The Original Evil Empire

Watching the Olympics as I have over the last week, one could be forgiven for not knowing the nature of the Soviet Union.  As Jonah Goldberg recently wrote for the National Review, the sins of the Russian past are casually dismissed by the network and writers covering the Games.  Yet, Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the evil empire for a reason.  One does not acquire a moniker of “evil” unless it is truly earned.  From the oppression of the masses to the persecution of the dissidents to the slaughter of the innocents, the Russia that exists today has distanced from the past but the Soviet Union of old can still be seen in the rear view mirror. 

From a czar to a premier, Russian history has been a story of one dictatorial ruler after another.  Vladimir Lenin was the first leader in the aftermath of the revolution and the defeat of the anti-Communist White Russians.  As leader of the Soviet Union, he spent most of his early years crushing any dissent within his party while taking measures to ensure the longevity of his new government.  So horrible were his policies against those he originally led, he faced an assassination attempt and wide spread discontent from all over the country.  However, as ruthlessly pragmatic as Lenin was, he could not compare to the man who would follow after his in 1924 – Josef Stalin. 

A man of humble beginnings, Josef Stalin proved his cruelty by eliminating those who sought to lead the country after Lenin’s death, including most famously Leon Trotsky.  He wiped out the peasant farming class, who hoped to make profits from their efforts.  Afterwards, he introduced the shockingly destructive economic policy of the Five Year Plan which collectivized Russian farms, forced millions into horrible factory conditions and destroyed any semblance of religious authority or devotion.  Stalin was fearful of the Russian Orthodox Church’s hold on the population.  Simultaneously, he established a secret police force to spy on the populace and purposefully created wide-spread starvation.  His special gulags for political prisoners were infamous for its brutality and conditions.  It is widely estimated by historians that Stalin represents one of the greatest mass murderers of his century – though that might be too limiting a characterization.  Numbers of those who died by his policies range from the millions to the tens of millions.  

Throughout the history of the Soviet Union, its leadership created a society that dwarfed the worst imaginations of George Orwell.  Soviet society was one based on fear and suspicion.  Depravation and drudgery defined lives spent in factories and in lines for disappearing supplies.  So complete was the hold the government had, when Mikhail Gorbachev sought to loosen the binds that tied the Russians into intellectual paralysis, many did not trust it.  So paranoid of the government’s intention were the Russians, they simply could not believe the change.  Literature and art, music and style were regimented and society was browbeaten into conformity.  Soviet society was so damaged, it was constant fodder for Hollywood films and historical studies.   

All of this said, the Russians have something for which they can be justly proud – themselves.  Seldom in human history has a people endured and ultimately thrived after such oppression.  The fact that Russian culture remains at all is a minor miracle.  While it has traditionally been characterized as backward and primitive, it has nevertheless achieved great things in spite of the barriers and limitations placed before them.  And as for those obstacles, they represent one of the worst, most dangerous, deadliest governments ever conceived.  Despite the attempts at whitewashing Russian history, its crimes are incontrovertible.  Facts do have a nasty way of getting in the way of revisionism.   

The Olympics Are Here! The Olympics Are Here!

A year before I began this blog, I had the experience of a lifetime when I attended the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.  Few moments in my life have included so many of the things I love the most – a combination of sport, spectacle, travel, history and geography.  With Vancouver so fresh in my mind, even four years later, I’ve been anticipating the games in Sochi.  With that, I have my memories of the trip but some thoughts as the 23^rd Winter Olympic Games begin in Russia.

Being in Vancouver in 2010 was like being in a walking Benetton commercial as I saw and interacted with people from all over the world.  I spoke to people from countries I had no experience with such as Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus.  Because it is the Olympics, every person seemed to revel in the colors of their country.  The orange-clad Dutch, the red soaked Swiss, the red, white and blue of the Brits and the Russians and the white and blue of the Finns and Koreans.  My wife spoke with various people in French and I tried communicating with people in German.  With everyone I met, I asked question after question about their lives and their countries.  It seems a bit dorky but this is not an opportunity one gets every day. 

