May Day: World Victims of Communism Day


Posted On: Wednesday - May 1st 2024 6:51PM MST
In Topics: 
  Commies  ctrl-left

It's already evening, so this is late anyway, but Peak Stupidity got a slow start today. We've got plenty of posts on deck, but it's a matter of time in the day.

Some version of what we today call Wokeness is just the beginning.



Anyway, Ilya Somin, who writes the * blog on the Reason** magazine site wrote a post 5 years back today suggesting May 1 as Victims of Communism Day. I do know the history of this day being the original labor day, a time to celebrate the working man. However, things change, as Mr. Somin describes better than I was going to:
May Day began as a holiday for socialists and labor union activists, not just communists. But over time, the date was taken over by the Soviet Union and other communist regimes and used as a propaganda tool to prop up their [authority]. I suggest that we instead use it as a day to commemorate those regimes' millions of victims. The authoritative Black Book of Communism estimates the total at 80 to 100 million dead, greater than that caused by all other twentieth century tyrannies combined.
As the writer notes, the death toll from the "efforts" of China's Chairman Mao was the highest, making it the biggest mass murder of all time, so far...

Let's try to remember, even the young readers who wouldn't know the Cold War from Cold Play. We have so much history on record about how it gets started.

This is not even the full end result. Cultures can be maimed or destroyed for good.



So, Commies, take that May Pole you've been dancing around, and shove it up your collective(ized) asses!



* I've got no idea who Volokh is, BTW.

** That publication long ago quit being one of this blogger's go-to sites, specifically because of the writers' idiotic stance on the immigration invasion.

Comments:
Moderator
Friday - May 3rd 2024 11:08AM MST
PS: I meant *tablet*, not *table*, early on in that last comment. It does... OK, I DO that a lot for some reason.
Moderator
Friday - May 3rd 2024 11:07AM MST
PS: Thanks for the additional books, Adam! I meant to write you about this, but I didn't want to accidentally make you do even more work:

Cocaine Cowboys has been bit of a struggle. On the table with hundreds of tabs open, that it stopped at just over 18 minutes again, and did the same each time I started over, is solely my fault.

I later loaded it in the browser on a cleaner system. I guess it's the NZ (is it?) software, but it played 18 min for me, then once reloaded and after having skipped, another 18, and then another through 54 minutes and change. At that point it told me pretty clearly that I'd downloaded more than enough for the night, and I needed to wait 5 hours (or pay the hell up!)

I'll keep this up, because I can handle that. So, in a way, this movie is indeed "Cocaine Cowboys, (frequently) Reloaded" ;-}

Thank you very much though. I got through the flying part, unless there is gonna be more, with Mickey Monday pretty proud of all his work. It was pretty impressive. I'm looking forward to the rest.
Peak Stupidity Book Club
Friday - May 3rd 2024 10:41AM MST
PS: ๐ผ ๐‘ โ„Ž๐‘œ๐‘ข๐‘™๐‘‘ ๐‘๐‘™๐‘Ž๐‘› ๐‘œ๐‘› ๐‘”๐‘’๐‘ก๐‘ก๐‘–๐‘›๐‘” ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘Ž๐‘ก ๐‘๐‘œ๐‘œ๐‘˜...

Without further ado...

The Black Book of Communism (20.8mb .pdf)
https://tinyurl.com/22fmetwz

Scorched Earth: Stalin's Reign of Terror (28.8mb .pdf)
https://tinyurl.com/bp9sbvj8

Why do holocaust museums have gift shops?
https://i.ibb.co/6JfCD6H/Gift-Shop.jpg

Cheers! โ˜ฎ๏ธ
Moderator
Friday - May 3rd 2024 6:05AM MST
PS: Regarding the Holocaust, and with this comparison to the Black Book, let me say that people like to run with nice round numbers. I should plan on getting that book, but I can also see where one could just pick and choose some questionable events to get to said round number.

So, "100 million" or "6 million", those are the numbers that people have run with over many years. It's been longer with the 6 million, of course, as the 100 million wasn't reached yet, much less tallied up, by whenever the Holocaust count became written in stone.

Now, should you be able to argue it and make corrections? Nobody questions that you should when it comes to the 100 million dead from Communism - we are HERE, and nobody's been arrested yet* - but the questioning of the Holocaust should not be off-limits either. I don't doubt that millions were killed, myself, but I don't know if anyone can claim precise numbers. I haven't dug into this - I'm no Ron Unz.

Anyway this point leads directly to the post here just after this one.


* Dieter, are you here?
Moderator
Friday - May 3rd 2024 5:58AM MST
PS: That's an important point, of course, Mr. Hail. One can't count The Great Patriotic War, (the eastern front of WWII for us) which killed something like 20,000,000 Russians. The starvation in China, OTOH, was directly due to the edicts of a stupid man with absolute power.

