​Dear friends of the Russia & America Good Will Association (www.raga.org) and antiwar colleagues!

In Memory of Stephen F Cohen, RIP https://youtu.be/o59xg8fLqrk

This was a very informative, enlightening and moving tribute to the man and his work. I have known Steve Cohen since the 1980s when I disagreed with his views about Nikolai Bukharin. Since mid-1990s, we agreed on the need to improve US-Russia relations and he was frequently quoted in RAGA newsletters as a peace champion. REST IN PEACE

Vladimir Osipov died on Oct. 20
Vladimir Osipov, a Russian dissident, is dead 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Osipov
Vladimir Nikolaevich Osipov (Влади́мир Никола́евич О́сипов; 9 August 1938 – 20 Oct.2020) was a Russian dissident who founded the Soviet samizdat journal Veche (Assembly), an important vehicle for ethnic Russians within the Soviet dissident movement. Vladimir and I had been friends since 1955, the first year at the U of Moscow, History Department. A Non-Violent defender of the freedom of conscience, he was twice imprisoned, for the total of 15 years, in the GULAG. Solzhenitsyn thought highly of him.

In the Fall of 1990 he gave two lectures in the USA, one at the Hoover Institution (I interpreted) and the other in my class at the Monterey Institute of International Studies
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Осипов, Владимир_Николаевич
One can find me in RADONEZH Archive
https://radonezh.ru/radio/2020/11/12/22-02
or
https://radonezh.ru/authors/Krasnov

of October 30, The Day of Remembrance, at Wilson Center for the Victims of Soviet political repression. Nikolay Epplee reports:

Russia’s recently held Day of Remembrance (October 30), commemorating victims of state terror, once again served as a reminder of how little progress has been made in reckoning with Russia’s traumatic twentieth century. The Russian courts have rehabilitated most of the victims, and the authorities have supported such commemoration practices as erecting monuments and instituting memorial days, but the subject remains underdiscussed and unresolved on multiple levels.
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/thats-how-you-get-be-hangmen-how-we-remember-state-terror-todays-russia?sourceid=&emci=2c747e79-9a2e-eb11-9fb4-00155d43b2cd&emdi=0707e297-9d2e-eb11-9fb4-00155d43b2cd&ceid=24541

​READ: "When Pathology Becomes the Norm - Anna Tolstoyevskaya" 
http://www.raga.org/news/when-pathology-becomes-the-norm-anna-tolstoyevskaya​
 
October 30 is the Day of Remembrance, by RT
On Friday, October 30, 2020, on the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression, the annual "Voice of Memory" will be held at the Butovo training ground in Moscow, and many will pray for the victims of repression.

Traditionally, this commemoration begins with a memorial service at 10:00 at the Church of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia at the Butovo training ground, the press service of the Synodal Department for Church Relations with Society and the Media reported.
https://russian-faith.com/it-will-be-possible-pray-victims-repressions-october-30-butovo-training-ground-and-online-n3964
 
Irina Slavina, the vigilance is still needed 
A journalist from Nizhny Novgorod has died after setting herself alight in front of a police station, blaming the authorities for her death. The Russian Investigative Committee denies the incident is tied to any police action.

Irina Slavina, the editor-in-chief of small local news outlet, Koza.Press, traveled to a regional police headquarters in the central Russian city and set herself on fire. The woman died at the scene.

Earlier, Slavina wrote on her Facebook page that “I ask that the Russian Federation be blamed for my death,” without providing any further explanation. The bizarre incident came a day after investigators searched the journalist’s apartment as part of a probe launched against a local businessman.
https://www.rt.com/russia/502412-russian-journalist-set-fire-police/
 
Sergey Parkhomenko
By Sergey Parkhomenko on October 13, 2020
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/memoriam-irina-slavina-journalist-and-champion-truth?sourceid=&emci=be0dfdd0-8c0d-eb11-96f5-00155d03affc&emdi=4683ecf8-8c0d-eb11-96f5-00155d03affc&ceid=24541
On Friday, October 2, high traffic volume crashed the website of Koza.Press, an independent online publication in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia’s sixth largest city, located 400 kilometers east of Moscow.

Ирина Славина
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Славина,_Ирина_Вячеславовна#Журналистская_деятельность
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irina_Slavina_(editor)
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov sent condolences to the family.

After all, the Russians no longer celebrate the October Revolution and November 4th is the National Unity Day

The USA at crossroads Election’s Result
Dmitry Orlov, Russia Insider-The West Resembles a Decapitated Rooster, Wings Still Flapping, Barely Flying

"Democratic elections are but a recent innovation, and a most uncertain one. For instance, during the 2016 election in the US, the establishment trotted out an entire array of craven, feckless, corrupt opportunists, and Trump knocked them all out with a feather ..."
https://russia-insider.com/en/west-resembles-decapitated-rooster-wings-still-flapping-barely-flying/ri25505
 
Patrick Armstrong’s NOVEMBER 19, 2020 overview (slightly abbreviated)
ON NOVEMBER 19, 2020 BY PATRICK ARMSTRONG IN RF SITREP

KARABAKH. This ceasefire should last. Russian troops have been moved to the points of contact and secure the road link from Karabakh to Armenia proper. (Deployment positions and General Staff briefing). Baku recovered a lot of territory that had been taken in the first war and can justifiably claim to have won. Armenia, which officially was not involved at all, under its present somewhat colour revolution leadership has lost – but avoided a greater defeat – and Pashinyan is now under considerable pressure to quit. …Moscow has demonstrated that it is the indispensable element in the area…..

NO MORE EMPIRE. Dmitriy Trenin explains to Americans that Russia is just Russia. Moscow knows exceptionalism is a waste and that empire is too.

COVID. A curfew in Moscow at 2300. Phase III trial results of the vaccine are said to be good. To my cynical surprise, Reuters has pretty balanced coverage of the Western reaction to the Sputnik vaccine.

E-VISAS. A quick, easy and cheap visa system goes into effect next year for citizens of 52 countries. None of the “Five Eyes” is included. This move has been in the works since the great success of the quick visas for the World Cup.

ISS. Russia finally loses its (Outer Space) taxi monopoly.

GUNS. Washington realises its air defence has holes (Tehran’s “black cygnet“). US comms aren’t reliable. Strategic bombers and their weapons loads. Lasers on fighter planes. New nuclear war command bunker. The US State Department fears that the Russian Poseidon weapon underwater nuclear drones could unleash ‘radioactive tsunami’ on US. …I reiterate – Russia just has to counter.
. …
WITHDRAWALS. The new US Defence Secretary says US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan will be reduced to 2500 each by 15 Jan 2021 and that “All wars must end“. Good luck with that: we’ve just heard a deep state operative boasting about defying Trump on this issue. And there’s opposition from the usual quarters: “leaving too soon”, Russia will “fill the vacuum” (but hasn’t Moscow been there and done that?). ..

NEW NWO. 15 Asia-Pacific nations have signed onto the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership: a third of the world economy. And poof goes Obama’s Asian pivot and Trump’s isolate China attempts. The grouping include two of the Five Eyes as well as Japan and South Korea. The world is changing.

UKRAINE. Remember when Putin allegedly told Bush that Ukraine wasn’t even a country? What he meant was that it is a territory assembled out of parts of other countries by Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev (not the people I’d personally pick to design my country) and deeply divided. It still is in the post-Maidan nightmare. A recent poll in “the poorest country in Europe” shows it After all the propaganda, only 41% want to join NATO, 37% want non-alignment, 13% want to join the Russian-led security grouping. 57% expect relations with Russia to get better, 30% do not. Results vary with location. (Here’s the original). All that suffering and misery to remain where they were and not much change on the “cultural map” either. ….
https://patrickarmstrong.ca/2020/11/19/russian-federation-sitrep-19-november-2020/
 
PATRICK ARMSTRONG ON OCTOBER 22, 2020
https://patrickarmstrong.ca/2020/10/22/russian-federation-sitrep-22-october-2020/

ENEMIES. A recent Levada poll shows 82% of respondents think Russia has enemies: 70% name USA, 14% Ukraine, 10% UK, 7% EU, 7% Poland. Only half as many thought it had enemies in 1994.

UKRAINE. Letter from three EU parliamentarians – strong supporters and believers – complain: “We cannot but see that the corruption perception in Ukraine in 2020 fell back to the 2017 mark, the praised reforms are the Soviet assaultbacksliding…”. What happens when these people finally realise they’ve been lied to and played for suckers from the start? Will they do anything or go away and just be replaced by new suckers?
 
Brother Nathanael November 17, 2020 @ 12:39 am Text-Text-Text
Election 2020–The Enemy Within
Christians, traditionalists, patriots, peacemakers, and nationalists voted for Trump.
Jews, fags, trannies, lesbians, abortionists, looters, pederasts, crazies, and communists voted for Biden.
I grew up as a Jew and 85 percent of Jews vote Democrat.
That’s because Jews see Republicans as the “white man’s party.”
Read also  Fake News, Fake Election
November 9 2020
https://www.realjewnews.com/?p=1467
 
Farhang Jahanpour, TNF, Sweden
The Unprecedented US Presidential Election and its Consequences
By Farhang Jahanpour, TFF Associate. November 20, 2020

American democracy has survived a dangerous virus, and it has even come off the ventilator, but whether it will be restored to full health or will suffer for a long time (like a long Covid) from the negative effects of the virus of personality cult, chauvinism, populism, racism, militarism and, yes let’s say it, fascism, remains to be seen.
https://transnational.live/2020/11/20/the-unprecedented-us-presidential-election-and-its-consequences

Farhang Jahanpour is a former professor and dean of the Faculty of Languages at the University of Isfahan and a former Senior Research Scholar at Harvard. He has also taught at Cambridge and Oxford universities. He also served as Editor for Middle East and North Africa at the BBC Monitoring from 1979-2001. He joined TFF as Associate in 2006 and has also for many years been a TFF Board member.
 
Krasnow’s  SPUTNIK interview . (I did not see it published, but below is what I sent)I know that a number of US allies in Europe rushed to congratulate Biden as president-elect. I think their decision was prompted not just by prevailing pro-votes but also by wishful thinking as Trump was, admittedly, not easy to handle.

However, I am more impressed with President Putin's hands-off approach. "We shall accept ANY decision the American people makes", Putin said at a recent meeting with Russian businessmen. "And we'll be happy to engage any administration hoping that it would choose a balance course. In any case, we shall stay calm". https://www.rbc.ru/politics/29/10/2020/5f9ab7be9a79476d369dfea3

As you know I currently reside in Moscow and am more familiar with the way Russian media and commoners look at this US event that is very important for Russia too.  However, as a naturalized US citizen with my family and friends over there, now I am more worried about America's future. If you follow my RAGA Antidote newsletters (see the latest  RAGA Antidote 57 – Krasnow’s Antiwar Newsletter: CODID-19, Putin, Belarus, Krasnov's NEW BOOK, Seattle riots, Solzhenitsyn, Karl Marx, Anti-Nuclear Manifesto, Thomas Sowell ... and more INSIDE! ), you'll see that I am very upset with mob violence, marauders, and wanton destruction of property and cultural and historical monuments. The quick restoration of law and order, of peace and tranquility of towns should be the first priority, provided it is done with the consent of local population and magnanimity of officials
 
A former student of mine gives a verdict to the election net outcome “You've replaced a herd of rampaging Elephants with a pace of braying Asses”
 
President Putin about Russia’s superiority in hypersonic missilesOn November 26, 2020 President Putin again visited the town of Sarov to lay a wreath at the monument to Yuli Khariton (1904 – 1996) , the chief Nuclear weapon designer who was associated with the Soviet program for nearly four decades Yuli Khariton leading Russian nuclear scientist. Putin reiterated Russia’s superiority in hypersonic missiles, including the successful test launch of a new Zircon hypersonic cruise missile.
https://tass.ru/obschestvo/10109061
 
Jan Oberg & TFF Jan Oberg
November 9, 2020
On November 7, 2020, I wrote a comment on my Facebook Profile that stirred some comments:
“Led by CNN and other US media, including Fox News, most Western media now declare Biden the next US president. Is there not some kind of institution in a democracy that shall officially declare who is the winner?
It seems they want to appear ignorant about the serious constitutional crisis that is around the corner as Donald Trump is not going to accept this result.
We are in for very interesting times……..
https://transnational.live/2020/11/09/do-us-media-provoke-post-election-chaos-for-a-biden-who-also-offers-no-hope/
 
The Saker
This is an extremely dangerous situation for the USA.  Why?  Because whether Trump prevails in the courts or not, the Dems have already declared victory and are now celebrating.  So there are two main options ahead:

1. Trump loses in the courts, and half of the country will feel that this election has been stolen
2. Trump wins in the courts, and the other half of the country will feel that this elections has been stolen

https://thesaker.is/legacy-ziomedia-declares-victory-open-thread/
 
Kevin Barrett: Trump could (have} become an American hero?Trump could become an American hero by revealing 9/11 truth
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/10/18/636696/Trump-could-become-an-American-hero-by-revealing-911-truth
So the whole story of bin Laden that we've been told in the mainstream is a ludicrous propaganda narrative, designed to justify the false flag events of September 11 when the Zionists, neoconservatives, and the state of Israel and their agents in the United States blew up the Twin Towers, murdered 3000 Americans, in order to hijack the US military and use it to destroy Israel's enemies in the region. …

So, if one day the neoconservative cabal that took over America on September 11 is overthrown in some kind of a coup, which is the most likely way it will go down, Donald Trump may actually be on the side of the heroes.
 
Krasnow’s 9/11 recollections
My personal recollections of the 9/11 event may have some relevance. I remember it vividly because in the morning of September 11, 2001, I just arrived at downtown Washington to meet a group of half-a-dozen people from Kyrgyzstan to serve as their Russian interpreter. All of them were Muslims and some even Muslim clerics and scholars.

And the topic for a two-week tour of the United States was to demonstrate to our foreign visitors the state of Muslim affairs in the USA. I was then just a contract interpreter, but I certainly knew my duty to put the best foot forward and translate truthfully whatever our American Muslim hosts in different towns had to say to their Kyrgyz co-religionists. On that day it was planned that we visit a couple of US government buildings, including the Pentagon, where the treatment of Muslims and other religious minorities in US armed forces had been usually discussed.

However, after I had picked up the group from an hotel, and we started walking, we so unusually agitated crowds of people glued to large public TV screens broadcasting the “Muslim terrorist hijacking” civilian planes in the air and directing their attacks toward World Trade Center--and the Pentagon!

Toward the end of the day, we did not even know if our US tour will go at all. While waiting for the decision, we watched TV coverage of the event from the hotel’s lobby. The one thing that stood out was a group of young Jews, celebrating something while riding an open van near NYC. Everybody thought it was weird. If we were fooled, we may be forgiven, for, according to Wikipedia, a former CIA operations chief admitted that "many people in the U.S. intelligence community believed that some of the men arrested were working for Israeli intelligence”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories

 Anyhow, the next day it was announced, to the delight of our guests, that our US tour would go as scheduled. I suspect that the video of young Jews celebrating the destruction of the World Trade Center left a lasting impression on our Kyrgyz guests. For more on this topic see

RAGA Antidote 52 - Krasnow's Antiwar Newsletter: July 4th! US Independence Day + Manifest of Survival, Christopher Bollyn, Letter from St. Petersburg Russia, Dimitry Khalezov, Lisa Marie White, PATRICK ARMSTRONG, John Sokoloff

You may also want to read Christopher Bollyn’s book The War on Terror: The Plot to Rule the Middle East
 
Hiroyuki Hamada, Global Research, October 23, 2020
Hiroyuki Hamada
Kevin Barrett’s opinion is also seconded by Hiroyuki Hamada
The Global Capitalist Cage and the Corona Crisis: “Solutions” by Those Who Have Created “The Problems”
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-global-capitalist-cage-and-the-corona-crisis-solutions-by-those-who-have-created-the-problems/5727349

...But there are obvious inconsistencies— the failure of the Air Force to intercept the hijacked airplanes, suspicious lack of actions against the suspected hijackers prior to the attack by intelligence agencies, numerous testimonies indicating the presence of explosives in the 9/11 buildings, circumstantial evidence indicating that an event like 9/11 was necessary to embark on a series of colonial wars against the Middle East while curtailing the civil and legal rights of the people and so on. The authority itself doesn’t den those points, as if to say “what are you gonna do about it?” And we are told “you are either with us, or against us”.
 
Martin Geddes, Edinburgh, on US election
The Digital Coup and the Great Exposure
In the next few weeks, the awful truth about the recent US election and the attempted theft of the Presidency from the People will become impossible to ignore. The Director of National Intelligence is tasked with delivering his assessment of the integrity of the election within 45 days — the deadline being December 18th. Other lawsuits and events are progressing in the interim.

We are already witnessing the run-up to the disclosure of fraud and foreign interference prior to the December 14th electoral college vote. Fraud vitiates everything and annuls the Biden candidacy; foreign interference makes this a matter of military law. You are going to see a mass treason event and huge numbers of people brought to justice. This wasn’t really an election; it was a military intelligence sting operation against a corrupt establishment.
https://www.onq.martingeddes.com/
 
LaRouchePAC Updates <updates@lpac-organizers.com>кому: я
Hello Wladislaw Krasnow c/o --

It’s been thirty years since the travesty of LaRouche’s unjust jailing, and now’s the time for LaRouche’s exoneration. Thank you for supporting our call for President Trump to exonerate LaRouche.

Sign here: 
http://action.larouchepac.com/petition_exonerate_larouche?recruiter_id=254062

Thanks for supporting our Resolution in the Year of Beethoven

Beethoven to Unite Us
I signed for Beethoven inspires the unity of mankind
Schiller Institute <info@schillerinstitute.org>
кому: я
Wladislaw Krasnow c/o,
Sign here: 
http://schillerinstitute.nationbuilder.com/year_of_beethoven_resolution?recruiter_id=2509
 
New Censorship: YouTube censors Dr. Yeadon on COVID
YouTube removes lockdown-sceptical interview with renowned immunologist Dr Mike Yeadon for ‘violating terms of service’
20 Nov, 2020 
https://www.rt.com/uk/507321-yeadon-interview-banned-youtube/
 
 
JVP against Christian Zionists
Dear W George,
…Our strategy in this election cycle comes from an analysis that identifies how the white evangelical Christian Zionist base in this country is enormously influential in deciding who’s in office, and in driving anti-Palestinian U.S. policy. Political Research Associates is hosting a spectacular event called ‘Christian Zionism: The End Times Agenda… When Lindsey Graham is in the headlines, it almost always means bad news. He’s a far-right Trump crony and an evangelical Christian Zionist who proudly supports illegal Israeli annexation, (Signed)
… Stefanie Fox
 
JVP vs POMPEO on BDS
Dear W George,
Yesterday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the State Department will designate the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as antisemitic, and directed his office to create a blacklist of organizations that support BDS. 
We saw this coming. Weeks ago, we launched a campaign to demand Pompeo stop using false allegations of antisemitism to attack Palestinians and the Palestinian rights movement.
https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/
 
Alice Rothchild, JVP vs Israeli State Violence
Webinar: Israeli State Violence and the Health Implications for Palestinians in Israel - Dec 10 @ 8pm ET
 
Ayed Abu Eqtaish <advocacy@dcips.org> Dear W --
Today – November 20, 2020 - is Universal Children's Day. We are celebrating 31 years of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history, which declares that children have full human rights and states should take special care to protect them. 

Israel ratified the CRC in 1991, but instead of protecting Palestinian children's rights, Israeli forces regularly commit human rights violations against them…
Donate to defend Palestinian children's human rights
 
Sami Awad sami@holylandtrust.org
Christmas Appeal
Holy Land Trust is committed to a process of individual and community growth through nonviolent resistance
Only $10 can make huge difference
 
CODEPINK  vs Pentagon’s support for Israeli apartheid
Dear Wladislaw,
Wow — what a year it’s been! From the dumpster fire that is the Trump administration, to the pandemic which has shamefully taken countless lives — we are facing one of the most challenging moments in history…Joe Biden has promised to return our country to “normal.” But does “normal” mean kowtowing to weapons manufacturers, retaining bloated Pentagon budgets, continuing support for Israeli apartheid, imposing neoliberal policies on Latin America, and creating a new conflict with China? 

Absolutely not! We have to redefine “normal” as a country that stops arming human rights abusers, acts like a good neighbor to Latin America, stops the new cold war with China, and ends wars and weapons for profit. That’s why in the coming weeks, CODEPINK will pull out all the stops to get Senator Barbara Lee’s bill passed, which would cut Pentagon funding in half! 
https://www.codepink.org/
 
Israel Shamir with Kevin Barrett
Israel Shamir: “Did Jews Fail to Deliver?” and “Charlie Hebdo Rides Again”_on Kevin Barrett’s Truth Jihad Radio
https://noliesradio.org/archives/178849
 
Professor Bishnu Pathak on WWII lessons
Dr. Bishnu Pathak, Director, Peace and Conflict Studies Center, Nepal: pathakbishnu@gmail.com. He is also my colleagues in the Global Harmony Association. Last September he distributed an extraordinary article he wrote in conjunction with the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII and the Nuremburg Tribunal that followed. It had been posted under the title “Nuremberg Tribunal: A Precedent of Victor's Justice” on the site of TRANSCEND.org, a Norwegian pacifist outfit
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2020/09/nuremberg-tribunal-a-precedent-for-victors-justice/.

Here is how the article starts: 21 Sep 2020 – The Nuremberg Tribunal was the first Transitional Justice body formed against the heinous crimes committed by the leadership of Nazi Germany. This study is a review that assesses the truth to connect with perpetrators, victims or survivors, people and institutions based on International (Public) Law and Laws of War (International Humanitarian Law).

At the end Dr. Pathak arrives at an extra-ordinary conclusion:
<<…. The Tribunal pursued the Retributive Justice Theory following an ancient method of justification for punishment. … The Nuremberg Tribunal had virtually been victor’s justice with sanctimonious scam and lynching body rather than a free, fair and autonomous justice body. The war winner USA and its allied victors established threatocracy and crowdocracy against the poor victims and the defeated war loser nation to further discourage and weaken them. The newly formed UN failed to restore peace and security as per its International Peace and Security Charter. As a result, cronyism was widespread. And that the Tribunal appeared no-less than a pseudo justice body.>>

In spite of his perhaps awkward neologisms to describe the resulting and still viral consequence of the Nuremberg Trials, I think that Dr. Pathak is essentially right in pointing out a problem with “the victors’ justice”.  Since the Roman times we have known that “the victors are never tried” I recommend everyone to consider Dr. Pathak’s high-minded approach to ending the cycle of wars which threatens the existence of the Planet Earth now more than ever.

The Roof of the World, the home of the highest Mt. Everest and other such giants, Nepal has lately experienced an infiltration from both  the West and from the East, of both Marxist-Leninists and Maoist revolutionaries. The Nepalese Civil War in the 1990s and early 2000s resulted in thousands of dead and homeless, and the establishment of a secular republic in 2008, ending the world's last Hindu monarchy.

https://www.transcend.org/tms/2020/09/nuremberg-tribunal-a-precedent-for-victors-justice/

About Russia's special spiritual relationships with both Nepal and India please read
Mahatma Gandhi and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Two Giants Who Blessed the 20th Century. Will Vladimir Putin, Other World Leaders Listen?

VLADISLAV KRASNOV • JANUARY 25, 2019
http://www.unz.com/article/mahatma-gandhi-and-aleksandr-solzhenitsyn-the-two-giants-who-blessed-the-20th-century/

Note especially the role played by Helena Blavatsky (1831 – 1891), the founder of theosophy got US citizenship, and also the Russian painter and philosopher Nicholas Roerich (1874 – 1947). Just visit The Roerich Museum in New York!

John Sack, the author of “An Eye for an Eye”, RIP
Come to think of it, I have heard one man speaking of the Biblical revenge after WWII. He was John Sack (1930 – 2004), the author of “An Eye for an Eye”.  The New York Times had a nice eulogy for him, as a pioneer of New Journalism, except The NYT accused him of “rushing into print prematurely” with his extraordinarily frank book.  The NYT was not alone. As John Sack himself put it, “Two dozen publishers read An Eye for an Eye and praised it. "Shocking, "Startling," "Astonishing," "Mesmerizing," "Extraordinary," they wrote to Author John Sack. "I was riveted," "I was bowled over," "I love it," they wrote, but all two dozen rejected it.”  The book is now available on Amazon.com. But it appeared there after a huge struggle.  After Basic Books published An Eye for an Eye. It "sparked a furious controversy," said Newsweek. It became a best-seller in Europe but was so shunned in America that it also became, in the words of New York Magazine, "The Book They Dare Not Review."
https://www.amazon.com/Eye-Story-Sought-Revenge-Holocaust/dp/0967569109
 
“Both 60 Minutes (TV program) and the New York Times have corroborated what Sack wrote: that at the end of World War II, thousands of Jews sought revenge for the Holocaust. They set up 1,255 concentration camps for German civilians -- German men, women, children and babies. There they beat, whipped, tortured and murdered the Germans,” says the Amazon blurb.

     In fact, Mr. Sack’s fight for its publication is a riveting story for a novel that can be titled “Irrepressible”.  I feel fortunate to have been a witness of this struggle in early 2000 when the Holocaust Museum in Washington announced his lecture. I was elated at the chance to hear the famous author describe his book on a topic that seemed deliberately geared for the Museum, and to see the Museum to boot.

However, the announced lecture was suddenly cancelled. Fortunately, it was re-scheduled for The National Press Club. I went there and heard him speak to a room-full crowd. At the end, several people praised him for his frankness. “So what”, he replied, “I just wanted to perform a journalist’s duty, and as a Torah-believing Jew I had to be a truthful witness of historical events”.  I did not miss this chance to shake hands with him and have him photographed.
 
Alexander Solzhenitsyn ignored too
​Actually, John Sack is in the same league with another truth teller, the great Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a Nobel Prize winner, who condemned the whole Marxist-Leninist experiment as the land of GULAG. For that he was expelled from the USSR. While the USA deserves credit for giving Solzhenitsyn a refuge and opportunity to write, it strangely backed out when, after returning to post-Soviet Russia, he wrote a two-volume treatise “Two Hundred Years Together.” It dealt with the relationship between the Russians and the Jews of the Russian Empire and, in the second volume, in the USSR. Such negligence is strange because the book went a long way to explain the origin of the Cold War that threatened to destroy both countries and much of the world.

Fortunately, Amazon.com sells the book in Russian. One devout reader, having read the book in both German and French (he apologized for the lack of Russian skills), wrote an excellent preview for American readers.

Peter C. Patton
5.0 out of 5 stars Bolshoi Korosho - Tov Ma'od
Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2018

I have finally read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s remarkable two volume historical essay Two Hundred Years Together after buying the Russian, French, and German editions from amazon. What an adventure it has been. Research and writing the two volumes occupied the last decade of his life; the books were published in 2001 and 2003, but are still not available in English translation. ……….