I loved the sports – particularly, those sports not prevalent in the United States.  We had tickets to see the American women’s curling team, the U.S. men’s hockey team and the ski jump.  Here are where the colors are at their brightest and most fervent.  Given that I’m a patriotic individual, I really love to see expressions of patriotism in other people.  One can hear chants, songs and cries of devotion.  Over the next couple of weeks, I will be doing as I did four years earlier – checking out sports like the luge, figure skating (my wife’s influence) and cross-country skiing.  I will see the stands or the routes dotted with brilliant colors worn by people shouting their loudest for their fellow countrymen.  In particular, it will be fun to see the Russians cheer on their own in one sport after another. 

Now, as much as I love the Olympics, there are a couple of observations and thoughts that I have going into the games in Sochi.  First of all, there is likely no other country that has had the string of bad opening ceremony uniforms like the Americans.  The American contingent, time after time, have been guilty of over thinking what the uniform should be.  From berets to sweaters that should be a part of an ugly sweater party, our society lacks the understanding that sometimes, more is just more.  When one compares the American gilding to the simplicity of the Greeks, the Turks or the Spanish, the U.S. stands alone in garishness.  Of course, we were not the only ones as equally guilty of overthinking were the rainbow Germans and Pollock-like coats of the Liechtenstein athletes.  I know the Germans were likely making a statement but can you do it with more fashion sense?

My last thought is that there needs to be some tightening up of who can and cannot represent one country or another.  This was most evident in 2004 when the Greeks, as hosts requiring to field all matter of teams, recruited people from all over the world with even the scantest of genetic connections.  Third and fourth generation athletes with no knowledge of the home language are really stretching the definition of who is actually competing.  There are the American figure skating siblings, Chris and Cathy Reed, skating for Japan,  Singapore-born and British-raised Vanessa-Mae Vanakorn Nicholson skiing for Thailand, and German Prince Hubertus von Hohenlohe who will be taking to the slalom course for Mexico.  Now, to various degrees, these people do have connections but some are so thin, it is a wonder they can be seen in the snow of Sochi.   

Still, for all of the cattiness of some of my comments, this is my favorite time of the year.  Granted, the Olympics have never been the bastion of apolitical, peaceful coexistence that it champions itself to be.  However, they always try and the idea that people think there is a place for such an attempt makes me think we are not has far-gone as others fear.  My one final, parting wish is that there is no 2014 version of the pouty, petulant Mckayla Maroney – particularly representing the U.S.  The original was bad enough.

Farewell to a Good Man

I feel that my whole life is a contribution.
            Pete Seeger

From the moment I was exposed to political philosophy, I embraced a conservative paradigm.  From the moment I was first enraptured by music, my tastes gravitated toward the melodies that filled my home.  Over the years, more than a few people have made comments that my political leanings are at odds with the music that makes me happy.  I don’t apologize for this because, like most thinking at its best, who and what I am is not black and white or easily definable.  My opinions are not to be labeled by anyone.  It is for this reason that, this past week, I was sad and pained at the passing of legendary singer and activist Pete Seeger.     

My mother weaned me on country music and while it did not take, I found the stories and the history of the older songs compelling.  Mr. Seeger was equally compelling in his stories of the downtrodden and the forgotten ones.  He sang songs about and to those who existed on the outskirts of this country’s blessings.  In doing so, he provided a voice for those who previously had none.  His songs brought their plight to listeners who had no first-hand experience.  As a part of my political and musical education, I came to understand what it meant to exist in poor, rural regions or suffer the cruel hand of oppression. Songs like “We Shall Overcome”, “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” and his many renditions of traditional American music have highlighted the plight of those subject to forces beyond their control.  

