The Story of the Communist People's House

The People’s House, described as hideous by the West, now renamed The Palace of the Parliament, stands out as the heaviest building in the world, around four million metric tons, with 365,000 square meters, and eighty-four meters in height. It is about two percent larger than the great pyramid of Giza. The building is so heavy that it sinks 6 mm every year. It is the most extreme example of the communist systematization program (urban planning) when architectural gems were demolished to make room for Ceausescu's grandiose plans.

One of its engineers spoke about the two anti-nuclear attack bunkers beneath the building with twenty kilometers of tunnels, large enough for electric cars. The allegation that the tunnels reach Otopeni airport has not been proven.

It is said that the origin of the building was Ceausescu’s visit in North Korea in 1971 when he experienced monumental buildings and large boulevards. The idea grew in his mind for a magnificent palace when the earthquake of 1977 turned many buildings in downtown Bucharest into rubble.

He ordered an entire area, Uranus Izvor, about seven square kilometers, erased completely. To realize his dream, tens of thousands of people were forcibly removed from their homes, old churches demolished, Brancovenesc hospital, 37 factories and workshops, Mihai Voda Monastery, and the National Archives were demolished and moved elsewhere.

The People’s House was built around the clock by soldiers and “volunteers.” The chief architect was a twenty-eight-year-old woman named Anca Petrescu who supervised seven hundred architects. The materials, walnut and cherry wood, marble, and stone, were extracted from the Carpathian Mountains. The chandeliers were made from 3,500 tons of Romanian crystal. The wool rugs were so large that they could not have been manufactured in the factory, they had to bring the looms inside and the rugs were woven for each room as needed.

Ceausescu’s palace was built as a symbol of communist power at a time when the population was standing in endless lines daily for bread, cooking oil, flour, rice, and other necessities. Everything was rationed, people were told how much calories to consume according to their profession, medical care was rationed, medicines were rationed, and people were cold in their apartments and had to endure the lack of water and rationed electricity delivery.

The building was never finished and inaugurated before Ceausescu’s execution on Christmas Day 1989. It remains unfinished today, a symbol of the megalomaniacal communist regime ruled by one obsessed man and his insane wife.

 

Roman Coins, Impossible to Spend

Ostia was the major port hub in the Roman Empire from which the Roman Empire managed trade across the Mediterranean – grain, timber, olive oil, luxuries, silk, and wild animals for gladiatorial games.

We know that Rome traded with the East for spices, ivory, jewels, and other luxuries from existing documents and a wall painting found at Ostia dating from second century A.D. which depicted a Roman trading ship being loaded with goods.

Trading land routes were blocked when the powerful Parthian Empire in Persia cut off established trading roads. Hippalus, a Greek merchant from the first century B.C., learned how to use the southwest monsoon to sail to and from the Indian sub-continent. When he provided a good geographical map of the winds, other merchants took advantage of this opportunity and trade flourished. For forty days in July and August, merchants voyaged from Arabian ports to the Malabar ports in the southwestern coasts of India. In December and January, same merchants returned via the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. Trade routes stretched as far as Sri Lanka, Burma, Malaya, and even China.

During the reign of Augustus (27 B.C. to 14 A.D.) commerce with India satisfied the demand from rich Romans who purchased jewels, silk, pearls, and other luxuries. One ship brought curiosities, a man born without arms, a large river turtle, snakes, and a “partridge as big as a vulture.” Roman design export bowls of Arretine ware (Arezzo, Italy) were found in old trading posts in India. More than 120 ships sailed each year on the monsoon from Roman-controlled Egypt to India. Alexandrian Greek merchants provided all the raw materials and luxuries that the Roman Empire demanded. Exotic and rare pearls and gemstones were brought from Sri Lanka.

The Greek merchants paid the Indian traders at first with gold coins. Although the Indians could not spend the currency, the fact that Roman gold and silver coins were always dependable in the amount of gold and silver contained, the Indians used it as store of value in the form of bullion. Pliny wrote that the quality of Roman coins, the same weight and content in gold and silver, made Roman coins so desirable to collect. The King of Sri Lanka was impressed by the “honest traders of Rome.”

The first Roman coins were found in India in 1775. Archeologists and historians at the time assumed that the coins had been abandoned or lost in extenuating circumstances, buried, and forgotten. However, more recently, historians believed that Indians kept the coins not as a medium of exchange but as bullion. It is a known fact that Indian girls’ dowries are composed of gold jewelry and gems which the brides wear with elaborate wedding dresses made of colorful silks.