Without indulging in conspiracy theories I wanted to learn why the book is still not available in English and why volume two is so difficult to find in French. Volume one doesn’t contain anything more embarrassing to the Jews than already exists in The Jewish Encyclopedia, however it does present a case that many of the so called Tsarist pogroms against the Jews were not government sanctioned at all, but rather were Orthodox Jews attacking and killing Hassidic and secular Jews while the government officials often looked the other way, not wanting to get involved in a local religious dispute…the author knew and worked with some of these people when a communist or later as a fellow dissident in the Gulag. He does make the point that the others do not, that while the fraction of the Russian population that were Jews before the revolution was only 4%, the representation of Jews in the Bolshevik party before and after the revolution was 27%.
https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/5969707023

The story of John Sack’s book suppression also reminds me of Jewish attempts to lay a taboo on free discussion of eugenics. In 2011, the late Professor John Glad (December 31, 1941 – December 4, 2015) published his book Jewish Eugenics. Amazon blurb gives a good idea of it: “The topic of Jewish eugenics has been systematically suppressed and is only now being timidly taken up by a handful of Israeli and American scholars. John Glad lays bare the deepest roots of the Middle East political standoff - roots that are little known even to experts in that field”.
​
Professor John GLAD, the author of Jewish Eugenics

So I was not surprised and rather proud when he asked me to write a review of Jewish Eugenics. I immediately started reading the book which I found extremely interesting and well-argued. However, in the hustle of moving back and forth between the US and Russia, I was unable to do the job. I saw him last time around 2013 when he came to Moscow to give a lecture at the House of Russia Overseas (Solzhenitsyn Library House). Alas, we only had a brief friendly chat in the hall. So—the few words above are to honor the memory of my friend, colleague and a Slavic brother John Glad who has done so much for better communication between Russia, the USA .  and other nations.

Alas, eugenics still remains a taboo topic. I encountered it myself while writing in early 2020 my article Sighing-and more- at the Secrets of Jewish Genius: Vladislav Krasnov’s Rebuttal to Bret Stephens’s The New York Times’ article. You could also read a shorter version: Sighing at the Secrets of Jewish Genius
​
Rebuttal to Bret Stephens’s The New York Times Column
While I disagreed with Stephens on the allegedly exclusively positive impact of “Jewish geniuses” on world history, I defended his right to seek support in eugenics studies. In fact, I publicly disagreed with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) an organization to which I belong as a non-Jewish member, when the JVP attacked Stephens and demanded that the New York Times punish him for relying on eugenics research. At the end, the NYT edited all allusions to eugenics out and Stephens claimed he was misunderstood. Apparently, for the NYT, the country’s leading opinion maker, being “politically correct” is more important than being a truthful defender of freedom of speech and research.

MAIREAD MAGUIRE to MALACHY KILBRIDE
PAX CHRISTI ANNUAL PEACEMAKER OF THE YEAR AWARD PRESENTED TO MALACHY KILBRIDE
ON 7th NOVEMBER 2020, AT CONFERENCE IN METRO
D.C. BALTIMORE.
VIDEO LINK TALK
BY
MAIREAD MAGUIRE,
NOBEL PEACE LAUREATE.
Personal page:
https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=678
 
Sweden has banned gatherings of more than 8
Scott Gottlieb, MD
@ScottGottliebMD
Sweden has banned gatherings of more than 8 people as a second wave of coronavirus continues to grow. "Don't go to gyms, don't go to libraries, don't host dinners. Cancel," Swedish Prime Minister Lofven said. https://news.trust.org/item/20201116135516- on COVIDilta9/
 
Peter Myers, of Australia, recommends David Icke on COVID:
<< Do you know if David Icke is the only one saying that Covid-19 is not a virus, there is no virus?  I am kind of leaning towards believing him, but would love to have evidence from others on that.  David Icke says that the respiratory stuff we are seeing and which has been called Covid-19 has been caused by other things, eg 5G.>>
See for yourself: https://davidicke.com/
 
 Is COVID over? World Doctors Alliance
The World Doctors Alliance (40,000+) say that the pandemic is over. It's being deliberately prolonged in order to justify a mandatory vaccine:
https://worlddoctorsalliance.com/.
 
Biden to transform US foreign policy? Don’t count on it. Anatol Lieven
The new President does not have the power nor the inclination to deliver a fundamental reset by Anatol Lieven / November 11, 2020 /
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/joe-biden-foreign-policy-paris-agreement-iran-nuclear-deal#respond
​
Finally, Biden’s team has made great play with the hoary old idea of a global “league of democracies” to isolate and pressure China and Russia. This will not change the actual balance of power one bit, and since the US will undoubtedly go on working closely with both authoritarian allies and illiberal democracies like India, it will strengthen perceptions of US hypocrisy.

Nonetheless, this idea has a dangerous side. Seen from China and Russia (not just from the perspective of the regimes, but many ordinary people as well), US promotion of democracy is in fact aimed at the weakening or even destruction of their existing states. Threaten the vital interests of a powerful country, and it will do everything in its power to threaten your vital interests in return. This is a lesson that the Washington establishment should have learned from 25 years of failed strategy towards Russia; but it seems that they need more than one lesson; and I fear that they are going to get more than one.

Anatol Lieven is a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and author among other books of Climate Change and the Nation State: The Realist Case (Allen Lane)
 
Belarus
A split in Belarus’ opposition? Kolesnikova hints at talks with embattled Lukashenko but Tikhanovskaya favors West’s intervention

FILE PHOTOS. (L) Maria Kolesnikova © Sputnik / Viktor Tolochko; (R) Svetlana Tikhanovskaya © Sputnik / Viktor Tolochko

A key figure in Belarus’ opposition movement has set out terms for talks with authorities to end unrest in the country, whereas her former protest partner is visiting Western capitals seeking foreign support. Is there a split?
https://www.rt.com/search?q=Belarus
 
Michael Averko re Nagorno-Karabakh  No matter what a given person or entity does, some will always find fault, on account of having an overly biased and logic defying stance. Columbia University academic David Phillips' November 15 National Interest piece "Armenia Was Forced to Sign a Ceasefire Agreement with a Gun to Its Head", finds blame with all of the parties directly and indirectly involved in the Armenian-Azeri dispute, with the exception of Armenia itself.
 
Charles Ganske on Azeri losses in Karabakh
Azerbaijan’s officially admitted losses almost exceed those of Armenia / Artsakh in N K war
https://mobile.twitter.com/RALee85/status/1334456798473056257
 
Eric Walberg of CANADA
​About the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scholar
http://www.ericwalberg.com/images/logo.png
PRESSTV INTERVIEW: WORLD MUST ABANDON DOUBLE STANDARDS, CONDEMN STATE TERROR
my interview on presstv on assassination of iranian nuclear physicist.
https://www.urmedium.com/c/presstv/53814
 
An American goes Russian Orthodox Christian
By Mark Dankof Wed, Oct 21 2020. This article from our archives was first published on RI in February 2019

America Has Traded God for Empire, Narcissism, Militarism, Usury, and Sodomy. Fr. Joseph Gleason, editor of website "Russian Faith"  explains America's predicament.

It goes without saying that Father Joseph Gleason of Russian Faith is making his mark in the world for the Kingdom of God in Jesus Christ.  His theological journey has finally taken him into the priesthood of the Russian Orthodox Church.  Geographically, the journey he and his family have embarked upon has taken them from the United States to Russia and a place called Rostov-The-Great.  His is a story worth following on an ongoing basis.  I sense his personal odyssey may prove larger in history than he or anyone else imagines 
https://russia-insider.com/en/christianity/america-has-traded-god-empire-narcissism-militarism-usury-sodomy/ri26196

Edward Snowden & his wife to apply for dual citizenship | EdwardSnowdenm@Snowden
After years of separation from our parents, my wife and I have no desire to be separated from our son. That's why, in this era of pandemics and closed borders, we're applying for dual US-Russian citizenship.

Read also
To Defect or to Integrate? The USA vs Edward Snowden
4/29/2014
http://www.raga.org/news/to-defect-or-to-integrate-the-usa-vs-edward-snowden
 
Ed Snowden to Trump: Save Julian Assange
'You alone can SAVE HIS LIFE': NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden urges Trump to grant clemency to WikiLeaks' Julian Assange
​
"Mr. President, if you grant only one act of clemency during your time in office, please: Free Julian Assange," Snowden tweeted. "You alone can save his life."
 
James Howard Kunstler Fri, Oct 23 2020
The Industrial Age Is Ending; Low-Tech Neo-Feudalism Will Replace It - No Fossil Fuels, No ‘Green’ Energy. «The process will be uncomfortably sharp and disorientating. The West especially will not know what hit it as it emergently self-reorganizes back into something that resembles the old-time feudalism.  We have a new kind of mass squalor in America ..."  https://russia-insider.com/en/industrial-age-ending-low-tech-neo-feudalism-will-replace-it-no-fossil-fuels-no-green-energy/ri26235
​
Jan Oberg on the need for UN reform
​At 75 – A U.N. of the Future in a Globalized Democracy
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 26 Oct 2020
Jan Oberg, Ph.D. | The Transnational – TRANSCEND Media Service
24 Oct 2020 – 2020 marks the 75th Anniversary of the world’s most important and visionary organization, the United Nations. Everything TFF has done during its 35 years of existence has been based on one mission – namely, to promote the UN Charter’s Article 1 which states that peace shall be brought about by peaceful means.

That is a typical Gandhian inspiration – “the means are the goals in-the-making” – as he said. You cannot use destructive means to achieve constructive goals.

Regrettably, one hears many – thoughtless – voices accusing “the UN” of being too expensive, too bureaucratic, too ineffective, too corrupt, too this and that.
Why must this be seen as an indicator of intellectual poverty?
…
Still, we feel that good ideas should never be scrapped just because they are not picked up in the micro-historic time frame that 30 years are.

There will come a day when the world is looking intensely for good ideas about global governance – after nationalism and militarism and other constructs of lesser minds have declined too.
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2020/10/at-75-a-u-n-of-the-future-in-a-globalized-democracy/

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Birthday Dec. 11, 1918 I celebrate Solzhenitsyn’s birthday both as a Russian and as an American.  

“Russian” goes without saying. As to “American,” I am convinced of his salutary effect on the USA by his mere presence in this country during the crucial years of the Cold War, from 1975 to the demise of the USSR in 1991.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Relevance Today
Vladislav Krasnov (aka W George Krasnow) ponders o­n the International “Reading Solzhenitsyn” Conference in Lyndon, Vermont, September 7-8, 2018
http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=864

See also
Mahatma Gandhi and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Two Giants Who Blessed the 20th Century. Will Vladimir Putin, Other World Leaders Listen?
VLADISLAV KRASNOV • JANUARY 25, 2019
http://www.unz.com/article/mahatma-gandhi-and-aleksandr-solzhenitsyn-the-two-giants-who-blessed-the-20th-century/
 
One can see my interview in Russian on Ютюб по-русски
Вечер к 100 летию А.И. Солженицына (Выступления Владислава Краснова, Владимира Осипова и ведущего Михаила Назарова
919 views, •Jan 7, 2019
5412SHARESAVE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrvVBQwBk6M&feature=youtu.be
Другие передачи:
Студия православных фильмов во  имя Иоанна Богослова
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrvVBQwBk6M&feature=youtu.be

Or hear my interview on Russia’s independent Christian world-wide 24 hour broadcaster RADIO RADONEZH
РАДИО РАДОНЕЖ
К 100-летию со дня рождения А.И. Солженицына. Беседа А. Арендаренко с писателем и общественным деятелем В.Г. Красновым
30.10.2018 22:13
ВЛАДИСЛАВ ГЕОРГИЕВИЧ КРАСНОВ
СЛУШАТЬ СКАЧАТЬ MP3-АРХИВ ЧАСА
http://radonezh.ru/radio/2018/10/30/22-13

Ignat Solzhenitsyn and Daniel J. Mahoney Thursday, Dec. 10, 2020
10:00am – 11:00am ET | BY WEBCAST
In this book talk, Ignat Solzhenitsyn and Daniel J. Mahoney will discuss Solzhenitsyn’s fight against the communist regime while defending the honor of Russia’s historic past. They will also consider how he watched as Russia came out from under the rubble of the Soviet system into a deeply flawed transition.

Send questions to our panelists by email to kennan@wilsoncenter.org, tweet us @KennanInstitute, or write on our Facebook page.
 
Jordan Peterson YouTube’s on SolzhenitsynI may have sent you something akin to this before.  It’s well worth a listen, perhaps even especially for someone like yourself who is not likely to learn anything new here and even may be able to refine.  I think Peterson is one amazing fellow; have been listening since he became famous (or infamous, as the majority of now ‘woke’ Americans prefer to interpret him) several years ago.  He has a lot of content on YT and a huge following among the very few remaining conservatives (a near-extinct breed) around the world.

Область прикрепленных файлов
Предварительный просмотр видео 2017 Personality 13: Existentialism via Solzhenitsyn and the Gulag

2017 Personality 13: Existentialism via Solzhenitsyn and the Gulag

Предварительный просмотр видео 2017 Personality 13: Existentialism via Solzhenitsyn and the Gulag

2017 Personality 13: Existentialism via Solzhenitsyn and the Gulag

 I may have sent you something akin to this before.  It’s well worth a listen, perhaps even especially for someone like yourself who is not likely to learn anything new here and even may be able to refine.  I think Peterson is one amazing fellow; have been listening since he became famous (or infamous, as the majority of now ‘woke’ Americans prefer to interpret him) several years ago.  He has a lot of content on YT and a huge following among the very few remaining conservatives (a near-extinct breed) around the world.

Область прикрепленных файлов
Предварительный просмотр видео 2017 Personality 13: Existentialism via Solzhenitsyn and the Gulag
​
Margo Caulfield’s book on Solzhenitsyn for children
Our visit to the Museum of Cavendish was revealing. In addition to its local history, a major part of the Museum was dedicated to the memory of its most famous exile. In addition to seeing many Solzhenitsyn photographs decorating it walls, we had a chance to talk to Margo Caulfield, the Museum’s supervisor and Director of Cavendish Historical Society.

I immediately saw on her desk a book with the remarkable title: “The Writer Who Changed History”. As it turned out, the book’s author was Margo Caulfield herself. On its back cover, I read “This book was born of an attempt to answer an American third-grader’s question: “How could it be that a decorated Soviet officer was removed from the front lines and imprisoned for years simply for making a negative comment about Stalin?”

It was a good question, and Margo Caulfield answered it superbly in her children’s book “Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: The Writer Who Changed History”[47]

. Well documented and illustrated, it is brief but comprehensive. Above all, it is written in the awareness that America needs to grow to the stature of a man to whom it gave a refuge and freedom to restore 20th century history, at least, as far as Russia is concerned. I read the book when I was flying from Vermont to Moscow. I kept thinking that Russian youngsters too need to read such books to fortify their resolve to make the 21st century less cruel and more promising than the Brave 20th Century World.
https://www.amazon.com/Aleksandr-Solzhenitsyn-Writer-Changed-History/dp/1530160855
 
The text above was taken from
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Relevance Today
International “Reading Solzhenitsyn” Conference in Lyndon, Vermont, September 7-8, 2018.   By VLADISLAV KRASNOV

https://www.unz.com/article/aleksandr-solzhenitsyns-relevance-today/
​
Russia’s last Emperor de-jure Michael II was born on Dec. 4, 1878
​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duke_Michael_Alexandrovich_of_Russia

The people of Perm and some other towns across Russia celebrate the birthday of Mikhail, the younger brother of Tsar Nicholas II.   Born on December 4, 1878 , he was  assassinated in Perm on June 13, 1918. During the February revolution Tsar Nicholas abdicated in his favor hoping than Mikhail, the celebrated commander of the valiant   “Savage” Cavalry division of Muslim warriors of North Caucasus and the Russian Cossacks,  would quell the rebellion in Sankt-Petersburg and assume the Crown.

But Mikhail wanted to avoid the blood shed which was likely to lead to a civil war. So he empowered the Provisional Government to conduct the general election to the Constituent e Assembly that would decide on the form of government.

As the Provisional Government continued to fight on the side of the Allies (England, France and the US just joint), the Bolsheviks—Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Stalin among them-- agitate for “turning the imperialist war to a civil one”.  They got only about a quarter of all votes, but forcibly proclaimed themselves the new government, suppressing workers who demonstrated to support the Constituent Assembly in January 1918. The ensuing civil war brought the Bolsheviks to power after more Russians had died than in WW One. Mikhail was “rewarded” for his conciliatory, peace-loving and democratic gesture with an exile to Perm where he was secretly murdered along with his secretary Jonson the night of June 1918.

The photo of Mikhail was sent to me from a group of Perm citizen who honor Mikhail as a Russian saint as a man of Peace and Non-Violence.
 
By the way, Solzhenitsyn described his encounter in one of the GULAG’s barracks with a Mikhail-pretender (of whom there were many since Mikhail’s body was never found). Please read about Perm’s role in my article
 Emperor Michael II in the Sollzhenitsyn House - Author: Vladislav Krasnov
http://www.raga.org/news/emperor-michael-ii-in-the-solzhenitsyn-house-author-vladislav-krasnov
​
Also read a book by a British gentleman whom Perm learned to love
Donald Crawford, The Last Tsar: Emperor Michael II
 https://www.amazon.com/Last-Tsar-Emperor-Michael-II/dp/1466445009
 
William Brumfield + Sergei Prokudin-GorskyA transcript of Brumfield Interview in Russian
«Он запечатлел мир на грани исчезновения»

Русский фотограф успел заснять Российскую империю перед ее гибелью. Американец повтори л его путь
03 октября 2020

Сергей Михайлович Прокудин-Горский — фотограф-изобретатель, создавший огромную серию цветных снимков Российской империи в начале XX века. После революции его коллекция оказалась за границей, а затем попала в Библиотеку конгресса США. Историк-славист Уильям Брумфилд выпустил посвященную коллекции книгу, в которой сравнил фотографии Прокудина-Горского и свои собственные. «Лента.ру» поговорила с автором о его жизненном пути, русской истории и необходимости думать о прошлом.

«Лента.ру»: У вас недавно вышла новая книга о Прокудине-Горском. Расскажите, что ее выход значит для вас.

Уильям Брумфилд: Когда летом 1985 года я начал заниматься коллекцией его фотографий в Библиотеке конгресса, я удивился тому, насколько совпали наши с ним пути. Уже тогда, во время подготовки первой выставки, работники библиотеки предлагали мне сделать книгу со сравнением его и моих работ. За это готово было взяться крупное и престижное нью-йоркское издательство.
Мне даже дали аванс, и я начал работу, а потом все свернулось из-за финансовых проблем между издательством и библиотекой. К тому времени у меня было уже столько других проектов, что я не особенно от этого страдал. Но все-таки в последующие годы, работая в России, я отмечал — и здесь, и там Прокудин-Горский успел поработать... Никогда не забывал о его коллекции. И примерно десять лет назад коллега из другого университета предложила мне показать студентам мои и его работы — и это стало для меня толчком к возвращению к этой теме.

Как всегда, я работал без конкретного плана — нужно просто трудиться и ждать открывающихся возможностей, случаев, оказий. Огромные объемы моей исследовательской работы в итоге пригодились в проекте Russia Beyond The Headlines. Предыдущую мою книгу — о Русском Севере — я опубликовал в 2015 году благодаря поддержке спонсоров. И после этого мне предложили сделать действительно большую, фундаментальную книгу, при этом предоставив свободно выбирать ее содержание. Доверили мне это просто потому, что им нравится моя работа. Видите, красота все-таки играет роль в нашей жизни.

Тогда я и решил осуществить давнюю мечту о сравнении двух коллекций.

В каком-то смысле для этого я и трудился все это время
Это напоминает библейскую притчу о рабах, ожидающих господина: был вознагражден тот, кто работал, а не прохлаждался, хоть и не знал, когда вернется хозяин.

Вот именно! Я часто читал Библию в детстве и юности и знаю, о какой притче идет речь. Не стану говорить обо всех жизненных трудностях, но могу сказать, что чтение Библии в целом меня спасло. Да, надо трудиться. Это называют протестантским подходом к жизни. Лично мне все равно — протестантский или православный...
https://lenta.ru/articles/2020/10/03/brumfield_book/
ENGLISH
Discover the charms of 19th-century Russian life in the Perm Territory
TRAVEL
NOV 06 2020
WILLIAM BRUMFIELD
Historian and architecture expert William Brumfield explores traditional wooden architecture near one of the biggest cities in the Urals.
https://www.rbth.com/travel/332970-perm-wooden-architecture
​
The city of Perm, a major industrial and administrative center located just on the European side of the northern Urals, extends for miles along the high east bank of the Kama River. In the summer of 1909, Russian photographer and chemist Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky visited the city on the first of three expeditions to the Ural Mountains. He took views ranging from ruggedly beautiful nature to large factories.

In the early 20th century the Russian photographer Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky devised a complex process for color photography. Between 1903 and 1916 he traveled through the Russian Empire and took over 2,000 photographs with the process, which involved three exposures on a glass plate. In August 1918, he left Russia and ultimately resettled in France where he was reunited with a large part of his collection of glass negatives, as well as 13 albums of contact prints. After his death in Paris in 1944, his heirs sold the collection to the Library of Congress. In the early 21st century the Library digitized the Prokudin-Gorsky Collection and made it freely available to the global public. A few Russian websites now have versions of the collection. In 1986 the architectural historian and photographer William Brumfield organized the first exhibit of Prokudin-Gorsky photographs at the Library of Congress. Over a period of work in Russia beginning in 1970, Brumfield has photographed most of the sites visited by Prokudin-Gorsky. This series of articles juxtaposes Prokudin-Gorsky’s views of architectural monuments with photographs taken by Brumfield decades later.
​
If using any of Russia Beyond's content, partly or in full, always provide an active hyperlink to the original material.  https://www.rbth.com/travel/332970-perm-wooden-architecture
Mark  Jimerson, (1953 – 2012) RIP

​Last but not the least, read below about Mark Jimerson, my former student at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Only recently I learned the sad news of his untimely death on November 22, 2012. In the hustle of moving between Russia and the USA, I missed this Washington Post. Obit.  << MARK S. JIMERSON Retired Supervisory Special Agent (FBI) Mark Stephen Jimerson passed away peacefully, from brain cancer, on Thursday, November 22, 2012 at his home in Mitchellville, MD at the age of 59 surrounded by his loving family. Mark was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on August 7, 1953 to the union of Louise B. Jimerson and the late Chance Jimerson. Mark is survived by his loving wife of 34 years, Wendy Jimerson; his daughter, Stephania Mahdi; son, Mark E. Jimerson; and granddaughter, Yasmeen Mahdi.>>  

In 1981 I graduated Mark  with a B.A. in Russian Studies. Then Jim was set on the illustrious career as a Russian language FBI specialist. It took him to Washington and then, after the end of the USSR, to Russia and Estonia. I am sure he had some good instructors at the DLI too, but at the MIIS his Russian language skills proved superior which help to better understand Soviet realities.

So—anyone who was lucky to know Mark, PLEASE share your memory on the Legacy site
https://www.legacy.com/guestbooks/washingtonpost/mark-s-jimerson-condolences/161287804?&utm_source=MarketingCloud&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign =GBNewEntryApproved_PowerInbox_Neustar&utm_content=View+Guest+Book&sfmc_id=142239164

There are over 40 obits there, but anyone can add yours, free of charge for the time being. And – or-- write a letter about Mark and the MIIS to me at president92@gmail.com
 
Vladislav Krasnov’a New Book
I am happy to announce my NEW BOOK 
From The East to The West a message of Peace 
Published by Sanbun Publishers, New Delhi, INDIA
https://www.flipkart.com/east-west-message-peace/p/itm96d91fa160d5c?pid=9788170104803

The author of When Pathology Becomes the Norm Anna Tolstoyevskaya is not a medical doctor. Yet her diagnosis of our world’s current condition as pathology rings true and extremely alarming. It is so because all its symptoms – an incessant nuclear and conventional arms race, growing military expenditures, ubiquitous pollution, drastic climate change, and disarray in both the UN and World Health Association in face of COVID-19 – all these and other symptoms are clearly visible, but not seen and certainly not talked about.  

Why? Because some people, especially among the financial elite of the United States and other influential countries, get richer from both foreign wars and domestic strife. In their reckless zeal for making money and for feeling omnipotent, they ignore all the warnings, including the scientifically based Doomsday Clock which shows just 100 historical seconds left before the Planet’s midnight.

The author of this article is not new to RAGA. We have already published her equally alarming Manifesto of Survival  (http://www.raga.org/news/manifesto-of-survival). And I am delighted to welcome her again! The author is a Russian-American who works for one of the premier academic institutions in the U.S. ​

​​When scientists a thousand years from now will be studying our time, much about it will strike them as strange.  They will be puzzled by how technically advanced we were, but how little we were able to understand each other.  It will be hard for them to comprehend why, with such rare, once in thousands of years, scientific and technical ability to create a true paradise on earth, we continued to choose the path of wars, violence, and destruction. 

They will be mystified by our persistent failure to heed our scientists’ dire warnings that the Doomsday Clock was seconds away from midnight, abandoning ourselves to unbridled consumption and greed.  Why we believed tenaciously that truth is always on our side, even as it deprives others of life and justice? 

The big question is: will there be scientists at all a thousand years from now, or will our planet go back to the age of reptiles?  In fact, it is high time we start tackling some of these questions, if only so there will be somebody to study US many years from now.

Our main problem lies in our relationship with our elites.  This relationship, in turn, reflects our fundamental misunderstanding of ourselves.

We as homo sapiens still have not learned to coexist with each other.  This is no accident.  By and large, our ruling elites do not consider themselves created the same and equal with the rest of us.  This gives them the right to control, manipulate, and sacrifice us, while enriching themselves at our expense.  It is not a problem for them, because—in their opinion--we are different, they are superior to us, we are slaves, and our lives don’t matter, aside from whatever material benefit we may bring to our masters.

​Such superiority complex, especially when combined with psychopathy, is a manifestation of psychological pathology.  Accordingly, we live in a “pathocracy” that was described nearly half a century ago by the Polish psychiatrist Andrzej Łobaczewski as “a system of government…wherein a small pathological minority takes control over a society...”[i]

Our history of wars, with tens of millions of victims in the two world wars only in the last century, confirms this.  However, as Steve Taylor writes in Psychology Today, “The problem is not that all people are inherently brutal and cruel, but rather that a small number—those with personality disorders—are brutal and cruel, intensely self-centered, and lacking in empathy. And this small minority has frequently held power and managed to influence the majority to commit atrocities on their behalf.”[ii]

This is usually done by impressing the same psychopathic worldview upon US as well.  In order not to see other human beings as our brothers and sisters, we are taught to fear them, blame for our troubles and grievances, and be proud of our own superiority.  This belief that we are DIFFERENT and EXCEPTIONAL, endowed with the rights of a victim, and with absolute truth on our side only, feeds our sense of primacy and allows us to ignore all violations of their rights, including to life.  This is how we all become hostage to the psychopathic pathology, greed, and fighting of the elites for power.

Humanity has always had rulers throughout the entire history of our civilization.  There were always those who owned nearly everything and could control multitudes of human lives.  Our social contract always relied on their power and edicts.  On the other hand, the elite’s social duties, depending on the degree of fairness of a particular system, always included certain responsibility for us, their subjects.

The ruling elites, one way or another, needed the support of their population to carry out their functions.  So their goals always included the creation of a certain consensus, frequently by means of fear and violence, around the rightness of their actions.  But inevitably, the further the results of their actions diverged from the true interests and realities of people’s lives, the harder it was to maintain the semblance of such accord.  This would strain the relationship between the powers and the people to the point of riots and rebellion.

