jew-Zionist and/or pro-Israel troll accounts on Twitter, “@GnasherJew”, has been suspended (again). Last time, the usual online “claque” of Jews put up a huge scream, much noisy protest (as usual— absolutely typical), and the account was reinstated. Let us hope that this time the ban will be permanent.
The activities of Jew-Zionists such as “GnasherJew” are the major reason why Twitter, and the comment-Internet generally, has gradually become rather dull; the more interesting Twitter accounts, including my own, and those of David Icke, Katie Hopkins, Alison Chabloz, Patriotic Alternative, and many many others, have been removed. It would be good to see at least some redress, even if not the nemesis that certain malicious Jew-Zionist trolls deserve.
Just a reminder, it's not Putin applying a 25% green levy and 5% VAT on our gas and electric, it's not Putin applying 53% excise to diesel and petrol, and the half trillion splashed up the wall in the past 2 years wasn't him either.
Looks like you really cannot fool all of the people all of the time…
He's been spending money all over the place, pays millions for people in hotels that we shouldn't have, hasn't bothered to go after the billions of covid fraud and then has the cheek to give us warnings.
— Nikki P- the GOOD Nikki 🙂🌸💜 (@missnikkip88) March 23, 2022
If Parliament were at least entirely white and British by origin, without blacks, browns, Jews etc, or mixtures thereof, that alone would certainly not solve our national problems, but it would be a start.
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(Online Safety Bill)?
Political Opposition Outlawed?
Thought Police: Germany Conducts Mass Raids over Online ‘Insults’ Against Politicians
While I am sorry for the civilians caught up in the Ukraine invasion, and also for their companion animals, the Kiev regime, headed by the decadent Jew clown Zelensky, is an integral part of the NWO/ZOG plan, which is why it must be toppled and crushed.
TERROR OF CAMDEN Serial rapist who forced 6 women into sex acts at knifepoint after pouncing on them as the walked home is found guilty.. https://t.co/gzkIhEdj7c
Nearest city square. Firing squad. End (in an ideal world, that is…).
I disfavour the judicial death penalty, in fact, but the UK is getting to the point where something will eventually have to be done, not as judicial punishment, but as a public health or social health measure, mandated by the executive.
While I have no personal knowledge of whether the Russian claims are true or not, I did blog quite recently about my own visit to the Porton Down biological research station in Wiltshire, on which visit I was accompanied by the then Ukrainian Ambassador to the UK, Mr. Komissarenko, himself a trained biochemical scientist. He was, more recently, director of exactly such a laboratory in Ukraine. Even Wikipedia notes that fact.
Covid variant worse than Omicron likely to hit UK with seasonal peaks for next 2-3 years, warns Chris Whitty https://t.co/VU5cJVqCmD Whitty knows that the pandemic is fake. His research team has received tens of millions from Bill Gates. ARREST WHITTY
Soon, the Covid police state measures come up for renewal in Parliament. Suddenly, we have these scare stories appearing. “Join the dots”, as they say…
'Prof Sir Chris Whitty said children could face “substantial” long-term damage, as a consequence of aspects of public health which have “gone backwards” in the last two years.' Genius. Who was behind this policy?and https://t.co/wMbcC7EQ5h
“Journalism” and/or similar occupations used to be, at least reasonably, literate. Look at the above tweets. Four sentences, yet three egregious errors: “Stamer” for “Starmer”, “train” for “trail”, and “deceit” for “deficit”.
Pay peanuts, get “university”-“educated” monkeys, I suppose.
As for the substance, it is clear that relatively few members of the public trust or respect either main System party, yet there exists no real alternative; no social-national party or movement has arisen. I discount ridiculous fringe figures such as Jayda Fransen, Anne-Marie Waters etc. In any case, a social-national leader must at least be a man, as a bare minimum.
"I think this is a very hard choice, but the price [half a million dead Iraqi children]–we think the price is worth it." ~ Madeleine Albright
Incidentally, she was never really a “refugee“, as claimed. Her father went from Yugoslavia (where he had been a “Czech” diplomat), to the UK in 1939. She was later, after WW2, sent by her father from, again, Belgrade to school in Switzerland; from there, she once more went to the UK, then (in 1948) to the USA. She did not suffer in any way from “Nazis”, or indeed Communists.
