RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-dissident-outlives-soviet-communism-11572302952

Only death could silence Vladimir Bukovsky. His crusade against the Communist system in Russia and beyond, before and after the Berlin Wall’s fall, was unequaled. He died Sunday at age 76 at his home in Cambridge, England, where he’d lived since the Soviet Union expelled him in 1976.

He didn’t seem to know fear. He was kicked out of high school for creating a satirical magazine. He took night classes and managed to enter Moscow University, where he held unofficial poetry readings and disseminated underground literature. He was expelled from university after denouncing the Young Communist League as useless and later arrested for possessing anti-Soviet literature. In prison he met other dissidents, was “diagnosed” as schizophrenic, read Dickens in English and studied Soviet law. After his release, he protested and was detained again. Altogether he spent 12 years in psychiatric hospitals, prisons or labor camps.

He realized that to make a difference, he had to get his message out to the West. He succeeded, but at the price of additional torture, which he described in his best-selling autobiography, “To Build a Castle: My Life as a Dissenter.” He staged hunger strikes aimed at improving medical treatment in prison and encouraged others to do the same. The authorities force-fed the prisoners through the nose.

The book was published in 1978. By then Bukovsky had been in the West for two years, studying biology at Cambridge University and continuing to defend freedom. In 1983 Bukovsky and Armando Valladares, a Cuban dissident, co-founded the anticommunist Resistance International. His influence grew as he informally advised Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15050/eu-freedom-control

” We are not ‘citizens of the world’… ; we are also not citizens of Europe. We are inhabitants of Europe, but citizens of our nation states…” — Václav Klaus; MCC Budapest Summit on Migration; Hungary; March 23, 2019.

“The European elites understood that to succeed in their ambition to get rid of the nation-states and to create a State of Europe… they have to dissolve the old existing nations by mixing them with migrants from all over the world. By means of this procedure they want to create a new, truly European man, a Homo bruxellarum. This is the main reason why they are – without paying attention to all kinds of negative and destructive side-effects – supporting and promoting mass migration.” — Václav Klaus, MCC Budapest Summit on Migration, Hungary; March 23, 2019.

“Multiculturalism is not a manifestation of Europe’s generosity, or some noble embodiment of love and truth. [It] is what remains after mass migration reveals itself as a threat, rather than a benefit, to the economies of European countries.” — Jan Keller, Czech sociologist, October 16, 2018.

“The [European] community must rely fully on the spiritual, intellectual, and political values that in recent decades have been maintained, cultivated, and practiced in the democratic countries of Western Europe. I mean values like political and economic plurality, parliamentary democracy, respect for civil rights and freedoms, the decentralization of local administration and municipal government, and all that these things imply…It does not mean adaptation to something alien…” — Vaclav Havel, “Summer Meditations”, 1991.

Europe is in the throes of an internal debate between those who continue to view it as a constellation of free nations and those who see it as an entity controlled by Brussels.

Although the Brexit controversy may highlight this split, the conflict — as the former Czech President (and former Prime Minister), Václav Klaus, pointed out 13 years ago — has been raging for decades:

In his 2006 book, What is Europeism, Or, What Should Not be the Future for Europe?, Klaus wrote:

“For half a century there has been an ongoing dispute in Europe between the advocates of the liberalization model of European integration – which was based primarily on intergovernmental cooperation of individual European countries (which kept significant majority of parameters of their political, social and economic systems in their own hands) and on the removal of all unnecessary barriers to human activities existing on the borders of states – and the advocates of the harmonization (or homogenization) integration model, which is based on unification from above, orchestrated by the EU-authorities, with the ambition to level-out all aspects of life for all Europeans …

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15090/sweden-gang-violence

In Sweden, crucial societal issues, such as who is behind the current crime epidemic, are a public taboo.

“With the exception of three people in the survey, all have been offered help since they were boys. Some of them were already registered with the police as ten-year-olds… They have undergone programs… far from the criminal environment in Malmö…. It has not worked. In many cases, social services use the same words: all resources have been exhausted. Put another way: what the social services have done so far does not help, and there are no more measures to try out”. — Sydsvenskan, September 21, 2019

The government therefore recently presented a new initiative, which seeks to tackle the gang violence. The government proposal, however, never specifically mentions who is mainly behind the gang violence and that its own migration policies have in large part created the situation in which Swedish society now finds itself.

