Nightly Ramble: COLD!

Welcome, my frozen brothers and sisters, to the most intense nightly read in all the sphere: Bitsblog’s Nightly Ramble

More of that global warming stuff, today. Several inches of it, I hear… and the first batch is already falling. The expected cold snap is going to be longer than they were originally calling for. Now, we’re loking at TWO nights of below zero temps.  Oh, joy, rapture. Oh, well, let’s get to it.

• Glenn notes the proposal that’s been floating around about an income tax holiday surring the economy better than any other single action the government might take, by quoting Megan McCardle. One of her commenters mentions the showstopper for that proposal:
  

  The main problem with a payroll tax holiday is that it minimizes Congressional opportunities for graft and larding out goodies to their contributors. That makes it both wise and politically unfeasible, at least until we get a better class of congresscritter.

  Remember what I said about teachable moments, and pointing up the principles involved with them being the thrust of this place? Yep… there ya go. And Glenn notes:

  Uh oh. We’re screwed.

  Gee… No kidding? 

• And speaking of “See, I told you so’, Obama plans to send 30,000 of our troops to Afghanistan.  Remember yesterday how I mentioned the bit with Dale and how we may have Nazis to fight? See, here’s the thing. Dale’s correct when he says that on a per capita basis, there is no real justification for the amount of effort we put forward in WWII, to be applied to our current situation. That said, when have we not seen Democrats over-managed by crisis calling before? I mean, since when has reality ever had up justification of any excess they wanted? Global warming, for example… hoax that it is, still manages to push us, by way of the left, into reshaping our entire economy. Does anyone think for a minute Obama wouldn’t use the Islamic threat to over-react with spending on any damn thing that moves?
• At the same time, Obama plans to issue the order to close Gitmo on the first day. Talk about being driven by politics and not reality.  Corners are going to be cut to get this in.  People are going to be released who shouldn’t be so that Obama can have his pound of flesh. The Pentegon tells us it’s happened already, again driven by liberals who let emotion and not logic drive their positions.  I’ll tell you this; A bunch of cats (no, not sea kittens… the real kind) being slowly roasted alive wouldn’t compare to the screaming that will occur when one.. ONE… of the animals Obama proposes to release, show up as part of an attack here in the US… and particualrly if they cause any US deaths.   Note I used the word ‘when’ and not ‘if’.
• That woman selling her virginity? She suppsoedly got the idea from her sister who did some high dollar prostitution, too. So, forget about presenting this thing as any kind of morality play; it’s already a lost cause, on that level. We’re left with the practical;
  •   First of all, let’s find some proof she’s a virgin.
  • That aside… there’s the money issue.  No question that the girl’s not hard to look at… but look… $3.7 Million? Nobody’s worth that kind of money for one night. Nobody. Particularly someone who by he very definition of  ‘virginity’ doesn’t know what they’re doing. .
  • How are the taxes going to get handled for this? Being this is California, about 2/3rds of it goes to taxes… so the real winner is government. Work on that one for a while… just roll it around.
  • Matter of fact, what about the legalities? Say what you will, but there’s still the hurdle of illegality of sex for morney. Whatever the sum paid.
  • I get the impression she’s going to have to carry a putty knife with her to scrape off the losers looking for a date after this.

  I get the feeling we’re going to be hearing about this for a while, and it’ll come out unlike what’s currently being pushed.I mean, this is so whacked, I can’t help but wonder,  if there isn’t a hoax somewhere behnd this. Like, her trying to make some kind of a societal point about the role of the sexes or something.

• Out of every evil, some good must eventually come. A case in point is Planned Partenhood layoffs, in the face of the Bernie Madoff scandal. Another is fewer people are getting divorced.
• A side note on that; Given the amount of funding Madoff was pushing in the direction of the Democrats over the years, does anyone think that following the 20th, he’d have been procecuted at all, for at least the next two and possibly four years? Me, neither.
•  So, they seated Burris? Dingy Harry must be beside himself, today. Still, he can take solace in the idea that there are money questions dogging Burris, too.  Yet another Democrat with ethics issues. Ho-hum. Go back to your lives, citizens. Nothing to see here.

Shannon Love over at Chicago Boyz:

California has followed the grim path of the Great Lakes states.

 

As I wrote before, those states where once the industrial dynamo for the entire Earth, yet they destroyed that enormous economic dominance by political policies hostile to economic creativity. Likewise, California had a golden era as an economic and cultural dynamo. Well up until the late 1980s California was the place to go to make it big. People moved from other states to California. Now, internal migration has reversed. California looks less like a dreamland and more like basket case waiting to happen.