Breaking: The US government has formally declared that members of the Russian armed forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/WvJpGxYvHD
Even on the worst reading, what the Russians have done is not even 1% of what the Americans did in, inter alia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia, Lebanon, Central America, Vietnam, Syria etc.
⚡️Media: Ukraine's agriculture minister resigns.
European Pravda reported that it was not clear what was the reason for Roman Leshchenko’s resignation. He hasn’t yet commented on the matter.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 23, 2022
Stores have stepped up their attempts to supply about 2 million residents remaining in the capital with staples.https://t.co/FmCDy8ECR2
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 23, 2022
Have you reached adulthood without being able to tell if you're unwell without some sort of 'test'? Should you be playing with mobile phones or computers without supervision? https://t.co/zfe1Zx11cE
Why does @ChtyCommission allow Zionist groups to ‘police’ UK citizens using tactics synonymous with The Cheka police. How long before ‘volunteers’ claim leather coats on expenses? Make no mistake #Chekism is alive and well just watch Joe Glasman’s video. https://t.co/zZvuGe5HWg
Seeing as @BBC are putting up their license fee it’s definitely about time the corporation was more interactive. For example we could press the red button to show our dislike of certain programmes and personalities. The centrist luvie revolving door is why the corp is so crap
Hitler and the NSDAP were not Zionists; Zionists were not National Socialists. Having said that, there was a community of interest insofar as Hitler wanted Jews out of Germany and out of Europe, while the transnational Jew-Zionist lobby wanted as many Jews as possible to go to British Mandate Palestine in order to gradually colonize the territory and be able to confront the existing Arab inhabitants (and then to dispossess them).
The Zionists therefore treated with the 1933-1945 German Government and particularly (though not exclusively) the SS. Something that both sides prefer to forget these days. The SS and NSDAP no longer exist in their original form, but the Zionists and their post-1948 government, in what is now Israel, certainly do exist. For them, such history is better concealed or buried (or banned under the fake “international definition” of “antisemitism”).
How did England go from being a world power to arresting people for saying mean things on the Internet? lmao
Very true. Look at the self-described “Left” on Twitter etc. It puts forward no socialist or even social programme, no socialist policies to speak of, just “black lives matter” nonsense, “LGBTQXYZ” nonsense, pro-facemask and pro-lockdown nonsense.
What a contrast with the years 1917-1956, or 1956-1989!
The self-describing “Left” now has, as a main aim, “deplatforming” nationalist and other “influencers” on social media etc. In that world, getting someone expelled from Twitter (as happened to me in 2018, the expulsion procured by Jews, but applauded by the Twitter pseudo-socialists) counts as a major victory.
The “nationalist” and allied side of the house is little better. For the “alt-Right” and “Alt-lite” purported nationalists (in the UK), the UKIP/Brexit Party types, what matters is changing a red passport for a blue one, or fishing rights in the Channel, or at least pretending to support free speech. For many of the more solid nationalists, even social nationalists, what matters is trying to fight the social media “deplatforming” by complaining (mainly), or tweeting, blogging (yes, I do not exclude my own efforts), or vlogging.
What should matter to us is having a solid social-national programme; after which, having a solid socio-political movement; after which, having “boots on the ground”…
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The only way to protect yourself from corrupt, illegitimate, and hostile law enforcement is to have a group or community that's larger than the police, a group that's willing to come out in force to defend its members.
This is not a “debate”. This is not a “disagreement”. This is the precursor to a civil war or (perhaps more accurately described) social war. Before the American Civil War started, in 1861, the cannon at Fort Sumter, South Carolina (in the harbour at Charleston, a lovely city which I myself, long ago, visited several times) opened fire. That signalled the conflict about to start.
[Fort Sumter]
Likewise, in 1917, a naval gun on the cruiser Aurora opened fire, signalling the start of the Bolshevik seizure of power in revolutionary Petrograd, and the effective start of the Russian Civil War.
[the cruiser Aurora, St. Petersburg]
What we see now, on social media, is the equivalent.
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Do you support Alison Chabloz's 'right to offend' when she sings satirical songs?
