“The formula ‘enemy of the people,’” Mr. Khrushchev told the Soviet Communist Party in a 1956 speech denouncing Stalin’s cult of personality, “was specifically introduced for the purpose of physically annihilating such individuals” who disagreed with the supreme leader.It is difficult to know if President Trump is aware of the historic resonance of the term, a label generally associated with despotic communist governments rather than democracies. But his decision to unleash the terminology has left some historians scratching their heads. Why would the elected leader of a democratic nation embrace a label that, after the death of Stalin, even the Soviet Union found to be too freighted with sinister connotations?Nina Khrushcheva, the great-granddaughter of Mr. Khrushchev and a professor of international affairs at the New School in New York, said the phrase was “shocking to hear in a non-Soviet, moreover non-Stalinist setting.” Her great-grandfather, she said, “of course also used Soviet slogans and ideological idioms but still tried to stay away from sweeping denunciations of whole segments of the Soviet population.”
Category Archives: Apartheid
Ohio clergy first to recognize proposed ‘Pastor Protection Act’ is bogus: the Rev. Dr. J. Bennett Guess (Opinion) | cleveland.com
Three times this month, the Ohio House has held committee hearings on the so-called “Pastor Protection Act” (HB 36), a bill purportedly designed to protect clergy and places of worship from performing marriages against their wishes. This is bogus legislation, designed to confront a non-existent problem, and a complete waste of taxpayers’ money. Clergy already exercise unfettered discretion over marriage decisions.So what’s this legislation really about? There’s no other answer: It’s about protecting the falsehood, and perpetuating the stereotype, that LGBTQ Ohioans and our relationships are inherently secular, unholy, anti-faith, anti-church and, thus, anti-pastor, under the dual guise of exclusive religion and bad public policy. It’s about casting another net of shame over an already vulnerable group of citizens that still lack any statewide protections in housing, employment and public accommodations. This is Ohio masquerading itself as regressive North Carolina or Indiana, and it’s bad for business. The God I worship is about loosening the bonds of oppression, not piling on. I serve the One whose burden is light, not made excessively heavy. But most importantly, as a citizen of this state, I smell rotten legislation when it’s foisted upon us.My clergy colleagues widely agree: we don’t need these protections; we already have them. Instead, as concerned Ohioans, let’s turn our legislative energies toward those who really do need our watchful love and compassion.
Two years after Boris Nemtsov’s assassination, repeated protest is illegal and ‘no-one is safe’ – Inside Putin’s Russia – ABC News
“No-one is safe, of course we understand that. No-one is safe,” he told the ABC at the Solidarnost meeting in a hotel on the outskirts of Moscow.”After Nemtsov’s murder many people were really scared, many people left the country, many people stopped their political activities.”Because they thought if authority can kill a famous person, a celebrity like Nemtsov, the authority can do everything with a person like me.”Russia’s various opposition groups are seen as weak and disparate.”Oppositions look weak in every dictatorship because of pressure, because of police state, because of propaganda,” Mr Yashin said.
U.S. detains and nearly deports French Holocaust historian – The Washington Post “When you really don’t know what you are doing but trying to please the boss – crap like this is inevitable!”
It remains unclear what about Rousso was identified as suspect by immigration authorities.Egypt — from which Rousso and his family, as Jews, were exiled in 1956, after a slew of anti-Semitic measures imposed by the administration of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz — was not among the seven nations in the travel ban, which had been suspended by the time he arrived in the United States.[Who is affected by the travel ban?]Furthermore, France is a beneficiary of the U.S. visa waiver program, which permits French citizens to enter the United States without a visa. All that is required is an online ESTA application before departure.For Marouf, Rousso’s ordeal was indicative of a strict new U.S. border control regime: “It seems like there’s much more rigidity and rigor in enforcing these immigration requirements and technicalities of every visa,” she told the Eagle.
Source: U.S. detains and nearly deports French Holocaust historian – The Washington Post
Leading German politician calls AfD′s Höcke a ′Nazi′ | News | DW.COM | 25.02.2017 AfD are yuuge Trump fans.
“For me, Björn Höcke is a Nazi,” Oppermann said at Saturday’s meeting of the SPD’s state delegates in Thuringia. “Someone who wants to resuscitate the ethnic ideology of the National Socialists has no place in a democratic society.”Oppermann said Germany could no longer tolerate discrimination based on gender, religion, national origin or heritage. “Someone who does not observe this ground rule of democracy has no business in the Bundestag,” he said.’A 180-degree reversal'”These stupid politics of coming to grips with the past cripple us,” Höcke told the AfD’s youth wing in January. “We need nothing other than a 180-degree reversal on the politics of remembrance.” Referring to Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, he added: “We Germans, that is to say, our people, are the only people in the world who have planted a monument of shame in the heart of their capital.”
