For the first time in history, teenagers can say to their parents, "You're, like, so lame," and deep down, the parents may wonder whether their kids are right ....

The author of that sentence can surely never have read Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons.

Fathers and Sons is one of those books that is admired as much for its prophetic as for its literary qualities. The shadow of 1917 hangs heavy over the book. One character, a young doctor named Basarov, expresss the radical rejection of all convention and morality - and the brutal indifference to human life and happiness - that would soon submerge all Russia. Basarov's eventual fate - a pointless and easily avoidable accidental death - likewise foreshadows the horror ahead. Fathers and Sons was published a half century before the October revolution, in 1862. That half century of prevision has caused Russian critics to dub Basarov, "the first Bolshevik."

I first read Fathers and Sons as a college student. I had been working my way through Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. The personality of Turgenev loomed large in their lives. Dostoyevsky in particular was bitterly jealous of his Turgenev's wealth and affable personality, and launched a series of literary attacks upon him. Yet all acknowledged him as the first and pathfinding voice of the great age of the Russian novel. So I turned to his masterwork with eagerness ... only to be shocked and bored.

Where was the epic clash of generations promised by the title? The story opens with a long dreary carriage ride through the flatlands of southern Russia. Two young men are returning home from their studies in Petersburg. One is the Basarov mentioned above. The other is a younger and less intelligent fellow-student, Kirsanov, who hero worships Basarov and mimics his ideas. They are met by Kirsanov's doting father, a landowner of the provinces, who welcomes Basarov as his son's guest.

They return to the Kirsanov estate, and potter about for some weeks of minor incidents. There are some short passages of argument between the two young radicals and the elder Kirsanov and his brother. Then the two young men go off to a nearby town ....

And that's where I left off back in 1980 or whenever it was. There seemed no plot or point to the thing. This was the novel that had Russians arguing with each other for the next half century?

To appreciate the book, I needed a better understanding than I then possessed of the way in which 19th century Russians read and received literature.

Imagine this:

You are one of a tiny minority of educated people in a vast rural society that stretches over unimaginable distances, most of them unserviced even by railway. You are aware that your society is brutal and backward, and desperately in need of reform. Yet you are also aware that you know almost nothing about the desires, beliefs and daily habits of the subordinated 90% of the population. They are separated from you by a gulf radically different from that which separates the upper and lower classes of western Europe: They live on the land, in self-governing villages suspicious of all outsiders, subject to their own mysterious rules, customs and beliefs, restricting communication with outsiders to the absolute minimum.

You want to understand more. But you live in a repressive police state, and discussion is strictly policed. Yet there are areas of liberty. Discussion of literature and the arts enjoys more lattitude than discussion of politics and public policy. Well-born and well-connected personages enjoy more latitude than the poor and obscure.

That special latitude for the well-born is premised on another important fact about the society in which you live: It is deeply aristocratic and class-bound, and absolutely takes for granted that some human beings matter more than others. Indeed, it has trouble recognizing that the privileged few share anything but the most basic humanity with the unprivileged many. The few are always in the foreground of consciousness of their fellows; the many are grouped together in undifferentiated masses in the background.

These facts and habits of mind are the mental background against which the great Russian novels of society emerge. Almost the only way that elite Russians could think about their society was by seizing on artistic inventions of characters, generalizing those characters as types, and then using those types as tools to think with about the world around them.

A Basarov to them was not just a character in a novel. He was a representation of a certain tendency in society that elite Russians saw taking form around them - and that could be conceived and depicted in almost no other way than through the medium of narrative fiction.

Which is why this listlessly under-plotted book could have hit its readers like a bomb. Or rather, like a flare, illuminating what would otherwise have been shapeless in the dark.

Basarov is a threat of what might be - whose dark clarity contrasts painfully with the pitiful earnest fumbling uselessness of the elders of the Kirsanov family, the novel's "fathers": two brothers, cultured and liberal, who have freed their serfs and seek to live in Russia as if they were English gentleman farmers, collecting rents, playing the cello, dressing for dinner. Basarov ridicules the absurdity of this way of life, and indeed it does seem to be heading to disaster. The freed serfs cheat, steal, and destroy. The brothers' patrimony threatens to dwindle away. Their culture seems doomed to be extinguished by the encroaching ignorance around them.

But it's not as if Basarov has anything to offer. His nihilism is an absurdity too, ultimately exposed as such when he falls in love - and discovers he has no way even to think about the relations between men and women that is not coldly sexual. This way of thinking obviously cannot lead to much happiness. He is rebuffed; his only hope of happiness lost.

He dies stupidly, in a way that Turgenev's readers would have been likely to describe as "typically Russian." Basarov dissects a body infected with typhus and nicks himself. The local doctor's office has no antibacterial agents, and he himself did not bother to bring any along before setting down to carve. He catches the disease he sought to analyze.

It's a story to prey on the imagination - and has preyed on Russia's for a century and a half, with abundant and powerful reason.

Americans yesterday passed the gloomiest Fourth of July in years, if not decades. More than four out of five Americans describe the country as “on the wrong track,” the worst score since polling on this question began in the 1960s. Consumer confidence is reaching historic lows. Only one out of three Americans expects a better life for his or her children.

The United States is not in technical recession, but jobless numbers are rising. House prices are declining, as are stock prices. Half of all Americans report that high fuel prices have curtailed their vacation plans: Even as you read this, families all over America are explaining to their four-year-olds that they will not, after all, be going to Disney World this summer.