It seems that in post-New Deal America, economic and civil success sow their own seeds of destruction. When things are going good, socialist experimentation seems harmless. A booming economy can pay for increased government spending and an ever-increasing scope of government power. Eventually, however, socialism strangles the economic engine and destroys civil society. 

(grim nod) It’s not just California, but New York, and Massachusetts, and a host of others, all to the exact degree of their dependence on the liberal vision of government being our great salvation. 

As I told somone else today, I’ve been considering moving out of New York. Trouble is, all it takes is a leak in one or two parts of the boat for the whole thing to sink.  At that point, what good is moving away from the leak?

Remember, the architects of the grossly over-expensive and incompetently managed DTV transition also want to run health care, the auto industry, the oil industry, and everything else. Feel better?

Doug Powers, American Thinker.

You will have seen, by now, my piece on Hillary Clinton and political payoffs here on BitsBlog and On Pajamas Media. Apparently it’s a still developing story, with new players being added all the time. this morning, comes  The AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State appointee Hillary Rodham Clinton intervened at least six times in government issues directly affecting companies and others that later contributed to her husband’s foundation, an Associated Press review of her official correspondence found.

The overlap of names on former President Bill Clinton’s foundation donor list and business interests whose issues she championed raises new questions about potential ethics conflicts between her official actions and her husband’s fundraising. The AP obtained three of the senator’s government letters under the Freedom of Information Act.

First of all, Kudos to the AP. Secondly, as Sister Toldjah points out, we’ve seen this before. One has to wonder how many times her name is going to come up with ‘corruption’ attached to it before someone takes the association seriously.

Congrats and a pat on the mack to Scott Fybush at NorthEast Radio Watch, who passed the 15 year mark for his website yesterday. 

If you’re anywhere in the Northeast and want to keep up on all that’s happening in the radio biz, there’s no better source I can think of.

Here’s for many more, Scott.

Cassy Fiano brings good tidings, gender feminists to become extinct:

We’ve all heard the eco-warriors talk about the extinction of mankind as a benefit to the planet. Who cares about humans, Gaia must reign supreme! The latest reason to stop with the babymakin’, though, is because it is SEXIST!!!!!!!!!!

While of course we’re used to the feminist argument that marriage is just legal slavery or rape, I have to admit this was a new one for me – albeit, unsurprising, given how enthusiastic feminists are for meaningless sex and unfettered access to abortions.

As gemder feminists oppose sexism and having children is deemed sexist,  that means gender feminists will no longer bear children, and in generation or so, the world be rid of these pesty gender femists.

Sexism rocks.   Long live the sexists.  Good-bye gender feminists.

You don’t have to agree with Ann Coulter, but you admire her willingness to take on a hostile interviewer, or in this case, four hostile interviewers.

Hat tip and more:  Gateway Pundit

[The View] jumped on Coulter like a pack of wild animals and were totally unwilling to to give her the decency to argue her point without interrupting.
What a disgrace.
Coulter clocked them.

What some people will do to hawk a book.   However, I think four against one was a mismatch,  Blondie had the majority of the working grey cells.

CNN discovers Geraghty’s Law, National Review, 4 August last:

All Barack Obama statements come with an expiration date. All of them.

Jim Acosta et al, CNN:

During the campaign, Obama also told voters, “I don’t believe in running up debt for the next generation.”

But just last week, he acknowledged that the cost of the economic recovery plan he is pushing would be “considerable” and would “certainly add to the budget deficit in the short term.”

Obama has not put a price tag on his stimulus package, but observers have estimated it would cost in the neighborhood of $800 billion.

 BO’s soaring campaign rhetoric crashs into reality.

Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere… BitsBlog’s Nightly Ramble