Beyond the music that highlighted the troubles of many Americans, Pete Seeger displayed a courage seldom seen in our more modern activists.  He joined those who were being hunted down and killed simply for being black or transient.  He sang for them, in front of them.  He was not content to simply allow his words to pour into microphones and emanate from studios and vinyl.  Mr. Seeger traveled the country and listened to the troubles of others.  He sat with the black man, the migrant farm worker, the Native American and the Vietnam veteran.  He listened to what they had to say and in return, he gave them kindness, a sympathetic ear and his time.  His personal courage allowed him to see what was truly happening in this country and craft tunes that changed generations.  

For Pete Seeger, a champion of folk music though he bristled at the moniker, he felt his music was for everyone and much of his career was spent in tiny halls, living rooms and children summer camps.  His love of singing was matched by his desire for others to sing with him and his time performing for and with children consisted of his greatest moments.  “If you sing for children, you can’t really say there’s no hope.”  According to PBS’s American Masters, he said that some of his songs were deemed innocuous enough but masterpieces like “This Land is Your Land” and others carried its own message and became standards in the process.   

If there is a part of his life and his message that struck the greatest discordant note with my beliefs, it was his stance on war and communism.  I’m not a pacifist and I don’t hold with communism.  To that end, some of his Vietnam songs and his visit to North Vietnam as well as his dalliances with communism in the 1940s struck me more naïveté – a child-like perception of how the world works.  He described leaving the communist party based on revelations about Josef Stalin but attributed benevolent intentions on the part of the North Vietnamese.  This though their rule was marked by re-education camps, torture and murder.  While utopic, I still marvel at his dedication and willingness to throw himself into the fire.  Seldom do people have the courage of their convictions and Pete Seeger was one and worthy of admiration.  

I love listening to his voice.  His rendition of “Guantanamera” and his original “Turn, Turn, Turn” fill me with emotion.  He was part of an education that included the works of Arlo Guthrie, Johnny Cash, the Kingston Trio and the Chieftains.  The story of ordinary people and the hardships they faced and joys they treasured are a doorway to another time and people like Pete Seeger made that story accessible.  Agree with him or not, he was a man of convictions who did not stray but held the line.  He wrote and sung the words of generations of people.  Sadly, no one today can match his eloquence and his passion.  He contributed and he will be missed.

 

 

What Is In a Name?

From an early age, I was aware that not all was as it seemed.  According to my family, I was Jewish but in accordance with most authorities on the subject, I was not.  The problem was my mother – a southern shiksa who married a Jewish Yankee from Baltimore.  Because my mother is not Jewish, rabbinic authorities declare that I’m not either.  For me personally, it is not an issue and I can dismiss the controversy with a Talmudic shrug.  For Israel, it is a larger issue with much wide-ranging implications.    

There are two sides of the much debated topic.  On the Orthodox side of the equation, there are the rabbis of Israel.  When Israel was created, the government bestowed upon the religious authorities the responsibility of all religious matters which included marriage and questions of Jewishness.  The only time the government infringed on this duty was in the parameters for the Right of Return and Israeli citizenship, requiring only one Jewish grandparent of an immigrant (or their spouse).  However, according to the religious authorities, only one of a Jewish mother or one who has passed through traditional conversion can claim to be a “Jew.”  

On the other side of the argument are the liberals who see the question mired in the difficulty of answering, “What is a Jew?”  Outside of Israel, so many Jews (particularly young Jews) are marrying outside the Tribe, lines are blurring at a dizzying rate.  There is even a growing number of Jews who feel a belief in God is not necessary to be a Jew.  Additionally, there are the problems that arise from such a narrow view of “Jewishness” as seen in the Jewish Ethiopian immigrant controversy in Israel in the 1980s and their Hebraic bona fides.  Compounded with the omnipresent uncertainty of Eastern European/Russian Jews who grew up with no religious knowledge under an atheistic regime and the question grows more convoluted. 

