Castros Embrace Reform at Cuba's Communist Congress
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Cuba’s communist leaders kicked off a crucial party congress with a huge parade celebrating the 50th anniversary of the defeat of the invasion by CIA-backed exiles at the Bay of Pigs.
Military music and revolutionary slogans were broadcast from loudspeakers as ranks of soldiers marched through Revolution Square past President Raul [sic] Castro and fellow regime dignitaries.
Jet fighters roared overhead, helicopters flew by and assault vehicles drove through the square before hundreds of thousands of civilians - from college students to factory workers – filed past the podium.
"Long live the Communist Party of Cuba! Long Live the Cuban Revolution! Long Live Fidel! Long Live Raul [sic]!” a female announcer shouted. Fidel Castro, the country’s ailing former leader, did not make an appearance.
But away from the communist fervour and propaganda, the country’s ageing leaders were preparing for a party congress that will be crucial for the regime’s survival.
Raul [sic] Castro is seeking his comrades’ endorsement for market reforms designed to bolster the creaking Soviet-style economy while maintaining their firm grip on one-party power. » | Christopher Hart, Havana | Saturday, April 16, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Russian Communists Looking to Overturn Privatization
RUSSIA TODAY: Russia’s Communist Party faction has submitted a bill on nationalization to the lower house of parliament.
The legislation concerns the nationalization of companies that were privatized during the 1990s. Communists have always condemned the process of giving the state assets to individuals, many of whom turned into so-called oligarchs.
Observers say the Communists are trying to use their populist “trump card” now as they have started preparations for parliamentary elections scheduled for December. At the same time, the government is now launching another large-scale privatization campaign.
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) proposes that the state returns businesses that were “unfairly” privatized. But they support compensation of expenses to current owners after “the assessment of assets at the moment of privatization.”» | Friday, March 25, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
Dmitry Medvedev Spends £26m on Luxury Yacht
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, has spent £26m on a super-yacht with whirlpool baths, an artificial waterfall and a cinema.
The 177 foot-long Sirius has quarters for 12 crew and a range of 5,000 miles. >>> | Friday, January 28, 2011
Cuba Lays-off State Workers in Privatisation Drive
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Cuba has begun the process of laying-off a tenth of its state workforce in a drive to push employees into small businesses that could mark the beginning of the end of the 50-year communist experiment on the island.
The state labour union announced this week that the first of some 500,000 employees could expect to receive "pink slips" immediately, effectively terminating their employment in the public sector where, until now, almost 90 per cent of Cuba's workforce have been employed.
The lay-offs will begin in the ministries of agriculture, sugar, construction, health and tourism, according to Salvador Valdes, the leader of the Workers' Central Union of Cuba (CTC). Workers, who on average earn a monthly wage of $20 (£13), were told to expect compensation of one month's salary for every ten years on the job.
Committees have been set up in each workplace to draw up the list of those jobs to be cut, the CTC said – a process that "will be free of favouritism, nepotism and paternalism". >>> Fiona Govan, Madrid | Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Friday, January 07, 2011
Gesine Lötzsch: "Kommunismus ist die Sehnsucht nach Gerechtigkeit"
WELT ONLINE: Linken-Chefin Gesine Lötzsch irritiert mit ihrem Bekenntnis zum Kommunismus. Trotz der Kritik hat sie ihre Ansichten jetzt nachdrücklich verteidigt.
Linken-Chefin Gesine Lötzsch hat ihre heftig kritisierten Äußerungen zum Kommunismus nachdrücklich verteidigt. Der "Berliner Zeitung“ sagte Lötzsch: "Natürlich ist der Begriff Kommunismus belastet. Wir sollten uns aber keine Denkverbote auferlegen lassen.“ Sie sei von den Veranstaltern der Rosa-Luxemburg-Konferenz gebeten worden, "über Wege zum Kommunismus nachzudenken und dieser Bitte bin ich nachgekommen“. Das bedeute aber nicht, dass sich die politische Zielsetzung ihrer Partei verändert habe. "Das Ziel der Linken bleibt der demokratische Sozialismus“, sagte Lötzsch. >>> dapd/mac | Freitag, 07. Januar 2011
ZEIT ONLINE: Der Verfassungsschutz beobachtet ein Erstarken der Linksextremen. Auch in dieser Szene gibt es jetzt Bands, die mit Musik zur Gewalt aufrufen.
