“We must stop war-hungry militarists” -- Mikhail Gorbachev

Europe must lead in creating “the new world”

Edited excerpting by Carolyn Bennett

I

t should not be like this. “Fences are being built around us, which push towards an anti-Russian way. Even Germany which after reunification presented itself very well and called for renovation, is now just on the brink of a split. And now nothing takes place without the presence and a push from America” [Mikhail Gorbachev at TASS December 1, 2014].

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev talks with the TASS News Agency, interview posted at RT. December 1, 2014. Here is some of what he said. 

 

Cold War

“The ‘new world order’ after the Cold War allowed major powers to quickly solve a lot of longtime conflicts around the globe.”

But the current “signs of Cold War” seen in recent cooling of “relations between Moscow and Washington over Russia’s accession of the Crimea and the turmoil in Ukraine” indicate that “we must go back to the starting line where we began building a new world both in Europe and elsewhere.… 

“We can and we must stop this whole process” of return to Cold War as “we did in the 1980s.” Then, “we opted for de-escalation and the unification [of Germany]. Back then it was a lot tougher than now – so why can’t we do it again.”

Dangerous use of power

Having declared itself the victor of the Cold War, the United States, its leaders “are still intoxicated by this ‘triumph.’ Russia also makes a lot of mistakes (but) today the danger comes from the US stance.”

Walls of Shame

The current state of affairs, Gorbachev says (and I agree wholeheartedly) is “unacceptable.”

Walls

“Fences are being built around us, pushing [the international community] on to an anti-Russia path.”

Anti-Russian moods are rising in various countries – including Germany, which had good relations with Moscow in recent decades. This always happens “in the presence of and due to instigation from the American side.”

Merkel remembers
25 years after fall of
Berlin Wall

Constructive way forward

“There is still time… We must stop those war-hungry militarists.”

 He said he has “some ideas” and “with a group of ‘important influential people from United States” interested in his involvement,” he is prepared to help “resolve tensions between Russia and the United States.”  

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (C) Former Polish leader Lech Walesa (L) Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev (R) “People will turn up who will have the strength

to stop this (regression) and start building a new world order that would meet the challenges faced by the international community. Europe can have a very positive impact on the situation. It must become the locomotive in the creation of the new world.”

Gorbachev in brief

Noted for his policies of Glasnost and Perestroika (“openness” and “restructuring”), for his summit conferences with then-US President Ronald Reagan, and for changing Soviet strategic aims, former Soviet President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is well-known for aiding in ending the Cold War.

December 1, 2014
Gorbachev talks with TASS

On December 8, 1987, Gorbachev signed an agreement with U.S. President Ronald Reagan for their two countries to destroy all existing stocks of intermediate-range nuclear-tipped missiles. In 1988–1989, he oversaw the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan after their nine-year occupation of that country. He was general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1985 to 1991 and president of the Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991.

A

 Britannica article calls Mikhail Gorbachev “the single most important initiator of a series of events in late 1989 and 1990 that transformed the political fabric of Europe and marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War.”

Gorbachev was a child of the Soviet Union’s famine years (1932–1933). He was born in 1931 of peasant Ukrainian–Russian parents, migrants from Voronezh and Chernigov Governorates, in Stavropol Krai. In his teen years, he (as had his father) operated combine harvesters on collective farms and qualified as an agricultural economist. Later he graduated from Moscow State University with a degree in law. Among his awards and honorary degrees are the 1989 Otto Hahn Peace Medal and the 1992 Harvey Prize.

Sources and notes

“Gorbachev: It’s up to Europe to prevent new Cold War between US and Russia,” Published time: December 1, 2014 19:59, http://rt.com/news/210463-gorbachev-us-russia-europe/

“Gorbachev warns of new cold war, calls to stop building fences around Russia: Soviet Union’s first and only president Mikhail Gorbachev compared the present situation with the one the country faced in the 1980s,” December 1, 2014, 17:00 UTC+3, http://tass.ru/en/russia/764517

Named after an industrialist and inventor Leo Harvey, the Harvey Prize “is an Israeli scientific distinction awarded annually for breakthroughs in science and technology and for contributions to Peace in the Middle East,”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Prize

Bio: Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (Russian: Михаи́л Серге́евич Горбачёв, tr. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachov; IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil sʲɪrˈɡʲejɪvʲɪt͡ɕ ɡərbɐˈt͡ɕɵf] ( ); born March 2, 1931) is a former Soviet statesman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Gorbachev

See also biographical article in Britannica

Gorbachev, Mikhail.  (2013). Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Deluxe Edition.  Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica.

