Month: August 2008

Saakashvili

The Afghan Trap & Déjà vu in Georgia

Greg Guma August 13, 2008 Greg Guma

Presidents Saakashvili & Bush
The US government has persistently claimed that its decision to bankroll the overthrow of Afghanistan's government in the final days of the 1970s was a response to the invasion of Soviet troops. But Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was President Carter's National Security Advisor at the time and now advises Barack Obama, finally admitted the truth in 1998: covert US intervention began months before the USSR sent in troops. "That secret operation was an excellent idea," he crowed. "The effect was to draw the Russians into the Afghan trap."

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The Freedom Archives: An Interview with Claude Marks

Hans Bennett August 11, 2008 Hans Bennett

Claude Marks is the director of The Freedom Archives, a San Francisco-based organization. Through the website and email list-serves, Freedom Archives provide a valuable resource documenting both revolutionary struggle and police state repression. Freedom Archives also creates high quality audio and video documentaries, including the recent video about the San Fransisco 8, titled "Legacy of Torture."

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Open Forum: Discussing Solzhenitsyn’s Life and Politics

Toward Freedom August 11, 2008 Toward Freedom

After the August 6th publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn: ‘Let us change our course!’ on Toward Freedom, TF board members and advisors began an interesting and productive discussion regarding Solzhenitsyn’s life and political views. Solzhenitsyn is a controversial and complex figure, and under discussion was to what extent he can be claimed by progressives and the peace movement given that he was a supporter of the Cold War.

To offer alternative viewpoints on Solzhenitsyn’s life and times, we have provided a list of links to other articles and videos. Please check back for updates to this list and forum. If you would like your comments to be added here, or would like to suggest another resource on Solzhenitsyn’s life, email [email protected] read more

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Alexander Solzhenitsyn: ‘Let us change our course!’

Rene Wadlow August 7, 2008 Rene Wadlow

I want to push through

To the very essence of everything:

Straight to the core of days gone by,

To what made them,

To the foundations, to the roots,

The heart of the matter.

– Boris Pasternak

The Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who died on August 3, 2008, wrote in his most autobiographical novel The First Circle, that "A great writer is, so to speak, a second government. That is why no regime anywhere has ever loved its great writers, only its minor ones." The writer as the conscience of the people has a long tradition in Russia both in Czarist and Soviet times. Turgenev was compelled to live much of his life abroad, and many of his works were suppressed. Chekhov felt this duty of public conscience so strongly that, even though suffering from tuberculosis, he insisted on making a long journey to the Sakhalin Islands to report on the conditions of exiles there. Leo Tolstoy was regularly censored and finally excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church which banned any prayers at his funeral. read more