Both sides raise troubling consequences to the other’s position.  The Jewish race, not to mention the faith, has survived largely through a measure of self-preservation and agreed-upon identity.  In the face of historic animosity, they have persevered through a measure of isolationism.  The more vague the traditional concepts of identity become, the greater the threat of the word “Jew” not meaning anything.  Particularly offensive to Israeli rabbis is the concept of a secular Jew without religious conviction.  However, a growing number are in that category or have switched religious affiliation altogether.   For a people who have endured immeasurable oppression, the loss of this identity is traumatic.   

From a modernist point of view, the narrower the term “Jew” is defined, the more likely the faith will die out as prospective converts consider other options.  Ethiopian and Russian Jews do not consider themselves any less so but, in Israel, endure constant suspicions to the contrary.  It is tough enough to convert to a faith in a world that increasingly disrespects such standards.  One can accept such criticism but to have it come from within?  Israeli rabbis have frequently blamed American and other western rabbis for watering down the standards but the reality for these leaders is quite different.  The level of pluralism in western societies make adherence to Israeli standards suicidal.

There is a story of an atheist who tells a rabbi he does not believe in God.  The rabbi responds, “What makes you think God cares?”  I don’t think the question of “Jewishness” can be settled on the basis of religion.  It is an ethnicity and, like God, the belief in the Almighty should not be of primary concern.  However, the rabbis have a great deal vested in maintaining the power to determine this and though liberals in the Knesset are trying to push their agenda, it will take some time.  The Diaspora has broadened the concept of who is and who is not a Jew and there is little point in re-arguing the issue.  One thing is for sure – a protracted argument does no one any good and certainly, is not advantageous for Israel.  I would think it has enough on its plate. 

The Instinctual (Ineffectual?) President

Russian president Vladimir Putin has been juggling a great deal of late – Syria, the Ukraine, domestic dissenters, terrorist attacks, the Olympics, treason and gay rights.  He has inserted himself into these issues like a man without enough to do.  Advantageously or not, he has entered into frays in an attempt to bring Russia once more to the fore.  As Benito Mussolini sought to re-create the Roman Empire, Mr. Putin wants to bring back the glory and the relevance of the Soviet Union.  What has emerged is a portrait of a man who does not have a master plan so much as an instinctual drive to matter once more.

In the Ukraine, it has been a battle between a government who is beholden to and admiring of the heavy-handed example of Russian rule while its people are desperate to be a part of the European Union.  The people have been staging one massive demonstration after another to demand entrance into the more economically prosperous West.  Mr. Putin doled out $15 billion that he will likely never see again, saving the Ukraine for the moment, but to what end? 

Concurrently, gay activists are primed to make their point with the upcoming Olympics but the president’s anti-gay stance is not controversial in a largely conservative country.  Additionally, while the Russians may be attacked by the more liberal West on the subject, few other countries are making waves on the subject, so why stir the pot?  The moral litmus test that Mr. Putin seems to be suggesting was made after the fact and is further proof that no grand master plan exists for the president.  

The Edward Snowden affair has made more than a few observers and leaders scratch their heads as the incident does nothing for Mr. Putin.  There may be a deep-seated Russian DNA that requires agitating and embarrassing the Americans but Mr. Snowden is no Kim Philby or Alger Hiss.  In the world of international relations and espionage, it would appear that only the naïve Mr. Snowden thought he had something noteworthy on his hands.  The fact that the conscious-stricken traitor has taken or tried to take refuge with three oppressive regimes (Russia, China and Venezuela) further diminishes his importance and message.  

However, the two things the Russian leadership knows about are dealing with internal dissention and throwing a parade.  Yet, the world has changed and even this has proven difficult.  First, Russia made headlines with the imprisonment of the crude, albeit impactful message of the punk band Pussy Riot.  While the Russians have traveled through the cauldron of glasnost, the government has limits.  Back in the day, the three young women would have disappeared and no one would have been wiser but the women have gone viral and they have become impossible to ignore.  Their recent release from jail by the “benevolent” Mr. Putin was seen as the cynical gesture it was and further proof that the president had little idea how to cope.   