For most people, the situation cannot truly be described as one of hardship: One recent Associated Press article on the economy illustrated the situation with the story of a Dallas homemaker who had switched to bar soap from a favoured lotion. But the mood is certainly highly anxious and discontented. As that same Dallas homemaker said: “It’s depressing and it makes you nervous.”

These are dangerous conditions for an incumbent political party. No wonder Barack Obama presidential futures are trading at more than double the price of John McCain futures on the Internet betting markets.

Note, though, something important about the current American mood: Though eager for change, it is not radical. It wants change for the better, not change to the left. Only 13% of Americans (and only 19% of Democrats!) want to see government act to redistribute wealth, according to a June Gallup poll — 84% would prefer to see government work to improve overall economic conditions.

But what people want is not always what they get. Political change often comes from the top down, not from the bottom up.

Recall what happened in the United States in 1979-80. There was no vast national clamour for Reagan-style conservatism. But there was massive dissatisfaction with Jimmy Carter’s disastrous presidency. All Reagan needed to do was show himself as an acceptable alternative — and in his magnificent debate performance only a week before voting day, he did just that.

Reagan won an electoral-college landslide: 489 electoral votes to 49 for Carter. The Republicans gained a majority in the U.S. Senate for the first time since 1953-55.

Look closer though, and you see a more equivocal result. Reagan received only 50.7% of the popular vote, just half a point better than Jimmy Carter had won in 1976. Reagan’s victory appeared overwhelming because of the collapse of the Democratic vote: 41% for Carter in 1980. (Most of the remainder of the vote went to an independent liberal candidate, Congressman John Anderson.)

Reagan got his chance — and he used it. Over the next four years, he implemented a dramatic series of policy changes, including major tax cuts, spending restraint and substantial reductions in federal regulation. He supported the Federal Reserve as it squeezed inflation out of the economy. The changes hurt, and Reagan’s popularity suffered: It bottomed in early 1983 at 35% approval.

Quickly afterward, however, the United States began to recoup the benefits. The economy rocketed upward in 1983-1984. The Soviets slowly began to make concessions to the tough new administration. The first personal computers announced a technological revolution. Reagan won a genuine landslide in 1984: 58.8% of the vote. His policy revolution was ratified — and would shape American politics for the next quarter century.

Now we are reaching the end of another repudiated presidency. George W. Bush finishes his term in office with an approval rating in the 28%-30% range, about the same as Jimmy Carter’s. That opens a huge opportunity for Democrats.

Not since 1964 has the Democratic party simultaneously won a majority of the vote for president while also increasing its representation in both Houses of Congress. There’s a very realistic possibility that they will do just that this year. Which opens the question: Then what?

Will they launch a dramatic policy revolution, as Reagan did in 1980? The temptation to try will be strong, perhaps overwhelming.

But what kind of revolution? How far left will they go? They are not saying, and probably they do not know.

Policy revolutions are risky things. If they succeed, as Reagan’s succeeded, they can transform a nation and realign politics for a generation. But if they fail, they can recoil in disaster. After all, George W. Bush also tried to launch a policy revolution, and look where he and his party are now.
So there’s an all-important question that Democrats and liberals should be asking themselves as they prepare for the possibility of power in 2009. It’s a question borrowed from an old Clint Eastwood movie:

“Do you feel lucky?”

My favourite story about renovation is inspired by an incident in the life of Denis Diderot, the 18th-century French philosopher and writer. An admirer sent Diderot a gift of a handsome Chinese silk robe. Diderot delightedly donned the robe and suddenly his old nightcap looked shabby in contrast. So he bought himself a new nightcap. Now his ancient slippers looked out of place. He replaced them and in his handsome new outfit sat down to write--but how could such an elegant figure sit at such a broken old desk? And so on, until the entire room was redecorated.

Our current renovation began in the same way: My silk robe was my oven door.

Read the rest here. 

That headline appears not in NR nor on Fox News, but in the leftish German newsweekly Spiegel. It opens:

There is an unexpected air of normalcy prevailing in Baghdad these days, with consumption flourishing and confidence in the government growing. The progress is astonishing, but can it last?

Pork is available in Baghdad once again. Not just in the Green Zone, where US diplomats can enjoy their spare ribs and Parma ham, but also across the Tigris River, in the real Baghdad, at "Al-Warda" on Karada Street. Bassim Dencha, 32, one of the few Christians remaining in Iraq and the co-owner of Baghdad's finest supermarket, has developed a supply line from Syria. As a result, he now has frozen pork chops and bratwurst arranged in his freezers, next to boxes of frozen French fries and German Black Forest Cakes. And the customers are buying.

For four years, selling pork or alcohol in Baghdad was a security risk. But the acts of terror committed by Islamist fundamentalists, who once punished such violations of their interpretation of the Koran with attacks on businesses and their owners, have gradually subsided. The supply of imported goods is also relatively secure today, now that roads through the Sunni Triangle are significantly safer than they were only a few months ago.

"It's worth it again," says businessman Bassim Dencha. "All we need now is enough electricity to reopen our refrigerated warehouse."

Two kilometers down the street, business is booming late into the night at Ali Lami's roadside snack bar. Before the war the establishment, a Baghdad institution, was a favorite hangout for former dictator Saddam Hussein's henchmen and United Nations weapons inspectors alike. Today professors and students from the university, which is once again open every day, come here to eat shawarma, an Arab fast-food dish consisting of shaved meat and salad served in pita bread.
This fall the manager, Rassak Rashid, 44, plans to open an outdoor seating area in a grove of palm trees behind the snack bar. The lanterns are already hanging in the trees. "Maybe then the police will stop telling our customers to get off the street," says Rashid.

