Latest news with #communism
Fox News
13 hours ago
- Politics
- Fox News
'Culture of shame': NYC council member sounds alarm over Mamdani voters falling for 'pipe dream'
EXCLUSIVE - BROOKLYN, NY: NYC Republican Councilwoman Inna Vernikov revealed the popularity of socialist mayoral candidate Zohan Mamdani is driven by his supporters falling for the "pipe dream" that socialism and communism have to offer. Vernikov, who was born in Soviet Ukraine, told Fox News Digital that she remembers standing in milk and bread lines with her grandfather, adding that Mamdani's policies are an "experiment that has been done before." "When you look at the Soviet Union, this is exactly what they did," Vernikov said. "They promised the people, everything, and at the end, who got rich? Only the government. And I think that's what's happening here." When asked what is behind Mamdani's surge in popularity that skyrocketed him to the top of the national conversation when he won the Democratic primary for the largest city in the United States, Vernikov suggested many of his voters are motivated by "guilt." "This is my opinion, is that we're living in a culture of shame that started during the George Floyd riots, when people who were White and who were rich were shamed into being White and rich and now we see who voted for Mamdani," Vernikov said. "It's not the Black community, it's not the Hispanic community, not the brown community, it's really not even the Jewish community, right? It's, really, the White and the privileged who voted for Mamdani and I think they were shamed into voting for him, and it's kind of a small price for them to pay to be accepted socially." Vernikov explained that another part of the equation is that many young Mamdani voters who have never experienced communism and socialism and "grew up privileged" have been tricked into thinking "this pipe dream could actually be a reality." "In reality, these things can never happen," Vernikov said. "What could happen is chaos. What could happen is bread lines, what could happen is us seeing the police flee, and this will not be New York City anymore as we know it. This will not be our country, and we cannot be proud of what it's about to become." Vernikov acknowledged that part of Mamdani's rise can be attributed to his being "extremely charismatic" and "charming," which has led to an "effective" campaign and that Republicans could learn from some of his campaign strategies. "I think the promises he's making combined with the guilt, with the shame, combined with him being extremely charismatic and charming, he's having a very, very effective campaign," Vernikov said. However, ultimately, Vernikov said his platform is filled with unkeepable promises and that he is "absolutely" a communist. "His ideas, he might say he's a socialist, but I don't really draw the line," Vernikov said. "I think it's the same concepts, the same ideas in terms of the economy, in terms of these policies. I think that it's very, very dangerous and it's counter to the idea of capitalism and the cornerstone of our democracy." Fox News Digital reached out to the Mamdani campaign for comment.
National Post
4 days ago
- Politics
- National Post
Letters: Throw Hockey Canada in the penalty box
Article content Next, the article only touched indirectly on the fact that an estimated 30,000 Canadians voluntarily joined the U.S. Army to fight in Vietnam. Sure, some were just looking for excitement, but most Canadian Vietnam vets I've met believed they had to help stop the spread of communism. Article content One such Canadian returned and joined the Canadian Forces and passed on valuable lessons about the warrior profession. He was my Course Officer in training and was highly respected. Another was the son of Gen. Jacques Dextraze, Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff from 1972 to 1975. Richard Paul Dextraze, who volunteered for the U.S. Marines and was killed in action in Vietnam, was the posthumous recipient of the Gold Star, the Silver Star Medal and the Purple Heart. Article content Did the draft dodgers affect Canada? I am sure they did. They were generally left-leaning and many stayed in Canada and took jobs in education and local government — thus infecting a generation of impressionable Canadians. Although I had a draft-dodger teacher in high school whom I liked, I certainly did not agree with his politics. Article content Article content I've asked this question of many Jewish and non-Jewish citizens of this great country of Canada. To quote the '80s pop band The Clash: 'Should I stay or should I go now? If I go, there will be trouble. And if I stay, it will be double …' Article content Many Canadians and all of its Jews have been put into the situation of making the difficult decision precisely for the reasons Michael Sachs outlined in his column. Article content Like many other Jewish Canadians, I, too, feel betrayed by the social contract breakdown. There