Another Monday. (Shrug). Let’s go…

• Oil’s down below $39 /BBL as of this morning;  It may be lower now, I’ve not looked in a  few hours, but it probably is. That price spike we saw last week? A memory, nothing more.
• I note Reynolds reccomending the Canon Powershot SD770 for $159, and I concur. Hell of a deal, that. The A590 is a great deal, too. As for how long they last… I have an Powershot A95 that I’ve beaten up for years now, and had no real problems with. I’ve been adding accessories to that particular camera off of E-Bay over the years, and it’s proven to be well worth it.  Matter of fact, that’s a fairly decent way to get into electronic photography , is to get a 95, or maybe even a 65 off Ebay  or somewhere… and get yourself some accessories with it. There’s a number of them under a hun, last I saw.
• Speaking of photography, I’ve been lax in posting my own photography the last couple of weeks.  I intend to cure the problem this week.  I just wish it wasn’t so darned cold.
• Speaking of that, we’re in the middle twenties around here at the moment, but we’re expecting Zero or lower by midweek. But if you think that’s cold, let’s try up in Sarah Palin’s neck of the woods, where they’re talking around 70 below. Yikes! And of course with all the snowfall and cold in the nothernern sections of the country, and reports of record cold for that matter, popping up all OVER the country…  we’re still worried about global warming… and appoint a socialist to deal with the “problem” as I pointed out earlier today.  Think about this; When we were told that the polar ice was melting, and we were being scolded, told we had to stop driving our SUV’s because we were killing off poor polar bears, it was all over the headlines. Now that we’re busy freezing our asses off, shoveling snow off the streets of Malibu in front of the Streisand mansion,  and polar ice is back at 1979 levels and rising, when the Russians are saying we’re heading for an ICE AGE because the sun’s output is down, we don’t hear about that in the dinosaur media quite so much, do we?  Think of all this this way, gang… When the ‘crisis’ they’re supposedly trying to fix with added governmental power, obviously doesn’t exist, perhaps it’s just more government power they’re after, huh?
• From the land of the traffic camera, (The UK, of course… don’t you watch Top Gear?)… comes news that in France they have parking meters that send cops a text message when your parking meter expires.  Here’s the deal; clearly this is a profit making move on the part of the government there.  If they were about law enforcement  and fairness, wouldn’t they add a feature to send you a text message when the parking meter was about to expire?  It’s little things like that that let you know what they’re really about.  I’ve said for years that most traffic laws, including parking arrangements, were far more to do with making money for the government, then they had anything to do about the public good, specifically public safety.  Chalk one more example up to that point.
• John, over at Powerline, makes an important point:
  

  It is commonly said that by storing weapons in mosques and firing rockets and mortars from residential areas and school yards, Hamas is using human shields in Gaza, a war crime. But the truth is really worse than that. Hamas doesn’t endanger civilians in hopes that it will deter retaliation; it does so in the hope and expectation that civilians will be killed and wounded.

  This tactic is part of a larger strategy to create tragedy and disaster, which the Palestinians have developed into something akin to an industrial process. They build tunnels, but they do not build bomb shelters. They do not, apparently, suspend classes in schools in the midst of bombardments. And Hamas, with the tolerance if not approval of most Gazans, uses schoolyards as launching zones for rockets and mortars. Think about it: is there anything about a schoolyard that makes it a particularly desirable place from which to fire ordnance? No. Hamas uses schools (and mosques, and residential areas generally) in this way in the hope that civilians, especially children, will be killed.
  .

  James Joyner notes this too, in yesterday’s New Atlanticist piece, and concludes:

  This is, of course, the nature of terrorism. But it strips from Hamas whatever legitimacy one might wish to accord them out of sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians. By flouting rules designed to protect noncombatants from the ravages of war, they themselves are making it more probable that their own people will be killed. From their perspective, that’s a feature rather than a bug, in that the Israelis will get most of the blame and thus more funding and recruits will come in Hamas’ direction.

  Of course, the result of such deaths is that they have something more to blame the Israelis on.   Oh, and Billy, since you mentioned it Saturday, that’s precisely what the NBC that you mentioned with the gruesome pictures of children, is all about. You’re absolutely correct in saying what you did, but let’s have a full understanding of why they’re doing what they’re doing to their own children. And while we’re on the subject, shall we raise the question about why NBC is playing the willing tool in displaying what they did?

• Speaking of events there, Hamas does say that they’ve been hurt.  However, they also say that they will fight on.  Which, in a strange way, goes  to the point that I was mentioning yesterday about a multi generational flight for the culture here in the west.   We shouldn’t be giving up, because the enemies of western culture… both inside and outside this country…  sure as hell are not going to.  No matter how badly they’ve been hurt.
• Venlet points to a Steyn post saying:
  

  Hamas is a mental illness masquerading as a nationalist movement.

  That’s about as correct an assessment as I’ve ever seen. Think about it; if nationalism were really what is driving the Palestinians at this point, they would have accepted the deal offered them in the middle 90’s.

