Nice.
I also created my very first non-ASB timeline because I clearly need to be stopped.
Reds fanfic
- Thread starter E. Burke
- Start date
I also created my very first non-ASB timeline because I clearly need to be stopped.
I swear to god Diogenes may well be the world's first troll.
That's not true. First, time is not an observable, but a parameter, so you can't have a meaningful non-trivial Dirac commutator with it; energy-time uncertainty is a meaningful but not a canonical relation. Second, interpreting eigenstates in terms of Platonic forms is completely bizarre, considering they are definite results of observation, and determined by the specific setup of the experiment, not some sort of independent ideal. Third, if anything, Aristotelianism plays much better with this picture, since a superposition of eigenstates represents the possibilities (and quantitative probabilities) of a result of observation—or put another way, representing potentiality that is brought into actuality by measurement.
BTW Heisenberg wrote a lot on the parallels between QM and Aristotelian notions of potentiality and actuality (and also Kantian philosophy), and Heisenberg is essentially one of the two founders of the Copenhagen view. I don't think the correspondence is all that great, but it's interesting nonetheless. (What I personally also find interesting is how much those and prior generations of physicists were educated in and references philosophy as a matter of course, but following generations much less so.)
Well, the first recorded troll anyway. I'm pretty sure acting like a goofball to get a rise out of people is as old as humor itself.
I'm very pleased to see the USSR retained a capability for modernism/futurism despite Stalin's blessing of "Socialist Realism."
In fact one thing that struck me in your other thread on Soviet/Russian SF art was a lack of purported realism in the artwork; nothing had much of that Norman Rockwell-esque approach to trying to make photographic idealizations of the future scenes one found in Heinlein juveniles (in their 1950s hardcovers, published IIRC by Putnam). Though I did judge some illustrations in the only Yefremov book I was able to get hold of (Andromeda IIRC) as having some spiritual semblance to those old illustrations of the Heinlein stories. All the examples you chose anyway were much more expressivist than realist--a school that US SF illustration also indulged. But not much like say Chesley Bonestell's or Rick Sternbach's type of illustration.
However...
Oh, come on! Can you seriously say that? "...nothing reactionary" whatsoever? Wasn't Aristotle's racism face-palmingly reactionary for instance? Claiming that Hellenes could self govern but Asians could not? Do you honestly believe the Greeks arrived at the most perfect, "complete" ideal of man anyone has yet? What about their treatment of women for instance?
I admire classics of many ages for their positive achievements and aspirations. Just as the Ancient Greeks tend to inspire the notion these were people we would like to meet in the past, I admire the founders of the American Revolution, for instance, as great luminaries. But it would be a terrible mistake to suppose they achieved some ideal that we can only emulate. It was not in their achievement, but the direction and height of the goals they wished to aim for, that they were admirable. Also they deserve much credit for attempting to realize the goals. But we modern Americans are to some humble extent the product and outcome of their attempts, in some degree and direction we represent the advancement toward their goals, or even surpassing them, and if we are to judge ourselves harshly compared to the American revolutionary generation, or to the winners of our Civil War and enforcers of Reconstruction, it is because we too are called to look ahead and strive for something better--and if we are complacent or failures instead, in that respect we fall relatively short of our inspired and driven ancestors.
But it would be a grotesque mistake, and an appalling act of reaction, for me to wish on modern America the exact beliefs and practices and morals of either our 18th century revolutionaries or the spirited reformers of the 1860s. Still more horrible would be to recreate the realities of the Classical Hellenes! I mean, my God, you know that most residents of Athens--male residents that is--were either slaves or generations-settled "foreigners" denied any of the rights and privileges of the citizens with their "democracy" on the Acropolis, right? Isn't it all too tragically clear that their vision fell short on the matter of governing themselves, so that they failed to form any viable union and fell to the rule of a succession of foreigners?
They were quite wrong on a lot of points, and if we could time travel and visit with them we'd be pretty appalled. If they were in any sense better than others it would be because maybe they could be led to a more modern sensibility more readily--perhaps. But I doubt that too. None of this means they are not worthy of study and even admiration, but it does cause me to doubt very much they had reached any level of perfection. Again, their value is the direction and loftiness of their ambition, not what they thought they had proven.
Honestly, the fact you can say what I quoted above without apparently any sense of irony or qualification looks to me like a clear proof of what I was trying to say, about Stalinism imposing a falsified and limited, uncritical chauvinism. Your Soviet artwork here and in the other thread challenges that generalization, and then you say something like this that makes it starker and more unambiguous than I dared imagine!
I have a theme dedicated to a fantastic subject in Soviet painting. Here it is. And what about socialist realism ... First of all it is rather a method of Cinema, Painting, and Literature. Architecture set very different goals. Secondly, you look superficially. Prelude than attack on this or that architectural style look in what conditions it was created. Suffice it to say that "The struggle with architectural excesses" (revision of the parpdigma) has begun. In the 50th, even during the life of Comrade Dzhugashvili. Personally for me, both styles are part of the whole - one in its diversity.