has been an obvious lack of agency by law enforcement, policy-makers and legislators to shut down the hate. The result has been both an overt display of shameless pro-terror demonstrations and a malignant subversive antisemitic bias that is seeding deeply into the far corners of public and corporate services. I need not look further than the continued allowance of online incitement for violence against Israeli Defence Forces soldiers from Canada. Article content I lived in the U.S. for a brief time and left because I did not want my children growing up with what I found to be a self-centred 'me-first' American ideology. So I am not sure that the United States will offer the respite Mr. Sachs is after. Article content The problem we face is that the Marxist-rooted Liberal wokeism in Canada has teamed up with global jihadism, with the common goal of Jew hate. Losing to another Liberal term was a big step backward into the abyss. Article content Canada is one of the best versions of democracy I have known and with it comes the opportunity to speak up, get involved and fight the beast that threatens our safety and future. Hopefully we are not too late to reverse the rhetoric and noise of hate and stupidity. It is time for the silent majority to speak up and challenge the status quo. Once again we can become proud Canadians, but not without the will to find our voices. Please get involved in the political process, no matter how demoralizing it has become. Article content In our extreme leftist-dominated public school system, the social justice warriors have had the power to decide which students and staff are the true victims deserving of protection. Our public school system does not treat all students equally and promotes a tribal politics that is teaching our children that antisemitism can be justified and excused. Article content We have all been awakened from our slumber. The federal survey confirms what we already know and experience as Jews living in Canada today. The progressives in power are not concerned about antisemitism because of their illiberal, anti-western ideology. As long as they remain in charge of our public school system, the double standards will continue. Article content In 1970, a KGB agent named Yuri Bezmenov defected to the United States, eventually settling in Canada. In interviews and lectures, Bezmenov described the process of ideological subversion that the then-Soviet Union was conducting in the West, a process that takes many years to take root. The four stages of ideological subversion, according to Bezmenov, are demoralization, destabilization, crisis and normalization. Article content One of the key targets of ideological subversion is education. If we were to apply Bezmenov's four stages to education, we have seen demoralization taking root over the past several years. As Ari Blaff's article indicated, we are now at the destabilization stage and fast approaching crisis. The recent decision by the Ontario government to take over several boards of education is indicative of a system in crisis. Article content Our public school system long ago lost its way. Merit has been replaced by identity, teaching has given way to propagandizing and indoctrinating. Political correctness now determines curriculum decisions, and the purveyors of 'anti-racism' are enriching themselves on the public purse, sometimes with tragic results. Popular narratives have replaced historical facts. Moral clarity has been upended by moral relativism. Article content Jewish children are harassed and assaulted on their way to school. Administrators, fearing a backlash from students and the community, allow other students to drape themselves in keffiyehs, buying into the fiction that these are a 'cultural' symbol, rather than emblems of terrorism popularized by the late, unlamented Yasser Arafat. Article content Article content As a former teacher and teacher-educator, I am often asked by parents and grandparents about the advisability of sending their children and grandchildren to the local public school. My response is to seriously consider Jewish or private schools, if they can afford it. Students will receive a better education and will be safe, emotionally and physically, something that is increasingly rare in the public schools. Article content Article content Article content
Russia Today
4 days ago
- Politics
- Russia Today
EU state bans ‘communist propaganda'