• I’ve been saying for a couple of decades now, that liberalism is about altering reality.  So when I noticed by way of a Rick Moran piece in American Thinker, that PETA trying to rename fish as “sea kittens” I wasn’t really surprised.  News flash, PETA, you’re not going to make any impression it all on the Chinese, that way.   And frankly, a lot of people are going to need to consume much more in the way of reality- altering substances to follow your ‘logic’ on this one.  Oh, and, by the way, Rick... I dunno if you saw, but that article caught a mention on FNC  on Baier’s program  on Friday. Nice… Michelle Maklin notes the thing as well, calling it “Comedy relief”.  I dunno as I be quite so quick to call it that, Michelle.  I will grant you, that it could be laughable , if these people weren’t using that very same logic in their voting choices, and the rather tragic results that logically spring from that.
• On another topic, Michelle on Friday, notes:
  

  My syndicated column today looks at the MSM sneering over Joe Wurzelbacher’s trip to Israel sponsored by PJTV, recounts how The Fraternal Order of the Professional Journalist has squandered its own credibility, and exposes how liberal media elites have attempted to shut out conservatives from membership in the journalism club by redefining their craft based on ideological content.

  Look, let’s not kid ourselves, Michelle. The ideological content of their craft is always been the entry point to professional recognition.  It’s precisely why since the beginning of blogs the dinosaur media has always been sneering and condescending .  It’s precisely why there has always been animosity directed twenty the Fox News Channel for example.  Or any media, for that matter, which is not in Liberal lockstep.  Did anybody really think that the reaction to Joe would be any different?

• So, big shock, Obama says he’s going to have to scale back on his pre- election promises.  Let’s look back just a little, courtesy of Sweetness and Light.  All together, now… “I tried, I really did..”  There seems something of a trend, here.  Do you suppose Democrats will eventually get the idea they’re being hoodwinked? Nah… if they were that smart, they wouldn’t be Democrats.
• It’s good to hear, Billy. Very good indeed. I’d score this a win, as well. I’ll take the good news where I can get it.
• In answer to some mail, yes, I’ve seen the (rather numerous) references to Atlas Shrugged these last few days.  Most of the traffic appears to generate from a recent WSJ article. The comparisons are apt, but I don’t know as they get the point across, because  I think the average voter’s eyes tend to glaze over when you start in with Rand.  It’s useful, of course, and quite correct… but sadly, Rand has been demonized to the point of diminishing the usefulness of Atlas in public discourse, I think.  Use Atlas as a template, certainly, for factual discussions. For example, the outright huge number of people and businesses leaving California behind.  That letter I posted yesterday would be another way to travel. Make no mistake of what I’m saying, here, please. Rand will eventually be vindicated. There’s no doubt in my mind on that point. But we’re going to have to bring this thing a little closer to the heart to sell it, in the near term. In other words, closer to their wallets, and their daily lives, and their own prospects for the future.

Near the end of Q&O’s weekly podcast this week, Dale makes the point that FDR was able to get us out of the depression only by means of turning the entire country, essentially, over to war production.

He’s quite correct, of course. Then, however, he makes the statement “We don’t have Nazis today”. That got me to thinking;  Don’t we?

A master work of Cox and Forkum, of course

The implications here are fairly obvious, I think. I don’t thiink I have to spell them out.

I’ve been telling you all along that Obama will govern from the extreme left. Another example comes from the Washington Post, this morning:

Until last week, Carol M. Browner, President-elect Barack Obama’s pick as global warming czar, was listed as one of 14 leaders of a socialist group’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which calls for “global governance” and says rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change.

By Thursday, Mrs. Browner’s name and biography had been removed from Socialist International’s Web page, though a photo of her speaking June 30 to the group’s congress in Greece was still available.

Socialist International, an umbrella group for many of the world’s social democratic political parties such as Britain’s Labor Party, says it supports socialism and is harshly critical of U.S. policies.

The group’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society, the organization’s action arm on climate change, says the developed world must reduce consumption and commit to binding and punitive limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

Do you even begin to understand just how we’ve been sold out, America? Don’t worry. You will.

Forwarded to Feedback by a reader:

To All My Valued Employees,

There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn’t pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country.

However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interests.

First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You’ve seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I’m sure; all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life.

However, what you don’t see is the back story.

I started this company 28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living apartment was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.

My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn’t have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business — hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.

Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom’s for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the discount store extracting any clothing item that didn’t look like it was birthed in the 70’s. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.

So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don’t. There is no “off” button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden — the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations… you never realize the back story and the sacrifices I’ve made.

Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn’t. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.

Yes, business ownership has is benefits but the price I’ve paid is steep and not without wounds.

Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why:

I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don’t pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes.. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my “stimulus” check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch.

The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.

The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you’d quit and you wouldn’t work here. I mean, why should you? That’s nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy.

Here is what many of you don’t understand …. to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn’t need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.

When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don’t defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the poor of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep.

So where am I going with all this?

It’s quite simple.

If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child’s future. Frankly, it isn’t my problem any more.

Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I’m done. I’m done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.

So, if you lose your job, it won’t be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about…..

