Uriah Heep - Wizard

VERY obviously lip-synced, as so often is the case with these 70s TV shows. On the other hand, the song is great, and you see Heep at their peak: David Byron (vocals), Mick Box (guitar), Gary Thain (bass - looking like a cross between John Paul Jones and Rudy Sarzo), Ken Hensley (keyboards, on acoustic guitar here) and Lee Kerslake (drums - he played on "Blizzard of Ozz").

New Horizons ~ Moody Blues

Normally I don't go for these "slideshow" videos, but this one was very well done. Enjoy.

Camel - Snow Goose Excerpts

Apparently from the Old Grey Whistle Test. Excellent quality!

Doughboys in Russia 1918-20

[Originally written in 2009, edited in 2020 to address the Mosin-Nagant issue.]

I recently finished two books on this issue: America’s Siberian Adventure, by General Graves, and History of the American Expedition Fighting The Bolsheviks: US Military Intervention in Soviet Russia 1918-19, by Capt. Joel Moore, Lt. Harry Meade, and Lt Lewis Jahns.  Between them, they cover the US involvement in the Russian Civil War. 

 Siberia.  This was all the way over by Vladivostok, close to Manchuria and Japan.  Here there were no Red Army forces to fight against. Graves was the man handling the scene at the local level in command of the US troops in Siberia.  His forces were drawn from Manila, Philippines and the West Coast of the US.

            Graves was given a brief memo, the so-called Aide Memoire, as a VERY rough guideline on how to conduct his operations.  Wilson specifically instructed Graves that the US was NOT to interfere in Russian internal matters; indeed, since Wilson believed the Bolsheviks would lose anyway, intervention was unnecessary.  According to Graves, he himself stuck to this, as did his superior, General March, and HIS superior, Newton Baker, the Secretary of War.  But some yahoos in the State Dept. had a different agenda and were sympathetic to the Brits & French, so even in the US Government, different parts were working at cross purposes, though the Army was behind Wilson and not inclined to intervene.  Note below: the US forces in North Russia did enter combat against Bolshevik forces.

            For their part the French were livid that Lenin would make separate peace with the Germans and were out for blood.  They would do whatever they could to thwart the Bolsheviks.

            The Brits were looking out for their own best interests, which meant they were also anti-Bolshevik. The local Brit commander, Knox, was huge anti-Bolshevik, had been the British military attaché to Russia under the Czar, spoke fluent Russian, and blasted peasants as “swine”, and so was devoted to interfering on behalf of the Whites.  The catch was, neither the British nor French could spare any troops to go to Siberia (though they did have forces fighting in North Russia), so they hoped to trick the Americans into fighting the Bolsheviks for them.  “Look, the Yanks have all these warm bodies, cannon fodder we can use to fight the Bolsheviks”.  

            Graves said, “uhh… I don’t think so.”  Especially since he noted that so far as he could tell, the real Bolsheviks back west didn’t have nearly enough reach or power to exercise any control this far east – they had their hands full waging the civil war west of the Urals, so he never even met anyone he could tell was a legitimate “Bolshevik” (representative of the Soviet government).  Moreover, over there in the east, “Bolshevik” seemed to be defined as “anyone who doesn’t support the local Cossack or White Russian gangster or Admiral, way out here.”  Even had he been inclined to oppose the Bolsheviks, in principle, the Cossacks and White Russians were frequently bloodthirsty murderers and scoundrels (by Graves’ own description) who he would never deign to support even in policy, much less with US troops.

            The Japs seemed to be angling to take what they could get.  They threw in with some of the nastiest Cossacks, serious weasel dealing.  The Japs were trying to send in as many of their own troops as possible to grab up as much land as they could, taking advantage of the chaos going on.  They played off the Brits’ and French hatred of Bolsheviks, yet tried to conceal their own ulterior motives by allying with the most unsavory Cossacks and claiming to act on behalf of, and in the best interests of, the Russians.  Sending troops to guard the railroads was the prime example of this chicanery.  Graves was not buying any of it.