Then, there are the Olympics.  Twentieth-century Russian/Soviet history has shown the importance of putting on a show.  Yet, the terrorist attacks in Volgograd threaten to bring down in horrific fashion Russia’s plans to present an athletically dominant and culturally significant image to the world.  No doubt, Mr. Putin, a la Captain Renault, is rounding up the usual suspects but the fact that fears linger and uncertainties are rising is proof that the Russians are not quite as efficient at crushing dissent and “troublemakers” as before.  While one may assume that the lack of more recent attacks is a sign of Russia’s determination, the Chechens are not known for sustained violence – only attacks that are sporadic and spectacular.  An attack at the Olympics would certainly fit the modus operandi. 

Vladimir Putin is an anachronism who is trying to portray his measures under the guise of a modern veneer.  Much like to tax and to please, this tactic is quite untenable.  If the president can have a safe and, for the Russians, a successful Olympics, the country will no doubt benefit but it will not be based on any grand master plan on the part of Mr. Putin.  As Julia Ioffe of the New Republic put it, this is a man thinking and acting instinctively, not deliberately.  While he is hoping that is enough, hope alone has seldom accomplished great things.   

A Road to Perdition

This weekend, an independent arbitrator ruled that New York Yankees’ third baseman Alex Rodriguez was suspended for an entire year, including post season for involvement in performance enhancement drugs (PEDs).  This has been a protracted process beginning with Mr. Rodriguez’s initial rejection of a 200+ game suspension mid-way through last season.  The Yankee third baseman demanded, as is his right under the collective bargain agreement (CBA), for an independent inspection of the evidence and the sentence.  The arbitrator did reduce the sentence but to Mr. Rodriguez’s outrage, a year will be taken away and likely, his career.  Alex Rodriguez has promised not to go quietly but he does need to go away.

In 2009, Alex Rodriguez revealed, after a litany of proclamations to the opposite, that he had taken substances to enhance his performance while he was a member of the Texas Rangers.  However, he was quick to say that he no longer took such drugs and asked that people judge him from that moment forward.  However, when Major League Baseball (MLB) convinced PED clinic owner Tony Bosch to turn over evidence of those players he had sold and administered drugs to, a string of players were revealed.  These players ranged from those to make the big leagues to superstars.  Mr. Rodriguez was at the top of this list.  Based on the evidence provided by Mr. Bosch as well as from other sources, MLB lowered the boom on every person on that list.   

It was at this point that Mr. Rodriguez’s indignation came to the fore.  Too vested in the statistics and glory he had accumulated to back off, he doubled down by lashing out at those who charged him with doping.  He criticized MLB, Commissioner Bud Selig and the entire process, declaring the charges and the suspension as contrived and the product of a smear campaign directed only at him.  All other players suspended accepted their punishment.  There were no cries of persecution, a rigged system or faulty evidence.  To their credit, these players realized their errors and instead of putting their teammates through a continued soap opera by battling the suspension, they took their medicine.  Not Mr. Rodriguez.  He demanded instead an independent arbitrator, all the while declaring that MLB was acting outside the guidelines of the CBA and making much of the fact that Mr. Selig would not attend the hearings (something the commissioner had never done during his tenure).    

When the arbitrator released his findings, he kept the bulk of the original suspension.  The ruling suggests that MLB had a great deal more evidence than has been revealed and that it was air tight.  Once more, Mr. Rodriguez declared the system corrupt though the arbitrator was impartial and by all accounts, carried out his duties thoroughly.  In a lengthy and rambling statement, Alex Rodriguez declared his innocence and his intention to take the matter to a federal court.  Meanwhile, he attempted to rally the players’ union and his former colleagues to come to his support and aid.  The immediate response has been a deafening silence.  It would appear that, for the most part, players are tired of Mr. Rodriguez’s antics and its effect on baseball.   

