May 1 - Remembrance Day

The annual remembrance day for the victims of self-described communist regimes on this weblog:

http://catallarchy.net/blog/archives/2006/05/01/may-day-2006-a-day-of-remembrance/

Welcome to Catallarchy?s annual Day of Remembrance. Contrary to the promises of ideology, nations whose governments pledged to create a workers? paradise usually became places of rampant slave labor. The plight of the less fortunate became even less fortunate. Today, we chronicle a small part of their lives.

How Many Did Stalin Really Murder? ( http://catallarchy.net/blog/archives/2006/05/01/how-many-did-stalin-really-murder/ ) by guest writer Professor R. J. Rummel

A Forgotten Odyssey ( http://catallarchy.net/blog/archives/2006/05/01/a-forgotten-odyssey/ ) by guest writer Romuald Lipinski

The Road To Hell Was Paved With Bad Intentions ( http://catallarchy.net/blog/archives/2006/05/01/the-road-to-hell-was-paved-with-bad-intentions/ ) by guest writer Professor Bryan Caplan

A Different Kind of Soviet Labor Camp: Solzhenitsyn?s The First Circle ( http://catallarchy.net/blog/archives/2006/05/01/a-different-kind-of-soviet-labor-camp-solzhenitsyns-ithe-first-circlei/ ) by guest writer Clara Magram

In The Proletariat?s Paradise ( http://catallarchy.net/blog/archives/2006/05/01/in-the-proletariats-paradise/ ) by guest writer Romuald Lipinski

The Berlin Wall ( http://catallarchy.net/blog/archives/2006/05/01/the-berlin-wall/ ) by Randall McElroy

Trofim Lysenko: Ideology, Power, and the Destruction of Science ( http://catallarchy.net/blog/archives/2006/05/01/trofim-lysenko-ideology-power-and-the-destruction-of-science/ ) by Matt McIntosh

The Treatment Of Homosexuals Under Communism by ( http://catallarchy.net/blog/archives/2006/05/01/homosexuality-and-communism/ ) Rainbough Phillips

Re-Education In Vietnam ( http://catallarchy.net/blog/archives/2006/05/01/re-education-in-vietnam/ ) by Jonathan Wilde

The Winter War ( http://catallarchy.net/blog/archives/2006/05/01/the-winter-war/ ) by Randall McElroy

Remembrance ( http://catallarchy.net/blog/archives/2006/05/01/remembrance/ ) by Jonathan Wilde

Good column on “totalitarian chic” today in the Boston Globe from Jeff Jacoby:

EXCERPT:

[i]What can explain such ''communist chic?" How can people who wouldn’t dream of drinking in a pub called Gestapo cheerfully hang out at the KGB Bar? If the swastika is an undisputed symbol of unspeakable evil, can the hammer-and-sickle and other emblems of communism be anything less?

Between 1933 and 1945, Adolf Hitler’s Nazis slaughtered some 21 million people, but the communist nightmare has lasted far longer and its death toll is far, far higher. Since 1917, communist regimes have sent more than 100 million victims to their graves – and in places like North Korea, the deaths continue to this day.

The historian R.J. Rummel, an expert on genocide and government mass murder, estimates that the Soviet Union alone annihilated nearly 62 million people: ''Old and young, healthy and sick, men and women, even infants and the infirm, were killed in cold blood. They were not combatants in civil war or rebellions; they were not criminals. Indeed, nearly all were guilty of . . . nothing."

Yet communism rarely evokes the instinctive loathing that Nazism does. Prince Harry’s swastika was way over the line, but Tim Vincent’s hammer-and-sickle was kitschy and cool. Why?[/i]

Lest we forget.

http://www.volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_04_29-2007_05_05.shtml#1178052456

[i][Ilya Somin, May 1, 2007 at 4:47pm] Trackbacks
A May Day Proposal:

Today is May 1, AKA May Day ( May Day - Wikipedia ). May Day began as a holiday for socialists and labor union activists, not just communists. But over time, the date was taken over by the Soviet Union and other communist regimes and used as a propaganda tool to prop up their regimes. I suggest that we instead use it as a day to commemorate those regimes’ millions of victims. The authoritative Black Book of Communism ( http://www.amazon.com/Black-Book-Communism-Crimes-Repression/dp/0674076087 ) estimates the total at 80 to 100 million dead, greater than that caused by all other twentieth century tyrannies combined. We appropriately have a Holocaust Memorial Day ( Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Memorial Day ). It is equally appropriate to commemorate the victims of the twentieth century’s other great totalitarian tyranny. And May Day is the most fitting day to do so. I suggest that May Day be turned into Victims of Communism Day. I am, of course, open to suggestions for the official name of this day of commemoration. Maybe someone will come up with a better one than I have.

The main alternative to May 1 is November 7, the anniversary of the communist coup in Russia. However, choosing that date might be interpreted as focusing exclusively on the Soviet Union, while ignoring the equally horrendous communist mass murders ( MURDER BY COMMUNISM ) in China, Camobodia, and elsewhere. So May 1 is the best choice.