These are facts that mainstream politicians have avoided discussing openly for years. The question is: How do you solve a critical societal problem… without talking about it openly?

It does not seem likely that any of these hardened criminals will be swayed much by “increased investments in schools and social services in ‘vulnerable areas'”, as one of the government proposals suggests.

“Since 2015, 32 people have been shot dead in 30 separate acts in Malmö’s latest murder wave. Our survey of the murders shows that more than 120 young men are linked to them in different ways”, according to a recent series of reports about gang violence in the Swedish mainstream newspaper, Sydsvenskan.

“There is much talk about ‘gang wars’ in Malmö,” the report relates.

“Nothing indicates that there are fixed groupings with hierarchical structures and regulated activities in Malmö’s crime world. Rather, on the contrary — everything can be seen as one single gang. And there is civil war [within the gang]. We have mapped 200 criminals in the city. Most of them know each other – they have grown up together, been schoolmates, shared housing and moved in the same circles. Of these, we have selected 20 men for closer examination. Either because they are suspected of having shot, planned or otherwise contributed to the murders. Or that they themselves have fallen victim. And for being identified… as central people in Malmö’s crime world in recent years. At least 18 of the murders have, according to our review, occurred within the relatively narrow circle of these 20 men”.

https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/insight/

President Trump made good on a campaign promise with the U.S. Special Operations raid on Barisha, Syria that sent Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi into a dead-end tunnel, where he blew himself and three of his children to bits. In May 2019, Mr. Trump had announced “the end of the caliphate” in the territorial sense, but the Americans have now eliminated its theological master and terrorist dictator. Bravo to the brave, intrepid, and patriotic men and women who proved once again, as President George W. Bush said, that “you can run, but you can’t hide.”

Let’s clear the quick and stupid stuff first: No, this is not the end of ISIS ideology or terrorism spawned by it; no, it doesn’t fix the problem of Syria; no, it doesn’t make things right with the Kurds; no it doesn’t slow Iran’s desire for a hegemonic land bridge to the Mediterranean. And, yes, The Washington Post is an idiot.

Now, the implications. Most important for the future of the region and elsewhere, the ISIS concept of a land-based “caliphate” has probably expired. A retired naval commander notes:

It’s not 2013 anymore, when the progress of ISIS as a territory-gobbling guerrilla-terrorist force became evident. Their progress was defined by the Euphrates River, which they were following from the general area of Raqqa, from one side, and a general area between Ramadi and Haditha on the other, to link up between the Syria-Iraq border and Deir-ez-Zor. The fact that they were trying to consolidate and control that area was an arresting indication of their intentions, and then in 2014 they stormed into Mosul in the north.

The ISIS plan was different from that of al-Qaeda, which hid in caves in Afghanistan, as remote from its targets as it could be — and thus believed itself safe from retaliation. ISIS planted itself and its flag in the middle of Syria and Iraq: The benefit being oil fields with their revenue, land for training and operations, the ability to levy taxes on the population, and to show how a “real” Islamic civilization would work. Not too many people were impressed.

http://dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/3941/Vladimir-Bukovsky-1942-2019.aspx

The news I have been dreading comes out of England tonight: Vladimir Bukovsky has died. He was 76.

Now that Bukovsky is no more on this earth with the rest of us mortals, the obituaries, like so many doves, will be released to mark his passage out of our lives and into our memories.

I think I have always known that no matter how “prepared” one might be, this moment would be overwhelming. How do we mark the consequence and courage of such an extraordinary man who chose to lead his life in outspoken opposition to evil, who chose to sacrifice years of his life in Soviet labor camps and psychiatric hospitals rather than submit to communist slavery? The unflinching heroism, the giant scale of battle, the enormity of achievment was for Vladimir Bukovsky life’s routine, and thus defies the normal sort of reckoning at life’s end. The quandary lies in the colossal metaphysical sense of him that must be conveyed only in words.

