A Lenin statue in Atlantic City
I grew up in Absecon, NJ, in the shadow of the Atlantic City casinos. Now, there’s another structure that casts a shadow over the area: A statute of Lenin. Absecon resident Al Garrett is disgusted. The Atlantic City Press reports on his protest against the commie statue and the mass brutality and evil it represents (hat tip - Lawhawk):
Al Garrett, who has spent more than three years fighting a statue, thinks he has finally hit on a way to win his cold war.
The statue is of Vladimir Ilich Lenin, the communist founder of the Soviet Union. Lenin stands outside the front door of Red Square, the hipper-than-thou, Russian-themed restaurant and bar in The Quarter, the highly capitalistic dining and retail section of Atlantic City’s Tropicana Casino and Resort.
And Garrett has objected to the architect of one of history’s brutal dictatorships being part of a restaurant’s theme statement ever since Lenin’s likeness went up early in 2005. Garrett has written letters to the editor. He has made calls to radio talk shows. And he has circulated public petitions demanding that Red Square tear that statue down - or at least move it inside the restaurant, away from where thousands of people walk by it every day.
He doesn’t like the idea of Lenin getting a place of honor - or at least high visibility - anywhere in the United States. But it really bugs him that it happened in Atlantic City, just down the White Horse Pike from his Absecon home.
So Garrett, 65, has come up with the ultimate Atlantic City argument as a trump card in his symbolic siege of the statue: Lenin, he says, is bad luck.
The owner of the Red Square restaurant sneers at Garrett’s concerns:
“Thanks for the advertising,” Joseph Massari told the two statue protesters outside the restaurant.
“The only symbol I’m concerned about is four stars - that’s the rating of my restaurant,” the executive told a reporter a few minutes later, suggesting that Garrett should find more important causes to worry about.
But Garrett is not deterred.
Good for him.
***
When I worked in Seattle, I lived a stone’s throw from another Lenin statute that gets lit up every Christmas with a bright red star. Seriously.
I concur with this artist:
The statue sparked outrage when it first went up in 1995. Local artist Frederick Edelblut said at the time, “It’s not a piece of art. It’s a disgrace, a symbol of denigration, and a symbol of millions of people who have died in Eastern Europe from Communist domination.” His feelings haven’t cooled. Yesterday, Edelblut, who skipped the Lenin lighting, said, “It’s hideous in the dark and the more light you shine on it, the more hideous it gets.”
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Trackbacks
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Categories: Moonbats
Right Wing Nut House
» WILL NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE KILL CONSERVATISM?
Redstate
» Obama: Billions for Pork Barrel EarmarksPajamas Media
» Must Conservatives Rally Round the Messiah?Marginal Revolution
» What are the lessons from the New Deal?Power Line
» Close Guantanamo Bay?protein wisdom
» Anxiety of Influence?Power Line
» Turkeys on paradeHot Air
» Zimbabwe to “Elders”: Get lost
This seems to be a trend–restaurants honoring barbaric thugs.
Here’s another one.
This is so wrong on so many fronts. An insult to the millions killed due to Communism, our history of animus with same and just the overall sliminess of this. I am so for making a buck, but this is nuts!
Lenin, Schweitzer - what’s the difference, simply a gaffe on the part of the restaurant owner.
Why not a restaurant called Gulag, with a statue of an unfortunate starving in the snow?
Oh just throw a keffiyeh and Che t-shirt on him, and everything will be fine.
Too bad he can’t erect a giant statue of Reagan across from Lenin.
What’s next? Hitler statues outside a German themed restaurant?
Been done.
The once great state of New Jersey.
May-by inside they have a blood splattered wall to symbolize all the innocent people Lennin’s creation murdered
That would get the Lenin statue removed!
Bet bho and wifeee will have a standing reserved table in this guys 4 stars diner.
L
Normally I’m not in favor of graffiti…but some red spray paint occasionally…
They would need several million walls.
Doesn’t lgm wash dishes at Red Square?
I don’t think it’s as bad as mohammeds sculpture at the Supreme Court building.
Le specialte de la gulag–Muscovy pimp?
What really has to be done is the local planning board has to pass an ordinance restricting the statue.
HAH.