Excesses and abuses by the ruling elites and the flooding rivers of people’s suffering led to several countries, such as Russia and China, conducting revolutionary experiments in violent regime change during the last century.  Under the slogans of equality and brotherhood, they gave birth to new social forms rooted in the same old principle of hierarchy and control.  Except now they relied on the coercion and exploitation of the many by the privileged party few.  The elites and the slogans changed, but the people remained separated from the truth and manipulated just the same.

The relationship that developed between the rulers and the people in the USSR is not alien to the XXI century either.  Soviet elites concluded rather quickly that they didn’t need the people as coparticipants in historic decision-making.  At best, they needed only producers and performers, but continuing to believe mindlessly in choosing their own leaders and their destiny.
In the U.S., in its turn, sophisticated methods of public opinion control were described almost a century ago by Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays (1891-1995).  In his understanding, people must be kept in subordinate submission by distracting our attention with desires and sexual lusts.  While the fueling of consumer greed allows for public opinion to be maintained within the confines of manufactured “consent” on key social and political issues.  As for the public policy itself, it is dictated in the U.S. through the “Overton window”[iii] exclusively by the elites (the “invisible government,” in the words of Bernays’ book, Propaganda[iv]).

These “invisible” elites are producing ever more colorful characters and intricate narratives, taking us further and further away from the truth and the possibility of changing anything.  Yet such is the lot of the people from the rulers’ point of view—to live by the habits, desires, and myths assimilated while we are being programmed by the social and mass media.

While our attention is occupied with the ephemeral glamor, luxury, and endless intrigue, entertaining us from the ubiquitous screen, it doesn’t have even the slightest chance of recognizing the most urgent challenges of our collective existence.  And these challenges multiply daily.

World elites compete for power and limited natural resources that they can never have enough of.  They apparently have come to believe that we the people are no longer needed and that at this point, there are simply too many of us for “their” planet. 

National and religious ideologies are used to justify all their actions, their ends evidently justifying any means.  The mass media, controlled by them, spotlight events from their point of view and allow them to get away with unthinkable atrocities.   (Professor Lance deHaven-Smith defines these as “State Crimes against Democracy” (SCAD) in his book, Conspiracy Theory in America[v].)  This is all done under the pretext of the most noble intent and on our behalf, but without our knowledge or consent.

In contempt of the collective karmic burden that will be passed on to our offspring, the range of acceptable opinion for the media is quite narrow.  Ruling elites view the free individual as a threat.  The modern man perceives himself with their help as a material appendage of a certain system, competing with other appendages of his and other countries, or as a believer whose God doesn’t love some people, or as a member of the community with elements of both in the form of a nation.  Our convictions dictate our behavior, and when your God doesn’t love some folks, you don’t have to love them either.  Speaking of the roots of racism.

Contemporary elites, just like their predecessors, benefit from racism, for it allows them to control mass movements, directing and diffusing their energy into mutual enmity within disaffected masses.  This prevents the possibility of their broad solidarity and rallying against the oppressor.  Meanwhile, the system of power and control itself remains by design unaffected.

Take Black Lives Matter.  While crowds destroy monuments and fight each other, the American public has lost the ability of understanding and dialogue, and with it, the capacity to escape conflict and further escalation of violence.  In the meantime, appropriations for the Pentagon, militarism, and endless wars continue to grow, as intended, despite the fact that militarism not only prevents the American society from addressing its most pressing problems, but also aggravates them catastrophically.

After all, the real issue in Minneapolis was not the identity of George Floyd, but rather the method that was used to pacify him.  Its application doesn’t make it less brutal and inhuman, when it is used to suppress civilians of any other skin color and nationality.

But shifting public attention solely to the race of the victim and channeling mass protests in this direction have led only to the widening schism and polarization of society, given the colossal historical burden of slavery and the psychological and economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.  The racial conflict, in the meantime, has completely overshadowed any serious discussion of why the American police use such methods to begin with.  What is the purpose of police militarization?  Why is the local population being viewed as the enemy and treated in much the same way as foreign adversaries?

Meanwhile, physical abuse is a litmus test of the attitude towards others.  The application of brute physical force, even to the point of lethality, to suppress another human being is an indication that one side considers itself to be superior and above the law, with the full right of using such measures.  These harsh methods must first and foremost attract our attention in order to reject their application to us and our kind.

In this respect, the issue of Palestinians is in many ways the question of conscience for our time[vi], as was the question of Jews in the 1930s and 40s.  Oppression of Palestinians is a symbol of the condition that all non-elite humanity finds itself in.  Certainly, Palestinians are not the only ones who suffer.  But their suffering personifies and embodies the suffering of mankind at large from oppression by the ruling class, who consider themselves above all the rest of us and crave to own everything around them, including us.  Our opinions and even our lives do not matter; we are only pawns in the game that tilts the status quo further and further not in our favor.

The physical violence inflicted on Palestinians incarnates the intellectual violence of lies and distortions that constantly afflicts and numbs our consciousness, lest we notice their suffering and the injustices committed by the powers that be against us and our brothers and sisters.  We are distracted, misinformed, miseducated, trained to fight and live in ignorance, fear, and distrust of each other.  And it’s becoming quite obvious.

For example, the declarations of Russian interference in American elections by and large boil down to acknowledging the fact that broad swaths of the electorate have been reduced to such lamentable cognitive condition that some Russian bots on Facebook were able to completely disorient the legendary freedom of American citizens in their individual political choices. 

The argument is as remarkable as it is instructive.  Just imagine what kind of resources are necessary to bring the country’s system of education and mass culture into a state of crisis from outside and deliberately reduce large segments of its population to a position of emotionally underage consumers of things and ideas.

Intelligence agencies with such abilities, above all America’s own, with their colossal resources, could most certainly bring order and prosperity to their countries.  But, unfortunately, this clearly does not apply to the situation in either the U.S. or Russia.  The Russian population is being treated in much the same way by its own ruling elite, as Americans are by theirs, also under all kinds of pretexts, including external interference, and with similarly deplorable consequences, although not quite of the same magnitude.

The reality is that there is nothing inherently more evil about the regime in Russia than about the regimes in America, Great Britain, or the majority of European nations.  The ruling elites in all these countries think and act about the same, as can be witnessed by the profound similarity of their response to the coronavirus pandemic.[vii]

They all fear and manipulate public protests by dividing and conquering, as thousands of years ago.  Real pain and anger of the people against the elite degenerate into civil strife, without changing the structure of power.  Then the media can even participate in fanning the flames of such unrest against the backdrop of intense struggle of the different segments within elites for power, resources, and information, as is happening in the U.S. right now.[viii]

In the case of Russia, this intra-elite fighting has to some extent been temporarily settled in Moscow’s favor in the course of the evolution of Putin’s regime.  Nonetheless, the conflict between central and regional clans of the ruling elites continues, periodically spilling into regional unrest.  But the favorite method of Russian media, especially television, controlled by the central authority, is to simply withhold coverage of unwanted protests in the regions, as they have been doing for over three months with demonstrations in support of the former governor of Khabarovsk Krai Sergei Furgal[ix].   

These peaceful protests in the far-eastern region of Russia have been largely ignored by central TV, which is unable to compromise them in the eyes of the general public absent acts of vandalism and violence.  In this way, average Russians are deprived of the temptation to join the protests.

But despite the difference in media tactics, the essence of the struggle within the ruling elites both in the U.S. and Russia is the same—being able to use public unrest to advance their own interests.  The main thing for them is to retain control over state resources and the right to determine government policy on their use.

As is well known, the military-industrial complex in the U.S. has attained enormous budget allocations over the last 75 years by manipulating the population with fears of an “external threat.”  Now the U.S. has the most powerful military machine in the history of mankind.  In order to divert the lion’s share of state resources to build weapons of destruction, constant presence of an external enemy is required.  And the majority of citizens have to be convinced that military might is necessary as the most effective instrument of foreign policy.  Because militarism and democracy are in this sense incompatible (average American doesn’t need war), the image of an external enemy is inevitably projected inside the society to control dissent in the process of law enforcement militarization.  That is indeed what we have been observing—and not only in the U.S.—in recent decades.

According to the authors of the Anti-Nuclear Manifesto dedicated to the 75th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, President Eisenhower formulated the “law” of the military-industrial complex.  “Only the MIC [military-industrial complex, whether American, Russian, or any other] requires and benefits from constant global confrontation, tension, hostility, suspicion, mistrust, alienation, fragmentation, lies, deception, falsifications, threats, sanctions, destruction of cooperation and solidarity in all spheres and relations. The MIC creates a so-called "militaristic security system", built on balancing "on the war brink" and intimidation by force: "PEACE THROUGH FORCE."”[x]

If Palestinians have become the symbol of contemporary humanity in confrontation with the world elites, the military-industrial complex fully personifies the latter.

“The MIC has become the only source of “nuclear death of humanity”, the main threat to its survival and a danger to the life of the biosphere, noosphere and the planet as a whole that President Eisenhower first realized and expressed.”  The MIC is a shared enemy of all nations that “continuously targeted for extinction each of us” and “has become that genocidal terrorist with nuclear weapons who commits "the outrage of holding the entire world hostage."”[xi]

To preclude the possibility of our awareness in the middle of all this, world elites have erected a separation wall of state propaganda between us and reason.  This “invisible” wall blocks our common sense, hiding from us the urgency of the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty[xii], which is about to enter into force after receiving the necessary 50 ratifications, and the warnings from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists of just 100 seconds to midnight left on our Doomsday Clock[xiii], and the unjust trial of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, who with their biblical act of nonviolence tried—for a 100th time!—to wake our world from this insane nuclear nightmare[xiv].  The remaining four KBP7 defendants, including Martha Hennessy, the granddaughter of one of the founders of the Catholic Worker Movement Dorothy Day, are receiving their sentences this month.  Have you heard anything about it in the media?

If we don’t overcome this wall of silence, wake up and unite with our long-blocked reason, there will be no hope for the Palestinians, nor for the Israelis, and certainly not for us.  Our incited enmity and unchecked technologies of destruction will sooner or later blow up our planet along with us.

Our individual scaling of this wall (the actual process of waking up and becoming aware) is no simple task.  We really are our breath, and the beating of our hearts, and the firing of neurons, and the toiling of our cells that make it all possible.  The critical component of all this is our consciousness.  The more we become aware, the less we are okay with the tendency in our modern human society to take this all for granted, abusing and defying the miraculous gift of life.

Everything within and without us is interconnected.  Information that enters our consciousness creates the mental and physiological imprints, which form and shape who we are and how we behave.  A famous Russian neurolinguist Tatyana Chernigovskaya says that “If your brain will read idiotic magazines, communicate with fools, listen to light mindless music, and watch dumb movies, then there is really nothing to complain about.”[xv]

We are all reading the book of life, and what we choose from it depends first and foremost on what we have developed in our consciousness.  Per Chernigovskaya, “There is always an object and the one who reads it all. "If there is an ancient papyrus in front of us, and nobody can read it, then that is not information.  It is just a physical object.  And what I read from it depends on my education, on my plans, and my reasons for reading it."”[xvi]

How we react to and perceive ourselves and others is determined to a large degree by the quality and direction of our internal monologue.  Our thoughts and our words reflect and create who we are and who we become, and they lead to actions and consequences for ourselves and those around us.  Yes, the media and the powers that control them have long ago learned how to take advantage of it.  However, we do have some patient “teachers” on our side in stubborn circumstances.  The more we pay attention to what happens in our life, the less we are affected by the hypnotic spell of the media and the more we reclaim the sovereignty of our own mind.

One of the most important concepts in our development is WORK.  Work forms a cornerstone idea in many world religions for good reason.  We realize ourselves and fulfill our mission through work.  A great spiritual master of the twentieth century Siva Yogaswami taught that “All work must be done with the aim of reaching God.”[xvii]  In the understanding of Pope Francis, “Work is a necessity, part of the meaning of life on this earth, a path to growth, human development and personal fulfillment.”[xviii]

According to Cyberspheronics, which the authors of the Anti-Nuclear Manifesto, including several Nobel Peace laureates, consider “a holistic Megascience…of humanity for its spheral third way in the XXI century,”[xix] society consists of four spheres: People, Information, Organizations, and Things (PIOT).  These four spheres of the social production/autopoiesis of PIOT constitute the noosphere created by our society’s life on Earth. These four spheres of production and the social groups employed in them form the basis for the spheral structure of humanity, which was heralded by Mahatma Gandhi.[xx]

Cyberspheronics offers a theoretical and practical basis for harmonizing the life of humanity in equilibrium with our Planet and in equality and inevitable interdependence of the four spherons, or classes, of society.

The class employed in Sociosphere, the main resource and product of which are People, bears tremendous responsibility for the future of our species that is impossible to fulfill without cooperation of the other spherons.

This responsibility is expressed in the words of Chernigovskaya: “…right now a lot depends on whether we will find the strength within us, we adults…to think of how we should live in this new world and how we should bring up our dependents.  Because the world will fall into their hands very soon…and upon their outlook on life in general, not on what type of a phone they have and whether they need a new one, but the earnest outlook, will depend not just what kind of a world it will be, but whether it will exist at all, and whether it will withstand the terrible onslaught that is currently taking place.”[xxi]

It is vitally important, therefore, that our work not cause harm.  Buddhists consider the right livelihood and the right effort indispensable parts of the Noble Eightfold Path, leading to liberation in nirvana.  And the Native American nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy believed that “we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”[xxii]  As far as our time is concerned, we are not even taking existential interests of our children into account, to say nothing of the seventh generation!  Thus, we allow the military-industrial complex to take control of our lives.

Weapons of mass destruction created by our labor threaten annihilation to our entire species and to life on our planet as we know it, while most of us don’t give it even a second thought.  This underscores the role of the spherons of Information and Organizations in human society, the critical function of which we must grasp and put in order.  Only bringing the four spheres of society in harmony and equilibrium will allow people employed in Technoecosphere, which produces Things, to neutralize nuclear weapons and finally “beat swords into plowshares.”

It is hard to disagree with Deepak Chopra that “Human evolution is the history of human choices.”[xxiii]  We have reached a stage in our historical development, at which our individual and collective choices can end the history of ourselves and our civilization.  We all have responsibility in this life for ourselves and for our loved ones.  We have to take care of our and their existence.  The natural corollary to this responsibility is that we have to do it in harmony and balance with our environment, for it is critical to our own survival and that of our children.

“To care for humanity, we must care for nature.”  In these words of the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on World Environment Day in June[xxiv] is the simple truth that our attitude towards each other reflects and personifies our attitude towards nature.  We don’t take care of nature and destroy it just as much as we don’t understand and don’t spare each other.  And the ever-increasing weight of our lethal impact on our Planet inevitably darkens our collective destiny with the ever-rising stream of violence and mutual destruction.

The ubiquitous destructive force of wars and conflicts is just another face of the catastrophic harm that we are inflicting upon our environment and the diversity of life on our planet.

Our individual lives in the comfort of western civilization haven’t been directly affected by this evil for some time, but just like that proverbial frog in the gradually heated water, we are starting to realize that something is not right.  The question is: are we going to wake up from this stupor in time to change anything, while it’s still possible?

Even the elites have started to realize that the path we are on leads to ecological catastrophe and ultimate destruction.  Although from their perspective, the problem lies in affluence, which leads to overconsumption.  Referencing the conclusions of a new scientific report that “Affluence is the biggest threat to our world,” and “True sustainability will only be achieved through drastic lifestyle changes,” the World Economic Forum is calling for “a great reset of capitalism in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.”[xxv] 

This, in turn, makes you wonder what motives are behind the coordinated demolition of the global economy under the auspices of fighting COVID-19.  It is taking a significant physical and psychological toll on humanity, far exceeding considerable direct losses from the pandemic.[xxvi]
​
It also makes you think about the words of one of the great Russian writers of the twentieth century Alexander Solzhenitsyn that, apart from repentance, “there is no moral escape route from the pit into which we have fallen. And every other way out is illusory, no more than a short-lived social delusion.”

…the universal dividing line between good and evil runs not between countries, not between nations, not between parties, not between classes, not even between good and bad men: the dividing line cuts across nations and parties, shifting constantly, yielding now to the pressure of light, now to the pressure of darkness. It divides the heart of every man...[xxvii]

​My friend, Professor Vladislav Krasnov, who has dedicated several decades of his life to the Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) he had founded, likes to quote the great Mahatma Gandhi’s advice: “The Satyagrahi’s goal is to convert, not to coerce, the one who disagrees.”[xxviii]

We all have a good reason to recognize our interdependence and learn to use it for mutual benefit.  We all strive for the same things in this life—health, happiness, and prosperity.  Only by treating each other as equal partners, can we attain self-realization and not burden the future for ourselves and our descendants with inescapable destructive consequences of enmity with our Planet and each other.

We can see them all around us already, from catastrophic wildfires and super hurricanes to the warming, polluted oceans and melting glaciers.  Our earthly home can barely withstand the never-ending and increscent human mischief.  Our wars and our waste, including nuclear, have mutilated the world around us for the majority of planetary life forms.  When there is more plastic in the oceans than fish in some 30 years, we may become aware of this, but I’m afraid by then it will be too late.  It is time to start changing something right now.

We always have to start with ourselves.  We all have a choice when it comes to using the resources available to us.  Solzhenitsyn called this “self-limitation” and considered it critically important to be applied in the life of every person and the whole nation.  Russian Old Believers in the nineteenth century called this “self-restriction” and wrote that “Save through self-restriction, there is no other true freedom for mankind.”[xxix]

And again Solzhenitsyn: “Every nation without exception, however persecuted, however cheated, however flawlessly righteous it feels itself to be today, has certainly at one time or another contributed its share of inhumanity, injustice and arrogance.”  Indeed, “The nation is mystically welded together in a community of guilt, and its inescapable destiny is common repentance.”[xxx]

At all times, all the pathologies of humankind have come from the dominance of one part or another over the whole.  In the assessment of the authors of the Anti-Nuclear Manifesto, “The source of social pathologies/diseases of humankind…have occurred at various historical stages among various, historical transient parts…of humanity: nations, classes, groups, parties, elites, states, etc.”[xxxi]

Only in the indivisible unity of all the “equally necessary and sufficient groups of the population”, spherons, genders, and ethnicities on our Planet, having dealt with enmity and its causes, can we solve the problems of the military-industrial complex and the pathologies of our elites, eliminate nuclear weapons, rehabilitate the system of education, create a just and sustainable economy, and overcome the catastrophic ecological consequences of our activity.  The Anti-Nuclear Manifesto of the “Humanity Spheral Third Way of the XXI Century…[is] the Manifesto of the Norm Replacing the Humanity Pathologies.”[xxxii]

Science will play a leading role on this third way of humanity.  Without science uniting all the institutions that advance it with the entire collective structure of society, we cannot even hope to solve the most vitally important public goods challenges, such as health security, sustainability of our way of life, and climate disruption, that we are facing in our time.

Science could even now help us deal with the pathologies of those small groups of people, who are lacking the capacity for empathy and repentance, and allow us to safeguard our society from their dominance.  One of the proposals: “All potential leaders (or members of a government) should be rigorously assessed by psychologists to determine their levels of empathy, narcissism or psychopathy—and hence determine their suitability for power.”[xxxiii]

At the same time, psychology, neurolinguistics, medicine, and other sciences understand even today how words and images affect our mind.  And can help us grasp how different ideologies use this to their advantage, and which of their goals and beliefs are beneficial to us, as a society and as individuals, and which cause harm to us and our kind.

That would be easier to accomplish if in the U.S., for instance, we had more scientists conducting research, such as the four-year inquiry into the collapse of the World Trade Center Building 7 completed at the University of Alaska Fairbanks earlier this year.[xxxiv]  With their help, we would have better chances of comprehending the crux of world events and searching successfully for a safer path for America and for the Planet.

Furthermore, climate research initiatives, like the recently-launched by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Climate Grand Challenges[xxxv], coordinated among the leading research centers and government organizations, could increase our odds of survival in the impending ecological calamity.

In the end, science united with Cyberspheronics will let humanity on our third way figure out when we are being misled and for what, as well as how we should be directing ourselves and where to.  And will enable us to make our own informed choices.  In this way, not only will we facilitate the task of future scientists in studying our time but also ensure the possibility of their existence.  Not to mention the safety of our own and of our children for the foreseeable future.
 
Author: Anna Tolstoyevskaya grew up in the Soviet Union and came to the U.S. as a student of Philology and Foreign Service in the mid-1990s.  She is an analyst by trade and an Austinite at heart, having spent a third of her life in that beautiful city.  She can be reached at atx3017@gmail.com.

References: 
[i] Andrew Lobaczewski, Political Ponerology. 2013, Grande Prairie, AB: Red Pill Press. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1476637.Political_Ponerology.  The author adopted the title of his book from theology, where ponerology is the branch that deals with the study of evil.  The subtitle of his work is “A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes.”
[ii] Steve Taylor, “In the Seat of Pathocracy,” Psychology Today, Volume 52, Issue 6, 2019.  https://www.questia.com/read/1P4-2312181301/in-the-seat-of-pathocracy
[iii] The Overton window is also known as the window of discourse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
[iv] Edward Bernays, Propaganda. 1928, New York: H. Liveright. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_(book)  
[v] Lance deHaven-Smith, Conspiracy Theory in America. 2013, Austin: University of Texas Press.
[vi] John Pilger made one of the best documentaries on the subject--Palestine Is Still the Issue. 2002, Carlton Television Limited.  https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/palestine-is-still-the-issue-2002/
[vii] Mike Whitney presents convincing evidence of the counter-productive and disastrous nature of the policy of lockdowns in his article at The Unz Review, “CODENAME: Operation Virus Identification 2019; the Elitist Plan to Remake Society.”  https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/codename-operation-virus-identification-2019-the-elitist-plan-to-remake-society/  He draws on an article written by four distinguished professors, including a Nobel Prize-winning (Chemistry, 2013) Structural Biologist Michael Levitt from Stanford, that was published in Ha’aretz in July 2020, “Countering the Second Wave with Facts, not Misconception.” 
[viii] See also: Mike Whitney, “BLM's War on the Deplorables,” The Unz Review, 2020.  https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/blms-war-on-the-deplorables/
[ix] Sergei Ivanovich Furgal (Russian: Сергей Иванович Фургал; born 12 February 1970) is a Russian politician who served as Governor of Khabarovsk Krai from 28 September 2018 until 20 July 2020.  On 9 July 2020, Furgal was arrested by authorities and brought to Moscow on charges of involvement in murders of several businessmen in the region in 2004 and 2005. He denied the allegations. Protests and demonstrations in support of Furgal began after his arrest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Furgal (edited by AT)

Furgal is more popular than Putin in this remote far-eastern region of Russia, for, among other things, he cut the salaries and pensions of local bureaucrats and prohibited them from flying first class on administration’s business, saving money for the region’s budget.  This has created many enemies for him among the ruling circles.  When Furgal was taken under arrest to Moscow to stand a closed trial, his voters took to the streets to demand that their governor be released and brought back for an open trial to Khabarovsk.  Central authorities only added fuel to the fire, when they sent a young mediocrity from the capital to the region as Furgal’s replacement.

[x] Anti-Nuclear Peace/Cyberspheronics Manifesto: The Noosphere Third Way XXI, dedicated to the Hiroshima/Nagasaki victims 75th anniversary by 44 coauthors from 25 countries, representing the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and Global Harmony Association (GHA). 2020, New York.  https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=908
[xi] Ibid.
[xii] How the Treaty Works, ICAN.  https://www.icanw.org/how_the_TPNW_works
[xiii] John Mecklin (Editor), 2020 Doomsday Clock Statement, “Closer than ever: It is 100 seconds to midnight.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2020.  https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/
[xiv] Kings Bay Plowshares 7.  https://kingsbayplowshares7.org/
[xv] Anna Semenets, “We Are All Homo Confusus Now” (in Russian: «Мы все теперь «хомо конфузус»») Rosbalt, 2019.  https://www.rosbalt.ru/moscow/2019/01/19/1758860.html
[xvi] Ibid.
[xvii] Markandu Swami, A. Chellathurai, Sandaswami, M. Sri Khanta, Words of Our Master.  1972, Jaffna.  https://www.himalayanacademy.com/media/books/words-of-our-master/Words_of_Our_Master.pdf
[xviii] The Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.  https://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catholic-social-teaching/the-dignity-of-work-and-the-rights-of-workers
[xix] Anti-Nuclear Manifesto. 2020, New York.  https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=908
[xx] See: Leo Semashko, Gandhicracy. Introduction, Global Harmony Association.  https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=929
[xxi] Anna Semenets, “We Are All Homo Confusus Now” (in Russian: «Мы все теперь «хомо конфузус»») Rosbalt, 2019.  https://www.rosbalt.ru/moscow/2019/01/19/1758860.html
[xxii] 7th Generation Principle, Seven Generations International Foundation Australia Limited. http://7genfoundation.org/7th-generation/
[xxiii] Deepak Chopra: Becoming MetaHuman, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Special.  https://www.pbs.org/video/deepak-chopra-becoming-metahuman-3uglbm/
[xxiv] This is now the world’s greatest threat – and it’s not coronavirus, World Economic Forum, 2020.  https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/07/affluence-bigger-threat-than-coronavirus-scientists-capitalism
[xxv] Ibid.
[xxvi] See: Udi Qimron, Uri Gavish, Eyal Shahar, Michael Levitt, “Countering the Second Wave with Facts, not Misconception,” Ha’aretz, 2020. (Published in Ha’aretz in Hebrew on July 20, 2020. The English text contains minor revisions.)  https://www.dropbox.com/s/72hi9jfcqfct1n9/Haaretz-20Jul20_ENGLISH%2012082020%20v3.pdf?dl=0
[xxvii] Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Repentance and Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations in From Under the Rubble by Alexander Solzhenitsyn et al.  1975, Boston: Little, Brown and Company.  https://archive.org/stream/SolzhenitsynAleksandrIsaevichFromUnderTheRubble/Solzhenitsyn,%20Aleksandr%20Isaevich%20-%20From%20Under%20the%20Rubble_djvu.txt
[xxviii] W. George Krasnow, Ph.D, RAGA Antidote 57 – Krasnow’s Antiwar Newsletter: CODID-19, Putin, Belarus, Krasnov's NEW BOOK, Seattle riots, Solzhenitsyn, Karl Marx, Anti-Nuclear Manifesto, Thomas Sowell ... and more.  http://www.raga.org/news/raga-antidote-57-krasnows-antiwar-newsletter-codid-19-putin-belarus-krasnovs-new-book-seattle-riots-solzhenitsyn-karl-marx-anti-nuclear-manifesto-thomas-sowell-and-more-inside
[xxix] Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Repentance and Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations.  https://archive.org/stream/SolzhenitsynAleksandrIsaevichFromUnderTheRubble/Solzhenitsyn,%20Aleksandr%20Isaevich%20-%20From%20Under%20the%20Rubble_djvu.txt
[xxx] Ibid.
[xxxi] Anti-Nuclear Manifesto. 2020, New York.  https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=908
[xxxii] Ibid.
[xxxiii] Steve Taylor, “Pathocracy: When people with personality disorders gain power,” Psychology Today, 2019.  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201907/pathocracy
[xxxiv] Based on their peer-reviewed inquiry, scientists in Fairbanks concluded that the collapse of Building 7 was not caused by fire. Their conclusion: it was caused by a “near-simultaneous failure of every column in the building.” See: Max Parry, “9/11 Truth: Under Lockdown for Nearly Two Decades,” The Unz Review, 2020.
https://www.unz.com/article/9-11-truth-under-lockdown-for-nearly-two-decades/
[xxxv] Climate Grand Challenges:  A Call to the MIT Community, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2020. http://climategrandchallenges.mit.edu/
 
​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
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​Chris Hedges may be too radical. But what about The Washington Post? Ishaan Tharoor, a versatile observer, wrote on July 10, 2020) The pandemic and the dawn of an ‘Asian Century’/ The rolling disaster that is the U.S. coronavirus response has crystallized some hard truths about the country. Its political polarization has meant that Americans have not agreed on basic public health guidelines or collectively followed the social distancing practices enforced in other countries. Its deepening socioeconomic inequities saw the pandemic ravage some of its most vulnerable communities. And its commander in chief, rather than galvanizing a united front and leading a global effort, undermined international institutions, blamed foreign adversaries for his woes and blamed domestic rivals for the crisis. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/07/10/pandemic-dawn-an-asian-century/
​
Elsewhere, Riot declared, dozens arrested and officers injured in Portland, Seattle, Chicago protests/ AP. Aug. 17, 2020 

Dozens were arrested over the weekend in major cities including Portland, Seattle and Pittsburgh amid demonstrations over systemic racism and police brutality in the wake of the death of George Floyd in police custody. Video taken Sunday showed a confrontation blocks away from a peaceful protest in Portland after police declared a riot overnight Saturday. Protests, often violent, have happened nightly in Portland for more than two months after Floyd's death on Memorial Day in Minneapolis. 
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/08/17/riot-declared-dozens-arrested-portland-seattle-chicago-protests/5598568002/

Personally I feel especially disturbed by such news from the cities I have known since late 1960s – early 1970s where I spent my student years. That’s where the seeds of violence today were then planted. The year 1966, my first in the US, I spent at the U of Chicago. Even then the gang of “Blackstone Rangers” encroached on the university campus. The next five years--at the U of Washington, Seattle--were in the grip of anti-Vietnam war movement. Legitimate antiwar protests among students were infiltrated by radical left. My professor’s office was attacked and vandalized for he taught a course about Soviet influence via CPUSA. At one time Seattle claimed the largest number of home-made bomb explosions, including on campus, in the country. Eldridge Cleaver’s pro-gang and pro-rape book “Soul on Ice” was the rage of town. He was then the Black Panther Party leader. When a few years I met him at the Hoover Institution, he greatly mellowed in his views. He had travelled to a number of Communist countries and found out that the racial discrimination was not confined to the USA. I was delighted to hear that he and his wife became admirers of Solzhenitsyn. Read my article Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Relevance Today 
http://www.raga.org/news/aleksandr-solzhenitsyns-relevance-today/ 

You may want to glance at the book Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties by Peter Collier and David Horowitz, the two New Left leaders who later changed their  mind. They may not have made amends about their destructive activities against their country but, like Cleaver, they had “second thoughts about them. For more details, read my recent article, Sighing-and more- at the Secrets of Jewish Genius: Vladislav Krasnov’s Rebuttal to Bret Stephens’s The New York Times’ article.

http://www.raga.org/news/sighing-and-more-at-the-secrets-of-jewish-genius-vladislav-krasnovs-rebuttal-to-bret-stephenss-the-new-york-times-article 

 This time I suspect there are again some influential moneyed people who want to inflame the racial issue by any means, including falsifying George Floyd’s cause of death. I hear it from various sources, including Destructive Generation, an American antiwar activist and RAGA’s long-time supporter. Ray unequivocally states “George Floyd was NOT ‘murdered’. He was not even ‘killed’. He ‘died’ of catastrophic heart failure while being arrested for criminal behavior. He had a heart attack, after he went violently berserk and violently resisted arrest.” His article is aptly titled “The Forest is Over Yonder, Right Behind Them Trees”. 

