BS: Russia- 1933?

Subject: RE: BS: Russia- 1933?
From: robomatic
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 05:34 PM

BB: I've read that charging the relatives for the ammo is a Chinese ornamentation of the policies of repression. Has it been done elsewhere?

This just in NY Times:

Russia Reopens Case of Murdered Journalist


MOSCOW — A day after a Moscow jury acquitted all three suspects in the murder of the prominent investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the presiding judge ordered the case reopened Friday.

The judge, Yevgeni Zubov, ordered the Russian Investigative Committee to reopen the case and told the Interfax news agency that he would give investigators material evidence.

Subject: RE: BS: Russia- 1933?
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 01:09 PM

International Federation of Journalists

They used to also campaign against journalists being targeted by the US military in Iraq, but perhaps that is less of a problem now with the change of administration.

IFJ reports

Subject: RE: BS: Russia- 1933?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 12:10 PM

no problem.


I worry more about those who say "it always happens, so why should we talk, or worry about it?"

Subject: RE: BS: Russia- 1933?
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 12:03 PM

I apologize for the snarkiness of my post, bb. Just feeling disgruntled last night.

I have not yet seen those other threads, btw.

Subject: RE: BS: Russia- 1933?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 11:59 AM

Ebbie,

My previous thread, originally "1934" (requested correction to "1933" in the second post) was renmaed by the clones as "Venezuala- 1933". I was just going along with the naming convention.

I intend to note the occurances that remind me of the rise of Nazi Germany. Too many, for my comfort.


Robomatic,

I was aware of the trials, but the year is more significant to me in relation to Germany.

At least the families are not being charged for the bullets that are used to execute people, now.

Or are they?

Subject: RE: BS: Russia- 1933?
From: robomatic
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 11:35 AM

Well, even though the information is near to hand, locked inside BB's brain, I'm gonna through out two things:

There's another thread with 1933 in the title, and methinks our honorable thread initiator might be conveying a thematic relationship.

As to the history, in the 1930's there took place in the erstwhile Soviet Union a series of show trials. These were political theatre, done as a nasty nasty rite of power, memorialized in such books as Darkness at Noon and 1984 and captured more recently with a Cuban expat who summarized the difference between the Communist and the Capitalist ethos as basically, "The powerful ream you out wherever you are, but over here you are not required to thank them."

I think it's interesting that we can all agree on the nasty side of Russian government, but some are willing to pass on it as nothing remarkable or new. I was in a conversation this week with some educated, well paid Americans and they kind of passed on what's been going on in the Soviet Un-, er, excuse me, Russian Federation and Venezuela as due to people desiring strong leadership. I think people in Venezuela and Russia want to be free just as we do. They are not going willingly into that bad night. They are being sold down the river. In this particular case a brave journalist was shot down like a bird and the culprits are ruling the roost and lining the nest for each other by rampant and massive corruption.

I thank BB for summoning up a bit of outrage over this.

Subject: RE: BS: Russia- 1933?
From: goatfell
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 11:19 AM

what?

Subject: RE: BS: Russia- 1933?
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Feb 09 - 12:04 AM

Of course, I know what happened in 1933 Germany, bb. To me the title os this thread would have made more sense if it had been simply titled '1933?' The fact that it is Russia in this case seems fairly irrelevant.

Subject: RE: BS: Russia- 1933?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 09:08 PM

What is surprising about any of this? Russian politics is a matter of pragmatism. Always has been, always will be.

Subject: RE: BS: Russia- 1933?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 08:27 PM

"*sigh*..It's not exactly news that Russia still conducts mock trials and that 'crusaders' are not safe. It is the same in China & Burma and Venezuela...etc...

Any particular point to this notice? "



Maybe we SHOULD make it news. I think I have posted about China and Burma and Venezuala...etc...



Any particular point that we should have noticed Germany in 1933???

Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.

Subject: RE: BS: Russia- 1933?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 07:40 PM

1933...

In the 1930s, plans to isolate and eventually eliminate Jews completely in Germany began with the construction of ghettos, concentration camps, and labour camps which began with the 1933 construction of the Dachau concentration camp, which Heinrich Himmler officially described as "the first concentration camp for political prisoners."


....

The Nazis also undertook programs targeting "weak" or "unfit" people, such as the T-4 Euthanasia Program, killing tens of thousands of disabled and sick Germans in an effort to "maintain the purity of the German Master race" (German: Herrenvolk) as described by Nazi propagandists. The techniques of mass killing developed in these efforts would later be used in the Holocaust. Under a law passed in 1933, the Nazi regime carried out the compulsory sterilization of over 400,000 individuals labeled as having hereditary defects, ranging from mental illness to alcoholism.


.....


In 1933, Hitler appointed Gertrud Scholtz-Klink as the Reich Women's Leader, who instructed women that their primary role in society was to bear children and that women should be subservient to men, once saying "the mission of woman is to minister in the home and in her profession to the needs of life from the first to last moment of man's existence."

Subject: RE: BS: Russia- 1933?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 07:33 PM

1933......