Die linksextreme Szene in Deutschland wird stärker. Das Potenzial sei im vergangenen Jahr, nach Abzug von Mehrfachmitgliedschaften, um 600 Personen auf 32.200 gewachsen, sagten Verfassungsschützer dem Tagesspiegel. Den deutlichsten Anstieg, um 500 Personen auf jetzt 25 800, verzeichnete das Spektrum der "Marxisten-Leninisten und anderen revolutionären Marxisten", wie der Nachrichtendienst die in der Regel nicht zu Gewalt neigenden Organisationen nennt.
Auffallend ist vor allem die weitere Zunahme beim Verein Rote Hilfe, der Linke unterstützt, die mit dem Gesetz in Konflikt geraten sind. Im Jahr 2010 sei die Zahl der Mitglieder auf 5500 gestiegen (2009: 5300, 2008: 5000). Die Rote Hilfe sei "strömungsübergreifend" für Linksextremisten attraktiv, hieß es. >>> Von Frank Jansen | Freitag, 07. Januar 2011
Gefahr! Linke Fantasien: Lötzsch spekuliert über Wege zum Kommunismus
WELT ONLINE: Die Vorsitzende der Linkspartei veröffentlichte in der "Jungen Welt" einen Text über "Wege zum Kommunismus" – und erntet heftige Kritik.
Die Linkspartei-Vorsitzende Gesine Lötzsch ist mit Spekulationen über die Zukunft des Kommunismus in die Kritik geraten. Der Direktor der Stasiopfer-Gedenkstätte Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, Hubertus Knabe, griff Lötzsch wegen eines am Montag in der linken Zeitung „Jungen Welt“ veröffentlichten Textes an, in dem sie sich über „Wege zum Kommunismus“ geäußert hatte. „Wenn die Linken-Vorsitzende öffentlich darüber sinniert, welches der beste Weg zum Kommunismus ist, kann einem nur angst und bange werden“, sagte Knabe. Für die Opfer des Kommunismus seien solche Gedankengänge „schmerzhaft und unerträglich“. >>> dapd/dpa/sam | Mittwoch, 05. Januar 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The eurozone bail-out for Greece has begun to unravel after Austria suspended aid contributions over failure to comply with the rescue terms, and Germany warned Athens that its patience was running out.
Thousands of Communist Party supporters wave flags during the protest rally in central Athens on November 15 against the IMF-EU troika visit in Athens and the expected new austrity package. Photo: The Daily Telegraph
The clash caught markets off-guard and heightened fears that Europe's debt crisis may be escalating, with deep confusion over the Irish crisis as Dublin continues to resist EU pressure to request its own rescue.
Olli Rehn, the EU economics commissioner, said escalating rhetoric in Europe was turning dangerous. "I want to call on every responsible European to resist the centrifugal tendencies and existential alarmism."
Swirling rumours hit eurozone bond markets, while bourses tumbled across the world. The FTSE 100 fell 2.4pc to 5681.9, and the Dow dropped over 200 points in early trading. The euro slid two cents to $1.3460 against the dollar as the US currency regained its safe-haven status. Read on and comment >>> Ambrose Evans-Pritchard | Tuesday, November 16, 2010
THE GUARDIAN: Former Cuban president says Marxist model 'doesn't even work for us' in offhand remark to US journalist Jeffrey Goldberg
It was a casual remark over a lunch of salad, fish and red wine but future historians are likely to parse and ponder every word: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us any more."
Fidel Castro's nine-word confession, dropped into conversation with a visiting US journalist and policy analyst, undercuts half a century of thundering revolutionary certitude about Cuban socialism.