In his article “Seattle's Bolshevik Revolution” Mike Whitney is exactly right when he says “These aren’t protests, this is political warfare the likes of which we haven’t seen since the 1960s. Peaceful protesters” do not attack police stations with crowbars and firebombs, they don’t vandalize Starbucks and retail shops, and they don’t lay siege to public land and declare their own sovereign state. These are fanatical ideologues who believe the system must be obliterated and replaced. They are today’s Bolsheviks and they mean business.” See Mike’s full article “Seattle's Bolshevik Revolution”
https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/seattles-bolshevik-revolution/

However, the Russians can hardly gloat over America’s political disarray, domestic violence, civil strife, cultural chaos and MONUMENTAL confusion. 

ALASKA:  Sitka to remove monument to Alexander Baranov, first Russian governor of Alaska. 5 Jul, 2020/The city council in Sitka, Alaska has decided to remove a statue of Alexander Baranov, the explorer and first governor of Russian Alaska. The resolution lists a number of serious accusations against the man. Baranov worked for the Russian American Company, which was the vehicle for the Russian government’s effort to expand into the Americas. For almost three decades he was the de facto governor of Russian colonies on the continent. Sitka – called Novoarkhangelsk by its Russian founders – served as his capital.https://www.rt.com/usa/494777-sitka-baranov-statue-removal/

I have been to Alaska a couple of times. In 1987, I visited Sitka where met some members of the Tlingit Indian tribe and had a friendly conversation with its chief. I was impressed that they were Russian Orthodox Christian; many bore Russian names, even though their knowledge of Russian language was very limited. It’s true that they did not prosper, but I did not feel any hostility to Russians or white Americans for that matter.

Now take a look at Last year ‘Cultural diplomacy’: Russian America holiday proposed by Defense Ministry to promote ‘humanitarian cooperation’ 15 Oct, 2019    https://www.rt.com/russia/470962-russian-america-day-celebration/

There is a lot more to it! WHY Russia Saved the United States: The Forgotten History of a Brotherhood. By Matthew Ehret. August 23, 2020. Via The Duran https://theduran.com/why-russia-saved-the-united-states-the-forgotten-history-of-a-brotherhood/ ?

Why did Russia’s Czar Alexander II deploy the Russian navy to the coasts of the USA during the height of the Civil War in 1863? What dynamic shaped the rise of the great rail building traditions across Russia, the USA, Germany, Japan and France in the 19th century and how did this process shape the sale of Alaska and planned Bering Strait rail connection between old and new worlds?

As a matter of fact, even the anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist Marxist-Leninist ideology of the Soviet Union did not stop it from celebrating Russian exploration of Alaska. As Wikipedia says, Juno and Avos (Russian: Юнона и Авось), a popular Russian-language rock opera first staged in 1981, celebrates another Russian explorer, Nikolai Rezanov, and his love affair with  a daughter of the Spanish governor of California. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_and_Avos_(opera)

Moreover, having spent a major part of my life in California, I was always grateful to its government for preserving Fort Ross, a former Russian fortress turned into Fort Ross California State Park. This is a unique cultural monument that testifies to the openness of American people to other cultures. As a member of the Congress of Russian Americans (https://www.russian-americans.org/) feel the need to preserve Baranov’s monument in Sitka, Alaska, I sighed the petition below and hope you do the same
https://www.change.org/p/city-of-sitka-assembly-preserve-the-alexander-baranof-monument-in-sitka-alaska/psf/share?after_sign_exp=default&just_signed=true

As a Russian American, I am just as concerned with the preservation of  Fort Elizavety (Fort Elizabeth)), the last remaining Russian fort on the Hawaiian islands, built in the early 19th century by the Russian-American Company/

Today’s fashionable trend to reject the colonial heritage of America beginning with Christopher Columbus and George Washington, with its emphasis on the abuse of the non-Whites, is as ill-informed as it is childish. Hey, the Vikings had explored America even earlier, around the year 1000 AD. Had the Africans or American Indians the same level of ship-building skills, they would have done about the same if landed in Europe. In fact, Hannibal did invade the Roman republic from Africa and Shakespeare’s Othello was not exactly an angel.

2. Racial tensions flair up
​
Teaching Russian Studies at US universities I had a number of Black students who, on the average, performed, perhaps, slightly better than the Whites. They certainly took pride in the fact that Russia’s greatest poet Aleksandr Pushkin was partially Black as his maternal great-grandfather was African-born (Ethiopian) general Gannibal who was named after Hannibal! 
In fact, Thomas Sowell, an outstanding Black American economist and social thinker (he turned 90 on June 30, Happy Birthday, Tom!) was one of my favorite scholars at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He was one of the few avowed anti-Marxists and I wrote a salutary review of one of this many books, MARXISM: PHILOSOPHY AND ECONOMICS. (Review by: Vladislav Krasnov, International Journal on World Peace, Vol. 5, No. 3 (JUL-SEP 1988, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20751285?seq=1)

​Having read a number of books on this topic, I value SGOVIO’s very highly as one learns there many things one cannot find even in Solzhenitsyn’s The GULAG. My greatest surprise is that, in spite of excellent reviews by readers, this book is virtually UNKNOWN in the West where Cultural Marxism rules the roost.

4. But what’s New in Russia?

Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny was poisoned, German hospital says. Published: Aug. 24, 2020 By Associated Press, 39 Doctors said they do not believe his life is at risk.

Russia's most famous opposition leader, @navalny, has been rushed to the hospital, with reports that poison is suspected. If confirmed, it is a crime against the whole of Russia. There can be no democracy without dissent. Edward Snowden  @Snowden
As before, I let the Canadian Russia watcher Patrick Armstrong report:

CONSTITUTION passed comfortably. The ads varied between happy families and – the one projected on the US Embassy facade – in 1993 we were yours and now we’re ours. Sums up the main changes. As to the term reset many argue that it is designed to kill any succession in-fighting (or foreign fiddling): even if Putin quits after this term, he can still come back. I still see it as a cheap trick. https://patrickarmstrong.ca/2020/07/09/russian-federation-sitrep-9-july-2020/
 RUSSIA AND COVID. Latest numbers: total cases 870K; total deaths 14,606; tests per 1 million 203K. Russia has done 29.7 million tests (third after China and USA); among countries with populations over 10M it’s second in tests per million and of those over 100M first. The Health Minister says mass vaccinations will begin by October. https://patrickarmstrong.ca/2020/08/06/russian-federation-sitrep-6-august-2020/

Also Aug. 13, 2020. Moscow (CNN)Russian officials in Moscow tell CNN they have offered "unprecedented cooperation" with Operation Warp Speed (OWS), the US multi-agency body set up to accelerate access to effective Covid-19 vaccines and treatments. But the officials told CNN that the "US is not currently open" to the Russian medical advances." https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/13/europe/russia-us-coronavirus-vaccine/index.html

Aug. 17: Vietnam's health ministry is looking to buy a bulk order of Russia's coronavirus vaccine, state media said, despite global skepticism over its effectiveness and safety. President Vladimir Putin announced Russia is first in the world to approve a vaccine. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/08/17/coronavirus-in-russia-the-latest-news-aug-16-a69117

There are, however, other approaches to COVID-19. Ellen Brown, an Attorney and prominent alternative author, describes one, while warning against a potential abuse of COVID by “Police state”. Read:

From Lockdown to Police State: the “Great Reset” Rolls Out
ELLEN BROWN • AUGUST 22, 2020 •
Mayhem in Melbourne. On August 2, lockdown measures were implemented in Melbourne, Australia, that were so draconian that Australian news commentator Alan Jones said on Sky News: “People are entitled to think there is an ‘agenda to destroy western society.’”
https://www.unz.com/article/from-lockdown-to-police-state-the-great-reset-rolls-out/

Brown finds a plausible alternative in Sweden’s approach to COVID-19. According to her “Not restraining the populace has allowed Sweden’s curve to taper off naturally through “herd immunity,” with daily deaths down to single digits for the last month.” I am inclined to agree. I lived in Sweden, speak Swedish, and learned to respect this nation for the daring to go its own way, be it in social-democracy, political neutrality or just reliance on common sense.

In any case, Ellen Brown is right to warn: “Life as we know it will change. We need to ensure that it changes in ways that serve the people and the productive economy, while preserving our national sovereignty and hard-won personal freedoms.” I am proud to be her colleague in the Global Harmony Association. 

Ellen Brown is not alone. Listen to Atty. Thomas Willcutts on Science Propaganda Machine & COVID Censorship/August 18, 2020 Kevin Barrett at  https://kevinbarrett.heresycentral.is/
One way or another, these days Russia seems to be doing, at home and abroad, better than the USA.

5. No wonder that a large number of prominent Americans declare: It’s Time to Rethink Our Russia Policy

America’s current mix of sanctions and diplomacy isn’t working. An open letter on how to reconsider our approach to Putin—and whoever comes next was originally signed   By ROSE GOTTEMOELLER, THOMAS GRAHAM, FIONA HILL, JON HUNTSMAN JR., ROBERT LEGVOLD and THOMAS R. PICKERING. August 5, 2020 in POLITICO

…U.S.-Russia relations are at a dangerous dead end that threatens the U.S. national interest. The risk of a military confrontation that could go nuclear is again real. We are drifting toward a fraught nuclear arms race, with our foreign-policy arsenal reduced mainly to reactions, sanctions, public shaming and congressional resolutions. The global Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting serious worldwide economic decline, rather than fostering cooperation, has only reinforced the current downward trajectory…  

...Restoring normal diplomatic contacts should be a top priority for the White House and supported by the Congress.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/05/open-letter-russia-policy-391434

This is music to my ear. That’s what RAGA has been saying since 1992. Among a hundred plus prominent Americans who joined the call are people I like to quote in RAGA Newsletter, especially, in the RAGA Antiwar Antidotes series running since about 2014.

In addition to my former colleagues at the Monterey (now Middlebury) Institute of International Studies Anna Vassilieva and Bill Potters, I was glad to see the names of Tom Graham and Robert Legvold, as well as Matthew Rojansky, The Kennan Institute; Dimitry Simes, Center for the Nat. Interest; Stephen Walt, Harvard University; John Mearsheimer, U of Chicago. However, I did not see there—wonder why-- Stephen F Cohen, Nicolai Petro, Gilbert Doctorow nor Nikolas K. Gvosdev. Should not the drive to enroll the support of prominent Russia specialists be intensified before the Presidential elections? 

6. Belarus is close to my heart. As a student of ethnology at the U of Moscow in the late 1950-s I spent several summers there doing research on their ethnic self-awareness. We went to all major towns from Minsk and Mogilev, Gomel and Grodno, Lutsk and Brest. We did the field research in the countryside. We found no significant difference with the Russians of the RSFSR. Russian was spoken everywhere, even though some intellectuals in Minsk insisted on using Belorussian. At the Moscow U student dormitory I had Belorussian room-mates. During the 1990s I served as interpreter for Belorussian groups touring the USA and always sensed the feeling of mutual goodwill.

7. Dmitri Trenin, Director, Carnegie Moscow Center, reported via David Johnson’s Russia List on August 17, 2020

Game Over for Lukashenko: The Kremlin has had enough of Lukashenko, but it cannot allow Belarus to follow the path of Ukraine and become another anti-Russian, NATO-leaning bulwark on its borders. https://carnegie.ru/commentary/82493

Putin: Russia is ready to provide security help to Belarus
By: By YURAS KARMANAU and VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
August 27, 2020 MINSK, Belarus — (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that he stands ready to send police to Belarus if protests there turn violent but sees no such need now…“We have agreed not to use it until the situation starts spinning out of control…,” he said. https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/putin-russia-stands/7ODQZLQKXYUR2FZBF5VLARQS7M/
8. A View from outside of Europe. Belarus: Scramble for heart of Europe. AUGUST 4, 2020 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
By all indications, change is in the air in Belarus. For good or bad --
one cannot tell — the ground beneath the feet of the Belarus strongman
President Alexander Lukashenka is shifting…Belarus under Lukashenko
preserved the former Soviet system in the westernmost edge of the
extinct empire — no oligarchs, state-owned industry, stable employment
and social security but economic stagnation and repressive state
security apparatus. http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article9775.html

Ajal Goyal, an Indian friend of Russia, writes from Moscow re Belarus:
There are such amazing pictures and videos... I would never support Maidan type foreign sponsored violent coup and protests. But these non-violent, peaceful, civilized and cultured protestors (compared with Maidan, Yellow Vests, and Black Lives Matter) are very Gandhian and they deserve love and sympathy of everyone. Hope neither Lukashenko nor Poles or Lithuanians will push violence because that will be end. Peaceful protests should continue and there should be no violence against them. There should be no manipulations or infiltration of these protests by Europeans or Americans either.
​
9. For several years RAGA has been affiliated with the Global Harmony Association founded in 2005 by Leo Semashko, a former professor of philosophy in Sankt-Petersburg. The GHA’s goal is to beat the emergency of COVID-19 in spite of growing nuclear arms race, the impotence of the UN and general chaos and unpredictability of global powers. Below is the Anti-Nuclear Gandhian Manifesto launched by the GHA.

The Permian Period began 298.9 million years ago and ended 252.2 million years ago, extending from the close of the Carboniferous Period to the outset of the Triassic Period.

May Perm enjoy the same permanence!
Finally, I am happy to announce the FORTHCOMING BOOK 
From The East to The West a message of Peace 
Published by Sanbun Publishers, New Delhi, INDIA

​Vladislav Krasnov (aka W George Krasnow), Ph.D., is the author of Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevsky: A Study in the Polyphonic Novel, and Russia Beyond Communism: A Chronicle of National Rebirth. Former professor and Head of Russian Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, since 1992 he has led Russia and America Goodwill Association www.RAGA.org, now affiliated with the Global Harmony Association, founded by Dr. Leo Semashko to advance Gandhi’s ideal of Non-Violence. 
https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=938 

To those who preached violence and called nonviolent actionists cowards, he replied: "I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence....I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour....But I believe that nonviolence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment."
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyagraha

HAPPY LABOR DAY

​​Sincerely,
W George Krasnow (http://wiki-org.ru/wiki/Краснов,_Владислав_Георгиевич)
President, RAGA
www.raga.org
Facebook

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

One certainly feels immense sadness at the millions of lives lost in the USSR (GULAG and more), Eastern Europe, China, Vietnam, Cambodia and wherever else Communists were allowed to take the reins. It all started in my country, Russia, in 1917, when Lenin proclaimed “Let’s turn the Imperialist War into a Civil War”.  After the coup d’etat Lenin’s slogans changed to “Death to Bourgeoisie and its servants!” and “Long Live Red Terror!” (see the photograph).  Both slogans were fulfilled and over-fulfilled during the long Soviet rule. And not just in Russia and the USSR. The appeal to hatred and “terror” proved contagious world-wide.

As to Stephens’ sighing at “relief and tiredness,” both apply to Marx’s misguided condemnation of free enterprise as taught by Adam Smith (1723 – 1790)[1] among others. Certainly, the neoliberal economists, now in charge of the economy of the US and its allies, feel “relief” not to have to look back to Marx. Even Russia’s economy, tormented by the oligarchs (mostly Jewish) as it is, seems to be doing much better than in the USSR.
 
And yet, isn’t Bret Stephens making a major mistake by reducing the ongoing Marxist influence in the world to merely a “sigh”?  When one reads that in 2018 China’s government donated $200 million to have a monument to Marx erected in his birth city of Trier,[2] one is forced to emit not just “sigh”, but “awe”. The PRC government still regards Marxism-Leninism as its official ideology.[3] The PRC rulers may no longer follow the precepts of Marxist economics, but they never renounced Marx’ justification and glorification of violence. Moreover, Stephens is hardly unaware of the ongoing influence of “Cultural Marxism” world-wide, especially, in the West.[4]

It’s no secret that the first Bolshevik government under Lenin was heavily Jewish. In his 1994 article “The Jewish Role in the Bolshevik Revolution and Russia's Early Soviet Regime. Assessing the Grim Legacy of Soviet Communism”, Mark Weber argued that “most of the leading Communists who took control of Russia in 1917-20 were Jews.”[5] Ron Unz, a Jewish Internet entrepreneur, who runs The Unz Review, an alternative interactive site, posted the above article, and added more “forgotten” information on the role of the Jews in the Bolshevik government. See his article American Pravda: the Bolshevik Revolution and Its Aftermath. [6]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith

[2] Karl Marx statue from China adds to German angst. 5 May 2018 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44009621

[3] CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA/ Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the guidance of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of Three Represents, the Scientific Outlook on Development, and the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, the Chinese people of all ethnicities will continue to adhere to  democratic dictatorship. https://npcobserver.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/PRC-Constitution-2018.pdf

[4] About Cultural Marxism controversy read The Guardian 2015 report: <<It begins in the 1910s and 1920s. When the socialist revolution failed to materialise beyond the Soviet Union, Marxist thinkers like Antonio Gramsci and Georg Lukacs tried to explain why. Their answer was that culture and religion blunted the proletariat’s desire to revolt, and the solution was that Marxists should carry out a “long march through the institutions” – universities and schools, government bureaucracies and the media – so that cultural values could be progressively changed from above. Then Nazism forced the (mostly Jewish) members of the Frankfurt School to move to America and got a chance to undermine the culture and values that had sustained the world’s most powerful capitalist nation.>>
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/19/cultural-marxism-a-uniting-theory-for-rightwingers-who-love-to-play-the-victim

[5] The Jewish Role in the Bolshevik Revolution and Russia's Early Soviet Regime. Assessing the Grim Legacy of Soviet Communism. MARK WEBER • JAN/FEB 1994 ISSUE •  
Most of the leading Communists who took control of Russia in 1917-20 were Jews. Leon Trotsky (Lev Bronstein) headed the Red Army and then, was chief of Soviet foreign affairs. Yakov Sverdlov (Solomon) was both the Bolshevik party’s executive secretary and — as chairman of the Central Executive Committee — head of the Soviet government. Grigori Zinoviev (Radomyslsky) headed the Communist International (Comintern), the central agency for spreading revolution in foreign countries. Other prominent Jews included press commissar Karl Radek (Sobelsohn), foreign affairs commissar Maxim Litvinov (Wallach), Lev Kamenev (Rosenfeld) and Moisei Uritsky. Lenin’s maternal grandfather, Israel Blank, was a Jew who was later baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church.
https://www.unz.com/pub/jhr__the-jewish-role-in-the-bolshevik-revolution-and-russias-early-soviet-regime/

[6] American Pravda: the Bolshevik Revolution and Its Aftermath. RON UNZ • JULY 23, 2018. 925 COMMENTS 
Although most of the books hardly emphasized the point, anyone with a careful eye for the occasional sentence or paragraph would surely know that Jews were enormously over-represented among the top revolutionaries, with three of Lenin’s five potential successors— Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev—all coming from that background, along with many, many others within the top Communist leadership. Obviously, this was wildly disproportionate in a country having a Jewish population of perhaps 4%, and surely helped explain the large spike in worldwide hostility towards Jews soon afterward…https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-the-bolshevik-revolution-and-its-aftermath/

The attraction of so many Jews world-wide to Marxism seems odd because Marx was no admirer of Jews as a people. He was, by all accounts a Jew-hating Jew. Read the latest discussion of the topic on the Internet:

<<Marx’s essay, On the Jewish Question, originally published in 1844, contains the following:
What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money… Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man – and turns them into commodities…. The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange…. The chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of money in general.

Marx argues that, “In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.”[1]

Marx’s own words may sound as prejudicial toward Jews as anything that had been written about Jews from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Yet, I would not want to be unfair to the young Marx by calling him outright “anti-Semitic”, a term that should be avoid as a malicious misnomer designed to implicate all non-Jews in irrational hatred of racial or physical features common for the Jews and the Arabs. But Marx’s attitude toward the Jewish preoccupation with money-lending and other financial machinations, negative as it was, deserves attention. (At this point I would expect Stephens to fill the brackets with a word much stronger than “sigh”).

The young Marx’s aversion to a common Jewish preoccupation with money was an important factor of his hostility to Capitalism in general. Nay, it was more than hostility: it was an obsessive desire to get rid of it, once and for all, preferably by violent revolutionary means. Strange as it may seem, it was precisely this psychological need to free oneself from any association with “the Golden Calf” of Capitalism in a single stroke that attracted the young Karl Marx -- and then thousands of young, idealistic and impatient Jews-- to Communism, especially in Russia and Eastern Europe.

It seems like they badly wanted to get rid of their Jewishness, at least, of its “bad traits”, by joining The Communist International (Comintern)[2] whose members were not expected to notice, much less remark on, any physical or cultural traits of their comrades. Everybody was expected to concentrate instead on preparing for “the last and decisive battle” to free the world from Capitalism” and, by implication, from dependence on money.

There is more to Marx’s personality, and I suspect that Stephens will use the brackets again when he hears that. In my 1978 essay “Karl Marx as Dr. Frankenstein: Toward Genealogy of Communism,”[3] based on the novel of Mary Shelley, I tried to show how the young Karl was strongly drawn to Luceferian poetry[4] and dreamt of becoming a famous Devil-worshipping rebel-poet, rather than an economic scientist.

In a high-school the young Karl loved to write papers testifying to his Christian devotion (his parents, both of rabbinical families, had converted from Judaism to Lutheranism). However, as soon as he entered the University of Bonn as a student, he started carousing with his buddies and, when alone, wrote poetry full of the rebellious spirit. His favorite theme was a demonic rebellion against God. One of his poems was titled “Oulanem”, a sacrilegious distortion of Emanuel.[5]  In his letters, Marx’s father expressed concerns about his son’s obsession with “demons.”

His buddies, on the other hand, saw him as a modern Prometheus rebelling against all religions as “the opium of the people” to keep the proletariat dazed under Capitalism. However, when you analyze Karl’s poems, it becomes clear that his favorite Prometheus was not the one who just wanted to bestow on the people the gift of domesticated fire, the Prometheus Pyrphoros, but rather the Prometheus Plasticator who was the avenger of gods, filled with hatred of the world and ready to set it aflame with revolution.

Just like Shelley’s fictional Dr.Frankenstein, the young Karl is bright, knowledgeable, and full of a benevolent desire to free people from all the foibles of today by creating a New Mankind. But as Frankenstein was flabbergasted with the Monster produced in his Lab designed to produce a New Man, so Karl Marx would have been horrified seeing what his “offspring”, Marxism-Leninism, was in reality.

It was in Marx’s name that an attempt was made to create a new mankind. However, in reality the 73-years long heroic effort in Russia produced not only the horrors of Civil War,  destruction of churches, mosques and synagogues, forced collectivization, followed by Holodomor (not just in Ukraine!), the Show Trials, enormous losses in World War II, the GULAG, suppression of all dissent, but also -  new waves of Jewish emigration. Fatefully, just like Mary Shelley let Dr. Frankenstein drop his Monster in “the wilderness of Russia” where he had more space for mischiefs, so the adepts of Marx unleashed his monster on the landmass of the Russian Empire.
​
[1] MICHAEL EZRA.  23 MARCH 2015/ Karl Marx's Radical Antisemitism
Michael Ezra argues that Karl Marx's anti-Semitism is clear and unambiguous. 
https://www.philosophersmag.com/opinion/30-karl-marx-s-radical-antisemitism

[2] The Communist International (Comintern), known as the Third International (1919–1943), was an international organization that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and the creation of an international Soviet republic." 