I was serious. It is not necessary to reduce the whole philosophy to Aristotle, many philosophers wished to achieve equality and brotherhood. And remembering the low position of a married woman in Athens, you forget about the hetaera, spartans, and others ... What did the Hellenes give us? They gave beauty, harmony ... Whatever you thought about this era, the ancients gave what we should strive for. A fully developed personality is a person whole physically, morally, and spiritually. The form corresponds to the content.
Your fears about the reaction are quite fair. Nevertheless, we do not simply adopt the legacy of our predecessors. We are able to clear the Kalos kagathos from slave-owning ideology, and put it at the service of the revolution.
By the way - I showed you the Soviet mosaic where there is an echo of antiquity, If you want, I will show more explicit examples.
Last edited:
Redshank Galloglass
Banned
Dom Pavlova
Dom Pavlova is a 1977 American/East German War Film directed by Sam Peckinpah, featuring James Coburn, Maximillian Schell, Vladamir Vysotsky, Andrei Mironov, and Anatoli Papanov. The film is a portrayal of the real life military action known as "Pavlov's House" a fortified apartment building held by Soviet soldiers during the Seige of Stalingrad, named for their commander Yakov Pavlov.
The film was consdered a box office success, mainly due to it's usage of authentic tanks and equipment alongside it's visceral, desperate portrayal of combat, among the first of its type. It also was given high praise for it's psychological aspect, as we see the hellish combat exert its toll on the Soviet soldiers defending their nation.
Plot
The film opens with a Russian folk song, "Katyusha", mixed with black and white pictures of Prewar and Wartime Soviet villages and cities. The film then segues to color, and the viewer is dropped into an overhead shot showing the heavy combat of Stalingrad in 1942.
50 soldiers of the 42nd Guards Regiment, 13th Guards Division are shown locked in combat with with soldiers of the German 6th Army in a large area of apartment blocks in the Stalingrad city center. As the Soviet soldiers advance, they are raked with enemy fire, and while they eventually secure the blocks from the Wehrmacht, they take heavy casualties in doing so. Among the survivors are Lieutenant Ivan F. Afnasiev (Anatoli Papanov) Sergeant Yakov Pavlov (James Coburn) Corporal Viktor Nevsky (Maximillian Schell) Corporal Anton Egorov (Vladimir Vysotsky) and Private Mikhail Lebedev (Andrei Mironov).
Under the orders of Lieutenant Afnasiev, the remaining Soviet soldiers are ordered to fortify an apartment building overseeing the 9th January Square, laying mines and barbed wire, as well as emplacing a multitude of machine guns, mortars and Anti tank weaponry. Though the force is heavily armed, they understand that reinforcements are needed if they wish to hold the position indefinitely. Resupply eventually comes, but the group still lacks manpower, only numbering around 25 soldiers. They pray for a German assault to be held off until reinforcements arrive. Thier prayers go unanswered, as German artillery levels much of the area and German tanks and infantry advance through the city center. Lieutenant Afnasiev is mortally wounded by an artillery shell, dying in Pavlov's arms. He realizes, to his dismay, that he is now the commander of the Soviet platoon, and is responaible for the lives of the men now under his command.
While some NCOs suggest retreat, Pavlov decides against it and entrenches himself and his men inside the apartment building, fending off waves of German attacks, mowing down German infantry with their Machine Guns and destroying German Tanks with their PTRS anti-tank rifles. In lulls in the fighting, the men hunker down in the face of bombardment and rush out to the open to push aside the mounds of German corpses, denying the Wehrmacht infantry cover in the face of Soviet fire.
As the movie progresses, we see the psychological toll the constant combat brings on these soldiers, as artillery bombardment virtually pounds the building they are in to a skeleton of its former self, and the constant lack of sleep they get from barrages of howitzer fire and attacks by German forces. The core group of soldiers focused on in he movie are fleshed out more as characters: Pavlov, while stoic and square jawed, is indeed overwhelmed by his sudden responsibilities, and while he maintains his military bearing and composure, he is close to snapping from the stress. Nevsky lost his wife and daughter to German soldiers when they burned his village to the ground, and is solely focused on vengeance, growing ever obsessed with his crusade of hatred. Egorov is a patriot, and was one of the first soldiers to join the RKKA when the Germans invaded in June of 1940. Lebedev, in contrast, is young, naive, and a revolutionary zealot, devoted to communist thought and an everlasting optimist. Despite their differences, the four soldiers grow close to one another during the seige of their makeshift fortress.
On November 24th, while denying Wehrmacht infantry makeshift cover in the form of corpse mounds, Lebedev is shot in the head and killed, demoralizing the group. Passions run high, and many soldiers, including Nevsky, begin to snap. Pavlov himself is on the verge of snapping psychologically, and wonders when the siege will finally end.
