Black hoodie, black pants, face mask, shades. It’s standard enough to be recognized on sight, but obviously it’s nothing official!



See “Anonymous” for a similar movement. And there are Facebook pages of Antifa sympathizers. The term “rag-tag” that you use is very apt, but they do have some basic coherence.



True, I’ve never seen an Antifa clown be accused of murder. I have seen them break windows, beat up people and set police cars on fire, though, so give it time.



I equally dislike cancer and malaria, but one is more dangerous than the other. Is it disingenuous to say I dislike both? And the Antifa clowns are not always reactive; while it’s true that you mostly see them among other protesters when some Confederate flag waving bozos want to march down main street, they will also take part in things like marches against police brutality (in Quebec, of all places!) and smash windows with billiard balls. The thing with extremists is that they can see pretty much anything as an aggression and decide that violence is a legitimate way to oppose -hence my dislike of them.

On that we agree. Antifa is a fringe movement of vandals who make more responsible protestors look bad, while white supremacist groups have numerous members and enough political clout to dangerously affect society at more than a local level. I would not deal with Antifa activists at any higher level than the local constabulary while white supremacy groups deserve the scrutiny of the FBI and elected officials. I still feel fully entitled to say that I have no more sympathy for their violent and destructive way than for the heinous ideas of white supremacists; both movements, the small distracting one and the large dangerous one, are based on the idea that violence is a proper way to express your dislike of other people.

My information comes not from any websites nor conspircy 'groups', but first hand from an Alaskan Captain (Jack Johnson) who first met Putin (who had a fairly full head of hair then) on board a Russian ship commanded by Captain Sergey Rekin in early 1989 during international help in cleaning up from ther Exxon-Valdez spill. He writes that "a KGB agent was coming on board to "monitor things." The morale of the crew went from cheerfulness down to gloom."

From his memoirs (published 2013)...

No one seemed to smile after hearing this guy was coming aboard. Sure enough, a small plane flew over and landed. The water was very calm. They sent a boat to pick him up. A KGB agent came aboard named Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin - the same Putin who would become the head of the KGB and then the President of Russia and the Prime Minister of Russia. When Putin came aboard, he introduced himself to the captain, the engineer, and me. I introduced myself in Russian, but he spoke very good English, so it wasn't difficult to carry on a conversation with him.

The crew avoided Putin and anything he was doing, keeping close to themselves and minding their own business.They'd go around whispering instead of really talking. Putin took to hanging out on the bridge, talking to me.

I told him about my days in the 13th Tank Army 2nd Regiment B Company and about Major Sergei Panamariov and Marshall Konev. Putin thought that it was outstanding I was in their Great Patriotic War.

My arthritis makes transcribing from printed/written text a bit painful, but there are references to Putin being sent by the government which was still communist at this time (or am I wrong? March 1989). he refers to Putin as "soon-to-be Russian president" a few times. I feel stupid to say this but there are a couple things I'm not sure I can or should actually post here even though the good Captain has passed on. He was actually very impressed with Putin and friendly with Soviets but I have believed in his information. Why would the crew behave as though literally deathly afraid of a KGB agent sent by the government if a) it wasn't the communist government but the supposedly 'new' thing, or b) the KGB was some separate entity backing anti-communist reforms? I will admit there are things I don't know and things I may well have just assumed. The scenario you paint seems like something I know nothing about although I see wikipedia seems to say some of these same things. It strikes me as a fiction that there was any such complete break with the old Soviet communist people and set-ups other than for the brief little Yetsin reign where he just crawled off into a bottle permanently. I don't think it's any wild conspiracy given the man came up through the KGB, the secret police of the communist regime, feared and holding life and death over normal citizens and even fellow party members. What more can I spell out? This is very strange for me to try to think of some always separate KGB and military that was/is in opposition to the communist party. Pravda is not the state news agency anymore? Are you sure this all isn't window-dressing more than fact like the Pol Pot Khmer-Rouge were the Democratic People's Liberators?

I was thinking the 'cee' stood for the letter C and communism I guess.

Pravda (Truth) is today run by the Communist party, but it seems an online Pravda is privately owned. RT (Russia Today) News is funded by the Russian government. I've looked at it a few times as it's part of our digital cable package but it's notorious for newsreaders quitting, sometimes on air, for no longer wanting to read out the propaganda. I was surprised left/union type guy Ed Shultz formerly of MSNBC was on it before he died. I hadn't looked at the channel in years. We don't get Fox though, only seen it a few times while travelling or living in the U.S. at someone else's place.