I saw a “Hitler bar” in Korea several years ago. Pusan, in the south, IIRC. It was complete with wait staff in “uniforms” with SS pins.
A few local expats (not soldiers, obviously) organized a protest and the Korean owner immediately apologized, put up a sign stating he did not have any idea it would offend, then later I believe made some changes to the decour. It was still clear what it was however. I am not sure if it’s still open. I doubt it.
To be fair though, I honeslty don’t think the Korean owner realized what he had there. He made some statement about thinking Hitler was seen in the same vien as someone like Alexander the Great. It wasn’t until one of the aforementioned expats spelled it out for him: “Hitler was aligned with Japan, and was morally equal to (if not worse than) Tojo.”
Do I believe he was ignorant of the facts? Well, yes, it is believeable in his case. This case, however, is different, the owner is NOT ignorant. As such, it is something shameful.
Will there be a time when one could have such a Lenin (or Hitler) resturant and not elicit such an emotional response? Of course I think so. Afterall, I sincerely doubt any Italians would have a problem with a “Hannibal” carthagian-theme resturant. That time, however, is not now. The evils of communism are still very much alive today. Someone shouldn’t be using symbols of tyranny from a failed idealogy that still creates much pain in the world to sell food.
I don’t imagine the statue draws in a lot of Russian expats.
There is a Red Square restaurant in Vegas (I do not know if they are connected, but it is likely). It too has a Lenin statue outside, but this one is headless and covered in bird poop!
While Lenin was a vile and contemptable man, does no one else see the irony in the situation?
A statue of Lenin, a symbol of Communism, being used as a marketing ploy for a business that is doing well practicing capitalism in a free market in America(and with a 4 star rating is making money hand over fist I’m sure).
Seems like just desserts, if you’ll pardon the food pun.
Just my 2 cents.
Pots, not dishes, as in Pol Pot’s, that trendy new Cambodian restaurant with 4 million skulls out back…
The restaurant owner is just trying to attract more elitist Obama supporters.
Nice call. I noticed that as well. And to further the irony….free market, small goverenment conservatives on this board want ” to pass an ordinance restricting the statue”.
To be clear, I am not one of those folks, he should be allowed to have the resturant. However, I won’t shed any tears for him if a bunch of folks organize a peaceful and legal protest outside of his store to point out he’s lacking in taste and “fringe” does not always equal “trendy.”
It’s absolutely true—there IS a Lenin statue deep in the bowels of leftist Seattle. The neighborhood it “resides” in is far, far left. (to no one’s surprise)
Oh snap.
#1 Texas Tiger
OT, but I noticed a new Ted’s Montana Grill in Ballston recently. I had no idea it was Ted Turner. Thanks for saving me the time of walking in and right back out again.
Yep. Take a look at the menu. The first item is a 1 oz. jar of beluga caviar for $275.00. (I have to admit, some of that food sounds awesome!)
How about using lefty tactics on them?
Shouldn’t any statue of Lenin be awash in blood, as least fake blood? Shouldn’t there be a mock gulag set up next to it? Maybe have some prisoners in chains lurking around to beg trendy restaurant-goers for crusts of bread? And this restaurant is begging for a banner that proclaims, “COMMUNISM: ONE HUNDRED MILLION MURDERED”
You know, the East Coast is full of Russian emigres who could stand in front of that restaurant and give witness to what life under Communism was like. Maybe they could stand there with a sandwich board of the family members they lost.
Really, the possibilities are endless.
I’ve eaten at the Red Square in Las Vegas. As was noted earlier in the comments, it too has a statue of Lenin out front but that one has been decapitated.
I know I’m in the minority here, but I’m not offended by the Atlantic City Lenin statue (or the Las Vegas one). The theme of the restaurant is late Soviet-era Russia and since Lenin statues were so common in Soviet cities, the statue fits with the theme. It reflects historical reality. I never perceived it as an attempt to honor Lenin, and the restaurant doesn’t glorify communism except in a way that mocks the kind of clumsy propaganda you’d see on banners in Moscow before the collapse.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t see a Nazi-era theme restaurant as benign at all. The Nazis were thoroughly and deeply evil in a way that the Soviets of the ’70s and ’80s never were, Gulags notwithstanding. Lenin and Hitler were just not in the same league when it comes to evil.