It is clear to see Alex Rodriguez’s actions as the epitome of selfishness.  To make matters worse, he has declared his intention to attend spring training as allowed for by the CBA, further creating a blunderbuss that will no doubt negatively impact the Yankees’ preparations for the 2014 season (as an Oriole fan, not necessarily a bad thing).  In some ways, it is a sad day for baseball but on the whole, historians and fans will look back on this suspension as the moment baseball began getting its house in order.  As a fan, I would tell the embattled Yankee – Don’t go away mad.  Just go away.

Don't Know Much About History...

Perhaps the history of the errors of mankind, all things considered, is more valuable and interesting than that of their discoveries.  Truth is uniform and narrow; it constantly exists, and does not seem to require so much an active energy, as a passive aptitude of the soul in order to encounter it.

            Benjamin Franklin

In the mid-2000s, I was in Japan with a group of high school students as part of a cultural exchange.  As a part of the exchange, I as the teacher met the education director for the Niigata Prefecture.  At the time, a controversy had erupted over the presentation of Japanese history in school textbooks.  Typically, the Japanese are reluctant to address controversial issues publicly but the education director asked me, as a history teacher, of my thoughts on the textbook debate. 

Risking a possible international incident, I suggested that history is not history unless it is embraced fully, warts and all.  Otherwise, it’s propaganda.  The director smiled and I smiled for I realized he was a reformer and I did not create an international row.  Today, however, the issue has re-emerged in Japan over the atrocities committed by the empire during World War II.  Nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in the aftermath of his recent visit to the controversial war dead shrine (Yasukuni), is attempting to shore up his conservative base and the issue of school textbooks is as impactful as it gets.   

Japanese schools are a model of, if nothing else, efficiency in providing a national narrative.  The Japanese have gone to great lengths to push and emphasize the importance of school lessons and the message that such lessons disseminate.  What is presented in Japanese schools is digested and learned to the letter and forms students their concepts of the various subjects – everything from math to history.  The idea of the proposed changes in the history textbooks could go a long way to change and shape how young Japanese students view their country and its past actions.   

Typically, Japanese history textbooks have an almost bullet-point style presentation – heavy on the core facts and figures and shallow on depth and context.  Some of the proposed changes (some examples recently published by the New York Times) are more a question of comprehensiveness than ideology.  A comprehensive discussion on the peace treaty that ended the war might include the typical Japanese view of the treaty, American objectives and the Japanese government’s response to those goals.  On a more nefarious and ideological level, the changes seek to whitewash the role the Japanese military played in the abuse and murder of civilians in Korea, China and a host of other subjugated countries at the mercy of the Japanese during World War II.     

In the United States, we have various groups who are seeking to re-write history.  In some cases, these groups simply seek to further explain or more greatly enumerate the details in which things happened.  However, other groups seek to re-cast history and its events to suit their own world view, regardless of facts.  Like these groups, the Japanese are playing a dangerous game.  What they sow here in 2014 in the form of whitewashed history textbooks could reap a risky flirtation with past mistakes.  George Santayana’s oft-quoted quip of history repeating itself might be trite but no less applicable.  Until the Japanese come to grips, as a culture, with their actions, the country as a political entity could become a wild card in the regional political power structure.   

In some ways, the effort of the Japanese is admirable as many places around the world are filled with those who bemoan the loss of who they are.  However, that same culture prevents the Japanese from fully embracing and accepting what it did as a country.  The salvation of any culture is a better understanding of its history – with all the blemishes and imperfections (and horrible abuses) that understanding brings.  The textbook crisis will be a turning point for the country and will drive it towards something new and better or toward something old and destructive.  History is not the romper room seen in elementary and middle schools (and high schools for that matter).  It is the most important subject one can pursue in order to have a better comprehension not only of ourselves but our culture.