On November 25th, the Germans launch their largest offensive yet on the house. While their tanks are once again destroyed and many German Infantrymen are killed, the German manage to break into the apartment, and many Soviet soldiers are killed. Egorov is bayoneted to death when he is surrounded by a circle of German soldiers. Nevsky kills many Germans, but his psychological state has deteriorated to the point as to where he no longer cares about himself. Despite being ordered to fall back into the house, Nevsky gets careless, and is killed by a German grenade.
Pavlov, upon seeing the death ofhis friend, finally snaps, and mauls several German soldiers with his bayonet and shooting many with his rifle, leading the charge that pushes away the German adance in the house, causing them to fall back. Pavlov then mounts an American export machine gun and begins shooting down German attacks all through the night, until the assaults eventually stop. Once again, the stalemate goes Unbroken, and the seige continues on.
On the morning of the 26th, Pavlov and his 11 remaining men hear the march of infantry and the treads of tanks. Thinking it is another German attack, they rush to their positions only to discover that it is an American battalion sent to relieve them of their posts. Pavlov cries tears of joy and cheers with his men, realizing the the seige had finally been broken, and his men had outlasted it all.
The movie ends with an epilogue stating that hundreds of German soldiers were killed at Pavlov's House, and that Sgt. Yakov Pavlov was awarded many medals by the Soviet Union, and that his deeds should be remembered as one of the greatest stands against evil that the world had ever known.
Reviews
Critics praised the film highly, citing the cinematography, the acting, the battle scenes, and the authenticity of equipment as the films strongest points. It remains Peckinpah's masterpiece, as well as being considered one of the greatest war films of all time.
Dom Pavlova is a 1977 American/East German War Film directed by Sam Peckinpah, featuring James Coburn, Maximillian Schell, Vladamir Vysotsky, Andrei Mironov, and Anatoli Papanov. The film is a portrayal of the real life military action known as "Pavlov's House" a fortified apartment building held by Soviet soldiers during the Seige of Stalingrad, named for their commander Yakov Pavlov.
The film was consdered a box office success, mainly due to it's usage of authentic tanks and equipment alongside it's visceral, desperate portrayal of combat, among the first of its type. It also was given high praise for it's psychological aspect, as we see the hellish combat exert its toll on the Soviet soldiers defending their nation.
Plot
The film opens with a Russian folk song, "Katyusha", mixed with black and white pictures of Prewar and Wartime Soviet villages and cities. The film then segues to color, and the viewer is dropped into an overhead shot showing the heavy combat of Stalingrad in 1942.
50 soldiers of the 42nd Guards Regiment, 13th Guards Division are shown locked in combat with with soldiers of the German 6th Army in a large area of apartment blocks in the Stalingrad city center. As the Soviet soldiers advance, they are raked with enemy fire, and while they eventually secure the blocks from the Wehrmacht, they take heavy casualties in doing so. Among the survivors are Lieutenant Ivan F. Afnasiev (Anatoli Papanov) Sergeant Yakov Pavlov (James Coburn) Corporal Viktor Nevsky (Maximillian Schell) Corporal Anton Egorov (Vladimir Vysotsky) and Private Mikhail Lebedev (Andrei Mironov).
Under the orders of Lieutenant Afnasiev, the remaining Soviet soldiers are ordered to fortify an apartment building overseeing the 9th January Square, laying mines and barbed wire, as well as emplacing a multitude of machine guns, mortars and Anti tank weaponry. Though the force is heavily armed, they understand that reinforcements are needed if they wish to hold the position indefinitely. Resupply eventually comes, but the group still lacks manpower, only numbering around 25 soldiers. They pray for a German assault to be held off until reinforcements arrive. Thier prayers go unanswered, as German artillery levels much of the area and German tanks and infantry advance through the city center. Lieutenant Afnasiev is mortally wounded by an artillery shell, dying in Pavlov's arms. He realizes, to his dismay, that he is now the commander of the Soviet platoon, and is responaible for the lives of the men now under his command.
While some NCOs suggest retreat, Pavlov decides against it and entrenches himself and his men inside the apartment building, fending off waves of German attacks, mowing down German infantry with their Machine Guns and destroying German Tanks with their PTRS anti-tank rifles. In lulls in the fighting, the men hunker down in the face of bombardment and rush out to the open to push aside the mounds of German corpses, denying the Wehrmacht infantry cover in the face of Soviet fire.
As the movie progresses, we see the psychological toll the constant combat brings on these soldiers, as artillery bombardment virtually pounds the building they are in to a skeleton of its former self, and the constant lack of sleep they get from barrages of howitzer fire and attacks by German forces. The core group of soldiers focused on in he movie are fleshed out more as characters: Pavlov, while stoic and square jawed, is indeed overwhelmed by his sudden responsibilities, and while he maintains his military bearing and composure, he is close to snapping from the stress. Nevsky lost his wife and daughter to German soldiers when they burned his village to the ground, and is solely focused on vengeance, growing ever obsessed with his crusade of hatred. Egorov is a patriot, and was one of the first soldiers to join the RKKA when the Germans invaded in June of 1940. Lebedev, in contrast, is young, naive, and a revolutionary zealot, devoted to communist thought and an everlasting optimist. Despite their differences, the four soldiers grow close to one another during the seige of their makeshift fortress.