That the island's economy is a disaster is hardly news but that the micro-managing "maximum leader" would so breezily acknowledge it has astonished observers.
Towards the end of a long, relaxed lunch in Havana, Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for the Atlantic magazine, asked Castro if Cuba's economic system was still worth exporting. The reply left him dumbfounded. "Did the leader of the revolution just say, in essence, 'Never mind'?" Goldberg wrote on his blog.
The 84-year-old retired president did not elaborate but the implication, according to Julia Sweig, a Cuba expert from the Council on Foreign Relations who also attended the lunch, was that the state had too big a role in the economy.
Raúl Castro has been saying the same thing in public and private since succeeding his older brother two years ago. With infrastructure crumbling, food shortages acute and an average monthly salary of just $25 (£16), it has become apparent that near-total state control of the economy does not work.
But for Fidel to acknowledge the fact could be compared to Napoleon musing that the march on Moscow was not, on reflection, a great success.
"Frankly, I have been somewhat amazed by Fidel's new frankness," said Stephen Wilkinson, a Cuba expert at the London Metropolitan University. "This is the latest of a series of recent utterances that strike me as being indicative of a change in the old man's character." >>> Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent | Thursday, September 09, 2010
Sunday, September 05, 2010
Venezuela Introduces Cuba-like Food Card
MIAMI HERALD: Presented by President Hugo Chávez as an instrument to make shopping for groceries easier, the “Good Life Card'' is making various segments of the population wary because they see it as a furtive attempt to introduce a rationing card similar to the one in Cuba.
The measure could easily become a mechanism to control the population, according to civil society groups.
“We see that in short-term this could become a rationing card probably similar to the one used in Cuba,'' Roberto León Parilli, president of the National Association of Users and Consumers, told El Nuevo Herald. “It would use more advanced technological means [than those used in Cuba], but when they tell you where to buy and what the limits of what you can buy are, they are conditioning your purchases.''
Chávez said Tuesday that the card could be used to buy groceries at the government chain of markets and supplies.
“I have called it a Good Life Card so far,'' Chávez said in a brief statement made on the government television channel. “It's a card for you to purchase what you are going to take and they keep deducting. It's to buy what you need, not to promote communism, but to buy what just what you need.'' Read on and comment >>> Antonio Maria Delgado | Friday, September 03, 2010
Monday, August 02, 2010
Cuba to Relax State Control of the Economy
THE TELEGRAPH: Raul Castro has said that his government will scale back controls on small businesses, lay off unnecessary workers and allow more self-employment - significant steps in a country where the state dominates nearly every facet of the economy.
Fidel Castro (left) and brother Raul. Photo: The Telegraph
Cuba's president, however, quashed notions of a sweeping overhaul to the country's communist economic system in response to the financial crisis it is facing.
"With experience accumulated in more than 55 years of revolutionary struggle, it doesn't seem like we're doing too badly, nor that desperation or frustration have been our companions along the way," the president said.
Speaking in parliament, Castro said that authorities would "update the Cuban economic model," suggesting reforms could be on the horizon. Cuban officials plan to reduce state control of small businesses, authorize more Cubans to become self-employed and build a new tax structure that will compel state employees to contribute more. >>> | Monday, August 02, 2010
Raúl Castro to Allow Cubans More Private Sector Jobs
THE GUARDIAN: Leader says prohibitions on licences and commercialisation will be rolled back in effort to reduce 'bloated' state sector
More Cubans will be allowed to work for themselves and hire their own workers, the country's president has said, while ruling out wholesale reform of the communist economy.
Raúl Castro, who was speaking to parliament at the opening of its biannual session, said the steps were aimed at creating jobs as the government seeks to cut jobs from the public sector over the next five years.
About 95% of all Cubans work for the government and Castro suggested that as many as one in five state employees were redundant in what he called a "bloated" state sector.