He isn't referring to parking violations, but to the fear of bombs that could be hidden in cars parked along the curb. The police patrolling the streets in front of places like Ali Lami's snack bar aren't entirely convinced that this fragile sense of normalcy will last. While there are certainly signs of improvement, the dangers of life in Baghdad haven't disappeared.

You can read the rest here. And a glorious Fourth to all!

I've been attending a session from the parliamentary assembly of the European Council (the place where they discuss urgent matters like the abolition of spanking, for instance) and the people from the delegation behaved more or less the same way (some of them at least). It was in Strasbourg, so Members of the European Parliament from the area would sometimes sign in and show up once or twice, while others would just not show up at all (the sessions last a week, there are four of them each year), and then collect their allowances. Actually, they didn't even really have to sign up to collect the cash, but some of them seemed to think they had and, that made the staffers' work harder, since for some reasons they had to know in advance who would show up, but didn't because the MP's were lying. How mature of them.

But in a way, those who were not present were actually working as regular MPs in Paris or in their constituencies (the Council of Europe is composed of delegations from national parliaments). Those who were present didn't work much, and certainly not in any useful way.

Now, regarding the European parliament, the beauty of it is that, at least for the French "Eurodéputés", they get elected throught a proportional election with national lists, which means that:

- all you need to become a Euro-MP is good contacts inside a political party;

- most Euro-MP's are complete losers or notorious crackpots, like Paul-Marie Couteaux, a sort of French Pat Buchanan who once stated that we should give nuclear weapons to Arab countries for the sake of balance (which Caroline Glick wrote about, apparently overestimatiing the influence of Couteaux). These people can make some damage;

- some Euro-MP's are not politicians at all but people from the 'civil society' used by the parties to make a list look 'better' (the French communist list was half-made of such people a few years ago ). I have no idea what these people have been doing there.

I have heard the term "Neocon" uttered as an epithet one too many times, and thought I would ask someone who would know what the deal is.

How many of the people you work with actually consider themselves "Neocons", and how many are just conservatives who oppose Islamofascism? Does using the term "Islamofascism" make me a Neocon?

"Neocon" seems like it has some secret meaning of which I am unaware. My understanding is that some liberals switched sides when the Democratic Party became the home of moral relativism and anti-anti-communism in the late 60s. The key tenets seem to be a belief in the Free Market, a strong military, and American exceptionalism. So far that describes JFK.

I am a Reagan conservative, pro-life, Evangelical, Zionist, soft-on-immigration, and a free-trader. But I agree with your position that Reagan succeeded because he was the right man for his time, and that we cannot simply mimic his policies ad infinitum. Does that make me a "Neocon", or just a regular conservative?

The funny thing is that most of the people using the term "Neocon" couldn't pick Irving Kristol out of a line-up.

PS. I always laugh when liberals accuse me of getting my views from a diet of O'Reilly and Limbaugh (whom I never listen to), when the irony is I grew up listening to your mom (the fairest reporter the CBC ever had) on "As It Happens" every night with my dad.

Was there anything in Barack Obama's bold new faith-based initiative announced yesterday that is not a reversion to old Clinton-era rules and guidelines?

And why did John DiIulio praise a reversion to a status quo that he himself used to denounce as unduly bureaucratic and stifling of the creative possibilities of the initiatives of smaller churches in minority communities?

Best experience of my life, even for the days when I was praying pretty hard.

Have a lot of folks over here that, believe me, will, I think, remember the US the way that (the  immediate) post-war Germans and French remembered us.

Hope so, anyway.  They're a good people.  Been through quite a bit (understatement of the last three decades).  Still, trying to work things out, and I think (hope) they can and will.

Have a good Fourth of July.  I'm flying a US flag over here on that day.  I don't care what the weather's like.

The anti-communist jokes are great fun, but I can't help thinking that the comedians, like the generals, are fighting the last war.
 
When will we see collections of anti-Islamist jokes?

OK, I take that as a dare. No more anti-commie jokes - let's hear the next generation. Do they exist?

Consider, moreover, the deal's corrosive impact on the very concept of the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Removing North Korea from the list for political reasons unrelated to terrorism simply provides ammunition for those who argue that the existence of the list itself is purely political. Critically, since the North's nuclear and ballistic missile programs materially assisted Syria and Iran, two other states on the terrorism honor roll, it is hard to see what remains of President Bush's doctrine that those who support terrorists will be treated as terrorists. 

Consider also the palpable damage our mishandling of the terrorism issues has caused to our alliance with Japan, whose citizens, along with many South Koreans, were abducted by Pyongyang's agents. One might quibble that this is not state sponsorship of terrorism, but rather direct state terrorism. (Perhaps we should create a new list for North Korea.) It is hardly a reason to remove Japan's most effective leverage to get a straight accounting from the North about its citizens. 

Glenn Kessler reports on the Washington Post's political blog that the Obama campaign provided additional details regarding Sen. Obama's proposals for Social Security. ...

I'm not sure what this tells us that Jason Furman's letter to the Wall Street Journal didn't, and I'm quite certain I know less about Obama's Social Security plan than I did before these clarifying remarks were added. We know, as we did before, that workers earning over $250,000 would pay more in taxes. We also know that Sen. Obama is "setting aside the idea of boosting the payroll tax on everyone," but then we had no reason to believe he wanted to raise the 12.4% payroll tax rate since he'd never mentioned it before and has, if I'm remembering right, previously ruled it out.