On November 24th, while denying Wehrmacht infantry makeshift cover in the form of corpse mounds, Lebedev is shot in the head and killed, demoralizing the group. Passions run high, and many soldiers, including Nevsky, begin to snap. Pavlov himself is on the verge of snapping psychologically, and wonders when the siege will finally end.
On November 25th, the Germans launch their largest offensive yet on the house. While their tanks are once again destroyed and many German Infantrymen are killed, the German manage to break into the apartment, and many Soviet soldiers are killed. Egorov is bayoneted to death when he is surrounded by a circle of German soldiers. Nevsky kills many Germans, but his psychological state has deteriorated to the point as to where he no longer cares about himself. Despite being ordered to fall back into the house, Nevsky gets careless, and is killed by a German grenade.
Pavlov, upon seeing the death ofhis friend, finally snaps, and mauls several German soldiers with his bayonet and shooting many with his rifle, leading the charge that pushes away the German adance in the house, causing them to fall back. Pavlov then mounts an American export machine gun and begins shooting down German attacks all through the night, until the assaults eventually stop. Once again, the stalemate goes Unbroken, and the seige continues on.
On the morning of the 26th, Pavlov and his 11 remaining men hear the march of infantry and the treads of tanks. Thinking it is another German attack, they rush to their positions only to discover that it is an American battalion sent to relieve them of their posts. Pavlov cries tears of joy and cheers with his men, realizing the the seige had finally been broken, and his men had outlasted it all.
The movie ends with an epilogue stating that hundreds of German soldiers were killed at Pavlov's House, and that Sgt. Yakov Pavlov was awarded many medals by the Soviet Union, and that his deeds should be remembered as one of the greatest stands against evil that the world had ever known.
Reviews
Critics praised the film highly, citing the cinematography, the acting, the battle scenes, and the authenticity of equipment as the films strongest points. It remains Peckinpah's masterpiece, as well as being considered one of the greatest war films of all time.
Bookmark1995
Banned
This piece was inspired by an interesting article in Wired about a covert attempt to bring down North Korea through smuggled media.
The Plot to Bring Worker's Revolution to Rhodesia- With American Movies and Russian Snack Food
Foreign Affairs Journal
April 10, 2017
By Alan Jackson
Kasane, Botswana
Under the cover of night, a team of 3 men and 2 women dressed in black enter a small motorboat along the Zambezi River, the area which brushes the northernmost border of Botswana. Despite the Rhodesian reactionary regime being notorious for its extreme security, and the Rhodesian-Botswanan border being one of the most militarized, there are cracks, as the team have found.
Armed with little more than flashlights, they use their boat to deliver their cargo into Rhodesian wilderness, flashing a light seven times as part of some unknown code to affirm that the river is all clear. Once they cross into Rhodesia, they meet a stern looking native, who takes the black bags containing the precious cargo after a short but friendly conversation with the head of the smuggling party. The smuggling party then makes a return to friendly soil, careful not get comfortable with their narrow time window.
One would guess that the party was smuggling guns and supplies to anti-Rhodesian guerillas inside the country. But the bags contain no weapons. Instead they contain USB drives full of American sitcoms, Mexican telenovelas, Chinese Animation, and Russian syrinki [1], as well as enough cash to bribe the Rhodesian border guards the native Rhodesian would encounter.
The operation was organized by the leader of the smuggling group, Patricia Kearns, known to friends as Comrade Pat, the 39 year old founder of the Rhodesian Truth. Rhodesian Truth, with its support reportedly coming from the South African government, is responsible for 17 incursions into Rhodesian soil in the past year, delivering 8,000 USB flash drives into the pariah Rhodesian regime. The risky smuggling operations serve one purpose: the end of the fanatical white-ruled regime in Salisbury, but not with bullets, but with pop culture. "Truth is often a best therapy," remarks Kearns. "
****
In a small makeshift office building outside of Kasane (the location is classified by the Botswanan government), Comrade Pat has set up her headquarters. In personal matters, she can be as tender as a lamb, in the words of her comrades. But when it comes to toppling the corrupt regime that disgraced her and her family, she operates with the revolutionary zeal rivaling that of Emma Goldman.
"Her hate for the racist imperialists is stronger than the rest of us," says another Rhodesian exile.
Like many people who embraced socialism, Kearns has a background as far removed from it as possible.
Kearns was born in 1978 to John, a wealthy Salisbury merchant, and his wife Elizabeth. Her ancestry can be traced back to the original 1890 settlers of Rhodesia. Like many of Rhodesia's Caucasian community, she enjoyed wealth and prestige. She shows me a picture of herself sitting in a chair in a luxurious dress.