However, when the silver coins were debased under Emperor Nero, the Indian merchants’ confidence in Roman coins waned and traders used other substitutes for exchange such as high-quality tableware, glass, linen, coral, lamps, wine, and fashioned gems. Eventually, Arabs and Persians took over the trade as the Roman trade with India came to a halt in the third century A.D.

Venice, Built on Tree Trunks in a Lagoon

Romantic Venice was a city built on a lagoon. It was first a refuge for Romans to flee from barbarian invaders such as the Huns and Germanic tribes in Northern Italy during the decline of the Roman Empire which fell in 476 A.D.

The early Venetian settlers made homes from reed, wood, and clay on the marshy islands of the Venetian Lagoon, on patches of dry land. Because their first church, San Giacomo di Rialto, was consecrated on March 25, 421 A.D., the traditional date of Venice’s founding was 421 A.D. Its first Dodge (leader) was elected in 697 A.D.

To build more and heavier structures, millions of tree trunks from ancient forests, alder wood, oak, and larch, were driven into the soft lagoon mud. These trunks were petrified when exposed to salty, oxygen-free water, and formed a base of stony pillars. On top, horizontal planks and Istrian stone were laid to make it even stronger.

It is alleged that 100k alder tree trunks support the San Marco’s Campanile or Bell Tower. It collapsed in July 1902 due to structural failure after 1,000 years of existence and was rebuilt and rededicated in 1912.

There are sixty-two easily accessible islands by boat, water taxi, and water bus but, depending on who you ask, there are more than 120 islands, some of which cannot be easily accessed or not at all. One is an actual cemetery, and another is a place where the black plague victims were housed.

 

Vindolanda

An interesting example of democracy is found in the Roman Middle Republic when soldiers elected their own Centurions. It was quite common to see a 22-year-old Centurion serving on his second or third campaign. Who were the Centurions? Like the soldiers they commanded, Centurions were part-time militiamen. We know about this election from Polybius who described the process.

An interesting example of nepotism and friends in high places comes from Roman times. 

The Vindolanda tablets discovered south of Hadrian’s wall provide an insight into life on the Roman frontier in Britannia.

The posting for a soldier in this particular garrison was difficult.

Tablet number 891 which was discovered in 2017 refers to the earliest period in the fort’s occupation between 85 and 92 A.D.

The tablets survived because they were thrown away into the fort’s ditch, among many discarded military pieces that are now archaeological treasures.

In this letter, the writer asks for lighter military duties for a friend named Crispus. The writer uses flattery to appeal to the officer Verecundus’ “justice and kindness.”

Another interesting find among the tablets of Vindolanda is a diploma from Cheshire issued in the reign of Trajan to a Spanish DECURION by which he is granted Roman citizenship and the right of legal marriage with a present or future wife.

A DECURION was the leader of 10 Roman cavalry legionnaires.

When the Cows Come Home

This idiomatic expression in English refers humorously to an argument without a conclusion, something that will last not just an extended period but potentially forever.

The same phrase has a concrete meaning in Romanian and brings to mind a childhood experience from long ago and a shepherd named Nae whom everyone called Nea Nae, a form of respect, like an uncle.

Nea Nae was the village drunk in my maternal grandparents’ village. He was also the cows’ shepherd. The village had about 10,000 inhabitants with a population density of 215 people per square kilometer. Homes were clustered close to each other with enough yards for an outhouse and a garden.

The village, now called a ‘commune’ (interesting choice of words), was surrounded by pastures and co-operative plots of land, owned by the Communist Party government, and a few individual parcels on which villagers planted crops and shared the harvest with the state (not willingly).

Most homes had a milking cow, chicken, rabbits, ducks, and a pig, with a menagerie of outdoor cats to keep rodents under control. And this is where Nea Nae came into play. The villagers hired him to take care of the cows, sort of.

Every morning, Nea Nae followed the large herd of cows coming out one by one from each yard to the grazing pasture outside of the village, rotating the pastures in various ends to keep the grass growing. Before the sun set, he followed them back to the village, and one by one, the cows entered their respective yards, knowing exactly where their homes were. So much for the bad publicity that cows are dumb. They were smart enough to follow Nea Nae’s directions to the pastures and back home to the right yard. Each home was separated for privacy by tall wood fences, but the gates were opened by the owners, and the cows miraculously knew which yard was theirs.