UPDATE: I don’t claim that this idea is original, as I suspect that it has been suggested before. But whether original or not, I think it should be pursued, perhaps in conjunction with the opening of the Victims of Communism Memorial ( http://www.victimsofcommunism.org/ ), scheduled for June 12.[/i]

http://www.distributedrepublic.net/archives/2008/05/01/may-day-2008-a-day-remembrance
[i]
May Day 2008: A Day of Remembrance
Submitted by Jonathan Wilde on Thu, 2008-05-01 02:30.

Welcome to The Distributed Republic’s 5th annual remembrance of the victims of communism. Our busy personal lives made this year’s event a bit sparser than usual, but we hope you enjoy the postings.

The Red Plague by guest blogger Professor R. J. Rummel (republished) The Red Plague | The Distributed Republic

Complicity by Jonathan Wilde Complicity | The Distributed Republic

Forced Labor: North Koreans Working Abroad by Rainbough Phillips Forced Labor: North Koreans Working Abroad | The Distributed Republic

A History The EU Wants to Forget by Rainbough Phillips A History The EU Wants to Forget | The Distributed Republic

A Video Memorial to Victims of Khmer Rouge by Rainbough Phillips A Video Memorial to Victims of Khmer Rouge | The Distributed Republic

Gulag Love by Jonathan Wilde Gulag Love | The Distributed Republic

Remembrance by Jonathan Wilde Remembrance | The Distributed Republic [/i]

It is also a day of remembrance in Israel for the Victims of the Holocaust,I believe.Sirens sound for 2 minutes country wide and the country comes to a complete standstill for that time.

May those killed in the name of communism, and those who starved in need because of communist actions or inactions, rest in peace.

May those killed in the name of capitalism, and those who starved in need because of capitalism actions of inactions, rest in peace.

EDIT’d

[quote]lixy wrote:
May those killed in the name of capitalism, and those who starved in need because of capitalist actions of inactions, rest in peace.[/quote]

You missed one. Fixed.

And we have a day for that. We call it Memorial Day.

[quote]lixy wrote:
May those killed in the name of capitalism, and those who starved in need because of capitalism actions of inactions, rest in peace.

EDIT’d[/quote]

Stalin and Mao love ya, man.

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
lixy wrote:
May those killed in the name of capitalism, and those who starved in need because of capitalism actions of inactions, rest in peace.

EDIT’d

Stalin and Mao love ya, man.[/quote]

Screw 'em!

:slight_smile:

[quote]lixy wrote:

May those killed in the name of capitalism, and those who starved in need because of capitalism actions of inactions, rest in peace.

EDIT’d[/quote]

Weren’t you a Ron Paul supporter?

Communism was and is the worst of all murderous totalitarian ideologies - its victims are remembered.

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Good column on “totalitarian chic” today in the Boston Globe from Jeff Jacoby:

EXCERPT:

[i]What can explain such ''communist chic?" How can people who wouldn’t dream of drinking in a pub called Gestapo cheerfully hang out at the KGB Bar? If the swastika is an undisputed symbol of unspeakable evil, can the hammer-and-sickle and other emblems of communism be anything less?

Between 1933 and 1945, Adolf Hitler’s Nazis slaughtered some 21 million people, but the communist nightmare has lasted far longer and its death toll is far, far higher. Since 1917, communist regimes have sent more than 100 million victims to their graves – and in places like North Korea, the deaths continue to this day.

The historian R.J. Rummel, an expert on genocide and government mass murder, estimates that the Soviet Union alone annihilated nearly 62 million people: ''Old and young, healthy and sick, men and women, even infants and the infirm, were killed in cold blood. They were not combatants in civil war or rebellions; they were not criminals. Indeed, nearly all were guilty of . . . nothing."

Yet communism rarely evokes the instinctive loathing that Nazism does. Prince Harry’s swastika was way over the line, but Tim Vincent’s hammer-and-sickle was kitschy and cool. Why?[/i][/quote]

I’m pretty sure he dusts this column off annually, my folks subscribe to the Boston Globe and I feel like I’ve read this before.

But he’s right, I always find it moronic if not offensive when I see hammer and sickle shirts, and I find the Che stuff even worse.

A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a book everyone ought to read in high school or college.

[quote]lixy wrote:
Gkhan wrote:
lixy wrote:
May those killed in the name of capitalism, and those who starved in need because of capitalism actions of inactions, rest in peace.

EDIT’d

Stalin and Mao love ya, man.

Screw 'em!

:-)[/quote]

Rock on then.

Actually, I hope that you all know that May Day began here in the United States (in Chicago) to celebrate the struggle for the 8 hour day. You guys do remember the 8 hour day, right? I vaguely remember it.

I thought it was the wetbacks’ lay out of work day.

[quote]lixy wrote:
May those killed in the name of capitalism, and those who starved in need because of capitalism actions of inactions, rest in peace.

EDIT’d[/quote]

Piss off.

[quote]entheogens wrote:
Actually, I hope that you all know that May Day began here in the United States (in Chicago) to celebrate the struggle for the 8 hour day. You guys do remember the 8 hour day, right? I vaguely remember it.

http://www.democracynow.org/2006/5/1/the_origins_of_may_day_a[/quote]

It is what lazy people do, right?

May 1 is not a good day for a remembrance day because most of us are stone drunk.