THE GOD THAT FAILED
>It is generally known that he got involved with
Petra Leeuwerik very soon after his defection,
and that he divorced his wife shortly after she
moved to the West in 1982. It is also well known
That Korchnoi is a difficult character -- impolite,
unsophisticated, paranoid, definitely not somebody
easily made into a hero.> -- Jurgen
Juergen is a throwback to a simpler, more evil
time. His attack on Korchnoi was standard fare among
pro-Soviet types in the 1930s and 1940s. The idea was
always to find imperfections and shortcomings on the
part of defectors so as to discredit their message.
Perhaps the most famous instance of this ploy was
in the case of Victor Kravchenko, who wrote the 1946
bestseller "I Chose Freedom." The attacks on him in
the communist and fellow-traveller press were legion.
Finally, the French communist newspaper,
L'Humanite, charged that Kravchenko's very powerful
book was written by an OSS agent named Sim Thomas.
There was a libel trial that became a major cultural
cause celebre. On one side you had the likes of Andre
Malraux and Albert Camus, who had moved away from
Stalinism decisively, and in the other camp you had
Sartre, Duclos and others of that ilk.
The Soviets brought in witnesses from the USSR,
including Kravchenko's wife. Kravchenko's lawyer
eviscerated these people on the witness stand, and
Kravchenko won his libel suit decisively.
Decades later, a new edition of "I Chose Freedom"
appeared in French, with an admiring introduction
written by the editor of "L'Humanite" who initially
libelled Kravchenko. The editor admitted his role in
the falsehood. Over the years he had become yet
another recruit to that army of intellectuals who
regretted following, the party line as in the title of
the eponymous book of essays by former Communists
called "The God that Failed."
Juergen would have been among those screaming
about Kravchenko's imperfections.
KENNEDY HITS HEAD ON NAIL
"Nutters don't have it so easy as you might think" -- Greg Kennedy.
Based on Greg Kennedy's testimony about his
tribulations working in an Indiana factory and his cri
de coeur that he coulda been a contendah, the man
has certainly hit his own head on the nail.
For several years Greg complained about a faulty
spellchecker, and he kept telling us that he would one
day become a real power player on this forum after finding
a better electronic crutch.
Another theme that kept him going was that he
coulda been anotha Bobby, if he had grown up in
Brooklyn rather than in the cultural wasteland, as he
described it, of Indiana.
Greg moaned that others such as yours truly and
Larry Evans were writing all of the books and winning
the awards. He coulda done that, too, if he had not
been deprived in Indiana. He coulda been a contendah,
maybe a champ. But Indiana made him an assembly-line
working chump instead of a champ..
Another Greg theme was that he would one day
read history and refute what this writer offered here
and elsewhere. Readers of this forum have sampled
his erudition, and perhaps you will agree with Greg
himself that living in Indiana prevented him from
reading history.
Our response has always been that Indiana is not
a cultural wasteland, possessing numerous large
university libraries as well as, no doubt, many
impressive new and used bookstores. The knowledge
was there if Greg had been willing to pursue it during his
youth. As he once wrote, he read Ratman or some such
comic books instead, which were more accessible, say,
than Xenophon.
If one accepts Greg's testimony, he has never
had it easy and suffered mightily and experienced
emotional and intellectual sorrows,through no fault
of his own.
"Nutters don't have it so easy as you might
think." Greg is telling us that while he may not know
much about Pope Urban II or anything else much
further back than last week, he has finally gained
self-knowledge.
He has finally hit his head right on the nail.
And so it goes.
Yours, Larry Parr
help bot wrote:
> On Apr 29, 8:31 pm, "parrthe...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
" <parrthe...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > The rules of the game are clear, concise, and consistent. If you touch
> > a piece, you must move it. If your hand quits the piece, the move
> > stands. If your hand is still on it, then you can change your mind and
> > move it elsewhere. But move it you must.
>
>
> While I don't agree with Mr. Evans regarding the "concise"
> part, he at least seems to be familiar with the basic rules of
> chess.
>
>
> > Since the rules specify that a protest must be lodged during play,
>
>
> Nonsense. The proper thing to do is recognize that
> Mr. Kasparov is a low-down good-for-nothing cheater,
> and then treat him accordingly.
>
>
> > "Kasparov did not take his hand off the knight, so he had a perfect
> > right to change his move," said the chief arbiter.
>
>
> Unbiased sources told a very different story. One
> had it that the arbiter claimed he could not "see"
> the infraction, because he was standing behind Mr.
> Kasparov (a GK "backer"?).
>
>
> > "My conscience is clear. I have the feeling my hand was
> still on it," added Kasparov.
>
>
> Okay, make that dirty, low-down, good-for-nothing,
> *lying* cheater.
>
>
> > Yet we all know the ****d eye can be fooled.
>
>
> Ah, I knew there would be a "twist" in the plot. As
> with the Fox spin-zone, if you remove the spin, you
> are left with nothing but dead air.
>
>
> > A camera crew was filming
> > the game and a replay revealed that Kasparov removed his hand for
> > exactly ? of a second! Deliberate foul or did he try to change his
> > grip in order to reverse direction? Who can say for sure?
>
>
> The subject is changed to this or that, deftly avoiding
> the actual cheating. It makes no difference if anyone
> can guess GK's motive, nor the length of time it took
> to enact the cheating, nor what color the sky may be
> when viewed from outer space. A typical Larry Evans
> ploy is to ignore the facts, and change the subject to
> something else; in fact, I'm a bit disappointed that he
> failed to attack Judit Polgar's character or religion. The
> old man seems to be slipping.
>
>
> > His enemies promptly called it cheating.
>
>
> Ah, now THAT'S more like it! Ad hominize the folks
> who want the rules to be enforced, even upon faves
> like GK. The problem, you understand, is not that GK
> is a cheater-- no sir! It's that he has "enemies" who
> stalk him, just waiting for a chance to point out when
> some errant camera may try and make it appear that
> he did something wrong-- which he never ever could.
>
> Apparently, to the Evans ratpack, Gary Kasparov is
> a sacred cow-- almost like Bobby Fischer. He can
> do no wrong, and if Judit Pogar gets run over, well,
> she ought not to have gotten in his way... .
>
>
> -- help bot
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