Since you made this analogy to the Kung Flu numbers, let me bring up something that you are VERY familiar with, the life-years lost. As you documented very well on your site in many posts, during the Kung Flu, the deaths actually FROM (not all of them either were purely FROM) the virus were of people of a very advanced age. The number of life-years lost was not high compared to something that would cause the death of children.

Then you got into quality-of-life-years lost, which ran up into high numbers due to the long-lasting effects of the LOCKDOWNS - let's not even get into the vaccines yet here, but one could count problems due to long time face mask-wearing, when it comes to actual later health problems. The social costs were what you wrote about, as I recall.

Well, let me tell you, with the bouts of Communism that might have become a true Pandemic but not for the American and Euro militaries and, as I like to point out, millions of Western engineers and technicians, over 40 years.... where was I ... some value of quality-life-years lost might actually be EASIER to calculate than it was for the Kung Flu. One would have to make some kind of weighting factors - how much worse is it numerically to live your life as described by Solzhenitsyn and the reports of plenty of visitors and defectors? The population numbers would be easy, of course, and we know how long each place suffered.

Mr. Hail, now you've got me thinking of a post comparing Communism to a Plandemic, haha!
Moderator
Friday - May 3rd 2024 5:48AM MST
PS: Mr. Kief, thanks for the reply. I've read about the deaths in China, a large number, 30 to 40 million, it is *said*, due to starvation. Do we count that? Surely we do, though some might say those were just deaths WITH Communism, not deaths FROM Communism. (I joke here, Mr. Hail, I promise!)

Yeah, and I know someone whose grandfather on one side starved during these times. Even those high officials in Peking knew there was no fooling, as meat was hard to obtain even for them.

They say in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge killed 1/3 of the population. That number is probably more readily available - western people were over there. I'm not sure how many were around to see the madness during the early part of Mao's time in China.

So, how could one ever get a count even good to ยฑ 25%. Perhaps in Europe, with the large bulk being in the USSR, of course, the numbers might be more precise.
E. H. Hail
Thursday - May 2nd 2024 11:34PM MST
PS

RE: How many people were "killed by Communism"

I am reminded again of the "deaths with and deaths from" discussion. The Anti-Panickers of 2020 and 2021 had the better arguments. The hysterical-end of the Pro-Panic side insisted on their "rolling death counts" in the millions, at first based on projections and their reality-detached 3% or 5% death-rates and all.

Anyway, calculating big numbers of a complex phenomenon is risky, and necessarily can be prone to exaggeration.

Resting an argument against "Communism" on a supposed "body count" is inherently a weak thing to do. It should be based on other things. The reason is not necessarily because any specific anti-Communist exaggerated or was wrong, but more because it's too hard to calculate, and the project of civilization is about more than pissing-contest comparisons of (supposed) body counts. Not to trivialize those who did die.

By the way, with the "killed by Communism" error-bars legitimately placed in the TENS OF MILLIONS, it's amazing how we know exactly how many were killed in one event of the mid-20th century not by communist regime but a different one. It is, we are assured, a certain number of million for an ethnic-group supposedly favored as God's special favorite; and a one-million-less number killed, supposedly, by the same means, for unfavored people. The numbers are round, remarkably precise, and illegal to question in a number of countries. In how many countries is it illegal to question Victims of Communism numbers?
Dieter Kief
Thursday - May 2nd 2024 12:20PM MST
PS

Mod. subtract 30-40% from the numbers in the Black Book. I have Baberowski's volume not at hand - my library is still in - improvable - - shape - I: I need 30 square meters more room for the books.My wife: Be glad for what you've got - even though that might well not be enough. So - - -

M. - that sounds plausible.

The big Ukrainian famine - according to Mr. Baberwoski from memory- ; rather less than 1 mio deaths.

It just so happened that I found a few friends in the last decade - from Ukraine. One of them, a rather charming painter and mother of two quite nice boys - recalls that her grandfather in Ukraine still (!) has huge amounts of dried bread in a cupboard - - - the great famine sure was a thing.
Moderator
Thursday - May 2nd 2024 12:10PM MST
PS: I am ashamed to say that I did not know that history-rock number, Mr. Anderson. I do know OF the album "Between the Wars" - thought I had it. I must not have it, or I'd have known this one.

The lyrics to "Joe the Georgian":

Now I've got my payment
for the service that I gave.
They've given me my ticket
to this place beyond the grave.
I suppose it's kind of funny,
I suppose it's kind of sad,
thinking back on all the times we had.

[Chorus:] But it's kind of hot and smoky
in this ante-room to Hell,
and I won't make up a story
'cause you know the truth so well.
It's much too late to worry
that we never had a chance,
and when Joe the Georgian gets here
we will dance, dance dance.
When Joe the Georgian gets here
we will dance.