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A lifelong American writer and writer/activist (former academic and staffer with the U.S. government in Washington), Dr. Carolyn LaDelle Bennett is credentialed in education and print journalism and public affairs (PhD, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan; MA, The American University, Washington, DC). Her work concerns itself with news and current affairs, historical contexts, and ideas particularly related to acts and consequences of U.S. foreign relations, geopolitics, human rights, war and peace, and violence and nonviolence. Dr. Bennett is an internationalist and nonpartisan progressive personally concerned with society and the common good. An educator at heart, her career began with the U.S. Peace Corps, teaching in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Since then, she has authored several books and numerous current-affairs articles; her latest book: UNCONSCIONABLE: How The World Sees Us: World News, Alternative Views, Commentary on U.S. Foreign Relations; most thoughts, articles, edited work are posted at Bennett’s Study: http://todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com/ and on her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/carolynladelle.bennett. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/08UNCONSCIONABLE/prweb12131656.htm http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-000757788/UNCONSCIONABLE.aspx Her books are also available at independent bookstores in New York State: Lift Bridge in Brockport; Sundance in Geneseo; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center in Buffalo; Burlingham Books in Perry; The Bookworm in East Aurora

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Decades’ hostility, squandered opportunity: U.S.-Russia Relations

Chronic international incidents made in USA

Editing, re-reporting, brief comment by 

Carolyn Bennett

The Russian expert and professor emeritus with New York and Princeton universities, Stephen F. Cohen, is reported saying that Washington’s ‘Feckless policy elite and an uncritical media establishment’ are culpable in the deterioration of U.S.-Russia relations and these nations' headlong plunge “into a new Cold War.” And what is happening started long before “911” and a whistleblower named Snowden. This is some of Professor Cohen’s analysis.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT (hostility)

Since the end of the Soviet Union, 22 years ago, Stephen Cohen says, the United States under one after leader in Washington has “lost several opportunities to create a meaningful cooperative relationship between Washington and Moscow (the United States and the Russian Federation).

William Jefferson Clinton - Barack Hussein Obama

“Although the U.S. political-media establishment routinely blames (Russian President Vladimir) Putin,” Cohen says, “the movement toward Cold War ─ instead of partnership with post-Soviet Russia ─ began almost a decade before (Putin) came to the Kremlin.” The regression started “in the 1990s … under the Clinton administration, whose tenure “initiated the three basic components of what has remained Washington’s Russia policy, from George W. Bush to Obama:

…expanding NATO (now including missile defense installations) to Russia’s borders;

…‘selective cooperation,’ which has meant concessions by Moscow without meaningful U.S. reciprocity; and

…interference, in the name of ‘democracy promotion,’ in Russia’s domestic politics

“For twenty years, this Cold War approach has had overwhelming bipartisan support among the U.S. political elite and mainstream media.”

Congress passes
Magnitsky Act

CURRENT (ongoing hostility)

In late 2012 through the spring of 2013 came enactment of an anti-Russia act.

Congress and the current president laid into law the “Magnitsky Act” banning a list of Russians from the United States; and Russia responds with its list of banned Americans, both actions signaling a return, the verge of, or a new Cold War.

Cohen said that although Congress is not itself “russophobic,” its bill was provoked by U.S. “russophobic forces.” The Congress is “just uninformed,” he said:

It knows almost nothing about Russia. Most members of Congress have no understanding of international affairs or national security.

 

If this is true, it is a deliberate ignorance. With all the resources at its disposal, there is no excuse for America to have an “uninformed” Congress. 