What we still don't know is a) what the rate would be; b) whether additional benefits would be paid on the additional taxes, and c) whether taxes would be levied on income other than earnings, as Social Security has traditionally done. I'll try to provide some measuring stick information on questions a) and b) to give at least a rough idea how much a given increment of taxes, with or without benefits, would do for system financing.

Update: Given all the above, and given Jason's reference in the WSJ to Sen. Lindsey Graham's draft reform plan from a couple years ago, my best guess is that they'd be looking at a surtax above the cap on which no benefits would be paid. It's much simpler than taxing non-wage earnings, and doesn't complicate things by paying extra benefits later. It was a provision contained in the Diamond-Orszag plan so they could claim bipartisan support, I guess. 

Question: Why are the American Imperialists teetering on the brink of a vast precipice?
 
Answer: Because they're trying to look down at us at the bottom of the pit. 

Question: How can you tell when the stores have run out of toilet paper?

Answer: Because people are lined up around the block to buy the new edition of Pravda.

From reader Joao Silva, a joke from 1968. The joke's predicate is that the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia after Czech and Slovak workers supposedly pleaded for "fraternal help" from the Soviet Union to protect socialism from Western imperialism and world Zionism.

Question: What country is the safest to live in?

Answer: Israel.

Question: Why?

Answer: Because Israel is surrounded by enemies and cannot expect "fraternal help" from its neighbors. 

And from Ben Zycher of the Manhattan Institute a joke that builds on the Soviet practice of informal antisemitic quotas:

OK, so the Chief Rabbi of Moscow died, and so the Party apparatchiks brought Khrushchev a list of candidates form which he was to choose the successor. Nikita Sergeyevich looked over the list and began screaming at the aides.

My Yale contemporary Steve David sends:

A guy in a Lada pulls into a petrol station in the UK. He comes into the shop and asks the attendant,

"Would you have a petrol cap for a Lada?"

The attendant thinks it through, and says, "Sounds like a fair trade to me."

Dale Bain from Kansas reminds us of this venerable joke:

In the 1980s the Soviet leadership decided to open a strip club in Moscow. It was a miserable failure. The commissars in charge of the project were sitting in a meeting pondering what went wrong. One said, "It couldn't be the food. It is as good as what goes into the Kremlin." Another lamented, "It couldn't be the vodka. It is the best made in all Russia." A third said, " It couldn't be the strippers. They all have been loyal Party members since 1942."

The tape of the supposed shooting of the Palestinian boy Muhammad al-Dura is shaping up as a bordereau for today. Staged by a Palestinian cameraman on contract to France's TV-2, shaped into a newscast by a pompous and lazy correspondent who never bothered to check the original footage, the incident has stoked anti-Israel anger all over the Muslim world.

A band of hardy investigators and bloggers has now debunked the story about as thoroughly as any allegation can be debunked. Yet the damage to Israel's reputation persists. And amazingly enough, important elements of the French establishment once again refuse to accept the truth, preferring to deny reality rather than abandon their prejudices.

This important piece by Anne-Elisabeth Moutet in this weekend's Weekly Standard chronicles the enduring after-life of a lie. Don't miss it.  

To start with, I actually believe the Klan of the 1920s, or second Klan (as distinguished from its post-Civil War and Civil Rights era iterations) is of great use when thinking about conservatism. In part this is because historians have increasingly revised the common view of the second Klan as a group of poor, rural fundamentalists. In fact, Leonard Moore (to take one example) persuasively has argued on behalf a "populist revision" that shows how pervasive the Klan was in the 1920s, how ordinary its members were (which is to say, not the marginalized of society), and how much of their efforts involved legitimate political activity and programs that made them akin to a social club. To simplify, what the second Klan teaches us is that populisms of the right typically are based on identity in a fairly broad sense of the word (as opposed to a more narrow sense of identity with left populisms -- say, the notion of being a "producer" among workers), something that transcends mere racism but is still connected to it. This doesn't mean the racist and anti-Catholic words and deeds of the second Klan were or are very palatable. It just means we might learn something transferable about a particular style of populism from it. 

Raped in Brussels for not wearing the veil

Lola, 21 years old, has been raped by two men. Travelers saw it but did not act.

Saint-Gilles, Belgium—It is an indignant, heartbroken, outraged father who speaks with us. “My daughter was raped at the Midi Station. In Brussels. Capital of Europe. In complete impunity.”

It was June 12th. “My daughter came back from Waterloo station. It was 9 PM. Upon exiting the train, she walked to the Bancontact.” A transit place. And it was there, of all places, that the drama unfolded.

“In the midst of a train station. How is this possible?” continues the father of Lola, 21 years old. “Two man reproached her for not wearing the veil. My girl is pretty. She’s blonde and has blue eyes.”

Everything then happened very fast. “One of the aggressors took out a knife. My daughter was forcibly put against a wall in Bancontact. Knife under the throat, one of the guys raped her. The other one watched.”

It was 9 PM. It was still light out and the station was far from being empty. “People passed. My daughter is certain of having seen at least three people walk by. No one stopped to save her.”

The rape finished, the aggressors left, quietly. “They were two North Africans. They didn’t even have hoods. And don’t tell me I’m a racist because I provide you with their origins! My daughter was raped because she was not wearing a veil. That, that is the reality!”

Lola went to her friend. “Do I have to tell you in what state she was?” Several minutes later, the young woman was hospitalized.

Obviously, a criminal complaint was filed. “The police officers have been very professional. The clothes have been confiscated. The DNA has been taken.”

