Throughout the centuries, the history of Ukraine has revealed the turning points in the history of Europe. This seems still to be true today. Of course, which way things will turn still depends, at least for a little while, on the Europeans.
Most people know Charlie Chaplin, whose 125th birthday was April 16, as a giant figure in the history of film. Chaplin's films were as funny as they were deeply revelatory of the human condition. His raucous cinematic assault on fascism, discussed here, helps enrich our understanding about what made this clown one of our most sublime and important artists.
With The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson has reached the dizzying point of fantasizing about feeling nostalgic for nostalgia itself.
Exposing troubling ties in the U.S. to overt Nazi and fascist protesters in Ukraine. White supremacist banners and Confederate flags were draped inside Kiev's occupied City Hall, and demonstrators have hoisted Nazi SS and white power symbols over a toppled memorial to V.I. Lenin. Sieg heil salutes and the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol have become an increasingly common site in Maidan Square, and neo-Nazi forces have established "autonomous zones" in and around Kiev.
Svoboda’s success over the past few years and the presence of neo-fascist groups such as Pravy Sektor in Independence Square are signs of a crisis in Ukrainian society.
Woody Guthrie's guitar famously bore the legend, This Machine Kills Fascists. Here are the Woody lyrics (probably dating to the 1940s) that most directly spell out this message, with appropriate pictures of contemporary bad guys. Woody's confidence in the victory over fascism was the flip side of his confidence in the victory of the common people who, he sang, were Bound for Glory.
Reader Comments: NY Labor-Religion Coalition - support to people of Boston; Maduro victory - reader writes from Latin America; Capitalism; Grim jobs picture & horrible "grand bargain;" Stumble stones in Germany; Socialism; E. O. Wilson; more
Announcements - 'The Bolivarian Revolution After Chávez' 4/17 & Poesîa en Abril 4/18 - Chicago; Wither the Socialist Left? - NYC - Apr 25;
Today in History - Apr 15-17, 1960, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee founded
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