Disneyland has a ride that makes pirates into fun-loving objects of ridicule. Why aren’t we offended by that?
I disagree, and I think I can safely say millions of Americans and many millions more from the former Soviet Bloc countries would also disagree. Perhap’s a quick reading of the rather short book by Richard Wurmbrand on Soviet brutality in Poland.
AlohaGuy:
Well played. Well played.
Well, next, I suppose is a statue of Stalin somewhere close to the mall in D.C.. “But I sell gulag burgers” will be the defense. I’m waiting for a Che memorial on the mall. If the democrats come into total power this November, I think the waiting will come to an end. That, or a statue of Castro.
I was in AC a couple years ago and saw this statue. I was perplexed and had to investigate. I walked closer to see that there was a restaurant behind it. Still perplexed, I entered the restaurant to see what kind of place matches with a Lenin statue.
Needless to say, it’s not my kind of hang out. Very trendy and very superficial. You could pay a large amount of money to put on a fur coat, walk into a huge freezer to take a shot of vodka from their collection. Who would pay to do that?
If the trendiness and the prices weren’t enough to keep me from giving them money (or as Mark referred to it, capital), the Lenin statue would sure be enough.
Let’s get some capitalists together and open a restaurant with a replica of the Lincoln memorial out front. Who’s with me?
MM,
Can you link some photos?
I’d love to see a protestor w/ a sign that read,
” Capitalism DOES NOT EQUAL Communism!”
Liberals are such fools! Seriously!
Oops. Marx not Mark.
I guess I’m the only one here..that’s been to Vegas!
Lenin was greeted poorly at the Mandalay Bay resort: http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/News/9904/15/showbuzz/
Sorry..I need to refresh my screen next time. I’m just a wee bit late.
RE: #25
At some point you have to stop that which is wrong…
Someone should paint an Obama campaign pin on that statue of the blood thirsty thug.
Anyone interested, here’s the press contact for The Red Square:
Let Terry Zarikian know how you feel.
I did!
terryzar@aol.com
FYI - Here’s what I said,
I bet he’s lonesome. Let’s get him a Jimmy Carter to keep him company.
Maybe I’m crazy but I think it’s a hoot that Lennin’s statue is being used in such a capitalistic manner…..he wouldn’t like it much. But, it is in poor taste..excuse the pun.
@Cicero
Very good points. I think I *do* have an answer though for the following:
It is because pirates are ancient history at this point. Like my reference to a “Carthagian-themed” resturant, no one is around any more that would have any emotional attachment to the imagery associated with carribean privateers and/or criminals.
I do see your point about this being more about Soviet Russia of the 70’s and 80’s. However, Lenin was still pretty evil, and Gulags weren’t very neighborly.
I guess overall, I am a bit miffed by this, and maybe almost (but not quite) ambivilent. If some folks get a kick out of spending a bit of change for what they think is a nice dinner out and a chance to pretend that they are high-level communist party members, well I guess there isn’t really anything wrong with that in itself. Tasteless, yes, tacky, yes, deserves the occasional jibe and ridicule, certainly. Celebrates communism? Hmm, I suppose not, but I am not sure I’d like it in my home town.
…and make it twice as tall as the Lenin statue, with his foot standing on a real piece of the Berlin wall.
I hear that Jesus Obama’s disciples were responsible for liberating the peeps of Russia from Lenin. They preferred McCartney.
RaisedRight said:
I can get Beliga for much cheaper from some capitalist Russians I know out of Brooklyn. Lol.
When diners are finished of course, they need to ask for the “Cheka”.
and today’s quiz..
Is this Lenin? Or Obama speaking of Pennsylvania?
Oh, that’s Lenin for sure… BHO has no desire to link town & country & could never pronounce “electrification”
More goofy manufactured outrage. Give me a break.
Lenin too was a lawyer…
This the consequence of winning a great victory against the communist monster and not applying due vigilance to the very seeds that created the deadly beast.
Like I’ve said many times we won the cold and now we’re fighting the much more insidious hot peace.
The death of Patriotism and remembrance is all it takes.