"My expression would not have looked out of place in Buckingham Palace," Kearns says with a sheepish smile.
There were darker aspects of being a member of being a member of Rhodesia's elite. Like all white schoolchildren, she was heavily indoctrinated in the vile racism of the Salisbury regime, and remembered the South African and Botswanan regimes being described in very colorful terms.
"The most memorable phrase my teacher used to describe South Africans was 'turncoats of white race lead astray by their nigger commie whores' ", Kearns said with a sheepish smile.
Kearns admits and she and her family were more than merely mouthed in their racism and that they were quite abusive to their black help, "When I was 12, I kicked James, a black servant for not giving me candy," Kearns admits with a frown,"but I learned it from my mother who would slash our maid, Sofia over the most minor things."
Kearns' cushy and decadent life, however, would soon be disrupted by the combination of her father Lawrence and a bottle of scotch. On her 15th birthday, her father, in a drunken binge, forced himself on Sofia in front of the entire guest.
"When I witnessed that, I thought my father had just committed murder," Kearns says.
The sentiment was shared by Rhodesian Security Services, who had been trained since the 1970s not just to enforce the racial hierarchy, but combat "destructive miscegenation," that is to say anything that involves the blurring of color barriers. Unfortunately for Patricia, she discovered that Rhodesian police cast a very wide net.
"I'm sitting in my room when I hear the police beat down the door to my room," Kearns said. "The next thing I know, I'm pushed to the ground and cuffed."
According to the principles of the Rhodesian government, "destructive miscegenation" was not merely an illegal act, but a social cancer that needed extreme methods to wipe out. The method was arresting not just the offender, but the offender's family, their servants, and everyone else.
Kearns, her family, and their servants were conspicuously paraded to a police van, to the jeers and contempt of her neighbors.
"I was horrified and saddened," Kearns said bitterly. "Two weeks ago, these people were wishing me a happy birthday, and now they saw me as a criminal. But I didn't blame the authorities at the time, but my father, who I saw as no better than a murderer."
However, the first doubts in her mind appeared when she learned she was already being judged and sent to prison for 5 years, which contradicted what she learned about in class: about the right to a fair trial.
"I opened my mouth to the police officer about a fair trial," Kearns said bitterly, "but the man just threw a glass at my head and called me a 'miscegenatated whore."
The family and her servants ended up in the most brutal of the Rhodesian prison camps: Wankie. Prisoners there, both black and white but segregated, would toil for up to 12 hours a day mining coal. While Kearns never saw the black Wankie camp, the conditions in the black part of Wankie were so barbaric, that Kearns believes James and Sofia both had died. Kearns herself was then seperated from her parents and put in a separate camp for minors. She would never see them again until her release.
White Wankie internees had somewhat more humane conditions. But even young Patricia wondered whether or not she would live. Some days she would not get fed. Some days, guards would beat and molest her. Some days, she would be forced to steal to survive. However, the brutality she endured would not result in her become a revolutionary. Instead, it would be a misguided attempt at propaganda that would destroy her faith in the Rhodesian state.
Nearly a month before her release, Kearns and her fellow prisoners were dragged before a big screen TV, ready to be subjected to a daily dose of propaganda. But instead of a Rhodesian produced film which promoted the virtues of racism, Kearns and her prisoners were forced to watch Red Guts a UASR exploitation film which showed a UASR commando and his female comrade creating enormous amounts of blood and gore, the first American film she ever saw. Kearns speculates that the warden thought the ultraviolence in the movie would leave the emaciated prisoners with the impression that all communists were bloodthirsty monsters.
However, Kearns and her fellow inmates were only excited by the incredible action scenes [2], which Rhodesian propagandists could only hope to imitate. But what truly shook Kearns was that the commando, a white man, was having carnal relations with a black woman. The warden thought this scene would disgust a lot of Rhodesians, and it did, but he overlooked that the couple in the movie had a very loving relationship, something that truly rattled Kearns.
"While they did have a lot of sex," said Kearns, "the couple in the film when they weren't killing everybody, also held hands, and hugged each other, and had tickle fights. Stuff my parents did."
After her release, Kearns was reunited with her parents. Both of them were left emotionally and physically emaciated by their experience at Wankie.
"I felt like my parents had aged over 60 years," Kearns replied with sorrow, "like I was seeing their ghosts."
As part of their rehabilitation, Patricia and her family were given menial jobs in Salisbury, instead of being returned to their luxurious lifestyle. Her parents, who after years of labor and brainwashing, accepted their punishments. Kearns however, only grew even more angry at the Salisbury regime.
"They still punished you after you left prison," Kearns said with disgust,"I thought after all that, I would be forgiven. Instead, I had to wipe floors."
Her increasing revulsion at the Rhodesian regime coincided with a growing hunger for American films left by the movie Red Guts. It was then she began going an illegal movie theater where she could see American films uncensored. It was watching movie after movie that slowly turned her against the corrupt regime. Specifically seeing characters of different races treat each other like friends.