There are about six full pages on the KGB in Captain Jack's memoirs.

The online Pravda is the result of the 1990s breakaway when the staff of the privately-owned original paper rebelled when the CP resumed ownership. The courts allowed each of them to use the name.

Trade ties between the U.S. and Russia are minuscule. Even with an openly servile Trump there are still many sanctions and bans on officials entering (although some have and visited the white house, we've only found out about this from Russian media). Trump wants to discredit all media as not true, he would like to set up his own 'Truth' Pravda, if he doesn't already have it with Fox, CBN News (Pat Robertson/700 Club) or RT News. Maybe I'd better check and see if we still have that channel either, it's always been way out there in the 500 numbers with some foreign language channels.

Excepting partners like Iran, there is no large scale trade with Russia outside some raw energy resource sales to Europe.

Gotta love this...

"If you and I fall into bad moral habits, we can harm our families, our employers and our friends. The President of the United States can incinerate the planet. Seriously, the very idea that we ought to have at or less than the same moral demands placed on the Chief Executive that we place on our next door neighbor is ludicrous and dangerous. Throughout our history, we have seen the presidency as the repository of all of our highest hopes and ideals and values. To demand less is to do an injustice to the blood that bought our freedoms.

So we get to the other, and in my view, only school of thought remaining. For America to move on, and we must, the President must move out of the White House. Either the President should resign or be removed from office. Nothing short of this sad conclusion will suffice to restore the institution of the presidency to its former and necessary glory."

- Mike Pence

www.cnn.com/2018/08/06/politics/kfile-mike-pence-moral-columns/index.html

Well, I'll take actual historians over any first account meeting by someone whose politics and agenda I don't know, but nevertheless, not uninteresting read (even if it's got some major errors, such as claiming Putin becoming the head of the KGB, which is not true in any sense)

Where did I say that the KGB was backing anti-communist reforms? Are we just making stuff up now?

To understand the soviet union, one first needs to accept that throughout its history, there was many breaks from the communist doxa, and even more internal dissonance : the communist party never was an entity ruled by concensus, and troughout his regime, its last leader was constantly challenged and opposed. In 1989, one year before the collapse of the regime and 2 years before the disolution of the KGB (you see there, Putin becoming the head of the KGB in less than 2 years when he was an agent, I hope you understand how unlikely this scenario is, even without the actual information), Gorbatchev was the head of the regime, and he was fighting the communism you seem to have in mind from within.

"some always separate KGB and military that was/is in opposition to the communist party."
Again, where did I say that, and where did I even mention the military?
But indeed, the KGB always had some independence from the communist party, as the CIA does in the US. Of course it ultimately answers to the party (and its head usually is made a memmber automatically), but as in any country does the secret service/police/etc does. It however doesn't mean that it is a hive mind, quite the opposite.
If you take its late 70ies head Andropov (the emblematic one since he was in this position for a good 15 years IIRC), he's the mind behind the idea of glasnost and perestroïka. Seing how things weren't going well economically and socially, he commissioned independently a study to have proof of that, in order to back his reformative ideas. He wasn't a flawless leader, far from it. But he is textbook evidence that opposing ideas were bred within the KGB. And it is only human nature.

By the way, is htere a pun behind the fact that you keep misspelling Yeltsin?

You talked about Pravda the newspaper, so that's what I replied to you about, and everything I stated there is true
Now if you want to pivot to the website pravda.ru which has nothing to do with the communist party and is indeed a lap dog to the regime, that's fine. But again, Pravda the newspaper is stern opposition to the Putin regime.
Again, I don't think you were being disingenious here, but simply assuming way too much again. You've been talking about current Russia with much authority with a lot of facts wrong. You're not the only one and I don't blame you, and even command you for at least checking wikipedia when challenged. I understand as well htat accurate info on that is probably not as easy as we think it should be accessible in northern America, because of the historical bias : if it was the soviet MO to disinform about the US, why would you assume it wasn't on the US side? There is no good side in cold war.

The Cee doesn't stand for communism anymore than the Bear, or how 67 stands for the celebration of te birth of te swedish communist party, or so I assume



Is this another assumption? because it is again completely false. The "some" was almost funny though, when you consider how this is more than 60% of the world's 6th economy's exports. China, Italy and Germany are much much larger trade partners than Iran, so I really don't know where you're getting your info again. Russia is the 16th largest export economy in the world and have major trade deals with most of Europe, and the US is the third source of import in russian global trade, only topped by China and Germany, so I don't know about miniscule either... Oh, and their trade balance is positive.