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Published: 3/29/2022 2:10:23 PM

Modified: 3/29/2022 2:09:27 PM

When I turned 10years old, I was allowed to take New York Citys public transportation to school. On board, one of the advertisements in particular caught my eye. It proclaimed in bold block letters, Stand up and be counted in the fight against Communism. The slogan included a graphic of an all-American Everyman standing up, arms akimbo, gazing upwards to the beacon of liberty. No doubt, he would stand up to communism by denouncing his liberal neighbors to the House Un-American Activities Committee (when my parents were stationed in Texas during World War II, their neighbors thought they were communists because they had honeymooned in Europe!)

While the world watches in horror as Vladimir Putins forces in Ukraine destroy maternity hospitals, apartment buildings, shelters housing women and children as well as other civilian targets, Im watching in equal horror as American right-wing conservatives cheer Putin and openly support Russia. The American Right has degenerated to the point of mimicking Putins big lies about Ukraines non-existent bio-labs and its Neo-Nazi genocidal government, an odd accusation seeing that it is headed by a Jew whose ancestors were murdered by the Nazis. To add to the lunacy, QAnon, the racist, anti-Semitic conspiracy cult believes that COVID-19 began in Ukraine, not China.

Lost in the footage of the Ukraine invasion is a short clip of a Russian tank proudly flying the old red flag of the Soviet Union, emblazoned with the hammer and sickle of communism.

American conservatives supporting Vladimir Putin, a former communist KGB operative? Ronald Reagan must be spinning in his grave.

Global pundits have joined President Zelensky in casting the Ukraine war as a struggle between democracy and autocracy. But this struggle began in the United States years ago and has only gotten worse for those of us who favor the former. It has taken the form of sleazy Republican voter suppression tactics in a myriad of states and lately in the assault on free speech, gender equality and the blatant censorship of thought-provoking literature. The poster child of American authoritarian dictatorship is, of course, Donald Trump, an open admirer of Putins genius who has never been shy about his distaste for the democratic process and his wish of making himself president for life. The fact that 70% of Republicans still believe his big lie about a stolen 2020 election is frightening proof that our cherished institutions are in danger.

Historically, in times of stress and uncertainty, people gravitate towards a strongman, especially if the preceding democracy has been weak and ineffectual. Examples include the Weimar Republic of pre-Nazi Germany, the Russian Kerensky provisional government before the Bolsheviks overthrew it in 1917 and more recently, the upheaval endured during the inept administration of Boris Yeltsin. Adolf Hitler was elected by a popular majority and despite his seizure of absolute power, was adored by the German people.

The attack on American democracy has not gone unnoticed. Freedom House, which has tracked the rise and fall of global democracies for over 75 years, now ranks the United States 59th, below Argentina and Mongolia. In their report, they warned that we faced an acute crisis for democracy due to our limiting of political and civil liberties. A Swedish-based think tank specializing in the same subject, added the United States to its list of backsliding democracies.

Another aspect of autocratic dictatorship is the need to have a convenient scapegoat to channel the anger, fear and resentment of the people. It should never be forgotten that Donald Trump launched his 2016 presidential campaign by targeting Mexican immigrants as rapists and murderers. Thats all it took. It was like setting a match to a puddle of gasoline. The puddle being the innate racist fears of dark-skinned people taking over when in fact all they really want is to be included in the American Dream. The Republican attack on critical race theory has less to do with protecting our children than it is to rewrite history from a white supremacist standpoint.

So now is the time for Americans to stand up and be counted in the fight against authoritarianism. While democracy can be flawed, Winston Churchill got it right with his famous quote.

Many forms of government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

Daniel A. Brown lived in Franklin County for 44 years and is a frequent contributor to the Recorder. He lives in New Mexico with his wife, Lisa and dog, Cody.

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My Turn: Stand up and be counted - The Recorder

More than 400 companies have withdrawn, at least temporarily, from Russia since it invaded Ukraine. Some have been there since the fall of communism symbols of the enduring power of Western culture and commerce.

By Alex Kalman,Antonio de Luca and Maia Coleman

Opened 1990

Its a rather complicated sandwich. A customer upon her first encounter with a Big Mac.

Opened 2010

Clothing is a necessity of life. The people of Russia have the same right to live as we do. Uniqlos founder, before reversing course.