The Czech Republic has amended its criminal code to outlaw the promotion of communism, placing it on par with Nazi ideology. The legislation was signed on Thursday by President Petr Pavel, himself a former Communist Party member. The amendment introduces prison terms of one to five years for anyone who 'establishes, supports or promotes Nazi, communist, or other movements which demonstrably aim to suppress human rights and freedoms or incite racial, ethnic, national, religious, or class-based hatred.' The change follows calls from the Czech government-funded Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, with co-author Michael Rataj claiming that it is 'illogical and unfair' to treat the two ideologies differently. 'Part of Czech society still perceives Nazism as the crime of a foreign, German nation, while communism is frequently excused as 'our own' ideology just because it took root in this country,' Rataj said. The Czech Republic, once part of communist Czechoslovakia and a Soviet-aligned Eastern Bloc member, became independent in 1993 after the 1989 Velvet Revolution. Its current president, Petr Pavel, referred to his past membership in the Communist Party as a mistake. The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM) has strongly opposed the change, calling it politically motivated. The party is part of the 'Stacilo' ('Enough') alliance and currently polls at around 5%, which could allow it to return to parliament in the October 2025 elections. 'This is yet another failed attempt to push KSCM outside the law and intimidate critics of the current regime,' the party said in a statement. Prague has removed or altered hundreds of Soviet-era monuments, with another wave of removals following the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev. Several countries in Eastern Europe – including Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania – have joined Kiev's decommunization drive in recent years, passing various laws that effectively equate communism with Nazism, moves that Moscow describes as politically driven attempts to rewrite history. Russia argues that such measures distort the truth about World War II, during which the Soviet Union lost 27 million lives fighting to liberate Europe from the Nazis. In July 2021, President Vladimir Putin signed a law prohibiting 'publicly equating the USSR with Nazi Germany' and banning the 'denial of the decisive role of the Soviet people in the victory over fascism.'
Yahoo
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
I didn't want my millions of followers to see me as 'the deaf girl.' Finally getting a hearing aid has changed all that.
Violet Benson always struggled to hear in her left ear, but it took her years to realizehow big the problem was — and even longer to do something about it. The Daddy Issues meme account creator, podcaster and author — her book comes out next year — kept her hearing loss secret from most people until her 30s. It was only this summer that Benson revealed to her millions of Instagram followers that she'd recently been fitted with a hearing aid. Getting the device, and opening up to her audience, gave Benson back much more than her hearing. In this interview with Yahoo's Natalie Rahhal, she opens up about experiencing new sounds — and Celine Dion — and accepting her full self. Growing up, everything on my left side was always off. As a child, I just assumed everything was better on the right side because I was right-handed. I was born this way: Legally deaf in my left ear, with an enamel deficiency that made my bones weak, including my left leg, which was crooked from birth. I have to assume that it was all because I was born with vitamin D deficiency. I was born in Russia, where, if you're born in the winter, there's no sun. Plus, I was born under communism, when many babies were born malnourished. Once we left Russia, my mother took me to a doctor for a consultation about having surgery to fix my leg. The doctor said to just put me in the sun for vitamin D therapy. And the sun worked! I now have two very straight, very normal, same-size legs, without any surgeries! I was even able to do gymnastics, jazz and ballet until I was 17. But my other health issues persisted. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Violetta Elaia Benson (@violetbenson) As a child, I didn't give much thought to my hearing because my biggest struggle was with my teeth, which were bad due to an enamel deficiency. People made fun of me, and I was at the doctor or dentist every week; I've had more than 15 root canals. So, my hearing was just not at the top of my priorities list. I first really became aware of my hearing loss after we won the green card lottery and moved to the U.S. when I was 14. I saw my sister talking on the phone. First, she held it on the right side of her head, then she switched the phone to her left side. I was shocked. I asked her how she could hear on her left side. She told me I sounded stupid and that she switched ears whenever she felt like it. That's when I realized: I can't do that. Still, I tuned it out. I told myself, It's not that deep, I'll just deal with it. I think that's a very 'immigrant' mentality. My whole family was living crammed in an apartment, so my hearing didn't feel important compared to the other things we were dealing with. Plus, I'm Eastern European, so I was kind of taught that you hold the pain inside. Instead, I just adapted. I learned to