But, unfortunately, the guilty ones are still out there… “Following the death of Joe van Holsbeeck, people yelled at the top of their lungs that there needed to be more security in train stations. You have proof with my daughter that nothing has changed. There is no camera in the four corners of the Midi Station which is one of the most highly traveled stations.”

Marc is bitter. “I can’t take it anymore, this Belgium where everything is permitted. They leave just like that zones of lawlessness to young people who are adrift. These rapists wanted only one thing: abuse my daughter, possess her and denigrate her because she wasn’t like they thought young girls should be…It’s an outrage.”

Lichtman’s thesis is embedded in his title: American conservatism should be seen as an ideology devoted above all to advancing “an antipluralistic ideal of America as a unified, white Protestant nation.” This breathtaking argument bumps into an obvious counterargument: What about all the Catholics? William F. Buckley, Rudolph W. Giuliani, Sean Hannity, Russell Kirk, Clare Boothe Luce, Joseph R. McCarthy, Michael Novak, Bill O’Reilly, Antonin Scalia, Phyllis Schlafly and William E. Simon hardly seem marginal to the past or present of American conservatism. Indeed, enumerating important Catholics in the American conservative movement feels a little like listing famous Jewish violin players. It might be quicker and easier to do it the other way around.

As we celebrated the purchase of our first and only home, we took time to toast Washington's then-mayor, Marion Barry. The cocaine-abusing mayor's squalid misgovernment had enabled us to afford a much grander house than we could possibly have afforded across the city line. The seller grumbled, "One day you will make a lot of money on this house." What he didn't say was that any profit we might someday claim would long since have been paid to Brent. 

The column continues here. 

Dear Mr. Frum,
 
Your fascist joke reminded me of another one:

Zhukov leaves Stalin's office and mutters to himself, "Oh, that mustached bastard!" Beria hears that and immediately tells Stalin, who summons Zhukov back and asks menacingly "Whom did you mean?" Zhukov replies "Hitler, of course." Stalin turns to Beria and asks "And whom did YOU mean?" [unfortunately, I can not adequately translate Stalin's Georgian accent present in the original Russian version of the joke]

I heard a different version of the "Helsinki compliance" joke (in the late 70's):

Brezhnev wakes up with a terrible hangover, can not remember the previous night and, strangely, can't find anybody around. Just no people at all. Then a phone rings and it's Kosygin: "Leonid, you got really drunk yesterday. And you ordered to open the border." - "Oh, no! So you and I are the only ones left here?!" - "Well, I'm actually calling from Switzerland..."

From the same period:

Brezhnev visits the US, talks to Carter and the conversation turns to how difficult it is to find good help nowadays. Carter explains that he tests his aides: "I asked Brzezinski 'Who's your mother's son but not your brother?', he correctly replied 'I am' and I hired him." Brezhnev returns to Moscow and asks Kosygin "Who's your mother's son but not your brother?" - "Uhm, I don't know." - "You fool! It's Brzezinski!"

This one was making rounds shortly before the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow (it should be noted that letter 'O' is the same in both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets): 

Brezhnev starts reading a speech at some Olympic function: "Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh." An aide whispers "Leonid Ilyich, those are Olympic rings. The text is below."

Another one based on the popular conception that Brezhnev was utterly incapable of speaking without a written text:

Brezhnev greets Erich Honecker at Moscow airport. He pulls out a paper and starts reading: "Dear Indira Gandhi!" An aide says "This is Erich Honecker, not Indira Gandhi." Brezhnev replies "I can see myself that this is Honecker, but it is written here 'Dear Indira Gandhi'!"

I heard this one shortly after Brezhnev's death (which was a joyous occasion for us because it meant three days off school for official mourning):

Andropov is asked "Yuri Vladimirovich, what if people don't follow you?" He replies "Then they'll follow Brezhnev."

After three visibly sick gerontocratic Soviet dictators died in the space of less than two and a half years, I heard this one:

A phone rings in the Central Committee HR department and a feeble voice asks: "Do you need a General Secretary?" - "What is it with you, are you sick?!" - "Yes. And very old too."

Back in the late 70's my mother told me one from the early 60's, on how Soviet media covers events:

At a summit JFK offered to race Khrushchev and, being much younger and fitter, outran him. The next day the Soviet newspapers reported: "There was a racing competition yesterday which included participation by preeminent world leaders Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy. Khrushchev came in second. Kennedy was next to last."

On a different topic:

A collective farm chairman speaks at a meeting: "I have good news and bad news. First, the bad news: our potato crop failed and we'll have to eat shit. Now the good news: we have plenty of shit."

Finally, one from the late 80's:

 Gorbachev is desperate about the condition of the Soviet Union and begs Stalin for advice. Stalin offers a plan: "Shoot all dissenters, deport a couple of small nations to Siberia and paint the Kazan rail station in Moscow blue." Gorbachev asks "Why repaint the station building?!" Stalin smiles "I'm glad that you have no questions about the other items."

My family friend Tim Kotcheff supplies a Bulgarian commie joke:

Three Bulgarians - Hristo, Vladko and Gyorgi - were discussing the first thing they would do if they were ever freed of the communist yoke. Gyorgi said he would run to the border and kiss the ground – the earth of freedom. Vladko said he would run and run and wouldn’t stop until he reached Paris. Then he would kiss the stones on the Champs Elysees. Hristo sat silent. Thoughtful. Finally he was prodded…Hey Hristo, what would you do? Hristo answered. I would climb the nearest tree. Why would you do such a silly thing said Vladko. To which Hristo replied. It is the only way to avoid getting trampled to death. 