[3] Karl Marx as Dr. Frankenstein: Toward Genealogy of Communism/ By Vladislav Krasnov (W Krasnow) https://www.academia.edu/28227073/Karl_Marx_as_Frankenstein_Toward_a_Genealogy_of_Communism_Modern_Age_WINTER_1978_-_VOL._22_NO._1._pp._72-82_Vladislav_Krasnov_-_https_home.isi.org_karl-marx-frankenstein-toward-genealogy-communism_sthash.MmTrb2DQ.dpuf
 
[4] Due to a condition referred to as a "weak chest", Marx was excused from military duty when he turned 18. While at the University at Bonn, Marx joined the Poets' Club, a group containing political radicals that were monitored by the police. He also joined the Trier Tavern Club drinking society, at one point serving as club co-president. He was also involved in serious  disputes: in August 1836 he took part in a duel with a member of the university's Borussian Korps. Although his grades in the first term were good, they soon deteriorated, leading his father to force a transfer to University of Berlin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx
 
[5] Emanuel (biblical) Immanuel whose birth is prophesied in the Book of Isaiah. A male given name from Hebrew, equivalent to English Immanuel. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Emanuel
See also https://www.amazon.com/Oulanem-Fictional-Conspiracy-Paul-Majkut/dp/0615959938 and "Was Marx a Satanist?" by  Richard Wurmbrand.

Would it not be natural in analyzing Marx’s personality to turn to the services of yet another great Jewish figure, Sigmund Freud (1856 -1939)[1] who somehow failed to make Stephens’ list? Freud’s absence from the list of famous Jews seems even more intriguing than Bret’s “sigh” in front of Marx. After all, Freud’s popularity outlived that of Marx.[2]  A younger contemporary of Marx, living in Austria and speaking the German language, Freud must have heard of Marx or read his works. What is known for sure, Freud did not invite Marx on his psycho-analytical couch.[3] He should have! After all, Marx was tormented by a number of psychological problems, and one of them was self-aggrandizement.

[1]  Sigmund Freud (1856 -1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst. Freud was born to Galician Jewish parents in the Moravian town of Freiberg. He qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1881 at the University of Vienna. Upon completing his habilitation in 1885, he was appointed a docent in neuropathology and became an affiliated professor in 1902. He set up his clinical practice in Vienna in 1886. In 1938, he left Austria to escape the Nazis and died in the UK in 1939.  Freud developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association and discovered transference. Freud's redefinition of sexuality led him to formulate the Oedipus complex as the central tenet of psychoanalytical theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud

[2]  If we want a different politics, we need another revolutionary: Freud. By Suzanne Moore
Marx is all very well, but to effect real change Sigmund Freud’s modern tools of self-examination hold the answers
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/26/politics-sigmund-freud-revolutionary-marx

 [3]   https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/5246/why-does-psychoanalysis-use-the-couch

The problem of self-aggrandizement was probably rooted in his problems with his father who much preferred a quiet bourgeois life to his son’s obsession with changing the world. It seems, his father bothered Karl mostly as a tangible projection of the Universal God figure that all exploitative (Karl’s language) societies like to extoll. Karl was determined to overthrow that God by reducing the amount of religion - “the opiate of the people” that the proletariat consumed, because it diverted them from joining his intellectual comrades in world revolution.
 
One might say that, as in his Oedipus complex poetic dreams, Marx wanted to slay not just his biological father, but also the Christian God Father of his youth, as well as Yahweh, the God of the Jews whom his ancestors had worshipped for centuries. In any case, his Bolshevik followers in Russia desecrated and destroyed untold numbers of houses of worship and religious relics, be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or whatever.
​
The persecution of the Russian Christians was especially vicious as Soviet leaders realized that the traditional Russian value system was a major obstacle to Marxist-Leninist ideology. One way or another, for all 73 years of Communist rule in Russia, the ideological trinity of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Lenin not just overshadowed but virtually displaced the Christian Trinity of God Father, God Son and the Holy Spirit that had spiritually sustained Russia for a thousand years.

​It is hardly accidental that in 1943, under the pressure of Hitler’s armies, Stalin nominally restored the Russian Orthodox Patriarchy in quest for national consolidation. To keep Soviet soldiers fighting, Stalin had to counter the rumors that in the occupied territories Germans were not as harsh on Russian Christians as the Bolsheviks were.

Soviet propagandist always presented Marxist ideas not as ideological speculations but as an immutable science. The laws of surplus value, of ever increasing exploitation of the proletariat, and the concept of the inevitability of revolution as formulated by Marx, were presented as “science” on par with Newton’s or Einstein’s laws in physics. A student was called “stupid” is he disagreed. Marxism was presented as the greatest achievement of Western civilization. It was superior to the “utopian socialist dreams” of such philosophers as Henri de Saint-Simon.[1] After a number of breakthroughs in science, with the ongoing industrial revolution in England, it was only a matter of time when science would displace religion.

As I have already shown, the young Mary Shelley (1797 – 1851)[2] has noticed early on that the abolition of God and replacement of religion with science was fraught with the risk of undermining the ethical foundation of society leading to its collapse.

Marx’s followers certainly over-reached when they proclaimed Marxism-Leninism in Russia, China and elsewhere as a SCIENCE. They claimed it was founded on the most advanced developments of the most advanced countries of the time: German philosophy, French socialist theories, and the experience of the British labor movement. They predicted that a victory of the world revolution was scientifically ordained and would end with the establishment of a world order that would guarantee everybody’s happiness.

While writing about Shelley’s Frankenstein in 1978, that is about fourteen years after my defection from the USSR in October 1962, I was constantly reminded of the fate of my fellow dissidents in the USSR, as well as of the ever-increasing flow of Jewish immigrants to the USA. Around 1973 an agreement was made with Soviet leaders that would allow a legal emigration of Soviet Jews[3]  for such humanitarian reasons as joining their families in Israel. (It later became adopted as Jackson-Vanik Amendment.) However, as soon as the applicants arrived to Vienna, Austria, for sorting out their next destination, the majority claimed they had no relatives in Israel and would rather go to the United States. I had already met a number of them who came to live in Dallas, Texas, where I taught at the Southern Methodist University.

Now I wondered what would have happened to Karl Marx had he indeed settled in the country of his “scientific” dream where “there was no difference in either income or treatment due to one’s nationality or origin”. Would he have joined clandestine courses where Soviet Jews learned Hebrew before going to Israel? Or would he have joined my Russian friends Lev Krasnopevtsev, Anatoly Ivanov, Vladimir Osipov or Andrei Amalrik[4]—to name just my fellow history students from Moscow State University—all of whom landed in the GULAG or the lunatic asylum? Or would Karl Marx have preferred to immigrate to the USA and join me on the faculty of SMU where he could teach not pol sci or economics—God Forbid, IMO—but “Life in the USSR” that I was teaching?

[1] Henri de Saint-Simon (1760 - 1825), was a French social theorist and the founder of French socialism. In the wake of the French Revolution, Saint-Simon proposed a new and positive reorganization of society, controlled by the chiefs of industry, with scientists in the role of priests. Saint-Simon’s call for a “science of society” influenced the development of sociology and economics. Saint-Simon’s vision influenced French and European society throughout the nineteenth century. https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Henri_de_Saint-Simon

[2] Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797 –1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley
 

[3] Signed into law by U.S. President Gerald Ford in 1975, the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to the Trade Act of 1974 eliminated barriers to the emigration of Soviet Jewry. Officially known as the Vanik Bill in the House and the Jackson Amendment in the Senate, this amendment required that nonmarket economy countries comply with specific free emigration criteria as a prerequisite for receiving economic benefits in trade relations with the USA. These benefits included Most Favored Nation (MFN) status—now known as Normal Trade Relations—and access to U.S. government financial facilities. https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Jackson-Vanik_Amendment
​
[4] Andrei Amalrik (1938, Moscow –1980, Guadalajara, Castile-La Mancha, Spain), was a Russian writer and dissident best known in the Western world for his essay, Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Amalrik Information about other people on my list is available in the Russian version of Wikipedia.

Given the young Karl’s rebellious character, he would have tried to get out of the USSR where not all his works were allowed to be read, especially, not his article “On the Jewish Question”. I am sure he would have tried to escape from the trap he had set up for the future mankind by inspiring Lenin and his Bolshevik comrades to capture my native Russia.

Well, the world proletarian revolution did not start in the most advanced industrial countries of Europe, as Marx predicted, but in a relatively backward Russia. It would be a mistake to think that the Bolsheviks had any substantial support from either Russians or Jews in the Russian Empire when they seized power. The widely democratic general election to the Constituent Assembly which Michael II, a tsar de-jure after Nicholas II’s abdication on March 12, 1917,[1] empowered to choose the form of government, took place within weeks after the Bolshevik coup on November 7, 1917. Getting no more than 25% of the vote, the Bolsheviks dissolved the Assembly by force. The rest is history.

[1] Emperor Michael II in the Solzhenitsyn House - Author: Vladislav Krasnov
http://www.raga.org/news/emperor-michael-ii-in-the-solzhenitsyn-house-author-vladislav-krasnov
In brief, read The Last Tsar Was Michael, Not Nicholas. 18 July 2008 | Issue 3947/By W. George Krasnow
The 90th anniversary of the massacre of the Romanovs in Yekaterinburg has been raised to a new level thanks to the city of Perm. Since 1991, a growing number of Russians have argued that the last legitimate ruler of Russia was not Nicholas II, but his younger brother Michael. Their cause got a mighty boost -- from Britain: Donald Crawford, The Last Tsar: Emperor Michael II. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/the-last-tsar-was-michael-not-nicholas/369032.html#ixzz2TuIdx5nE

Not many Jews were voting for the Bolsheviks as they were happy with the abolition of the Pale of Settlement and other liberal reforms of the Provisional government. Besides, the Bolshevik “triumph” in shoving away the popularly elected Constituent Assembly was almost at once marred-- at first symbolically and eventually fatefully--by the Balfour Declaration that was made virtually at the same time.[1] Thus, now for more than 100 years the Jews of Russia—and of the world--have been drawn in opposite directions and forced to make a fateful decision: Communism or Zionism. I believe the majority of Jews would prefer never to have to make such decision between these two diametrically opposed extremist and violent positions.

Even though Jews became dominant in Lenin’s government, it does not mean they were pacified. As a matter of fact, the two most audacious terrorist acts against the Bolsheviks were carried out by Jews. Fanny Kaplan,[2] a Jewish revolutionary, attempted to kill Lenin, and Leonid Kannegisser[3] succeeded in assassinating the most hated killer Moisei Uritsky, a Jew and the head of the feared CHEKA in Petrograd.[4]

Maxim Gorky, the most famous Russian writer who was friends with Lenin and a judeophile, condemned the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and suppression of popular protest on the streets of Petrograd with gun-fire in January 1918. One might say that this was the end of whatever popular appeal Lenin’s Marxist revolution may have had for the Russian masses, Jews and Gentiles alike. The Civil War ensued (1918-1922) in which Russia lost more people than in World War I.
​
It became apparent that the Communist revolution in Russia was made not for the benefit of the working masses but to serve as an ego trip for a cohort of intellectuals aspiring to lead the whole world into the Utopia of world communism. Nobody expressed the disillusionment with Communism better than the Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884 – 1937)[5] who as early as 1921 published the first anti-Utopian novel, symbolically titled “WE”, in which he foretold the emergence of a totalitarian state as a consequence of Bolshevik rule.  The book had to be published abroad.

[1] Please read The Balfour Declaration at 100: Remembering Its Prophetic Jewish Critics. By ALLAN C. BROWNFELD. Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November/December 2017, pp. 42-43
Israel and Judaism. 2017 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER. https://www.wrmea.org/017-november-december/the-balfour-declaration-at-100-remembering-its-prophetic-jewish-critics.html I found this article so important, that I translated it into Russian. 100-летие Декларации Бальфура: Пора вспомнить еврейских пророков http://perevodika.ru/articles/1196711.html
 
[2] Fanny Kaplan (real name Feiga Haimovna Roytblat, 1890 – 1918) was a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party who allegedly tried to assassinate Vladimir Lenin. As a member of the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs), Kaplan viewed Lenin as a "traitor to the revolution" when the Bolsheviks banned her party. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Kaplan
 
[3] Leonid Kannegisser (1896 –1918) was a Russian poet and military cadet, known for assassinating Moisei Uritsky, chief of the Cheka in Petrograd, on 17 August 1918.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Kannegisser
 
[4] Moisei Uritsky (1873–August 17, 1918) was a Bolshevik revolutionary leader in Russia. After the October Revolution, he was Chief of Cheka of Petrograd City. Uritsky was assassinated by Leonid Kannegisser, a military cadet, who was executed shortly afterwards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moisei_Uritsky
 
[5] Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884 – 10 March 1937), was a Russian author of science fiction and political satire. He is most famous for his 1921 novel We, a story set in a dystopian future police state. Despite having been a prominent Old Bolshevik, Zamyatin was deeply disturbed by the policies pursued by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union following the October Revolution. In 1921, WE became the first work banned by the Soviet censorship. Ultimately, Zamyatin arranged for WE to be smuggled to the West for publication. The subsequent outrage this sparked within the Party and the Union of Soviet Writers led to Zamyatin's successful bid  for exile from his homeland. Due to his use of literature to criticize Soviet society, Zamyatin has been referred to as one of the first Soviet dissidents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Zamyatin

It took quite a while before the West woke up to the threat if Communism. In 1945 George Orwell published “Animal farm” and in 1949 “Nineteen-Eighty-four.” He wrote these dystopian classics in the wake of Zamyatin, but he did not have to go to the USSR: as a British Communist he joined the civil war in Spain and witnessed bloody infighting among his comrades, an experience which gave him perspective into what Communist future would likely look like. Even before Orwell, Arthur Koestler, a former Jewish Communist, described his ultimate rejection of Communism in his anti-totalitarian novel “Darkness at Noon”.

Of course, the essence of Communist rule was in plain sight since 1917. And yet, after initial assistance to the so-called “White Russian Armies” of insurgents against Bolshevik rule during the Russian Civil War (1918-1922), the United States and the rest of the Free World did little to resist the virus of Communism until the USSR fell under its own weight at the end of 1991. This was in spite of some early warnings from British journalists and even Winston Churchill himself who in as early as 1920 warned of a "worldwide (Bolshevik) conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization.” Churchill pointed out that even in the UK “In every city there are small bands of eager men and women, watching with hungry eyes any chance to make a general overturn in the hopes of profiting themselves in the confusion, and these miscreants are fed by Bolshevist money. [Cheers.] They are ceaselessly endeavoring by propagating the doctrines of communism, by preaching violent revolution, by inflaming discontent, to infect us with their disease.[1] 

To begin with, Imperial Germany helped smuggle Lenin and dozens of his comrades across German territory and Sweden to the rebellious Petrograd in April 1917, and supplied them with money. America was not far behind. In his comprehensive article “American Pravda: the Bolshevik Revolution and Its Aftermath” Ron Unz quotes Henry Wickham Steed, editor of The Times of London that “(Jacob) Schiff, Warburg and the other top Jewish international bankers were among the leading backers of the Jewish Bolsheviks, through whom they hoped to gain an opportunity for the Jewish exploitation of Russia, and he describes their lobbying efforts on behalf of their Bolshevik allies at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference following the end of the First World War”.[2]

According to Unz, “Even the very recent and highly skeptical 2016 analysis in Kenneth D. Ackerman’s 2016 book Trotsky in New York, 1917 notes that U.S. Military Intelligence reports (were) pointing to Trotsky as the conduit for the heavy financial backing of Schiff and numerous other Jewish financiers” and that Schiff “gave a refuge to Trotsky and other revolutionaries and gave them funds to foment revolution in Russia”.

Armand Hammer (1898 – 1990), also a US Jewish businessman, had provided funds for the Soviets longer than anybody else. But he did not do it just for an idea. Read about him in “The Bolshevik Billionaire” by Steve Sailer.[3]

Both the Communist Party and the Trotsky adherents operated freely in the States when I arrived here in 1966. I witnessed how the country was being torn apart by the Vietnam antiwar movement. Still, I enjoyed the year at the University of Chicago where I was free to go where I wanted, to meet people I liked, and read books unavailable in the USSR. One day I bought Hitler’s book “Main Kampf” (in English translation) at the university bookstore; then went to a lecture by Hanna Arendt (1906 – 1975), who pointed out the similarity of both the Nazi and Soviet regimes in their totalitarian essence; then approached a stand that peddled Trotsky’s books and engaged his young adherents who were glad I defected from the USSR; then visited a former White Army officer who still wore the Tsarist military cap in his tiny apartment, and we had a drink to Communism’s  defeat in Russia and elsewhere; then I spoke before a Lithuanian club whose members listened to me eagerly as they not had a Lithuanian defector for a while. Finally, I celebrated Christmas at a Ukrainian church and saw no difference with Russian churches in the USSR, except that it was full. It was a year of liberty to discover. I felt like a Columbus.

Sometime during the 1980s when I moved to California to teach Russian language and Soviet studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies I came across the book Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties by Peter Collier  and David Horowitz. As in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I witnessed insurgent activities, including bombing attacks, on the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle, and I was curious how the two would describe those events.

One chapter attracted my attention. It was about David’s family life in a provincial American town. Both his father and mother, Jewish to be sure, were members of the CPUSA. And so were virtually all of their friends. All their endless meetings were about how to defeat “American imperialism” and to advance the cause of the Communist Party. Even though for the public they projected themselves as “The New Left,” writes Horowitz, in reality they were the same “old Stalinists”. He describes his upbringing as a self-imposed ideological ghetto because his parents shunned the newspapers and did not talk to non-Communist neighbors.

As to “Second Thoughts” in the title, I remember David’s decisive rejection of the subversive Communist ideology that indeed produced the “destructive generation” in the USA. I cannot help noticing, however, that after abandoning one extreme, Communism, David has joined the other, Zionism.[4]

It took a while for the best minds of the West to recognize that Zamyatin was right in describing the Soviet regime as totalitarian and issuing a warning as early as 1921. The West simply ignored several attempt to advance the Bolshevik Revolution in Hungary (the leader was Bela Kun) and Germany (Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg), and the emergence of fascism in Italy and National-Socialism in Germany, both trying to build a right-wing totalitarian regimes as a wall against the spread of left-wing Communist totalitarianism.

Apparently, nobody paid much attention to the book The Origin of Totalitarian Democracy by Jacob Leib Talmon (1916 –1980), Professor of Modern History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Reviewing genealogy of totalitarianism, Talmon argued that Communist political Messianism stemmed from the French Revolution, and stressed the similarities between Jacobinism and Stalinism.

Even though Germany’s and Italy’s economies were more free-market oriented that that of the USSR, Western governments chose to side with the Left-Totalitarian Soviet Communism. The common denominator of the two kinds of totalitarianism was reliance on violence in domestic and foreign affairs. Not for nothing the Soviet writer Vasily Grossman (1905 – 1964) [5] summed up his World War II experience in his novel “Life and Fate,” including description of German extermination camps, by wondering about “Why is the class warfare we unleashed morally superior to the race war of the Nazis?”

Not only were Western democracy in alliance with Stalin during WWII, but they were eager to please him even when the war ended. As Julius Epstein (1901-1975) showed in his ground-breaking book “Operation Keelhaul”, they systematically violated international rules on prisoners of war and even the Yalta Accords by surrendering to Stalin thousands of former White Army soldiers and Cossacks who never were Soviet citizens as the Yalta Accords required.

One may call it a Western “democratic” contribution to keeping the GULAG filled! Few years later, Nikolai Tolstoy, a British descendant of the famed Russian writer, elaborated on Epstein’s topic in his book, Victims of Yalta, originally published in London, 1977. I suppose, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, also learned few things about the West’s cooperation with the Soviet totalitarian regime, even beyond the call of duty.

Here I must interject the name of Benjamin H Freedman, who has shed a lot of new light on the most obscure dealings between the Communists and Capitalists, who are usually thought to be mortal enemies. According to Wikipedia, <<”Benjamin Harrison Freedman (1890 –1984) was an American businessman, Holocaust denier, and vocal anti-Zionist. Born in a Jewish family, he converted from Judaism to Roman Catholicism. Outside of political activism, Freedman was a partner in a dermatological institute and investor for small businesses.”>>[6]

I first heard about Freedman some years ago, but then there were no accusations of him being a Holocaust denier. What attracted my attention was his introduction as “a Jewish Defector (who) Warns America.” Being a defector myself, and actually the author of Soviet Defectors: The KGB Wanted List[7] (though I defected in 1962 not from Judaism, but Soviet Communism), I could not help admiring that a few months before my defection, in October 1961 Freedman gave a speech before a patriotic audience at the Willard Hotel, Washington, D.C.,[8] on behalf of Conde McGinley's patriotic newspaper, “Common Sense”.

Here’s what Freedman said: “Here in the United States, the Zionists and their co-religionists have complete control of our government. For many reasons, too many and too complex to go into here at this time, the Zionists and their co-religionists rule these United States as though they were the absolute monarchs of this country. Now you may say that is a very broad statement, but let me show you what happened while we were all asleep.”

Is it not surprising, even baffling, to realize that the Jews as a people whom we, the Gentiles, often associate with the jewelry business, - that is, dealing with gold, silver, pearls and diamonds,- nonetheless seem not to strive for the Golden Mean as the goal of their own individual or national existence?

In any case, Lenin (partly Jewish) and his Jewish Bolsheviks abhorred the very word of “compromise” (компромис in Russian) as a “bourgeois trick” designed to emasculate revolutionary fervor. Methinks, this kind of ideological rigidness prevented Mikhail Gorbachev and his perestroika comrades from even seeking in the late 1980s a compromise between the then exiting socialist planned economy and collective farming, on the one hand, and the remnants of individual free enterprise which were not yet fully eradicated in the USSR, on the other. As I had lived in Sweden, I imagined that the Swedish national experience of merging free enterprise with a welfare state could serve as a model for post-Communist Russia.

Instead, after the dissolution of the USSR, Russia under Boris Yeltsin plunged, on the advice of a Harvard team of Jewish economists, into “privatization, that is whole-sale dissolution of state enterprises and transferring them into the hands of oligarchs, almost all Jewish, whose main “skill” was having accounts overseas.[9]

Just before the dissolution, I finished my book Russia Beyond Communism: A Chronicle of National Rebirth.[10] In it I took the issue with Western sovietologists who were so enthused with Gorbachev’s perestroika that saw no other but a Communist future.
​
Certainly they abhorred the idea that a new Russia would identify with its Christian roots. In fact, my book was dedicated to the thousand year anniversary of Russia’s baptism in tand he year 988. The book came out just in time for me to visit Moscow during the turbulent August 1991 give a copy to Boris Yeltsin following his victory speech after dispersing an abortive coup by Communist hardliners on August 22. It was a symbolic gift because during the speech Yeltsin announced that the Russian Federation would replace the Red flag of Communism with Russia’s national tricolor.

[1] Bolshevism and Imperial Sedition, November 4, 1920/A speech at United Wards Club Luncheon, Cannon Street Hotel in London. https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/bolshevism-and-imperial-sedition.html
 
[2] “American Pravda: the Bolshevik Revolution and Its Aftermath”. By Ron Unz.. JULY 23, 2018
https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-the-bolshevik-revolution-and-its-aftermath/
 
[3] The Bolshevik Billionaire. By Steve Sailer. July 15, 2015
https://www.takimag.com/article/the_bolshevik_billionaire_steve_sailer/#axzz3g1E4AlBS
 
[4] Right-wing bomb thrower David Horowitz behind anti-SJP posters
Alex Kane on February 26, 2015 https://mondoweiss.net/2015/02/thrower-horowitz-posters/
 
[5]  Vasily Grossman (1905 –1964) was a Soviet writer of Jewish origin. He trained as a chemical engineer at Moscow State University. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was engaged as a war correspondent by the Red Army newspaper and wrote first-hand accounts of the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk and Berlin. Grossman's eyewitness reports of a Nazi extermination camp near Treblinka were among the first accounts of a Nazi death camp. While Grossman was never arrested, his two major literary works (Life and Fate and Forever Flowing) were deemed anti-Soviet, and Grossman became a nonperson. The KGB raided Grossman's flat after he had completed Life and Fate, seizing manuscripts. He was told by the Communist Party's chief ideologist Mikhail Suslov that the book could not be published for two or three hundred years. At the time of Grossman's death in 1964 these books remained unreleased. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Grossman
 
[6] Benjamin Harrison Freedman (1890 – 1984) was an American businessman, Holocaust denier, and vocal anti-Zionist. Born in a Jewish family, he converted from Judaism to Roman Catholicism. Outside of political activism, Freedman was a partner in a dermatological institute and investor for small businesses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_H._Freedman

[7] Soviet Defectors: The KGB Wanted List (Hoover Institution Press Publication) by Vladislav Krasnov https://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Defectors-Wanted-Institution-Publication/dp/0817982329
 
[8] https://www.biblebelievers.org.au/benjamin.htm
 
[9] Would Harvard Ever Help Russia? By W. George Krasnow http://www.russialist.org/archives/2006-62-24.php
Read also  Did Shock Therapy Help Russia? About Anders Aslund’s Capitalist Revolution
http://www.russialist.org/archives/2008-88-39.php
 
[10] Russia Beyond Communism: A Chronicle Of National Rebirth (C C R S SERIES ON CHANGE IN CONTEMPORARY SOVIET SOCIETY) by Vladislav Krasnov, Bolder, CO. 1991 https://www.amazon.com/Russia-Beyond-Communism-Chronicle-CONTEMPORARY/dp/0813383617

​The book was a review of the “polyphonic choir” consisting of the voices of glasnost, that is, Soviet authors of different political persuasions searching for possible sources of national renewal.  The main focus was on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “Letter to the Soviet Leaders”(1973) and “Rebuilding Russia”(1990). 

In both works Solzhenitsyn proposed a peaceful, gradual, and Non-Violent evolution of the country away from its Marxist-Leninist fetters. In Chapter Four I included a discussion of the role of Jews in the revolution and Jewish –Russian relations in general.

As it turned out, near the end of his career, Solzhenitsyn turned to the same topic in his two-volume book “Two Hundred Years Together” in which he put the role of Jews in the Communist revolution into a deeper historical context. Strangely, the English translation is not readily available for American readers. For the lack of it, I recommend an essay by Vladimir Moss titled “Russia and the Jews: 1856-1917.” It’s available for downloading on Academia.edu. Dr. Moss is actually a British scholar and converted Russian Orthodox Christian. He frankly admits that his book is “based largely on (Solzhenitsyn’s) research – which is derived to a great extent from Jewish sources. For it is only on the basis of such balanced and truthful historiography that real peace can be established between the nations”. I agree with Dr. Moss that the truth about the greatest tragedy of the 20th century should be sought via a dialogue between, first and foremost, Jews and Russians, for the sake of peace on earth.

Yet there are some Jews who have welcomed Solzhenitsyn’s challenge for a dialogue. One of them is Avigdor Eskin. A former Soviet Jew who now lives in Israel but often appears in talk shows on Russian TV channels. He is the author of “The Jewish View on the Russian Question” (in«Еврейский взгляд на русский вопрос»). A former Soviet dissident who fought for the right of Jews to learn Hebrew and was once arrested for distributing Solzhenitsyn's works, Eskin asks a bold, albeit paradoxical question: “What are the causes of the joint Russian-Jewish fall from Grace into the Sin of communism and liberalism?” I am prepared to agree with him about the “joint fall”, but disagree that communism and liberalism should be lumped together.