"Asthma drug cuts need to send Covid patients to hospital by 90%". Another day, another common & proven drug found to stop covid in its tracks. But STILL the elite press on with society-crushing lockdown. Anyone woud think they want to 'de-develop' us…https://t.co/ZFEFc8IIF4
I watched a BBC2 TV documentary about Venezuela. Something like Venezuela: Revolution in Ruins. I was of course au fait with the way in which other revolutions in history developed and, in many cases, degenerated: Russia/Soviet Union, China, Cambodia/Kampuchea, Ethiopia, Cuba etc, even France (from 1789). However, I especially wanted to understand better why this country, Venezuela, rich in oil, huge in area, fertile, with a coastline on the Caribbean, a number of scenic islands and also a huge exclusive economic zone (EEZ) under the Law of the Sea, should be in such a condition that 3 million or more, 10% of its population, have now fled, that large numbers of its inhabitants are starving, or rummaging for food in trash cans or dumps, or are foraging wherever they can.
Why are basic items such as loo roll, bread, milk, even fruit (in a tropical country where many fruits grow wild) effectively unavailable? Why are basic medicines not available? Why is oil being imported when Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, exceeding even those of Saudi Arabia?
There is a natural human desire to make excuses for states espousing the overall values (superficially) espoused by the judging person. Thus we see pro-“socialist” people defending the Soviet record on human rights, living standards or generally, despite the early [Russian Civil] War Communism (under which strikers and others were shot, and anyone late for work could be imprisoned or sent to a labour camp), despite the Leninist and Stalinist repressions, the “GULAG Archipelago”, the Cheka/OGPU/GPU/NKVD/KGB etc. Thus we see people (British, other Europeans, North Americans, others) today defending Castro’s dictatorship in Cuba, despite the large number of persons shot, imprisoned or driven out under socialist rule.
The usual excuses for the failure of an old-style Marxist-Leninist socialist state are that:
foreign intervention ruined the economy and/or made the new regime more severely repressive than it otherwise would have been;
one or more individuals usurped or misused the power which properly belonged to “the people” and/or the “true” socialists;
existing private enterprises or wealthy persons either left the country (with their wealth) or stayed in the country and profiteered; in both cases, these parasitic classes of people sabotaged the socialist economy.
We can look at a few well-known examples to illustrate the syndrome.
Russia
Here is a typical example of a self-deluding socialist, one “Liz from Leeds”, heard via telephone on some daytime TV show (the black woman shown is the presenter):
Aaron Bastani and Ash Sarkar are supporters of Corbyn-Labour and part of a collective called Novara Media. I wrote about them —and others— in this article:
In that clip, hereinabove, “Liz from Leeds” asserts that Soviet socialism failed because
“14 foreign armies smashed it” and then
“Stalin took over and imposed a state-capitalistic totalitarian state”.
(and, by the way, “revolutionary” talking-head Ash Sarkar, on the show as a guest, and who teaches Global Politics at a former polytechnic —!—, can be seen nodding in apparent agreement at this ahistorical nonsense!).
“Liz from Leeds” obviously has little or no real knowledge of what seems to be her main interest, because:
the Intervention by “Western” powers in Russia only started to occur in July 1918, about 8 months after the start of the Russian Civil War. By that date, the various factions in the Civil War had already been fighting for months;
the largest and most powerful foreign contingent, the Czechoslovak Legion, eventually had 40,000 soldiers (93% Czech, 7% Slovak) in Russia, but this was not a foreign army in the sense of a state-controlled force. Czechoslovakia only declared independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in December 1918. The Czechs etc were in Russia because they had been fighting with the Russian Empire against the Central Powers (including Austria-Hungary) in the First World War.
all this in a country of vast extent (over 90x the size of the UK), encompassing 11 time zones, in which the Bolshevik forces numbered some 5.5 million (and the White or anti-Bolshevik forces about 2.4 million).
in other words, the Intervention was fundamentally a side-show in the Russian Civil War. The war started in late 1917, eight months before Intervention, and continued until late 1922, two years after almost all Allied forces had left in 1920 (though Japanese forces occupied small parts of the later-termed “Soviet Far East” until 1922, and part of Sakhalin Island until 1925); in fact, the larger contingents, such as the 23,000 Greek troops in and around Odessa (to protect Black Sea Greeks), were only there for three months;
while Intervention affected the development of the Soviet Union (established late 1922), it did so mainly in the psychological sense. In fact, there were still outbreaks of anti-Soviet fighting as late as 1934 (in Central Asia), but there was no foreign backing for that. It was purely local and regional.