Castro said those left out of work would be retrained or reassigned to other jobs but warned that few sectors would be immune to cuts. While sketchy, his comments signalled a liberalisation of the economy at a time of financial crisis. Raúl Castro took power from Fidel, first temporarily, then permanently, in July 2006. He has a reputation for being more pragmatic than his brother. >>> Mark Tran | Monday, August 02, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Greek protesters have unfurled banners over the walls of the Acropolis attacking new austerity measures imposed as a condition of an international bailout.
Greek Communist Party members wave flags from the Acropolis archaeological site behind a banner hung in front of the Parthenon temple. Photo: The Telegraph
About 100 protesters from the Greek Communist Party cut through locks on the gates of the major tourist attraction shortly after dawn and unfurled the banners in Greek and English reading: "Peoples of Europe - Rise Up."
Police did not intervene as the protesters carrying red flags stood beside the ancient Parthenon, next to the two large banners. The demonstrators did not attempt to prevent tourists from visiting the site.
Greece's government announced sweeping spending cuts worth 30 billion euros through 2012, in order to secure a rescue package of loans from the International Monetary Fund and the other 15 European Union countries using the euro. >>> | Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Carl Dix, Revolutionary Communist Party of America: Revolution Is the Solution*
*This has all been tried before, Mr Dix. And we have seen what the outcome of it was. A communist revolution is NOT the solution. Even the Soviet Union had to abandon that idea. So what have you got new to add, Mr Dix? – Mark
Monday, January 25, 2010
Hitler Was Enabled by Western Bankers and the JFK Assassination Story is a National Fairytale, Says Oliver Stone
MAIL ONLINE: Adolf Hitler was a product of his era and Americans are in denial about who really shot JFK, according to Oliver Stone.
The Hollywood filmmaker, who is working on a 10-part documentary called The Secret History Of The United States, said the German dictator was ‘enabled by Western bankers’.
Giving a lecture to high school students on the role of film in peace-building, Stone told how ‘psychopath’ Hitler rose to power thanks to big business leaders and other supporters who appreciated his vow to destroy communism.
Stone, who is in Bangkok for a visit organised by the Vienna-based International Peace Foundation, also told the 300 pupils his movie JFK was his most controversial to date as explores other theories into who killed U.S. president John F Kennedy.
Hitler was and managed to ‘seduce’ Germany's military industrial complex.
He said: ‘Hitler is a monster. There is no question. I have no empathy for Hitler at all.
‘He was a crazy psychopath. But like Frankenstein was a monster, there was a Doctor Frankenstein. He is product of his era.’
Stone said the aim of his documentary, which two historians are helping him with, was to offer a fuller understanding of the 20th century and how some of those lessons may be relevant to President Barack Obama.
‘What has America become? How can we in America not learn from Germany in the 1930s?’ the Oscar-winning director asked. >>> Mail Foreign Service | Monday, January 25, 2010
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
General Wojciech Jaruzelski. Photo: Google Images
Punish Those Communist Bastards!
THE TELEGRAPH: Poland's last communist leader and thousands of former secret service agents have had their pensions cut as part of a campaign to punish those who imposed the authoritarian regime upon the country.
From the start of the year, General Wojciech Jaruzelski will see his pension slashed following widespread anger in Poland that he and others involved in the suppression of dissidents and the democratic movement enjoyed lavish pensions.
The general, along with colleagues from the National Salvation Council, the body that crushed the Solidarity movement in 1981 through the imposition of martial law, have until now enjoyed pensions worth £1,833 a month.
But from January they will receive only £900, although some have said this, too, is excessive, given that a retired doctor can take home as little as £434 a month. Poland punishes former communist leaders by cutting pensions >>> Matthew Day in Warsaw | Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Though Liberals Moan and Lefties Sneer, We’ll Stop the Red Flag Flying Here
Che Guevara and red flags at a May Day parade by the Polish Communist Party in Warsaw six years ago. The proposed law will ban any display of communist symbols appearing ever again. Photo: Times Online
TIMES ONLINE: Down come the cheesy Che Guevara posters in student bedsits across the land. Off come the T-shirts wittily emblazoned with a hammer and sickle.
