Yeah what a surprise they can only think of that slogan when it comes to Israel.....
Yup 6 AG showed up to the last Gaza solidarity protest and now the whole protest is being smeared as Anti Semitic.
I can only hope this is a testament to n00bness of the organisers of these protestors, cuz the AG are already dragging down there message of peace and humanitarianism that these protests are suppose to be upholding.
Welcome to reactionary media politics people!
Neo-conservative blogs that have posted commentaries on the rally have omitted Mr. Devine's comments and have some have claimed that the Aryan Guard's participation is proof that the march was instead anti-Semitic in nature. To be sure the Aryan Guard, and two extremist Muslim men we're aware of who were calling for the killing of Jews, found common cause, but most of the people who attended the rally were there to support the end of the fighting and calling for a long term cease fire, the opening of borders and the distribution of humanitarian aid. Unfortunately, the Aryan Guard took advantage of the good will of, and perhaps inexperience of, the organizers. However, that is absolutely no excuse and the organizers have to know that the participation of the Aryan Guard or any other hate group, be that group Christian, Muslim, atheistic, or other, is absolutely unacceptable.
As far as Lenin goes, I haven't visited him yet this year. I saw him a few years back. If I head over there, I will pass along my regards. In case I didn't mention it before, I spent Lenin's birthday in Ulianovsk (his hometown) in April of 2006. I spent the day touring around the various Lenin houses and museums. I must have visited about 5 of them.
Seeing Leonard Cohen was really awesome. I could have seen him by himself in a longer concert in LA, but the tickets would have been more expensive. Regardless, I am happy to have seen him even once in my life. I always felt robbed since I grew up about 30-60 minutes away from Mount Baldy in California, where he spent my childhood in a Buddhist monastery. Of course, I was too young to know of him. Getting to see him after all of these years sort of addresses the injustice of having him so close and missing the opportunity to see him.
My time in Moscow has been fairly productive. I've worked in the main state archive and the archive of literature and art. Next month if everything goes well I'll get to go to the old party archive. My topic right now is cultural ties and relations between the Soviet Union and India during the Khrushchev years. It should be fun stuff, particularly if I can weasel some funding to allow me to spend a few months in India too. Ideally, I'll spend 9 months in Moscow, then 3 months in India. One of those would be in New Delhi, one would be in Mumbai, and one would be in Calcutta. Calcutta is still governed by a Marxist party (and has been since 1977), so it will be kind of cool to live in a functioning Communist-led democratic state.
How are you doing? I hope that things are going well for you. I haven't been able to be very active here recently, but I hope to hear from my favorite northern comrade.