Source: Leading German politician calls AfD′s Höcke a ′Nazi′ | News | DW.COM | 25.02.2017
Syrian Oscar contender Khaled Kateeb barred from entering US | Film | The Guardian
US immigration authorities have barred entry to a 21-year-old Syrian cinematographer who worked on a harrowing film about his nation’s civil war, The White Helmets, that has been nominated for an Academy Award.According to internal Trump administration correspondence seen by Associated Press, homeland security officials decided at the last minute to block Khaled Khateeb from traveling to Los Angeles for the Oscars.
Source: Syrian Oscar contender Khaled Kateeb barred from entering US | Film | The Guardian
Multiple news outlets denied access to White House press briefing | US news | The Guardian
Outlets seeking to gain entry whose requests were denied included the Guardian, the New York Times, Politico, CNN, BuzzFeed, the BBC, the Daily Mail and others. Conservative publications such as Breitbart News, the One America News Network and the Washington Times were allowed into the meeting, as well as TV networks CBS, NBC, Fox and ABC. The Associated Press and Time were invited but boycotted the briefing.
Source: Multiple news outlets denied access to White House press briefing | US news | The Guardian
I Was a Muslim in the Trump White House—and I Lasted Eight Days – The Atlantic
The evening before I left, bidding farewell to some of my colleagues, many of whom have also since left, I notified Trump’s senior NSC communications adviser, Michael Anton, of my departure, since we shared an office. His initial surprise, asking whether I was leaving government entirely, was followed by silence––almost in caution, not asking why. I told him anyway.I told him I had to leave because it was an insult walking into this country’s most historic building every day under an administration that is working against and vilifying everything I stand for as an American and as a Muslim. I told him that the administration was attacking the basic tenets of democracy. I told him that I hoped that they and those in Congress were prepared to take responsibility for all the consequences that would attend their decisions.He looked at me and said nothing.It was only later that I learned he authored an essay under a pseudonym, extolling the virtues of authoritarianism and attacking diversity as a “weakness,” and Islam as “incompatible with the modern West.”My whole life and everything I have learned proves that facile statement wrong.My parents immigrated to the United States from Bangladesh in 1978 and strove to create opportunities for their children born in the states. My mother worked as a cashier, later starting her own daycare business. My father spent late nights working at Bank of America, and was eventually promoted to assistant vice president at one of its headquarters. Living the American dream, we’d have family barbecues, trips to Disney World, impromptu soccer or football games, and community service projects. My father began pursuing his Ph.D., but in 1995 he was killed in a car accident.I was 12 when I started wearing a hijab. It was encouraged in my family, but it was always my choice. It was a matter of faith, identity, and resilience for me. After 9/11, everything would change. On top of my shock, horror, and heartbreak, I had to deal with the fear some kids suddenly felt towards me. I was glared at, cursed at, and spat at in public and in school. People called me a “terrorist” and told me, “go back to your country.”My father taught me a Bengali proverb inspired by Islamic scripture: “When a man kicks you down, get back up, extend your hand, and call him brother.” Peace, patience, persistence, respect, forgiveness, and dignity. These were the values I’ve carried through my life and my career.I never intended to work in government. I was among those who assumed the government was inherently corrupt and ineffective. Working in the Obama White House proved me wrong. You can’t know or understand what you haven’t been a part of.Still, inspired by President Obama, I joined the White House in 2011, after graduating from the George Washington University. I had interned there during my junior year, reading letters and taking calls from constituents at the Office of Presidential Correspondence. It felt surreal––here I was, a 22-year-old American Muslim woman from Maryland who had been mocked and called names for covering my hair, working for the president of the United States.
Source: I Was a Muslim in the Trump White House—and I Lasted Eight Days – The Atlantic
American anti-Semitism rises, and the Israeli Right remains silent | +972 Magazine
If you have ever wondered just how much the occupation and the settlements have corrupted Israeli society and have held the Right and the political leadership hostage, look no further than the shameful silence of just about every Israeli official vis-a-vis American anti-Semitism. Notice that the absolute majority of figures condemning them come from the Left. This is because the Israeli Right has become a single-issue movement: it is willing to sell out the State of Israel for the entire Land of Israel, not to mention worldwide Jewry in exchange for a vague, unreliable statement by an unstable American president.
Source: American anti-Semitism rises, and the Israeli Right remains silent | +972 Magazine
Off-Duty LAPD Officer Discharges Weapon During Dispute with 13-year-old
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocA8j_qE_xI
Protests erupted Wednesday night in Anaheim, resulting in 24 arrests, after two videos emerged showing an off-duty Los Angeles police officer pulling his gun and firing during an altercation in a residential Anaheim neighborhood on Tuesday, February 21, with a 13-year-old Latino boy after the boy and his friends walked across the officer’s front lawn.
Source: Inoreader – Of-Duty LAPD Officer Discharges Weapon During Dispute with 13-year-old








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