We all set off together
on this sorry ship of state.
When the captain took the fever
we were hijacked by the mate,
and he steered us through the shadows
upon an angry tide,
and cast us one by one over the side.

[CHORUS]

There's Kamenev, Zinoviev,
Bukharin and the rest.
we're sharpening our pitchforks,
and we're heating up the ends
We've got a few surprises
for the mate when he appears.
I hope he likes the next few million years.

[CHORUS]

Pretty serious lyrics there, but understandably so.
Moderator
Thursday - May 2nd 2024 12:05PM MST
PS: That is humorous indeed, Alarmist! I mean you paid your money, and that was the deal, 3 meals a day, dammit! Whaddya' gonna do, not honor our contract. That's like... anti-Capitalist or something.

I'll go back to 2 posts ago to see what got you two into this Deagle population forecast thing, Adam.
Adam Smith
Thursday - May 2nd 2024 11:53AM MST
PS: Thank you, Mr. Alarmist...

Absolutely beautiful here today! About 80ยฐ and sunny. I'm going to go play in the garden, burn a few remaining weeds, plant some purple hulls, okra, and cucumbers, and patch up my deer fence. (Not necessarily in that order...) They say we have some rain coming the next few days which will be just right for watering in our cover crop.

https://txmg.org/hendersonmg/plant-library/peas-top-pick-pinkeye/

๐ถ๐‘œ๐‘™๐‘ข๐‘š๐‘๐‘–๐‘Ž ๐‘ˆ ๐‘๐‘Ÿ๐‘œ๐‘ก๐‘’๐‘ ๐‘ก๐‘œ๐‘Ÿ๐‘  ๐‘Ž๐‘๐‘ก๐‘ข๐‘Ž๐‘™๐‘™๐‘ฆ ๐‘‘๐‘’๐‘š๐‘Ž๐‘›๐‘‘๐‘’๐‘‘ ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘’ ๐‘ˆ๐‘›๐‘–๐‘ฃ๐‘’๐‘Ÿ๐‘ ๐‘–๐‘ก๐‘ฆ ๐‘“๐‘’๐‘’๐‘‘ ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘’๐‘š.
- Life is different when you know it's a comedy.

Thanks again! โ˜ฎ๏ธ
ganderson
Thursday - May 2nd 2024 8:50AM MST
PS apropos for today, from our favorite Al:

https://youtu.be/kpapW1Ydovw
The Alarmist
Thursday - May 2nd 2024 8:28AM MST
PS

Thanks, Mr. Smith ... enjoy your afternoon in Godโ€™s country.

Appropo communists and famine, this from The Bee

โ€”โ€”

โ€œHistory Repeats Itself As Communists Run Out Of Food

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY โ€” History has again repeated itself as communism once again devolved into mass starvation. The commies at Columbia University lasted less than twelve hours before running out of food and pleading for humanitarian aid, setting a new record for the collapse of communist food supply.โ€œ

โ€”-

They didnโ€™t have to make that up: Columbia U protestors actually demanded the University feed them. After all, they paid for the meal plan, right?
Adam Smith
Thursday - May 2nd 2024 7:42AM MST
PS: Good morning, everyone!

I just noticed that The Alarmist submitted his comment from post 2966 here too so I'll paste in my response to him here as well...

------------------

PS: Good morning, Mr. Alarmist!

Apparently Deagel removed the 2025 Forecasts some time back.
Thanks to archive.org we can still view snapshots of those pages...

http://web.archive.org/web/20181001000000*/https://www.deagel.com/country/

Here is their forecast for the U.S. from February 20, 2018...
http://web.archive.org/web/20180222175834/http://www.deagel.com/country/United-States-of-America_c0001.aspx

(U.S.) Forecast 2025 - Population = 54 Million

The deagel population collapse forecast was not limited to the U.S. Here's the forecast for the U.K.
http://web.archive.org/web/20180215155214/http://www.deagel.com/country/United-Kingdom_c0209.aspx

(U.K.) Forecast 2025 - Population = 14 Million

http://web.archive.org/web/20180220125104/http://www.deagel.com/country/Germany_c0078.aspx

(Germany) Forecast 2025 - Population = 31 Million

http://web.archive.org/web/20180220124845/http://www.deagel.com/country/France_c0072.aspx

(France) Forecast 2025 - Population = 42 Million

http://web.archive.org/web/20180221111532/http://www.deagel.com/country/Canada_c0038.aspx

(Canada) Forecast 2025 - Population = 26 Million

http://web.archive.org/web/20180220125639/http://www.deagel.com/country/Spain_c0187.aspx

(Spain) Forecast 2025 - Population = 24 Million

It looks like the U.S. (324 million to 54 million), the U.K. (64 million to 14 million) and Germany (81 million to 31 million) were the hardest hit in the deagel forecast, with other western countries following the trend. Meanwhile, countries like China, India, Russia and Mexico were forecast to hold their populations or in the case of Mexico, to grow their population slightly.

http://web.archive.org/web/20180221113248/http://www.deagel.com/country/Japan_c0103.aspx
Japan (127 million to 109 million) looked like a somewhat realistic forecast based on an ageing population without implying nefarious activities.