Signed,
Your boss ——-

Anyone who is naive enough claim that Iran is not at the opposite end of the Palestinian puppet strings (Are you listening, Alex?) ought to check this article out in the Jerusalem Post this morning.

Iran is exerting heavy pressure on Hamas not to accept the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Israel, an Egyptian government official said on Sunday.

…
The Egyptian official said that the two Iranian emissaries, Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, and Said Jalili of the Iranian Intelligence Service, met in the Syrian capital with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and Islamic Jihad Secretary-General Ramadan Shallah.

“As soon as the Iranians heard about the Egyptian cease-fire initiative, they dispatched the two officials to Damascus on an urgent mission to warn the Palestinians against accepting it,” the Egyptian government official told the Post.

“The Iranians threatened to stop weapons supplies and funding to the Palestinian factions if they agreed to a cease-fire with Israel. The Iranians want to fight Israel and the US indirectly. They are doing this through Hamas in Palestine and Hizbullah in Lebanon”.

Any more questions, class?

The Bits Blog Blog of the Day is Dumpchrisdodd.com.

We are a grass roots group of independent Connecticut residents intent on removing Chris Dodd from the US Senate in 2010.

Hat tip and more:  Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit.

With as much unemployment that has been personally caused by Mr. Dodd, it would only sweet justice see Mr. Dodd out on the street.

A funny post happened over at the Opinion Forum:

Imagine reading this headline: “German People Vote Adolf Hitler Third Most Popular German Historical Figure.”

Can you really imagine that? The international condemnation against such an act would be immediate, forceful, and united. It would be a major news story in newspapers, on TV, and the internet. Such an unthinkable action would warrant official statements from virtually every government in the world, absolutely infuriate the Jewish community, and might even generate a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the act. Germany’s international credibility as a serious power in the world would disappear in less than 24 hours.

Hitler’s name and legacy are toxic. Just thinking of him immediately brings images of human suffering, brutality, death, war, and hate. In some parts of Europe it is a crime punishable by going to prison to deny the Holocaust. The thought of anyone from anywhere, including Germany today, any public official, person in academia, historian, business professional, farmer, homeless person, factory worker publicly defending Hitler, or any of his actions, would be inconceivable. No reasonable person would ever do it…never!

And yet Soviet Dictator Joseph Stalin, the Russian Adolf Hitler, was voted by the Russian people as the third most popular Russian historical figure. The Rossiya state television channel organized a contest called “Name of Russia”. Over six months in 2008, more than 4.9 million Russians voted by internet, phone and text message for who they believed was the most famous Russian ever.

519,071 Russians voted for a man who, according to Professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii R.J. Rummel, murdered 43 million people. Stalin’s atrocities, which include the Ukrainian famine known as the Holodomor, the Great Purge of 1937-38, the gulag labor camps, mass deportations and executions, and the terror imposed on citizens of Russia and other captive nations, are on the same scale, if not far greater, than Hitler’s.

There’s no question that these voting results are deplorable, as are the thought processes, or the lack of them, behind such voting.  Still, it seems to me completely understandable.  For one thing, what else do the Russians have in terms of the history , that you don’t have to reach back over 100 years for?  Secondly, it seems to me rather obvious that the ones who were doing the voting, are the ones who were left following the rule of Stalin.  Of course is going to be popular; the only ones that were left were people that would have supported him anyway.

Here’s the thing; Hitler was defeated.  The Soviet Union never was.  It collapsed from within, not from without.  And therein lies the difference.  The Nazis lost.  The Soviets won.
History, it is said, is rewritten by the vectors of conflicts.  Apply that to your question.

Clearly, what is happened in terms of reeducation of the Russian people for their new freedoms, has not been up to the drill of competing with 70 years of Soviet propaganda.  That reeducation process would have been far simpler, had the Soviets had their butts kicked following WWII as  George Patton advised us to be doing.  It’s far easier to educate somebody away from something that’s a proven failure.  The Soviet system, of course was a proven failure, but not in ways that the majority of the Soviet people could understand.  The struggles in wartime, are relatively easy for anyone to understand.  The struggles of maintaining an empire, and keep it from crumbling, are another matter altogether, and above most people even in the west, let alone in the undereducated Soviet empire.

Ask, do we see the voting results we have in front of us.

Or perhaps, the polling has been  manipulated to to present the image that those voting really want Soviet rule to return ?  It’s something I wouldn’t put past the supporters of communism… communists manipulating the news media for the purpose of reinforcing their own position?  Who would have thunk it?

Trevor goes on saying that the legacy of Stalin and that history can repeat itself.  I submit that’s exactly what the pollsters had in mind when they jiggled the numbers.