"You cannot address crime prevention without getting rid of assault weapons and handguns. I consider them a threat to national security, and I will go door to door if I have to, but I’m gonna convince Americans that I’m right, and I’m gonna get the guns.”

That passionate outburst occurs at the climax of the 1995 movie, An American President. At that time, gun control was a liberal cause only slightly less sacred than environmentalism or affirmative action.

Learned law professors wrote articles explaining away the Second Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” The professors explained that those words did not safeguard the right to own guns. They safeguarded the right to join the National Guard.

So much for that! On Thursday, the Supreme Court held downan important ruling confirming that the Second Amendment means what it seems to mean: There exists an individual right to own guns. It can be limited in reasonable ways, just as the First Amendment to free speech can be limited. But it cannot be annihilated  altogether.

And how have the bold liberals who once applauded the bold door-to-door promise of fictional president Andrew Shepherd responded?

You can read the answer here. 

The Gipper and Gorbachev are both going somewhere during a state visit by President Reagan to Moscow.  Something, not sure what, but certainly insignificant, falls into a partially frozen river.  President Reagan asks his Secret Service agent to go get it. The agent refuses, saying that “I’ve got a wife and children”.  Gorbachev asks his security person to retrieve the item. The Russian agent immediately dives in. The American secret service agent helps the Russian climb out of the river and asks him why he would risk his life this way.  The Russian security person says “I’ve got a wife and children”.

And this from reader Jim Dickey:

 A communist state decided to change their election system.  Of course, there was always just one slate of candidates--the Communist slate--but they found that some brave voters would still try to express their opposition by crossing out the names of the candidates, writing rude comments, writing in the names of dissidents, etc..
 
So it was decided that when voters came into the polling place, they would be handed a ballot with the X's already marked in the little boxes next to the names of the individual candidates.  All they would have to do is the put the ballot in the ballot box.
 
Election day came and the first voter was handed his voting ballot, folded in two.  As he walked to the box he unfolded the ballot and started to look at it.
 
A polling official said, "Say, what are you doing, comrade?"
 
"I just wanted to see who I am voting for," replied the citizen.
 
The polling official slapped his forehead in exasperation, "You idiot!  Don't you know that this is a SECRET ballot?"

I haven't won on every issue. I didn’t win on immigration reform, but I'll go back at it. And I'm glad I did it.

Thanks for ruining the weekend, Byron.

You've posted an admirable collection.  Here are a couple that you've missed.

1) A man walks into a butcher shop and asks for butter. The butcher says "Sorry sir, you're in the wrong place. This is the butcher shop, and we don't have meat. The place that doesn't have butter is across the street."

2) Two days before Ronald Reagan arrives on a state visit, Gorbachev is walking around the Kremlin, and sees a young boy with a sign "Communist puppies, Free!" He sees the puppies they are newly born, in good health, and Gorbachev makes a note to show this boy and his obvious enthusiasm for Communism to Reagan when he arrives.

Reagan arrives, and Gorbachev takes him around to see the boy with the puppies. He was still there, but now the sign says "Capitalist puppies".  "Weren't they Communist puppies last week?" Gorbachev asks.  "That was last week," the boy says. "Now their eyes are open."

And now the fascist joke:

It's 1930. A housewife collects her sparse funds to go shopping in the central market in Rome. She arrives and realizes she can afford nothing more than a small handful of macaroni. She bursts out in rage: "He's ruined everything! He's starved all our children!"

Immediately, a plainclothes policeman steps behind the woman and asks with a sinister smile, "And of whom are you speaking ?"

Terrified, the woman desperately improvises an answer. "Oh ... just my husband."

The policeman snaps to attention. "So sorry to trouble you Signora Mussolini!" 

  Stalin decided to honor the great Russian poet Aleksandr Pushkin by erecting a monument to Pushkin in his home town.  What was the monument?  It was a huge bronze statue of Stalin reading from a book of Pushkin's poetry.

Peter Bogucki, associate dean at Princeton, sends these from Poland's Solidarity period:

The  express train is running from Warsaw to Legnica (site of a big Soviet Airforce Base in the communist years) when it suddenly jumps the tracks and runs off into the woods.   After a while going through the woods, it returns to the tracks and somehow gets back on.  The conductor goes up to the engineer and says, "What are you, nuts? Running off into the woods like that."   The engineer replies, "There was a Russian general standing on the tracks."   The conductor berates him, "Then why didn't you just run the #%$$^%$ over?"  to which the engineer replies, "That's just it, he ran into the woods."

and

 Edward Gierek, first secretary of the Party from 1970 to 1980, goes down to Silesia to visit the miners and see how they live.  He goes up to one block of flats, and goes to the door of one on the ground floor.It's open, so he enters and finds that it's furnished very luxuriously: color TV, refrigerator, plush sofas, and a little boy is sitting on the couch.  Gierek says to him, "Son, do you know who I am?"  The little boy shakes his head no, looking scared.  Gierek spreads his arms and says, "Son, thanks to me, you have all this!"   The little boy's face brightens and calls out to his parents in the next room, "Mommy, daddy, Uncle Hans from West Germany is here!"

 Finally - and I think this is final - Prof. Jay Bergman who teaches Soviet history at the Central Connecticut State University sends this collection:

1) What do you call a Soviet quartet that goes abroad?     A trio.

2) One day in the 1970's the Politburo was discussing a plan to send Soviet cosmonauts to the sun.  When someone expressed the concern that if they did so, they'd be burned alive, Brezhnev casually responded:  "Don't worry.  They'll land at night."