Eskin is not alone in admitting a Jewish guilt in creating and running Communism. The Israeli Rabbi Yosef Tzvi ben Porat went as far as accepting the main blame and apologizing to the Russian people: "We are to blame for everything and we must know why we are being driven away. We created Marxism and Leninism. We captured Russia. We killed 30 million educated Russians. We are wise men and sat down to rule over them." Moreover, he believes that revolutionary atheist Jews provoked Hitler's rise to power in Germany. Ben Porat is not alone. Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi,[2] the American rabbi of the Orthodox denomination has been making similar statements. (Read more in Emperor Michael II in the Solzhenitsyn House - Author: Vladislav Krasnov. http://www.raga.org/news/emperor-michael-ii-in-the-solzhenitsyn-house-author-vladislav-krasnov)

Now back to “The Secrets of Jewish Genius”. I may not have written this rebuttal to Bret Stephens had I not checked my email on January 3, 2020. There was a letter from Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) of which I have been an eager (non-Jewish) member for a number of years. The letter said:

<<Tallie Ben Daniel <info@jewishvoiceforpeace.org>
TO:  W George Krasnow <president92@gmail.com>
DATE:      January 3, 2020
Dear W George (my common American appellation),
I was appalled when I saw the latest column from New York Times writer Bret Stephens. He claims that white Ashkenazi Jews have genetically superior intellects, and backs up this claim with a bogus study from a white supremacist eugenics “expert.”

This is race science – the same ideology that has inspired violence and genocide against Jewish people – and we can’t let it stand. Sign our petition to demand The New York Times fire Bret Stephens for this gross abuse of his platform>>.

Frankly, I was a bit baffled, for I did not see in the article any reference to <<a white supremacist eugenics “expert.”>>

Then I re-read Editors’ Note which indeed says (here abbreviated)    that Stephens quoted “a 2005 paper that advanced a genetic hypothesis for the basis of intelligence among Ashkenazi Jews. Mr. Stephens was not endorsing the study or its authors’ views, but it was a mistake to cite it uncritically. The effect was…an impression with many readers that Mr. Stephens was arguing that Jews are genetically superior. That was not his intent. He went on instead to argue that culture and history are crucial factors in Jewish achievements…“What makes Jews special is that they aren’t. They are representational.”[1]

After reading the above I decided not to honor JVP’s request, even though, as a JVP member, I have signed many of its appeals, including those on behalf of Palestinians. In fact, I would recommend JVP to anyone as an organization that is both high-minded and effective. But in this case, I felt it was a mistake to punish Stephens for his free speech and for being proud of his people. I also felt he was already punished by the Editors who nearly emasculated his article.

I say so in spite of strongly objecting to Stephens’ contention that any disagreement with or critique of either Zionism or the state of Israel amounts to Jew-hatred or, as he says, “anti-Semitism”.  In this respect, I am in full agreement with Jewish Voice for Peace created to promote peace between Israel and Palestine. In effect, it also promotes peace between the USA and Russia. As president of the Russia & America Goodwill Association (www.raga.org) which I have run since 1992, I have primarily focused on the improvement of US-Russia relations after the collapse of the USSR. However, it soon became clear that the US foreign policy was high-jacked by the Neocons (several of whom were former Trotskyists)[2] whose goal is world domination for which Israel’s supremacy in the Middle East is the main linchpin.

In RAGA’s quest for peace we do not discriminate between Right or Left, Conservative or Liberal, Protestant, Catholic or Muslim, Gentile or Jew. We welcome thinking people of all persuasions as long as they are truthful, honest, and non-violent.

I have been fortunate in finding many like-minded Jewish peace activists such as Noam Chomsky; Allan Brownfeld (American Council for Judaism); Naomi Klein; Law Professor Marjorie Cohn (a former president of the National Lawyers Guild); Professor Stephen Cohan, a Russia scholar; Norman Finkelstein, the author of THE HOLOCAUST INDUSTRY: Reflections on the exploitation of Jewish Suffering and, most recently, GAZA: An inquest into its martyrdom;  Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept who assisted Ed Snowden’s escape, and denounces US religious fanaticism[3]; Dan Lieberman, my Washington DC tennis buddy who runs the indomitable Alternative Insight;  Gilad Atzmon, a jazz saxophonist who freed himself from the Zionist straitjacket; the Mondoweiss News Site; the emphatically Non-Violent branch of Judaism Neturei Karta;[4] the two of my colleagues at the conservative Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation Professor Paul Gottfried and Jon Utley, publisher of The American Conservative ; Ed Lozansky, a former Soviet nuclear scientist and dissident who immigrated to the US and now runs US-Russia.org think-tank and American University in Moscow; Gilbert Doctorow, a Russia scholar and RAGA contributor; Israel Shamir,[5] Ron Unz, who proposed a strategy to defeat mainstream media;[6] Nomi Prins, former Wall Street insider, now a geopolitical financial expert and critic of financial manipulators; and, finally,  Brother Nathanael,[7] a former New York Jew and now a hermit Christian monk who rallies on his YouTube somewhere in Iowa against corrupt Jewish media moguls and politicians with such precision, passion and Chutzpah that any Gentile “anti-Semite” could envy.

Sadly, after this article was posted on https://www.unz.com/, Jon Utley passed away. He was my dear friend and peace-loving RAGA supporter. The COVID-19 contingency does not allow me write a eulogy. But I want to share with you my recollection of how Jon and I worked together in trying to find out what happened to his Russian Jewish father after he was arrested in Moscow in 1936.

Jon Basil Utley at 80 “He is One of Us” (Memoirs of Two Trips to Russia) Tribute by W. George Krasnow at Jon’s birthday party in Washington on March 12, 2014 John Basil Utley at 80 “He is One of Us”. You may also like to see a DVD about our search for   his father’s remains Return to the Gulag: Jon Utley's Search for His Father

To come back to the list of RAGA associated and my friends of Jewish origin, I am proud to say that some of their articles I have posted or quoted in RAGA newsletter and even translated into Russian. Not all of the above are concerned with Israel or Zionism. But those who are concerned are not working in a vacuum. As early as 2001 the research of two great scholars, John Mearshimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard resulted in the book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy in which the linkage of the two was made uncontestable.

We are very fortunate to have on our side the authority of Jimmy Carter, the US president and the Nobel Peace Prize winner, the first to pay attention to human rights in the USSR and the one who brought Israel and Palestine closest to a peaceful agreement. To his great credit, after the deal failed, Carter did not fall silent but wrote a book to leave Israel with the choice, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.[8] Alas, the greatest electoral support for a short-sightred pro-Israel US foreign policy under Donald Trump comes not from US Jews but from the evangelical wing of Protestantism, the so called Christian Zionists.[9]

I believe that the strongest defense against prejudice toward Jews around the world, as well as for Israel’s statehood, comes not from Israel’s armed forces (IDF), nor from its nuclear weapons,[10] and certainly not from the US Department of Defense, but from the righteous Jews like those listed above. Because when the non-Jews meet, read or hear the people like those listed above, they know that in the search for truth and justice what counts most is not the difference in IQs between Jews and Gentiles but their commitment to decency.

While I do not wish to dispute the importance of high IQ scores for Jewish provenance in business, arts and science, I doubt that higher IQs lead automatically to higher ethical standards or wisdom. Quite to the contrary: a person of higher intelligence is more likely to succumb to excessive pride and egotism leading to the foibles of hubris and self-destruction as has been known since antiquity. On a mundane level Bernie Madoff [11] was probably a lot cleverer than the average American, but this did not prevent him from robbing his investors, Jews and Gentiles alike, including even charitable associations in Israel. Nor did his cleverness prevent him from causing a tragedy for himself and his family. And Kosher Mafia, alas, is not an “anti-Semitic” trope. I heard about it way back, from my Jewish friends in 1966 when I lived in Chicago. Now I learn more about Jewish mafia in America not from “The New York Times” but from the Israeli newspaper “Haaretz”.

However, I am amenable to Stephens’s correction, suggested by NYT editors, that “The Secrets of Jewish Genius” must be sought not so much in racial characteristics, but rather in the idea that “culture and history are crucial factors in Jewish achievements”.  But I would add “religion” as well and recommend he reads The Jewish Century [12] by Yuri Slezkine, my former Soviet countryman and now American professor. Below is the publisher’s teaser: “<<This masterwork of interpretative history begins with a bold declaration: The Modern Age is the Jewish Age -- and we are all, to varying degrees, Jews. The assertion is, of course, metaphorical. But it underscores Yuri Slezkine’s provocative thesis. Not only have Jews adapted better than many other groups to living in the modern world, they have become the premiere symbol and standard of modern life everywhere.>>”

Also to be recommended is Max Weber’s (1864-1920)[13] classic The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.[14] Weber was a German economist who wrote a number of essays in the early 1900s in which he linked levels of economic development to the prevailing religious beliefs and ethical standards of various nations. His observation was that the countries of Northern Europe (Germany, Scandinavia, and the UK) and North America – were doing much better in economic development because people there were guided by Protestant values such as individualism, entrepreneurship, and thrift to a greater extent than the countries of Southern Europe, where Catholicism did not emphasize such values.

Of course, Weber’s was a challenge to Marx’s class struggle theory that discounted the connection. For the sake of argument I would also add the book “Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism And The Rise Of The Jews”[15] by Albert Lindemann, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

If Stephens assumes that the interaction of Jews and non-Jews has involved just one guilty party, Lindemann, reviewing outbreaks of modern “Anti-Semitism”, allows that sometimes it was a reaction to certain patterns of Jewish behavior about which even Karl Marx complained. Metaphorically, Lindemann links it with the cultural habits derived from the Jewish Bible, such as the story of Jacob cheating his tween brother Esau of his first-born right by conspiring with his mother Rebecca to deceive her husband Isaac in order “to get her way.[16]
​
Where I do agree with Bret Stephens is his statement quoting Einstein: “There is a moral belief, “incarnate in the Jewish people” according to Einstein, that “the life of the individual only has value [insofar] as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful.” Einstein is indeed so important for modern thinking that when I was recently writing the essay Mahatma Gandhi and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Two Giants Who Blessed the 20th Century, suggesting the need to replace Professor Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” with a Saving the Planet paradigm, I was tempted to add Albert Einstein to the duo.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/opinion/jewish-culture-genius-iq.html
 
[2] Neoconservatism - where Trotsky meets Stalin and Hitler. By:Srdja Trifkovic | April 02, 2015
https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/neoconservatism-where-trotsky-meets-stalin-and-hitler/
 
[3] Religious Fanaticism is a Huge Factor in Americans’ Support for Israel. By Glenn Greenwald April 15, 2015 "ICH" - "The Intercept"http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41566.htm

[4] Neturei Karta is not - as is often alleged - a small sect or an extremist group of "ultra-orthodox" Jews. The Neturei Karta has added nothing to nor has taken anything away from the written and oral law of the Torah. (We) are fighting the changes and inroads made by political Zionism during the past one-hundred odd years. https://www.nkusa.org/AboutUs/index.cfm

[5] Israel Shamir is a spiritual and political thinker. His comments are published on his site www.israelshamir.net and elsewhere. He is the author of three books, Galilee Flowers, Cabbala of Power and Masters of Discourse. Born in Novosibirsk, the USSR, he moved to Israel in 1969, served as paratrooper in the IDF and fought in the 1973 war. After the war, he turned to journalism and writing. In 1975, Shamir joined the BBC and moved to London. In 1977-79 he lived in Japan. http://www.israelshamir.com/biography/

[6] Ron Unz's Strategy for the Alt-Media to Defeat the Mainstream Media Is Brilliant. Vladislav Krasnov , Jul 25, 2019 https://russia-insider.com/en/ron-unzs-strategy-alt-media-defeat-mainstream-media-brilliant/ri27507

[7] Brother Nathanael is a New York Jew named Kappner who converted to Russian Orthodox Christianity and now runs Real Jew News in which he tears off the mask of anonymity from those Jewish Money Bags who manipulate US mass media, U.S. foreign policy or Hollywood sex–for-success industry. See his latest YouTube  January 28, 2020
The Enemies Of Free Speech http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=1421

[8]  https://www.amazon.com/Palestine-Peace-Apartheid-Jimmy-Carter/dp/0743285034

[9] Christian Zionist philo-Semitism is driving Trump’s Israel policy. By Mairav Zonszein. .Jan. 28, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/01/28/trump-thinks-supporting-israel-means-letting-it-do-whatever-it-wants/ See also Why Do Evangelical Christians Support Israel? Because they have a favorable opinion of Jews. DAVID BERNSTEIN |THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY | 1.20.2020 6:35 PM
https://reason.com/2020/01/20/why-do-evangelical-christians-support-israel/

[10] Did Israel Blow Up the Vanunu Nuclear Whistleblower Affair to Boost Its Deterrence? Thirty years after the espionage case exposed Israel’s nuclear secrets, the questions remain. By Adam Raz/ March 30, 2018. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-did-israel-rig-the-nuclear-whistleblower-affair-to-boost-deterrence-1.5961997

[11] 10 years after Madoff ripped off the Jewish world, many groups have managed to find their feet again. By BEN SALES, 21 December 2018. https://www.timesofisrael.com/10-years-after-madoff-ripped-off-the-jewish-world-a-sort-of-happy-ending/

[12] The Jewish Century by Yuri Slezkine. https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691127606/the-jewish-century

[13] Maximilian Weber (1864 –1920)-  German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist, one of the most important theorists on the development of modern Western society. His ideas profoundly influenced social theory. Weber is often cited, with Émile Durkheim and Karl Marx, as among the three founders of sociology.

[14] The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, a book by Max Weber. The original German text was composed in 1904 and 1905, and was translated into English for the first time by American sociologist Talcott Parsons in 1930. It is considered a founding text in economic sociology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism

[15] Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-semitism And The Rise Of The Jews. By Albert Lindeman. https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=980241516&searchurl=vcatn%3DJEWISH%2BHISTORY.%26sortby%3D17%26vcat%3DJEWISH___HISTORY___%26vci%3D229481&cm_sp=msrp-_-msrpdesc-_-bdp

[16] When Esau learns of his brother's thievery, he begs his father to undo the blessing. Isaac responds to his eldest son's plea by saying that he could not reverse the sacred blessing. Esau vows to kill Jacob (Genesis 27:41). Rebecca intervenes to save her younger son from being murdered by his elder twin brother, Esau. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esau

​Einstein cherished his friendship with Gandhi. Indeed, all three—Gandhi, Solzhenitsyn and Einstein—lifted themselves above one’s ethnicity, country and religion to show the ways for Saving the Planet. I also added Martin Luther King Jr., who reproached America for ignoring the Christian commandment “to turn the other cheek,” but instead rushing into unprovoked wars.

It was not accidental that Einstein befriended Gandhi: both were ardent critics of the violent roots of the Israeli state. Einstein was among those outstanding Jewish American thinkers who on December 4, 1948 signed a letter to The New York Times condemning Menahem Begin’s visit to the USA, “Lest America be fooled by post-Independence rhetoric, the Herut party Begin led was ‘closely akin to the Nazi and Fascist parties,” they wrote.[1]

Alas, the 20th century showed that, very tragically, the most dynamic young Jews of the world were attracted to two opposite extremes: either exclusive race-based Zionist nationalism or all-embracing abstract Communist internationalism. Both extremes rely on violence. Both pretend to have a strong popular mandate. It does not help that lately Zionism got a tremendous boost from the American Neocons trying to turn it into Zionist globalism.

If Israel is to continue to exist, it is only on the terms of Martin Buber, perhaps the greatest Jewish philosopher: "The task of Israel as a distinct nation (is) inexorably linked to the task of humanity in general". For starters, we all should follow the Golden Rule: “Do not do onto the other what you don’t want to be done to you”. It is expected from the Jews no less. As Hillel the Elder (c. 110 BC – 10 AD) advised someone who wanted to convert to Judaism, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn".

[1]  This Day in Jewish History. 1948: N.Y. Times Publishes Letter by Einstein, Other Jews Accusing Menachem Begin of Fascism. https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-1948-n-y-times-letter-by-einstein-slams-begin-1.5340057

Vladislav Krasnov (aka W George Krasnow), Ph.D., is the author of Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevsky: A Study in the Polyphonic Novel, Soviet Defectors: The KGB Wanted List, and Russia Beyond Communism: A Chronicle of National Rebirth.

Since 1992 he has led Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA.org).

We are now affiliated with the Global Harmony Association (GHA), founded by Dr. Leo Semashko of Sankt Peterburg, to advance Mahatma Gandhi’s ideal of Non-Violence.
https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=938
 
Peace and Justice to the World. 
миру мир и благоволение в сердцах

RAGA: "We are an association of Americans who believe it is in the U.S. national interests to foster friendship with Russia on the basis of mutual Good Will and non-interference in each other's affairs. RAGA is a gathering of people who share common interests in Russia's history, culture, religion, economy, politics and the way of life. We feel that Russian people have made outstanding contributions to humankind and are capable of greater achievements. We envision Russia as a strong, independent, proud and free nation and as a partner in achieving peace in the world."

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

Dear friends of the Russia & America Good Will Association (www.raga.org) and antiwar colleagues!

Let me congratulate Russian readers with the Russian Easter on April 19. Sorry that COVID-19 contingency prevented me from doing the same for the earlier Hanukkah and the Gregorian calendar Easter for the benefit of the majority of our readers!

From TOR Browser to OPERA
For some time I have heard the reports that RAGA became inaccessible for readers located in Russia and some other countries. No worry:  TOR Browser is easy to install, and it is FREE https://www.torproject.org/download/ the same goes for OPERA VPN: https://www.opera.com/features/free-vpn

COVID facts, lessons, awareness of Life on Earth vulnerability

ON APRIL 16, 2020 BY PATRICK ARMSTRONG IN RF SITREP

COVID AND RUSSIA. Overall totals to today are 28K infected, 232 dead. This raises the question of why the death rate in Russia appears to be lower. One theory is that the widespread Soviet-era tuberculosis vaccinations (BCG vaccine) may have had an effect – just how or why is unclear, but there seems to be a statistical relationship. A test of its effectiveness is beginning in Australia. Over half the cases are in Moscow but every region except one reports cases: most of Sunday’s infections in Shanghai came from a flight from Russia the day before. A pass system was introduced in Moscow yesterday but not very successfully (and many standing in line waiting to be checked). The new hospital in Moscow Region is up and running. A vaccine prototype is undergoing human testing (including by the developer). The Victory Parade is postponed. Meanwhile Russian military specialists are working away in Italy...
https://patrickarmstrong.ca/2020/04/16/russian-federation-sitrep-16-april-2020/
​
SITREP 2 APRIL 2020/ ON APRIL 2, 2020 BY PATRICK ARMSTRONGIN RF SITREP
COVID AND RUSSIA. As of today there are about 3600 cases and 30 deaths, most in Moscow City. Why so much lower than other places? Some reasons: Moscow ordered travel and flight closures earlier than Western countries; it does not appear to have run down its stockpiles of PPE (as the USA and, apparently, most Western countries did); the war-time/emergency preparedness of a country that knows the cost of not being prepared and the fact that anti-Russia sanctions have made the country very self-sufficient. (As even the NYT admits. A few weeks ago, though, in NYT-land, Russia’s economy was faltering. Hard to keep up with the Party Line it is.)……. NEW NWO. Post COVID, things are going to be a lot different. I offer Stephen Walt’s “The Death of American Competence” for your reflection. Pompeo’s boast only six weeks ago that “The West is winning” looks hollow. This 2019 rating of countries best prepared to deal with a pandemic hasn’t worn well (USA and UK first, Russia and China in the middle). 2020 – the year the West lost its mojo.
​
https://patrickarmstrong.ca/2020/04/02/russian-federation-sitrep-2-april-2020/

U.S. Sanctions Must Stop/ Simone Weil Center, By Paul Grenier, April 1, 2020
 Sharon Tennison, director of the Center for Citizen Initiatives, has called for an end to the U.S. policy of sanctions against dozens of nations during a deadly global pandemic. We urge everyone to read her appeal, sign on to it, and distribute it further. *

By Mikhail S. Gorbachev MARCH 16, 2020 If war is the consequence of a policy, then get rid of the policy.

It is only two months into 2020, and the world has already been on the brink of a clash between two great powers. These were real military actions—in Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Then the participants seemed to rethink and stepped back from the brink…What is this? It’s the old policy of “balancing on the edge of war.” A dangerous, adventurist policy.

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/mikhail-gorbachev-coronavirus-nuclear/

Coronavirus: What could the West learn from Asia? By Helier Cheung BBC News
RAGA COMMENT: Yes, it’s need to be done

The outbreak hit many countries in Asia several weeks earlier - and some have been praised for containing the number of infections. For example, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan all kept case numbers relatively low - despite their proximity to mainland China.

What did they do differently - and are there any lessons for other countries?

Lesson one: Take it seriously - and act quickly
Health experts agree on the same measures for containing the outbreak - test widely, isolate those infected, and encourage social distancing. Such measures are being adopted to varying degrees in the West now - but a key difference is that many countries didn't act as quickly.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51970379

CORONA in INDIA.  As RAGA has a global outreach, I am happy to post a report from our colleague in India.

Daily Pioneer, Tuesday, 14 April 2020 /The Corona apocalypse, Tuesday, 14 April 2020 | Sandhya Jain

……What makes India’s response unique is the Union Cabinet’s decision to reduce salary, allowances and pensions of all Members of Parliament (MPs) by a whopping 30 per cent for one year, with effect from April 1, 2020. The President, Vice President and Governors voluntarily took a similar pay cut as social responsibility. The MP Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) has been suspended for two years (2020-21 and 2021-22); all money saved will go to the Consolidated Fund of India. This scale of personal sacrifice is unmatched in the world so far; even children have been inspired to give their savings (for bicycle, birthday) to feed the needy...

Comparisons are undesirable at this apocalyptic moment in human history but given the uncalled for attacks on India from some responsible quarters, some points are in order. India saw its first case of Coronavirus in the last week of January, around the same time as Europe and the US. After initially claiming the disease would go away on its own, US President Donald Trump said on March 30 that administration estimates show that COVID-19 could kill 100,000 to 200,000 people in America and such a toll would indicate that his administration has “done a very good job.” Imagine an Indian leader saying such a death toll is acceptable and surviving. At the time of writing, the world had 1,853,327 cases and 114,250 deaths; India had 9,152 cases and 308 mortalities.

https://www.dailypioneer.com/2020/columnists/the-corona-apocalypse.html

RAGA comment:  As you can see above, India’s top leadership set the standards for leaders everywhere by making personal income sacrifice before expecting the same of their plain citizens!

​PATRICK LAWRENCE: The US National Emergency  RAGA likes Patrick’s geopolitical philosophy

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/16/patrick-lawrence-the-us-national-emergency/ 

COVID-19 calls on us to consider our plundered commons and unite around four truths made conspicuous by the pandemic.  Now that the Trump administration has declared the COVID–19 virus a national emergency, it is plain that this once-a-century catastrophe has some things to tell us about ourselves. A thousand New Age apostles call for unity in 1960s “get together” style. In the Hallmark card category, Marianne Williamson advised us on Twitter Saturday, “We can grow from this.”

We may or may not grow from this. This will depend on whether we identify the lessons the COVID–19 pandemic has for humanity — and then go on to learn from them such that we can effect change in the way we live and organize ourselves. Certain nations — agile, imaginative, confident — prove capable of change in the face of new circumstances. The U.S. is not one of these, to put the point politely. ..Neoliberalism in the extreme version we live with — another Reagan-era legacy — is the wrong technology for moments such as this one. It cannot respond to 21stcentury exigencies such as COVID­­–19. We know this now. It is prominent among the culprits behind this crisis. It has devastated our public space, not least our public health institutions.  

This century demands sturdy supra-national institutions—truth No. 3. But they are nowhere in evidence now because we have so far failed to build them effectively. These, too, have to be properly democratized if they are to work as conduits for ground-up solutions to on-the-ground problems. The UN so often fails because so much of it is manipulated by the U.S. and its Atlantic allies.

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/16/patrick-lawrence-the-us-national-emergency/  

The Fed, the Virus, and Inequality
A Global Dr. Frankenstein at Work/ By Nomi Prins

https://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176674/tomgram%3A_nomi_prins%2C_the_global_economy_catches_the_coronavirus

Dr. Frankenstein, the experiment (in neoliberal economics) became the monster. The byproduct of making lots of money available to a sliver of society was, of course, that it flowed to the top, only exacerbating the already significant inequality on this planet. That’s why there’s something the same and yet so different about today’s inequality… If recent years have taught us anything, it’s that the official responses to crises will ultimately help Wall Street and the markets, while leaving real people behind again. It’s a vicious cycle that will only stoke inequality further until, of course, whether thanks to the coronavirus or some unknown future development, it all comes tumbling down.

Vladislav Krasnov
April 6 at 6:09 PM · 

RAGA.org sends KUDOS to NOMI again for we too seek a more peaceful, fair and harmonious world for all/RAGA.org recommends to listen to a former Wall Street insider who is now with us, the outsiders Vladislav Krasnov
​
APRIL 6, 2020
Wall Street Wins, Again: Bailouts in the Time of Coronavirus/ By NOMI PRINS
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/06/wall-street-wins-again-bailouts-in-the-time-of-coronavirus/
​
To say that these are unprecedented times would be the understatement of the century.

David Horowitz of The Times of Israel summed up our common humility before the challenge of CORONA in these words: "the deeply dismaying truth that months into this pandemic, and weeks into radically curtailed life as we know it on much of planet Earth, the people to whom we look for guidance — the experts, and the political leaders who hopefully at least try to make: decisions on the basis of the experts’ wisdom — still cannot entirely pin down COVID-19.  

As to myself, since January 3, 2020 I have been busy with this
Sighing at the Secrets of Jewish Genius
Rebuttal to Bret Stephens’s The New York Times Column
VLADISLAV KRASNOV • FEBRUARY 3, 2020
 • 10,000 WORDS •   251 COMMENTS • 3 NEW • REPLY
https://www.unz.com/article/sighing-at-the-secrets-of-jewish-genius/?highlight=Krasnov

It is a huge, complicated and usually controversial topic on which I continued to work on by producing a version of the above article and its Russian rendition for the benefit of RAGA readers. (See attachments to this email)

Finally, I am happy to congratulate the Global Harmony Association, with which RAGA is now affiliated, on publication of a new collection “Gandhica: Intellectual Triumph of Varnas/Spherons Equality.”Approved by the GHA o­n April 7, 2020
  
Publication:
In English: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=938
In Russian: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=ru_c&key=835
 
After the publication of the GHA eighth book “Global Peace Science” in 2016 (https://peacefromharmony.org/docs/global-peace-science-2016.pdf), we started preparing for a new book, which eventually got the name Gandhica. We found in philosophy, science and practice of non-violence of the greatest peacemaker in human history, Mahatma Gandhi, a new fundamental thinking/consciousness for a new, peacemaking era that eliminates inequality and war, ensures the humanity survival and the prosperity of all nations o­n the basis of Gandhian equal varnas/spherons, covering the entire population. Hundreds of the GHA members and its peacemaking friends participated in the creation of this book, of which 82 people from 25 countries became its co-authors, including the President of India, four Nobel Peace Laureates and many peace leaders.

Sincerely,
W George Krasnow (http://wiki-org.ru/wiki/Краснов,_Владислав_Георгиевич)
President, RAGA
www.raga.org
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Peace and Justice to the World. 
миру мир и благоволение в сердцах

From RAGA site:
"We are an association of Americans who believe it is in the U.S. national interests to foster friendship with Russia on the basis of mutual Good Will and non-interference in each other's affairs. RAGA is a gathering of people who share common interests in Russia's history, culture, religion, economy, politics and the way of life. We feel that Russian people have made outstanding contributions to humankind and are capable of greater achievements. We envision Russia as a strong, independent, proud and free nation and as a partner in achieving peace in the world."