read lips without realizing it. Your brain is such a marvelous organ; mine just learned to adjust to hearing on one side. I would always tilt my head to the right side when people spoke to me. Sometimes people thought I was rude because I would stare at the ground, trying to concentrate on hearing them on my right side. As an adult, I finally told many of my friends that I was deaf in my left ear, so they would just speak to me in my right. But otherwise, I continued to ignore my hearing loss and focus on building the identity that I wanted to have. In my 20s, I got 'celebrity'-style porcelain veneers (the only type that will work on my teeth because you could see the yellow through others) and, for the first time, I felt beautiful. I started my 'Daddy Issues' Instagram account. I had worked so hard to build my confidence and this perfect exterior because I'd rather mask my flaws and make sure no one else could see them. The pandemic was the first time my hearing loss really became an issue. With people wearing masks or standing far away, I couldn't read their lips. I started to feel really embarrassed and uncomfortable, especially if someone was speaking to me with an accent. I wouldn't be able to make out what they were saying because I'm deaf and I couldn't read their lips. But I felt so guilty because I know what it's like to be foreign and have people struggle to understand you. It was exhausting, and I felt so much shame that I genuinely stopped leaving my house for a long time. With the pandemic over and masks off, it got easier. But after a year or two — maybe because I'm aging — I started to struggle again, especially trying to hear people at events or on nights out. Trying to talk to people when there's any background noise becomes really exhausting, and I would get tired and irritable. People thought I just didn't care because I didn't want to have a heart-to-heart in the club. This year, I started to feel like I could hear less and less. I didn't understand why I was getting tired faster than usual when having conversations. After struggling more and more, I finally decided to take a hearing test a few months ago. On my left side, I could only hear very high pitches, and it sounded like I was standing far away from an intercom and someone was trying to speak to me through it. I felt tears fill my eyes, and I started to get overwhelmed. The audiologist told me that my brain was experiencing so much shock. I had no idea how bad my hearing was on my left ear. After the test, the audiologist told me that I have 90% of my hearing in my right ear and 30% in my left. That means I have severe hearing loss. She said that I would slowly lose more and more hearing, including on my right side, because your ears are like a muscle: If you don't use your hearing, it kind of dies off. She said that my migraines, fatigue and irritability were likely due to my right ear working overtime, trying to tune out background noise so I could listen. The audiologist told me that if I don't start wearing a hearing aid, not only will I struggle to understand when other people speak, I'll start losing my ability to pronounce words. People who are deaf on both sides speak differently because they can't hear themselves. That was a big fear for me, because I speak for a living. The audiologist warned me that I needed to take my health more seriously. There were two weeks between the exam and the day that I accepted the hearing aid. I cried about it every day and didn't tell anyone. As humans, we have so many annoying emotions. Part of me felt like I would lose my identity if I had to wear a hearing aid, and people could see it. I worried they would think of me as the deaf girl, instead of the person I've built my identity around: this confident person, the creator of Daddy Issues who gives advice. I felt like the hearing aid was going to take my identity without my permission. And I even felt shame around the fact that I was embarrassed about it. I'm supposed to be this person who tells others to be confident and love who they are. I'd rather be the villain in the story than someone that you pity, and there I was feeling shame about my self-pity. I'm even writing a book that's part memoir, part self-help about how not to be a victim! Then one day, I woke up and was like, Hello, listen to the advice in your own book! I can't control what someone else thinks about me, and while I'm thinking they're looking at my hearing aid, in reality, maybe they think I'm ugly or my personality is annoying. We can make up as many stories as we want about what other people are thinking, but I can only control what I'm thinking. And no one can make me a victim unless I make myself the victim. It took me 20 years to accept my insecurity about my teeth, and I'm not doing that again. So, yes, I'm deaf in my left ear. Now what? I got the hearing aid and put it on. Imagine: For the first time in 36 years, there's suddenly sound