Then there is this from babalou blog
Yet another product of diversity. The mother of incompetence.
dakine said:
Heh moron, tell that to a Russian who escaped a gulag.
There used to be a Lenin statue outside a Dallas burger joint, but they had added a plaque that read: “America Won.”
There is a Staue of Lenin on top of a aprtment house on E. Houston street in NYC. The name of the building is the Red Square. The developer is a socialist. There is also statue over in seattle.
Your ignorance runs deep.
I’ve seen that statue, and yes, it is huge and in a very prominent place and impossible to miss, and it is definitely outside the restaurant entrance, which itself is inside a cavernous ‘mall-like’ building. Had it been outdoors, I imagine someone would have long ago tied a rope around it’s neck and driven off, dragging it behind, kind of like what was done to Saddam Hussein’s statues…
As does you delusional fear.
Put some bird seed on his head and let the pigeons do the rest
I’ve been to Red Square in Vegas. Funny, I don’t remember the Lenin statue making much of an impression, though. Like many of you I grew up under the shadow of the Evil Empire, and it was a fearsome threat. But now I am just curious about the society that was so firmly locked behind the iron curtain.
The food was excellent, by the way, but the prices! Good grief, you wouldn’t believe what they charged for arugula.
The Lenin statue in Las Vegas is beheaded.
Besides the blatantly obvious problem of erecting a statue to a Communist dictator, what about the irony of having it in that particular section of town?
Sure, Lenin the Man endorsed the use of mass terror against his enemies, created the Soviet Union’s secret police, and implemented policies that caused millions of peasant farmers to starve to death. But Lenin the Public Artwork is a beautifully crafted sculpture, and a catalyst for healthy discourse. Good dog!
To think there are so many other symbols that could be used to symbolize Russia. The St. Basil’s Cathedra, the Sputnik monument, etc….. But this person chose Lenin - just trying to attract attention. I’m surprised he didn’t choose Stalin. After all, Stalin murdered many more people than Lenin.
I was there a few years ago, its an overpriced club. I did notice the artwork on the walls, it was in the style of an old church covered over by commie propaganda. However, before you think it is nostalgia for communism, the commie artworks are crumbling and the old icons of the church are still holding strong under a veneer of cheap hammers and sickles, vainly glorified workers, and soviet cosmonauts.
I got the feeling the artist was trying to express the weakness of the soviet system, against the eternal strength of God. I was very amused by it.
Then I wondered, why am I at a club, staring at the walls?
If you created a Christian themed venue and say you had a huge statue of the ten commandments outside….
I wonder what would happen.
The issue is that these liberals really don’t understand who Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Che, etc. really were or what they did. They have this fantasy of them but have not read any real history. If they were to actually move to Cuba, etc. they might wake up.
I always like the “I wonder if …..christian……?” post.
exactly zheldon,
Then I would suspect we would see dakines goofy manufactured outrage and ‘theothersides delusional fear….
Lgm would leave his red diapers there.
I’ll be making a special trip to the Trop next time I’m down AC way.
And you can bet I’ll be aiming the fattest, filthiest, snottiest glob of spit at that statue’s nose.
Oh, and I won’t be buying dinner there, either.
RWR
http://www.rightwingrocker.com
That would be just as shameful. Scumbag though he may be, the restaurant owner does have the right to have his statue there.
Of course, I still plan to spit on the thing.
RWR
http://www.rightwingrocker.com
Cicero: “I know I’m in the minority here, but I’m not offended by the Atlantic City Lenin statue (or the Las Vegas one).”
Cicero, you’re not offended out of ignorance of the crimes of Lenin and the evil state he helped create. The reason you’re ignorant is that the Left, who control the media and academia, have softened Lenin’s evil reputation while hardening Hitler’s evil reputation. Both considered a reign of terror against the citizens of their country the proper role of government and enthusiastically pursued that role.
Cicero: “The theme of the restaurant is late Soviet-era Russia and since Lenin statues were so common in Soviet cities, the statue fits with the theme. It reflects historical reality.”
Hitler statues and paintings would reflect the historical reality of Nazi Germany. So would you be comfortable ordering a Dachau burger from a waiter dressed as a concentration camp inmate with a big yellow star on his chest labelled “JUDEN”? Would that be cool historical reality?