C

ohen says U.S.-Russian relations after enactment of “Magnitsky” were further strained with Washington’s and Moscow’s published lists of people banned from entering their countries.

The Obama administration in April 2013 published a list of 18 individuals affected by the Act:

Artyom Kuznetsov, a tax investigator for the Moscow division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs	Pavel Karpov, a senior investigator for the Moscow division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
Oleg F. Silchenko, a senior investigator for the Ministry of Internal Affairs	Olga Stepanova, head of Moscow Tax Office No. 28
Yelena Stashina, Tverskoy District Court judge who prolonged Magnitsky's detention	Andrey Pechegin, deputy head of the investigation supervision division of the general prosecutor's office
Aleksey Droganov	Yelena Khimina
	Dmitriy Komnov
Aleksey Krivoruchko	Oleg Logunov
Sergei G. Podoprigorov	Ivan Pavlovitch Prokopenko
Dmitri M. Tolchinskiy	Svetlana Ukhnalyova
Natalya V. Vinogradova	Kazbek Dukuzov, Chechen acquitted of the murder of Paul Klebnikov
Lecha Bogatyrov, implicated by Austrian authorities as the murderer of Umar Israilov

U.S. President signs
Magnitsky Act

Russian Federation
President Vladimir Putin

After the Act became law, the Russian government denied Americans’ adoption of Russian children, issued a list of U.S. officials prohibited from entering Russia, and posthumously convicted Magnitsky as guilty.  On December 19, 2012, the State Duma (Russian legislature) voted 400 to 4 to ban the international adoption of Russian children into the United States. The bill was unofficially named after Dmitri Yakovlev (Chase Harrison), a Russian toddler who died in 2008 of heat stroke after being neglect by his adoptive American father. In later actions, Russia introduced a law to prevent U.S. citizens from working with political NGOs in Russia and another law, later abandoned, to prevent any foreigner from speaking on state television if they discredited the Russian state.

On April 13, 2013, Russia released a list naming 18 Americans banned from entering the Russian Federation over their alleged human rights violations, as a direct response to the Magnitsky list. The people banned from Russia are:

U.S. officials involved in legalizing torture and indefinite detention of prisoners (The Guantanamo List):	·         David Addington, Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney (2005–2009)
·         John Yoo, Assistant U.S. Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice (2001–2003)	·         Geoffrey D. Miller, retired U.S. Army Major General, commandant of Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), the organization that runs the Guantanamo Bay detention camps (2002–2003)
·         Jeffrey Harbeson, U.S. Navy officer, commandant of JTF-GTMO (2010–2012)

The Russians also banned several U.S. officials involved in the prosecution and trial of Russian arms smuggler Viktor Bout and drug smuggler Konstantin Yaroshenko, both serving prison time in the United States:

·                     Jed Rakoff	·                     Senior U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York
·                     Preet Bharara	·                     US Attorney for the Southern District of New York
·                     Michael J. Garcia	·                     former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York
·                     Brendan R. McGuire	·                     Assistant US Attorney
·                     Anjan S. Sahni	·                     Assistant US Attorney
·                     Christian R. Everdell	·                     Assistant US Attorney
·                     Jenna Minicucci Dabbs	·                     Assistant US Attorney
·                     Christopher L. Lavigne	·                     Assistant US Attorney
·                     Michael Max Rosensaft	·                     Assistant US Attorney
·                     Louis J. Milione	·                     Special Agent US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
·                     Sam Gaye	·                     Senior Special Agent US DEA
·                     Robert F. Zachariasiewicz	·                     Special Agent US DEA
·                     Derek S. Odney	·                     Special Agent US DEA
·                     Gregory A. Coleman	·                     Special Agent US Federal Bureau of Investigation

Cohen calls “Magnitsky”  “a serious blow to U.S.-Russia relations.” Worsening an “already bad political atmosphere in Washington,” the Act now institutionalizes “a kind of a prejudicial approach to Russia that’s going to continue; it won’t be possible to end the Magnitsky Act.”