As to personality-cult etc, Stalin expanded the slave-state aspects of the Soviet Union, but that already existed: Lenin and his fellow-Communists (Jews and part-Jews, mostly, such as Dzerzhinsky) set up that system as soon as they seized power (in one fairly small corner of the Empire, i.e. Petrograd and Moscow, initially): executions on a vast scale, prison camps, prisons, labour camps, secret police and so on;
the Soviet Union was “State Capitalism”, but that was not the creation of Stalin. It was there from the very start of Lenin’s rule;
even the system of “nomenklatura”, with its gradations of special rations (the best being the Kremlin Ration [Kremlyovsky Payok], which developed under Stalin into a whole sector of special-privilege shops, apartments, health services etc), started during the Civil War: http://www.polithistory.ru/en/visit_us/view.php?id=1735
As to sabotage by parasitic classes, the Bolsheviks first destroyed (killed, exiled, imprisoned) the Imperial Family, then the aristocracy and the wealthy merchant class, but then moved on to those peasant families who were more affluent than average (the “kulaks“), then later to the peasantry as a whole (via Collectivization). Eventually new targets had to be found: a myriad of Diversionists, Deviationists, Trotskyists etc. “Enemies of the people”. By that time, most of the “former people” of pre-1918 had been exiled overseas, killed, imprisoned, or reduced to complete poverty in internal exile. Few existed in Soviet territory, outside camps and prisons, after the 1930s.
[Addendum: re-reading this in 2021, I realize that some people may object that Dzerzhinsky was not Jewish. Wikipedia describes his parents as “ethnically Polish”. Sadly, Wikipedia is not infallible. Though Dzerzhinky’s parents were technically second-generation “noble” under the Tsarist meritocratic honour system (Lenin’s father was “ennobled” for service as a schools inspector), and mainly of Polish origin, Dzerzhinsky’s father was part-Jew (as was Lenin’s mother)].
The “Liz from Leeds” school of cod-history is based on small nuggets of truth as well as large measures of wishful thinking. The Tsarist system was in need of reform; there were huge inequities; there was a foreign Intervention, though very limited, composed arguably of 12 mostly small forces rather than “14 armies” (and never intended to actually overthrow Bolshevism); there was the cult of personality (though it predated Stalin’s supremacy and was the child of Lenin, Trotsky/Bronstein and others in the early 1920s); there were wealthy or not-poor classes who could to some extent be described as parasitic (especially the absentee and rentier nobles). It is worth remembering that, pre-1914, the Russian economy was booming, and looked like overtaking Europe and North America before long.
However, the Soviet Union was badly flawed from its inception, and its evil seed was Marxism-Leninism. The idea that the political sphere (the State) should rule over both the economic sphere and the sphere of spirit, culture, education, medicine, was wrong in conception and was bound to lead to a greater or lesser disaster. The same mistaken conception brought low other lands (eg Cuba) and, our present interest, Venezuela.
In fact, the syndrome, in less savage or severe forms, also applies to the social-democratic regimes in Europe, such as the post-1945 British governments. Harold Wilson of the Labour Party blamed “speculators” and “the Gnomes of Zurich” (Swiss bankers) for the UK’s economic problems of the 1960s and mid-1970s, rather than nationalized industries and subsidies paid to industry and agriculture.
Below, a cartoon for “Liz from Leeds” and her colleagues in (?) the local social workers’ union or comprehensive school staff-room:
Cuba
The same applies to Cuba: socio-economic inequities, leading to revolution. That revolution elevating personalities (Fidel, Che etc). State takeover of the economy, including all major industry and agriculture. Eventually, shortages, corruption (you don’t think that Castro lived like the poor mulatto saps he ruled, do you?), repression. Cuba even had ineffective foreign (US) interventions: the Bay of Pigs botched “invasion” by proxy, the sanctions regime imposed by the USA (termed “Blockade” by Castro); attempts to assassinate Castro in various absurd ways (eg poisoned ice-cream). As for scapegoating, the Cuban regime has blamed American policy, counter-revolutionary Cubans based in Miami, but also Cubans in Cuba and who wanted to leave in the 1960s and 1970s, which people were called gusanos (“worms”).
The Cuban economy was kept afloat by Soviet subsidy (direct subsidy and also via preferential pricing of Cuban agricultural exports to the Soviet Union) until the early 1990s. Cuba then had to introduce a free-market element to the economy, in order to prevent complete collapse.