3) Three men in a Soviet labor camp are sitting around the barrel stove one night and the subject of what they are incarcerated for comes up.  The first one says:  "I am here because I voted for Comrade Petrov in 1934."  The second one says: "I am here because I voted against Comrade Petrov in 1934."  The third one says:  "I am Comrade Petrov."

4) A Frenchman, a Brit, and a Russian are admiring a painting of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.  The Frenchman says, "they must be French, they're naked and they're eating fruit."  The Englishman says, "clearly they're English.  Observe how politely the man is offering the woman the fruit."  The Russian notes, "they are Russian of course.  They have nothing to wear, nothing to eat, and they think they are in paradise."

5) Two Muscovites, Ivan and Piotr, are waiting in line on a Moscow street in the Gorbachev era, waiting to buy bread.  The line is long and it hardly moves.  Finally, Piotr says to Ivan in exasperation, "I've had it.  I'm going to shoot Gorbachev."  Off he goes to shoot Gorbachev.  Several hours pass.  Ivan is still in line.  At last Piotr appears and Ivan asks him if he's shot Gorbachev.  Piotr replies:  "I couldn't.  The line was too long."

6) In Moscow there are two workmen with shovels walking along the edge of a city street, stopping every five yards so that one of them can dig a hole in the dirt.  As soon as it is dug, his comrade fills the hole back in.  Then they move along another five yards and repeat the exercise.  A Soviet citizen observing this scene loses his temper and stomps up to the two workers.  "Comrades," he shouts, "what kind of craziness is this?  You dig a hole, then the other fellow fills it right up.  You're accomplishing nothing at all.  We're wasting good money paying you."  "No, no", one of the workers replies, "you don't understand.  Usually we work with a third lad, Volodya, but he's home drunk today.  Volodya plants trees. I dig the hole, he sticks in the tree, and Ivan here fills the hole back in.  Just because Voldoya's off drunk, does that mean Ivan and I have to stop working?"

7) Brezhnev and Kosygin are discussing what would happen if the Soviet Union truly adhered to the Helsinki Accords and adopted an open emigration policy.  Brezhnev says to Kosygin that "you and I will be the only two citizens left in the Soviet Union."  To which Kosygin replies, "Speak for yourself."

8) There was the Russian who bought a car and was told it would be delivered ten years from the purchase date.  "Morning or afternoon?" he inquired.  "What does it matter?" asked the salesman.  "The plumber is coming in the morning."

9) A train stalled on the Trans-Siberian Railway.  On board were Tsar Nicholas II, Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Chernenko, Andropov, Gorbachev, and Yeltsin.

Tsar Nicholas stands up and says,  "I shall make this train move."  He gets off the train, mounts his horse, and rides off to Paris.

Lenin then stands up and says, "I shall make this train move."  He leaves the car and returns a few minutes later.  "I've instituted a new 8-day work week."  The train doesn't move.

Stalin stands up and says, I shall make this train move."  He leaves the car and returns a few minutes later."  "I've shot the engineer."  The train doesn't move.

Khrushchev then stands up and says, "I shall make this train move."  He leaves the car and returns a few minutes later.  "I've reinstated the engineer posthumously," he says as he sits down.  The train still doesn't move.

Brezhnev then stands up and says, "I shall make this train move."  He then instructs everyone on the train to act as if it is moving.  The train doesn't move.

Chernenko and Andropov then stand up and say, "We shall make this train move."  They then get off the train.  The train still does not move.

Gorbachev, with a sigh, then stands up and says.  "I will make this train move."  He stands up, and pulling the window open, yells outside, "This train doesn't move."  The train still doesn't move.

Yeltsin, quite put out, stands up and says, I Shall change this train for one that works."  He leaves and returns shortly with a new train.  As the passengers board it, they notice that it is an old American steam train which is owned by the Germans and has no wheels.  Is this train going to move."

10) A group of rabbits appear at the Soviet-Polish frontier in the 1930's, applying for admission to Poland.  When asked why they want to leave the Soviet Union they say that the NKVD has given orders to arrest all camels in the Soviet Union.  "But you are not camels," the border guards say to them.  They reply:  "Just try telling that to the NKVD."

11) Asked in 2004 whether Russian democracy under Putin was dead or dying, Gregorii Yavlinskii, the head of the liberal party, Iabloko, repeated an old joke about an ambulance driver taking a man to the morgue.  "Why," the man asked.  "I'm not dead yet."  "well," the driver replied, "we're not there yet."

12) What's the difference between perestroika and chess?  In chess you think before you move.

13) There are two ways for resolving the crisis in the Soviet economy.  One of them is realistic, the other is fantastic.  The realistic way is to call on people from outer space.  The fantastic way is to let the Soviet government do it.

14) Stalin was having a meeting in his office with the Central Committee one afternoon.  After they all left, he realized that his pipe was missing.  He called Beria and told him to question every member of the Committee about his pipe.  The next day, Stalin found his pipe and called Beria to tell him to stop the questioning.  Upon hearing this, Beria answered, "I am sorry Comrade Stalin but half of the Committee already admitted to taking the pipe, and the other half died during questioning."

15) A conversation in the GULAG.  How many years did they give you?  Twenty.  How about you?  Also twenty.  What are you in for?  Nothing.  Liar.  For nothing they give you ten.

16) Define a secure Soviet border.  One with Soviet soldiers on both sides of it.

17) What would have happened had the first socialist country been established in the Sahara desert instead of the Soviet Union?  It would have run out of sand.