on your left side. It was overwhelming, but I also felt like Superman. I walked out of the audiologist's and I could hear everything. I could hear the cars behind me on the street. I went into UPS, and a lady put tape on a box, and it felt like nails on a chalkboard. I was like, How is this not a superpower? But then I got in my car and turned on music with the volume just halfway up. I've always loved concerts because it's the only time I can hear music the way everyone else hears it. The first thing I listened to was a Celine Dion song that she sings in French. It was so beautiful to be able to decipher the differences between her voice, the background sounds and the piano. I had tears in my eyes. When I found out I had to wear a hearing aid or lose my hearing, I had thoughts like, What if I'm less lovable? There's this constant fear of being judged — or judging yourself because there are bigger problems in the world, so how dare I feel these emotions? But it's all in our heads. In reality, as an adult, I gave myself something I wasn't able to as a child: I told myself my feelings were important. You have to have those conversations and allow yourself to cry. It goes way beyond hearing loss: You have to be able to accept yourself. I realized that if I kept my hearing aid to myself, it would be a shameful thing. But if I put a video out into the world, it would force me to just be OK with it. I was surprised to get teary while making the video, but once I posted it, it was just this sense of acceptance. We often think we're the only person who experiences those emotions and that shame, whether it's about hearing loss, or your appearance, or ADHD or depression. Your pain can become your identity when you don't know how to deal with it and think that it's the only thing that represents you. But it's not. Once I said it out loud — that I am deaf and need a hearing aid — I didn't feel like a prisoner to my own pain. It's out there, and now I'm free from it. If I hadn't accepted myself, then the first person I came across who didn't was going to break me. But now, you can't break me without my permission. I already cried about it! When I walked outside with my hearing aid for the first time, no one even noticed! They didn't have pity in their eyes. It felt like such a big deal, but that's because I made it such a big deal. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Wall Street Journal
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘The CIA Book Club' Review: Typewriter Revolution
When I first traveled to the Soviet Union in the 1960s, I was given a few books—including Russian translations of the Bible and George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'—and told to leave them on a park bench for someone to read or sell. Later I was surprised to learn that the ultimate source of funding for these books was the Central Intelligence Agency. Like most young people at the time, I thought all the CIA did was spy on, and sometimes overturn, unfriendly governments. As Charlie English points out in 'The CIA Book Club,' the agency's most successful operation had nothing to do with secret agents or gun-running. It was all about literature. More than one scholar has recently argued that what ultimately brought down the U.S.S.R. was the spread of values and ideas, incompatible with communism, to be found in great works of literature and philosophy. Mr. English relates lines written by the Polish anticommunist intellectual Adam Michnik: 'A book is like a reservoir of freedom, of independent thought, a reservoir of human dignity.' Despite the best efforts of the regime to prevent smuggling and jam Western radio broadcasts, poet Czesław Miłosz noted, the free word 'slips over borders more rapidly and effectively than people on the outside imagine.' The title of Mr. English's book is somewhat misleading for two reasons. First, it deals entirely with Poland, whereas the CIA book and broadcast projects reached the entire Soviet bloc. Second, the main story he tells concerns not the CIA but a group of plucky and shrewd Poles who devised endless forms of book-smuggling. Forbidden works were 'smuggled in trucks, aboard yachts, sent by balloon, by mail, or in travelers' luggage. Mini-editions were hidden in the sheet music of touring musicians, packed into food tins or Tampax boxes.' Mr. English's main hero, Mirosłav Chojecki, went one step further and set up illegal publishing ventures for homegrown titles. That required remarkable organizational skills. Mr. Chojecki employed dozens of people, obtained offset printers, scrounged for spare parts and somehow set up distribution networks under the eyes of the secret police. The risks were enormous and the chances of slip-ups endless, so it is remarkable how successful Mr. Chojecki and his imitators were. The CIA's main role was to pay for all this clandestine activity and find ways to get prohibited equipment across the border.