Was the deagel forecast just bullshit? Is it a occult mind control thing? Is there something these people knew ahead of time?

2025 is right around the corner and as of now it looks like the deagel forecasts were a little too pessimistic (or optimistic depending on one's point of view and desired goals). Maybe the forecasts are pretty good but their timeline is off a little? I guess time will tell.

And on that happy note...

I hope you have a great evening, Mr. Alarmist! โ˜ฎ๏ธ
The Alarmist
Thursday - May 2nd 2024 6:07AM MST
PS

Speaking of genocide by commies, do you remember that Deagle 2025 population estimate for the US of some ridiculous number like circa 100 million???

โ€œMounting evidence indicates that these vaccines, like many others, do not generate sterilizing immunity, leaving people vulnerable to recurrent infections. Additionally, it has been discovered that the mRNA vaccines inhibit essential immunological pathways, thus impairing early interferon signaling. Within the framework of COVID-19 vaccination, this inhibition ensures an appropriate spike protein synthesis and a reduced immune activation. Evidence is provided that adding 100 % of N1-methyl-pseudouridine (m1ฮจ) to the mRNA vaccine in a melanoma model stimulated cancer growth and metastasis, while non-modified mRNA vaccines induced opposite results, thus suggesting that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines could aid cancer development. Based on this compelling evidence, we suggest that future clinical trials for cancers or infectious diseases should not use mRNA vaccines with a 100 % m1ฮจ modification, but rather ones with the lower percentage of m1ฮจ modification to avoid immune suppression.โ€

source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0141813024022323

15 to 20 million already dead by the Covid vaxxes, and plenty more to come.
Moderator
Thursday - May 2nd 2024 5:02AM MST
PS: Alarmist, yes, 700,000 people came to Detroit to "watch" the NFL draft, from what I saw in a headline on Gateway Pundit a few days ago. What does that tell you? How many are on the streets of Washington, FS, protesting the holding of Political Prisoners, a couple of dozen?

Haha, if the Germans can't make it work, nobody can! How was Honeker thrown under the bus? (Just asking, no argument here.) I guess the German public thought Herr Merkel had learned lessons from growing up in the East, but I think she was too steeped in the mindset - I still don't know if she invited in the million Moslem invaders out of stupidity or evil.

We've got some peaches just getting started, but I don't know if they'll make it with the creatures around ...
M
Thursday - May 2nd 2024 4:58AM MST
PS
Dieter: I suspect that if the numbers are too high, it's because the population of the Soviet Union was vastly overstated.

Like all of the other statistics gathered under communism, it would have been embiggened to keep the statistician from the gulag. Each layer of official between the number cruncher and the committee at the top would have done their own embiggening of course.
Moderator
Thursday - May 2nd 2024 4:54AM MST
PS: I have not read that book, Mr. Kief, though I mean to. I provided the link (to goodreads instead of amazon per Volokh Conspiracy) since it was there. I suppose it depends on what terrible events one counts. I would count the starvation of 1 or 2 million Ukrainians for sure.

Do you know what the numerical difference is, between Mr. Baberowski's calculations and those in the Black Book?
The Alarmist
Thursday - May 2nd 2024 3:40AM MST
PS

Workers of the world unite ... and watch that sportball while we capitalst oligarchs pick your pockets seven ways to Sunday.

You know communism sucks when even the Germans canโ€™t make it work. RIP Erich Honecker, thrown under the bus by the woman whose Chancellorship he made possible, and thanks to her Germany will give it another go. Not tomention the rest of the West if left to their own devices.

I overseeded my grass last weekend and yesterday saw a couple birds gorging on the seed. My first instinct was to kill them. Then I thought of Maoโ€™s Four Pests campaign, but went ahead and shot stones at them until they fled.

I decided to not join the cortege in Paris, but couldnโ€™t help notice that they watched the commies do things for which they shot rubber bullets and bean bags at the Gillet Jaunes when they were still a thing. Tells one volumes.
Dieter Kief
Thursday - May 2nd 2024 12:38AM MST
PS
Joerg Baberowski, a German historian and Soviet-Union specialist who spent years in Soviet archives in the short period of time in which that was possible (some years after 89) came to the conclusion, that the Black book of Communism's death-numbers for Lenin/Stalin etc. are way too high.

Its .h.a.r.d. to decently calculate those from the data there is, he said.
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