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

Dear friends of the Russia & America Good Will Association (www.raga.org) and antiwar colleagues!

We may be a bit off the precise timing, but our seasonal greetings to people of different faiths are just as cordial: Merry Christmas, Delightful Diwali, Ecstatic Eid, Happy Chanukah, and a prosperous New Year to you all! 

The more we have tried to improve the US & Russia relation, the more we realize that it can hardly be done without replacing the now prevailing paradigm of "clash of civilizations" by a realization of common destiny of humankind.

So, let me save your time for holidays celebration, by placing just two items inside RAGA Antidote 55 greeting.

First, I am delighted to forward the holidays greeting from Rich Siegel, an American musician and singer, who does his best to overcome the pernicious divide between Israel and Palestine, Jews, Muslims and Christians in the Holy Land. I got Siegel's greeting via Israel Shamir's readers list. (Shamir is my old friend who first emigrated from the USSR to Israel and then, upset about Israel's racist attitude toward Palestinians, moved back to Russia and now resides in Sankt-Peterburg). 

Rich is an American peace-loving singer and musician. As a Jew, he is nonetheless happy to say "Merry Christmas" to Christians and "Happy Hanukkah" to Jews regardless whether they are in the USA or Israel or Russia or anywhere.  But he feels especially distressed by the injustices and even terrorist attacks committed by Israeli extremists against Palestinian Muslims and Christians and even against  Archbishop Atallah Hanna of Christian Palestinian Church in Jerusalem.

Rich quotes Archbishop:
​
“I would like to remind all Christians all around the world there is no point in celebrating Christmas if you do not pay attention to what is happening in Palestine as it is the birthplace of Christ and where Christianity originated and spread its message throughout the world.” ~Archbishop Atallah Hanna~

December 2019  

Unfortunately, the Archbishop believes that in his opinion“ISRAEL” IS RESPONSIBLE FOR POISONING ME". Quds News Network. Amman, Dec. 23, 2019. http://orthochristian.com/126648.html In Russian see  https://russian.palinfo.com/news/2019/12/25/A

The second item is devoted to Professor William Brumfield of Tulane University who has done more for the restoration of the glory of Russian Christian architecture after the ravages of Soviet anti-religious campaigns than just about anybody. As RAGA friends may have noticed, just about every newsletter for the past several years ends with Professor Brumfield's photographic record of Russian Christian architectural monuments with brief and lucid commentary. Please read about Brumfield's recent trip to Moscow and his talk at The Andrei Rublev Museum ( https://www.moscovery.com/andrei-rublev-museum-of-ancient-russian-culture-and-art/  ) on December 23, 2019 in conjunction with his recent award by the Russian government.

I like to think that Siegel and Brumfield are just two American examples of cross-religious, cross-ethnic, and simply global solidarity that is so essential for the survival of the Planet. That is why lately, RAGA has become affiliated with the Global  Harmony Association, founded by Dr. Leo Semashko of Sankt-Petersburg twelve years ago and now attracting global membership. A former Marxist-Leninist, Leo is determined to turn around Marxist class-struggle into class-cooperation, solidarity and HARMONY. Please take a look at Leo's personal page https://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=253

My own writings, both in English and Russian, can be also found there
https://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=752  

Finally, as a non-Jewish member of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), I am just as concerned with the recent stabbing attack on five people at the home of Hasidim Rabbi in Monsey, N.Y., but I remain hopeful it was an act of a mentally unstable man rather than expression of Jew hatred in general.The governor called the violence an “act of domestic terrorism” after a suspect was arrested in Harlem. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/nyregion/monsey-synagogue-stabbing-anti-semitic.html  

WASHINGTON, December 6 (2019). /TASS/. Russian Ambassador to the USA Anatoly Antonov has awarded the Order of Friendship to a renowned American historian specializing in Russian architecture, professor of Slavic studies of the Tulane University William Craft Brumfield, the Embassy said on its Facebook page. https://tass.com/society/1096371 The award ceremony was held during the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Russian Cultural Center in Washington, D.C.

"Today it’s a great honor for us to present professor Brumfield with a high state award of the Russian Federation - the Order of Friendship in accordance with the Russian presidential decree signed on October 26, 2019, for achievements in strengthening friendship and cooperation between the nations, fruitful activity in conciliating and mutually enriching the cultures of our nations and peoples. Please accept our most cordial congratulations!" Antonov said. https://tass.com/society/1096371

As RAGA readers know, just about every RAGA newsletters for several years has ended with Professor Brumfield’s brief and precise photographic record of Russian religious heritage, often Orthodox Christian churches and chapels that fell apart from age, abuse and vicious desecration during anti-religious campaigns of Soviet government.  

In a sense, William Brumfield has been playing a role similar to that of Savva Yamshchikov and dozens other selfless Russian restorers of Russian religious art after decades of Soviet abuse. As Wikipedia says, Savva Yamshchikov (1938 –2009) was a leading expert on Russian provincial art, particularly medieval icon painting and of the 18th and 19th centuries. Graduated from the Moscow University, Yamshchikov worked at the All-Russian Art Restoration Center in Moscow. He went from one province to another in order to find medieval icons that required cleansing. Yamshchikov …advised Andrei Tarkovsky on the film production of “Andrei Rublev” and Sergey Bondarchuk on the film Boris Godunov.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savva_Yamshchikov

December 23, 2019, William Brumfield gave a great talk to Muscovites in the Museum of Andrei Rublev. It was the best place for him to speak. “The idea to create a museum of religious art emerged in the aftermath of the Second World War. During the years of Stalin’s fight with religion and the devastating war, a great many Orthodox churches in the Soviet Union had been looted or badly damaged. The museum staff restored the remaining works of art and searched for other artifacts. The museum’s opening took place in 1960.” https://www.moscovery.com/andrei-rublev-museum-of-ancient-russian-culture-and-art/

So here William presented his latest book “Puti k Belomu Moriu” (‘Ways to the White Sea’) which is actually a Russian translation of his book “Architecture at the End of the Earth: Photographing the Russian North” published by Duke University Press in in Durham, London, 2015. As I currently reside in Moscow, it fell upon me to say a few words about William after his introduction by the Museum rep.
 
I told the audience how I founded the Russia & America Good Will association (RAGA.org) in early 1990s. After the collapse of the USSR, all former Soviet associations of friendship also disintegrated, including the one in Washington DC.  That’s why I decided to fill the vacuum with an organization that was essentially non-political and non-partisan.  We favor neither Democrats nor Republicans, neither Capitalism nor Socialism, neither neoliberal economics nor Neo-Conservative politics.  After over 70 years of isolation from the outside world, former Soviet citizens, as well as Americans, needed People-to-People contacts. To make those contacts more rewarding we should abandon all prejudices and act always in the spirit of Good Will.

As former professor of Russian Studies and-- after moving to Washington DC in 1991-- as a free-lance interpreter and translator I knew full well that in addition to whatever cultural and language barriers, all former Soviet citizens – and I worked not just with Russian and Ukrainians, but also Georgians, Azerbaijanis and all Central Asian republics –badly needed to overcome the political prejudices and restrictions imposed on them by Soviet propagandists.  On a much smaller scale and with meager resources, RAGA had been doing the work similar to that the Open World Leadership program (https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9908/rlp.html ) founded Dr. James Billington (1929 – 2015) of the Library of Congress and Russian Academician Dmitry Likhachev (1906 – 1999), a former GULAG prisoner on the Solovky Islands , photographed by Brumfield.

Sharon Tennison’s Center for Citizen Initiatives (https://ccisf.org/) in San Francisco has also served as RAGA’s role model, as well as Eduard Lozansky’s  American University in Moscow (http://us-russia.org/)

Among RAGA’s favorite sources is The American Committee for East-West Accord, Ltd. (https://eastwestaccord.com/). RAGA relies on such perceptive authors as Dr. Gilbert Doctorow who watches the world from Brussels and Patrick Armstrong, a former Canadian diplomat, who always presents an excellent overview of US-Russia events.

In addition to RAGA, I have published my own articles on the site of Fitzgerald Friffin Foundation (as W George Krasnow), Johnson Russia List (https://russialist.org/), Veterans Today, and Antiwar.com. I have been interviewed by Dr. Kevin Barrett’s Truthjihad Radio.  Lately, The Unz Review and Russia-Insider posted a number of my articles.

Whenever I can I try to acquaint Russian people with how Americans view Russia. I have also translated into Russian a number of such outstanding American authors as Patrick Buchanan, Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Allan Brownfeld, Chas Freeman, Charles Bausman, and Marjory Cohn.

In Russia, where I currently reside, my articles appeared in Predstavitelnaya vlast’ (http://www.pvlast.ru/archive/index.565.php), an independent State Duma magazine, and in a number of local newspapers. I was also often interviewed by RADIO RADONEZH, an independent Christian radio station that broadcasts worldwide. In Russia, RAGA closely works with the Global Harmony Association founded by Dr. Leo Semashko of Sankt Peterburg (https://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=253) some twelve years ago. I have published my articles there too: https://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=884

Overall, I must conclude that Professor Brumfield’s pictographic presentation of the uniqueness of Russian civilization to the outside world, especially to the Americans, constitute an important ingredient to RAGA’s peace-promoting endeavors, and I personally congratulate him on receiving a high award from the Russian government.
To see Brumfield’s pictographic art, any RAGA reader can review previous issues of RAGA Antidotes. 

​Sincerely,
W George Krasnow (http://wiki-org.ru/wiki/Краснов,_Владислав_Георгиевич)
President, RAGA
www.raga.org
Facebook

Peace and Justice to the World. 
миру мир и благоволение в сердцах

From RAGA site:
"We are an association of Americans who believe it is in the U.S. national interests to foster friendship with Russia on the basis of mutual Good Will and non-interference in each other's affairs. RAGA is a gathering of people who share common interests in Russia's history, culture, religion, economy, politics and the way of life. We feel that Russian people have made outstanding contributions to humankind and are capable of greater achievements. We envision Russia as a strong, independent, proud and free nation and as a partner in achieving peace in the world."

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

​Greetings!
Dear friends of the Russia & America Good Will Association (www.raga.org) and antiwar colleagues!

Congrats!
Let me congratulate everyone with the Thanksgiving Holidays! And never forget about our predecessors in America, the native Indians!

ATTENTION - About using TOR or Opera VPN Browser to visit RAGA from other countries! For some time I have heard the reports that RAGA became inaccessible for readers located in Russia and, perhaps, some other countries. No worry:  try - out TOR Browser. It is easy to install, and it is FREE: https://www.torproject.org/download/ See more options at the end!

Right away, read two outstanding reviews of two outstanding books by two outstanding peace champions.

​Professor Michael Brenner reviews Edward Snowden's book "Permanent Record" 

There was a time in America when a Snowden would be celebrated as the model of an idealistic young man whose devotion to principle placed justice before self-interest. Nowadays, the baying pack of scoundrels,  careerists and bumblers who run the country howl for his traitorous hide.  Obviously, there are exceptions. Yet, one is hard-pressed to identify voices raised on his behalf. 

http://www.raga.org/news/edward-snowdens-permanent-record-book-review-by-prof-michael-brenner-must-read

​How to Save the Planet and Ourselves

Now Chris Hedges reviews Roger Hallam's New Book
Chris Hedges is a Truthdig columnist, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a New York Times best-selling author  

If you read only one book this year, it should be Roger Hallam’s “Common Sense for the 21st Century: Only Nonviolent Rebellion Can Now Stop Climate Breakdown and Social Collapse.”
Hallam’s lucid and concise book, which echoes Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense,” says what many of us now know to be true but do not say: If we do not replace the ruling elites soon we are finished as a species. It is a cogent, well-argued case for global rebellion—the only form of resistance that can save us from ecosystem collapse and human-induced genocide. It correctly analyzes the failure of environmentalist activists in groups such as 350.org to understand and confront global corporate power and thus make a meaningful impact as we barrel toward ecocide. “Common Sense for the 21st Century” is a survival manual for the human species. “The corrupt system is going to kill us all unless we rise up,” Hallam, a co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, bluntly warns.  https://www.truthdig.com/articles/how-to-save-the-planet-and-ourselves/  

PeopleNow.org Newsletter #1  

Ron Fisher www.dfpa.org,
doing business as PeopleNow.org
Fisher@PeopleNow.org
703-725-7849
Arlington, Virginia
Ron Fisher Bio  

​More opinions

Gordon M. Hahn: Fables of Ignatius
Nov 24, 2019 08:47 pm
It is now important for every American to realize that he or she can get little to no reliable news from the US mainstream media on Ukraine, Russia, or even the United States itself.With it becoming ever more clear that the US government and media have been covering up especially the Democratic Party’s collusion with Ukraine’s government in order to facilitate the self-enrichment of DP leaders’ family members, undermine the presidential candidacy and presidency of Donald Trump (however unpresidential he may be) and foment liberal-socialist revolutions globally, the participants are moving into high gear propaganda mode. A recent piece from David Ignatius is a good place to begin to highlight the intensification.... 
https://gordonhahn.com/2019/11/22/fables-of-ignatius/

25 Times Trump Has Been Dangerously Hawkish On Russia
November 19, 2019 • Caitlin Johnstone discredits a CNN listicle on Trump’s “softness” towards Moscow. In fact, she writes, the U.S. president has  actually been consistently reckless towards Moscow, with zero resistance from either party. 
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com
​
CNN has published a fascinatingly manipulative and falsehood-laden article titled “25 times Trump was soft on Russia,” in which a lot of strained effort is poured into building the case that the U.S. president is suspiciously loyal to the nation against which he has spent his administration escalating dangerous new cold war aggressions.

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/11/19/25-times-trump-has-been-dangerously-hawkish-on-russia/  
​
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2019/11/18/for-wall-street-russia-has-become-bullet-proof/#75f5c706ffd4  ​

Covert Operative In Ukraine Controversy Revealed To Be Associated Press – OpEd

November 15, 2019 By William Dunkerley
CONCLUSION:At this point it is necessary to reflect upon what AP is up to. What kind of role is it playing in bringing vital political news to American voters? A quote from Walter Cronkite can help put this into perspective: “We all have our likes and our dislikes. But… when we’re doing news — when we’re doing the front-page news, not the back page, not the op-ed pages, but when we’re doing the daily news, covering politics — it is our duty to be sure that we do not permit our prejudices to show. That is simply basic journalism.”  I can’t think of a rational argument that would support a notion that AP is practicing even basic journalism. It has exploited the presumptive trust enjoyed by its Stylebook — a bible in the journalism field — to covertly propagate one-sided “background” to its unsuspecting readers. If one accepts Cronkite’s concept of journalism, there no longer seems to be reason to trust AP’s Stylebook. It’s wrong on the political issues. It’s even wrong on the simple matter of how to spell the Ukrainian president’s name. The Stylebook might more honestly be termed a political document that manifests an insidious propensity to propagate false and misleading information. What a sad and troubling conclusion that is. 
https://www.eurasiareview.com/15112019-covert-operative-in-ukraine-controversy-revealed-to-be-associated-press-oped/  ​

Inconvenient Truths.  Alarming things we have learned under Trump, but not always about him.
By Stephen F. Cohen  NOVEMBER 6, 2019
The current state of US-Russian relations is unprecedentedly dangerous, not only due to reasons cited here—a new Cold War fraught with the possibility of hot war. Whether President Trump serves one or two terms, he must be fully empowered to cope with the multiple possibilities of a US-Russian military confrontation. That requires ridding him and our nation of Russiagate allegations—and that in turn requires learning how such allegations originated.  
https://www.thenation.com/article/inconvenient-truths-2/  

PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Impeachment Pantomime
The political theatrics that begin Wednesday raise several questions. For starters, will Joe Biden be investigated for mounting evidence of corruption? And why is the  corporate media turning the CIA “whistleblower” into a phantom in plain sight?
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/11/12/patrick-lawrence-the-impeachment-pantomime/

John Brennan's CIA Trump Task Force - Could it become Obamagate?
By Philip Giraldi
November 12, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - There is considerable evidence that the American system of government may have been victimized by an illegal covert operation organized and executed by the U.S. intelligence and national security community. Former Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director Jim Comey appear to have played critical leadership roles in carrying out this conspiracy and they may not have operated on their own. Almost certainly what they may have done would have been explicitly authorized by the former President of the United States, Barack Obama, and his national security team.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52532.htm

RAGA.org thinks the "Neo-Con" title says it ALL. Cheers to David Stockman for saying it. Vladislav Krasnov
Up In Smoke: The Neocon Assault on Syria Is Finally Over
By David Stockman
October 24, 2019 "Information Clearing House"  

...Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming that the Arab Spring and the conflict in Syria were the result of external intervention and subversion....   

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52440.htm  

​Is Ukraine vital to U.S. security?
By Edward Lozansky - - Wednesday, November 27, 2019
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
The ongoing impeachment inquiry of President Trump can certainly compete with Hollywood’s most successful drama or comedy shows. However, when we deal with national security issues one expects the actors, in this case members of Congress and witnesses, to tell the truth. In this case, some do, but some regrettably do not. The whole picture, said House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, Louisiana Republican, looks like a “Soviet-style” event.  ...In this political atmosphere, anyone who calls for resumption of U.S.-Russian dialogue is labeled as Mr. Putin’s bootlicker or useful idiot at best. It was French President Macron who pronounced NATO’s brain to be dead and has come up with some ideas on how to avoid, in the words of former Sen. Sam Nunn and many other serious analysts, the process of “sleepwalking into nuclear catastrophe.”   Will Washington listen? Chances are not good, but what is the alternative?
⦁ Edward Lozansky is president of the American University in Moscow.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/nov/27/crosstalk-is-ukraine-vital-to-us-security/

Everyone Is a Russian Asset
America laughed at Hillary Clinton’s remarks about Tulsi Gabbard, but her ideas fit perfectly in the intellectual mainstream
By MATT TAIBBI

Hillary Clinton, not long ago the nominee of the Democratic Party, had some choice words about the state of American politics Friday.
  “I’m not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate,” Clinton said on a podcast with former Barack Obama aide David Plouffe. “She’s the favorite of the Russians.”
  Clinton appeared to be talking about Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a combat veteran. She wasn’t done, teeing off on former Green Party candidate Jill Stein:
  “[Jill Stein’s] also a Russian asset… Yeah, she’s a Russian asset — I mean, totally. They know they can’t win without a third-party candidate.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/clinton-gabbard-russian-asset-jill-stein-901593/

​Hillary Clinton Is A Psychopath And A War Criminal: Prof. Francis Boyle
Dialogos Radio Interviews Prof. Francis Boyle
   The transcript of Dialogos Radio’s interview with international lawyer and professor Francis Boyle of the University of Illinois. This interview aired on their broadcasts for the week of February 18-24, 2016. Find the podcast of this interview here.
    MN: Joining us today on Dialogos Radio and the Dialogos Interview Series is international lawyer and professor of international law at The University of Illinois Dr. Francis Boyle. Boyle has served as legal counsel to the Palestinian Authority, to Hawaiian independence groups, and served on the legal team which led to the conviction of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for war crimes. Professor Boyle, welcome to our program today.
https://www.countercurrents.org/boyle020316.htm

Pepe Escobar: The Road to Damascus: How the Syria War was Won
​Oct 23, 2019 10:58 am
What is happening in Syria, following yet another Russia-brokered deal, is a massive geopolitical game-changer.  

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/10/18/pepe-escobar-the-road-to-damascus-how-the-syria-war-was-won/  ​
​

Everybody Betraying Everybody in Syria
After some eight years of civil conflict, the situation in Syria is basically reverting to the pre-conflict norm, writes Graham E. Fuller.
By Graham E. Fuller
grahamefuller.com
Just what have we witnessed in the recent events in Syria? It’s hard to know, given the avalanche of superficial and over-the-top headlines in most U.S. media: betrayal of the Kurds, handing Syria over to Russia, caving to Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan, bestowing a gift upon Iran, allowing ISIS to once again run wild, end of U.S. leadership.
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/10/16/everybody-betraying-everybody-in-syria/

Restoration of the Monastery of St. Dimitry of Rostov
https://www.rbth.com/travel/331320-rostov-iakov-monastery

Comparison of early 20th-century photographs in the Prokudin-Gorsky Collection (Library of Congress) with photographs from William C. Brumfield Collection  (National Gallery of Art) . 

232nd article in "Discovering Russia" series. 
General link:  https://www.rbth.com/special-discovering-russia

Monumental art in Yaroslavl: Church of the Prophet Elijah
https://www.rbth.com/travel/331251-yaroslavls-church-prophet-elijah
​
Comparison of early 20th-century photographs in the Prokudin-Gorsky Collection (Library of Congress) with photographs from William C. Brumfield Collection  (National Gallery of Art). 

231st article in "Discovering Russia" series. 
https://www.rbth.com/special-discovering-russia

Rebuilding a masterpiece of wooden architecture. the Intercession Church from Ankhimovo:
https://www.rbth.com/travel/331188-intercession-church-petersburg

Comparison of early 20th-century photographs in the Prokudin-Gorsky Collection (Library of Congress) with photographs from William C. Brumfield Collection  (National Gallery of Art) . 

230th article in "Discovering Russia" series. 
General link:   https://www.rbth.com/special-discovering-russia

ATTENTION - About using TOR or Opera VPN Browser to visit RAGA from other countries! For some time I have heard the reports that RAGA became inaccessible for readers located in Russia and, perhaps, some other countries. No worry:  try - out TOR Browser. It is easy to install, and it is FREE: 
https://www.torproject.org/download/

Opera is also free and offers similar VPN function: 
https://www.opera.com/computer/features/free-vpn

*TOR and other VPN browsers are restricted in some countries so know your local laws before using these programs. Act at your won risk. 

BBC News: The former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev full interview
The former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has warned that current tension between Russia and the West is putting the world in “colossal danger” due to the threat from nuclear weapons.
In an interview with the BBC's Steve Rosenberg, former President Gorbachev called for all countries to declare that nuclear weapons should be destroyed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYVsKoQXATY

Sincerely,
W George Krasnow (http://wiki-org.ru/wiki/Краснов,_Владислав_Георгиевич)
President, RAGA
www.raga.org
Facebook

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

Edward Snowden’s book is not a ‘coming-of-age’ saga. It is necessary to say that at the outset. One of the peculiarities of our times is the penchant for rendering everything in terms of so-called ‘human interest.’  The most profound events, the most penetrating analysis, the most stirring ideas – all are reduced to personality. Whether it is the personality of the author, a representation of the subject, or some background character, we wonder: Who can write about Hillary without immediately bringing up Bill?

So, it is no surprise that the reviews of Snowden’s revelatory and instructive account of his experience place undue stress on background, his relationship with his now wife Lindsay Mills (an admirable person), his workplace colleagues. They come up dry in terms of the man. They are totally irrelevant to the crucial issues of America’s Intelligence obsession/abuse.

Admittedly, Snowden does offer us a descriptive account of his life’s progression – but it is all quite prosaic. You don’t find either ‘Snowden’ or the meaning of what his has exposed (in the book as well as in the ‘papers’) by looking at the outer contours of his life. That does not deter reviewers, of course. They are driven by three things: our culture’s pervasive voyeurism, the bottom line of whatever media company they’re writing for, and – most powerfully – an escape from the responsibility to address the grave and shameful matters that he discusses. The last is at once an intellectual challenge and a career risk.

Snowden’s awakening to the distressing illegal activities of the NSA/CIA nexus was gradual. Omens were there early on – as was his discomfort with the Intelligence world’s ethics. He joined the CIA in 2007 just a few years after the 9/11 trauma. Let us recall that period. The country was panicked; a quiet hysteria was everywhere. So was a thirst for vengeance. Official Washington lived with the dread of more attacks to come. Few understood the dimensions of the threat or its mainsprings. The brooding atmosphere was like a lingering winter ground-fog. It has yet to fully disperse. The Intelligence agencies felt the imperative to act, i.e. to do something without delay. Thinking it all through was neither any office’s clear responsibility nor seen as a logical prelude to taking action.

In typical fashion the impulsive response was to mobilize resources – money and technology, the two prized assets in the United States’ Intelligence arsenal. The money was duly appropriated. How to spend it was the challenge. Disposing of $75 billion a year is not easy when you already possess an apparatus larger than that of all the world’s other Intelligence services combined. Technology came to the rescue as the quickest way to absorb all those dollars. That is to say, technology and its human consorts numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

Recruiters combed the universities to lay their hands on pretty much any live body that came within reach. Many bodies responded to their blandishments.  Patriotism was a big sell. So was the prospect of a well-paid, secure job. Credentials were secondary – with somef exceptions. Language skills were one, especially Arabic, Farsi and other neglected ‘exotic’ tongues. IT capabilities were in even greater demand. For nerds, it was like Paradise – the promised land of 77 jobs open to the bearded, the tattooed, the loners, the addicted tinkers. Diversity left room for the conventional, too.

Snowden was pretty conventional on most counts. Consumed by IT to the point of neglecting his formal studies, he had an independent cast of mind, unawed by authority, but not a born rebel. After kicking around in a number of schools and jobs interspersed with a stint in the Army, he wound up applying to a position advertised at a consulting firm called COMSO. He was 23. (Snowden never bothered to find out what the acronym stood for; apparently it’s owned by BAEA Systems). A few exchanges of electronic correspondence led to an interview in a non-descript office in a non-descript building in Greenbelt, Maryland with an everyman non-descript recruiter.

A cursory conversation concluded with the man telling Snowden “the job is yours, Edward. What sort of salary are you looking for?” Snowden’s $50k request rose to $62k at the man’s prodding – he was bent on getting the amount as high as reasonably possible. Why? His outfit wasn’t going to pay it; rather, the U.S. government via the CIA would with the recruiting company getting a fixed percentage. ‘Cost-plus” is what they call it. These were (are) the terms on which roughly 80% of the ‘contractors’ who make up the NSA (and technical CIA workforce) got their jobs. Some switch to the more secure status of a straight government employee, some jump back and forth -as did Snowden.

In effect, the famed Intelligence community turned over recruiting responsibilities for staffing the great “War On Terror” to private, for-profit firms. Some were big defense contractors like Lockheed Martin – others small-time operations that acted as little more than a dating service. A strong preference was given to candidates who had advanced skills and some experience. The NSA and CIA didn’t want to be bothered training them. It did, though, take 6 months to indoctrinate and to socialize them.

As Snowden writes, “restructuring your intelligence agencies so that your most sensitive systems were being run by somebody who really didn’t work for you was what passed for innovation.” It did line the pockets of both the dating services and the top administrators who would eventually parachute into lavishly paid positions at those same outfits.

Security clearances? A formality. Given that 835,000 people have wound up with TOP SECRET clearances, it was derisory. A Mickey Mouse polygraph exam: “have you ever been a member or supporter of al-Qaeda?..” A cheap sedative would get you through even if you did have something awkward to hide. Background checks were of the kind done by shop-worn FBI agents in regional offices who show up in a professor’s office with a checklist of banal questions. “Has Jane Doe, to the best of your knowledge, ever belonged to an organization that seeks the overthrow of the United States government? To the best of your knowledge, is Jane Doe addicted to any illegal substance or engaged in alcohol abuse?”