Venezuela
So we return to Venezuela. Again, socio-economic inequities led to demands for reform. Eventually, a revolution by election happened, in 1998, in this case led by an Army general, Hugo Chavez. I have no idea what Chavez was like as a general (though judging by his botched first coup d’etat, in 1992, not very effective), but as a political leader I regard him as having been a blundering clown, sometimes well-meaning, genial, friendly, sometimes sinister and frightening. In fact, with his televized clowning, inability to master facts, and populist emoting, he was reminiscent of a certain British politician, one who is superficially on another ideological page— Boris Johnson.
As the TV documentary I saw noted, Venezuela’s oil wealth bankrolled the social programmes which improved the lot of many of the poorer Venezuelans. Chavez was voted into power by 56% of the population, mostly the poor and some of the “disenchanted middle class”.
No attempt was made to diversify the economy. When oil prices fell, Venezuela went into a spiral. The tensions within the country worsened, many left (the wealthy by air to the USA and other countries, the middleclass nouveaux pauvres and the real/always-been poor by car or on foot to neighbouring countries).
The US sanctions on Venezuela have enabled the Venezuelan government, now under Maduro, to claim, however implausibly, that those sanctions largely caused the economic collapse.
Chavez expropriated and redistributed land, again with “good intentions”, but the net result has been both a falling-off in food production and a great fall in dollar-exports, which in turn restricted the supply of foreign imports of food (and other goods).
Chavez blamed “speculators and hoarders” for the problems, imposed price controls, replaced private supermarkets by a chain of 16,000 State shops and supermarkets, which however now have almost bare shelves. Chavez also nationalized large food producers. The result has been a breakdown in food supply. Children are starving, adults and children alike scavenge in the trash for anything to eat. The Roman Catholic Church has asked those who discard any food waste to label it so that people can rummage in the rubbish dumps and trash cans for it. Meanwhile, the government set up 6,000 soup kitchens.
Thoughts
I have never been to Venezuela (nor any part of Latin America south of Panama), and I have only known one person who has visited the country (a girlfriend who attended a week-long international conference in Caracas in the 1980s). My views are therefore taken from what I have read and what I have watched on TV.
It is clear to me that Venezuela’s problems are, at root, political. There was always poverty there, but the cure has been worse than the illness. Chavez was a political clown, who had no idea how to run a government, let alone an economy, but who decided, amid clowning and behaving like a public entertainer, to take the reins of the economy firmly in his own hands. He took over the oil industry, agriculture, food production and distribution, imports and exports generally, even banking. He tried to run industries himself or via equally-inept cronies.
The result has been disastrous. Thousands and quite possibly millions may have died from lack of food and medicine, as well as via militarized repression (the troops always look fit and well-fed…). To my mind, those responsible for this politico-economic disaster could not complain were they to be taken out and shot. Chavez himself died a few years ago; his daughter is apparently one of the wealthiest women in the world. Before people start praising Chavez, they might start to ask where those hundreds of millions of dollars came from.
What Chavez should have done would have been to
regulate, tax, but not operate businesses;
by all means nationalize oil production, as a national strategic asset, but employ only experts experienced in upstream and downstream oil to operate it;
work with landowners (existing landowners and new entrants) to maximize and diversify domestic food production; set a cap on acreage held by any one family;
revalue the currency;
create social programmes from taxes raised, not directly from oil revenues.
All the same, there are those in British political life who praised Chavez: Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn, to name the two most prominent. They have been quiet about Venezuela for a while now, as that country slides into chaos, but some of their colleagues still beat the drum. Here is Chris Williamson MP (whom I am loath to impliedly criticize, because he is pro-animal welfare, and used to retweet me on Twitter occasionally; and because the Jew-Zionists hate him, but truth conquers all):
(in fact, the Venezuelan government has only hit 24% of its housing target, though the programme itself may be OK in principle).
It seems to me that the only thing to do in Venezuela is to rip up the Chavez-Maduro system and begin ad novum. That means a different government, an all-out war on crime, corruption and disorder, a private-enterprise economy (except for oil production), a clear and effective tax system, an appeal for all Venezuelans now overseas to return and to help rebuild. Also, the government has lost control of the borders of the State and has lost control of the streets. Gangs are rampant. Firing squads may be necessary. An effective border force must be set up. Above all, consumer goods and/or including food must be prioritized, urgently. In this case, butter before guns, up to a point at least.
