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Real0ne -> RE: Freaking out over a clown??? (8/18/2013 5:35:02 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: njlauren
I don't usually agree with Desideri, but in this case I am with him, I think it is idiotic to say this is racist, from what I can tell of the picture of the clown there is nothing racist about it,there isn't any of the usual racist images like a black person being associated with primates (like carrying a banana) or images that look like steppin fetchit.....and I don't see that here.
Is it derogatory of Obama? It is probably meant to be humor at his expense, seeing a clown dressed as Obama running from a bull, but it is derogatory of him in his position as president, not his race. If they had him dressed in arab style costume, or had him carrying a Q'ran or something, that would be an issue, but this is simply showing through physical humor disrespect, which is an old, old tradition. I have the laugh when I hear about the dignity of the president and such, read about what Jefferson used to routinely write about Washington (when he was in his Cabinet!) and John Adams, and read about 19th century politics where political opponents of Cleveland at rallies would bleat "where's my daaaa-dy" reinforces a vicious rumor Cleveland had fathered a bastard.
they are of course taking us down and already well trodden path ya think?
Show Trials and Purges, 1936-38
In the place of questions from an independent press and comments from liberal editors and journalists, there were pronouncements about the fault of dissidents like Zinoviev having encouraged the likes of Nikolayev and the Zinovievite co-conspirators. Their opinions, it was claimed, encouraged the radical dissidents like the Zinovievites and all of the enemies of the revolution. For their role in having encouraged the conspirators, the Communists supporting Stalin now moved against two more of their old comrades: Zinoviev and his old partner in opposition to Stalin, Kamenev. Zinoviev was sentenced to ten years in prison, and Kamenev to five.
Meanwhile, alongside the new drive against enemies of the revolution, the contrary move toward liberalism that had existed within the Communist Party before Kirov's assassination continued in the form of a new Soviet Constitution. It would be a contradiction that the Stalinists would easily resolve in favor of the drive against enemies.
The new constitution was written largely by Bukharin and was to take effect in 1936. The government was to be divided into two legislative bodies: the Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of Nationalities. The Constitution guaranteed freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press and freedom of religious worship. The Constitution guaranteed the inviolability of individuals, their home and the privacy of their correspondence. According to the Constitution, any of the republics could choose to secede from the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. And according to the Constitution, the exploiting classes had been defeated, the class war was at an end, and the working class and those on the collective farms, and the intelligencia, and the vanguard of working people were all working together to build a new socialist society.
Stalin was hardly a supporter of such liberality, but he could not very easily do away with the new constitution. Instead, he made a show of supporting it, presenting it as a gift from the Communist Party. The Party press was touting the new constitution. Meanwhile, through 1935 to mid-1936 hundreds of arrests were made. A law was passed that lowered the age of criminal responsibility. A new article was added to the Criminal Code – Article 58 – which defined new offenses that were counter-revolutionary and stated that persons who fled abroad could be executed and families of defectors imprisoned or exiled.
With Stalin pursuing class conflict, he had reason for more fear from dissidents within the Party, and the government passed a law that denied Party members the right to carry guns. Party members did not react to the law, but some of them must have been disturbed by Stalin's moves against so-called enemies. A vicious circle was spiraling toward a purification campaign not unlike the terror during the French Revolution. Stalin would now move against the rank and file opposition that had long festered among Leningrad Party members since Zinoviev's split with Stalin some years before. To eliminate a breeding ground for what he saw as mistaken ideas and weaknesses, Stalin would order thousands of Bolsheviks and their families deported to northern Siberia.
Trotsky as Arch-Villain and Darkness at Noon
Now in Norway, Trotsky was announcing to the world that political prisoners in the Soviet Union were being harshly treated, and among Stalin's supporters Trotsky remained enemy number one alongside fascism. The Bolshevik press, which had once claimed Trotsky as their hero, was now demonizing him. In August 1936, the Soviet regime accused Trotsky of conspiring with fascists in a counter revolutionary plot against the Soviet Union, and the Party newspaper, Pravda, announced that German secret police were involved in the plot. Trotsky was now to be portrayed not as a Left deviationist as before, but, having been demonized, he could be portrayed as having surrendered all his scruples and become a Rightist.
That same month, the first of the big show trials in the Soviet Union took place. Sixteen were to be tried. The two leading defendants were the already imprisoned Zinoviev and Kamenev. Before the trial they had been worked on by the NKVD, and Stalin was kept informed. When an official told Stalin that Kamenev could not be broken, Stalin became enraged and told the official not to come back with a report until he had a confession from Kamenev.
The court charged the defendants with complicity in the murder of Kirov and of plotting to kill Stalin. The trial lasted five days. No material evidence was presented, and the Soviet Union's Supreme Court asked for none. The defendants confessed their guilt, Zinoviev saying that because of his having been seduced by Trotskyism he had gone all the way to fascism. Decades later, some people were to believe that the defendants may have confessed to save their families, or that they may have confessed believing that this would spare their lives. Some others were to believe that the defendants had been convinced that the charade was for the good of the Party – as described in Arthur Koestler's novel, Darkness at Noon.
Half way through the trial, Stalin went to the home of an old friend and former politburo member, Tomsky, with a bottle of wine. Tomsky, with Bukharin and Rykov, was facing a charge of treasonable complicity with Zinoviev. Tomsky ordered him out, and Stalin left, shaking with anger. Moments later a shot rang out. Tomsky, the good Bolshevik that he was, was opposed to individual terror. He had chosen to kill himself with his pistol rather than to kill Stalin.
The prosecutor, Vishinsky closed his speech for the prosecution saying, "I demand that these mad dogs be shot, every last one of them." On August 25, 1936, Zinoviev, Kamenev and the fourteen others were shot. And Trotsky was sentenced
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