Product sources: mcdonalds.ru; ikea.ru; cocacola.ru; pepsi.ru; Reynolds Innovations Inc.; ru.levi.com; uniqlo.com; dior.com; ferrari.com; pizzahut.ru; dhl.com; apple.ru; ford.com; bp.com; burgerking.ru; americanexpress.com; adidas.ru; harley-davidson.com; kfc.ru; louisvuitton.com; bulgari.com; dunkindonuts.com; delta.com; Andia/Universal Images Group, via Getty Images; cocacola.ru; littlecaesars.com; chanel.com; starbucks.com; skittles.com; dove.com; rsb.ru; playstation.ru; mms.com.

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These Are the Companies That Have Withdrawn From Russia - The New York Times

Japan novelist and Miyamoto Yuriko (1899-1951): Communist, Feminist, and torture

Lee Jay Walker

Modern Tokyo Times

The Japanese novelist and short-story writer Miyamoto Yuriko (1899-1951) could have easily melted into the conformist background of the times. Yet Miyamoto, despite her privileged background, decided to be true to her own political and social beliefs throughout her life.

This came at a very high price, especially during the nationalist and militarist period of the early Showa Period. Thus during political interrogation and torture in 1942 she suffered a horrendous heatstroke that would forever impact her health until dying in 1951. However, Miyamoto never gave in to her tormentors because she was a committed communist.

Miyamoto felt social injustice strongly while studying at Ochanomizu Girls Middle School in Tokyo when only young. Hence, while economic class issues led her to socialism witnessed in her works Noson (Farming Village) and Mazushiki hitobito no mure (A Crowd of Poor People) feminism would equally become important.

Miyamoto was an avid reader when still a teenager. Thus the works of Anton Chekhov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Maksim Gorky, Friedrich Nietzsche, Edgar Allan Poe, Romain Rolland, Lev Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, William Shakespeare, and others were avidly read. She equally versed herself with powerful Japanese writers of the Meij and early Taisho periods.

Miyamoto stayed in the Soviet Union between 1927-1930. It is easy to say that she probably never witnessed the real Soviet Union. However, most Americans and visitors to America dont witness the social ills of 100,000 overdose deaths in a 12 month period, over 500,000 homeless, high crime, and other social ills that blight millions of Americans in modern times. Hence, the collectivization programs of Soviet planning and the role of women in Soviet society probably looked dynamic in this period of history. After all, slavery only became illegal in the land of Mecca in the early 1960s, European empires were exploiting far and wide, and the Great Depression from 1929 and continued into the 1930s witnessed mass international upheavals.

Between 1932 and 1942, Miyamoto was arrested frequently along with other communists. Thus she served roughly two years in prison. However, up until her death, her loyalty to communism remained.

Shortly before her death in 1951 and suffering the health convulsions of her interrogation in 1942 she wrote novels frequently. This concerns Banshu heiya (The Banshu Plain, 1947), Fuchiso (The Weathervane Plant, 1947), Futatsa no niwa (The Two Gardens, 1948), and Dohyo (Landmark, 1950). Therefore, to the very end, Miyamoto refused to bow down to anti-Communist forces in Japan nor her declining health.

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Japan novelist and Miyamoto Yuriko (1899-1951): Communist, Feminist, and torture - Modern Tokyo Times

Emlio Teixeira Alarcn thinks he knows exactly how he will feel after slaying his first Russian soldier.

Mission accomplished, shrugged the Brazilian army reservist. In war, its either kill or be killed.

If I get someone in my crosshairs and dont shoot, he might shoot me. Its just like a game of paintball, he added, as the mid-morning sun bathed his home in north Rio.

Paintball is the closest Alarcn, 43, has ever come to active combat. He served in his citys 21st Field Artillery Regiment in the late 1990s before throwing himself into political activism and the battle against what he calls the scourge of communism. He has never left Brazil.

But with the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, Alarcn said he saw an unmissable chance to wage real-life war on the ideology he believes Vladimir Putin represents. Whats happening is surreal Its put the whole world in danger, said the Rio-born nationalist who runs an anti-communist group called O Pesadelo de Qualquer Poltico (Any Politicians Nightmare). Thats why the whole worlds mobilising to go there Brazilians included.

Alarcn, who has been fundraising for his mission since day one of the war, is not the only Latin American making plans to travel thousands of miles east to Ukraines frontline.

From Brazil and Argentina to Mexico and Colombia, volunteer fighters have voiced interest in joining or already joined Ukraines international legion for what they describe as a mix of ideological, humanitarian and financial reasons.

The volunteers range from battle-hardened veterans of Colombias US-backed war on drugs to Argentinian students who have never picked up a gun and Brazilian Instagram influencers who have been criticised for putting lives at risk by using the conflict as clickbait.

