TheGaggle
Politics • Culture • News
Our community is made up of those who value the freedom of speech, the right to debate and the promise of open, honest conversations.

We don't agree on everything but we never silence our followers and value every opinion on our channel.
Interested? Want to learn more about the community?
TG 1939: Russia Ends Moratorium On Intermediate-Range Missile Deployments

George Szamuely and Peter Lavelle discuss Russia's announcement that it would henceforth no longer abide by the self-imposed moratorium on intermediate-range missile deployments, and reflect on the Western media's strange pretense that the defunct INF Treaty is still in place.

00:59:41
Interested? Want to learn more about the community?
What else you may like…
Videos
Posts
Articles
TG 1954: Trump Weighs Whom To Sanction Over Evermore Elusive Ukraine Deal

George Szamuely discusses President Trump's diminishing prospects for bringing the war in Ukraine to a speedy end, even as Coalition of Willing states continue to plan for massive deployments of NATO troops in the increasingly-unlikely event of a Ukraine agreement.

00:46:18
Monday Night At The Movies: "The Night Porter" (1974)

Chat.Join Gagglers for "The Night Porter"!
The screening starts at 3 p.m. ET sharp.
Share all of your thoughts, comments and criticisms on the Live Chat.

01:58:20
TG 1953: Debunking The Myth That A Ceasefire Was In Place In Gaza Before Oct. 7

George Szamuely debunks one of the most pernicious of the pernicious myths surrounding the Oct. 7 attack, namely, that in attacking Israel that day, Hamas was violating a ceasefire supposedly in place .

00:31:12
23 hours ago
placeholder
Monday Night At The Movies: "The Night Porter" (1974)

Dear Gagglers:

Monday is, and has always been, a profoundly depressing day. That's why we have decided to add a little bit of fun to it.

On Monday, Aug. 25, we are holding another film screening. Gagglers can watch a movie and, as they do so, offer comments, random thoughts, aesthetic observations and critical insights in the Live Chat.

We will be screening another one of the runners-up in The Gaggle's "films about someone living under a fake identity" poll: Liliana Cavani's troubling "The Night Porter," starring Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling.

The film will starts at 3 p.m. ET sharp.

See you at the movies.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071910/?ref_=fn_all_ttl_1

August 26, 2025

Three Historians, Three Journeys: Fitzpatrick, Suny, and Slezkine on Studying the Soviet Union

CIVILNET

297K subscribers

Subscribed

357 views Aug 25, 2025 #CivilNet #ՍիվիլՆեթ

Historians Sheila Fitzpatrick, Ronald Suny, and Yuri Slezkine reflect on their professional journeys as scholars of the Soviet Union and Russia. The conversation was held on July 3 in Yerevan during a symposium organized by the Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. The 2025 Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia ran from June 25 to July 13, with sessions in Batumi, Yerevan, and Tbilisi.

Key points from the discussion Ronald Suny traced his journey from a culturally Armenian but politically non-nationalist upbringing in the United States to becoming a leading historian of Soviet nationalities. He recalled how a sixth-grade classroom report defending the Soviet Union during McCarthyism earned him the nickname ...

January 21, 2023
More Leftie Than Thou
"Jacobin" Magazine Celebrates A Strike Against Ol' Blue Eyes

Here at "The Gaggle" we have very little time for the "more Leftie than thou" school of thought--that's the approach to life according to which the only thing that matters is whether you take the right position on every issue under the sun from Abortion to Zelensky. No one in the world meets the exacting standards of this school of thought; any Leftie leader anywhere is always selling out to the bankers and the capitalists. The perfect exemplar of this is the unreadable Jacobin magazine. 

The other day I came across this article from 2021. It's a celebration of trade union power. And not simply trade union power, but the use of trade union power to secure political goals. Of course (and this is always the case with the "more Leftie than thou" crowd), this glorious, never-to-be-forgotten moment on the history of organized labor took place many years ago--in the summer of 1974 to be exact. Yes, almost half a century has gone by since that thrilling moment when the working-class movement of Australia mobilized and prepared to seize the means of production, distribution and exchange. 

Well, not quite. Organized labor went into action against...Ol' Blue Eyes, the Chairman of the Board, the Voice; yes, Frank Sinatra. Why? What had Sinatra done? Sinatra was certainly very rich, and he owned a variety of properties and businesses. But if the Australian trade union movement were, understandably, searching for the bright, incandescent spark that would finally awaken the working class from its slumber there were surely richer, greedier, more dishonest, more decadent, above all more Australian individuals it could have discovered. Australia was never short of them. Rupert Murdoch immediately springs to mind. Why Sinatra?

 

Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
Read full Article
See More
Available on mobile and TV devices
google store google store app store app store
google store google store app tv store app tv store amazon store amazon store roku store roku store
Powered by Locals