            Add to this the Czechs, who found themselves isolated but fairly well-armed, 12,000 of them stuck in limbo yet still trying to take local towns if they could muscle themselves in.  For his part, Graves was skeptical about the Allies’ alleged plans to transport this Czech army back west as no one arranged any sea transport for them in Vladivostok.  I can imagine Graves suspecting the Allies were hoping to use the Czechs to fight the Bolsheviks.  To add to the confusion, there were reports – unfounded, it later turned out – that German POWs were being let go and allowed to reform into coherent military units. 

            Ultimately the US forces were withdrawn in April 1920.  They were undefeated in battle – indeed, they had never been in battle.  A few US soldiers were murdered by Cossacks.  In one instance, some US soldiers traveling with General Graves by train were accosted by some Czarist officers who were trying to take away the railcar they had been traveling in.  A corporal had his men cock their rifles and point them at the Czarists, claiming, “back off, or you’ll have more dead Russian officers than you’ve ever seen,” which was sufficient to dissuade the Russians, and they moved on without further incident. 

            The US forces in Siberia kept their Springfield bolt-action rifles, whereas the US troops in North Russia were issued Mosin-Nagant Russian bolt-actions to simplify supply issues. 

 North Russia.  September 1918 to June 1919.  Unlike the forces in Siberia, this group did end up in combat against Red forces.  The soldiers of the US 339^th Regiment – 13,000 men, half of a division – were landed at Archangel in September 1918.  These were men from Detroit who had not fought in France.  They teamed up with British soldiers, Scots, French, and some Russians.  The Russians were a mixed bag, some were Cossacks, some were peasants, and some were Bolshevik sympathizers.  The forces drove south from Archangel on several different fronts, fighting directly against Red Guard forces.  This was northeast of Petrograd (aka St. Petersburg and Leningrad).  They were almost always heavily outnumbered by the Red units.  For their part, the Red units were of inconsistent quality.  Many stories were told of men who were forcibly conscripted into the Red Army and not particularly sympathetic to the Bolshevik cause.   Similar to “Enemy at the Gates”, there were also stories of the Reds keeping machine guns behind the lines to mow down any of their own who retreated back from the Allied lines after an unsuccessful attack.  By itself, this force was not enough to make much of a dent in the Soviet front, or even to come close to Petrograd or Moscow.  Apparently they were expecting (A) to hook up with Kolchak’s forces fighting west from the Urals, or the Czech Legion, and (B) reinforcements from the West after the Germans had been defeated.  However, after the Armistice on November 11, 1918, there was no move or intent to reinforce the troops with any more forces from any nation.  Instead of settling down for the winter, the Bolsheviks, once they knew the NREF would not be receiving reinforcements, began striking.  In some places they were held, in others they were able to overwhelm the NREF forces by sheer weight of numbers; it seems that on some fronts, the local Red commander was a brave soul who knew what he was doing and could inspire his men to victory, whereas on others the Red officers (as noted above) simply scared the hell out of their men and drove them by brutality.  Once it became apparent that no strategic victory would occur for the Allies, the whole thing looked pointless, so in June 1919 they were withdrawn and brought back to the US, undefeated on the battlefield – decades before our similar withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973. 
             On this front the US forces used Mosin-Nagant 1891 bolt action rifles.  It seems the Tsar needed them built during the war, Russian industrial capacity at the time was insufficient to do so, thus the Tsar had US firms manufacture them.  They even sent Russian advisors to the US to supervise the production, a bunch of arrogant snobs who the factory workers strongly disliked - and played jokes on.  But the Revolution occurred before any of these US-made Russian rifles could be provided to the Russian army.  So when it came time to equip the US forces sent to North Russia, they simply armed them with these, which also simplified the ammunition and supply issue: the troops could use 7.62x54R rounds like everyone else (the Springfields the US troops would normally use fired .30-06, close but not good enough).   

             This was a “what were they smoking” deal – no way, no how, was any nation, or combination of nations, going to send enough troops to break out of this small pocket around Archangel and achieve any strategic victory against the Reds.  They wouldn’t be able to take Petrograd, to link up with Kolchak, Denikin, Makhno, or the Czechs.  The most they could do is push south through forests and swamps and kill a few “Bolo” (as they were called).  In Siberia, there weren’t even any Bolsheviks around to fight, even if Graves had been inclined to do so, with what few US forces he did have.