Racial Aspects
Racial aspects are important. Cuba was ruled by Spanish-descended Europeans and to some extent also mestizos, until Castro drove most of them to the USA or elsewhere. Now Cuba has a far higher percentage of blacks than it had in 1959. Venezuela is about 54% mestizo, only 43% white (and that figure is out of date; there must be far fewer white people now).
Could It Happen Elsewhere?
Never say never. Russia was booming only four or five years before it fell into civil war and despair under Lenin. Cuba, though corrupt and unequal, was in a far better state in the 1940s and 1950s (even though plagued by the Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky etc) than it is now. From what I have seen on TV, much of Havana seems to be just falling apart, literally. As to Europe, who knows? Reasonably-civilized Yugoslavia fell into civil war and bloody chaos only 25 years ago.
Now that Europe has been invaded by untermenschen, who are breeding, who knows what lies ahead? Britain is increasingly non-white, while the real British (white) population is, in my view at least, less and less cultured. You only have to look at those who are now MPs. Many MPs, and not only Labour Party ones, would not have been seen in the Palace of Westminster before the 1990s, unless working as cleaners or office staff.
As to economy, we have seen that Corbyn-Labour (yes, well-meaning, as were many radicals and revolutionaries prior to taking power) has praised Castro, Chavez, even Lenin and Trotsky! British Labour Party policy may not go as far as that which Labour leaders have praised in other lands, but never say never…
Listening again to painfully naive “Liz from Leeds”, it occurs to me that her definition of “Communism” could apply to almost any self-describing political movement, as well as to, say, Christianity. In fact, Valentin Tomberg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentin_Tomberg], whose mother and pet dog were both killed (tied to a tree and shot) by those lovely kind Communists after the Bolshevik Revolution, made the point in one of his works that it was the small “Christian” element in Communism that made people willing to support it and struggle for it.
“Communism” as defined by “Liz from Leeds” is the sort of platitudinous wishful thought that might be heard on Radio 4’s Thought For The Day. Stalin once cut short a discussion (which must have been unwittingly hilarious) among his mostly useless Politburo members, as to what “Socialism” (the earlier stage, in Marxist theory) was, by saying “I’ll define Socialism for you— it’s where the Red Army halts its trucks!”
21 January 2019: a few more thoughts
Some reading the above article may imagine that my being opposed to fossilized 20thC socialism must mean that I am a free-market anti-communist and nothing more. Not so. My views favour policies which are social, rather than socialist. For me, economic enterprises must be regulated and taxed (and that is the business of government), but not directly run by the State. By the same token, the world of business must not interfere with the organs of the State, must not buy or own politicians or civil servants.
29 January 2019
It occurs to me that Che Guevara was at least to some extent in the real world, unlike most of those who admire him…
Andrew Neil on BBC2 This Week nails Ken Livingstone to the mast…
"If all that's true, it would be appalling, but I have watched America impose sanctions… an appalling impact on their country" @ken4london on how Alan Johnson & Esther McVey reacted to his #bbctw film
Below, an interview with Venezuelan quasi-dictator Maduro. While he is probably right to say that the USA would like to have a firmer superpower grip on Venezuela, Maduro cannot explain Venezuela’s fall into chaotic poverty by reference to that American wish or strategy. He’s an idiot…
President Maduro tries to make a BBC journalist understand the political war that the US extreme right is waging against Venezuela. pic.twitter.com/fNQZplj1W1
Venezuela's health crisis is so bad that patients who go the hospital need to bring their own food and medical supplies, like syringes and scalpels, as well as their own soap and water, says a new report. https://t.co/dFRcpuS4X5
"While migrants and cocaine leave Venezuelan shores in growing quantities, food and medicines travel the other way, for purchase by those in Venezuela who still have access to hard currency," writes @JerryMcdermott:https://t.co/InI2XAYPi3
The coup isn't organic, nor is the destabilisation that has been steady levelling Venezuela for some time now. It's just the flavour of the year 'guy that needs to go and make sure the media tells everyone why'. I assume Guaido is being paid well by someone. pic.twitter.com/ti2J0XRCYw
Well, the Venezuelan rebellion has failed, mainly because the Army would not back it. Also it seems that the leader of the uprising, who now hides out in the Spanish Embassy in Caracas, is a silly ineffective fellow. We saw something similar in Zimbabwe, when the opposition to Mugabe years ago was led by a silly and thick African (supposed) “liberal” (later killed in the USA, in a plane crash). The lesson is that a dictator may be opposed by less wicked people but those possibly better people may simply be ineffective.