Twenty years after Eastern Europe toppled statues of Lenin, the Polish Government is about to finish the job by making it all but impossible to wave the red flag — even in jest.
Up to two years in jail await anyone glorifying communism according to an amendment to Article 256 of the Polish criminal code — the race-hate article — which is likely to come into force next year. The ban outlaws “the production, distribution, sale or possession ... in print, recordings or other means of fascist, communist or other symbols of totalitarianism”. So if you planned to sing the Internationale while marching down the centre of Warsaw to the old communist headquarters — now housing financial services companies — forget it.
The revised Bill has already passed the Polish Senate. President Kaczynski has to sign it into law by Monday and no one in Warsaw seriously believes that he will hesitate.
His twin brother, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of the opposition Law and Justice party, has made his view clear: “No symbol of communism has a right to exist in Poland because these are symbols of a genocidal system that should be compared to Nazism.” >>> Roger Boyes | Friday, November 27, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Hillary Clinton Scrubs Ronald Reagan from History
THE TELEGRAPH – BLOG – Nile Gardiner: It’s bad enough that President Obama could not be bothered to attend the celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But Hillary Clinton’s refusal to even acknowledge the role played by Ronald Reagan in the Wall’s demise as well as the downfall of Communism was highly insulting towards one of the greatest figures of our time, and reeked of petty and partisan mean-spiritedness.
The Secretary of State’s remarks yesterday in Berlin completely erased from history the huge contribution played not only by President Reagan but also by the United States in confronting the Soviet Empire. In her speech she applauded half of Europe, but could not bring herself to thank those Americans who bravely served their country and in many cases laid down their lives in defeating Communism, under Reagan’s leadership. >>> Nile Gardiner | Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Quand le mur est tombé : Aujourd’hui, l’Allemagne se souvient
LE TEMPS: Berlin fêtait avec éclat lundi le vingtième anniversaire de la chute du Mur, une page d’histoire qui sonnait la fin de la guerre froide et annonçait la réunification de l’Allemagne et de l’Europe.
La chancelière Angela Merkel a ouvert ce matin les célébrations en participant à un service religieux dans l’église de Gethsemani à Berlin-est, un des hauts lieux de la contestation et des manifestations qui ont contraint la RDA communiste à ouvrir ses frontières, le 9 novembre 1989.
Toute l’Europe est attendue au rendez-vous, avec les représentants des quatre puissances qui ont occupé l’Allemagne depuis la défaite en 1945 à sa réunification en 1990, Etats-Unis, Russie, Grande-Bretagne et France.
Les chefs d’Etats et de gouvernement se retrouveront dans la soirée avec une foule attendue de quelque 100.000 personnes à la Porte de Brandebourg, symbole de Berlin par où passait le «mur de la Honte» construit en 1961 pour empêcher les citoyens de RDA de passer à l’Ouest.
Le président russe Dmitri Medvedev participera aux célébrations comme le dernier dirigeant de l’Union soviétique, Mikhaïl Gorbatchev, qui décida de ne pas réprimer les mouvements de réformes et permis aux satellites de l’URSS de retrouver leur liberté.
La secrétaire d’Etat Hillary Clinton, qui représente les Etats-Unis, a appelé l’Europe et l’Amérique à de nouveaux efforts pour «renverser les murs» de l’intolérance religieuse.
«Le mur qui emprisonnait la moitié d’une ville, la moitié d’un pays, la moitié d’un continent a été emporté par la plus grande force qui soit – l’esprit indomptable d’hommes et de femmes», devait déclarer le Premier ministre britannique Gordon Brown dans un discours dont le texte a été diffusé à l’avance. >>> AFP | Lundi 09 Novembre 2009
Berlin fête ses vingt ans de liberté
Le mur de dominos, qui s'étend de la Potsdamer Platz à la rivère Spree, doit s'écrouler lundi soir, symbolisant l'ouverture démocratique et la liberté. Crédits photo : Le Figaro
LE FIGARO: La ville présente lundi soir un show médiatique planétaire.