On 30 January 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany by Hindenburg after attempts by General Kurt von Schleicher to form a viable government failed (the Machtergreifung). Von Schleicher was hoping he could control Hitler by becoming vice chancellor and also keeping the Nazis a minority in the cabinet. Hindenburg was put under pressure by Hitler through his son Oskar von Hindenburg, as well as intrigue from former Chancellor Franz von Papen, leader of the Catholic Centre Party following his collection of participating financial interests and his own ambitions to combat communism.[citation needed] Even though the Nazis had gained the largest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag general elections of 1932, they had no majority of their own, and just a slim majority in parliament with their Papen-proposed Nationalist DNVP-NSDAP coalition. This coalition ruled through accepted continuance of the Presidential decree, issued under Article 48 of the 1919 Weimar constitution.[7]

The National Socialist treatment of the Jews in the early months of 1933 marked the first step in a longer-term process of removing them from German society.[8] This plan was at the core of Adolf Hitler's "cultural revolution".[9]

Consolidation of power
The new government installed a totalitarian dictatorship in a series of measures in quick succession (see the article on Nazi forced coordination or Gleichschaltung for details).

On the night of 27 February 1933 the Reichstag building was set on fire and Dutch council communist Marinus van der Lubbe was found inside the building. He was arrested and charged with starting the blaze. The event had an immediate effect on thousands of anarchists, socialists and communists throughout the Reich, many of whom were sent to the Dachau concentration camp. The unnerved public worried that the fire had been a signal meant to initiate the communist revolution, and the Nazis found the event to be of immeasurable value in getting rid of potential insurgents. The event was quickly followed by the Reichstag Fire Decree, rescinding habeas corpus and other civil liberties.

The Enabling Act was passed in March 1933, with 444 votes, to the 94 of the remaining Social Democrats. The act gave the government (and thus effectively the Nazi Party) legislative powers and also authorized it to deviate from the provisions of the constitution for four years. In effect, Hitler had seized dictatorial powers.

Over the next year, the National Socialist Party ruthlessly eliminated all opposition. The Communists had already been banned before the passage of the Enabling Act. The Social Democrats (SPD), despite efforts to appease Hitler, were banned in June. In June and July, the Nationalists (DNVP), People's Party (DVP) and State Party (DStP) were forced to disband. The remaining Catholic Centre Party, at Papen's urging, disbanded itself on 5 July 1933 after guarantees over Catholic education and youth groups. On 14 July 1933 Germany was officially declared a one-party state.

Symbols of the Weimar Republic, including the black-red-gold flag (now the present-day flag of Germany), were abolished by the new regime which adopted both new and old imperial symbolism to represent the dual nature of the imperialist-Nazi regime of 1933. The old imperial black-white-red tricolour, almost completely abandoned during the Weimar Republic, was restored as one of Germany's two officially legal national flags. The other official national flag was the swastika flag of the Nazi party. It became the sole national flag in 1935. The national anthem continued to be "Deutschland über Alles" (also known as the "Deutschlandlied") except that the Nazis customarily used just the first verse and appended to it the "Horst-Wessel-Lied" accompanied by the so-called Hitler salute.

Subject: RE: BS: Russia- 1933?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 07:02 PM

"It's not exactly news that Russia still conducts mock trials "

Subject: RE: BS: Russia- 1933?
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 07:00 PM

*sigh*..It's not exactly news that Russia still conducts mock trials and that 'crusaders' are not safe. It is the same in China & Burma and Venezuela...etc...

Any particular point to this notice?

Subject: RE: BS: Russia- 1933?
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 06:33 PM

"1933"? I don't understand? Maybe if I checked out what was happening in Russia in 1933?

You're too subtle for me, bb. I gather that this trial was held just this month, and that the killing happened in 2006.

I guess it surprises me that Russia has as long drawn out cases as the US does.

Subject: BS: Russia- 1933?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 05:16 PM

3 acquitted in brazen slaying of Russian reporter
         

Douglas Birch And David Nowak, Associated Press Writers – 2 hrs 14 mins ago AP –

MOSCOW – A jury in Moscow voted unanimously Thursday to acquit three men in the killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, dimming hopes for justice in a case that has mocked Russia's claims to be a modern democratic nation.

The brazen 2006 slaying of the crusading investigative reporter sent a grim signal to other dissenters in Russia, proving that even the most prominent of Kremlin critics could be murdered with impunity.

And it provoked international outrage, raising suspicions that her death was ordered by prominent public officials.

A jury acquitted two Chechen brothers and a morose ex-cop following a trial that defense attorneys and Politkovskaya's supporters said was marred by prosecution errors and oversights.

All three were suspected of playing minor roles in the killing. A suspected triggerman, a third brother, has not been found.

Politkovskaya was shot five times in the elevator of her central Moscow apartment building on Oct. 7, 2006, after a trip to the supermarket.

In her articles, Politkovskaya had attacked some of Russia's most powerful political leaders. She was a ferocious critic of former president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, on whose birthday the 48-year-old journalist was slain. In one book, she accused him of crushing dissent and leading a "failing democracy."

She had also accused the regime of Ramzan Kadyrov, a former militia leader and now president of the Russian region of Chechnya, of torture and corruption, charges that he has denied.

During the trial, Politkovskaya's colleagues and family said, prosecutors put together a feeble case — never bothering to offer a formal theory of who might have paid for the suspected contract slaying, or why.

Now those close to Politkovskaya fear they will never see justice done.

Sergei Sokolov, one of Politkovskaya's editors at the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta, said the verdicts could make it harder to pressure low-level plotters to testify against organizers.

Now, he said, he feared authorities would "catch the first few homeless people they see, label them guilty and close the case."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090219/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_politkovskaya