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I wanted to write something meaningful about Navalny. It was that the Gulag seems to still be alive and well in the USSR... I mean Russia. Bari Weiss wrote what I wanted to write so much better than I ever could, so I thought I would just link to it here. I am especially moved by this passage:
In our world of cynicism and cowardice, it often doesn’t seem so simple. But Navalny’s life—a life lived in truth—and his death—a death for the sake of truth—gives the lie to the moral confusion all around us.
The life and death of Navalny insists on the following: there is a free world and an unfree world. There is right and there is wrong. There is better and worse, good and evil. There is truth and there are lies. And heroes, however imperfect, walk among us still.
And this:
"Navalny was in the darkest pit. And yet he remained free. May his example live for all time. God knows we need it in ours."
The Free Press also published translations of letters between Navalny and the former imprisoned dissident Natan Sharansky. The letters are heartrending and powerful because of what the two men shared in their bravery and captivity. This is Navalny writing from a punishment cell about Sharansky's book Fear No Evil:
I understand that I am not the first, but I really want to become the last, or at least one of the last, of those who are forced to endure this.
Your book gives hope because the similarity between the two systems—the Soviet Union and Putin’s Russia—their ideological resemblance, the hypocrisy that serves as the very basis of their essence, and the continuity from the former to the latter—all this guarantees an equally inevitable collapse.
Damn Putin and all totalitarian murderers who prey on heroes.
Discussion (24)
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Putin isn't a Communist. He's a criminal that thinks he's a tsar. I know that the Communists killed hundreds of millions, were the agents of misery beyond conception. But isn't it interesting that the criminal kills as readily as any Communist?
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Communist or no, he is a Soviet. There has always been among dissidents and other truth tellers a discussion of whether the Soviet rulers were actual true believers in communism or just murderous thugs that used communism as a tool. Whether or not he is communist, Putin most definitely wants to restore the "glory" of the USSR and it's domination of the region.
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When I was living in Sweden in the 80's I met a guy who'd escaped from the USSR. He said that the Soviet leadership didn't really believe in Marxism or Socialism or Communism. It was just a way for them to rationalize their brutal methods to seize control. He pointed out that the only reason anyone ever oppresses anyone else is for their own good. Socialism gave them a rationalization for that.
Bonus question: How many American Democrat leaders today do you think really believe that Socialism works?
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Since "true communism" will never been tried, we should admit that a corrupt, self-enriching, above-the-law political party of leaders is what Communism is. The governments of Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia are more alike than different despite being democratic, communist, and kingdom.
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That's a tough question actually. Sure, if you scratch a progressive you will expose a totalitarian but I think some of the younger, dumber ones do. They think it works for the rest of us at least while they still want access to their private jets etc. They probably mostly just believe that government control is the answer over the chaos of liberty and markets. Heck some on the right believe that.....
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