Monday, June 22, 2020

Russia fabricated story about a cult

Comment on The Times article Fears of ‘new Waco’ as tsarist cult seizes Russian convent by Marc Bennetts, 19 June 2020.

This is a fabricated story, where the conflict is fake.
Similar spectacle was staged in Poland in 2007, when nuns locked themselves up in a convent in a Roman Catholic convent in Kazimierz Dolny. It was the story of a religious sect, which was established in this convent. There was also a 'rebel priest' among them. There was a threat of violence. There was a standoff etc. The Catholic church in Poland and the Orthodox Russia lost their autonomy very soon after the onset of the Communist rule. On 15 October 2004, the Polish pope John Paul II celebrated the 26 anniversary of his pontificate in the Vatican with the concert of the Red Army Choir. The concert was televised to Italy and Russia.

Monday, June 8, 2020

David Cannadine reevaluates Anthony Blunt's case. No victims

I was surprised to hear a reevaluation of the Anthony Blunt's case.

Couple of days ago BBC Radio 4 aired a podcast on Anthony Blunt, in which David Cannadine, the current President of the British Academy, reconsiders Blunt's case of spying for the Soviet Union and the resulting social and political consequences. Interestingly, no one asks the question of Blunt's moral responsibility towards victims of the repugnant, genocidal Communist dictatorship.

Quote from the program's web page: "David Cannadine speaks to many of Blunt’s former students and those directly involved in the raw and personal clash of ideals over Blunt's position, some of whom remained sympathetic to him as a great intellectual and great teacher, and saw themselves as defenders of intellectual liberty against a political witch-hunt."

Look ma, no victims! Communism presented as an intellectual exercise without mass murder, torture, expulsions, evictions.

As it happens, my family, including myself personally have been deeply affected by Communist persecution. As a result, I am working at a London's greengrocer's, after being fired from a university in Poland. I may be the only Physics PhD (University of Florida 1995) in that role anywhere in the world today.