Certainly, at this time there can be no better words than his own. I find myself thinking about a line that recurs in both of his memoirs, To Build a Castle (1979) and Judgment in Moscow (2019): “I did all that I could.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amid-italys-beauty-a-vista-of-decline-11567180425

There was a joke that was popular when I was in college. “I had a great summer job this year,” it went. “What was it?” went the reply. “I was prime minister of Italy.”

I didn’t quite get the job this summer, though I did something even better—spending several weeks in the Tuscan countryside, resting, reading and writing. While I was there, on cue, the Italian government collapsed, and this timely juxtaposition of inner serenity and public turmoil prompted a few thoughts about our larger dispensation.

It’s hard to imagine a better place to ponder the arc of our civilization’s history than the rich, hilly lands from Tuscany down to Rome. It’s partly the views—across vine-covered slopes and cypress-studded hilltops to gorgeous honeyed-stone villages—and the long lunches of pasta and red wine that induce a contemplative mood under the relentless sun.

But it’s also the ubiquitous reminders of our historical roots in this fresco landscape. You can make a solid case that the small swath of hilly terrain between Florence and Rome has had more impact on our civilization than any other territory anywhere on Earth.

The empire that grew out of the little city on the Tiber bequeathed a language, literature and institutions whose heritage continues to shape our lives today. A millennium after the collapse of that empire, the Florentines and their local rivals secured achievements in art, architecture, science and commerce that represent the most intense flowering of human creativity in history. The church that still calls itself universal and ruled much of this land for centuries has guided the lives of billions of adherents.

The single-child family is almost standard, so millions of Italians have no siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins.

But what of it all now? The condition of modern Italy evinces the biblical lamentation for another lost civilization: Quomodo sedet sola civitas. How lonely the city stands.

You can see here a metaphor for the contemporary condition of the West. In Rome this week, they have just about finished putting together Italy’s 62nd (I think) government in 75 years. The country’s comic political instability was the source of humor for decades.

But no one is laughing now. Italy has had no real economic growth for almost 20 years. Its accumulated public debt is almost 1½ times the value of its GDP. Just about all the ambitious Italians I meet want their children to be educated in the U.S. or U.K.

The country was among the first in the West to enter a demographic death spiral. The Italian birthrate is below replacement. The single-child family is almost standard, so millions of Italians have no siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins. The extended family, that natural community of love and support, is going extinct.

The traditional centerpieces of life—family, workplace, community—have been eroded to the bone. Religious observance has collapsed. In the beautiful Tuscan churches I visited, there were probably more priceless works of Renaissance art than there were worshipers. A Caravaggio for every communicant.

The Italian genius for creativity is undiminished, though. I was staying near Montalcino, a small city in southern Tuscany of almost ineffable beauty. Fifty years ago, it was headed the way of many similar European towns. But someone discovered that the local grapes produced one of the finest wines in the world—Brunello—and with investment, a lot of hard work and marketing flair, the place exploded with energy.

In much of the country, however, depopulation is advancing. Moving into the empty spaces have been waves of immigrants, many from North Africa and the Middle East. The migrants have filled vital gaps in the labor force, but the transformation of Italian towns has left increasing numbers of citizens resentful, fearful for their identity. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15080/iran-executioner-children

European leaders, of course, who seem never to tire of sanctimoniously posturing on behalf of human rights, are meanwhile pursuing appeasement policies with a government that is called the world’s leading executioner and torturer of children — and others.

Two 17-year-old boys, who apparently did not even did not even know about their death sentences, were flogged before being executed.

Iran’s Islamic Penal Code also allows girls as young as 9 and boys as young as 15 to be executed. Vague charges are generally brought up by the Islamic Republic’s judiciary system or the Revolutionary Court, such as “waging war against God”. These charges can be stretched to allow for presumably lesser acts, such as criticizing the Supreme Leader, to become a crime, so that that an order of execution can be carried out.

Earlier this year, the Iranian government was in the process of executing three Kurdish children: Mohammad Kalhori, Barzan Nasrollahzadeh, and Shayan Saeedpour.

The other two favorite pastimes of which the EU also never seems to tire are: increasing its censorship and demonizing Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, and one that actually implements human rights. When will the EU finally become nauseated by its own hypocritical self-righteousness?