"Seeing blacks and whites as friends was so alien to me," Kearns said sadly. "But one film after another showed it. It wasn't even like one of those political movies about tolerance. The characters in those movies saw interracial relationships as no big deal."
After her tenth movie, Kearns realized that she came from a sick society, and that she wanted out. She didn't leave however, realizing that defecting to South Africa would put her family at risk. She also knew trying to get them to leave off their own free will was virtually impossible due to years of societal conditioning.
"My mother, when I asked her how she could stand the death of James and Sofia," Kearns said, "she replied ,'we were bad. We sought to destroy the white race'. She sounded more like a robot than a woman."
Through the underground theater, Kearns met a man she identifies as Bill, who was able to get her and her family a ticket to South Africa. Bill and his helpers essentially kidnapped John and Elizabeth, and then they were dumped into Botswana along with Patricia in 1999.
"I was truly shocked by Botswana," Kearns says with a smile, "it was weird seeing black men and women wearing uniforms, or walking down the streets with their backs straights and their faces proud."
Pat's parents however, started screaming like banshees.
"They honestly thought that black people in authority were automatically going to eat them," Kearns says with a scoff. "But eventually, they adapted."
Pat, after some time with a behavioral coach, joined the Botswanan Revolutionary Army. She was sent on two missions into Rhodesian territory, before her retirement from the army in 2014. After leaving, Pat, feeling the conflict in Rhodesia would never stop, created Rhodesian Truth with other exiles. She feels that when enough young Rhodesians see Comintern movies or eat Comintern food, that is when revolution will appear.
"It took one movie for me to see what was wrong in my society," says Kearns with a hopeful smile."300 movies can change the life of thousands. I now it can, because it changed mine."
[1] Tiny Russian pancake.
The Plot to Bring Worker's Revolution to Rhodesia- With American Movies and Russian Snack Food
Foreign Affairs Journal
April 10, 2017
By Alan Jackson
Kasane, Botswana
Under the cover of night, a team of 3 men and 2 women dressed in black enter a small motorboat along the Zambezi River, the area which brushes the northernmost border of Botswana. Despite the Rhodesian reactionary regime being notorious for its extreme security, and the Rhodesian-Botswanan border being one of the most militarized, there are cracks, as the team have found.
Armed with little more than flashlights, they use their boat to deliver their cargo into Rhodesian wilderness, flashing a light seven times as part of some unknown code to affirm that the river is all clear. Once they cross into Rhodesia, they meet a stern looking native, who takes the black bags containing the precious cargo after a short but friendly conversation with the head of the smuggling party. The smuggling party then makes a return to friendly soil, careful not get comfortable with their narrow time window.
One would guess that the party was smuggling guns and supplies to anti-Rhodesian guerillas inside the country. But the bags contain no weapons. Instead they contain USB drives full of American sitcoms, Mexican telenovelas, Chinese Animation, and Russian syrinki [1], as well as enough cash to bribe the Rhodesian border guards the native Rhodesian would encounter.
The operation was organized by the leader of the smuggling group, Patricia Kearns, known to friends as Comrade Pat, the 39 year old founder of the Rhodesian Truth. Rhodesian Truth, with its support reportedly coming from the South African government, is responsible for 17 incursions into Rhodesian soil in the past year, delivering 8,000 USB flash drives into the pariah Rhodesian regime. The risky smuggling operations serve one purpose: the end of the fanatical white-ruled regime in Salisbury, but not with bullets, but with pop culture. "Truth is often a best therapy," remarks Kearns. "
****
In a small makeshift office building outside of Kasane (the location is classified by the Botswanan government), Comrade Pat has set up her headquarters. In personal matters, she can be as tender as a lamb, in the words of her comrades. But when it comes to toppling the corrupt regime that disgraced her and her family, she operates with the revolutionary zeal rivaling that of Emma Goldman.
"Her hate for the racist imperialists is stronger than the rest of us," says another Rhodesian exile.
Like many people who embraced socialism, Kearns has a background as far removed from it as possible.
Kearns was born in 1978 to John, a wealthy Salisbury merchant, and his wife Elizabeth. Her ancestry can be traced back to the original 1890 settlers of Rhodesia. Like many of Rhodesia's Caucasian community, she enjoyed wealth and prestige. She shows me a picture of herself sitting in a chair in a luxurious dress.
"My expression would not have looked out of place in Buckingham Palace," Kearns says with a sheepish smile.
There were darker aspects of being a member of being a member of Rhodesia's elite. Like all white schoolchildren, she was heavily indoctrinated in the vile racism of the Salisbury regime, and remembered the South African and Botswanan regimes being described in very colorful terms.
"The most memorable phrase my teacher used to describe South Africans was 'turncoats of white race lead astray by their nigger commie whores' ", Kearns said with a sheepish smile.