Ukraines president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, announced the legions creation three days after Russias 24 February invasion, telling would-be fighters: Please come over, we will give you weapons.

Uriel Saavedra, a former member of the Colombian police unit that protects government officials and VIPs, said he hoped to reach the battlefield within a fortnight after signing up to fight through a Colombia-based security firm.

If someone wants me to go to war in Ukraine, well, obviously theyre going to have to pay because the risk of coming back dead is so high, said Saavedra, 40, who expects to receive $10,000-a-month from the company which recruited him and about 30 other veterans.

Saavedra, who saw the job advertised on a WhatsApp group for military and police veterans, recognised it was dangerous. But were prepared. We can use any weapon they give us, said the soldier of fortune who sees the war as a way of supplementing his $1,000-a-month state pension.

Brazilian reservist Isaas Diogo da Boa Morte said he was driven by anger at Putins ruthless assault on civilians. Its just so cowardly, declared the 43-year-old who served with Alarcn and is part of his collective.

Boa Morte said his son was horrified. Damn it, Dad, are you nuts? he had asked. But the reservist was determined to travel, despite concerns about sub-zero temperatures. Well be so full of adrenaline when we arrive we wont notice the cold, Boa Morte said as he sat beside a swimming pool in a Rio sports club wearing flip-flops and shorts.

Some Latin American legionnaires have already reached Ukraine, among them Tiago Rossi, a shooting instructor from south Brazil who claimed he had set off for his first war in early March, one day after turning 28.

Rossi, who said he was accompanied by two other Brazilians a former infantryman and a former paratrooper recalled meeting combatants from South American countries including Argentina, Chile and Colombia, whose mercenaries are coveted by contractors because of their experience fighting leftist rebels, paramilitaries and drug traffickers.

Rossi insisted he did not fear dying on a battleground more than 7,000 miles from his home in the city of Maring: I came here to fulfil my mission if I die its because thats how God willed it.

But how such bravado will hold up in the face of the horrific realities of Ukraines conflict is unclear. Rossi said he had retreated into Poland after Russia bombed the Yavoriv military base where he was staying. He said he had no plans to return and would instead seek to help South Americans in Polish refugee centres. I think Ill be more useful here than over there [in Ukraine].

Alarcn, who said he had more than 20,000 hours of shooting range experience, is still fundraising but hopes to set off soon. My specialitys using cannons and machine guns to shoot down planes so I think wed help make a difference, said the army reserve artillery corporal, wondering whether the Guardian might ask wealthy readers to buy his group body armour and plane tickets.

On receiving a negative response, Alarcn said: England has every interest in seeing Brazilians going there to help out. Its much closer to Ukraine and Russia than Brazil What happens if this nut job launches an atomic bomb?

Many of the Brazilian volunteers appear to be disciples of Brazils far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, a former paratrooper who is popular in the military rank and file. But Bolsonaro, who visited Moscow on the eve of Russias invasions and has seemed to take Putins side, has outraged some followers with his stance.

Alarcn vowed to never again vote Bolsonaro. I wanted to shoot the television, his father, Emlio Galdeano, 68, said of the moment he saw Bolsonaro voice solidarity with Russia, nine days before war.

Emlio Galdeano, a retired shooting range owner, said he was too old for combat but supported his son, despite fearing for his safety. If he was a kid Id tie him to the foot of the bed and give him a bit of a hiding with my belt. But hes too old for that, he sighed.

This week Alarcn believed he had taken a major step towards the theatre of war after a Kyiv entrepreneur launched a campaign to fly up to 50 Brazilians to Poland. Ive got goosebumps, Alarcn celebrated after receiving the news. I think helps on its way for us.

Originally posted here:
Its either kill or be killed: the South Americans going to fight in Ukraine - The Guardian

Across the west, institutions that collaborated with Vladimir Putins Russia are having a moment of revelation. Lawyers who persecuted investigative journalists and a financial service industry that feasted on oligarchical loot are shocked beyond measure by the invasion of Ukraine.

They happily overlooked the levelling of Grozny, the war crimes in Aleppo, the missile attacks on civilian flights, the invasion of Crimea, the destructions of Russian democracy, the endemic corruption, the endless lying, and the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, Sergei and Yulia Skripal and Alexei Navalny. Only now they realise that the Kremlin may not be a reputable business partner after all.

In the 20th century, the opponents of totalitarianism on the left talked of their Kronstadt moment the instant when they realised Soviet communism was not an emancipatory force but a foul tyranny. Today we see Mariupol moments as everywhere the men and women who excused and profited from the Russian empire express their determination to do better. Everywhere, that is, except the one place where self-criticism is needed most: the Anglo-American right.