‘When the cows came home’ was a real spectacle to watch. Sitting on my bench perch facing the unpaved road, I witnessed the cows return home from my grandparents “ulita” (road) many evenings. The cows never fell in the deep ditches dug up for irrigation and rain drainage on the side of the road. They slowly moved on to their destinations. The cow patties left behind were like land mines to avoid at all costs when we played.

Nea Nae, a kind and gentle soul with a well-tanned and ruddy complexion, was already tipsy by then. He went home to eat and then to the “circiuma” in the middle of the village to finish off drinking with his friends. They drowned their sorrows with him daily.

The villagers drank the cheap alcohol religiously provided by the state to keep the masses compliant and working menial and difficult jobs for subsistence level pay.

Nea Nae used to say that he was never going to die in his own bed because he was seldom in it. He slept on the floor partly under the bed most of the time, after he fell off from the very narrow twin bed he owned.

He used to be married in his younger years, but his wife had left him on account of his alcoholism. They passed each other in the village like strangers who only say hello. His only child, a daughter, checked on him from time to time. But the village did a much better job of keeping up with Nea Nae because he was their cows’ caretaker and cows were important for survival.

On the few times when he ran out of money and was temporarily sober, I listened in awe to the petite Nea Nae spinning tales to his neighbors who listened to him mesmerized as well even though they knew none of them actually happened. He was such a gifted storyteller who had missed his calling. The sad thing was that he could not read. 

Under Nea Nae's watch, the cows always came home to their barns.  

Globalism Is The New Communism

I spent my first twenty years of life in my parents’ apartment. They had a hard time being approved for this apartment because they were not communist party members and the waiting list for the unprivileged proletariat was quite long. Communists, their paid informers, and activists had first dibs.

The tiny cubicle of reinforced concrete was divided into five spaces: bath, kitchen, living room, one-bedroom, small pantry, and one hallway. The entire place was about 650 square feet of space barely big enough for one person, about the size of an average hotel room today.

The bathroom was equipped with a small tub, a sink, a commode with a pull chain from the ceiling water tank, and a tiny window with exterior slats of concrete, and a lovely view of the world through prison-like bars. They were so heavy that, when we had a strong earthquake in 1977, one of the concrete bars broke and was dangling from the reinforced wires like a loose tooth. Last time I visited in 2015, the bar was still there, dangling loose.

The police state we lived under charged the “classless” society lower prices than the true cost to keep the proletariat happy and especially the country folks whose farms and modest homes were confiscated by the forced party cooperatives.

If some renters were behind their water, electric, rent, and gas bills, the total was divided by the number of apartments and everyone paid equal shares. The rest also paid for those who were behind. Eventually they were made to pay it back from their paychecks. Nobody was on welfare. No matter how much electricity, gas, or water each apartment consumed, the total was calculated and equally divided for each apartment.

You had to work if you wanted to eat. The food was of low quality, sold in endless lines, and with rationing coupons. Each family was only allowed so much meat, sugar, flour, butter, cooking oil, and rice per month.

My mom and dad’s apartment was an improvement from living in the same tiny apartment with another family of four who stole our food. Prior to that, mom and dad rented a bedroom from an old lady who lived at the edge of town, so far out that the party had not decided to demolish her little place yet in their haste for modernization.

Dad hated the communists and was not shy about making his feelings and thoughts known about all the parasitical propagandists employed in each factory by the dozen. They also hated my dad with so much passion and often hired goons to beat him up to silence him. One such beating caused him massive health issues and he died paralyzed, helpless, and untreated in one of Ceausescu’s horrible “free“ hospitals. He died on May 13, 1989, a few months short of seeing the demise of his foe, Ceausescu, on Christmas 1989.

My Dad worked hard every day for 43 years in one refinery after another since he was eighteen and left his home in the beautiful hills of Valea Dulce (Sweet Valley), leaving behind eight brothers and sisters, who were raised primarily by my grandmother, after my grandpa passed away at a young age. He now rests on the hill overlooking the green valley below, gently swept by the changing winds.

I spent many summers with my grandma and my cousins, playing by the nearby river and valley when they tended their sheep. The village was too hilly for co-operative farms to exist, so the communists left it alone. People raised grapes and fruit trees on the slopes with rich soil.

As early as I can remember, dad cursed Ceausescu out loud and hoped vociferously to see him dead someday.  Sadly, my dad died seven months before the dictator and his wife were executed after a brief kangaroo trial. 