How do you think families of the 14 million Ukrainians starved to death by the Soviet Union would react to you munching a Lenin burger and washing it down with a cold Stoly? My guess is that they would consider it morally obtuse and an outrage to their murdered loved ones.
Cicero: “I never perceived it as an attempt to honor Lenin, and the restaurant doesn’t glorify communism except in a way that mocks the kind of clumsy propaganda you’d see on banners in Moscow before the collapse.”
If you present a big heroic statue of Lenin in public you are whitewashing his crimes and making him mainstream. It’s like putting a statue of Charles Manson in front of a Manson Family Restaurant and serving Sharon Tate steaks with Dead Fetus fries.
Cicero: “On the other hand, I wouldn’t see a Nazi-era theme restaurant as benign at all. The Nazis were thoroughly and deeply evil in a way that the Soviets of the ’70s and ’80s never were, Gulags notwithstanding.”
The Soviets killed fifty million of their own people. What part of EVIL don’t you understand? What the hell do you think happenned in the gulags? Don’t you realize they were giant death rows?
Cicero: “Lenin and Hitler were just not in the same league when it comes to evil.”
That’s right, Lenin was worse because his death machine was not stopped. It went on for decades before it collapsed, but only after it ground up tens of millions of lives. Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich, by contrast, was killed dead before it reached its second decade.
These people have no idea the horror NKVD ceated. The Liberals will become the new NKVD.
I have a large extended family on Long Island.
This debate will be over very soon.
Just kidding, I don’t know anything about debates.
On May 28th, 2008 at 6:46 pm, dakine said:
More goofy manufactured outrage.
That there is redundant.
Best line in the movie “Hook”
Robin Williams: I’m a lawyer.
Rooster boy: Kill the lawyer.
(No, I do not want to see dakine dead)
Our cultural opinion leaders are bored with a life of ease, with prosperity, with living without want or hunger or danger. And you see them — on every front — playing at being the radical, the rebel, the gangster, the daring, the avant-garde.
If they kept their games within their own decadent circles in Paris, NYC, San Francisco, etc., their corrosive effect on the broader culture would, at least, be somewhat contained.
But in modern life, the “hippest cats” have direct access to every kid in every small town in America. So they spread their poison — their hatred of America, of Euro-American culture, of our history and our traditions — directly into the minds of the innocent. Thus you have the phenomenon of Che chic where young Americans wear the t-shirt without the least clue that they are identifying themselves with a murdering revolutionary thug. All the “cool” people endorse every assault on American respectability and feed it straight to the kids through their Ipods and other media pandering. Of course kids like things that are a little shocking. That is because kids are, well, a little dumb…or should I say “unformed.” That’s why they need parents and responsible teachers and sane communities to grow up in. That’s why they need a little distance from the the drug-addled “creative community.”
But the traditional values of 20th century America are all being swept away. The dangerous avant-garde lunatics have more access to the kids than most parents do. In this world, erecting a statue of a man who played a central role in a regime that murdered tens of millions and enslaved hundreds of millions is a very hip thing to do.
RWM, They serve their food (hold their lease) at the pleasure of the host casino. Casinos care not a wit about the food, but rather the buck at the tables.
The restaurants are there to keep the patrons on the premises in close proximity to the gambling tables.
The object of any displeasure, if desired, should be directed at same casino host. IIRC, that particular one is not exactly on top of the profit world right now…
Cicero, your words are idiotic. Tantor has so thoroughly taken you to the woodshed that there is little left to say to you in the way of a reasoned rebuttal.
But because Tantor is more polite let me put a part of his commentary in some very blunt, terse words: Jews (justifiably, from their perspective) regard Hitler as the last word in evil. OTOH, Jews have a much more ambiguous relationship with Soviet communism, sometimes persecuted by it but often — historically speaking — taking a leading role in advancing it. The consensus opinion of Jews in such matters is extremely important in writing the history that most Americans will remember. You’ve got your history with a distorted Jewish twist…not a pack of lies…just a spun version of history that does not weigh all of it objectively. And what the hell is this thing of wanting to compare the Nazi’s of the 30s and 40s with the Soviets of the 70s and 80s. There is utterly no justification for this except a desire to reach a predetermined outcome.