Choice of the
Corrupt and
Inept

Neglect
Made in USA

And any attempts at rapprochement have been rebuffed by Washington. One opportunity, Cohen observes, began with the tragedy of the recent bombing in Boston “when it was clear that we (the United States) needed a lot of cooperation in counter terrorism between Moscow and Washington.” Another missed opportunity, he says, was “the Syrian civil war, or whatever it is, spun out of control, … the worst crisis in the Middle East in many years; and while it appeared that Washington and Moscow were ready to try and do something about that,” they didn’t; “and then came Snowden, … clearly a setback and (a test of leadership) for both President Putin and President Obama.” 

Neglect
Made in USA

Thanks to a “Feckless policy elite and an uncritical media establishment,” Stephen Cohen says, U.S.-Russian relations are deteriorating and these two powerful nations “are plunging into a new Cold War.”

I

n public affairs foreign and domestic the United States led by a corrupt, entrenched and inept cabal continues to cause regression and serious breakdown. What a waste.

Result

Cohen was talking about the expanding U.S. surveillance state, some of which has been exposed by Snowden, when he said Americans must raise and debate some serious questions, and not be stymied in this imperative by a rogue government.

Are we Americans prepared to give up all freedoms fought for ─ for 200 years ─ and allow the government to commit possibly illegal surveillance?

Result

Should we make a trade-off between our fears and our privacy?

Should we in the post-911 era allow our fears to wage endless wars, make commonplace the intolerable and the lawless; and so relinquish the possibility and promise bequeathed to the people of the United States of America?

Sources and notes

“‘Authoritarian regime’ in the Russian media vs. ‘democratic’ U.S. mainstream media in the context of the new Cold War” (Stephen F. Cohen commentary first published in The Nation on January 16, 2013), January 23, 2013, http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_01_23/Authoritarian-regime-in-the-Russian-media-vs-democratic-US-mainstream-media-in-the-context-of-the-new-Cold-War/

“How Obama can avert another Cold War - Stephen F. Cohen,” February 19, 2013, http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_02_19/How-Obama-can-avert-another-Cold-War-Stephen-F-Cohen/

“‘Obama can’t afford a fair trial for Snowden’ - Stephen Cohen” (Op-Edge), July 19, 2013 [Snowden issue a test of leadership ability for Putin and Obama …:  New York University Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies Stephen Cohen (AFP Photo / Dmitry Kostyukov)]

http://rt.com/shows/sophieco/snowden-case-us-russia-307/

http://rt.com/op-edge/snowden-asylum-us-russia-315/

“Magnitsky Act the result of ‘know-nothing Congress and lack of leadership from White House’” (Op-Edge), Published time: April 14, 2013, http://rt.com/op-edge/magnitsky-lists-stephen-cohen-828/

Relations between Russia and the United States, already marred by “disputes over missile defense, the Middle East and Russia’s internal politics,” have become more strained after the United States passed the Magnitsky Act … and Russia replied with a law prohibiting Americans from adopting Russian orphans ─  Stephen F. Cohen

Read more: http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_01_21/Political-media-establishment-culpable-for-strained-US-Russia-relations-Cohen/

Stephen F. Cohen is an expert on Russia and professor emeritus of New York University and Princeton University.

Magnitsky

In 2009, lawyer and auditor Sergei Magnitsky died in a Moscow prison after investigating fraud involving Russian tax officials.

In the United States, the Magnitsky Act (formally known as the Russia and Moldova Jackson-Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012) originated in a bill sponsored by Maryland Democrat, Senator Ben Cardin; its intention: “to punish Russian officials who were thought to be responsible for the death of Sergei Magnitsky by prohibiting their entrance to the United States and use of their banking system.” It evidenced mounting tensions between the United States and Russia. The U.S. Congress passed the bill in November–December 2012 and U.S. President Barack Obama signed it into law on December 14, 2012.

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Ethel, Julius Rosenberg executed June 1953 during “Red” hysteria: resistance legacy continues

 Courageous individuals are among but “we lack organized mass political effort confronting corporate enemy” says son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

Editing, re-reporting, ending comment by 

Carolyn Bennett 

“T

here had to be a Rosenberg case. At the same time, there were more narrow reasons behind the death penalty itself. It was used in an attempt to coerce cooperation. The ultimatum was, ‘talk or die.’ My mother was held hostage. The government said to Julius, ‘You talk, admit your guilt, or she will die too.’