Kearns admits and she and her family were more than merely mouthed in their racism and that they were quite abusive to their black help, "When I was 12, I kicked James, a black servant for not giving me candy," Kearns admits with a frown,"but I learned it from my mother who would slash our maid, Sofia over the most minor things."
Kearns' cushy and decadent life, however, would soon be disrupted by the combination of her father Lawrence and a bottle of scotch. On her 15th birthday, her father, in a drunken binge, forced himself on Sofia in front of the entire guest.
"When I witnessed that, I thought my father had just committed murder," Kearns says.
The sentiment was shared by Rhodesian Security Services, who had been trained since the 1970s not just to enforce the racial hierarchy, but combat "destructive miscegenation," that is to say anything that involves the blurring of color barriers. Unfortunately for Patricia, she discovered that Rhodesian police cast a very wide net.
"I'm sitting in my room when I hear the police beat down the door to my room," Kearns said. "The next thing I know, I'm pushed to the ground and cuffed."
According to the principles of the Rhodesian government, "destructive miscegenation" was not merely an illegal act, but a social cancer that needed extreme methods to wipe out. The method was arresting not just the offender, but the offender's family, their servants, and everyone else.
Kearns, her family, and their servants were conspicuously paraded to a police van, to the jeers and contempt of her neighbors.
"I was horrified and saddened," Kearns said bitterly. "Two weeks ago, these people were wishing me a happy birthday, and now they saw me as a criminal. But I didn't blame the authorities at the time, but my father, who I saw as no better than a murderer."
However, the first doubts in her mind appeared when she learned she was already being judged and sent to prison for 5 years, which contradicted what she learned about in class: about the right to a fair trial.
"I opened my mouth to the police officer about a fair trial," Kearns said bitterly, "but the man just threw a glass at my head and called me a 'miscegenatated whore."
The family and her servants ended up in the most brutal of the Rhodesian prison camps: Wankie. Prisoners there, both black and white but segregated, would toil for up to 12 hours a day mining coal. While Kearns never saw the black Wankie camp, the conditions in the black part of Wankie were so barbaric, that Kearns believes James and Sofia both had died. Kearns herself was then seperated from her parents and put in a separate camp for minors. She would never see them again until her release.
White Wankie internees had somewhat more humane conditions. But even young Patricia wondered whether or not she would live. Some days she would not get fed. Some days, guards would beat and molest her. Some days, she would be forced to steal to survive. However, the brutality she endured would not result in her become a revolutionary. Instead, it would be a misguided attempt at propaganda that would destroy her faith in the Rhodesian state.
Nearly a month before her release, Kearns and her fellow prisoners were dragged before a big screen TV, ready to be subjected to a daily dose of propaganda. But instead of a Rhodesian produced film which promoted the virtues of racism, Kearns and her prisoners were forced to watch Red Guts a UASR exploitation film which showed a UASR commando and his female comrade creating enormous amounts of blood and gore, the first American film she ever saw. Kearns speculates that the warden thought the ultraviolence in the movie would leave the emaciated prisoners with the impression that all communists were bloodthirsty monsters.
However, Kearns and her fellow inmates were only excited by the incredible action scenes [2], which Rhodesian propagandists could only hope to imitate. But what truly shook Kearns was that the commando, a white man, was having carnal relations with a black woman. The warden thought this scene would disgust a lot of Rhodesians, and it did, but he overlooked that the couple in the movie had a very loving relationship, something that truly rattled Kearns.
"While they did have a lot of sex," said Kearns, "the couple in the film when they weren't killing everybody, also held hands, and hugged each other, and had tickle fights. Stuff my parents did."
After her release, Kearns was reunited with her parents. Both of them were left emotionally and physically emaciated by their experience at Wankie.
"I felt like my parents had aged over 60 years," Kearns replied with sorrow, "like I was seeing their ghosts."
As part of their rehabilitation, Patricia and her family were given menial jobs in Salisbury, instead of being returned to their luxurious lifestyle. Her parents, who after years of labor and brainwashing, accepted their punishments. Kearns however, only grew even more angry at the Salisbury regime.
"They still punished you after you left prison," Kearns said with disgust,"I thought after all that, I would be forgiven. Instead, I had to wipe floors."
Her increasing revulsion at the Rhodesian regime coincided with a growing hunger for American films left by the movie Red Guts. It was then she began going an illegal movie theater where she could see American films uncensored. It was watching movie after movie that slowly turned her against the corrupt regime. Specifically seeing characters of different races treat each other like friends.
"Seeing blacks and whites as friends was so alien to me," Kearns said sadly. "But one film after another showed it. It wasn't even like one of those political movies about tolerance. The characters in those movies saw interracial relationships as no big deal."
After her tenth movie, Kearns realized that she came from a sick society, and that she wanted out. She didn't leave however, realizing that defecting to South Africa would put her family at risk. She also knew trying to get them to leave off their own free will was virtually impossible due to years of societal conditioning.