I’d feel better if you sounded like some ill-educated young kid. But you don’t. You sound like a grownup. And it really disgusts me to read such crap from a grownup.
i’m normally a strong believer in property rights, but this is too much. we must outlaw lenin statues. they are offensive.
My father, his brothers, some cousins and friends were able to escape from the Stalinist Soviet Union by chance in the 1940’s.
Every Thanksgiving they would get into the traditional post-dinner political discussion, which would invariably lead to their memories of life under the dictatorship.
The most amazing thing was that whenever they mentioned the secret police (now the KGB, but then the “En Keh Veh Deh” NKVD) they would by habit lower their voices, and look around the room to make sure that they weren’t being overheard.
This fear of the brutal police state that Lenin created still was that strong 25 years later.
Let us not forget that Solzhenitsyn documented that Lenin set up the Gulags (Soviet Concentration camps)
derel3433: “i’m normally a strong believer in property rights, but this is too much. we must outlaw lenin statues. they are offensive.”
I disagree, derel3433. Historically illiterate idiots have every right to post a statue of Lenin in their front yard, while we have every right to castigate them for being historically illiterate idiots. Just like injecting dead disease cells into a human body helps it create immunity to that disease, the occassional airing of the worst ideas in the free market of ideas helps us develop an intellectual immunity to them. I like playing the role of a white cell.
I am disgusted.
Lenin was not just an enemy of this nation. He was a monster who is responsible for the deaths of millions.
If there is any justice in this universe, he’s suffering horrible agonies in hell right now.
The owner of this establishment must have something terribly wrong with him as he wishes to honor this monster and profit from his crimes.
But, damn it, even though I hate this, I believe that we should allow this dirtbag to have his say. I believe in property rights and the first amendment. And, if we don’t protect offensive speech, then the first amendment really doesn’t protect much, does it? Hopefully, the fad will pass and this guy will go bankrupt.
Those who live near him should put up statutes of patriotic heroes to counter this idiot & show that they don’t endorse his twisted views.
“Western journalists who sympathize with our cause (communism) are useful idiots”
-Vladmir Lenin.
Replace his statue with a statue of Teddy Roosevelt. I bet even LGM couldn’t say no to that.
Here in Germany, we have similar travesties to endure. The University of Leipzig recently re-erected an East German propaganda memorial depicting both Marx and Lenin, wasting 300.000 Euro in tax money:
http://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/tid-9731/ostdeutschland-lenins-comeback_aid_297254.html
Do they have shortages of food every night?
and long lines to get TP to use the bathroom?
No wonder I’ve never seen this. I don’t play at the Trop.
On May 28th, 2008 at 4:23 pm, terrig said:
New Jersey was great?
–Hex, across the river.
Simple way to take care of this problem.
Three people dress up as Uncle Sam, Lady Liberty and Ronald Reagan. Walk down to the restaurant with sledgehammers in tow, and sledge the Lenin statue down. If possible, bring along a cheap boombox and play a CD of John Philip Sousa music and a recording of the Ronaldus Magnus Berlin Wall speech.
Of course, you will have to be willing to pay the price for the crime of Vandalism, and if the cops show up before you are done, please don’t resist. Just put your sledges down and go with them quietly. However, If you are strong and quick about it, and willing to have a minor criminal record, three people working together could probably wreck the Lenin statue rather quickly.
With any luck you will gather supportive onlookers who will assist you in taking the statue down.
Obviously, legal methods are preferred. We conservatives don’t like breaking the law, it’s not our way. But if the law won’t do the right thing, sometimes you have to break it. As long as you can avoid physically hurting anyone.
You could just tip the statue over and leave a sign, saying, “Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”
Or you can put a crack in the statue -similar to the Liberty Bell and leave a sign saying, “Communism, sure isn’t what it’s cracked up to be…”
Hmph. I thought it was funny.
That’s carrying moral blindness to a disgusting level. It’s also a deliberate effort to gloss over the truth. Lenin was not a Soviet leader in the ’70s and ’80s.
The leader of the soviets in the 80s? wasn’t it the bald dude with the hammer and sickle tattooed in red on his head?
Mikail Gorby ( if you have listened to Rush back in the day you will remember what the Gorbasm was )