No Conservative leader has matched Keir Starmers instruction to tyrannophile MPs to renounce Jeremy Corbyns Stop the War movement for giving succour to authoritarian leaders who directly threaten democracies.

The Tory press will run as many pieces as it can on the inability of Corbyn and his allies to call imperialism and militarism by the right names even as the cruise missiles land. Yet nowhere do they find space for examinations of its failure to confront Nigel Farage for his admiration of Putins skill as an operator, or to ask why the Russian ambassador liked Farages bagman Arron Banks so much he offered him opportunities not available to others in the form of Siberian gold mines and the support of a Kremlin bank. Nowhere do we hear Tories talk of their determination to build an impassable border between democratic conservatism and the authoritarian right.

The Conservatives in power have allowed corruption to flourish. Their failure to come to the immediate aid of Ukrainian refugees disgraced their party and their country. But you cannot pretend that Russian money has bought Conservative foreign policy. Boris Johnson and the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, are feted in Ukraine for supplying the resistance with weapons and training. They fight against Putin abroad but will not condemn his admirers at home.

Similarly, Republicans in the US Congress have implicitly rejected Donald Trump by voting for Joe Bidens vast package of military aid for Ukraine, while refusing to explicitly take on Trumps tenderness for the Russian regime.

The only attempt at a reckoning I have seen in our rightwing press was by one Eric Kaufmann, a populist professor of politics (if you can picture such a creature) at Birkbeck, University of London. Writing more in sorrow than in anger, that greasiest of styles, he sighs that it is a real shame for populist conservatism that Steve Bannon, Trump, Marine Le Pen, ric Zemmour and Viktor Orbn had carried water for this killer. If only they had concentrated on attacking wokeness, crime and immigration, all would have been well.

Didnt he notice that their water carrying was not an eccentric aberration? Trump subverted elections in the US and Orbn all but abolished press freedom in Hungary. Indulgence for Putin on the alt-right wasnt a bug but a feature, because he offered a road to autocracy his western admirers yearned to follow.

The partisan do not like to take on their side for fear of giving comfort to the enemy. Perhaps more conservatives than said so in public admired Putin for being a white, muscular Christian leader who opposed the evils of liberalism. Or maybe they hated the EU as much as Putin hated the EU and, in the words of Trumps sidekick Bannon, believe that at least Putin is standing up for traditional institutions. But the best explanation for the silence is that the complicit find it hard to condemn. There is no clear dividing line between the right and the far right in the 2020s.

The supposedly mainstream Johnson is threatening to institute voter suppression and is attacking the independence of every institution from the BBC to the House of Commons. He is not on the same level as an Orbn, let alone a Putin, but if Britain were ever to have an authoritarian leader, this government would have cleared their path. In an episode that has been too quickly forgotten, the Conservative party and Brexit party worked as an alliance in the 2019 general election, and, who knows, may need an electoral pact in future. Finally, to return to the oligarchs and their lawyers, you should never underestimate the chilling effect of the English law on public debate. Bankss decision to sue the Observers Carole Cadwalladr personally, so that she faces ruin if she loses, is a sobering deterrent to Tories searching for the courage to speak out.

Conservatives can always find reasons to postpone their Mariupol moment, particularly when any investigation of Russian influence runs into the Brexit referendum, whose sacral purity can never be questioned.

The history of the left shows why they should make the effort. In 1948, the Labour politician Richard Crossman edited The God That Failed, a collection of essays by writers who had lost their illusions about Russian communism. Louis Fischer, who had been a foreign correspondent in Moscow, blamed himself for not seeing the truth about communism in 1921 when sailors at the Kronstadt naval base outside St Petersburg were shot for demanding freedom of speech, trade union rights and the release of political prisoners.

Fischer had his Kronstadt moment after seeing Stalin use the secret police to settle political disputes in the 1930s (plus a change, you may say). Others had theirs when Hitler and Stalin agreed to carve up eastern Europe in 1939, or when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary in 1956.

A few never reached Kronstadt. They switched their allegiance from Soviet communism to Putinist gangsterism after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and carried on as before. They became Corbyns senior advisers and led the Labour party to a devastating defeat in 2019.

Their lesson is that, if you dont cut out the rot on your own side, it will bring your house down. That silence on the right will one day be broken by the tolling of a funeral bell.

Nick Cohen is an Observer columnist

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Those on the right who loudly praised Putin have now fallen strangely silent - The Guardian