This is an example of paranoid ignorance by someone who has no idea of my libertarian views when I was a student at Columbia in the late 1960s, a campus with probably more FBI informers than anyone linked to the KGB after the 1968 revolt. https://t.co/LeoCwes8MA 16 atbildes
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juriskazha (2022-12-10 10:22:29) |
This is an example of paranoid ignorance by someone who has no idea of my libertarian views when I was a student at Columbia in the late 1960s, a campus with probably more FBI informers than anyone linked to the KGB after the 1968 revolt. https://t.co/LeoCwes8MA | |
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juriskazha (2022-12-10 10:28:35) |
It would have been very hard for anyone to "recruit" at Columbia, especially among the anti-Stalinist, anti-authoritarian New Left of which my opponent seems totally ignorant. Also no idea of the New Left/libertarian agreement against the draft and war in Vietnam. | |
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juriskazha (2022-12-10 10:33:32) |
The accusations by @Gaumigais_joks go right back to the atmosphere in Latvian exile circles decades ago, when a Soviet Latvian disinformation publication quoted me as saying my generation would not be fanatical anti-communists. | |
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juriskazha (2022-12-10 10:36:25) |
Much of the exile community in the US was very conservative and saw the interest of young Latvians growing up in American society in civil rights, the war and other concerns of their generation as inspired by dark forces/communists. | |
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juriskazha (2022-12-10 10:39:48) |
The "older" generation who arrived as adults from the DP camps in Europe came into the McCarthy witch hunt of the mid-1950s, also the constant and not entirely irrational fear of a Soviet attack and were attracted by the "hard line" Republicans. | |
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juriskazha (2022-12-10 10:42:19) |
My late dad was an exception, he said that Democrat policies favored the working and middle classes - which most Latvian emigres were part of and said don't sacrifice your interests for "anti-communist" posturing by the American right. | |
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juriskazha (2022-12-10 10:45:13) |
Somewhat ironically, it was the Democrats under JFK and Lyndon Johnson who actually led the US and my generation (as potential draftees) into a war 10k kilometers away and dropping napalm on peasant villages (with no effect on my relatives in Soviet Latvia). | |
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juriskazha (2022-12-10 10:55:41) |
Faced with what was happening in Vietnam (Latvian-Americans were killed) and in the streets in America, we identified with some of the social and political movements - Atis Lejiņš, now a former Latvian MP participated in anti-war protests citing Latvians who were killed there. | |
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juriskazha (2022-12-10 11:01:15) |
Exile youth of the time were uniquely enabled to be politically active on American and "Latvian" issues - we spoke flawless English and good Latvian and were often at top universities - Columbia, Harvard, Berkeley. We didn't "assimilate" but had two (or more) identities. | |
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juriskazha (2022-12-10 11:03:59) |
We were American citizens for the most part and indistinguishable from other Americans except for our strange names, but then, America was a country of many strange names. Some of us identified with other groups - black Americans - fighting for their rights and identity. | |
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juriskazha (2022-12-10 11:09:19) |
So it was this strange mix and the turmoil in late 60-early 70s America that confused and scared the older Latvian generation with some fearing that their young were "assimilating" and turning to strange, possible "communist inspired" causes. | |
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juriskazha (2022-12-10 11:11:38) |
The "older" now largely passed away generation of Latvian exiles arrived through the experience of occupation and war from a pre-1940 country that had no public political debate or activism under the mildly authoritarian Ulmanis regime. Politics was a shock to some... | |
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juriskazha (2022-12-10 11:14:14) |
My mother (who passed away at 104 in 2017) did remember that there were confrontations between the Latvian right wing and social democrat "sports clubs" in some parts of Riga, but mostly the late 30s were a hazy golden age compared to what followed. | |
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juriskazha (2022-12-10 11:17:06) |
So it was in this overall context that I was in some discussion with other exile Latvian students about our identity (as integrated Americans) and our politics (rejecting "anti-Communism" as a weapon against all liberal and progressive movements in "our" America)..⬇️ | |
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juriskazha (2022-12-10 11:19:15) |
..that was picked up by the exile press and then repackaged by the Soviet disinformation rag desperately wondering what to do now that younger first generation exiles hadn't just disappeared, but were active and critically thinking. | |
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juriskazha (2022-12-10 11:21:22) |
So there, in a nutshell, is what was going on then, and how the knee-jerk, blunt force reaction of "you are all commies and agents" has transmitted or spawned here in Latvia decades later, long after the collapse of most Communist states. | |
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juriskazha (2022-12-10 11:23:28) |
So having said that, I have other things to do on a Saturday besides arguing with misinformed, deluded, deranged and in some cases deliberately hostile trolls and fools... | |