            Another major issue was politics.  No way, no how, was any US force sent to Archangel or Siberia going to support any Czarist or monarchist forces fighting to return Russia to a monarchy – especially once the Romanovs had been murdered in July 1918, several months before any US forces entered Russia.  Even if they managed to defeat the Bolsheviks on the battlefield, then what?  There appeared to be no one around to make Russia a democracy or a republic – no centrists existed, with the possible exception of Kerensky.  Who was going to bring democracy to Russia?  The largest non-Bolshevik forces fighting in the Russian Civil War were monarchists under Admiral Kolchak or General Denikin, or Ukrainian nationalists – and the Czech Legion.  This was clearly a war in which the US really had no role or any faction it could wholeheartedly support to the exclusion of the others. 

Ayn Rand

Back in college I got into this controversial Russian philosopher.  In high school we had been Rush fans, and knew that both “Anthem” and 2112 were based on Ayn Rand – even to the point of liner notes in 2112 attesting to “the genius of Ayn Rand”.  I read Atlas Shrugged twice in college and once more about 10 years later, and rapidly devoured all her other books as well, even the much less interesting non-fiction philosophy.

 Biography.  Born in Russia in 1905, she emigrated to the US in the 1920s and became a screenwriter in Hollywood.  She was appalled that US intellectuals were leftists, not pro-capitalist, and began writing fiction which expressed her ideals.  She was atheist, but believed in objective morality and hated any form of moral relativism.  She also argued – convincingly, I believe – that fascism and communism were essentially the same, what she called “statism”, vs. capitalism.  For some time in college, I was an impressionable GVPT major, and instead of embracing communism – as many college students do – or being seduced by the dark side of fascism, I got hooked on capitalism.  For awhile I also stopped going to church, until 1994 when I went back again.  She died in 1982, and was honored with her own US stamp, which surprises me as I consider nowadays the stamps seem to be for liberal people, not arch-capitalists such as her. 

 

 We, The Living.  Her first novel, with the heroine Kira Argonova, an engineering student in Petrograd (aka St. Petersburg and Leningrad) who falls in love with two men: Leo Kovalensky, son of an aristocratic general shot during the war, and Andrei Taganov, Red hero of the same war and important man of Cheka – one of the few who were not complete scoundrels.  Kira’s family, disfavored because of their bourgeois background, gets the short end of the stick.  Ultimately she has a hard time deciding between the two men who she loves, and who love her.  I last read this in Bucharest, which seemed to be a fitting environment.  This was made into a movie in fascist Italy, of all places, as it had a strong anti-communist message.

 The Fountainhead.  As described in my blog ages ago – August 2006.  I see that Gary Gooper has a stamp…years after Ayn Rand got her own stamp.  It got a reference in “Dirty Dancing” (featuring Patrick Swayze), in which a character dumps the girl he got pregnant, citing The Fountainhead as an excuse to do as he pleased. 

 Atlas Shrugged.  Her “masterpiece”, still not put into film format [released in three parts, 2011, 2012, and 2014, with a different cast for each].  This seems to elicit strong reactions: among those who actually read it, most either love it or could barely stand it and gave up reading long before the end.  It’s certainly a long book.  The story is basically this: the US goes down the toilet as “looters” and fascists – corporatists we’d identify with the ENRON crowd and Bush today – take over the government.  Meanwhile, anyone and everyone of any talent or ability seems to disappear off the face of the earth, except for three: Francisco D’Anconia, who devolves into a worthless playboy; Dagny Taggart, who keeps her railroad running despite her clueless older brother Jim’s best efforts to run it into the ground; and Hank Rearden, the Boxer (Animal Farm) man of steel industrialist who invents a new metal, only to be hounded and exploited by his less worthy but Washington-savvy competitors such as Orren Boyle.  Finally John Galt comes out of nowhere and explains – at length – what the hell is going on.  Instead of an evil criminal mastermind, Ellsworth Toohey (The Fountainhead), this book simply has a weak and mediocre cabal of pragmatic schemers who succeed because Galt stole all the smart people and Rearden and Dagny refuse to play the Washington game. 