"My mother, when I asked her how she could stand the death of James and Sofia," Kearns said, "she replied ,'we were bad. We sought to destroy the white race'. She sounded more like a robot than a woman."
Through the underground theater, Kearns met a man she identifies as Bill, who was able to get her and her family a ticket to South Africa. Bill and his helpers essentially kidnapped John and Elizabeth, and then they were dumped into Botswana along with Patricia in 1999.
"I was truly shocked by Botswana," Kearns says with a smile, "it was weird seeing black men and women wearing uniforms, or walking down the streets with their backs straights and their faces proud."
Pat's parents however, started screaming like banshees.
"They honestly thought that black people in authority were automatically going to eat them," Kearns says with a scoff. "But eventually, they adapted."
Pat, after some time with a behavioral coach, joined the Botswanan Revolutionary Army. She was sent on two missions into Rhodesian territory, before her retirement from the army in 2014. After leaving, Pat, feeling the conflict in Rhodesia would never stop, created Rhodesian Truth with other exiles. She feels that when enough young Rhodesians see Comintern movies or eat Comintern food, that is when revolution will appear.
"It took one movie for me to see what was wrong in my society," says Kearns with a hopeful smile."300 movies can change the life of thousands. I now it can, because it changed mine."
[1] Tiny Russian pancake.
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Bookmark1995
Banned
I think his story would still be worthy of a movie.
But very far-left Socialist Americans would initially shake their heads in disbelief at the idea of a capitalist giving away his fortune to help the downtroden. To them, capitalism and fascism are one and the same- which to be fair isn't that hyperbolic, since a lot of German conglomerates partook in Nazi excesses for personal gain.
How the movie is made would depend on who makes it. If an ITTL American film studio made the movie, they would emphasize the decadence and indulgence of people like Schindler, who willingly profited from Nazism, in comparison with Schindler's own growing conscience.
Redshank Galloglass
Banned
Good lord, ITTL Americans are going to be downright cringy in converaations about individual morality.
That's true, also I'd imagine we'd also see at least a cameo of Henry Ford, who ITTL is the face of the death factories side of the Holocaust to serve as a further foil alongside Amon Goeth and would had made sense to at least met a "fellow industrialist" in regards to Oscar Schindler.
I also imagine it would be made in the Comintern at least, since I believe Jello_Biafra (or was it The_Red_Star_Rising?) stated that 4/5ths of the jewisth population ITTL in the present day live in the Comintern and that there is a fair amount of anti-semites in the FBU which I imagine does not lend well to making serious historical dramas about the Holocaust.
I also imagine it would be made in the Comintern at least, since I believe Jello_Biafra (or was it The_Red_Star_Rising?) stated that 4/5ths of the jewisth population ITTL in the present day live in the Comintern and that there is a fair amount of anti-semites in the FBU which I imagine does not lend well to making serious historical dramas about the Holocaust.
What do you mean by that?
Redshank Galloglass
Banned
Well, if ITTL Americans would have problems with envisioning a capitalist that is capable of having at least some humanity like schindler, then that implies that they dont have a very nuanced view of the world.
I personally dont think this would happen, honestly. I mean, Americans do have progressive bourgeois, so its obvious that they would have experience with upper class people who arent all moustache twirling villains.
On the other hand, they may have that viewpoint in regards to the Germ bourgeois during this period at least, which honestly wasn't all that far off, with the German bourgeois as a whole being wholly in support of the Nazi filth as their attack dog on the communists. So that may had been what Bookmark meant about a capitalist giving away a fortune. In this case the disbelief at a member of the German bourgeois during the Nazi period being willing to do so much to help the downtrodden. Especially as West Germany is far more reactionary ITTL than it ever was IOTL (I mean for fuck's sake, there is a literal Neo-Nazi party that is a major part of the political life of West Germany in the present day after all) which has likely further colored American perspectives of Nazi Germany's bourgeois as a bunch of reactionary collaborators.
Redshank Galloglass
Banned
Thats very true. However, I still feel nuance is an important part of looking at things. Sure, nost if the German Bourg were pices of shit, but who's to say one couldnt be capable of that?
Its a bit of an overarching generalization and those can be dangerous, even when applies to democratic Marxist ideologies.
Bookmark1995
Banned
That's exactly what I meant. ITTL, when Americans learn about the 3rd Reich, they'll learn about how capitalists and fascists walked hand in hand to plunder and murder entire people's. OTL, few people know the Volkswagen Beetle was a Nazi invention. But ITTL, they'll associate all German business with death and persecution.
This "all capitalists are evil mentality" will probably persist at least during the first generation of the Cold War ITTL. As political and social barriers come down, and the world becomes more technologically integrated, then Americans will probably develop a more nuance, if still condescending, view of capitalist nations. But even then, Schindler will be seen as " the exception, not the rule".
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It also requires there being some cooperation on the other side of things. because I doubt for a second there's going to be a lot of West Germans who are going to tolerate those Nazi sympathesizers once the news gets out.