Vingt ans après la chute du Mur, le centre de Berlin est de nouveau divisé. Dressée à l'endroit exact où s'élevait le mur de la honte, une barrière de dominos sépare la capitale allemande. Hautes de 2,50 mètres, les 1000 stèles multicolores, toutes décorées de motifs différents, sont alignées le long des édifices les plus symboliques de Berlin : la porte de Brandebourg, le Mémorial de l'Holocauste et le Reichstag, où siège le Parlement allemand.
Le mur de dominos, qui s'étire sur un 1,5 km de la Potsdamer Platz jusqu'à la rivière Spree, doit s'écrouler lundi soir, symbolisant ainsi l'effondrement de la dictature communiste, l'ouverture démocratique et la liberté. L'ancien président polonais Lech Walesa renversera le premier domino. «J'ai le mandat de le faire, la Pologne a ce mandat, car c'est en 1980, à Gdansk, que le premier mur était tombé, au cours des grèves des chantiers navals qui ont donné naissance à Solidarité, le premier syndicat indépendant du bloc communiste, a-t-il souligné. Nous avons vaincu le communisme, et les gens en Allemagne de l'Est ont commencé à fuir via les ambassades d'autres pays. Le mur de Berlin est tombé grâce aux fugitifs. Je m'inquiétais que le leader soviétique Mikhaïl Gorbatchev décide de stopper la fuite des masses et détruise ainsi notre victoire. Le jeu était dangereux. Il est bon que Gorbatchev ait été un homme politique faible et que tout se soit bien passé.»
Les dominos en polystyrène ont été peints par des écoliers à travers le monde, notamment là où des murs divisent toujours des peuples, comme en Israël et dans les Territoires palestiniens ou à Chypre. Mais aussi par des personnalités symbolisant le combat pour la liberté et la réconciliation, comme le Sud-Africain Nelson Mandela ou le chef d'orchestre israélo-argentin, Daniel Barenboïm.
Des dizaines de milliers de Berlinois et de touristes étrangers, venus assister à la «fête de la liberté», se photographient le long de ce mur symbolique et admirent les fresques.
Lundi soir, les organisateurs attendent des centaines de milliers de spectateurs le long du parcours. Daniel Barenboïm, qui avait donné un concert pour les Allemands de l'Est il y a vingt ans à la Philharmonie de Berlin, dirigera l'ouverture des festivités à la tête de la Staatskapelle. >>> Patrick Saint-Paul, correspondant du Figaro à Berlin | Lundi 09 Novembre 2009
Mauerfall Jubiläum: Die Welt schaut auf Berlin
ZEIT ONLINE: Ein wichtiger Tag für Deutschland: Zeitzeugen, Staatsgäste und Hunderttausende Menschen aus aller Welt feiern in Berlin den 20. Jahrestag des Mauerfalls.
Dort, wo einst die Mauer Berlin teilte, stehen am Montag farbenfrohe Dominosteine. Sie sollen am Abend fallen und so den Mauerfall vor 20 Jahren symbolisieren. Bild: Zeit Online
Deutschlandweit wird am Montag mit zahlreichen Veranstaltungen, Aktionen und Gedenkstunden der 20. Jahrestag des Mauerfalls gefeiert. Mittelpunkt der Feierlichkeiten ist Berlin, wo zahlreiche Gäste aus aller Welt erwartet werden. Doch auch im Ausland findet die Erinnerung an die friedliche Revolution in der DDR und den historischen Tag, der die Beendigung des Kalten Krieges und der Blockkonfrontation in der Welt einleitete, große Aufmerksamkeit.
Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel (CDU), Berlins Regierender Bürgermeister Klaus Wowereit (SPD) und Bundespräsident Horst Köhler treffen mit Staatsgästen und Zeitzeugen aus aller Welt zusammen – darunter US-Außenministerin Hillary Clinton, der britische Premier Gordon Brown, der französische Staatspräsident Nicolas Sarkozy, der ehemalige sowjetische Staatspräsident Michail Gorbatschow und der frühere Solidarnosc-Vorsitzende und spätere polnische Staatspräsident Lech Walesa.
Am Nachmittag wird Merkel gemeinsam mit Zeitzeugen und Politikern dort entlanggehen, wo sich einst der Grenzübergang Bornholmer Straße befand, der unter dem Druck der dort versammelten DDR-Bürger als erster in der Nacht des 9. November 1989 geöffnet wurde. Höhepunkt der Feierlichkeiten ist am Abend das "Fest der Freiheit" am Brandenburger Tor. >>> Von Matthias Schlegel und Andrea Dernbach | Montag, 09. November 2009
Andy Williams Accuses Barack Obama of Following Marxist Theory
THE TELEGRAPH: Andy Williams, the veteran pop singer, has accused Barack Obama of "following Marxist theory" and "wanting the country to fail".
Williams, a lifelong Republican whose hits include Moon River and Music To Watch Girls By, told the Radio Times he thought Mr Obama wanted to turn the US into a "socialist country".
The 81-year-old was a friend of the Kennedy family during the 1960s and was present at the Los Angeles rally where Robert F Kennedy was assassinated in 1968.
"I was very close to Bobby and he asked me to be a delegate for him when he ran for president," he said.
"He knew about me being a Republican, but just laughed and said, 'Sign yourself in as a Democrat and then change back afterwards'. Sadly, I never got to do that.
"I was very close to Teddy Kennedy, too, and his death recently brought it all back. What a tragedy. Had he lived, I think Bobby would have been a great president."
But Williams had a less favourable opinion of the current president.
"Don't like him at all," he said, "I think he wants to create a socialist country. The people he associates with are very Left-wing. One is registered as a Communist. >>> | Monday. September 28, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Blunt Warning about Greens Under the Bed
TIMES ONLINE: Once the lure of communism seduced the idealistic. Today’s environmental ideologues risk becoming just as dangerous
Britain is, thankfully, an ideologically barren land. The split between Right and Left is no longer ideological, but tribal. Are you a nice social liberal who believes in markets, or a nasty social liberal who believes in markets? Anthony Blunt’s memoirs, published this week, reveal a different age, one in which fascism and communism were locked in a seemingly definitive battle for souls.
Blunt talks of “the religious quality” of the enthusiasm for the Left among the students of Cambridge. There is only one ideology in today’s developed world that exercises a similar grip. If Blunt were young today, he would not be red; he would be green.
His band of angry young men would find Gore where once they found Marx. Blunt evokes a febrile atmosphere in which each student felt his own decision had the power to shape the future. Where once they raged about the fleecing of the proletariat and quaked at the march of fascism, Blunt and his circle, transposed to today’s college bar, would rage about the fleecing of the planet and quake at its imminent destruction. If you squint, red and green look disarmingly similar.
Both identify an end utopia that is difficult to dispute. The diktat “from each according to his ability, to each according to his means” sounds lovely on paper. Greens promise a world in which we actually survive a coming ecological apocalypse. A desirable outcome, undoubtedly.
But the means to these ends seem similarly insurmountable. Both routes demand an immediate suspension of human nature. Ideologies often credit man with either more nobility or more venality than he deserves. In reality he is a mundane creature. He wants a home for himself and those he loves, stocked with food. And he wants to have the right to control his own destiny, own his own stuff, and to acquire more if he can without interference or fear of imminent death. Such low-level acquisitive desires support high concepts: property rights and the rule of law, without which there would be no foundation for democracy. >>> Antonia Senior | Friday, July 24, 2009
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Cuba’s communist leaders kicked off a crucial party congress with a huge parade celebrating the 50th anniversary of the defeat of the invasion by CIA-backed exiles at the Bay of Pigs.