“If you follow that to its logical conclusion, you can see that in fact they didn’t want to carry out the death penalty, at least not at first. They fully intended to reward my parents by commuting the death sentence if they cooperated, but when they didn’t cooperate, they had to show them who was boss ─ by killing them.

1950s-2000s
Weapons of Mass Destruction
WMD Scare
(pretext, hoax)

“Behind it all was the Cold War hysteria and the political aim of whipping up support for war and repression. My parents refused to capitulate. They sacrificed their lives rather than contribute to the anti-communist hysteria.” [Robert Meeropol] 

Meeropol's parents

Wikipedia note: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg: born September 25, 1915 (Ethel); May 12, 1918 (Julius) in New York City (both); Died June 19, 1953 (aged 37) Ethel; June 19, 1953 (aged 35) Julius at Sing Sing Prison (both); Charge(s): Conspiracy to commit espionage; Penalty: Capital punishment; Conviction status: Executed; Occupation: Actress, Singer, Secretary (Ethel), Electrical engineer (Julius); Children: Michael Meeropol, Robert Meeropol, 

 Britannica note: Red Scare: Despite his strongly anticommunist foreign policy and creation, in 1947, of an elaborate Federal Employee Loyalty Program, resulting in the firings of hundreds of federal workers and forced resignations of several thousand more, Harry S. Truman’s (33rd U.S. President, 1945-1953) final years in office were marred by charges that his administration was lax about, or even condoned, subversion and disloyalty and that communists (disparaged ‘reds’) had infiltrated the government. 

U.S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin infamously held that the Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman administrations amounted to ‘20 years of treason.’

In February 1950 McCarthy claimed that he had a list (whose number varied) of State Department employees who were loyal only to the Soviet Union.

McCarthy offered no evidence to support his charges and revealed only a single name, that of Owen Lattimore, who was not in the State Department and would never be convicted of a single offense. Making charges, mostly undocumented, of disloyalty, the senator enjoyed a highly successful career and won a large personal following.

 

Many others promoted the scare in various ways, leading to few convictions ─ but much loss of employment by government employees, teachers, scholars, and people in the mass media.

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg
Wikipedia image

In this era of paranoia, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were killed by the State. World Socialist Web Site’s Fred Mazelis last week posted his interview with Robert Meeropol, son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. This is more of what Robert Meeropol had to say about past and present scares and State abuses.

“The legacy of my parents,” he said, “is their resistance. They were confronted by the U.S. government and told that they must (tell lies) or die: that they had to admit to being involved in atomic espionage when that was not the case. My father was involved along with a number of other young men in trying to help the Soviet Union, but he had nothing to do with the atomic bomb and he was not going to lie about it.

 “Today, in the cases of Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden ─ and not only in these cases ─  these are young resisters, young people saying we are not going to put up with this government or any government having such awesome power to spy on the population.…

Lynne Stewart
Persecuted
Practicing attorney
Political prisoner

“As we confront the corporate elite and the authorities, we need more people like this. The only thing I would add is that, unfortunately, while we have courageous individuals ─

…what we lack is an organized mass political force to confront the corporate enemy.

As founder of the Rosenberg Fund for Children, Robert Meeropol explained his motivation.

“On a personal level,” he said, “I set out to help children whom I see as kindred spirits ─ children who suffered because of attacks on their parents in response to their parents’ activism.

“In the 20-odd years of its existence, the RFC (Rosenberg Fund for Children) has made grants totaling nearly $5 million to hundreds of children. I did some research on this and the trend in recent years shows the need for this work.

In Barack Obama’s first year in office, there were some 600 political arrests.

In the second year, this was up to 900

In the third, it hit 1,300, and

With ‘Occupy Wall Street’ and other protests, there were over 8,000 political arrests in the final year of (President) Obama’s first term.