I had hoped that the revolutionary front would give the Ceausescu dictator and his wife a fair trial but, since his ousting was a coup, not really a revolution as it was presented in the media, the coup organizers were eager to get rid of him so that nobody would find out the truth about the so-called “revolution.”

The young protesters present in huge crowds all over the city were shot as collateral damage by the Securitate men and their mercenaries. Curiously, the TASS agency, the Soviet news outlet, were present in the town of Timisoara, two days before the so-called “revolution” began there.

Dad would have been so disgusted when, on the first free election after 45 years of Ceausescu’s reign of communist terror, 83 percent of the population voted again for a communist government ruled by Iliescu, Ceausescu’s good friend and confidant who participated in the coup d’etat. Three months of revolution and freedom was not enough to erase 45 years of communist dependence.

Allegedly, more than 10,000 innocent civilians who came out to protest Ceausescu’s regime were killed by Army and Securitate agents who, although had been collaborating since 1984 to depose Ceausescu, opened fire on demonstrators in Timisoara and Bucharest while claiming that the sharp shooters were foreign mercenaries.

Thirty-six years since the “revolution,” the neo-communists are still in power today with each new parliamentary government that comes and goes. The children and grandchildren of the “revolutionaries” are communists themselves, thanks to the socialist indoctrination in schools. And the old people are nostalgic about the crumbs that Ceausescu gave them once a month to keep them in line. Dad would have been so disappointed that people were so easily indoctrinated and bought!

And then things got worse. It took only 36 years since the “fall” of communism in Europe for the leftist activists to repackage communism as globalism with money from the many NGOs funded by George Soros.

American leftists got busy immediately destroying the capitalism that made them well-off economically and replacing it with socialism, the steppingstone to communism. They gave it a new name, Globalism, and they called themselves Democrat Socialists.

The march to global communism continues in the west with not much opposition from people who love their countries. They think that it will never happen to them.

 

Noblesse Oblige and Virtue Signaling

For twenty-nine years I took students to Europe on spring break to experience the rich history and culture. I certainly could not have afforded the trips had it not been for the generous program that allowed the leader to travel free as long as six students accompanied her.

The bus driver on a trip to Italy pointed out that there are buses of American students on spring break in many places in western Europe. “They are rich kids when compared to European kids. Do you see any buses full of European students on spring break across America,” he asked. He was right. There were none.

The only mass encounter with American landscape and culture took place this summer during FIFA World Cup. Every European soccer fan asked gushed about America, they were pleasantly surprised because their mainstream media always trashed America and the noisy Americans as if there was nothing good about our beautiful U.S.A.

There are some Americans who visit Europe upon graduating from high school. They are white rich liberals/progressives who go backpacking to Europe to find themselves, staying in hostels to pretend that they are poor, wearing torn jeans and shoes with holes in them to show their fake allegiance to the poor. I have never seen white, rich Europeans backpacking through America and staying in hostels here.

We are lectured by the white progressive rich in America who promote socialism with their wealth platforms of privilege, and virtue-signal their goodness in so many offensive ways.

They spew the communist ideology because the American education system told them that socialism, the steppingstone to communism, done the right way in America, would succeed this time even though it failed everywhere else it had been tried. Millions of its victims cannot speak for themselves anymore and those who survived are ignored.

One bragged about her rich family who helped her buy her first home in a very affluent and expensive real estate market just like her parents’ home which was bought by their parents. She held the keys beaming with unearned pride and began to lecture about the inequality and “institutionalized discrimination and the racial wealth gap” in our country between the haves like her and the have-nots like the rest.

She continued her rant of privilege while acknowledging her “wins in the system, a system that works for me, but we must make it more just.” She conveniently forgot to mention how she was going to make the “system” work for all and she made no pledge to donate her “unjust privilege” to the unprivileged or underprivileged.

A French expression, noblesse oblige, meant once that nobility obliges a person of high nobility to perform social responsibilities. However, rich Americans are not nobility, they promote socialism and communism while trashing the very capitalist society that bought them wealth, and their constant virtue signaling is not a form of noblesse oblige. It is just a form of social media narcissism, a “look at me, I am such a good person because I say so.” It is self-absorbed content with the goal of getting likes and admiration from total strangers. Narcissists suffer from a personality trait characterized by vanity, grandiosity, low empathy, and the sole desire for admiration. Virtue signaling is all about one’s grandiose ego.