An honest answer would be: “How the hell do I know?” Never having had the pleasure of being invited to a pre-dawn gathering of her and her confederates where they practiced suicide bombings while under the influence of the drug of the month, all I could say was ‘NO.’ The likelihood of having provided cover for a sleeper agent of a terrorist organization was virtually non-existent. The sober truth is that the number of such who have surfaced since 9/11 numbers is in the low single digits. Those few slipped through the fingers of an FBI whose considerable resources were spent entrapping and directing poor sods who, left to their own devices, never would have gotten up from their bar stools or dragged themselves away from their PCs.

Such security measures, existing at the time of Snowden’s recruitment, were ill-suited to identify a dedicated young American whose intelligence, courage and integrity prompted him to take the risk of revealing that the Intelligence agencies he worked for were violating the law and the Constitution on the orders of 3 successive Presidents and their appointees.

In theory, agents of hostile governments (a bestiary now composed of Russia, Iran, China, Hezbollah, Syria and the ever-menacing Mr. Maduro in Caracas) could have taken advantage of the Intelligence agencies slapdash recruiting methods and flawed IT security to penetrate into those ever-expanding data banks. None have managed what Snowden did – at least not from the inside. They could have – if the intent existed. Just respond to a job announcement inserted by the non-descript man in the non-descript office (and take that sedative when they hook you up to the polygraph).

Ironically, one of Snowden’s frustrations before government criminality wracked his conscience was the lackadaisical response of his superiors to his pointing out the seriousness of those flaws – and more serious technical flaws in their systems -and to his recommendations for remedying them.  His initiative produced nothing in the way of remediation.

The system – organization, modes, persons – Snowden describes exhibits some singular features. Most striking is the disproportionate effort and resources devoted to its maintenance. His arrival came at the moment when the CIA and NSA were charging ahead full-bore to build and deploy a vast, high tech apparatus for accumulating, storing and sifting vast amounts of Intelligence data. That involved hardware, software, real estate, dense networks of personnel scattered around the globe and – not least – an intricate, multi-layered organizational complex. Communication was the common denominator.

Communications among unwitting sources picked up by a mind-boggling array of surveillance devices; communications within the Intelligence administration – horizontally, vertically, matrixed into storage sites, out of storage sites; communication among technicians, analysts, directors, and policy-makers. The last, of course, was least developed or standardized. Witness Mr. Tenet, Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Cheney.

Maintaining the systems consumed the lion’s share of the resources.  Actual deployment/activation was relatively cheap. Transmission/storage was another ‘gas-guzzler.’ Add in the enormous waste and redundancy involved in relying on a galaxy of predatory contracting firms, and you have the answer as how to spend $80 annually while accomplishing very little of value.

Further evidence of how pervasive is the technology driven operations of the IC is the disparagement of human Intelligence. We do know that this shift began several years before 9/11. Still, when Snowden arrived in Geneva on his first overseas assignment, the CIA still was hunting and signing up real live sources. Even Snowden the nerd was mobilized to try his hand – despite an aversion to gala parties and alcohol. An expatriate Saudi supposedly involved in oil and money had been identified as someone to look into.

Snowden was told to make the first contact before passing him on to a ‘pro.’ This episode quickly turns comedic – not because of Snowden’s naïveté but due to the bumbling of his senior operator. The latter wound up being recalled to Maclean. The humiliated Saudi wound up back in the Kingdom nursing a life-long grudge against the Yanks who had pulled the rug out from under his posh Geneva sedan chair.

This occurred just about the time that the CIA honchos made the fateful decision to drop those old-fashioned methods of seducing/ buying/blackmailing/running agents. The substitute method was simplicity itself. Predictably, it was technology grounded, antiseptic and did away with the need for most human faculties. Step 1: identify somebody who might know something worth having. Step 2: ‘tap’ as many of his/her electronic communications as possible. Collect and store the data for future ‘algorithm-fication.’  Installation, the only sensitive part of the process, became progressively easier as surveillance technology developed ever greater sophistication. Clean & easy.

HUMINT was being marginalized just as old-fashioned SIGNET was being recast as “cyberintelligence.” That foreshadow the morphing of “mass surveillance’ into “bulk collection” and “metadata” – the former connotation suggesting the bi-annual municipal trash service and the latter impressive but unfrightening.

By 2011, Snowden – now promoted to a bigger job with expanded access – was fully aware that the United States was committed to a massive, global strategy of electronic surveillance. The ultimate aim was to assemble a vast horde of data about everyone who conceivably was worth tracking, and hundreds of millions about whom you knew nothing. BUT about whom you might to know something at some future time – whether on the basis of specific reference or the algorithm printouts. That realization left him deeply disturbed.

Moreover, a harsh truth was emerging. The developing system paid scant attention to legal constraints or privacy rights of any kind. Indeed, a powerful logic was at work that was driving the process toward a total disregard for the 4th amendment. Its strictures could not be accommodated by the technology – hardware & software. The organizational drive within the Intelligence agencies steamrolled all other considerations. Regard for the sensibilities of foreign governments didn’t figure in the equation. Precedent setting and possible retaliation similarly were given no thought (“this is America – isn’t it!”) The emotions that fueled the War On Terror were still eclipsing reason – and they were being inflamed by politicos around the country.

 Finally, there was unanimity among higher-ups – in the Intelligence agencies, in Congress, in the courts, in the Justice Department and in the White House under 3 successive Presidents - in holding to the view that the law had to bend before the exigencies of the threatening times. The Privacy vs Security trade-off as it mistakenly was called by all and sundry – including renowned law professors writing in the New York Review of Books and other esteemed places. In truth it was a conflict between the Law and Lawlessness.

The difference between the two formulations is elementary – but fundamental. The concept of “security vs privacy” has no standing whatsoever in the law – regardless of the standing it might have in the policy realm or philosophical discourse. (‘Mitigating circumstances’ may be acknowledged; however, they come into play only at the sentencing stage. A crime is a crime is a crime). The readiness to obscure that difference, therefore, had nothing to do with intellect. Rather, it demonstrated that we were not ready to go down a road to where Constitution met political expediency.  That attitude has contributed to the persecution of Snowden.

There is a straightforward way to reconcile the two. If one feels that the privacy vs security balance is weighed too heavily in the privacy direction, then there is a method for shifting it, i.e. pass new legislation &/or constitutional amendment. Of course, if you are in panic mode and believe that the exigencies are so acute as to put the Republic at risk, then you are tempted to circumvent the law - especially easy to do when the President is directing you under prodding by the Vice-President.

People like Snowden were not privy to the details. But the implications of the technical tasks they were doing pointed to the conclusion that such a compact was in place. Lawlessness was destined to win.

In particular regard to elite political consensus, let us recall the bipartisan cabal formed by President Bush in 2002 to launch a radical surveillance program that they acknowledged was illegal and nullified the 4th amendment. There was the Deistic push to all that followed. That story was recounted by James Risen in his 2006 book STATE OF WAR – a story that his New York Times editors had in October 2004 but withheld under direct pressure from the Bush White House.

The cabal’s members included all the Congressional leaders from both parties (Pelosi, Daschle, Feinstein on the Democratic side), the Attorney General John Ashcroft, Chief Justice Rehnquist, Robert Mueller – Director of the FBI, as well as the heads of the principal Intelligence agencies and their chief subordinates: General Michael Hayden at the CIA, George Tenet at CIA, and Admirals Thomas Wilson and Lowell Jacoby at DIA. They were sworn to secrecy – an oath they’ve observed to this day. The big IT companies provided helpful services while denying that awkward fact. After all, they were doing something similar for their own deceitful commercial purposes.

Thereby, the equivalent of a “Line of Blood’ was drawn that placed the leaders of America on the side of clandestine criminality. That truth foreclosed any chance of the country’s coming to terms with what constitutes a revision of the Constitution without due process. Overcoming it was certainly not something that an Obama had either the conviction or courage to try doing. Snowden did. The vehemence of his denunciation and persecution by Obama and other self-styled liberal humanists can be explained by the juxtaposition. *

They, and America’s political class generally, cannot understand a man like Snowden. Just what makes him tick is beyond their comprehension. That dread of the unknowable stokes their passionate enmity toward him. Moreover, he might inspire others of similar character. The prospect of an upwelling of such persons exposing the deceit, lawlessness and incompetence - that had become endemic in the most sensitive corners of the American government was nightmarish. Even worse, it undercut their cultivated self-image as public servants of rectitude. Therefore, the instinct of Obama, Holder, Hillary, the NYT editors’ et al was to crucify Snowden.

Snowden rose rapidly into more and more responsible positions – propelled by his talents, his innovative mind and technical curiosity. With promotion came even greater access to the sweep of the IC’s surveillance activities. From Tokyo to Maryland to Hawaii, he encountered PRISM in all its troubling dimensions.

“PRISM is a code name for a program under which the United States National Security Agency (NSA) collects internet communications from various U.S. internet companies. The program is also known by the SIGAD US-984XN. PRISM collects stored internet communications based on demands made to internet companies such as Google LLC under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to turn over any data that match court-approved search terms. The NSA can use these PRISM requests to target communications that were encrypted when they traveled across the internet backbone, to focus on stored data that telecommunication filtering systems discarded earlier, and to get data that is easier to handle, among other things.”

It was his involvement with PRISM that convinced Snowden of the imperative to expose it. For he was now an active contributor to a criminal operation – an aggressive multi-dimensional program that was routinely violating Americans’ basis constitutional rights while promising even deeper encroachments. Nobody was inclined to do anything about it.

Under the pressure of being Dell’s chief technologist for the CIA account and recoiling from the programs he was directing, Snowden began to suffer nervous seizures. It was finally diagnosed as a form of epilepsy.

Back in Hawaii, his plans began to crystallize. They were encouraged by a talk given there by the CIA’s chief technology officer ‘Gus’ Hunt. He informed the audience that “At the CIA, we fundamentally try to collect everything and hang onto it forever.” There were journalists there from the ‘high tech’ press and journals. Hunt mentioned to them, in a private discussion, that the agency could subject to surveillance every one of their communications – much of it through their smart phones, activated or not. None of them reported on what was said. Mysteriously, a video of the talk appeared on You Tube – site visited by a total of 302 people in 6 years. Some of those journalists might very well be commenting on Snowden’s book in reviews heavy on the Lindsay element.

The date was March 20, 2013. Exactly 7 days earlier, General James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. In response to a direct question from Senator Wyden as to whether the NSA conducted mass surveillance of Americans, Clapper replied: ‘NO.” His lie represented criminal perjury, a perjury ignored by all parties.

Have we gotten our money’s worth? If not – why? You decide.

• In the Spring of 2008, legislation to extend the broad powers of the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act (FSIA) was before the Congress. Senator Barack Obama made strongly worded comments committing himself to opposing it – indeed, to filibuster against it. When the bill came up in June, he voted in favor. Responding to criticism of his volte-face, he wrote an open letter disparaging his critics as ‘my left-wing friends.’  Three months earlier, he too had been one of those distained left-wingers. That was an augury of things to come.  

In the wake of the Snowden revelations, President Obama assured the country that “no one is listening to your phone calls.” It was a bald-faced lie. Right then it should have been obvious what manner of man was on the threshold of the White House. Such is our capacity for self-delusion that even today, 11 years later, I know of no public figure of the Democratic persuasion who is prepared to hold Obama to account. Yet they are free and easy with their denunciation of Edward Snowden – the villain, the traitor.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/10106919/Obama-on-NSA-surveillance-scandal-nobody-is-listening-to-your-phone-calls.html

Michael Brenner mbren@pitt.edu
You may also like to see Glen Grweenwald’s twit to me about the book
Glenn Greenwald@ggreenwald

 • Sep 12
Just got our copy of Edward @Snowden's book/memoir, Permanent Record! So much has been said about this great & courageous hero; now he finally tells his own story in his own words. It's out on Constitution Day - Sept 17 - but you can pre-order now https://amazon.com/Permanent-Record-Edward-Snowden/dp/1250237238

And my response to Greenwald
w george krasnow@vlad62slav

Edward Snowden is a hero for the global peace, and Glenn Greenwald be praised for his loyal support to Snowden and other peace champions. Snowden's book is a must for the citizens of the world.
 
P.S. For self-disclosure I must admit I have not read Snowden’s book but I wrote an article about him shortly after his defection. It was published by RAGA 

To Defect or to Integrate? The USA vs Edward Snowden 4/29/2014 

http://www.raga.org/news/to-defect-or-to-integrate-the-usa-vs-edward-snowden
​
I am also a former Soviet defector and the author of Soviet Defectors: The KGB Wanted List.
https://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Defectors-Wanted-Institution-Publication-ebook/dp/B07CQPFH5S
​
All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

​It is important we do not confuse Gandhi's Non-Violent philosophy with cowardice. As Gandhi himself put it: "Let no one say when I am gone that I taught the people to be cowards. I would far rather that you died bravely dealing a blow and receiving a blow than died in abject terror. Fleeing from battle is cowardice and unworthy of a warrior. Cowardice is worse than violence because cowards can never be non-violent." See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyagraha  

When an 800-kiloton nuclear warhead, some 53 times more powerful that the one dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, is detonated over Manhattan in the apocalyptic nuclear exchange with Russia, the center of the blast will reach four to five times the temperature of the sun and the resulting fire storm will cover 90 to 150 square miles and will rage for several hours, based on an assessment by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.  People and animals in the direct light of the fireball will be mutilated with third degree burns as far away as Corona, Queens, and Crown Heights, Brooklyn.  There will be no survivors within five to seven miles of Midtown Manhattan.

When command centers in and around the Russian capital are attacked with Trident nuclear warheads from a single submarine, “The total number of people who would die within 12 weeks in Moscow and the surrounding areas would be around 3 million, including around 750,000 children,” according to a study by John Ainslie. “Several million people would be injured.”  With all major hospitals in the area destroyed or rendered inoperable by radiation and fire, there will be no burn beds to alleviate the horrific wounds sustained by millions of people who are not completely incinerated.

Elaine Scarry, a Professor at Harvard University, in her recent interview in Boston Review invokes these and many other horrors that miraculously have not yet happened and warns: “I’m almost at the point of believing that there is a wanton refusal to see the imminent peril, a refusal to understand not just that we have a responsibility to reverse it, to dismantle it, but that we have the ability to do so, and that if we don’t, it is going to happen. I don’t know if it’s going to happen this year, or whether it’s going to happen this century, but it’s almost inconceivable that nuclear war isn’t going to happen.”

With hundreds of nuclear-tipped ICBMs in Russia and America on hair-trigger alert and a complete break-down in nuclear arms control agreements and communication between the world’s two largest nuclear superpowers, no words ring truer or more urgent today. 

Ernest Moniz and Sam Nunn, bemoaning this erosion of “strategic stability” in the U.S.-Russia relations, write in the Foreign Affairs magazine on this year’s somber 74th anniversary of Hiroshima Day: “Not since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis has the risk of a U.S.-Russian confrontation involving the use of nuclear weapons been as high as it is today. Yet unlike during the Cold War, both sides seem willfully blind to the peril.”

As the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the last remaining vestige of nuclear arms control architecture between the U.S. and Russia, is set to expire in 2021, and “all nine nuclear powers are…modernizing their nuclear weapons production facilities and adding new, improved types of nuclear weapons to their arsenals,” it is really hard to miss the gravity of what we are witnessing in the world today.  We have to start working on easing that omnicidal tension now, before it is too late.  In order to do this, we have to finish what we weren’t able to resolve in the 1990’s.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the world had a real chance of pursuing the path of peaceful co-existence.  The horrible nightmare that we all lived in during the second half of the twentieth century, in constant fear of mutually assured nuclear destruction, seemed to be over.  There were bright, peaceful years ahead.  But something went awfully wrong…

What we are experiencing today causes even more fear, and you can’t really call it a “nightmare” any longer.  It’s been a long time since everybody awoke, but most are still pretending to be asleep.  Good luck trying to wake them up, as Gandhi was well aware.  In the meantime, the Doomsday Clock is ticking, and the nuclear odds are not in our favor.

To stop the clock, before the minute hand irreversibly hits the eternal midnight, we are going to have to give up our misplaced faith in our own exceptional uniqueness and insularity.  It is that faith that allows us to see ourselves as superior to the rest of the world and, simultaneously, allows others to manipulate us.  What politician would be able to convince his constituents that the continuation of endless war is good for them, if they didn’t already believe that it would be necessary to preserve and impose forcefully on the rest of the world the freedom-loving fire of their benevolent exceptionalism?

That was precisely how, in the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy, which, in the words of the late Lynn Margulis, was “the most successful and most perverse publicity stunt in the history of public relations,” the neoconservatives were able to con America into adopting the concepts of unilateralism and pre-emptive military action.  After all, we know better what’s best for the rest of the planet, truth and justice be damned; we are the victims, we are different, and we’ll to dictate to others by our God-given privilege the rules and conditions of their dependent, inferior, and completely isolated existence.

Once we’ve let this faith in our uniquely-blessed exceptionalism and our vengeful self-righteousness, whether American, or Jewish, or Evangelical Christian, nurtured carefully by the state and mass media, blind us into such an illusion, we lost our chances for peaceful development in the world.  Russia, which was infected by the Bolsheviks with a similar belief system in the twentieth century, paid for it dearly after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  The United States is about to experience the same tragedy that it was forewarned about by the Russian ordeal.

The only thing that can help us now is the realization that we are all brothers and sisters.  We are all in this together; we are all the same and all so different.  We all share the same fundamental interests.  The other person’s happiness is no less valuable and important than ours.  And her pain no less terrible and unbearable than our own.  All those who say otherwise are our only enemies.  We have no others.  We have to overcome them with our self-enquiry and ensuing action.  There are many organizations and international efforts trying to bring peace and security to us all, but they need our collective and individual help.

First of all, there is the Appeal of the Hibakusha, the A-bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.  The Appeal, signed by over 9 million people around the world, states:

We, the Hibakusha, call on all State Governments to conclude a treaty to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons. The average age of the Hibakusha now exceeds 80. It is our strong desire to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world in our lifetime so that succeeding generations of people will not see hell on earth ever again.

You, your families and relatives, or any other people should not be made Hibakusha again. We believe that your signatures appended to this appeal will add up to the voices of hundreds of millions of people around the world and move international politics. They will finally save the future of our blue planet and all life on it. We earnestly appeal to you to append your signature to this petition.

Let’s get these signatures to 100,000,000 and make the Hibakusha and our voices heard!

Second, there is the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) itself, which was adopted at the UN on July 7, 2017.  On Hiroshima Day 2019, Bolivia became the 25th country to deposit its ratification instrument of the TPNW.  The Treaty will enter into force once it’s been ratified by 50 States, so we are now halfway to making nuclear weapons illegal under international law.  Organizations, such as ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) and Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations), need all the help we can provide them to make full ratification of the TPNW a reality.

Third, we need to follow the lead of the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) and bring the nuclear disarmament issue into the 2020 U.S. Presidential Campaign.  On July 1, 2019, the USCM, a nonpartisan association of 1,408 American cities with populations over 30,000, unanimously adopted a Mayors for Peace resolution “Calling on All Presidential Candidates to Make Known Their Positions on Nuclear Weapons and to Pledge U.S. Global Leadership in Preventing Nuclear War, Returning to Diplomacy, and Negotiating the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons”.  The USCM “calls on all Presidential candidates to pledge, if elected, to reverse U.S. opposition to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and to embrace its humanitarian values and goals”.  We have to bring this resolution to the attention of our mayors, public officials, and Presidential candidates.  And we need to help United for Peace & Justice, CodePink, World BEYOND War, and other peace organizations make this resolution, along with others adopted by the USCM in the past, front and center in a number of critical campaigns, including Back from the Brink and Divest from the War Machine.

Fourth, there was the Basel Appeal on Disarmament and Sustainable Security addressed in January  2019 to Presidents Trump and Putin, Secretary-General of NATO, and to the chairs of U.S. congressional and Russian parliamentary committees on defense and foreign relations, by mayors, parliamentarians and representatives of civil society organizations from some 40 countries, including the mayors of 18 U.S. cities.  Their joint appeal calls on the U.S., Russian and European leaders to preserve the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty (from which the United States formally withdrew on August 2), extend the New START Treaty until 2026, adopt ‘no-first-use’ and rescind ‘launch-on-warning’ policies, and work towards a nuclear-weapon-free world through “enhanced dialogue and engagement with other nuclear-armed States.” 

The endorsing mayors and parliamentarians also call on the Russian Duma and U.S. Congress to refuse to authorize or allocate funding for the nuclear weapons banned by the INF Treaty, reaffirm their commitment “to acting resolutely for a nuclear-weapons-free and less militarized world,” and “call on cities, parliaments, governments and civil society around the world to join us in this endeavor.”  You can already see these calls at work in several Congressional resolutions in the U.S., such as the No First-Use Act introduced by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congressman Adam Smith.

As  Christine Muttonen, Jacqueline Cabasso, and Alyn Ware write on IPS, “it may not be all up to Trump and Putin.”  They quote U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, who observed: “People want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.”

This power-from-below approach – taking concerted action on nuclear risk-reduction and disarmament in federal, state and city legislatures – is just beginning…There are powerful levers parliaments, cities and civil society can use to stop the unraveling of the arms control regime and prevent an arms race…

It is our responsibility as an informed public in what is supposed to be a participatory democracy to help them engage these levers.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, there are the indispensable nonviolent acts of civil disobedience that must become our reality for the foreseeable future.  We have plenty of examples of this in our past, from Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement in the U.S., to Mahatma Gandhi’s Satyagraha and the Indian independence movement, which was influenced heavily by Leo Tolstoy’s philosophy of “non-resistance to evil by force.”  Tolstoy was, in turn, moved by the Doukhobors (Духоборы, “Spirit Wrestlers”), whose pacifism and anti-war preaching led to government persecution in 19th-century Russia and whose immigration to Canada, following their 1895 mass burning of guns in Transcaucasia, Tolstoy helped finance, along with the British Quakers.  The Doukhobors tradition is alive in Canada to this day.

The Plowshares movement is a courageous example of anti-nuclear protests and nonviolent resistance to war in the present-day world.  The movement was started by the Reverend Daniel Berrigan, his brother Phillip and six other activists, known as the “Plowshares Eight”, when they trespassed onto the General Electric nuclear missile facility in King of Prussia, PA, on September 9, 1980.  They hammered on nuclear warhead nose cones, poured blood on documents, and prayed for peace, before being arrested. A prolonged court battle followed, with over 10 felony and misdemeanor charges piled on by the federal government.  The eight were convicted and served from five days to over 14 months in prison for their protest.

There have been 100 similar actions throughout the world since then, with the latest event organized on April 4, 2018.  On that day, marking the 50th anniversary of the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination, seven Catholic plowshares activists entered Kings Bay Naval base in St. Mary’s, GA, the largest nuclear submarine base in the world.

The Kings Bay Plowshares 7 (KBP7) said in their pre-action statement, “Weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons, create nothing but a false sense of security.  They cannot constitute the basis for peaceful co-existence between members of the human family, which must rather be inspired by an ethics of solidarity.  Nuclear weapons eviscerate the rule of law and force white supremacy, perpetuate endless war and environmental destruction, and ensure immunity for all manner of crimes against humanity…A just and peaceful world is possible when we join prayers with action, [beat] swords into plowshares.”

The KBP7 proceeded to symbolically and nonviolently convert the nuclear weapons of mass destruction stored at the base by hammering on a statue of a Trident II D5 missile and pouring their own blood on it.  They were arrested, and several of them, including the 79-year-old Liz McAlister, have spent the next 17 months (as of this writing) in jail, awaiting trial (now set for October 21) and facing 25 years in prison, if convicted of the multiple charges brought by the federal government.  Compare this with the 13 months served by the multimillionaire pedophile, sex trafficker, and alleged Mossad agent Jeffrey Epstein out of an 18-month sentence in 2008 for molesting 36 underage girls, some as young as 14 years old, and you’ll get the idea of whose interests the government and the justice system truly represent and why our nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience are so important.

It takes exceptional courage and dedication to do what the Plowshares Eight, KBP7, and the rest of the Plowshares movement have done, and very few of us will ever be able to rise to their level.  But we all have to stand in solidarity with these heroes, when they need our help the most.  Please join Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other Nobel Peace Laureates and distinguished supporters from around the world and sign a global petition to U.S. Attorney General William Barr to dismiss all charges against the Kings Bay Plowshares 7.

We can also look to the British-based group Extinction Rebellion (XR, for short) for inspiration in using “acts of peaceful civil disobedience to disrupt the business-as-usual which is sending our species on a one-way track to extinction.”  The movement was founded in May of 2018 (one month after the KBP7 action) by 94 academics who co-signed a letter declaring that “When a government willfully abrogates its responsibility to protect its citizens from harm and to secure the future for generations to come, it has failed in its most essential duty of stewardship. The “social contract” has been broken, and it is therefore not only our right, but our moral duty to bypass the government’s inaction and flagrant dereliction of duty, and to rebel to defend life itself.”

Extinction Rebellion has since brought together thousands of people around the world in nonviolent direct actions against the governments’ criminal inability to address the “direct existential threat” to humanity of climate change and ecological collapse.  Major roads and bridges were blocked and hundreds of demonstrators arrested.  XR organizers have called for a general strike around the world this October.  As Chris Hedges writes in Fear vs. Fear,

The 10-day protest in April in London led by Extinction Rebellion—which saw 1,130 people arrested as crowds repeatedly shut down major parts of the city in demonstrating against the failure of the ruling elites to confront the climate catastrophe—is what we must emulate…

Switch off the electronic images. Ignore the media burlesque. The endless political shows, which turn presidential campaigns into mind-numbing, two-year-long marathons, are entertainment. Do not trust anyone in power. We will save ourselves by building mass movements to overthrow corporate power. I am not certain we will succeed. But I am certain that if we fail, we are doomed.

Elaine Scarry observes in her interview for Boston Review that “It might be embarrassing to have to stand on a street corner with a sign or attend a public meeting.  Imagine, though, if we forgave the complicity with past acts of enslavement or genocide by saying, ‘People saw that it was wrong, but they considered it too intellectually obvious, too compromising of their dignity, to have to stand up and protest.’”

Discussing the meaning of the Second Amendment as the repudiation of a “standing army” that serves at the discretion of a single individual, without the consent of the citizens who are instead to be armed for their mutual self-defense, she notes that “A nuclear weapon is everything that was detested (and regarded as illegal) in the ‘standing army…’”  We have surrendered our right to self-defense, which underlies every other human right, to a “thermonuclear monarch,” who is “so thrilling, so important, so vulnerable that he alone deserves a fallout shelter.”

As for America’s political landscape,
Right now it seems there are only two options: keep the right to bear arms and continue to witness shootings in schools, streets, and workplaces, or repeal the right to bear arms altogether. But there is a third alternative: the left has to listen to the right, and the right has to listen to the left…Ours is a citizenry that needs to relearn what courage is; it’s not shooting schoolchildren, and it’s not firing nuclear missiles at the innocent citizenry of a foreign nation.

The Chinese writer and poet Lu Xun wrote, “Hope is like a path in the countryside. Originally, there is nothing–but as people walk this way again and again, a path appears.”  May we all walk this path to peace.
 
Author: Anna Tolstoyevskaya grew up in the Soviet Union and came to the U.S. as a student of Philology and Foreign Service in the mid-1990s. She is an analyst by trade and an Austinite at heart, having spent a third of her life in that beautiful city. She can be reached at atx3017@gmail.com.

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

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