Robert Meeropol and daughter Jenn
Son and granddaughter
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg legacy
Rosenberg Fund for Children

“Many of those arrested have children. They are not famous, these are not big names, and their children have educational and emotional needs. The kinds of activities supported by our grants include camp, art and music lessons, school tuition, day care, therapy and the costs of travel to visit incarcerated parents.

“…. If it is going to take years and even generations to transform our society, then we on the left must work to transmit our values across generations.…” 

R

obert and Michael Meeropol are the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who in June 1953 were executed by the U.S. government on trumped-up charges of atomic espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union. Robert, the younger of the brothers, was six years old when his parents were killed by the State. The Rosenberg brothers were adopted and raised by Abel and Anne Meeropol. They have spent their adult lives campaigning to expose the importance of the Rosenberg case. In the 1970s, they successfully sued the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to force the release of 300,000 previously secret documents dealing with their parents. In addition to his work as founder (1990) of the Rosenberg Fund for Children (www.rfc.org), Robert Meeropol is a practicing attorney and hold academic degrees in anthropology and law.

Resisters
Leaders in Human Rights
Eleanor Roosevelt (l)
Margaret Chase Smith (r)
1956

In her June 1, 1950, resistance, her   “Declaration of Conscience” against  McCarthyism, U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine lays charges of “selfish, political exploitation of fear, bigotry, ignorance and intolerance.” 

 More than sixty years since the Rosenbergs and Roosevelts, Joe McCarthy and Harry Truman and here we are again faced with paranoia and pretexts and persecution, high crimes of the State, gross abuses of law, human rights convention, and ethical principles perpetrated with impunity by leadership USA all over the world. How is this possible? 

Meeropol is right. We are without organized mass political effort, an essential togetherness; and if there is to be a constructive societal transformation, we on the left must instill requisite values across the generations. But for a nation of people who are plummeting insidiously into America's separatist past; and even worse, a people bent on destroying the foundational potential  and promise laid down by the founders for liberty and justice for all ─ this is indeed a tall order. 

Sources and notes

“The WSWS speaks to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg’s son: An interview with Robert Meeropol”

(Fred Mazelis), June 15, 2013, http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/06/15/meer-j15.html

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg

“The Rosenberg Fund for Children was started by Robert Meeropol, who was orphaned at age six when his parents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, were executed at the height of the McCarthy Era. In 1990 Robert figured out how he could repay the progressive community that helped him survive. He founded the RFC to help children of targeted activists in the U.S. today- children who are experiencing the same nightmare he and his brother endured as youngsters.”

http://www.rfc.org/aboutus

CELEBRATE THE CHILDREN OF RESISTANCE: the RFC’s signature public event. The program honors the progressive legacy that Ethel and Julius Rosenberg left to their sons while celebrating the courage of activists today, http://www.rfc.org/celebratethechildrenofresistance

United States (Red Scare). (2011). Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Deluxe Edition.  Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica

IRONY

“Minnesota Nazi: Commander of SS unit lives in U.S. after World War II” (Staff Writer), June 14, 2013 - See more at: http://www.miaminewsday.com/national/10387-minnesota-nazi-commander-of-ss-unit-lives-in-us-after-world-war-ii.html#sthash.GmqW1SmU.dpuf

By David Rising, Monika Scislowska, and Randy Herschaft, Associated Press / June 14, 2013 at 11:49 am EDT

Michael Karkoc, age 94, “a top commander of a Nazi SS-led unit accused of burning villages filled with women and children lied to American immigration officials to get into the United States and has been living in Minnesota since shortly after World War II, according to evidence uncovered by The Associated Press.

“In 1949 Michael Karkoc told American authorities he had performed no military service during World War II, thus concealing his work as an officer and founding member of the SS-led Ukrainian Self Defense Legion and later as an officer in the SS Galician Division, according to records obtained by the AP through a Freedom of Information Act request.

“The Galician Division and a Ukrainian nationalist organization he served in were both on a secret American government blacklist of organizations whose members were forbidden from entering the United States at the time.” http://www.miaminewsday.com/national/10387-minnesota-nazi-commander-of-ss-unit-lives-in-us-after-world-war-ii.html

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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