Meanwhile, for the Venezuelan poor (i.e. almost all inhabitants), the agony (caused mainly by simplistic socialism) continues:
Venezuela’s fall is the single largest economic collapse outside of war in at least 45 years, economists say https://t.co/EP1bJWFTJV
Here is another little twit of the same or similar tribe, one “Chris#WeBackCorbyn/@Socialist_Chris”:
Criminals, thieves and worse. I wouldn't even allow them to stand.
I don't agree with fascist parties being allowed to take part in democratic elections, considering they stand for dismantling democracy in the first place.https://t.co/p7BY8nQeUy
— Chris #WeBackCorbyn (@Socialist_Chris) July 16, 2019
To understand the fullness of this idiot’s repressive ideological fanaticism, you have to read the whole thread. He thinks that parties or people which are “fascist” (as decided by him? as decided by a troika of secret police officers? as decided by a Stalinist-style fixed meeting of “activists”?) should be barred from elections or other political activity.
“Socialist Chris” seems very limited in his mentality. His derivative and flawed narrative about being intolerant of intolerance is not only hackneyed in the extreme, but is dependent on him or people like him deciding what is “fascist” (and so unacceprable…to him). He says that “you cannot compare fascism and socialism”. In a sense, true. Many 20thC types of “socialism” were far worse (more repressive, more evil, less effective in any field but repression) than Fascism (eg Mussolini, Franco) or even (different from “Fascism”), National Socialism.
Those books, and thousands of others, show that when relatively undiluted “socialism” takes power (whether by force or election), political freedom vanishes. That has been true in every instance of importance, from the Soviet Union and China to Cuba and Venezuela.
I suppose that “Socialist Chris” would make the usual excuses (see above) re. all that. He cannot see that “socialism” in the 20th (and now 21st Century, as far as “socialism” has even existed since 1989) is and has been far more repressive than either “fascism” or National Socialism, and that both Fascism and National Socialism achieved far more for the people than Marxist (etc) “socialism”, and in far less time.
An idiot, and yet looking at his tweets, I see that he makes much of having written a “dissertation” (on post-1945 “fascism”). No university mentioned. Maybe Oxford, maybe Cambridge, maybe the God-Knows-Where University of Travel and Tourism, who knows? No mention of a specific profession or occupation, just that he works up to 13 hours a day (which seems doubtful, but maybe that’s life in a call centre…I wouldn’t know).
Here’s another idiot, supporting “Socialist Chris”:
No, that isn't what he is suggesting. But they aren't legitimate political ideology, unless you want to consider the nazis a legitimate entity rather than a genocidal regime. Nazis shouldn't be allowed to get into power. Nazis aren't democratic.
What happens if they stand, win and then remove the vote? You know, without telling you before they won that election that they would seek to do so?
Ahh sure don't worry about it, it'll never happen again, we've all learned so much. 🙄 https://t.co/QmxlVKHLdV
— Chris #WeBackCorbyn (@Socialist_Chris) July 16, 2019
Marxist “socialists” wouldn’t do that, would they? Remove the vote from people? Never! Ha ha! No, they would more likely seize power forcibly in the first place, then label all opposition “fascist” (and so barred from existing at all), then hold meaningless “votes” in elections containing only approved non-“fascists”…
It is worrying that someone such as “Socialist Chris” can undergo primary, secondary and tertiary education, including as it seems a valueless “Master’s degree” and even perhaps a pointless “doctorate”, yet still be unable to reason. But that is where we are…
Update, 25 August 2013
Here’s another idiot, one @eshaLegal. A lawyer? If so, remarkably ill-informed about modern history, especially that of the Soviet Union, Stalin etc. Seems to be an Indian or Pakistani living in the USA. Read the thread to see others put her right (more or less right), anyway.
Victims of Stalinism? You mean Nazi war criminals? You want us to remember Nazi war criminals along with Nazi victims?