18) Why is communism superior to capitalism?  Because it heroically overcomes problems that do not exist in any other system.

19) What are the main obstacles obstructing Soviet agriculture?  Spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

20) Brezhnev instructs his clever assistant to write him a ten minute speech.  "Remember, just ten minutes," he admonishes.  After returning, Brezhnev is furious and berates the assistant mercilessly.  "You fool, I told you to write me a ten minute speech but it took twenty minutes to deliver.  The assistant replies: "But comrade general secretary I gave you two copies.

A teenage boy comes home from school one day and says to his father – “we learned some very complicated words in school today dad, and I am having trouble understanding them.” His dad offers to help and the boy says to him “ the first word was communist. Who are the communists dad?” His father replies – “oh son, those are the people who read the works of Marx and Lenin.” The boy says “okay, so who are the anti-communists?” The father replies “ son, those are the people who read the works of Marx and Lenin, and understand them!”

Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev are all riding in a train across the USSR when the train comes to a grinding halt. Stalin immediately has the engineer shot. A half an hour passes and the substitute engineer can’t get the train started, so Khrushchev goes up to him, takes off his shoe and beats the engineer over the head with it. Brezhnev then says “comrades, comrades, come sit, do not despair! We’ll just pull down the shades of the train car and pretend the train is moving!”

And one that returns to me from the depths of memory:

A student with a brilliant mathematical record is applying for admission to Moscow University. He has journeyed by train to meet the rector for a final interview. After discussing math for an hour, the rector says, OK, now we must turn to the ideological component of your education. Summarize for me please Lenin's theory of imperialism. A worried look crosses the student's face. Lenin? Who is this Lenin? The rector is astonished: the student has never heard of Lenin? He asks, very well - tell me what you know about the works of Marx and Engels. Another blank look. Again the student apologizes: he has never heard of them either.

Where in the world are you from, the rector demands.

From the village of Petry-Petrov in eastern Siberia the student answers.

The rector sighs. "It must be a lovely place."

And then these:

Erich Honecker wakes up in the morning, goes to his window, and says :'Hello, Sun!'.

The sun replies : 'Hello, comrade Secretary general'!

After lunch, Honecker takes a walk outside, looks at the sky and says: 'Hello, Sun!'.

The sun enthusiastically replies: 'Hello, comrade Secratary general!'.

Before dinner, Honecker takes a look outside and says: 'Goodnight, Sun'.

The Sun does not reply.

Honecker asks: 'Sun, why don't you answer?'.

The Sun says: 'I don't have to. I'm in the West now.'

**

A professor at a leading Soviet medical school is showing his advanced students two skeletons and grilling them on what the students can tell him about the deceased.

The professors say "So by examing these skeletons can anyone tell me about the cause of death of these two subjects?"
His question is met with silence.

He asks it again, only louder. Still no answer.
Again he tries "Can anyone tell me anything about these two skeletons?"

Again, no answer.

Frustrated, the professor yells out "Come on now, what have we been teaching you here all of these years?"
One student, having a eureka moment, smiles and yells out "Professor! I got! It's Marx and Engels." 

These are foreign belligerents detained in action against US forces. They have certain rights (and responsibilities) under the laws of war and under our common understanding of fundamental human rights, but they cannot claim rights under the US Constitution. The Constitution regulates the relationship between the American people and their government, not between that government and the world. 

Anyway please watch and judge the merits of the discussion for yourself.

(Courtesy of ConservativeHome.co.uk) 

And what on earth might have prompted them to do such a thing?

From page 16:

Christopher Wray, then Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, said that politics and ideology only arose in the context of the concern of trying to be more inclusive. He said there was a perception that in past administrations the career employees doing the screening may have weeded out candidates because the selecting officials were not “comfortable with their political persuasion.” He said the political persuasion he was referring to pertained to candidates who had been in the military or law enforcement, “whether you call that conservative or not.”

Is there evidence to support this "perception"? Why yes!

On pp. 20-21, we find the numbers that establish that the DoJ career staff in 2002 nominated twice as many identifiable liberals as identifiable conservatives for the Honors track program: 100 vs. 46.

And on page 27, we read that the DoJ bureaucracy advanced nearly three times as many identifiable liberals as conservatives for summer internships that year, 81 vs. 29.

If anything, the ideological bias of the DoJ bureaucracy seems to have become more entrenched with time. In 2006, it nominated five times as many liberals as conservatives for Honors track positions, 150 v. 28, and more three times as many liberals as conservatives for summer internships, 68 v. 16. (See p. 41 and p. 54.)

The evidence suggests that DoJ hiring was contaminated by ideology long before the Bush administration came to town. The Bush administration may have erred and over-corrected. But let's not allow the permanent government and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) to get away with spreading the claim that things were done in a neutral fashion beforehand.

After the Soviet invasion in 1968, a Czech calls the police on the phone and says, "Two Swiss soldiers just stole my Russian watch."

The policeman, puzzled, asks: "You mean two Russian soldiers just stole your Swiss watch?"

"You said it not me," the Czech replies.

Which prompted this from another Czech reader:

I'm Czech, and this one's stayed with me for decades--

Shortly after the 1968 invasion, a Czech man and another man were standing on a street corner in Prague.  Across the street were two automobiles--a Mercedes sedan and a Moskovich.  The man turns to the Czech and says "which of those cars do you like best?" 

The Czech replies: "the Moskovich."  The other man says to the Czech, "don't you know your cars?" 

The Czech replies "I know my cars, but I don't know you."