The European Union continues to assist Iran’s ruling mullahs in evading US sanctions through appeasement policies, including a payment mechanism labeled as INSTEX. The initials stand for Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges; the organization is a payment mechanism that will permit European firms and corporations to continue doing business with the Iranian government in spite of US economic sanctions against Tehran.

The European Union recently boasted in a statement:

“France, Germany, and the United Kingdom informed participants that INSTEX had been made operational and available to all EU member states, and that the first transactions are being processed”.

In other words, the EU is legitimizing the despotic theocratic establishment through trade and diplomatic relationships, as well as empowering the it by helping Iran’s ruling clerics gain more revenues.

European leaders, of course, who seem never to tire of sanctimoniously posturing on behalf of human rights, are meanwhile pursuing appeasement policies with a government that is the world’s leading executioner and torturer of children — and others.

Some of the children who have been executed are as young as 12. The Un

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14942/italy-mass-immigration-suicide

“In my son’s kindergarten there is a serious integration problem, I have to take him away”…. At the time of enrollment, Mohamed explained, they had seen drawings with flags of all nationalities in the school, but, “when we arrived at school the first day, we found ourselves in a class with all foreign children. The teachers are even struggling to pronounce the children’s names.

The migrant reception center on the island of Lampedusa, the front line of Italy’s migration crisis, is now in a state of “collapse” due to the rapidly rising numbers of arrivals.

“The lifestyle of the migrants will be ours”. — Laura Boldrini, former president of Italy’s Parliament; Il Giornale, 2015.

Will Italians integrate into the new culture of the migrants?

With a native population already shrinking, if Italy is open to the mass legalization of migrants, we should be aware that it will be culturally suicidal.

Describing Italy, Gerard Baker, former editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal, recently wrote:

“In much of the country… depopulation is advancing. Moving into the empty spaces have been waves of immigrants, many from North Africa and the Middle East. The migrants have filled vital gaps in the labor force, but the transformation of Italian towns has left increasing numbers of citizens resentful, fearful for their identity.”

He went on to call this transformation, “a kind of pioneer of Western decline”. Already, the effects of mass migration are becoming dramatically visible in many of Italy’s elementary schools. In just the last few days, examples from two large cities have surfaced.

The first was in Turin, Italy’s fourth largest city, where there are now elementary school classes with not even one Italian child: “In all classes, school principal Aurelia Provenza explained, the percentage of foreigners is very high, equal to 60% of the total number of pupils”.

https://www.steynonline.com/9798/scheer-genius

A few random thoughts on a grey morning after:

~According to the deranged dominion’s useless and government-subsidized media, Canadians’ priorities in this election were climate change and indigenous reconciliation, and the breakout star of the campaign was NDP leader Jagmeet Singh.

Back in the real world, Mr Singh’s party lost over a third of its seats, and twenty per cent of its vote, and is no longer the third biggest caucus in the House of Commons. And, whatever voters may tell pollsters about global climate concerns and indigenous reconciliation, the real consequences of the last four years are a resurgent Québécois nationalism and Albertan alienation. Both are testament to what Justin’s “sunny ways” boil down to in practice.

~As has often been said, Canadians rarely deny a party promoted to majority a second majority. The last time it happened was in 1935 – to R B Bennett’s Tories. However, to the best of my recollection, during the ’35 campaign old flickering silent movies did not surface of milord Bennett capering about in blackface with a banana stuffed down his trousers. As I pleaded three weeks ago:

Couldn’t we have contemplated the sheer weirdness of Canada’s head of government a while longer? On the election debate stage, [Trudeau] will be the only blackface devotee. Likewise at the G7 summit. And indeed at the G20. And Nato. If I’m not entirely confident about making the same claim of the Commonwealth Conference, it’s only because Her Majesty’s biennial beano has commanded the presence of some rum coves over the years, but nevertheless I am certain that Justin with his thrice-confessed blackface has worn it more than all the other prime ministers combined.

And yet Andrew Scheer couldn’t lay a glove on the guy – notwithstanding that he’s micro-managed and minded by some of the sleaziest low-down bare-knuckled dirty-tricksters in Canada, from Hamish Marshall even unto Warren (Catsmeat) Kinsella. These are self-proclaimed mean motherf**kers. But not apparently mammyf**ckers. If you can’t make hay while the Sonny Boy shines, what’s the point?