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Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: October 24th, 2015, 6:41 am
by The Swollen Goiter of God
If Putin is the modern-day Krushchev, he has a pretty sad retirement ahead of him.

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: October 24th, 2015, 6:50 am
by Mal Shot First
And I haven't seen him bang his shoe on a podium even once!

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: October 24th, 2015, 11:46 am
by The Swollen Goiter of God
I read up on Krushchev some months ago. I spotted a paperback copy of Krushchev Remembers at an antique store. I didn't buy it, but it did inspire me to dig around a bit. I was curious about how in-depth the memoir got, whether or not he actually wrote it, whether or not parts of it had been redacted, et cetera.

I didn't know all that much about Krushchev going in. I knew he'd been made an "unperson," but I wasn't sure exactly why. I knew Brezhnev conspired against him when he (Krushchev) was on vacation in Abkhazia, and I knew that that had gotten the intrigue ball rolling.

I don't really know all that much about Russian politics. My interest in Russia has been mostly literary, and it has focused mostly on the nineteenth and early twentieth century. It's a gap in my learning.

Krushchev Remembers is a brick of a book. It was supposed to have been dictated by Krushchev "while under virtual house arrest," though he disowned it, officially, out of loyalty to the Communist Party. That's the story, anyway. He also authorized various deletions.

It's since been expanded on, so maybe it's for the best that I didn't buy the antique store copy.

Krushchev's last years were spent pretty humbly. I think Nixon went to see him at one point and found him alone and in a small apartment. It wasn't necessarily by choice. It was, in a lot of ways, an enforced solitude. The Soviet structure didn't allow for a discarded leader to be venerated and looked upon as something like a president emeritus. People lost more than they gained by visiting him, so they didn't visit him.

He wasn't even allowed to keep his dacha. He was given a pension of something like 500 rubles a month. Today, 500 rubles is worth about eight bucks. Eight bucks in seventies U.S. currency would have gone about as far as sixty bucks would go in the U.S. today. I don't know exactly how far 500 rubles would have gone in Russia back then, but I'm guessing it wouldn't have gone far.

Well, damn. Krushchev's Wikipedia entry says this: "His pension was reduced [from 500] to 400 rubles per month, though his retirement remained comfortable by Soviet standards." I guess comfortable's good, but it's still a pretty drastic fall from grace.

The entry also says this:
Wikipedia wrote:He received few visitors, especially since Khrushchev's security guards kept track of all guests and reported their comings and goings.... The depression continued. His doctor prescribed sleeping pills and tranquilizers, but even so, when one of his grandsons was asked what the ex-premier was doing in retirement, the boy replied, "Grandfather cries." He was made a nonperson to such an extent that the thirty-volume Soviet Encyclopedia omitted his name from the list of prominent political commissars during the Great Patriotic War.
"Grandfather cries."

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: October 24th, 2015, 1:05 pm
by Dalty
Jesus. That's so harsh!! Funny, I had no idea his rule (and life) ended in such ignominy.

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: October 24th, 2015, 1:39 pm
by Space Tycoon
Well, okay, I'm not literally saying Putin is the new Kruschev. Just that he does not seem the type one simply "tells off."

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: October 24th, 2015, 3:30 pm
by The Swollen Goiter of God
I didn't really think that's what you meant. I just wanted to unload some of the life details I'd recently picked up.

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: October 24th, 2015, 3:44 pm
by Space Tycoon
And it's groovy that you did.

I believe Krushchev revealed in his memoirs that Castro was a "hothead" who wanted to use nuclear weapons against the United States.

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: March 8th, 2016, 7:11 pm
by Space Tycoon
60 Minutes did a thing on Canada's new PM. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau ... -1.3478519

I really should learn some more French.

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: March 9th, 2016, 12:17 pm
by Dalty
Lots of shrugging.

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: March 10th, 2016, 4:41 pm
by Adam54
I just read something about how poutine is/was being served at the White House for the first time this week.

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: March 10th, 2016, 4:54 pm
by Space Tycoon
Beef gravy is murder.

Otherwise, poutine is seriously tasty. Mushroom gravy ftw.

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: March 10th, 2016, 4:59 pm
by Dalty
Beef gravy sounds like heaven.

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: March 10th, 2016, 5:29 pm
by Mal Shot First
You might even say it sounds just gravy.

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: March 10th, 2016, 5:30 pm
by Adam54
:wall:

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: March 10th, 2016, 5:45 pm
by Dalty
Meat is delicious. Even in runny form.

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: March 10th, 2016, 5:51 pm
by Adam54
Has poutine made it to England yet?

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: March 10th, 2016, 5:58 pm
by Dalty
He was a very average striker who disappointed at West Ham.

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: March 10th, 2016, 8:18 pm
by Space Tycoon
Dalty wrote:Meat is delicious. Even in runny form.
So is Soy/Tofu/Tempeh. If prepared right.

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: March 11th, 2016, 4:06 am
by Dalty
image.jpeg
image.jpeg (66.08 KiB) Viewed 18796 times

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: March 11th, 2016, 9:05 am
by The Swollen Goiter of God
We don't know Tinie Tempah. Your pun is lost on us. It is a Dalty Pun, though, so expect the usual guffaw from Adam, the guy who (1) thinks you're as funny as Full House and (2) doesn't think that's an insult.

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: March 11th, 2016, 9:12 am
by Dalty
Adam has got my back.

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: March 11th, 2016, 9:59 am
by Adam54
Damn right I do. If only so you'll stay off mine about dancing!

Goiter's feisty this week!

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: March 11th, 2016, 10:13 am
by The Swollen Goiter of God
Super feisty. Things keep keeping me from working on my fiction, so I'm on edge.

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: March 11th, 2016, 10:24 am
by Adam54
Poutine would help. Find some poutine.

Re: The Canadian Politics thread no-one will care about

Posted: March 11th, 2016, 10:29 am
by The Swollen Goiter of God
Sure thing. Let me go murder some stuff for the gravy.