            Most people who hate this book seem to focus on Galt’s character being unrealistically stoic – as with Howard Roark in The Fountainhead.  In a sense, these are over-the-top, super-perfect archetypes unlikely to be found in real life, but they’re meant as ideals.  On the other hand, as committed and dedicated, as honest and of sterling, impeccable integrity as these characters are, with the glaring exception of Francisco D’Anconia, they lack any warmth, humanity, emotions, or sense of humor.  To the extent they derive any pleasure, it’s from (A) building a new railroad using (B) a revolutionary metal, and (C) celebrating their industrial triumphs in the bedroom.  

            I also found a few other interesting concepts which I only picked up reading the book the second or third time around.  One was Lillian Rearden’s preference for insincere flattery: that a man would deny reality and lie to her to stroke her ego, was more important than if he simply – and honestly – told her that she looked beautiful because he really believed it, which is no more meaningful to her than stating that “2+2=4” or “the Earth revolves around the sun”.  Also was Jim Taggart’s marriage to Cheryl Taggart: she eventually realizes that he married her not because of any virtues or beauty she had, but because he perceived that she lacked any merits or virtues at all – this was a pure act of charity on his part, and effectively an indictment on her value.  We can also see George W. Bush as a Jim Taggart type: his top ability, to the extent he has any at all, is schmoozing deals and “getting things done” in an underhanded, back-room, behind-the-scenes way.

 Anthem.  Essentially this is 2112, but instead of the protagonist committing suicide out of despair, he and his lover escape the totalitarian regime and go off somewhere else.

 Non-fiction.  She has various books published in the 60s, including Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, For the New Intellectual, and The Virtue of Selfishness.  Years later I read The Satanic Bible, by Anton LeVey, and found a shocking similarity between LeVey’s philosophy and Ayn Rand’s.  Both preach “enlightened self-interest”, which means “look out for yourself, but be consistent.”  Neither advocated screwing people over to get what you want, lying, cheating, stealing, or anything like that.  Really, it’s very much common sense.  The problem was that Rand herself was arrogant, ugly, judgmental, unwilling to compromise, and even after living in the US for decades still had a thick Russian accent and always seemed to be pissed off.  She also cheated on her husband, which gave rise to the obvious challenge of hypocrisy.   

            Rand also didn’t believe in charity or altruism.  To her, Robin Hood was the worst villain in history.  The only thing worse than a person with no pity, she said, was someone who took advantage of the pity of others.  She was an atheist, and vehemently denounced religion as a fraud, and priests as nothing better than modern-day witch doctors.  Anti-materialists, to her, always seemed to have a direct pecuniary interest in persuading people not to care about money – mainly because they were soliciting money for their own purposes. 

            She also opposed the Vietnam War, not because she sympathized with the North Vietnamese, but simply because she believed the US had no interest in saving the South Vietnamese from communism.  To her, the war was an exercise in altruism and charity. 

 Libertarians.  Rand herself had no use for the Libertarian Party, though she also had no use for the fascists or communists.  The Democrats were watered-down socialists, while the Republicans were watered-down fascists.  Nevertheless, the Libertarians come closest to her ideology: capitalism for its own sake, with no corporate welfare or socialism added. 

Summary.  Probably the most tangible and meaningful way I still “support” Ayn Rand in any way as of 2009, long after having read the books and drifted away from being arrogant and selfish as I may have been in college, is my support for the Libertarian Party today, notwithstanding her vehement opposition thereto.  I go to church, I give money out occasionally when I feel like it (no blanket principled objection to charity), and try to help others when I have the chance. [Still true in 2017.]

            One thing you learn in life is that no one is infallible – even the wisest, smartest people make mistakes from time to time.  And even the dumbest people sometimes say or do intelligent things.  The key is to watch out for both, keep your mind open, and learn as much as you can from as many different sources.  Finally, you have to exercise your OWN judgment, which you cannot outsource to India or anyone else.  Maybe Ayn Rand didn’t have all the answers, any more than Tony Robbins does.  But she had a great deal of great and important ideas, which still hold true today.

Porcupine Tree "Fear Of A Blank Planet"

Excellent song, also representative of the band - but they did not play it last night...

KMFDM- A Drug Against War

Brute-illustrated video - awesome animation - and a good sample of what 99% of their music is like. Hmm.. more like 100%.